Quick trigger warning: While Loki does not have an eating disorder as such, it does come up in this that at this point he hasn't eaten for 6 days and I kinda feel this happens a lot just because he forgets. He has some serious self neglect going on. While this may sound like I'm going ott on warnings I am aware that this can be upsetting for some people or worse sound like a cool idea. It's not cool, please do not try this at home. I don't mean to sound like a fussy mother hen, I just care about all my readers so much!

8.

"Go away, Thor," Loki says coolly, standing up, fists clenching, the sand gusting around him like a cloak in the mild breeze, facing Thor off like a gunslinger prepared to fight this battle to a fatal end. His eyes narrow and his look might have killed a lesser man, but Thor is determined on one outcome and only one.

"No" he says, taking a step towards Loki. Loki hisses breath.

"Go. Away." He repeats through gritted teeth, nails digging into his palms.

"I will not." Thor circles him warily, reading the hundred danger signs in Loki's eyes and ignoring them all. "Loki, listen to me –"

"I will not!" Loki shrieks – "You can't make it up to me this time, Thor! There is not a single word you could say to me that I could possibly wish to hear." He laughs spitefully. "I don't think dinner's going to cut it this time."

Steady as Thor's heart is it shudders to hear that laugh and the way Loki says his name as though he truly hates him. Indeed he does truly hate him; Thor just hopes that is not all.

"Loki, please- we can talk about this."

Loki laughs, all teeth and hoarse, burning screeching. It occurs to Thor for the first time that Loki is actually more than a little insane – occurs to, but does not surprise him. Certainly it changes nothing.

"Talk about this?" he sneers – "Talk about it? Why? We've had this talk already, and I'm sure it went very differently in your head than it did in mine. We have nothing to talk about. I don't want to hear your apologies, your pathetic whining excuses – and I don't want you here – I told you, thisplace is mine. Now get out. Leave. You're so damn good at it. Get back on that piece of shit you rode in on and get out of my town. There's no room here for the both of us – get out."

"Not without taking you with me."

Loki gives an incredulous, incensed half laugh –

"Over my dead body".

He hurls himself at Thor, but Thor catches him by the wrists before he has even the chance to strike, holding him tight enough to hurt whilst Loki kicks and snarls, twisting like an animal in a trap. Teeth bared, he spits at Thor, Thor refuses to even notice.

"I will not fight you, Loki."

"Let go of me!"

"Not until you listen to me –"

"I don't want to listen to you! I don't –"

"For god's sake, are you twelve?"

"I'm nothing to you, hear me – nothing. I don't want to hear you ease your conscience telling me why you left, and I sure as hell don't want to hear why you came back, I hate you Thor, hear me? I hate you!"

"I came back because I love you!" Thor yells, having to roar it over the sound of Loki's hissing and cursing and kicking. Loki puts a final kick in that actually manages to get Thor in the shin and then, as though the words have only just hit him, stares at him astounded, as though this possibility had never – and it had not – even occurred to him, and he stops his struggling abruptly.

"Wh – what?" he squints up at Thor in complete lack of comprehension.

"I love you, Loki," Thor repeats, unafraid to say it now, indeed shaking visibly with the relief and terror of having finally got it out – "I love you so much I can't stand it. I should have known it from the start. I knew it when I last – last saw you and that was why – I had to leave. Loki, I've never felt like this before, not ever and it – well it scares the shit out of me. Now tell you hate me, really hate me and nothing else and I'll go, I'll leave town, I'll leave the planet if you want me to – but if it's not true, I – I've been a jerk. The most incredible jerk that ever lived, and I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you'll let me."

Loki watches Thor closely as he says all this in thunderstruck, silent bewilderment. A part of him hisses yes, just do it, tell him you hate him and nothing else – you do hate him – don't listen to the rest – just let it go –butafter a moment of struggle he kicks that part in its hateful face. For a long moment he says nothing, not even daring to meet Thor's eye, Thor watching him all the while as his life depends on the answer. With Loki so still, he lets go of his wrists and the voice kicks in again urging Loki just to run, to get out while he still can. His heart beats frantic and afraid. He curses the voice and his heart for cowards and finally, slowly looks back up.

"You are a jerk," he nods, affirmative. There is something in his voice that floods Thor's heart with a relief that almost makes him dizzy. He even nods in agreement.

"And an asshole," Loki adds, nodding, almost placidly – "An absolute cunting bum, and a spectacular waste of space piece of shit – am I missing anything?"

"Yeah," Thor sighs – "Probably."

"Probably," Loki nods – "But –" he looks down again and Thor can feel, even without touching, that he is trembling like a leaf – "I get why you left – I'm still mad but I get it because –" he looks up at Thor again and his eyes are wide, his face almost paralytic with fear – "Because I'm that scared too." His searching eyes roam Thor's face in the hunt for an answer, pleading with Thor to do something to help his shaking.

A smile starts to spread across Thor's face that is like a new beginning to a life and he reaches out to touch Loki's arm, gently and so tentatively as though unsure he is allowed to. Loki's shaking intensifies as Thor's fingers brush his arm and he puts a hand onto his shoulder just to steady himself at first and then Thor catches his lips and in his kiss Loki stops shaking, reminding himself just to keep breathing as Thor's kiss seems to awaken him like in a fairy tale, all that true love bullshit he had never once imagined happened in real life. The world spins wonderfully as he kisses back and when they finally have to pull apart for breath it does not quite stop spinning.

"Fuck –" Thor exhales, eloquently – "Loki."

"Yes," Loki agrees, as though this were a question – or an instruction – "Just so long as you don't leave this time."

"Never. Never again, I swear."

This time it is Loki who presses in and Thor can feel him, hard through his jeans, rubbing at his own erection in return –

"What – here?" he starts – "Now?"

Loki merely grins up at him in return, standing on tiptoes to scatter kisses across his jaw and neck.

"Do people ever come past here?"

"Never – if you don't want them to," Loki whispers, and Thor shudders to feel the warm breath against his ear, his hands tingling to remember the soft perfect skin, Loki's perfect shape against him, moulding to him more like one thing becoming fixed than two things joining. He needs that fixing now and lets Loki pull him down onto the warm hard ground beside him.

"Say that thing again," Loki whispers, quiet as the shifting sand, as his fingers seeming to dance over the buttons of their shirts, leaving them miraculously open in their wake. He does not look at Thor, enough that he is courting the thing that scares him the most.

"Which thing?" Thor murmurs, his hands on Loki's hips, his chest, stroking the line of his jaw and the back of his neck, anywhere he can reach.

"The scary one," Loki whispers.

"I – love you?" Thor frowns. Certainly he cannot think of a scarier thing either of them have said yet.

"Mmm – hmm," Loki mumbles, burrowing his face into the crook of Thor's neck as his hands in his lap knead at Thor's cock – "That one. Say it again."

"I love you," Thor smiles, leaning in to stroke Loki from head to small of the back, over and over, running fingers up his spine until Loki is all but purring with it, whispering the truth again and again into his ear – "I love you Loki, my Loki, precious Loki," whispering sweet words and Loki's name over and over like an incantation, his most fervent prayer, discovering how much he loves the taste of Loki's name on his tongue. Loki shifts and sighs, his ears adjusting to the strange and curious sound, like trying to understand the noise of the sea –

"Mmm," he hums, his hands in Thor's lap tugging at his belt until he releases that great cock and strokes it firmly in hands that barely fit around it.

"I like it" he nods, and somehow Thor knows that he is talking about his words at least as much as about his cock. Loki kneels above his knees, unfastening and slipping out of his jeans in an almost magically fluid motion. Thor's eyes never leave his face as Loki sucks on his own fingers and twists in a way that should have looked awkward as hell but on him looks like a dance movement as he pushes his fingers slowly up into himself. He smiles down at Thor and to Thor the look is close to angelic, he feels forgiven, and Loki smiles that he can offer it thus without having to say so. Loki shifts, and using his hands on Thor's shoulder as a lever slowly sinks himself down inch by inch onto his waiting cock. Thor's arms twist firmly around his back but it is Loki who sets the pace, biting his lip like a porn star, only for real, as he begins to move slowly as he adjusts to the mighty girth that fills him so completely.

Thor groans and wants, automatically to close his eyes for the extreme pleasure of it but he cannot take his eyes off Loki, not only here, not only having apparently forgiven him but riding his cock and electrifying him with sweeter sensations than he has ever imagined. He watches Loki's face the whole time, alternately thrown back in ecstasy or looking down at him with that curious smile, half delighted, half afraid. Loki's moaning sighs sing in his ears and he tingles at the press of his cock between their bodies. Wrapping one arm around him further to clutch his shoulder Thor snakes his other hand between them to take hold of that cock, squeezing and caressing almost but not entirely gently. Loki's moans become more like snarls and when he leans his head back he can feel the sweat drip from his hair and onto his skin. He growls in delight both radiant and raw and when he looks down, open mouthed into Thor's face again Thor can see how close he is. He jerks his hips up savagely to thrust back and it is too much for Loki, who screams as he comes, holding onto Thor as though for dear life, and shooting hot and powerfully into his hand and across his shirt. Thor feels himself come close behind, and as Loki shudders the vibrations draw out Thor's orgasm as he buries his head into Loki's chest, holding onto him in turn as though he will never let go.

Loki sinks bonelessly into Thor's lap, still clenching around his slowly softening length, burying his face in Thor's neck and – though he wishes there was another word for it – snuggling warmly against him. He has never snuggled before and does not want to admit how good it feels. Over Thor's shoulder, the rising sun flares across the factory ruins more beautiful perhaps than he has ever seen it before, an immense garden of reds and pinks and yellows – and he has never cared less about it, just plays like a cat at the light catching in Thor's hair and illuminating golden strands like rivers in the sunlight. He pulls his face back to watch the play of sunlight and a rough, gentle hand strokes his face, turning him to him to kiss. Loki smiles when they stop, head humming like a dream –

"Don't leave this time" he says quietly, thinking how different this is from last time. Thor shakes his head, looking at Loki mutely, chest tight at the thought of all he could have lost. Loki for his part, cannot believe he has dared ask such a thing and to hide it, buries his face back in Thor's shoulder. Thor holds him gently, almost comfortingly except for how hard he feels he has to hold on, as the sun stretches its shadows across what feel like so much more than one brand new day.

_x_

"Damn" Loki says, eventually, lifting his head and slowly extricating himself from Thor's lap, though all the while staying as close to him as he can possibly stay – "I'm starving – I – I kinda didn't eat –"

"What? Before you came out here how many hours ago?" Thor frowns, guessing that Loki had sat out here almost all night.

"Since – um – I saw you last," Loki admits.

Thor's frown turns into astonishment and then a glare –

"What? Loki, that was six days ago!"

Loki shuffles awkwardly, almost like a shifty child as he gets back into his clothes –

"Sometimes I – er – forget –"

"How?" Thor cannot get his head around it, he knows how cranky he gets if he has to go half a day without eating – "How do you forget for that long?"

"I said I was starving didn't I? I – I –I –" he breaks into a stammer, not having admitted or even mentioned anything like this to anyone before – "Sometimes I'm not so great at taking care of myself –" he looks down, a little ashamed as he gets to his feet, looking away from Thor. Thor rises, turning Loki around gently and holding him tenderly close, not as surprised as he could have been by this information.

"It's okay." He pats Loki's back in a manner more brotherly than anything else – "It's okay Loki, you don't have to anymore."

Loki looks up at him, this is new, this thing where somebody takes care of him, he doesn't trust it but he thinks tentatively that he could really get to like it.

"So" he says – "Volstagg's bar and grill?"

"Oh my god," Thor concurs, his stomach suddenly reminding him that while he may have eaten, it's been nothing but snacks for the greater part of a week.

"By the way," Loki adds, as he hops onto the back of Mjolnir – "When we get back you're cleaning the club and you owe Heimdall for a bottle of absinthe."

_x_

I'm getting so sad – I just realised there only maybe 3-4 chapters of this to go now! I love this story, I've gotten too attached…..may have to do sequel! GOD DAMN!

A further note on my trigger warnings cause I'm wondering – do I over- warn? Like, I don't want to treat anything as minor that I think could hurt somebody because that's just rude. I also don't want to undermine other triggers by just trigger warning everything but I know that what's important to someone is always different from what's important to someone else and I am aware of the huge effects that stories can have. I never want my effects to involve hurting anyone and – well, I've just been thinking about this a lot lately! I am really passionate about usage of correct trigger warnings and….oh I think I'll just have a full babble about this on my tumblr! (I'm shadow-in-the-shade should you care to find me!) Thank you.