If I Only Could

Chapter 1

He awoke at the stroke of dawn. His long black hair bounced on his shoulders as he scurried from the sheets of his magnificent bedding into the cool, dark hallway.

His elder sibling, dressed in red undergarments and trying to discreetly and silently remove his armor from the rack, smiled up at him.

"Are you ready?" he whispered as softly as his low voice could manage.

The trickster gave a small smile in his green eyes and smirked.

"Naturally."

The blonde oaf of his brother chuckled a little louder than he intended before he cupped a hand over his mouth and shuffled forwards, silver armor nestling into each other with a soft clang.

"Can you be any louder?" Loki asked beneath his breath as he rolled his green eyes and good-naturedly shoved Thor by the shoulder.

"Hopefully not," Thor replied in good humor, casting one of his blue eyes over to his younger sibling, easily questioning his particular choice of clothing.

"I can materialize my armor," Loki supplied with a sigh. He wondered how many times he'd have to go over this with Thor before the fool would remember it in his own brains.

"Aaa," Thor hummed, casting an approving look towards his brother then. "You'll have to teach me your ways someday, brother."

Loki huffed, "It's not that easy, Thor. But I'll lend out some books on the subject for you, if you want."

Thor instantly made a face.

"No books." He answered with confidence.

"They'd help your brains to arrive in your skull for once in your life," Loki easily retorted back.

"Too many words, cannot compute," Thor made a silly face, sticking out his tongue and crossing his eyes.

Loki couldn't help but laugh-whether at him or with him it was difficult to tell.

"You're a fool," Loki said, tossing another small shove his way.

Thor grinned, as bashful and happy as a puppy.

"That's why you love me."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

And they continued their playful banter as they strolled into the golden rays of the rising sun as it lit up the city of Asgard, streaking over the green branches of nearby trees as if it were adding hope onto an unforgiving landscape.

ii_**ii_**ii_**ii_

"We should have invited Sif!" Thor called behind him as he strode gallantly up a rocky hillside, arms swinging in the wind as he stared out over the orange and pink horizon.

"She would have just gotten in the way," Loki replied, huffing slightly and coming up next to Thor a few moments after.

"She's a good friend," Thor replied, pouting.

"Your friend," Loki corrected, giving his brother a long stare. "You know she only hangs out with me because you're there."

Thor tilted his head for a moment, looking strangely back at him.

"She's as much a friend of yours as she is of mine," Thor admonished, reaching out a hand to his brother to caress him by the neck.

Loki shrugged off his hand.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Loki said dejectedly, a look of pain crossing his features before he settled his eyes on the rising sun above a set of clouds. "Left or right?" he asked, pointing towards the dirt path before them.

Thor hesitated; he had an itching feeling that something was wrong, something was amiss with his brother but they were so used to usually ignoring particular jabs and secrets that he wasn't sure if he should question him further or just let the topic die.

Loki, annoyed at his brother's hesitance and thinking it were not of the conversation that had just ended, pointed roughly to the right and started down the rocky terrain.

Inevitably, Thor let the comment go, however he did reflect on it further. Loki didn't have many friends among their home on Asgard. Thor, boisterous and eccentric as he was, had no trouble making friends. He first made friends with Sif, then Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg. Volstagg loved to eat and he was a pretty good man for company. Many a time they would get full with meats, cheeses and much mead upon the feasts after a winning battle. He trained alongside Sif with her quick wit and fast jabs; he and Fandral drooled over the Asgardian women with their long braided hair and festive style of nature; and Hogun he enjoyed conversing with late at night under the stars and wondering about what lay before them in the coming centuries.

But Loki…Loki was more secluded. Loki spent more of his time reading books in the grand libraries of their home than sparring with other boys and young men. Loki was content being by himself and studying for the next elective's exams, rather than engaging with the surrounding world.

Thor frowned, digging through his mind to uncover a friendship that Loki had ever formed on his own but coming up with few.

He knew that Loki was pretty close to mother and Eir the woman in charge of the healing rooms. But those were more parental figures than true friends and it dawned on him then how different the two were. They were brothers, all the same, but they were complete opposites.

Thor enjoyed parties and gatherings; Loki enjoyed time alone. Thor was active in their training sessions; Loki often ventured to the corner to practice his magic. Thor had many friends; Loki struggled with socializing skillfully.

The thunder god let out a large, shaky breath. He wasn't so sure whether he and his brother would make it through the trials and tribulations set against them for their young adulthood. Thor tried not to worry about Loki, but truly, he did, and he did a lot. If Loki struggled to make friends now than how were things going to be for him when he rules the kingdom? He would have many more enemies than allies and this worried the elder sibling.

Friends were necessary to remain level-headed. Friends were necessary to let off steam and relax and have fun.

But friends, more and more to Thor about his brother, seemed to be just extra baggage that wasn't necessary for Loki to carry.

With a heavy heart and none too easy to answer questions, Thor hurried back after his brother, trailing behind him like leaves being removed from their hiding spots.

Maybe with time things would change and be different for the two siblings. Maybe Loki would grow out of his oddities and Thor into his. He had hope, he had light. He hoped that Loki, too, would find his own.

ii_**ii_**ii_**ii_

"Over here!" Thor called behind his back as he rifled through the carnage lying before him.

"Did you find it?" Loki immediately asked over his shoulder and Thor jumped in surprise.

"Brother!" Thor exclaimed, his voice practically booming in the dark cave. "You scared me! How did you-?" Thor looked around in bewilderment.

Loki leveled a stare at him that merely communicated how he felt about his brother's intelligence.

"Oh. Right. Magic," Thor wiggled his fingers and Loki rolled his eyes, dejectedly.

"Just let me know when you find it," Loki muttered softly. He had a hard set frown on his face as he moved away, tinkering in the white light, trying to find something else to keep his mind busy.

Thor's face also contorted into a frown, second-guessing whether he had said something wrong to bring pain onto his brother's face. Thor stared at his younger sibling, mouth slightly agape with his hands hovering above the gray rocks.

Loki's face bristled into disgust and he halted, frozen for a moment, before shooting Thor another look.

"What?" his green eyes narrowed considerably as his brows came together, slanting into anger.

"Are you-?" Thor began but Loki laughed mirthlessly, cutting his words off at the throat.

"Don't act like you care, Thor." Loki sighed loudly. "Just find the stone you so immaturely dropped."

Loki walked away from him again and Thor stared at his crouched form until the penetrating rays of sunshine shone in his eyes.

"Oh, Loki," Thor whispered to himself, pain marring his own features while he turned back to the rocks beneath his sooty hands.

They dug around in silence for what felt like an eternity.

During that time, Thor found several red and gold gems, a couple of pink and green but no purple mahogany. Loki had been showing him the jewel with pained patience, resistant to letting Thor handle it then giving in when his puppy dog looks wore him down. Of course, it was then that Thor's clumsy, meaty fingers lost grip of the jewel and dropped it onto the grey tarmac. And from the tarmac the bouncing jewel, that Eir had let the trickster handle under the condition he was to drop it off in her healing rooms after their excursion, twinkled and flicked onto stones in an elaborate zig zag before falling through a crevice and down into a cave, where they found themselves now, no closer to finding it.

Loki was standing now with his hands on his hips, eyeballing a pile of grey rocks when he heard Thor shuffle the sediments behind him. He turned slowly to his sibling, sheen of sweat on his brow that he ineffectually tried to wipe away. His green eyes sparkled with unbidden mischief as he landed them on Thor's back. His elder sibling was buried to the waist in gems of multiple colors.

Thor didn't know it as well as Loki did, but each rock had its own aura and energy emanating from it. The green ones with a shred of power, gold with knowledge, pink with healing properties and red with emotion.

The oaf really could be a fool and his blatant aversion to reading books made him far behind Loki's awareness of the world around him.

Loki let out a long breath before hurrying over to his brother.

"Need help?" he asked, letting out his hand into the ashy air.

Thor grinned up at him. "When don't I?" he asked, before clasping Loki's offered limb.

The two got back on their feet with no additional trouble.

It was then that two pairs of eyes, one ocean blue and one as green as the needles on a pine tree, fell upon a blue gem different than the rest.

Loki scrunched up his eyes-he hadn't read anything about a blue gem before. His feelings of dread began as heavy weights in his stomach that made his organs feel as though they had dropped to his ankles.

At the same time, for Thor and all his obliviousness, his own eyes shown with the unimaginable magic the rock could possess. He didn't ever realize it was his hand reaching out to the gem until he felt Loki's cool palm entangle itself around his.

"What are you doing?" Loki hissed in no uncertain terms.

"It's so pretty," Thor answered, seemingly in a trance.

Loki quirked a brow in question at this, "It may be so, but that doesn't mean you should touch it." Loki advised, although he knew his attempts to change the course of this story were futile.

"Don't you want to see it?" Thor asked with his mouth wide.

Loki stared at him deeply. "No, because I don't know what it is."

"That's why we should hold it," Thor insisted strangely.

Loki took half a step back.

"Thor, I really don't think that's a good idea." Loki side-eyed him then pulled back on Thor's wrist a little. "Let's just look for Eir's rock. Come on."

Just as Loki was about to step away, his own eyes found the angle in which the blue gem was radiating yellow illuminations.

Unaware that he was also being enthralled by a piece of sediment, he felt more than realized his and Thor's hands reaching out closer and closer to the magical stone.

At the moment their fingers graced along the smooth yet raised edges of the vertically elongated hexagon-brightness overcame them that blasted light into their eye sockets and around and around their bodies.

There was a feeling of weightlessness, of foreign territories as a moment of being displaced occurred and an absence of pain and physical feelings followed after.

Loki had a second to think that something wasn't right as colors danced in his vision like shaken kaleidoscopes before darkness shielded his eyes and he thought nothing more.

ii_**ii_**ii_**ii_

He awoke slowly, his senses only coming back to him one by one.

First there was the smell. Putrid, really. It smelled like sweat and, if he were being honest, passed gas.

Next, he heard muffled voices. Down the hallway, he presumed but he didn't remember coming back with Thor to the castle.

Where am I? He thought, trying to make out the words being spoken just out of earshot.

His hand instinctively came up to the side of his head, playing with his ears as if to shake something loose.

It didn't help; it rarely did.

He sighed; shifting his aching body off what he assumed was his bed. When had his body last ached? And why did his bed hold more of a bounce than usual?

That's odd, he thought, questions peeking through his system.

He swung his legs over from the mattress, feeling his thighs were thicker than he remembered. He shook away the dizziness that suddenly engulfed him as he tore his eyes open.

What he saw…made his heart skip a beat then smash into his chest wall beat after beat.

"What the-?" came his low, raspy and grumbled response.

In panic and fear, he scrambled with his foreign body, a body that wasn't his own, and stumbled over his heavy footballs, landing himself by a small mirror in the bathroom that he held with shaking, thick hands.

What he saw made chills run through his body-a body too hot for his own comfort.

Not….not his body-but, but Thor's.

His blue eyes widened in surprise and newfound horror.

He gasped, a sinking feeling eradicating his form, "Oh, no."


A/N:

Heyyyyy everyone!

So, uh, welcome officially to this new fanfic yet old idea! Just like when I go to the library and have to take out some fluffy romance novels along with my murder mystery novels, I needed something light to clear up all the spider webs and emotional intensities of my other fanfics. :] So, this finally got made!

The idea originally is NOT mine, I got inspired by "gabygal7"'s Youtube video about our favorite brothers with Track & Field's cover of "Running Up that Hill" (of which, of course, the title is inspired by). I stumbled upon her video back in 2017 and have been lying in wait until I could properly write the thing for that duration of time since. I tried back in January this year to write it but it only got as far as opening and saving a blank Word document, ahaha.

But, June was the time, so here it is-officially unveiled and everything! It's basically a Thor and Loki fic meets "Freaky Friday" (2003). I'm thinking that this will be short, only about 10 chapters, and this fic DOES come with its own cover art (done by myself in crayons, hehe) and will in future chapters include little bits and pieces of lyrics to start off and shape what that chapter will be about. It also took me months to understand all the intricacies of how they'd switch bodies and what would follow them (i.e. their souls) as I'm going by the conception that their brains are with their bodies as a whole so that what they think and feel normally is conditional to which body they are in-so Loki's soul in Thor's body will witness what Thor would normally think and feel while Loki still retains the capability of having his own thoughts, feelings and judgments about the world around him and within himself. It's almost like Loki's awareness and soul are with him even when he's in someone else's body. He is an observer of the way Thor responds and how he has to be mindful of how he acts, and yeah, you get it, I imagine. Hopefully I can find a way to explain that better within the story itself-or show it, even!

But, I should go before I write another novel in this section, ahaha. Hope you're doing well and thanks for reading! If you would be so kind as to leave me a review, that would be swell. xxx

My Internet is misbehaving but I hope to get this out before the end of the weekend. I may have officially gotten a new job so we'll see how much I can write after that transition happens. Hope to see you guys in another update soon!

Written: 6.9, 6.14, 6.15.19

Edited: 6.15, 6.16 (I had to come up with user friendly page breaks :P)