Crosspost from AO3. Written to: The Crooked Kind - Radical Face
The end of semester business school party is held the first weekend of May; it's always been held the first weekend of the final month of term, and every semester Thor has entered confidently with a lovely date on his arm.
This semester is only different in that he is opting to take Loki instead.
"Loki," he says one lazy Sunday afternoon at the end of April as they lie tangled in his sheets and he runs his fingers through Loki's dark hair.
"Hmm?" Loki mumbles sleepily, his voice pressed into Thor's chest.
"Would you like to come with me to the end of term party?" he asks, fingers gently massaging Loki's scalp. Loki seems to enjoy that and rubs back into his hand for a few moments before answering.
"I'm not part of the business school," Loki finally says, green eyes looking up to meet Thor's blue ones.
"No," Thor agrees. "I meant as my date. What would the fun be if only business students got to take other business students as dates? Contrary to popular belief, it's not much fun at all."
Loki eyes him as if trying to read his mind. He sighs before resting his cheek against Thor's chest again. "Your friends will not like me," he says with an air of finality that makes it seem he has already decided against it. "I would not fit in well there, you know that. And besides, it would be rather difficult to explain this," Loki adds, gesturing vaguely in the air.
Thor spends a few quiet moments twirling the baby fine hairs at the base of Loki's neck around his fingers.
"It is love," Thor says finally. He can feel Loki smile against his skin.
"It is not something other people might care to take the time to understand," Loki murmurs.
Loki's breathing evens out against his chest, and Thor wonders if his brother has already fallen asleep. He shifts positions a little, trying to reach the top sheet to drape it over their tangled bodies, before Loki mumbles something so quietly Thor has to ask him to repeat it.
"What was that, Loki?" he whispers.
Loki doesn't even open his eyes as his lips move languidly, barely breathing the words.
"But yes, it is love."
It takes two more days before Loki finally, reluctantly, tells Thor that he will go to his party with him.
It is only five hours after his acceptance that Loki tells Thor that he absolutely cannot go.
"I have nothing to wear," he laments as he digs through his closet, pulling out T-shirts and old sweaters with unraveling sleeves and holding them up to his chest before putting them down on the bed. Thor watches in amusement as he leans against the doorway to Loki's bedroom.
"Maybe this," Loki mutters to himself as he pulls out a deep green, almost black dress shirt. He shrugs out of his white V-neck and Thor has to force himself not to just walk over and bite kisses into the lovely expanse of soft, creamy skin. Instead, he watches as Loki folds up the cuffs of the shirt before pushing his arms through the sleeves and wrapping it around himself.
The material compliments Loki's pale skin and green eyes very well, and Thor tracks every movement of his brother's slim fingers as he tugs the black buttons through the buttonholes. The top two buttons of the dress shirt are conspicuously absent, and Thor watches Loki frown down at the white V of skin that remains open before trying to smooth down the lapels of the shirt.
Loki eyes himself critically in the mirror, before sighing and running a hand through his hair.
"It is missing buttons," he says, as if Thor might have overlooked that part. "This is the only suitable thing," he pouts as he looks mournfully into his closet, now full of empty hangers. "And even this is too tight," he mutters, looking down the length of his body in the mirror and prodding at the sides of his chest where the green fabric clings and strains the tiniest bit.
Thor walks over to him and wraps his arms around him from behind, resting his head on top of Loki's and meeting his eyes in the mirror.
"I think you look gorgeous like this, Loki," he says truthfully. "It makes you look very beautiful."
"And," Thor adds, smiling a bit wickedly as his hands venture up and caress Loki's nipples over the shirt, "it doesn't leave much up to the imagination."
Loki blushes as Thor rubs, pinches, massages, eventually tilts his head to the side to allow Thor to pepper his neck with little kisses.
Thor grins against Loki's pulse, takes his brother's hand and leads him over to his bed.
It is half an hour after Loki's only dress shirt is utterly, irreparably debauched that Loki pushes himself off of Thor, wriggles into a discarded pair of jeans, and tells Thor he will be back later.
Thor waits until he hears the front door of the apartment close before he runs the tip of his finger over a rapidly drying streak of white on the front of Loki's green shirt and presses it into his mouth.
It tastes like Loki, he thinks. Acid and salt and a little bit of sweetness if you thought about it the right way.
When Loki returns, the long fingers of sunset have already reached out over the kitchen floor where Thor is trying to convince himself that whatever's in the pan will be edible.
"Ahem." Loki clears his throat indignantly after a few minutes, as Thor continues to stare forlornly into the stove and mourn the loss of what was once a chicken.
Thor turns to look at him.
Loki grins. "It looks good, doesn't it?"
Loki is dressed in a deep green and grey argyle sweater vest. Thor can see the sharp, white creases of dress shirt lapels framing his brother's slim neck and providing delicious contrast to the small red bitemarks that haven't yet faded. The sleeves of white dress shirt that Loki wears underneath are rolled up to his elbows and Thor, chicken forgotten, walks over to Loki and takes his hands in his own before pressing him up against the kitchen wall.
"Thor, wait," Loki protests halfheartedly as Thor gently nudges apart his thighs. "These are brand new."
"We can get them dry cleaned," Thor breathes into the curve of Loki's neck, and signals the end of the discussion by pressing his mouth against Loki's.
Loki clings tightly to Thor's hand as Thor leads him into the hotel ballroom that's been temporarily repurposed to include flashing strobe lights, intolerably loud EDM, and copious amounts of alcohol. Thor drags Loki with him as he walks around the ballroom and greets several groups of classmates and colleagues, all of whom wave back at him in varying states of intoxication.
A few of them look curiously at Loki, and Loki stares back at them and tries to ignore the pounding headache growing steadily behind his eyes. He doesn't particularly understand what Thor finds so enjoyable about these things, but as he watches Thor laugh at some finance joke, he squeezes his eyes shut, wraps his fingers tighter around Thor's, and thinks that he can tolerate this for just a little while.
"You will be alright, Loki?" Thor asks him anxiously as he deposits Loki with a glass of champagne in a chair ensconced in the shadows of an isolated corner of the ballroom. Loki opens his mouth to respond, but Thor is already being dragged away to dance with a brunette whose giggles have the unfortunate effect of piercing straight through Loki's eardrums.
"I will be alright," Loki says, even though Thor is not there to hear it and Loki doesn't quite believe it himself.
He watches Thor and the woman circle the ballroom for a second time, their laughing faces and mouths altogether too close, and Loki wonders what they are talking about. If they are talking about him.
As they pass him for the third time, he swears he hears the woman saying something along the lines of, "How sweet you are, taking out your crazy brother for a little piece of fun."
It is worse when Thor nods in response, and Loki pinches the bridge of his nose to try and contain the pain that seems to be prodding at the backs of his eyeballs.
Loki squeezes the glass of champagne in his hand tightly, too tightly, and he watches detachedly as the bubbles pop lightly on his dress shoes, as a small curl of blood trickles down his fingers.
At the fourth cycle, Loki stands up. Walks over to the woman and Thor. Thor sees him over the woman's shoulder and smiles at him. Thor does not see the shard of glass in Loki's hand, and perhaps the flashing strobe lights conceal the anger sparking in his brother's green eyes.
The infinitesimally short span of silence between songs is shattered by a scream.
Thor goes from pleasantly smashed to terrifyingly sober in a matter of seconds, as the woman in his arms pushes frantically against him in an effort to get away from Loki, a stream of blood spilling down her arm.
The hall lights come on, the strobe lights flick off, and Thor looks up to see Loki clutching a jagged triangle of glass and gesturing with it towards the girl in his arms with a shaking hand.
"Loki!" Thor's voice is loud in the sudden silence. "What are you doing?"
Loki doesn't look at him.
"You can't take him away," Loki says, and Thor is shocked by how matter-of-factly his brother sounds. "They will hurt me if you do. He is the only one they are afraid of."
The girl just stares at him, her terrified sobs echoing in Thor's ears.
He watches as if in slow motion as Loki reaches forward again, the broken glass held aloft. Watches as hotel security officers in official blue uniforms come hurrying in through the crowd. Watches as one of them grab Loki's wrist in a strong grip, making his hand open and letting the glass fall to the ground.
He watches as they drag Loki away roughly, tearing the sleeves of his white dress shirt, and he wants to tell them that wait, they can't do that, those clothes are brand new, but they are and Thor, for the first time that night, cannot seem to find the right words that would bring Loki back.
It is four days after the end of term party when Thor is finally allowed to see Loki in the hospital. Loki has had to be sedated for his own protection, the nurse explains to him as he signs the visitor log. She mentions something about relapses and acute psychotic episodes and suicidal thoughts, and Thor doesn't listen to her because he does not, cannot, will not connect those things to his brother.
He brings purple orchids, because he knows Loki loves those, and sets them gently on the nightstand by his brother's bed. Loki is sleeping deeply, the only sounds in the room the occasional blip of the various machines and monitors.
Thor watches the soft, steady drip of the saline IV into his brother's veins, lifts Loki's limp hand to his lips, and covers the bandages with kisses as he sobs and sobs and sobs.