A/N: Yeah, I dunno. Random inspiration. No real timeline, just angsty fluff.
It's a juxtaposition of emotions: fear, pain, love, anger, betrayal, hope, pride, longing, sorrow, remorse. I feel them all in bouts that overlap one another, like waves slipping over the rocks beneath the cliff, like breaths mingling during sex. It's that which drives me insane, really; the confusion of which emotion I am feeling when, and for how long, before another comes along and sweeps it away.
You know the feeling, don't you? I see it on your face, in your blue eyes; you, too, have experienced the combination, the erratic flow of feelings as fleeting as an insect's life in the span of the world's. You, too, know the pain of that tangled mass of emotional threads tugging and tugging at you. Because of me, I imagine. Because of our father (yours. Never mine, I have to remind myself. He was only yours all along). Because of a great many things, like this new team you're associating yourself with.
I scoff at the name. Avengers. Who are you avenging? All of Midgard? All the tiny humans on it? What a laugh. What a joke.
But even I'm not laughing. Not without tears drifting just inside the pit of my eyes. I can't look at you without wanting to run, to scream, to cry, to surrender, to fight until I die (by your hand, preferably. You would be the most gentle with me. You would make sure my death wouldn't hurt very much).
"What has become of us, Brother?" you ask me. We are not on the battlefield right now. We are safe here. No prying eyes. This is our secret. We can meet like this, and they won't know; not my minions, not your teammates. Here, we are ourselves, as we always have been, albeit divided. "We fought. We will fight again. Why are we doing this? I won't wish to fight you."
"Nor I, Thor," I reply with a sigh. You can see it on my face, can't you? The mournful look. Mother (not mine, always yours; why do I keep thinking she was mine as well?) would point it out to you, to us. She would say, 'Your brother, he is sad. Comfort him, Thor. Brothers comfort brothers. Brothers protect brothers. That is their job.'
"Then why? Why must we carry on this way?" you plead, and there, you have the mournful look, too. It softens your handsome face, makes you look younger, even though the beard. I can remember you just as a child, and myself, a smaller child. How we were. How I wish we could return to being.
"You will not join me," I answer, subdued. Your face crumbles. I glance the other way, at my staff. It is the only thing keeping me upright. "That much is very clear. And I cannot drop my endeavors so easily and join you. We have long since reached an impasse, Thor. There is no going back."
You run your hands over your face and press your thumbs into your closed eyes. You are fighting tears as well; I remember your tell. I remember everything about you, every last detail. You move your hands through your hair (golden, always as beautiful as sun-kissed grain; oh, how I would run my hands through your hair for hours, putting plaits in it, undoing it, brushing it, massaging your scalp, all until you fell asleep in my lap or turned and offered to do the same for me, because you were the only person who was ever fair to me. Oh, Mother tried, but Father didn't, and everyone else saw me as the second prince, the one in your shadow, but never you. You loved me).
You exhale, and I blink, torn from my thoughts. You part your lips and step forward, lessening the chasm between us (and how it feels so much like a canyon, Thor; I cannot even begin to tell you how far you feel from me, after all that we have been through, all that we will go through soon). You say to me, "Looking back, the signs were always there, Brother. We were too blind to see them, and we dared not look at the evidence, because we feared what it would mean. But it was there. Do you remember all the nights you were too cold? And you would wake me, asking to share my bed, my body heat? It was true even then, that you were a child of the ice. But we did not wish to see it."
"I recall you coming to my bed a few nights, seeking company after a nightmare, and finding me cold. I didn't always come to you," I remind, but not harshly. Because I do remember how I would go to you, so young and innocent, and ask for your heat, just to hold you, just to keep myself from shivering into oblivion. And you did. You were solid and warm and strong, and I slept soundly when I was with you. "And when you came to me, you forgot your nightmare and snored beside me, never to wake again those nights, because I was with you."
"I remember that as well," you murmur, and the distance is even less, now. You look so wounded, so open. I must look very similar to you, because you deem it safe to come nearer and nearer to me.
You are a fool, Thor. I could smite you where you stand. I could kill you if you come too close.
You smile at me, that way you do, all sunshine and hope. Your arms open wide for me. You are scant inches from me, now. One more step, and our chests will brush. One more step, and I could be in your arms.
I hang my head and drop back a step. Your smile falls; I can almost hear it, a delicate sound, like the splitting of a bird's wing-bone.
"Brother," you call out to me gently, arms slowly lowering to your sides. I can't look at you. I remember being so cold, shaking from head to toe, my skinny arms wrapped around myself in a feeble attempt to lock in my body heat, and you were there for me, cradling me to your body and pressing light kisses into my hair. It hurts to remember. I want it back. I want this to end. "Loki."
You call my name, now, and there is such trepidation and tenderness conflicting in your tone that your deep, gruff voice actually cracks, severs somewhere in my name and breaks off, dissolving into air. I can feel the burn it must leave on your tongue, saying my name and not knowing whether or not I will respond, whether or not I will reject you or lash out or flee or forgo all of the above and crash into you instead.
This once, I give in. I lift my head, and I feel pale compared to you; moonlight, reflected from the radiance of your sun, always in your shadow, always cold and far away from you. But I miss you. I don't wish to be the moon anymore; I want to burn in your fire. I want to collide with the sun.
So I do. I blink away the sting of tears that always seem to arise when you are near, and I dive in. My staff drops; makes a loud noise on the floor, which we both ignore. I bury my head into your neck and your arms fall around me. You press me close and kiss my shoulder over my cloak and wind my wiry arms around your thick torso, trying so hard not to let go.
"One day, we will destroy one another. And, most days, I am positive that I won't be the victor in that battle," I mumble into your collarbone, and my eyes are pressed tight and I'm shaking in your grasp.
"I won't let that happen. I know neither of us will change, but there has to be a way to fix things, Loki. There must. I refuse to fight you when there could be a solution. I refuse to lose you if there is a way to keep you," you tell me, and a sob escapes me, but thankfully, no hot tears drip down my face this time. Not like before.
"I love you," I whisper, because I have never said it enough. I have said it, of course, but not by itself, and not in the same context. Sometimes, I am very glad you aren't my brother in blood. It makes me feel less guilty for loving you as much as I do, for hating you as much as I do.
"I love you, Brother," you murmur, dropping a kiss by my ear, your lips warm, your hand on the back of my head feeling even warmer.
"I have missed you," I confess. You don't seem fazed. I feel you smile.
"And I you," you reply. You pull back enough to see my face. Your thumb comes down to caress my cheek. Selfishly, I lean my face into your palm, eyes closing momentarily. Your voice drops in pitch and you add regrettably, "But I have to go. They're expecting me. And when I see you again, we will be enemies once more."
"No…" I'm broken. I grab your hand as it leaves my face and kiss it. "Please."
Thor, never leave me again. Stay on my side Fight alongside me. Or run away with me, to a place all our own, without wars and humans and Asguardians. Just the pair of us. Free to be brothers, lovers, whatever we like. Anything you'll give, anything is what I'll take. Just not this. I hate this.
I want to say this. I could say it, all of it. But you wouldn't agree to it. I would only be fooling myself if I thought I could utter even half of it.
"I must," you insist, also broken. Your hand in mine; you draw it near your lips and kiss my knuckles. My breath hitches. You do love me, then. The same way I love you. "But I will try not to hurt you when I see you. I will try to keep you from being hurt, if I can. They won't like it, they might expel me, but you are my brother, and I can't ignore that, can't forget it, act like all those times we shared through the years never happened."
"Me either," I say. I nod. I drop my hand. I step back. I pick up my staff from the floor. I put on my war-face. Yours also hardens. "Goodbye, Thor."
"Goodbye, Loki," you say, and then, like that, we depart as enemies again, and the juxtaposition within me returns full force, until I am numb.