[Part VIII of the series By watchfires and thrones of crowned kings]
Notes: unashamed fluff. You've been warned ;)
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From Summer to Winter
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Loki considers that, for all the progress he's made, Thor is still quite blind. If not a king, then who has an eye for sycophants and parasites? And yet he does not realize he's holding a serpent to his breast – or he doesn't want to, which is potentially even worse.
Theirs is an unbalanced symbiosis: Loki could live of Thor to the point of consuming him, never giving anything in return. (For what is there to give?) Despite the prodding of a regained conscience, however, Loki has no intention of pointing this out; pushed away, he'd wither like a leech.
And if this isn't a humiliation, he has never inflicted one.
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But like thousands other intentions of his, this too melts under the sun that is Thor. One evening, after having helped him divest of his armour, Thor looks at his face, laughs tiredly and holds him close. It's been a long day.
"Please, next time Radulf grinds on the council, show him that grim expression. It'll give him a nasty turn."
They don't pull apart. Thor rocks him a little, as he did when they were children, by the Norns, and Loki shuts his eyes to feel Thor's warmth descend to the very points of his feet. Only when they're together like this Jotunheim's coldness leaves him.
The words escape.
"I'll dry you up" he murmurs. "I'm so empty... You've got everything to offer, and I, nothing."
Thor lets out a half-laugh. "Nothing?" he says, disbelieving. He arches his neck just enough to peer down; whatever he finds on his face leaves him frustrated. "Loki..."
"What need has summer of winter?"
"What is summer without winter? Without the cold and the rains which lay seeds underground, purify the earth and renew life?"
"That is spring" Loki answers, curt, pressing his nose against the hollow of Thor's neck.
This time, Thor laughs openly. "It is not, and you know it, my dearest scholar." Then he leans forward and whispers to his ear, through dark hair: "Without you I'd be empty, Loki, like a golden cup without ambrosia, and alone, like an arrow without its bow. If you feel the same, then my heart is full of joy, and I tell you: a person's worth isn't measured on his body's temperature."
The warmth radiates; Loki doesn't know how his being can hold. But he can't help smiling against Thor's collarbone.
"How poetic you are, my lord."
Thor pinches his side. "Like a lover without delusions."
"Ow!"
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