cxi.

He slammed the papers down on the dinner table. Frigga looked up from her cooking, and Odin's fingers stilled over the laptop's keys.

"When did Loki need to be picked up, dear?" Frigga - his mother, their mother, asked with a genial smile. Then, her eyes fell upon the papers, the yellow-brown document the contained adoption and Loki Laufeyson and your brother has never truly been your brother and-

Two things happened at once: his parents rose up noisily and he demanded, "What is this?"

Frigga froze at the head of the table, her hand flying to her mouth. "Thor," she said, and she sounded uncertain and afraid. She sounded on the verge of tears.

Thor never liked to see his mother cry, especially when he knew that he was at the root of it. But he loved Loki, loved and does love no matter anything and everything that has marred the slate of their history, and if finding out the truth means he must upset his mother, then so be it. "Is there another set of papers I should know about," he said - a challenge, not a question - and Frigga moved to touch him.

"No," she said, her voice small. "No, Thor, you're our son-"

"But Loki isn't," he said. "He isn't." So surely had they called each other brothers, had been called by their parents our son, our children. He always ratiocinated Loki's different physical appearance to be because of some recessive trait in the family genes.

"Where did you find these?" Odin asked, calmly, and Thor only partly heard him.

He sank into a chair and cradled his head in his hands and wondered why he didn't feel at least a little bit glad. Now, his relationship with Loki wouldn't be so wrong because they weren't related by blood - but this did virtually nothing to palliate his discovery.

He loved Loki like a brother and also in a way that he wanted to be with him for the rest of their lives, but those two things were separate; they did not depend on each other. Thor valued Loki like a brother and a lover, but they were brothers for far, far longer, and to break that bond was impalpable.

(But had it ever been a bond in the first place?)

"Please don't tell your brother," his mother pleaded, and Thor flinched at her words.

"What, so you could tell him yourself?" he retorted venomously.

"When we adopted him, he- they told us of his history. He hadn't been a planned pregnancy. When he came out, no one thought he would live past his first week. But when he didn't, his parents - his real parents-"

"When he exceeded expectations by living, his parents put him up for adoption," Thor said, hollowly.

"They hadn't planned for him, Thor, they considered him a mistake. His real parents weren't ready for a child, so they took him to the orphanage instead." Frigga paused to take a deep, shaky breath. "We didn't want Loki growing up knowing those things. We wanted him to grow up loved, with a brother-"

"Yes, because if you want someone to feel loved, you should lie to them!"

"He was already a sickly boy! We weren't blind, we saw how the other children shunned him. We couldn't tell him about his real parents, not when he was already going through so much!"

"When were you planning to tell us, then?" He stood up, nearly knocking the chair over.

The silence was an answer: never. They had never planned to tell them.

"You saw how much he was struggling," he rasped. "You said you saw. Do you think it would make him feel better, to also know that the life he's lived has been a lie?"

"He will never know." Odin continued speaking, frustratingly calm, quiet, and Thor had never wanted to rise up against his father so badly. "We never planned for him to know. You were the one who-"

"Who discovered the truth? Who found something that I - Loki and I - should have known from the very beginning?" Thor grit his teeth: rage was hot in his chest and so was the urge to lash out-

You saw how much he was struggling-

-but so did I so did I-

-I saw and I should have-

-helped him-

-not made-

-made it worse-

-it was my fault too-

-I claim to have been your brother from the very beginning-

-but I so rarely ever acted like it, Loki-

-I'm so sorry I'm so-

-sorry I'm-

Something struck his cheek, hard, and Thor stumbled, hand flying to the side of his face. At first, he thought he had struck himself, if only to quell that fervent voice of guilt, long suppressed, finally voicing itself, but no- it had been Odin. (Their father- his father.)

Thor left the room. He did not look back, did not dare to see if his parents looked as guilty as he felt.

. . .

cxii.

Dinner had been tense that night. Thor felt his parents' eyes on him the whole time, like they were expecting to suddenly pull out the adoption papers.

He didn't.

That night, he had kissed Loki and told him, "I love you, brother," and the last part still slipped out so naturally that Thor almost did not notice.

. . .

cxiii.

He knew they had been drifting apart lately. The selfish part of him hissed: And how would telling him the truth fix that?

. . .

cxiv.

He approaches Loki like one would a wild animal. Bitterness, a little of it, had lingered in his chest since he found out his brother had come to the dance with someone else, though it vanished when he walked in and saw Loki.

"We need to talk about things," Thor says. He wants to tell him about some things, anything, everything-

"Yeah, we do," Loki says.

-but first, this: "There is nothing between me and Sif."

Loki laughs, sharp and cruel and an unnatural sound to be coming from his little brother. "It didn't seem like it when you were kissing her."

Thor shook his head. Sif caught him off-guard when she kissed him for the first time. She was the one who asked him to the dance and he said yes, because there had been a time when Thor did like her more than a friend, and even more because Sif usually never went to dances. If she wanted to go with him, then she must have been serious on some level.

Earlier, he had spent more time thinking about Loki (and the boy he came with) than Sif. Not long after that, Thor came to the decision to tell Sif that he loved her only as a close friend. He had been about to tell her so when he spotted Loki and followed him instead.

But before he can even get a word in edgewise, Loki continues, "I know what you've been hiding."

Where he was going to take a step towards his brother, Thor freezes.

"Why would you..." Loki's voice softens, only to return with more bite: "You knew how much it would mean to me. Why didn't you tell me?"

And the awful thing is, Thor isn't sure which one Loki is referring to.

The first things his mind revert to are the document and the conversation from some nights ago. His parents had been guarded around him - had they thought that he would tell Loki? Did they want to lessen the blame on their shoulders by telling him first?

He searches Loki's face, as if it may relay a hint. "Brother-"

"Don't call me that," Loki cuts in sharply, nearly sending Thor reeling back.

He knows. "No," Thor says, for the first time in his life feeling small. "No, don't say that, Loki-" He knows he knows he knows-

Thor has always been quick to anger, and this is true now: but he is not angry at Loki, he is angry at himself for the things he's done to make Loki renounce him so readily.

"Brothers don't lie each other," Loki says, voice tight. "They don't keep secrets from each other, especially when they know how important it is."

"I was going to tell you." Thor squanders apprehension; there's three steps of distance between him and Loki and he closes that. "I was going to tell you, I swear it," he repeats, looking down at his little brother, one part because he does mean it, a second part because he can't find anything else to say.

"Were you." It isn't a question, but it isn't like Thor would have had an answer.

"I don't understand. Why are you acting like this, Loki?" With the anger, there is hurt. The years they had spent sharing the same bed, playing together, staying up all night under the covers, walking around with that wagon, announcing each other over and over as brother.

Surely Loki remembered those times?

Loki looks as if Thor had struck him. "Acting like this?" he echoes. "You make it sound like I'm the one at fault here!"

"That's not what I was trying to say!"

"Then what? That I'm not allowed to feel hurt at the fact my own brother lied to me?"

"It. Wasn't. My. Fault!" On impulse, Thor's hand shoots out to grip Loki by the shoulder, shaking him once. He knows he shouldn't get angry, but he can't help it - how could Loki say these things? "I hadn't known much longer than you did! I'd found out just three days ago."

"Liar!" Loki hisses, and the anger spikes.

"And I defended you too, you know! The papers, every damn one of them, they all said you weren't my brother, that you never were - but I still call you my brother now, don't I?"

Loki's green eyes stare up at him, now bewildered.

"We've fought in the past," Thor continues, his voice becoming thick. "But I never once stopped wanting to protect you."

"Stop, Thor," Loki utters, and Thor's barely aware of his hand now gripping the back of Loki's hair.

Thor doesn't let him get away, keeps his hold tight.

Stop just listen to me stop making accusations before I can even explain-

"I never once stopped loving you! And in return, you... you call me a liar?"

-just shut up shut up shut up shut up-

"The only reason I didn't tell you as soon as I found out was because I didn't know how to do it without hurting you, because I loved you, I love you, remember? Or do you not remember that, too?"

There are fingers scratching at his wrists, demands barely registering in his mind.

Thor sees nothing, feels nothing, hears nothing except his own words:

"Maybe you're right. Maybe we aren't brothers, after all."

He shoves Loki back. There's a cry of his name, splash, but he's deaf, he's blind, he's numb. He's angry and hurt and why did Loki have to say those things and get him angry, why why why-

The door to the pool slams shut behind him, and then he's back in the dance and there are people clamoring around him but right now all he sees is red, red like the-

. . .

cxv.

-color of the cloth that he draped around his little brother's shoulder. "There," Thor said, beaming with the pride of a nine-year-old. "Weren't you cold, Loki?"

"No," Loki replied, never wanting to admit his own vulnerability. At Thor's exaggeratedly dismayed face, he relents, "But I'm warmer now."

"Good." Thor smiled, putting an arm around Loki's shoulders and sitting next to him.

It was the evening and he was sent to fetch his brother, and after searching every room in the house, he had finally found Loki on the front porch, singing to himself.

"You're like a bird," he sometimes told Loki, to his younger brother's chagrin.

Thor told him this now, and after glancing at Loki and the way the cloth almost swallowed the younger boy's slight figure, he added, "Like a little red bird."

"Shush," Loki said, not looking at him. His eyes were focused on the sky. "I want to watch the moon."

They were supposed to be getting inside now, but Thor saw no harm in indulging him. "Fine," he said, and settled back on the steps until he was comfortable, an arm still around his little bird.