A/N: So this one-shot is based off of a gif photoset that black-nata made on Tumblr.(I would post the link but fanfiction won't let me, sorry!) It inspired feels, which inspired this thing of angst. Please enjoy.
It's late, 9:45 p.m. to be exact, and Thor is in downtown London in some high-rise, fancy as fuck, restaurant that he is way underdressed for. He is pretty sure, even if he was dressed up in his best apparel, he would still feel completely out of place among the surrounding rich socialites. Thor pouts, looking out the window as he ponders the absolute ridiculousness that you would have to get dressed up just to eat a meal; he's paying them enough isn't he? Coming here of course, by no means, was his idea as he looks at the manipulator in question.
Loki sits with aristocratic grace that is the complete opposite of Thor's own slouch; Loki's emerald eyes watch him with mischievous mirth as the corners of his mouth turn tauntingly up when Thor finally, though reluctantly, makes eye contact with him. He regrets looking up into those enticing green pits immediately afterward as he awkwardly averts his gaze with a rising blush. He cannot, not look into those eyes and be remembered of-
"Brother, you seem…uncomfortable." Anything but sincerity and consideration carry out in his voice, and Thor can see his brother laughing at him, the sound does not need vocalization. Thor's hands clench into fists under the tablecloth, and he swears that he would punch Loki if he wasn't absolutely sure that he would be kicked out for indecent behavior. As if sensing his inner turmoil, Loki shakes his head back and forth and clicks his teeth together in a disapproving manor. "Always the temper."
Thor gapes at him incredulous. "Can you blame me?"
Loki's smirk gets slyer, (if that's even possible), and his eyes twinkle with recognition as he gives a little breathless laugh. "I guess not."
…
"I'm actually surprised you came." Thor looks up, slightly stunned that something that came out of his brother's mouth wasn't sarcastic or demeaning. Loki isn't looking at him, his gaze solely trained on finely cutting up thick spaghetti noodles on his plate, and Thor watches his long and slender fingers hold the silver ware with the utter most care. Thor cannot understand how Loki seems to make it an art form, as he watches fingers slide almost sensually on the fine metal. When father had tried to teach him the ways of proper edict Thor had found it immensely mundane, but now, with Loki, he cannot influence himself to look away. Thor almost jolts out of his seat when he realizes that Loki has been scrutinizing him with perceptive eyes, waiting for an answer, for anything, and hurriedly covers his discomfort with a cough.
"Yeah me too." He says, after a while he adds, "Honestly, I wasn't going to." Thor does not feel embarrassed as he says this, as he would be with anyone else. Loki clenches a hand over his heart in mock hurt as he laughs lightly, observing Thor with those all-knowing eyes that tear into him.
"What made you change your mind, brother?" Loki basically purrs, and Thor fails at trying to show any sign of weakness as he gulps. He promised himself he would stop-stop continuing whatever this was when he got married, though it seemed everything got harder and harder to-
"I missed you." The proclamation spills from his lips and he shortly regrets the choice of words along with his tone of voice, as if he hand been mourning for a lover who had all but disappeared and left without a trace. Loki's eyes go wide with amusement as loud bellowing laughter spills from his lips, it's so loud that the people surrounding them glare and give disapproving looks, and Thor administers apologetic glances to the ones that look especially pissed off. "Oh, they can get over themselves Thor." Loki says deliberately discernible as he gives a wide toothy grin at one elderly woman in particular, who scoffs at him then turns away.
"Missed me?" He claims with an amused chuckle that does not sound the least bit entertained. "You haven't called me, visited me, or even texted me a simple 'hello' since August; Yes, I can completely see how much you've missed me."
"I got married Loki." He says quietly, as if to himself. "I couldn't do that to Jane. I couldn't be neglecting her just so-"
"Oh yes, how could I forget?" Loki hisses forget as if it's a curse, and Thor visibly winces. "How is Miss Foster-no wait I guess its Odinson now-how silly of me to forget." Thor desperately wants to change the subject, anything but this, anything-
"Loki obviously this is upsetting you, let's just-"
"Upsetting me! Oh Thor, why would this upset me? I want to know more about my lovely sister-in-law, like how she's doing. Has she started to decorate the house yet? Have you guys gotten a dog? Was the wedding night too much for her, we all know how much of a delicate flower she is!"
"Loki! Calm yourself, we are in public," Thor all but yells. People have started to look at them again, and this time, with a little more interest. The last thing Thor wants is to have people he doesn't even know, acknowledging his business. Clearly taken back by the outburst, Loki clears his throat, raking his fingers through his hair, and puts on an easy disarming smile.
"Never stopped us before."
…
They do not talk for the rest of the meal. Thor doesn't know if it's simply due to the slightly awkward cloud that seems to hover over head through dinner and dessert, or whether if one of them were to actually speak, the aftermath of heated words and sharp insults would be beyond repair. Either way, Thor's grateful for the momentary calmness.
The restaurant has considerably cleared out over the past hour and a half, and the only people that are 'close' to them seem miles away, he can only make out an outline of a curvy woman and a fat man who talk in flirty, hushed tones. In the dim lighting, everything suddenly feels intimate, like how a lover would reserve a restaurant out for an anniversary. Like how when Loki and him where younger they would plan these little dinners, except they were always at home, in privacy just in case-
"What are you thinking about? You have that lost puppy dog look in your eyes again." Thor is quite sure that Loki already knows what he's thinking about, and for a frightening short moment wonders if Loki is thinking the same thing too.
He shrugs his shoulders whimsically, "Nothing in particular."
Loki snorts, "You obviously have something on your mind, but of course, as always, you never have or will trust me enough to share it." He crosses his arms over his chest defensively and Thor wonders wistfully why they are still here, lingering, when they both know in the long run this visit is doing more harm than good. His heart suddenly aches as the realization of what they have fallen to washes over him like a typhoon.
"Brother-what happened to us?"
Loki for the first time, struck speechless as he stares out the window refusing even a quick glance at Thor.
"When you started to fall to the ideals and whims of father, of society, when you started to actually give a damn about what they thought."
" Loki I-"
"Shut up Thor. I am not finished. " He immediately does, Loki's voice seems to drop an octave as his tone rings about venomously. "When you began to think that, what we shared together was incestuous and wrong, that you were debasing me when it wasn't that at all." Thor can see the clench and unclench of his jaw and he desperately wants to say something, anything that will make things go back to the way they were, not having his brother hate him, Thor thinks of himself as foolish when he reckons that no words would ever divert Loki.
"When you started stringing me along, when you met that woman, how even though you had a new lover you would still hold me, kiss me, fuck me, and still have me yearning and begging for you." Thor stares remorsefully at Loki, anger and betrayal all to present in his eyes, along with something heated. Thor guesses the unexpected emotion is due to remembering the past of steamy, filthy whispers and long nights of sticky, grinding bodies. He himself has to repress images of Loki on all fours, mouth wide open in a silent scream, shattering under him, as he shivers.
"We might have been raised in the same household, but we are not brothers." He says this loud and clear as if talking to a pre-schooler. "What I want from you, what we have done, is not brotherly."
Thor thinks about how different life would be like if he had met Loki on contrasting terms, would they have stood a chance. Would things between them be this dysfunctional?
"I'm sorry Loki, for everything I've done. If I could take it back-"
Loki eyes spring on him and the amount of fury in those green depths stun him into silence. "Don't you dare say that! Out of all the stupid things that you could say, that's one I never want to hear," His fingernails dig into his upper arms. "I done everything to forget you, to hurt you, I've fucked anything that moves, though, I stopped with men, no man I have been with fills me like you," Thor blushes at this, although angry that Loki has been like that with other men, filled to the brim with cock. Thor speculates if Loki on his spiteful quest took more than one at a time just to feel full.
"No man stretches me like you, until it borderlines on pain and pleasure, that you know I like so much." His breath hitches as he senses the conversation beginning to shift direction. Loki stares at him with longing eyes as his voice drips with sensual awareness that cascades over Thor like honey. This is not a good idea, Thor thinks.
"Loki…" He tries to say it as a stern warning, but comes out instead as a breathy whisper. Loki just gives a smooth smirk, teasing Thor.
"Another thing they couldn't get right was how they would hold me, it was never close enough, I like the sensation of feeling someone move within me, feeling their muscles contract and cave…"
An image of him and Loki filters through his mind, bodies tightly pressed together chest to chest, cock to cock, Thor has to shift.
"Uncomfortable brother?" It's a rhetorical question he is not supposed to answer, and Loki chuckles lightly, maybe at this own cleverness.
"I wonder sometimes, when I'm feeling especially bitter about the hand life has dealt me, can your woman make you as hot as I can? Can she make you come hard with her tongue? Can she make you break easy with simple teasing touches? Can she? I get off sometimes Thor, thinking about telling her all the ways I've satisfied you that she never will."
Thor has to suppress a groan when Loki's hand disappears under the table, knowing exactly where it will go. Loki issues a husky laugh as he watches Thor with eyes that belong to a predator. "So, ah-I have a question for you brother-what do you think of when you touch yourself in the long, lonely hours of night?"
It's no used to lie, Loki would be able to point it out a mile away with remarkable ease.
"You."
Loki tilts his head up, face contorted in mild pleasure, as he gives the softest whimper that shakes Thor down to the marrow of his bones.
In fear of crossing that line again, something within Thor tells himself to leave, that the path they are about to travel down only ends in one distinct way. His relationship with his brother, with Loki, will always have a spark that at any moment could burst into flames, and he feels like an idiot thinking that he could maintain a normal kinship with someone who oozes sexuality and possessiveness towards him.
"I'm exhausted. I think I should go." It's an easy excuse to get away.
Loki just stares at him with calculating calmness as the hand that isn't under the table massages the pads of his fingers with his thumb.
"You should stay. I'll make it worth your while."
A big gulp air fills his lungs as his skin starts to burn. "Unless, of course, you're simply to exhausted. I don't want to strain you, after all."
For a stretch of time, it's just him and Loki staring back at one another, a conversation without words. In that time, Thor makes up his mind. Love, he surmises, had never been as painful and cruel as it had been with Loki.