Fandom: Avengers

Character(s): Thor | Loki | Hela

Pairing(s): mentions of past Thor/Jane

Warning(s): AU, references to Odin's A+ parenting, spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok

Loki slowly came back to awareness, a foul taste lingering in his mouth and a host of dwarfs hammering away in his skull. He groaned, reaching up with one hand to massage the throbbing spot, and tried to work out where exactly he was.

Lying on something soft...so not the Sanctuary.

Covered with something warm...so not his cell.

Hearing something loud and continual and thunderous...so...so...

Loki's eyes shot open and he sat up, ignoring the warning slosh of his stomach as he did so. He was in a bright (too bright), airy room, lying on an overstuffed sofa with six or so pillows arranged behind him, covered in a blanket that was even now twisted around his legs and boots. He glared at it for a moment or two, then winced as another deafening rumble lanced into his head like a red-hot drill.

"Damn." He muttered, extricating himself from the blanket with great difficulty. He staggered across the room, clutching at his head and screwing up his eyes against the late morning light that filtered cheerfully, mockingly in from the balcony. He needed to find the source of The Noise and smother it.

Or stab it.

Whichever method proved less injurious to his aching skull.

Thor was dreaming. Not the good kind of dream that puts a smile on your face even in sleep. Nor the bad, terrible, horrible sort of dream that leaves you thrashing and sweating in your bed. No...this was just the usual kind of dreaming; a mixed bag of good and bad and downright weird.

He saw himself standing beneath the cold blue light of Jotunheim, Loki on his right hand, Sif by his left, the Warriors Three at his back. It was very odd; to both be in a scene and yet observing it from distance (but that is the way it sometimes goes in dreams).

"Know your place, brother!" Thor heard himself spit...only this time he was able to see the way Loki's face shuttered, going studiously blank in an expression that was only too familiar. The God of Mischief seemed to shrink slightly before stepping back behind Thor's heels...only to collapse against the side of the suddenly-materializing airship, face growing gaunter and more wild, eyes bitter and full of rage-filled tears as Thor pinned him and raised a fist to strike...

"Oh, darlings." Thor spun away from Loki to stare at the stern of the ship. Only, instead of Jane's sleeping, fevered form, Hela sat perched on the bench like a great vulture, green eyes gleaming with wicked amusement.

And Mjolnir was in her hand.

The hand that wasn't holding an overflowing tray of shwarma, that is.

Loki glowered darkly and plotted murder.

Thor was curled up in the bed (Loki's bed!), snoring raucously, blond hair matted and flopped over most of his face so that it rose and fluttered slightly with every breath, blankets pulled up to his chin, hammer tucked by the bed's head just next to his boots.

At least he had taken them off before falling asleep, Loki considered. Maybe a maiming would be more appropriate than straight-up murder...

Later.

Definitely later.

After Loki's stomach stopped roiling. Right now what he needed was for Thor to be quiet so he could finish sleeping off last night's foolishness. What had he been thinking, losing control like that? (And with Hela, of all people?!) He hadn't let himself become so intoxicated in centuries...and, he thought with a grimace as the pain lanced anew through his brain, he had no intention of ever doing so again.

"Thor?" He whispered, stooping over carefully to poke the Thunder God's shoulder. "Thor, wake up."

Norns, his head was splitting open! (And, yes, Loki could make that comparison.)

"Thor." He hissed, grabbing his brother for a good shake. "You...oaf!" There were words far more descriptive Loki could have used, but he was decidedly too hungover to bother. He shook Thor again.

Thor's hand shot out like lightning and fastened onto Loki's wrist. Then, before Loki quite knew what was happening, he found himself pinned to the bed, limbs akimbo, one elbow twisted painfully up into the air, his entire frame firmly wrapped in his brother's arms and his nose firmly planted in Thor's armpit.

Eugh.

Loki swallowed hard and tried not to think about, well, anything. "Thor, let me go." He said frostily, trying to pry his brother's grip loose from his back, painfully aware that this was the closest they had been since Svartalfheim...and he didn't need to be thrown into those memories just now. If he could just get hold of Thor's thumb, maybe he could peel the older god off like a tunic. Then Thor would be none the wiser and Loki could forget that this entire thing had ever happened.

He tried to roll over, jostling Thor slightly with his efforts - especially the (mostly accidental) elbow to the gut.

Unfortunately, Thor didn't seem disturbed and merely held on tighter, burying his nose in Loki's hair. "Brother...d'nt go." He mumbled.

Loki squirmed, dismayed beyond all thought by this turn of events. "Thor, you great lout!" He hissed as viciously as he could manage from his prone position. "Let go!" He tugged futilely at the huge arms encircling him. "Unhand me at once or...I may very well puke on you!"

Thor snored on, oblivious to the threat, and for a moment Loki debated the pros and cons of sticking a knife in his (overly affectionate) older brother's chest.

Ultimately, he decided that the endeavor was too risky. Rigor mortis might very well trap Loki here forever. Besides, Thor was currently Loki's only protection against both Hela and the Council, so he sort of needed the lout alive.

Curses.

This was why they had stopped sharing a room when they were children.

(Well...this and the ongoing problem of Thor's deafening snores.)

Loki wriggled, testing the limits of his prison. For one who had been trained in the ways of a warrior almost since birth, Thor was an astonishingly sound sleeper. He always had been. "I swear, brother." Loki said through gritted teeth. "I will turn you into a dormouse and leave you in a snake pit!"

Thor only snuffled in response...but he did loosen his grip slightly; just enough for Loki to twist free, roll over, and promptly fall off of the bed with a thump and a surprised "Oof!" Normally Loki would never have let himself be so clumsy, but he had been terribly off his game ever since encountering the Midgardian sorcerer yesterday. That would have to be remedied. Soon. Right after his head stopped hurting. And when he could see properly again.

Norns.

Loki curled up like a cat under the edge of Thor's (his) bed, yawning slightly and closing his eyes. It was chilly down here, but blessedly dark, and he was too tired to move.

Just before he drifted back to sleep, Loki reached up and caught the edge of Thor's blankets, tugging them down off of the bed to wrap around himself. They were blessedly warm and soft and familiar, and the God of Mischief found himself smirking as he sank back down into the darkness.

Though, that might have had something to do with the spell that had just dyed Mjolnir a vivid shade of emerald.

When Thor woke up, it was with some relief to not find himself in a world where he was forced to undergo a haircut by a deranged, elderly Xandarian armed with a rusty, laser-powered barber kit. He sat up, clutched at his chest, and frowned when he realized that his blankets had somehow completely disappeared during the night.

(A snore from under the bed solved the mystery for him. Loki lay in a little nest of eiderdown and silk and velvet, hands tucked underneath his head, face slack and deep in sleep...but still warm, still breathing, still alive. Thor shook his head. He thanked the Norns for giving them this second chance, even as a large, very significant part of his heart and mind raged against the Trickster for so callously deceiving him. Again.)

He carefully slid out of bed on the other side and padded out into the antechamber. Warm, glorious sunlight streamed in from the balcony, turning everything that it touched to gold. Thor stretched luxuriously and yawned, scratching at his ribs.

A snort-groan from one of the sofas made Thor spin around, heart pounding, Mjolnir already halfway summoned to his fist before he realized that it was only Hela. His...sister.

And just the latest in a long, long list of things Thor needed to figure out.

There came a series of hesitant knocks at the door. "My King...that is...P-Prince Loki?" If voices were capable of wringing their hands, this one most certainly was doing so. "My Prince...are you there?"

Setting his hammer down on Loki's vacated couch, Thor strode over to the doors and threw them open. The Einherjar (a weedy little man who looked as though the armor might weigh more than he did) on the other side gaped, clearly not expecting to be confronted by a larger-than-life, shirtless Crown Prince.

"S-sire...?"

"Yes, what do you want?"

Hel. The man's knees were actually knocking together! Where had Loki found him?! "I...the All-Fath...I mean, Ki-Prince Loki is s-summoned by the Council."

Thor stared. "Who assembled the Council?"

"M-my lord?"

Thor might not have had the same head for politics that Loki had (whenever the God of Mischief actually deigned to use it), but even he smelled something rotten in the state of Asgard if the Council - the curia regis - was meeting of their own volition. It was the prerogative of the king to call the nobles and advisers together...and Thor was fairly certain that Loki had been too busy getting drunk last night to do anything of the sort. So by whose authority had they come together?

Involuntarily, Thor found his hands tightening into fists and he leaned into the guard's personal space. "Who. Assembled. The. Council?"

The guard opened his mouth, but didn't get a chance to answer. There came a soft noise from behind and, as Thor turned around, Hela emerged from her sofa, looking bleary-eyed and not entirely steady on her feet. The Goddess of Death yawned and scrubbed a hand over her face, smoothing back her long black hair...then her eyes fell on the door. Or, more specifically, on the Einherjar. In an instant, Thor saw her fix on the royal insignia and come fully awake, her expression flicking through disbelief, shock, and then terror before settling on pure, unadulterated rage.

"NO!" She shrieked, and a great lance of obsidian hurtled through the air and slammed into the Einherjar, driving him back out of the chambers and into the opposite corridor wall, Hela hard on the weapon's heels. She skidded across the floor with the grace of a deadly dancer and caught the guard by the neck, hauling him up and pinning him to the wall even as another weapon materialized in her free hand, poised and ready to strike. "So, this is the new torment He has designed for me?!" Hela spat, teeth bared into a terrible snarl. "Or have you been sent for my head?"

"LOKI!" Thor roared as the guard's eyes bulged and his face began to purple.

There was a crash and a string of curses from within Frigga's room, but Thor didn't stop to look. With a leap, he threw himself onto Hela and started tearing at her hands, trying to loosen her terrible, choking hold on the guard's neck.

"Sister, stop! Stop!"

Hela bit his hands and kicked out wildly. It was like trying to ride a wild horse...with teeth...and fangs. Thor clung on doggedly, dodging swipes from her blades and shouting desperately for her to calm down. Then one of her kicks hit home (and it was decidedly below the belt), knocking Thor off of her back and across the hall. His head smacked into the lintel hard enough that, for a moment, darkness claimed him.

When his vision cleared, all he could hear was Loki screaming.

TBC...