Series: Shame on you, shame on me

Title: Fool me once


This isn't mourning.

Where is the guilt? The despair? Why no longing?

(What is wrong with him?)

But Thor is tired.

The last time must have broken him in some irreparable, fundamental way, in the very essence of his heart. He has mourned Loki once before, isn't that (terrible, thunder-less) one time enough?

He is not strong enough for the second round, not even (especially) for Loki. He was mad, then he was gone, then back but lost nevertheless... and now, (his) Loki is dead.

But he has died good, and honourable. He has died as his brother. And now, after all that has passed between them, Thor finds he can be glad for that.

Before, when the abyss of the in-between swallowed his brother, he would have taken anything but Loki's death: his madness, his hatred, his everything, as long as he deigned to stay alive, to hold on to the end of the spear (to Thor). But he didn't know the depth of Loki's madness or hatred, of Loki himself, back then.

Now he knows there are worse things than Loki dead.

(like looking at him and not seeing his brother at all. Loki had made Thor mourn himself/him, and his love for Loki. Given the choice between loving his brother and having him, Thor chooses love−

For now.)