Your Footsteps Lead Everywhere I Go:
It was common knowledge that royalty now walked amongst the stars.
Adrift from everything he once was and had been expected to become, the Prince who would be King became, instead, nothing more than tales spun in taverns for the slack-jawed yokels of the universe, eager for stories of power and failure, and Loki gave them both in spades.
He was the lone performer on the galactic stage with this single strange tale to tell, and he loathed it as much as he found pride in it.
That was why, after just over a decade of the sort of notoriety that one could only buy with a smile sharper than the daggers he never kept further from him than the tips of his fingers, he was dumbstruck to find himself inadvertently the member of an unwitting double act.
Thor.
The King that was and should have always been had apparently hurled himself into the galactic fray one too many times and was now himself rudderless as he befriended and battled his way through his days, his name casually tossed about alongside Loki's in a way that Loki hadn't heard in… ever, possibly.
Loki rolled his eyes within whichever form he was wearing each time either name crossed his path, generally spoiling both his appetite and his visit to whatever drinking hole he'd settled in to better catch the drifting gossip of the cosmos, spreading his own rumours in turn, to shape the journeys yet before him, when finally an interesting tidbit crossed his path.
"Asgard's greatest warrior, Earth's mightiest hero, and what do I find? The love child of a tub of goo and a drain clog! You'd have thought from the way some of those uppity 'Galaxy Guardians' go on about him that he'd be a statue hewn from the stone itself and as fertile as the earth on Asgard in the spring! So I say to myself, Skrilla I say, you've been waiting for that no good Gurdrin to do right by you for far too long, perhaps it's time you tried royalty… Well, they always made such a fuss of his beauty and of the brother's mind, I think I'll go looking for the lost prince next time, perhaps being on the run for all these years will have kept him leaner than his lard-blob brother!"
Loki had fought down his impulse to join the conversation with far too much force for just an idle whim, finally closing his ears to the irritating harpy's chatter as he considered her words, her veritable outrage at finding his pseudo-sibling to be less than godly.
It had been a hard few years for Loki, for Asgard and now for Thor as well, it seemed.
Loki was a master of seidr and a long-time scholar of the mysteries of the universe, so it hadn't taken him long to realise that he had somehow sloughed his fated path to follow a new, unmarked one even as he watched his footprints set in entirely different places across the cosmos.
He'd struggled with himself to hear how both he and Thor had fled the palace in the wake of their mother's murder, how only Thor had returned, grieving and alone to reject the throne entirely. Loki had become a ghost, more than that, a legend, with tales of his misdeeds and heroism gracing his ears in a multitude of twisted whispers across the worlds.
Loki, who worked as ally to Thanos and all to spite his brother… the prince who died to save his brother… the King who hid his father in the shadows and took the crown, finally for his own… who died at the hands of the goddess of death… who burned Asgard to dust for its crimes… who betrayed Thanos and died at his hands, all to save his brother.
Loki, who watched Thanos live and die from a distance, who heard of Asgard's ruination, his parent's deaths, who died again and again and lived on to tell the tale, unable to keep from wondering which one of him had taken the right path or if there had ever been a right path for him at all.
And now Thor - not just back out amongst the stars, but seemingly putting right what he deemed as wrong as he forged allies and enemies in turn, becoming a legend in his own right – was not only failing to live up to his own hype but apparently making Loki look good by comparison.
Well, that seemed worth a look.
It seemed unlikely that the sadly disappointed Skrilla would have journeyed far to attempt her shot at the crown jewels as it were and so Loki let the fine threads of his seidr carry on the intergalactic tides as he finished his meal and then his drink until… ah, there.
A flicker, a taste of power so familiar it could almost be his own pulsing back at him from across the stars and seemingly not that far away.
Summoning Skrilla's purse to pay for his meal with her coin (for no reason other than the smile it brought to his face as he gleefully swanned out,) Loki set out to ideally witness the apparent shit-show his erstwhile brother had apparently become.
He slipped into one shadow and emerged from another on a different world, moving from morning to night as easily as stepping over a puddle.
Loki sighed. He did miss the tesseract at times, he'd learned much from its power but chief amongst his lessons in his short time in its presence had been the knowledge, the almost absolute certainty that it would lead to his demise.
He'd heard that it was supposedly being kept in the vault of Asgard back around the time his mother had been killed and so he'd snuck in and left it, pausing just long enough to witness the horror of her funeral, spiriting himself away before he could give in to the urge to see if the rumours were true and he himself was somehow there imprisoned beneath the city as well, even as he ran, free and unencumbered and afraid.
He shook himself loose of such regrets as he made his way up through the winding streets, almost too eager to witness what the fates had supposedly done to Thor – Thor, who had apparently restored Nidavellir by just the force of his might – as he followed the leading thread of his seidr to the inn at the centre of the bustling market town.
Loki watched from the darkness, stood somewhere between the shadows and light as the inn's staff busied themselves about him. He plucked an apple from a tray as it passed him by, listening idly to the everyday gossip of their little lives – who was sleeping with who, what was being said about it, who was going to tell them what was being said about it etc. etc. – and enjoying the ripples, tides of the mundane washing up against the shores of his far greater reality for just a moment, only to be washed away by greater waves.
"Janna, fresh linens for the Asgardian and he'll want breakfast for the morning too."
A snort, in response.
"Pity he's not staying longer than the night, seems like he could have kept the butcher and us both in business if he'd wanted to eat dinner here for the week!"
Loki beamed.
It seemed that the rumours of Thor's change of circumstance were more accurate than he could have hoped for, between the scorn of the last tavern and this one, Loki was starting to imagine he might yet discover an aurochs in his brother's cape upstairs.
Having built his anticipation up to the point of a roaring inferno behind his smile, Loki stepped into the guise of the housemaid he'd just seen sent down to the basement and slowly made his way up the narrow staircase.
He had withdrawn his seidr to him upon entering the establishment, not wanting to alert Thor or anyone who might be travelling with him or sensitive to such things, and as he climbed the staircase Loki couldn't help the smugness that rose in him, able to taste which room Thor was in, by just the familiarity of his aura, the flavour of lightning on the air as Loki veiled himself in shadow and stepped through into Thor's room.
Loki stopped, dropping his veil immediately as fury rose through him until it exploded from behind his teeth in a low, angry hiss.
Thor, unheeding of Loki's presence thus far, sat with his back to him, examining some sort of scratch on his leather hauberk as he sat, lovingly polishing it on a small stool by the windows, his attention half on the sky beyond the rooftops and half on his task as Loki took him in.
Loki was going to go back and skin Skrilla.
Thor wasn't fat, he was large certainly, but anyone who had ever fought alongside Volstagg would recognise the addition of a beer gut and the relaxing of his muscles into excess flab as something easily fixed, should the owner of said gut feel it necessary. Volstagg had never found the need to shed his extra pounds when charging through a battle with the force of a rancorous herd of bilge snipe, and Volstagg was no Thor.
Loki sighed, letting his eyes drift about the space in search of any additional information to make up for the lack of decent mockery fodder and his seemingly wasted trip, before settling on the weapon propped against the wall, just feet from Thor.
So, it was true then.
Stories abounded about the destruction of Odin's greatest gift to the heir to his throne, just as they had at the destruction of his realm, rumours of another sibling rising from the ash, her legacy mostly too terrible to be spoken of, even as Loki tried to ferret out the truth of his own seeming involvement.
Mjolnir was gone. Asgard itself, Odin and even Frigga by the Norns, all gone and Loki had no real clue as to his reality in this new, empty world beyond the man who sat before him, older, larger and seemingly more contemplative.
Fuck it.
"So, I'd heard you'd demolished Asgard down to its very foundations, but they failed to mention that you'd apparently devoured its remains."
Thor was up and off of his seat by the end of Loki's first word, his hand outstretched to the elongated hammer and axe combination that Loki had heard spoken of as the Stormbreaker, but the weapon didn't so much as quiver in its resting place, a stark contrast to the tremors that seemed to race throughout Thor's form as he stood, just staring at Loki.
Loki waited for a beat, watching Thor seemingly struggle to breathe, before rolling his eyes at him,
"What? Cat got your tongue, has it? I hope it returns, I imagine you could feed its whole family for a month and…" Loki blinked, "What happened to your eye?"
"Loki," Thor choked, unfreezing as a tear dropped from his one still blue eye, streaking down his face to tangle in the thick, dark braid of his beard, his hands outstretched before him now, seeking Loki, not his hammer, "Brother…"
Loki held a hand up, stalling the onward rush of words and sentimental affectation before they could begin, his teeth bared to hold Thor at bay.
"Not your brother," Loki spat, still furious after all this time it seemed, "or are you as addled as that beer gut would suggest?"
Thor stepped back as though slapped, his arms crossing before his naked torso, chin dipping as though in shame before seeming to recall himself enough to straighten his spine once more, meeting Loki's gaze head-on.
"My… my apologies, Loki. What brings you here? I… I hope you have been well?"
Loki gaped.
"You hope I have been well? I haven't seen you since you allowed that great green oaf to use me like Mjolnir, since you slapped a muzzle on me and you want to know if I'm well?!"
Thor drew in a long, slow breath, the action somehow highlighting the weight of years upon his brow that Loki had not noticed before as his eyes, one blue, one jarringly wrong raked Loki from head to foot.
"I've lived a very different life to the one you know, both beside you and without you. I had not even been sure you still lived in this timeline, it… it does my heart good to see you here, I am glad that you at least appear to be well, yes."
Snorting, Loki crossed his arms behind his back, enjoying the way Thor's eyes darted to where he could no longer see his hands, glad to find this Thor at least had learned to not underestimate the importance of watching for his knives.
"You would have me believe all that I have heard to be true then? You apparently slew Thanos but a few months ago yet also fought in the same war that erased him on Midgard? Not to mention you both burned our home to the ground and fought valiantly against our, your sister as she did the same before your very eyes?"
"It was actually you who released Surtur to destroy Asgard, but it was I who asked you to use the eternal flame to do so… and it was also then that she, um, tore one of my very eyes from me."
Dropping his gaze, Loki kept his reactions internal as part of him danced, elated and joyous at the thought of being the force that brought Asgard to its knees, to dust, even as another part of him choked and howled for the home he'd known - his books, his mother's gardens - and the rest of him was seething.
"She… tore out one of your eyes?" He said quietly, surprising himself as the words burst forth, instantly irritated as Thor chuckled, softly.
"I did hear a version where I tripped and took it out myself on Stormbreaker if that's preferable?"
Loki raised at brow at Thor, "So many different versions of so many different stories – perhaps Liesmith was attributed to the wrong Prince of Asgard, hm?"
Thor sighed gustily and moved to the foot of the bed, lifting a cotton tunic from atop the blanket and shrugging into it with another dip of his chin and a slight flush to his cheeks.
Loki scoffed, unable to help himself.
"You know, for all I somewhat doubt the veracity of your recent tales of glory, I had never doubted your memory, or your fidelity until now."
The flush faded from Thor's cheeks with such speed that he was ashen by the time Loki had finished speaking and Loki took note of Thor's new, thinner skin for later.
Huffing; irritated, amused and indignant all at once, Loki burst out, "Volstagg!"
Thor blinked, confusion washing the tide of shame from his face, "What…? He, that is, he died at our sister's hand, as did Fandral and Hogun… what, what of him?"
Loki moved forward, slowly closing the gap between them with precise, careful steps, his expression smooth, gently inquisitive instead of quietly furious (as he surprisingly found himself to be, and on Thor's behalf no less.)
"He was brave, was he not?"
"Aye, one of the bravest and truest men I ever knew." Thor's smile was warped with sadness, more a grimace than anything else as Loki took another casual step forward.
"And mighty, yes?"
A crack of laughter rent the air between them, warm with nostalgia and Loki had to bite his cheek in his efforts to not be charmed by it, the sound redolent of joyful centuries past.
"The mightiest! Why, I recall him taking on two battalions alone purely because you told him it was not possible, and he alone was able to hold off the-"
"Virile also? If I recall, before he was wed his appetite for the carnal pleasures was known to exceed that which he had for the dinner table, was it not? And once he was wed, well, how many was it he had by the time I left – 11 or so wasn't it?"
"Why, um, yes, I believe that is-"
"So you do recall him then? As he was? Powerful, manly and generally admirable in every way?"
Thor nodded, slowly. Comprehension was dawning in his eyes, the colour flooding back to his cheeks as he held Loki's gaze, the space between them reduced to the few inches between their toes as Loki reached out with two fingers to tweak the material of Thor's tunic.
"Take this off."
Thor's brows drew together, and Loki sighed.
"Take it off, or I'll reduce it to ash upon your skin."
There was something electric beneath Loki's skin, something that dragged its nails over his nerves each time someone spoke Thor's name in the years since he'd last laid eyes upon him, something that burned in his chest each time he heard thunder crack the skies and Loki felt shivery with rage at the helplessness of his reaction.
He watched as Thor swallowed, drawing the tunic back up over his head, finally breaking their eye contact and allowing Loki a moments relief.
Thor dropped the tunic to the floor in a whisper of fabric, swallowing as Loki stood back to eye his plump chest and soft stomach with as severe a look as he could muster with the breadth and might of Thor's shoulders and now even more substantial arms in his periphery.
He sniffed disdainfully and felt the rage twitch higher at Thor's dropped and chagrined gaze.
"The galaxy counts us as kin, for all I might dispute it. If I am to have my name shackled to yours for all eternity, then I wish you would try harder to not be an embarrassment to me."
Loki waited for Thor's dejection to emerge, this time in the form of a flinch disguised as a blink, before surging forward to seize Thor by the thick braid of his beard.
"Who are you and what have you done with the vainglorious fool who once called me brother? I may have delighted in stabbing him from time to time, but I would as lief take him than have you stand before me, cowering as a maiden caught without adequate corsetry! Are you not a man such as Volstagg? Would Volstagg not have killed to be half the man you are? Are you not a KING, brother?"
Thor shook his head minutely, tears gathering on his lower lashes, "I ceded the crown… I was, not fit to rule."
Loki blinked.
"Well, obviously, Thor, I've been saying so for centuries. But, since when has that bothered you?"
Thor closed his eyes, his immense shoulders sagging.
"Since there was no one else left… No Father, no Mother, no you at my side to make it bearable. I tried to find joy in helping our people start afresh but I… I could not…"
Thinking for a moment, Loki lifted a hand, palm forward, waiting for Thor to open his eyes once more so that he might understand what Loki was asking – not taking mind you, but actually, for once, asking – of him.
Thor opened his eyes, the one true eye reddening with grief, widening as he saw Loki's proffered hand.
"Show me?" Loki smiled sharply, batting his eyelashes and waggling his fingertips, relishing Thor's recoil of horror.
"Unless you have learned to look without forcing your victim-"
"Volunteer," Loki corrected with a few more teeth showing in his smile, all the more determined to have his way, now that he had seen Thor's immediate rejection of the idea.
"Unless your volunteer no longer has to endure the feelings that accompany the memories, then I very much prefer to tell you what you wish to know, Loki."
Loki arched a single brow, a talent he had learned at his mother's knee and that he found still held some power as Thor blinked rapidly beneath Loki's disapproving stare.
"What I wish, Thor is to see the truth of these things for myself. Wherever I go, I am assailed with tales of my doings that are simply not my doing. I remember things that do not seem to be in one instance, and yet are an absolute fact in another. It's rumoured that you and your pet mortals reordered time to suit yourselves and I would see it for myself, thank you."
He lifted his hand higher, and Thor retreated briskly backwards, his shoulders against the wall faster than Loki could say 'forgotten battle tactics'.
"Please, do not ask this of me. You cannot understand… living through these years, through my mistakes, haunted by the memories of all I did wrong, all I could not save… I drank myself into a stupor for five years to avoid thinking of it, please do not ask me to relive it!"
Retracting his hand to tap a finger ponderingly at his jaw, Loki slowly advanced.
"This is an awkward situation, is it not? You have something I want, that being vital information that I, unfortunately, cannot trust you to impart fully without my own hand steering the process as it were… there must be something you want in turn? Some confession I might make to answer oft queried accusations? The answer to how I came to both be in the library and in mother's garden that time when we were children perhaps?"
His voice was smooth, syrupy with entreaty and something in Loki twisted, knowing the Thor of only a few decades past would never have been taken in by it whereas the Thor before him seemed hungry for any interaction with Loki he could get, manipulation included.
Thor's chest heaved for a second, and he appeared to steel himself, straightening to stand as Loki had always known him, majestic with a stubborn streak likely forged in Nidavellir itself.
"And you will give me whatever it is I ask for in exchange?"
Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"Within reason, yes, obviously."
Something horribly like a wobble skated over Thor's lower lip before he could shape his reply.
"Then I wish to hold you and, and to be held by you in turn. For at least a minute."
Loki couldn't help his sneer, his lip rolling back even as he recoiled slightly, his arms crossed over himself as though he could pull barriers up about himself by the tightening of his form.
"I'm sorry, did you just agree to let me comb through the most painful memories you possess for the price of a hug?"
Thor swallowed.
"I... you offered me one once, before and then Heimdall knocked on my door, to summon me to the bridge and, and I wished so much afterwards that I had spent just a minute more in that room with you because it was only a few hours later that Thanos, that he… he killed you and I… um, yes. I would like a hug, I'll do what you ask for a hug, Loki."
It was like when he had summoned the ice to form about him, the casket of ancient winters a distant memory but still, Loki felt as though he'd been frozen in place.
"That. Was. Not. Me." He carefully enunciated, trying and failing to keep the snarl from his voice going by the sadness in Thor's eyes, both the blue and stupid goldish green blurring with anguish.
"Yes," Thor ground out with more force than Loki had been expecting from this seemingly broken, softer Thor, "He was. He's the 'you' that you never got to be, the you who came back to save our people and me when he knew I could not defeat our evil sister alone. You may have lived a different life these past few years, but it's nothing compared to the years that lay behind us. He was you just as I am the same brother you grew with despite my living an entirely different reality to yours. I know it's an uncomfortable thing to hear, but you do not get to take that, take him from me, understood?"
Something in Loki's gut writhed with envy and rage combined even as he shrugged dismissively.
"As you will," he sniffed, "So, it's agreed then? A minute-long hug for a look from where our paths diverged onwards?" He lifted his hand again, and Thor flinched.
"Wait! You… you want to see the past… what, twelve years? That's too much, I've seen you fell men just from looking at the length of a single battle!"
"Yes, but that was looking for details I did not know and had no connection to, whereas you are going to guide me – you're going to think of me after the battle on Midgard, and you're going to carry on thinking of me unless I ask you to stop."
Thor looked pale again, and Loki bit back a sigh.
"I will, of course, do my best to not hurt you any more than the memories do themselves, alright? Now, would you like your payment first, or after?"
He held his face in a carefully blank expression, refusing to let the idea of a mere embrace visibly perturb him, Thor's nerves more than apparent enough for the both of them.
"You give your word that you'll go through with it if I don't take it upfront?"
"Thank you so, so much for that phrasing Thor, I don't feel at all like some sort of hugging whore now."
Thor rolled his eyes hard enough that the apparently cybernetic one had to realign itself and Loki bit the inside of his face to keep from openly enjoying the echo of his old, easily frustrated playmate.
"Do you swear it or not? I feel I'm likely to be more in need of comfort afterwards so I would prefer to have it then if you will but keep your word."
Loki glowered. "Fine, I do so swear, but you are not crying on me you sentimental oaf, understood?"
Thor nodded slowly before drawing in a long breath through his nose, tilting his forehead down towards Loki's upstretched palm with the same stoic expression Loki had seen him don before heading into battle.
Ignoring the odd pang the memory gave him, Loki placed his palm over the warm curve of Thor's brow and went in search of new ones.
Oh…
He was in New York again, gazing down at his own face as Thor urged him to help him stop it, to fight the Chitauri together and Loki saw tears in his own eyes the moment before he drove his favourite push knife between Thor's ribs… then, ah, there he was, dragging himself from the imprint of his own body into the solid marble floor.
Thor's mind skittered away, seemingly bothered by the recollection of Loki's battered face, a rumble of genuine irritation rippling through from Thor as Loki snorted in derision.
It didn't bother you enough to keep you from muzzling me before my blood had ceased to trickle down my face…
Quiet. Just because I did my duty doesn't mean I liked it.
Images whirled and eddied, and Loki found himself staring at a distinctly rumpled version of himself, his hair wild as though he'd clutched and torn at it, his eyes swollen to mere slits, blood and what looked like ash smeared across the gleaming, overly lit walls of… oh. The cells beneath the palace.
"Did she suffer?" asked his imprisoned self, gravel-voiced and Loki couldn't help himself.
Was this… am I talking about Mother?
Thor's thoughts were spinning and cycling again before Loki could heed Thor's desperately thought negation, his shout echoing in Loki's skull and mixing with Thor's abject howl of anguish as he rounded the door in time to see some gigantic beast pulling its enormous blade back out of their lifeless mother.
I couldn't save her.
Thor's voice reverberated against Loki's inner wail, and before he could respond, he saw himself, huddled against the steering column of an Asgardian floating skiff, his eyes wild as the Thor of the past reacted to his apparent barb, their words still all but hovering in the air between them.
"Was that her last expression? Trust? When you let her die?"
"What help were you in your cell?"
"Who put me there, WHO PUT ME THERE?!"
Loki felt Thor's speed, his force as he rushed at his other self, one fist upraised.
The blow never fell, and Loki felt the shame and self-recrimination wash through Thor at just the notion of raising his hand to him, his own oddly luminous gaze holding Thor's as the scene blurred and sped about them, changing even as their voices rang through the chaos.
"I wish I could trust you."
"Trust my rage."
And then, dizzyingly they stood before a crowd of what appeared to be Dark Elves from the tales their Mother had read to them at night, the same gargantuan brute who had slain her stood amongst them. Thor writhed, partially dismembered at their feet before bellowing Loki's name, his lost arm gleaming back into being with a swift glow of Loki's seidr and then everything ran together in a mess of blood and violence.
Whilst this is all fascinating, Thor, I don't need a blow by blow of every battle we-
Loki's thought trailed off abruptly as he watched Thor come within an inch of death it seemed, only to be saved by Loki's alternate self, mere seconds before the beast that slew their mother apparently slew Loki then, in turn.
"See you in hell, beast!"
Loki reeled; not because of the image of himself with a hole gouged through his chest (although that was actually somewhat transfixing in its awfulness, how had he ever survived it?) but because the roar of grief that ripped from Thor's lips was nothing to the veritable inner tsunami of anguish that accompanied Loki's seeming death.
"I'll tell Father what you did here today..."
"I didn't do it for him."
Torrents of misery and loss rose up and through Thor.
The memory was as fresh for him as though he had just experienced it for the first time all over again, and the unfairness of having to forge onwards, of having to leave Loki's body atop the dry, black sands with nothing to honour him with, bar a lock of his hair wrapped around Thor's fist, hurt him.
Being forced to leave half of himself behind to go and save the nine realms once more almost destroyed Thor and with it Loki's mental link with him, the buffeting force of it, Thor's monumental upwelling of grief actually stunning Loki into silence.
He clung on, unable to breathe past the weight of Thor's sadness, only to find himself spun away again, several memories clashing before him.
Thor's voice, oddly dangerous as he glared at what looked like a strangely nervous Odin.
"Every night, I see Asgard fall into ruins…"
Then Thor was glaring, the hurt and irritation fighting for dominion in him as he glared at another version of Loki, black-clad in Midgardian fashion.
"I can't believe you're alive, I saw you die! I mourned for you, I cried for you!"
"I'm… honoured?"
Exasperation rolled through Thor, the sensation quashed by an odd sense of relief as well as swiftly rising fury, the two of them suddenly standing on a clifftop, facing Odin looking older and more fragile than Loki had ever seen him, a hint of flames and lightning and destruction distorting the memory for a moment.
"Every night I see Asgard fall into ruins…"
"We're all dead, can you not see? You're a destroyer Odinson."
"Bold move brother, even for me."
Loki blinked at the image of his own face, his own smile, warm and impressed for all he looked mildly terrified, the memory reshuffling to his face again, distant now, crowned by his favourite horned headdress, seemingly altered to no longer crush his hair flat beneath it as lightning spilt over the edges of Thor's vision.
He looked down with Thor's remaining eye to where Loki stood upon the Bifrost, his smile terrible and deadly for all it was small, his pride in Thor a palpable force as Thor appeared to hurtle and twist with his own lightning strikes, killing dozens of enemies about him as he went, bolstered by his brother's presence beside him.
Loki tried to gather himself and Thor with him, to focus on the dark presence he could feel at Thor's back in that memory, the gaping chasm where his eye used to be cold with agony, and yet the memories spun again without his will to guide them and Loki found himself looking at a reflection of himself, stood several feet behind a now newly eye-patched Thor.
"It suits you."
"Maybe you're not so bad after all, brother."
"Maybe not."
"If you were here I might even give you a hug."
"I'm here."
Thor's head spun again, and Asgard erupted into flames, Surtur as tall as a mountain at its heart.
Odin dissolved into golden dust on a breezy clifftop, and an honest to gods witch appeared to step from a portal as his shadow left the grass.
"Loki, I thought the world of you, I thought we were going to fight side by side forever…"
Loki caught a bottle top in the mirror again. "I'm here."
Loki writhed, teeth bared as Thor smirked above him, whatever leftover smugness lingered in the memory washed away beneath a tide of grief again.
"Dear brother, you're becoming predictable. I trust you, you betray me, round and round in circles we go. See Loki, life is about… it's about growth, it's about change, but you seem to just want to stay the same. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you'll always be the god of mischief, but you could be more."
The bottle top smacked neatly into Loki's palm again.
"I'm here."
A shadow descended, blocking the whole of space and light beyond it and Thor's world lit up with agony unlike any he had ever previously endured, the bodies of his people scattered about him in the purple, burning glow and Loki, rigid with stress and horror, bellowed "ALRIGHT, STOP!"
No, no please, Thor's voice echoed through his connection to Loki, his pain mounting faster, harder than his heartbeat in the memory, bound there in place on his knees before Thanos as Loki turned to hold Thor's eyes, with such affection and solidarity that Loki felt his cheeks flush beyond the memory's walls.
"I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again."
No, no I can't, Loki PLEASE
Loki stood before Thanos, but his eyes were all for Thor, "I, Loki, Prince of Asgard… Odinson… The rightful King of Jotunheim, God of Mischief, do hereby pledge to you, my undying fidelity."
No… no, don't make me watch… not again…
"Undying?" Thanos sneered, "You should choose your words more carefully."
And closing his gargantuan fist about Loki's throat, he lifted him into the air as Thor thrashed and fought within his muzzle and bindings.
"You… will…. Never be… a god…" Loki spat as best he could, voice already wrecked from the tension at his throat, his words full of spite and venom, his eyes sickeningly filled with fear and an awful resignation as Thanos locked eyes with Thor and casually snapped Loki's neck.
Loki split himself, the one part of him genuinely stricken to see himself so helpless, so broken as he hung from the sadist's fist. The rest of him was fighting to hold the connection, the rage and horror that roiled up from the depths of Thor's psyche almost too much for him to restrain as his past self, howled behind his muzzle. The memory was spinning away again to just before it had been placed upon his face as Thor choked on the horror of watching his people, of watching Heimdall (Norns, he'd been Guardian since before they were born) slain at the Titans hand.
"You're going to die for that…"
Now Thor was crawling, collapsing over Loki, "No… Loki..."
Then he was weeping over his body even as Thanos left him there to die amongst the masses of Asgard's fallen warriors. Loki felt sick, not at the sight of his own broken body (although actually, he possibly could have done without that) but at the fractured jagged edges of Thor's raw, wretched consciousness rippling all about his.
"I thought we were going to fight side by side forever…"
"I'm here…"
"I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again…"
"No… Loki…"
The bottle top met Loki's skin with a smack again, and again, "I'm here… I'm here…"
Space, an ill-lit cockpit as Thor, his gaping eye socket a black hole in the surrounding darkness, slumped beneath a blanket, appearing to talk to a Midgardian rodent of some kind.
"You know, I'm 1,500 years old. I've killed twice as many enemies as that, and every one would have rather killed me, but none succeeded. I'm only alive because fate wants me alive. Thanos is the latest in a long line of bastards, and he will be the latest to feel my vengeance."
Loki would have scoffed but for all Thor's words were foolhardy at best and arrogant at worst, the absence of feeling in a brother too open-hearted for subterfuge had Loki feeling decidedly uneasy.
"And what if you're wrong?" The rodent queried, and the bleak tone of Thor's response chilled Loki to the core. "If I'm wrong then what more could I lose?"
Then suddenly there was a blaze of light and PAIN, and Loki screamed internally as the force of a reawakening star burned Thor until he collapsed beneath its glory only to jump again, the memory reforming in the bright Midgardian sun, Thor absolutely rippling with power as he charged into the fray, roaring "BRING ME THANOS!"
Shade then, trees overhead and Loki felt the satisfaction roll through Thor on an almost orgasmic tide as Stormbreaker flew from his hand to embed itself in Thanos' chest and Loki marvelled at the rise in Thor's pleasure as he braced a palm against its edge.
"I told you, you'd die for that."
If Loki's entire focus hadn't been on holding Thor's tenuous emotions steady so that he could follow in the footprints of his mind, he'd have had the wherewithal to squelch the curl of shocked interest, impressed by the surge of nascent sadism in his pure and worthy brother's heart as Thor pushed the axe's blade slowly deeper into Thanos' flesh, smiling at his obvious pain.
"You…" Thanos wheezed, somehow smug despite his agony, "should… have gone… for the head."
Thor's scream of horror rebounded through Loki's skull as he heard the snap of his own neck again at the same time the despicable beast raised his hand to click his fingers. The memories jolted and clashed, overlapping and jerking them back and forth so hard that Loki choked, almost nauseous as he somehow heard Thor weeping in the background, Loki startling as a visibly weaker, burned out Thanos' head was cleaved from his body.
"I went for the head," Thor stated with the same dead tone Odin had used to try and tell Loki why he had lied to him, the memory whirling again to Thanos taunting him even as Thor forced the blade in harder, even as Loki smiled at him from the mirror.
"I'm here…"
Loki's neck snapped.
"I'm here…"
Thor crawled across the blood-soaked ground, ready to die at Loki's side.
"I'm here…"
The light went out of Loki's face as his eyes fell shut, his skin taking on the deathly pallor of the slain Jotun's in the vault, grey against the black dirt beneath him.
"I'm here…"
Loki let go, and fell, with Thor screaming for him all the way into the darkness.
"I'm here…"
Thor turned, and Loki felt how much he wanted to hold Loki close, how happy he was to have him at his side again when an authoritative knock sounded at the door, and Loki's neck snapped again, and again, and again and-
Loki's knees hit the floor so hard he nearly bit his tongue, hissing as he tried to steady himself, the hand that had been at Thor's brow braced now against his chest as Thor slumped forward.
Panting, Loki leaned back hard against his other palm, now planted behind him on the worn Inn floor as Thor's shoulders spilled over his own, bracketing him with nerveless arms slung low to scrape Thor's limp knuckles against the wood.
"Thor? THOR!? Wake up!"
He could still feel the tumult of Thor's emotions surging over him, crashing back against themselves, a feedback loop of grief and loss and - Loki was astounded and all but forced to admit - love that was crushing Thor as effectively as was now slowly crushing Loki to the floor in turn.
A low, pained groan came from where Thor's head drooped alongside Loki's, their temples knocking together as, with something far too close to a heartfelt sob, Thor roused himself long enough to get his palms under him, taking some of his weight back off of Loki.
Taking a deep breath, now that he was significantly less encumbered, Loki tried to focus on his relief at no longer being forced to hold up a mostly insensate thunder god instead of his disquiet at finding himself to seemingly be the straw that broke his brothers back. His focus turned so far inward that he missed the warning signs before Thor fell forward to brace himself upon his elbows instead, hyperventilating and trembling violently, even as Loki hit the floor beneath him.
"Thor… Thor!" Loki gasped, his thighs wide about Thor's broad waist as Thor struggled to pull his heft back upwards. His knees slipped momentarily on the well-worn wood before Thor was finally holding almost all his own weight, braced palm to elbows, his knees locked as the rest of him trembled atop Loki, only Thor's head still resting heavy now against Loki's shoulder.
"No matter what I did, no matter how hard we fought to make things right, no matter that I took that murderous dogs head for what he took from me, I can't, Loki…"
Thor's breaths came deep and wet, as though a dam had burst within him and he was slowly filling up with his own grief, drowning in it above Loki.
"I can't move on from this, I can't get over what happened, to my people, my friends," he sniffed, his face turned closer to muffle himself against the hollow of Loki's throat, "I can't get over you."
Tears trickled down to gather at his clavicle, and Loki let his head fall back against the floor with a solid thunk, the urge to laugh hysterically, trapped there beneath his openly weeping brother, just too, too much for him and so he bit the inside of his cheek, quipping breathlessly, without a thought,
"Well, you're over me now, brother. Take comfort."
Thor stiffened, something like outrage or embarrassment suddenly clouding the air about them and Loki inadvertently let loose a chuckle and an ancient truth, all at once.
"I must say, however, it's not quite how I'd ever imagined getting under you."
Thor heaved himself up onto his palms, his thick hair spilling over his shoulders, darker than Loki had ever known it and yet still so bright about Thor's face as he gaped down at Loki, his eyebrows drawn together with disbelief,
"LOKI!" he blinked, tone instinctually scandalised past the intriguing blush that rose up through the tear tracks on his cheeks, and Loki rolled his eyes, still laughing and honestly relieved to have somehow re-established the upper hand despite his artless admission (confession? Had he always wanted that or was it the memories of his alternate self somehow bleeding through? Was it Thor somehow wishing that Loki had always wanted him somewhere deep, on so base a level he'd never allowed himself to address it?)
"Oh, what for goodness sake? It's not like we're actually related. Now, have you got a sufficient grip on yourself for us to continue or should I consider our deal null and void?"
Thor's rigid shoulders slumped again.
"Oh, Loki, please no… surely, surely you have seen enough?"
"Enough? Enough to explain away the sensation of wrongness that has dogged my every step these past years? Enough to explain how it is there came to be one of me dying not once but twice for your noble self even as I've fought to stay alive, galaxies away? Oh no, my dear brother – I've not seen nearly enough."
Thor sat back, his haunches resting in Loki's lap, hands braced on his thighs as Loki eased himself up onto an elbow.
"Come now Thor," he crooned, his smile overtly alluring (hopefully uncomfortably so now that he'd found a new raw spot on Thor's thin skin to distract himself from the fact that an apparently ancient part of him was thrilled by Thor's heavyset weight atop his groin), "you wouldn't want to break your word would you? You wouldn't take your price from me by force?"
Letting his head tilt back, his throat exposed, seemingly vulnerable if not for the number of teeth he knew he was showing, Loki let his hips roll beneath Thor, cackling when Thor jolted as though he'd received one of his own shocks.
"Loki, why must you joke like this – you've seen how I… you've seen. Is it not enough to know this hurts me and have done with this cruel artifice?"
Loki sighed and offered him his hand, "Help me up. Let's have done with this before I feel compelled to shake the sentiment out of you, see if that warrior spine I recall is still under there somewhere."
Thor's distinctly unimpressed glare and overly tight grip on Loki's hand gave him an odd spark of satisfaction, a glimmer of the easily irked big brother of his past shining through the oddly enthralling form of this soft yet graver Thor.
He pulled until Loki was braced on his knees before him, each of them kneeling as Thor wavered slightly. "I think it's likely best to remain here," he husked. "It's not an easy thing to endure."
"Nothing worth having is ever easily come by, brother, merely easily lost." Loki informed him archly, his palm already resting at the crest of Thor's brow again, oddly discomfited as Thor gave him a level, serious look in response, replying dully, "I am aware."
Loki shook it off.
"Think of me, think of how you and your foolish friends took down the mad titan. Show me why it is that for years I never knew if I was myself or my own shadow, damn you."
And with a bone-weary sigh, Thor closed his eyes and let Loki in once more.
"If you were here I might even give you a hug."
"I'm here."
No, not again.
Agreed. You weren't entirely shocked to see me here, you said yourself that you weren't sure if I lived in this timeline, focus on why that is, show me what you know of my misshapen fate.
Thor's thoughts garbled and twirled upon themselves for a moment, Thanos clicking his fingers and reducing half the universe to dust, the last of the Asgardians being shown around what looked to be an abandoned fishing village, the memories warping and blurring into each other as alcohol appeared to take Thor firmly to its bosom.
Norns, Thor. How much Midgardian ale did you have to consume to achieve this level of inebriation?
Not Enough .
Abruptly they were looking at a meeting room of some sort with screens lit up and the Avengers stood gabbling about them, and Loki heard them name the stones in turn, discussing how to get them and who should be sent to do so.
That's how you beat him? You took the stones for yourselves?
Loki was intrigued beyond measure, he'd heard that they had been destroyed, but if the mortals had been canny enough to go and fetch them in the first place, then he couldn't imagine them parting with them easily, not in the face of such unbridled power.
Thor flinched mentally, accidentally bringing forth a mental image of the hordes of souls restored to Midgard's surface, storming towards Thanos and his minions as Thor appeared to wield both Mjolnir and Stormbreaker at once, following it with a mental image of Thanos himself crumbling to dust.
Loki waited for the sense of gloating or smugness to roll through Thor's skull. Instead, grief reared its head again, a memory there and gone again in just a moment, as though Thor hadn't been able to bear the sight of it, then or now. Tony Stark, a burned out husk, bearing the gauntlet that had felled the Titan once and for all.
Loki found he had it in him to feel regret.
Mortals were such fragile creatures, there and gone in the warmth of an Asgardian summer, but Stark had been… amusing, would probably be the closest Loki could come to summarising his former foe.
The memory danced away and Loki's relief was only a droplet to Thor's roaring tide as they left the oddly silent moment behind, hatred and helplessness rising in Thor like bile as Thanos spoke in a croak, explaining that he'd destroyed the stones so that they could never be used again, and Thor took his head.
Loki had a flash of his own face again, his lips promising Thor sunshine that had never come and then Thor took Thanos' head once more.
The Asgardians were slaughtered for no reason than because Thanos could, and Thor took his head, over and over and over again.
Did… did it ever make you feel better?
Sunlight again and Loki was bizarrely stirred again to feel the weight of Thor's satisfaction as he ground the axe-blade into Thanos' chest hard enough to make him gasp in agony.
No. It never did.
Thor's memory glanced away again but not before another ripple of exhaustion and hopelessness washed over their connection.
They reeled back to the meeting point, where the mortals claimed that three stones could all be found at once in the past and Loki's brain all but shorted out.
My sceptre contained the mind stone?!
A tinge of smug amusement was there and gone before Loki could work himself into a fury.
Yes. It's as well you disappeared, really. After all, brother I cannot imagine Thanos would have been as welcoming had he known you'd cost him two infinity stones.
I imagine that's why he took such pleasure in murdering the other me to reacquire the tesseract, yes.
Loki regretted it as swiftly as the thought formed, hearing his own neck break and Thor crying out into his muzzle as though in mortal agony.
Thor's mind pivoted before Loki could hope to steer it and he saw a slightly plumper - if decidedly more unkempt - Thor reaching for what appeared to be a freshly made gauntlet. He announced his plan to be the one to restore the missing souls to the earth, only to find himself pushed back by his well-meaning but somewhat forceful friends and Loki could taste the death wish that had filled Thor then. He'd hoped the gauntlet would take him as payment and he would restore the trillions missing and all the Asgardians and Loki and…
You would never have survived it. Reversing an action is not the same as reversing death itself.
Loki felt Thor's assent more than he heard it, a memory skittering by, the loss of the Black Widow refusing to be reversed no matter the power behind the wish and Loki felt a tiny pang again, possibly Thor's, as he recalled the only mortal to ever best him at deception.
He watched as the conversations between Thor's pets blurred and reformed around him, not due to alcohol so much as it was to Thor's despondency and inattention, his fervent desire to simply be done shocking Loki into utter stillness, letting the weight of Thor's hopelessness and grief weigh him down in turn. He felt Thor consider returning to Nidavellir to let the star blast him to a million atoms, he wondered if he fell again (and when had Thor fallen from the Bifrost? With Loki too no less?) If he would die as surely as he'd believed Loki to all those years before.
Thor didn't want to be King, and then there he was before Odin, wishing to be a good man, not a great King… then there he was before Mother, her words telling him to be who he was, not who he was supposed to be and Loki felt his heart break into a thousand jagged pieces at the kindness in her smile and knew, just knew she would have forgiven him all his evil deeds, had she only survived.
She did. She defied Father regularly to talk to you and send you gifts in your cell.
Don't. Please.
Loki watched in surprise as Thor gifted the throne to a woman who looked suspiciously like Brunnhilde of the Valkyrie (he and Thor had pored over the tales of their heroic deeds until the sad day they'd been told they could not grow up to join their ranks themselves) but before he could query it, he felt a sudden twitch of hope deep in Thor's belly.
The memory teetered and fell back, that meeting room, the Avengers again as a seemingly victorious group admired their gauntlet – now hulk sized - discussing how they would need to return each stone to their proper points in time, so as to not splinter the timeline, reality itself into fragments, ruining their whole endeavour.
Ah.
The soldier gave Thor a sheepish look as he explained how, in the madness that ensued with two timelines converging in an attempt to fix its own future, they had accidentally changed Loki's fate.
Thor's heart leapt in his breast, and Loki's own blood surged with the infectiousness of hope, of joy so close that he and Thor both could almost taste it.
"I'm sorry, I can't give you any clear answer. We know that in our timeline Loki returned with you to Asgard with the tesseract, now he's gone and taken the darn thing with him. Bruce doesn't think it should change much in the way of what we're doing here, but I don't know what it means for you."
Thor's heart seemed to have moved up into his throat, and he swallowed several times before speaking, "Are you telling me," he began carefully, "that Loki may be out there, alive?"
The beast seemed to have found some way to control himself for the giant green thing that had so misused Loki had stepped forward, wearing the apologetic smile that had used to grace the face of its weaker form.
"Truthfully, we just don't know buddy. This isn't anything we've ever done before, and we have no way of knowing where he went. He might have collided directly with his own timeline, and everything will continue as it did before, or he could be out there carving his way in an entirely new direction."
"If it is the latter, might I be able to locate him?"
The man-beast shrugged its immense shoulders.
"I don't know, Thor. I think it might technically be an alternate reality so you would go on here, as you were, but Loki would be in a whole new offshoot. That's not to say you wouldn't be in it, cos there would have to be an alternate version of you as well I guess, but-"
"-but I will never see him again."
"If he's living an alternate timeline, then yeah, I think so? Sorry."
The hope and joy and the newfound will to live drained so quickly from Thor that it felt almost as though his very lifeblood was pouring from him and, going by the look on Banner and Rogers' faces, they thought so as well.
"Hey, that's a good thing then, yeah? I mean, it's not like he was even your Loki, this is the one who attacked New York and killed all those people, not the one who came back to save us and fight Hela."
Fury flickered at the edges of Thor's vision, like lightning.
"They are each my Loki. He was my brother for more than a thousand years, he will be my brother until I die and even then, with any luck, I will join him and my family in Valhalla. Excuse me, I must speak with New Asgard."
The memory faded with Banner trying to apologise but Thor would not be soothed, and Loki found he couldn't seem to mock Thor in the face of such devotion. Before he could summon so much as a glib comment (just to prove he could) Thor's memory took him back to the dim cockpit and the rodent he'd shared it with previously, along with several other creatures Loki had not yet seen in Thor's thoughts.
"Nah, see, the way I see it is if you splinter this timeline then you might hafta live with the changes and put up with some crazy shit here and there, but it ain't like you wink out of existence like with that stupid finger snapping dick. Gamora's dead, right? But she's here, like from the past her and Quill's got the scanners checking for her getaway, and our Nebula is with her even though she totally shot her bitchier self straight in the face. There's no finger waggly mystical shit going on, it's just like your guy said before he… well, yeah, you know, but the point is Gamora died in the past, but she's alive now in our future. Your lil bro died in the past and then he got rescued, or rescued himself or whatever. That means he could still be out there in your future, I mean, he might also have got his head blown off, the guy's a total douchebag from what I hear, but hey, you never know, right?"
Thor's hope flickered back to life, no roaring inferno of joy and expectation, more a glowing ember, just enough to warm himself by it seemed and Loki felt the heat of it spread through him in turn.
He opened his eyes, ready to release his grip on Thor's mind, only to find Thor leaning into him, their foreheads pressed together. Sparks danced in Thor's eyes and Loki wondered briefly if he had somehow angered him in the last few seconds before the surge of overwhelming exultation passed through their connection and lit him up from within.
Thor was finally happy, his hope fanned into flame with the same force Thor had felt upon awakening a dying star and Loki burned with him.
You found me, you're here, you're alive
Loki swayed, blinking as he struggled to sever their connection, Thor's joy so heady that it threatened to knock him off his knees as he dropped his hand, gasping and turning his head in one motion, sealing Thor's lips shut with his own before the words Loki could taste building up upon Thor's tongue could be spoken.
Loki blinked again.
Wait
He pulled back with a hiss of outrage, his push dagger at his fingertips before he even knew he'd summoned it, jabbing it immediately into Thor's thigh.
Thor reared back, roaring, and the sound of it was so nostalgic that Loki almost forgot to be furious.
"Loki, why? I did as you asked, I held nothing back."
Loki bristled, sneering.
"No, you certainly didn't! You KISSED me, you presumptuous oaf!"
Loki pushed himself back to his feet with no little effort, it seemed the weight of Thor's grief and the burn of his ridiculous sentiment had turned his bones to lead. He watched as Thor blinked, staggering to his feet, a blush rising up over his belly and chest as he considered Loki, his back to the wall once more.
"No," he said slowly, and Loki felt the hair on his arms rise with the sudden static charge in the air as Thor's focus narrowed to settle on Loki as though nothing else existed in the universe,
"I think you'll find that was you."
Loki opened his mouth to instantly refute Thor's words, stilling as the sense memory of tilting his head into Thor's space to set their lips together, his subconscious apparently eager for a further taste of the joy cresting through Thor at the realisation of his greatest hope.
"Well," He conceded with a sneer, arms crossed defensively before he could quite help himself, "I would hate to become predictable after all, brother. If what I've seen is to be believed, it didn't seem to serve me very well."
Thor's hand dropped to pluck the needle-like dagger from his leg, watching as it disappeared into shimmering sparks of seidr between his fingers, nothing to show it had ever been there but for the bright smear of Thor's blood against his skin.
"It served you well enough." He rumbled, and Loki had to avert his eyes from the earnestness of Thor's expression, watching Thor's boots set against the floor as he pushed himself to stand upright before him, crossing the distance between them with hesitant steps.
"I believe there remains the issue of payment?" There was far too much amusement lurking beneath Thor's carefully polite tone, and Loki glared at him, instantly angry at himself for being tricked into looking back into Thor's face, his sparkling, hopeful eyes and kiss-smudged lips too much for Loki's raw nerves to bear.
He bared his teeth, hissing, "You've had a kiss, you would importune me further for a hug?"
Thor's smugness increased, seeming to fill him somehow as his spine straightened, his shoulders back, head high as though proud of inspiring this reaction in Loki, as he replied,
"That was your doing, not mine. You still owe me the price of your foray into my most painful memories, and I hold you to your word to pay me what I asked."
Grinding his teeth audibly, Loki stalked forward.
"Fine then! But have the decency to at least admit the truth to yourself if not to me."
Before Thor could react, Loki had one arm wrapped about Thor's ribs, the other looped up and over Thor's shoulder as he turned his face inward, Thor's hair a tickle at his cheek as he placed his lips almost against Thor's ear.
"It was my connection to you, Thor. Your thoughts, your wants that led me to kiss you because you wanted me to do so."
Thor stiffened even as his arms closed about Loki in turn, his forearm laid across Loki's shoulders, one large palm curved about his nape, the other cradling the jut of his shoulder blade as his head jerked up and back and Loki tutted at him.
"Now, now, you asked for a minute long hug, not several seconds at a time that lead up to a minute. If you break the hug before it's done, I'm going to consider the matter concluded, brother."
Sighing, Thor relaxed back into Loki's hold, tension bleeding from him even as he grumbled into the thick, dark fall of Loki's hair.
"Tricks again, Loki? You'll not put me off so easily, not when the fee holds such high value to me."
Thor crushed Loki closer, and Loki was flung back through the millennia to every rib-cracking show of affection, every heavy-handed touch, every grief-stricken recoil when Loki had rejected such displays.
"Well of course, why would you let me go now when you've waited so long to have me here like this – tell me brother, have you always wanted to fuck me or was it just my death that brought it on?"
Thor growled, tightening his grip even his he rumbled warningly, "Loki…"
"I mean, now that we know we aren't related I imagine it won't be quite such a shock to the rest of the galaxy when you come trailing after me, crawling to kiss my feet, breaking into my rooms at night,"
"These are my rooms. You broke in to see me."
"Oh absolutely, it's started out as reconnaissance for me, but you're the one who made your price about holding me, you are the one who practically trapped me beneath you-"
"-Says the one who claimed to have previously considered how to get me on top of you."
Loki pressed his lips so close to Thor's ear that he could almost draw his lobe between his teeth,
"Oh let's not quibble about what I said, Thor when I think we both know that what I meant was in fact how to get you inside me and who knows, perhaps it was a trick. Perhaps I've never actually thought about it before but brother, I'm definitely thinking about it now, aren't you?"
Thor speared thick fingers up from Loki's nape into his hair, jerking his face from its position safe against his throat, holding Loki's face directly before his, eyes narrowed as peals of laughter rang free.
"Poor Thor, you always were the last to know if I was play-acting, weren't you?"
Thor suddenly seemed to find what he was searching for in Loki's burning eyes, an oddly sympathetic light shining in amongst the restored gleam of hope about his gentle smile.
"No, Loki. Not always the last."
This time it was Thor who brought their mouths together, and heat spiralled up through Loki's veins with such speed and ferocity that for a moment he mistook it for rage.
"Thor," he sobbed, ragged and exhausted, fingers raking at Thor's skin as though drawing blood would somehow equalise the pain of having his own heart exposed to his terrified gaze, sinking into the kiss with the same strange desperation that he'd felt in Thor's mind when Thor had cast himself back out amongst the stars, yearning for him.
He wanted to hurt Thor for this, he wanted to punish him for the temerity to touch Loki, to shake Thor, to push him away like he was just any old pile of meat and bones carrying a heart about, instead of the other half to Loki's soul.
He ripped his mouth away, trying but not quite able to relax the hold his hands had taken in Thor's hair as he hissed at him,
"This doesn't change a thing, do you understand me?"
Thor smiled at him, bright and stupid the way he always had, his large, gentle hand squeezing at Loki's nape like it hadn't been absent from his skin for over a decade.
"Oh, my sweet brother – how can it not?"
Snarling, Loki darted back in, intending the kiss to be quick and vicious but the slick hot swipe of Thor's tongue against his own sent Loki's reasoning into free fall, his plans swiftly stymied by the thickening of his blood.
Loki wanted Thor, and now that he knew it of himself, Loki meant to have him, but not now, not like this with tear tracks on their faces and the actuality of Thor's love for him filling up his lungs like smoke.
He needed to get away. He needed to breathe.
He swallowed a moan that shook his resolve, Thor enjoying the slant of Loki's lips against his own enough to encourage this new development with his voice as well as his body as he curved his mighty bulk about Loki, all but enveloping him with his powerful arms and Loki was momentarily tempted. He let himself imagine staying long enough to allow Thor to touch and pleasure him, envisaged doing the same for him and abruptly it was all too much.
He'd died and lived and died again for Thor, and now their paths had intersected, and he was no longer a ghost or a shadow, not even a Prince now but a man. It was possible that he might yet still be a brother but the way Thor clenched his fingers into the ladder of Loki's ribs - seemingly eager to feel each breath as it was hauled in and out of him - hungry for the stuttering whine that broke free of Loki's teeth on every inhale, those things felt a lot more like lover than brother, but that would have to be a riddle for another day.
Loki felt it coming, the moment where if he stayed he'd have to fuck Thor and love every second of it because suddenly it had become everything he'd ever wanted, and Loki just wasn't ready, conjuring the dagger before he even realised that he was going to run.
He struck for that spot - just between the ribs - that he knew would hurt like a lit match pressed to flesh at the time, but would be laughed off by Thor within hours and, wrenching himself back from Thor's lips, Loki watched, ready for Thor's pain to enable him to make his escape.
He found himself suddenly – forcibly - stopped, Thor's hand a manacle about Loki's wrist, the dagger point held just shy of his flesh and Loki found he couldn't remember how to breathe for a beat with Thor's unblinking gaze upon him and his lips cherry dark from kissing.
No one had ever caught him before.
Loki laughed, the sound desperate as he smiled at Thor, tears brimming over in his eyes at Thor's steadying grip upon him.
"It seems I really am becoming predictable" he choked, his smile too manic for mirth and Thor leaned close to kiss the tears away.
"No, Loki," he said, releasing him with a smile so tender Loki's chest ached to see it, "never that."
In a heartbeat Loki lunged forward, the point of his dagger upturned into the underside of Thor's jaw, and Loki used Thor's sudden stillness to lean in and kiss him with all the greedy savagery he possessed.
"Oh, my sweet brother," he laughed breathlessly, as he pulled away, already disappearing into the shadows "We are going to have such fun."
Still heady with newfound knowledge, Loki staggered back through the way between worlds, triumphal and shattered all at once but solid with the absolute certainty that, whatever paths he'd taken until now, he wouldn't change a single step for they had brought him back to Thor and they would walk them now, together.
Fin.