10.

He closes his eyes; wanting to disbelieve it as he puts the photo back in the backpack, the bag back under the bed, wondering if he could ever un-see it. Wanting to disbelieve the words that rise from his own unwilling lips –

"Loki -" he whispers – "Brother."

He sits on the trailer floor, unmoving and unaware as it sinks into his brain like lead. Almost all of him struggles to take the information in, erecting a quick, high wall every time, that breaks in an instant, scattering debris through his brain. Then there is the smaller part- the part that worries him, if anything even more- that is somehow not so surprised. The treacherous part of him that he fears guessed it all along but refused to really let him in on it.

How bitterly ironic, he thinks, to have spent his whole life searching, hoping for a reconciliation that now discovered he shies away from. It seems like an eon has passed before his brain even manages to throw up the relevant question – so what happens now? He cannot help but think of all they have already been through, the assorted mish-mash of memory – a montage of meeting, hating, fighting, finding, fucking, loving – until they reached this point that was just starting to feel like perfection. He bitterly thinks that of course, it was just too perfect to be true- and then the rest of his brain kicks that like an angry horse and he shocks himself by arguing back why? Why does this have to change anything? Why can we not simply carry on as we were, and all the better for this new knowledge? His profoundly rooted moral brain wails because it's wrong with no real foothold for the assumption or the clichéd morality that he can really hold on to. He does not want to even try and see wrong in actions that have felt like the only right his life has ever known.

He is still sat on the floor, staring at nothing, when the door hurls open and Loki's rather angry face peers in –

"Thor, where the hell have you been?" he frowns, and comes fully into the trailer, his scowl turning into concern – "Have you even moved since I left you here? What the hell's the matter?"

Thor slowly turns his head and his face, when Loki sees his eyes, is so stricken that it pours cold hurt and fear into him like a torrent of falling ice.

"What?" he asks, unable to keep a shrill note from creeping into his voice – "What is it?"

He sits down as heavily as his slight build allows, and puts what he means to be a calming hand on the back of Thor's neck. Thor jerks at the touch that so usually calms and at the same time thrills him – not wanting it to at the same time as wanting the touch.

"Thor –" Loki hisses, the ice creeping into his voice as the strings of the heart twang like overwrought instruments, more deeply hurt by Thor's reaction than he would like to be – "What the actual fuck?"

"Loki," Thor says flatly, words falling like lead bricks – "We – need to talk."

Loki's eyes flash instantly wild and he looks balanced ready to run or fight. Thor's eyes follow the fingers that twist their way subconsciously to the pocket where Thor knows he keeps a switchblade. He has noticed by now that Loki's hand always moves that way by involuntary instinct at the slightest hint that could make him feel threatened. He also is under no delusions that Loki would be remotely afraid to use it.

"No," Loki whispers, his eyes narrowing into anger that calms him rather than the panic that could consume him – "Nonono you don't Thor, don't you dare – I know we need to talk and you are not leaving me again – you're not, do you hear?"

Thor watches him warily, realising that he is only not actually afraid of Loki right now because he knows he has no intention of leaving. For a moment his hands quiver on the current of not knowing what to do, to take Loki's hands in his seems the safest move – but in the end it is no contest, and he clasps Loki's neck, fingers rubbing into the back of the neck in the way he knows has always calmed him –

Dear god he thinks, with a sudden flash of memory – and so it did when he was a child too.

"Hush Loki, hush –" he murmurs, trying to sound calmer than he feels, and he sees, at very least, that slightly murderous edge go out of Loki's glare – "I'm not leaving you. Never. I promised, didn't I – not even if you try and make me – it's – it's –" How do you say something like that? How do you just drop that out? It's just that you're my brother – oh is that all? "Here –" he says, reaching back under the bed, in his strained confusion going about this in every wrong way that he can – "I found this in your backpack –"

"Well who said you could go through there at all?" Loki snaps, nostrils flaring, breath coming fast in his irrational aggravation.

"You did."

Loki grunts sullenly but cannot deny it –

"And I found this," he takes the photo out again, treacherous fingers finding it so easily. He hands it to Loki, whose face instantly closes up into a semi-blank but still angry mask. His fingers worry the edge of the photo as Thor realises they have been wont to do for years.

"You shouldn't have looked at this" he spits – "This is – this is private." He shakes his head – "What of it anyway?"

Thor looks at the ground and takes a deep breath.

"Loki – I gave you that."

"What?" for a moment Loki looks at him squinting, not quite comprehending, and actually half laughs at what sounds to him like the ridiculousness of that statement. Then he shakes his head –

"Don't be silly – how can you have…." Thor watches it dawn on him, without even being able to enjoy the fact that for once Loki is being slower than him. Then, to his immense surprise Loki shrugs.

"You're my brother. I should have known. There's no other way you could annoy me as much."

Thor blinks, staring at Loki, unable to grasp how he can be taking it so lightly, uncertain if he is taking it lightly – it is so hard to tell with Loki; he cries at the tiniest provocation and shrugs off monumental concerns like nothing, and sometimes, Thor, has learned, he means it that way, and sometimes he very much does not. He is mercurial to the point of extreme confusion, not only for Thor but he suspects Loki confuses himself even more.

"Loki –" Thor says slowly, trying to be careful but failing as badly as ever. "I don't think you understand –"

"Do I not?" Loki looks at him sharply, eyes flashing with that dangerous green flare and Thor kicks himself that in his attempt to make Loki take this seriously, he has only succeeded in making him angry – "Do you think I care? Do you think I have ever cared about the people who gave up on me first? Except to congratulate them in getting in there before anyone else? The Laufeys brought me up like one of their own – more's the pity - and believe me, that's all the family I ever needed – I ran away from that hole when I was twelve and I never looked back. So don't tell me I need to care or even think about people who thought I was good for even less than they did –" Loki's lip curls into a sneer, twitching as he snarls this out, his hand curling into a fist.

"It is a wonder then that you kept this at all," Thor says quietly, more perceptive to Loki's lies – or at any rate omissions – already than Loki would like.

Loki smooth's out the photo he has been scrunching in his palm, and Thor can see from the familiarity of the gesture how often he has repeated this cycle. For a moment it looks like he will just tear it up but then he stuffs it angrily into his pocket.

"So what if somebody cared," he mutters. "How was that supposed to help – you didn't stop me being taken away did you?"

It stings because there is a part of him – the part that he has been trying to drown in whiskey all this time – that has always blamed himself for this, and trust Loki to stab straight to the heart of it - but he can see the look of self-disgust that rushes across Loki's face as the accusation is barely out of his mouth, and he knows he regrets the barb, little though he will admit it.

"I tried!" he protests, he does not mean it to sound as broken as it comes out – "I –I- I – I was twelve, there was nothing I could do. Mother was out, she would never have allowed it either-"

"She's dead," Loki states flatly, and Thor is unsure of whether it is a statement or a question. Nevertheless he nods, and looking sideways at Loki sees a look of distress flicker and fade across Loki's face as though he has only just lost the mother he did not know he had.

"It doesn't matter." Loki adds quickly. Thor frowns, not knowing if it is just this last that he is dismissing or all of it – "None of it," he clarifies, as though reading his mind, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes fierce. "I don't care –" he pauses, searching frantically for something he can add to make this sound more convincing, fails and falls to repeating "I don't care," in a mutter that belies the truth. "And if you do and if you leave – again – well, fuck it I don't even care, d'you hear me?"

He glares at Thor defensively, daring him to call him out on this. Thor does not.

"Loki –" he says slowly. "I love you – I –"

"Well of course you do," Loki sneers, maliciously – "I'm your brother. Tell me, did you lose your hard-on the instant you found out, or are you freaking out because you didn't? Oh, fuck you –" he snaps, without giving Thor the chance to reply, standing up and turning away from him, resting a hand on the kitchen door frame, back to Thor – "You can't even look at me."

Thor stands up, quickly, guiltily realising that it is at least partially true – he has not been able to look Loki in the eye since he came in. Loki, bizarrely, walks over and starts to wash his make-up off in the tiny kitchen sink, watching the water run in white and black streaks down the plug hole and looking anywhere but at Thor. He does it casually – far too casually; Thor can see the hunch in his shoulders and muscles there bunching together so tense it looks actually painful. He feels like a clumsy oaf; however much I love you all I do is hurt you he thinks, hard and hollow in his belly. He wants to hurt Loki less than anything in the world -so then why, he curses himself, why is he so damn good at it? He reaches out to take Loki's shoulder, to turn him to face him, but Loki flinches and twists away before he can even get close –

"Don't touch me!" Loki snarls, baring his teeth like a cornered animal, twisting away from Thor as far as the tiny kitchen will allow, which is not nearly as far as Loki can retreat into himself, so fast Thor can almost see him falling away from him and no way of reaching to him – "I swear I will hurt you," he spits.

"I do not doubt it," Thor replies, truthfully, fighting back because he would rather anger Loki than see him drift further – "Neither do I care. Hurt me if you will I will still love you. I will always love you, I knew it when I first saw you and nothing there has changed. Brother or not there is no way in which I do not want you, no part of you I do not want – only –" he falters, the eyes he had fixed on Loki's stony face dropping away again – "Only – it's wrong."

"Oh here we go –" Loki rolls his eyes angrily, yet with the briefest twitch of a smirk- "Wondered how long it would take you. Who taught you these simpering, apathetic morals I wonder? Was it the same father who put me out with the trash?"

"Loki I swear – if I could have –"

"You couldn't," Loki says shortly, though this time not unkindly – "Don't beat yourself up about it Thor, I –"

"I have spent my life beating myself up for it!" Thor yells suddenly, unable to take Loki's casual dismissal of this fact any longer, though he knows Loki could not have known it – "I have spent my whole life trying to rid myself of his run of the mill morality and judgemental bigotry and ever since I could I have been looking for you - I just thought –"

"You expected better?"

"For god's sake, will you stop these inane and inaccurate assumptions that only justify an anger you do not need to feel? I should have had a lifetime in which to argue with you and tell you to shut up – you will excuse me if I make up for it now – Loki, shut up!"

To his surprise Loki does as he is told and even looks happy about it.

"As you say, brother," he drawls, only half sarcastically.

"I could not have expected better," Thor goes on, almost softly – "What I expected, if I ever dared expect anything, was that when I found you – if I found you it would simply be my brother that I found and not my – my –"

He breaks off. He had noticed and thought that it was only Loki who started to stammer when he became emotional. Apparently they were more alike than he had thought.

"What?" Loki asks, purely quizzical. Thor looks up at him wide, eyed, honest, searching and brokenly –

"My everything," he says simply. He places a heavy hand on Loki's shoulder and this time Loki lets him. He feels the strength of Loki's muscles and the slightness of his bones and through the rush of different feelings that run though him - the mingled protectiveness and nervousness, irritation and desire – are confusing, Loki is right – they are not wrong. His hand clasps at Loki's shoulder and without quite knowing he means to he drops onto his knees, wrapping his arms around Loki's waist and burying his face in his hip.

Strange though it seems, he realises that Loki's reaction was perhaps the right one all along, that in his less discriminatory, less obvious moral code he has, almost unbelievably, been the more honest of the two of them all along. He clings to Loki, unwilling to ever let go.

"Loki I'm sorry –" he chokes out, the words muffled in Loki's shirt – "I'm so sorry, it's me that's been wrong – Loki, tell me what to do –"

"Well –" Loki says, and Thor cannot see his face to know if he really is as calm as he sounds, but he can faintly hear his heart beat and it tells him to suspect otherwise. "You can stop making my shirt damp" – he had not even realised he had been crying – "And you can get of your big dumb knees unless you're planning on proposing while you're down there –"

In truth Loki is unsure what to do at suddenly finding himself in the position of power here – though he is not certain he hates it by a long way - and it alarms him to see Thor so undone. Reassured though Thor has made him in his love, he feels himself perilously close to an admission of his own. He is deeply relieved to feel Thor smile through his tears –

"Would you say yes?"

"I wouldn't not say yes –" Loki begins cagily. Thor looks up at him, eyes like the sea and smile like sunshine and he knows that whatever admission he had teetered on making there would have been true.

"Maybe not this day," Thor smiles.

"Oh thank god. Now please stand up. I would rather not acquire a brother only to have him be an absolute idiot."

"Well I would rather my brother were not a spoilt brat but –" Loki punches him on the arm as he stands up. Thor grins –

"I could get used to this."

He looks at Loki a moment before his smile fades from his lips, stays in his eyes and he crushes Loki close to his chest and they both cling to each other as though the whole world seeks to part them.

"Nothing has to change, right?" Loki says, in the merest whisper against Thor's chest – "This can just – make things better?"

Thor strokes his hair and kisses the top of his head and, even though he cannot touch Loki without becoming aroused, though he can feel his cock rising at the feel of that body against him he whispers the words he has wanted to say, without quite being able to name it, his whole life, words that seem to him magical, an incantation waiting to be uttered –

"It's alright, it's okay now little brother, I've got you, I'll look after you, it's okay."

Loki hears the magic and it sends shivers through him, but shivers that feel so pleasant he does not feel scared enough to run away back into himself. He looks up at Thor and Thor can see the mischief flashing green in his eyes, a spark like a promise –

"Brother –" he whispers, for the first time not in a sneer, but curling his lips around the word lovingly – "I think I may be acquiring a kink."

_x_

Yes, in case you haven't guessed, the plot of the next chapter is "I just discovered you're my brother but we're gonna fuck anyway". Oh yes. And talking, there are still more words to behind. Loki may say the thing. :-)