A/N: So, a long while back, mykingdomforapen won second place in the 400th follower contest, and I never fulfilled one of her promised prizes: a prompt of her choice. Sorry it took so long, but here's your reward — it caused me severe emotional pain, so I hope you enjoy it. It's quite obviously canon-divergent, but I could only deal with one death in the House of Odin so.
Death in the House of Odin
Loki's hands hovered over his brother's slack face. The younger (living) brother's eyes were wide with shock, and his breath lodged in his throat like a hot fire prod.
Thor was dead.
He knew, on some level, that the battle still raged around them – the faint clang of sword upon shield and war screams echoed around him, but the meaning of the sounds did not register with his brother lying there (cold, so cold) before him, Mjölnir lodged in Loki's assailant's skull and Loki's assailant's blade sheathed so cleanly into his heart. Slowly, ever so slowly, his trembling fingers traced his brother's cheeks and cupped his face gently. Loki dropped his forehead to his brother's, and his tears finally spilled off of his lashes and onto Thor's rapidly chilling cheeks. He blinked, and the surroundings rushed back, yells and thuds of mêlée and his older brother's unnaturally still body in his hands.
"You fool," he whispered, his voice cracking with grief, "everyone knows your life is far more valuable that mine."
The echoes of combat had come to cease, and the crunch of rock under hard-soled boot approached. He cradled Thor's golden head to his shoulder and shook with repressed sobs. Whoever happened upon them could do as they wished. Carefully, a shaking hand smoothed over his arched back to his shoulder, pulling him back into a metal-plated chest. The shocked cries above did not resonate with him as much as the barely-breathed words of his captor.
"Oh, Thor." Another hand, slighter than his, pressed into his brother's sun-kissed locks. A beat of silence passed before the hand was removed and the other figures moved to grasp Thor and pull him away.
An alien scream wrenched from Loki's throat, and he threw himself against the strong grasp of his captor. "No! You can't take him, you can't—" He reached out toward his brother, who was being swept up in the large man's grasp. "You can't just take him, stop—!"
"Loki! Loki, we aren't taking him anywhere, Loki, please," his captor begged, her voice breaking between pleas. She wrapped an arm in a firm chokehold and with the other brought up a hand to caress his face, her thumb moving in practiced motions across his cheekbone. She held him through his cries. "Loki, it's us, it's Sif, we're going to take you home. Please," she whispered brokenly, and he stopped scrambling at her confining arm, "we're going to go home." He gasped in air, strung out from his panic, and tucked his head below her chin.
"And Thor?" If it were any other time, he would be surprised at how small and boy-like his voice sounded. "My brother?"
Sif took a shaky breath and pushed her face into his hair. "He's going home, too."
"I don't want to leave him."
"Alright."
"I can't leave him–"
"You won't, I promise. Come, let's go to the Bifrost site." She moved her arms down to his chest and levered him to his feet. Loki walked at her side, guided by her arm secured around his waist. His feet felt like lead. His eyes never left the red cloaked form in Volstagg's grip.
"Heimdall," he heard called faintly, "please retrieve us."
"Wait," he remembered murmuring, "the hammer—"
"It is fine, Loki," Sif soothed. "It is not going anywhere. No one can move it. It will be fine."
The blinding light cut off any protest.
The next days and nights passed in a blur. Funeral preparations, succession rights, Thor's mortal friends –
Jane, and her daughter by Thor.
Loki sat dazed through it all, hardly registering the passing of time. Only Sif and Frigga could break his catatonia for a spell, running careful hands over his pale face to coax him back to the real world to ensure he at least ate. After the plate was emptied, however, his eyes glazed, and his mind was once more realms away on a black soiled battlefield.
The night of the funeral, he followed his mother's lead to the cliffs. Loki did not glimpse Odin; from what he could remember of the past few days, he had not seen his father at all (his father probably had not seen him, either, but truly who could hold him accountable for that).
The prince felt a small but strong hand grip his elbow, and he turned to meet his brother's consort. "I know what happened, Loki," she murmured, her mouth in a grim line. "I know how he died." He stiffened. Of course she did. He wanted to push her away, to retreat back into himself once more, but her insistent tugging on his arm pulled him back to the presence. "I don't blame you." He blinked. "He did this for you, so that you could live, not so that you would die as well. He gave you another chance."
"I've had my fair share," he croaked, the first words to leave his mouth since setting foot in Asgard. "I've always wasted them."
"He always gave you another. Never underestimate how much your brother loved you. But this is the last one he can give, Loki." Jane's eyes softened, and a sad smile graced her lips. "Don't waste it." She squeezed his arm once more, and moved to his mother's right, where her daughter gripped her grandmother's skirts. She gathered her into her arms and stood regally alongside Frigga, with all the bearing of a queen. She would have been one, Loki remembered, had Odin allowed her and Thor to be wed.
One last chance, he pondered as they released the lights accompanying Thor into the golden halls of Valhalla.
He felt a hand slip into his own, and he turned to Sif gratefully.
I think I can manage that.