Stepbrothers

Chapter Eight

For a wedding, it had been flawless.

Not too much, not too cheap, not too simple, not too cliché... Maybe Larry was starting to look like a lobster in a tux and some guests were a bit loud but otherwise, more than average. It was bittersweet to Loki.

They have been married in the pretty nearby church which neither Loki nor Larry had attended. Loki sadly remembered that sometimes his mother did, just after she's been declared sick... Fran had insisted to go. She wanted the ceremony to be a bit religious because she still had some beliefs. Only Thor and Loki knew the under meaning of that. Thor even murmured to Loki that he didn't understand his mother in that particular matter. Religion was one of the reason she had been sent to hell with Thor's sire, how could she keep some faith after all they went through ? Loki told him to let it go. Thor growled but didn't argue.

Fran wore a beautiful lace and silk cream dress with delicate crimson ribbons, her favorite colors. Indeed, she was a beautiful woman but she looked even younger than usual and twice radiant. Larry looked about to burst, even if the fitted tux was good on him. He was behaving like a kid at Christmas day. Once upon a time, Loki would have silently cursed him for that. That day, he was just smiling and wishing him the best. Sincerely.

Yet, Loki was not a big mushy lump of forgiveness and benevolence, far from it. Deep down he still resented them all for acting as if Francesca Laufeyson had not even existed. He had noticed some of his mother's former girlfriends, mature socialites whose kids Loki grew up with and went to the same schools with, bawling in their handkerchiefs. They had quickly befriended Fran as soon as she had entered Larry's privacy and Francesca was not even mentioned again (though Loki suspected his new stepmother to knew the drill about this mundane, botoxed bunch...). This dramatic display made him mad deep inside. But, hell, why blame Fran for their attitude ? Why blame Larry for wanting to live again ? In the end, Loki himself had to move on…

He didn't look at Thor, he had carefully avoided him the whole ceremony...

Brother dear was another matter.

After the little bomb Thor had dropped, things had calmed down between them. It was all too fast, too much and none of them had time to actually think about what they really wanted. Plus, there was the question of their parents. How long could it last? How long till they found out ? And then, what to do ? Thor would have thrown himself head first into the problem if Loki had wanted it. Loki was a lot more cautious. Well, he wasn't even really sure about his feelings either and he didn't like the idea of taking Thor only because there was no one else. That was not a proper commitment to Loki.

So they have both agreed to let things go for now. A little peace was greatly needed after all this trouble.

The countdown till the wedding came to an end. Loki had acted graceful, Thor had behaved perfectly. It was so uneventful their parents wondered what were they up to. If there was to be a big commotion or something... But no, only the normal excitement before a big event.

Until the day their parents told them there was a slight change of plans. Instead of going the week after the ceremony, they had to leave for their honeymoon in the Caribbeans the very next day for some reason Loki and Thor didn't hear clearly. They brutally realized something.

They were going to be alone in the house for 3 weeks.

3 weeks.

With no one else around.

Of course, Manuelita and José would be here to check on them and the house as usual but they had their own house and their own lives. Besides, José had obtained an interesting job uptown and he wouldn't be around as much. Manuelita would be there more often, since the boys would be on their own, but they were not children and she also had her own things to take care of. So she wouldn't linger.

Meaning that for 3 weeks they would be on their own… In the big silent house.

Instead of being exhilarated, for some reason, it scared them both to hell.

The newlyweds were leaving the church, their two sons behind. Among the global joy, the boys looked sheepish, distant in their nice cream tux with crimson ties, matching the bride's dress. It was a bit cliché but they were too old to be flower children and Fran had no bridesmaids (which was frowned upon as she had indulged neither of her socialite "friends"). They had still not looked at each other. They were officially brothers now, stepbrothers at last, at least. For better or worse.

Neither of them knew if it was a good thing or not.

After church, it was the reception and while his new stepmother and dad were greeting guests, making photos and the like, Loki was wandering aimlessly among the cream and crimson flowered tables. It was a lovely day and the stress of the ceremony was over. He should have been enjoying himself a bit at least. But he wasn't. He wasn't exactly miserable or bored either but the situation was still unfolding and he didn't like it one bit.

The night they had learned they would be on their own for three weeks solid they had become extremely nervous. There were things they wanted to do and things they didn't want to do or even say. And the point was that neither of them were willing to do the first step into that conversation and it annoyed Loki. Waltzing around the problem was not going to be an efficient way.

Several days before, after dinner, for the first time in weeks they had been alone. Their parents went to bed earlier. They were both on the sofa pretending watching junk TV, a meter apart. Loki was totally aware how ridiculous the situation looked. He knew he had to say something if Thor was not making the first move but Thor's passive attitude was really annoying, after all this meddling and over-caring…

They went from strangers to antagonists (at least on Loki's part), to meddlers, to friends, to… what exactly, that wasn't very clear. Thor could have everything he wanted on a silver platter but now he was scared. Loki could obtain so much he never even thought he could have but had no idea if it was appropriate.

Their hands were just inches apart, laying on the couch. Touching each other seemed like launching a bomb. Loki could hear his heart in his ears.

" What do you want us to do ?"

Thor's voice was so unexpected that it made Loki's heart jump.

W- what do you mean ?

Thor sighed.

Loki, it's simple. Either we give this story a step forward or either we forever hold our peace. What do you want us to do ?

Loki didn't like the analogy with the wedding vows, under present circumstances. He didn't like the idea of being forced to choose right here and now. But what to do ?

I don't know, Thor…

That was sincere. Thor sighed again. It annoyed Loki to no end. If only he could stop the drama, the situation was already sufficiently awkward as it was !

Thor rose wordlessly from the sofa and looked at Loki, directly in the eyes. There was no anger, no resentment nor tiredness. Just open frankness.

Loki, I love you. Always have, always will. Whatever may happen.

It was a simple statement of truth, calmly announced.

So whatever decision you make, whether we stop or not, is up to you and I'll respect it. I won't change but I refuse to force you into anything that would make you miserable. What I want is your happiness. I had more than my own share of misery to put it onto someone else's shoulders.

He went away to his room, not looking backwards.

You're my one and only. Stepbrother or not. That's all.

Loki had a hard time getting to sleep that evening.

And here he was, unable to see what he really wanted and the wedding had taken place. Now more than ever, his relationship with Thor was becoming weird. As he was checking the cream-and-crimson labels on each table he wondered where his own place was and not only at this wedding banquet.

When he spotted his name on the main table, he noticed something under the porcelain plate. A cream envelope. Loki thought that was maybe one last wedding prank made by his dad and gave a sigh opening it. He couldn't help but see that he was the only one to have it. There was a card in the same cream color in it. A party surprise or something ?

On the card, something had been printed :

"I'll never stop loving you"

Loki felt himself blush all over.

Curiously, a strange, soothing sort of calm washed him over. As if a heavy load was brutally lifted off his shoulders. His crazy thoughts that have been twirling inside his pretty little head until he got constant migraines, his permanent angst and anger since the arrival of Fran and Thor were now gone, like this. In a blink of an eye.

Who had been there for him ? Who had cared for him all this time ? Who had at least tried to mind him and his needs ? Yes, his father did in a way. But in a distant, silent way. Fran, also. But for evident reasons, Loki remained unresponsive to her attempts. He regretted it. She didn't deserve it. All the others had various reasons to help him...

But none did the way Thor did.

None was a constant presence, constantly worrying like Thor.

And, thinking about it, Loki did something akin to blasphemy.

He wondered if Francesca herself had been as present as Thor.

A disturbing memory, one of those memories you hide deep inside your mind, popped up uninvited. Francesca, sitting at her piano, playing a raging Chopin. Eyes set on her loud music, deaf to a five-year-old Loki, whining something to attract her attention. He was hungry or bored or simply annoyed that his momma was not paying any mind to her little boy. Loki couldn't remember well. The memory ended with his mother brutally stopping in the middle of a difficult part, causing a silence that was even worse than the overloud sonata. She turned her head slowly to her son giving an empty, bone-chilling look. A look he never saw on her ever before or since. There was nothing in that look, only darkness, only... Nothing.

Loki was then taken by an asbolute terror. It wasn't his beautiful momma in front of him, it was the horrible witch from his fairytales book, the one who still gave him nightmares and secretly caused him to wet his bed. Loki was so terrified he remembered opening his mouth to scream to his dadda for help with all the might of his five-years-old lungs. Luckily, that was when a younger Manuelita grabbed from behind before he could yell anything and took him to his bedroom with soothing spanish lullabies she knew he liked.

Loki couldn't remember what happened after or even before. That was the most emotionally violent memory. The others were less traumatizing but they seemed to display the same thing at different moments of Loki's life. Francesca looking wordlessly at the window, ignoring her husband's call. The voice of Francesca, behind the master's bedroom's door, shrieking so much to Larry it was incomprehensible. Francesca in their bed, lying like a corpse...

There were not so many memories, not enough to call this a recurring pattern. Still they were there and Loki had no idea to think they were imagined. They felt too real...

Had Francesca a problem or something ? Long before she got cancer ?

Had everything been as perfect as Loki had imagined it ?

Loki shook his head. Now was not the time. All of this was really weird anyway and he promised himself to ask to Manuelita about this. It was highly unlikely that his father, in his full moment of wedding bliss, was disposed to talk about his late first wife's probable issues.

Plus, Francesca was dead. Dead. She was not going to come back. Period. Larry and Fran would but with a new life ahead. Secretly, Loki prayed to any higher authority available that this new life wouldn't imply something like a pram or a crib in the litteral sense...

All that was left was Thor.

All that Loki could see was his blond, shiny hair, his sky-blue eyes and his constant, annoyingly stupid smile...

They were both in trouble.

Their parents were married, they lived under the same roof, they had to go in different universities and, in Loki's case, in a different town next year. What would they do in the next months ? What would happen on the long term ? Fran and Larry, (well, maybe just Fran...) they would know, they would guess... And then what ? Fran might accept... Maybe, for her son's sake...

But Larry ?

Loki remembered something about his father, something he didn't like at all.

One of the boys in their neighborhood turned out to be transgender. His story had been outed, of course, by another neighbor who had no say in the matter and wasn't even close to this family, but had babbled "out of concern for the community..." Everyone accepted it without any more trouble and no one made any fuss but the damage had been done. That boy's privacy had been trampled on. He avoided school (because bullies from a different neighborhood were on the prowl as Loki had predicted...) and lived like a recluse until his family moved to some other town.

People actually told the indiscreet, "concerned" neighbor that he had royally f**-up and everyone agreed that the matter had been badly handled. Until Larry laughed out loud and declared that "she just had to put a skirt on and everything would have been fine !"

Then, Loki thought his father was simply a tactless, blind fool. Now... It simply exposed his incapacity to deal with those issues. He wasn't mean nor stupid. It just that anything that didn't fit his tiny little world was to be discarded as laughable. A misunderstanding. A funny joke. A girl pretending to be a boy ? Put on a skirt, some make-up, find yourself some good-looking dude and everything will be allll fine.

Then what would happen if by chance he saw his son in the same bed with his stepson and not for innocent reasons ?

Third world war. That what would happen.

On the other hand. Loki was fed up with all of this.

Their parents were living their own life, him and Thor would soon too. Francesca was gone. College time would end as soon as highschool time did. So... Carpe diem.

If Francesca had taught a capital lesson to her son, it was this : life was short, life was unpredictable, life could be extraordinarily good... and monstruously cruel in the same time. One day, you had a beautiful home, a beautiful husband and a beautiful young son. The next, you had a tumor in your brain that would kill you in no time... So... Live while you still could.

Loki stuffed the envellope and the card in his pocket and left the banquet hall. Frantically, he searched the premises, looking for a golden hair top. He was there, laughing with some guests drinking champagne (now that Fran wouldn't like). Loki marvelled at how tall, strong, handsome he was. Loki had changed since Thor had appeared just as another blonde, dumb jock. It was the same boy but a totally different person in Loki's eyes. A man, someone worthy of attention. Someone that had invaded Loki's thoughts to the point he was undeniable.

He managed to get hold of Thor and pulled him out of the crowd. They hid in the men's toilets (hoping no one would come and certainly not Loki's already drunk grand uncle or his bigmouthed cousin...) and then he kissed him. Wildly. As if he had finally managed to have a drink after a long thirst.

He looked into Thor's bewildered eyes.

"I love you too."