This story is inspired by the GORGEOUS picture entitled Thor x Loki: Control drawn by ShadowsIllusionist on DeviantART, with her permission to both write this and to use her picture as the cover.
That small, cropped picture up in the corner there however does not do her art justice. At all. To see her picture in its full glory, you can find the link on my profile :) Which I highly suggest that you do.
I was also inspired by Lady Charity's work, namely her pieces eye of the beholder and to sleep perchance to dream (both of which I highly recommend you read if you haven't already,) hence me playing with parentheses and not using quotation marks in this piece.
I would like to thank both of them for their amazing and inspiring work *-*
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters, nor do I own the lovely picture. And I never will.
Anyways, this story was written with bromance in mind and is not intended to be Thorki, but take it however you wish.
I hope you enjoy!
Loki runs.
He wastes no time, just breaks free from the guards and runs from the crowd of Asgardians that had gathered for his execution, the muzzle and shackles glowing bright orange as they heat up and melt off his skin, falling in globules to the ground.
He spits hardened bits of metal from his mouth.
Thor is following him; Loki can feel the air bending as Mjolnir punches through it.
Leave my brother to me, Loki can imagine Thor saying. Indeed, only Thor would be able to catch him.
Foxy, aren't I? Loki thinks with a mental shake of his head, his magic still wreaking mayhem in the form of dragon specters and ravenous flames, the sounds of shouting and screaming blending together like a symphony. Then let us have a fox hunt.
So he runs, his winged shoes already conjured to his feet, his leather armor already conjured to replace the casual tunic, and hugging him like a third skin.
Loki sidles his slim form through the bars of reality and takes off into the freedom of the ether.
Thor follows him still, ramming into the gate, hammering it until it shatters.
Thor follows him still, follows all the way to the barren moon where Loki waits.
(No one here to hear you scream, Loki thinks. No one here to see you fall)
Thor's eyes had always been so blue.
Even when they'd been children, Loki had noticed how Thor's eyes were practically holes through his head from which the sky bled through, swirling and ever-changing blue.
But oh, how pale his eyes had become, as if his weeping had all but drained the color from them.
Thor, I...
Loki starts, his back to the thunderer and he fingers the golden scepter, his pale skin standing out in the gloom like negative shadows.
I'm sorry.
It's too late for that, Thor says. His voice simmers with hate, simmers with love that has been the mangled and tortured, the silver of what it once was now tarnished to black.
Loki could have laughed.
His own eyes are blue now, far more so than Thor's. He feels the scepter clawing through his mind, digging up every memory of everything Thor has done to wrong him, bringing it to the surface and flashing it before him like the slivers of darkness in every blink of his eyes, hoofbeats through his vision and it reaches to drown him.
He bows his head.
I don't think you understand, Loki whispers.
Thor steps closer, expression as stiff and as full of care as the hammer he wields.
I am truly sorry, Loki whispers, and his voice is dripping with his lie.
He whirls around and Thor swings Mjolnir through him.
A blast of the scepter and Thor is sent flying one way, his hammer another, both of them cracking the ground.
Before Thor can move Loki is already there, a foot pressed on Thor's stomach and the blade of his scepter at Thor's heart.
Loki...
Thor seems to take a breath as the scepter's power percolates him, flowing up the veins of his neck and filling his eyes until they nearly brim over with blue.
It suits the thunder god, Loki thinks. The blue.
You will kneel before me, he hisses, almost surprised when Thor does.
And Loki laughs, bared teeth catching the blue light and glinting. He circles the complacent god, crouching close behind him, an arm snaking over Thor's shoulder and cupping his cheek in a pale hand. He feels the bristle of the blond beard beneath his fingers.
Oh Thor, He breaths, mouth just centimeters from the thunderer's ear, shadows spiderwebbing in the corners of his eyes. I have missed you so.
Loki brushes his fingers along the stubborn chin, forcing Thor to turn his head and meet the piercing green gaze.
Memories flash in the emerald depths, and Loki thinks he sees Thor laughing, laughing at a time when his eyes were almost as blue as they were now.
Revenge is sweet, is it not, Brother?
Thor doesn't answer.
Remember the time when you held me down, held me down while they drew a needle and a leather thong through my lips? Loki murmurs, and he's still smirking.
Held me down while I screamed? Oh, your hands were covered in my blood, and were just a few shades darker than your cape.
Was that not sweet, Brother? Loki says, his glamor slipping from his features like raindrops, revealing pale skin marred with scars so dark they're like cracks to the darkness within.
(Terrible things lurk in the dark; unseen like dilated-eyed secrets that creep on taloned feet)
The scars criss-cross Loki's lips and mutilate his grin till it falls of his face.
Oh, but we'll have so much fun, you and I, Loki continues, a sly smile returning along with the glamor. It will be just like old times, when we fought side by side, just like you always said you wanted.
You wanted that, did you not?
Shards of magic fall around them, like the feathers of a bird shot mid-flight, somewhere above their heads. Loki reaches out and catches one, tickling it beneath Thor's chin.
Thor doesn't react.
You used to be so ticklish, brother, Loki comments, dropping the fleck of blue and stepping lightly to his feet.
He whirls around suddenly, sending his coattails flapping, and he stares the thunderer in his unblinking blue eyes. Loki sneers.
Now bow to me.
Thanos is the second victim of the God of Malice's ire.
Oh, even Thanos is no match for the brothers unbroken and undiminished, fighting together with a sync and grace completely unbeknown to the Mad Titan.
Thor is even smiling as he doles out blow after blow after blow, the same battle-hungry smile that Loki remembers always lighting up the thunder god's face when he was fighting, somehow turning the blood and gore that covered him into a gild of gold.
And the smile almost reaches Thor's cold blue eyes.
Loki swirls in his own chaos, green flames rippling over his skin, and he cuts and tears and kills with the ferocity of a wild animal. The ferocity of a monster.
Fighting side by side with Thor, Loki feels not even a glimmer of fear. Fighting Thanos, who had been haunting him in his waking nightmare, promising eons of something not so sweet as pain and not so loving as Death; and Loki is unafraid.
Each time Thor and he fall, they roll and get right back up, each strike against them fueling the momentum for their next attack—always bending, never breaking.
It's a dance, their battle. And their eyes are glowing.
Glowing green, glowing blue.
The Mad Titan falls to his knees in a pool of his own black blood, stabbed through by the beast he had helped to craft, with the very weapon he'd bestowed.
And Loki shoves his magic into Thanos's body, lacerating him from the within while Thor rips him asunder from without.
(Thunder, thunder, lightning—darkness)
Thanos, ancient as the Nine Realms, ancient as Odin, nearly as powerful...
And Death was not so sweet as he had thought.
Loki grabs Thor's hand, tugging the two of them away from the forsaken place.
(He cared not where they ended up; it would be just as much his home as anywhere)
The forest is cool and quiet, moonlight splintering through the canopy to land in fragments at their feet, which track blood in muffled footsteps across the damp leaves.
Loki lets himself slump, Thor catching him and supporting him, an arm around his thin shoulders. Thor practically carries Loki to the shelter of a hallowed tree, before he collapses as well, his golden skin bruising iron.
You're hurt, Loki remarks, wiping the blood from Thor's brow. He carefully touches each broken bone and mends it, feeling them click back into place and unbreaking, puts his hands over each deep gash and feels the flesh knitting together beneath his deft fingers.
Blood keeps staining the armor, but it's not Thor's.
Loki sighs, letting Thor pull him close against the cold, his head resting on Thor's muscled chest.
Even beneath the heavy aroma of battle—the salty scent of sweat and the metallic scent of blood—Loki can identify the smell that is distinctly Thor. He can never quite put a finger on it, but there always seems to be a hint of cloves. (And Loki wonders if that's his fault; if it's because of the time when they were children and Thor complained about his rose soap and how he wished it was clove, and Loki got so tired of it that he made everything, the entirety of Thor's room, smell like clove. It stank of it for weeks, so much so that anybody who went inside nearly fainted. Loki had refused to remove the spell. Eventually it lessened and faded, but even after many, many years the scent still seemed to linger)
Loki curls up against Thor's side, tucking his head beneath the thunderer's chin. Thor is warm; Thor is so, so warm, so warm against his icy skin. And Loki doesn't fight as the darkness comes to claim him.
He isn't afraid now. He isn't afraid.
(Thor always kept the phantoms away)
And for the first time since they were young children, before Thor had grown frustrated with his brother coming to him in the middle of the night with tears collecting like crystals in his eyes and screams like dust on his tongue, Loki sleeps peacefully.
Loki's gone too far to turn back now, he knows this. (Even Thor had said so, and Thor couldn't lie to save his life)
So why not go all the way? He does what he wants, after all.
Thor, for once, is right beside him the whole time, taking Loki's former place as the silent shadow hovering just behind and to the right.
Know your place, Brother, Loki hisses, whenever Thor puts a hand on his shoulder, blue eyes flickering.
On opposite sides, Thor and Loki had been caught in a war never-ending; cats' games.
But fighting back to back, together, they were unstoppable.
The humans? The giants? They did not stand a chance.
Asgard? They never stood a chance.
Loki readjusts his grip on the scepter, and he can't keep the feral grin off his face as Thor's friends—Sif, the Warriors Three, those petty humans the Avengers—gasp in betrayal to see Thor fighting against them, and then gasp in understanding as they see his luminous blue eyes.
Oh, but Thor's so pretty like this, isn't he? Loki says, basking in the heat of their malevolent glares, feeling it like a dark spotlight on his skin.
So he gives them a show. He doesn't want to let down their expectations of him, after all.
And while they are so busy holding Thor off, Loki does what he does best: he takes over from the inside.
He unravels the very threads of the universe, and it tangles around them, holes appearing in the folds of space as he tugs on all the right strings.
Pandemonium—within, without, throughout and around.
Everything they thought they knew is naught. (Friends are enemies, people are monsters, freedom is a lie; death is cruel and life is worse)
The Midgardians, the Asgardians, the Jotuns, the Vanir, the Dwarves, the Light and the Dark Elves...
What can they all do but burn?
Each night they rest somewhere different. Somewhere unknown to the Nine Realms, somewhere out of the range of Heimdall's senses.
Each night Thor holds Loki while he cries, burying his face in Thor's wavy blond hair.
Loki cries because Thor cannot mock him for it, heals Thor's wounds because they're his fault and Thor cannot object, whispers truths in Thor's ear because he has no choice but to listen.
I love you, Loki says, covering his face with his spidery hands. I love you, and I hate it. Oh Thor, I hurt you and I hate it, I hate that it makes me feel better.
My mind is an ugly place, Brother. It's a dark and ugly place.
And Thor never answers, just pulls Loki close and kisses his temple as he cries.
And Loki cries because Thor can never truly love him again.
He cries because this is such a pretty, pretty lie.
But his whole life had been a lie before, so why shouldn't it be now? Why should that change?
Oh, he lies to himself, he lies to himself and he hates that he loves it.
He loves that he can sleep at night and wake up every morning laughing, loves that he can wake up and Thor smiles for him, loves the way Thor's eyes are so blue that he cannot see his reflection in them, cannot see the monster he has become.
And for the first few hours after they wake up on whatever forsaken moon they've taken temporary refuge upon, they lie side by side and look up at the stars, which are so close they burn nearly as brightly as Thor's eyes.
Loki spins stories for the two of them, spins them in the air like spectrum gossamers, and he imagines that he can hear Thor laughing like when they were boys and nothing truly mattered.
(It's such a hollow sound now)
Promise me something, Brother, Loki says. Promise me that after my eyes burn out you will set them in the sky so that they can burn again.
And, he adds, his voice so quiet as to be just a murmur in the back of Thor's mind. I would hate to not be able to see how you are faring.
Promise me, Brother?
Loki lounges on the throne, antlers of ice adorning his head like a crown. The scepter is gripped tight in his right hand, the blue gem throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
Right now it pulses at the pace flame flickers.
He looks up, a cold, mercurial grin spreading over his face like autumn turns to winter, bitter and biting winds silver as his words.
He raises his chin, green eyes glinting.
Kneel before me, he commands. He gets to his feet, every iota of his being thrumming with confidence, his stature straight and regal.
Kneel before your King.
Thor kneels, and the rest follow suit. Thor was their heart, after all, their golden prince.
Loki can't help but notice that their stares no longer contain hate. No—hate has been overrun by fear.
And he laughs, breathing in their fear like air, feeling the acrid taste coat his tongue and burn his lungs.
He laughs as he whirls, swinging the scepter around in a fatal blur of blue.
Laughs as it shatters against the ground.
The deranged sound that wrenches itself from Loki's throat sends involuntary shivers down the spines of all present, and they dare not look up, keeping their gazes tightly glue to the the (battle)ground.
It was the sound of metal clashing on metal, the sound of the howling storm winds that dance up ghosts and rip open the sky.
The sound of hearts breaking.
Loki, Thor says.
The God of Lies looks up from beneath his dark eyebrows, mouth open slightly, breathing ragged.
It's good to have you back, Loki says, lips twitching.
Thor's eyes are cold, cold and so, so pale. They're practically colorless they're so pale.
As the dam breaks the memories flood Thor all at once, and he lets out a cry of anguish and rage, taking up his hammer and swinging it with all his might towards Loki.
The occupants of the room scatter immediately, leaving the two brothers fighting in an abandoned throne room, the walls crumbling to reveal the sky, which bleeds red as the sunlight dies.
What have you done? Thor shouts, his hammer a blur of gray around him.
Loki ducks, steps aside, disappears and reappears. He's everywhere and he's nowhere, knives glinting in his long fingers.
What have we done, Loki corrects, taunting. But you can blame it on me if it will ease the pain in your heart.
A flash of metal whirs by Thor's face, cutting a thin red gash across his otherwise unblemished cheek.
It's a dance, their battle. And their eyes are pale.
Pale green, pale blue.
And Thor is strong, his strength undiminished, and his hammer has wreaked so much destruction and yet it still thirsts.
Loki is already weakened, his body bearing the gashes and bruises of their many battles of late, his bones barely mended and twinging with each movement, threatening to snap again.
He fights with his daggers and his magic, mouth pressed into a tight line. Sweat glistens on his brow, joined by his melted crown, the water streaming down his pale neck.
(It was but a temporary thing, after all)
Why, Loki? Thor yells, as his brother slips on the air and barely avoids Mjolnir.
Why have you done this?
Loki doesn't answer, only a soft gasp escaping his lips as Thor's hammer collides with him, sending him flying back and crashing into the far wall. He lies still.
And Thor falls to his knees, a word of denial on his lips.
Loki grinds his teeth as he pushes himself to his feet, dragging bloody footprints across the ground.
Irreparably, the tears mar his face, stinging the scars on his lips as they split open in a dangerous smile.
A shard of glass drawn across Thor's skin, beads of blood in a trickle down his brow like slow drips of rain, and he drives it into Loki's heart as Loki collapses into his arms.
For a moment their blood runs together, and Loki whispers.
I did it for you, he whispers, his smile small and sad.
I did it for you.