Loki looks down at the books, heart pounding treacherously. He tells himself that perhaps he is mistaken, that this could be a wholly different matter, but it's futile. The idea cannot leave his mind.

Why?

And he's furious at himself for asking that question.

In this one inquiry lies the testament of fear and need and guilt. And this is not what Loki is willing to find in himself. It makes him livid with anger and desperate to strike out to rid himself of those poisons.

He's been cheated, again. Thor was false in his affections; or perhaps they quickly ran their course once Loki gave in.

How can reality compare to a thousand years of fantasy? The thought comes unbidden and he grips the edge of a table to stop himself from lashing out in his anger and destroying everything around with his bare hands. He will not think about it this way. This is not his fault. He never asked for Thor's perverse affections and their loss should only be celebrated.

What really matters to him is the potential effect on his life. Being sentenced to wedding Thor saved him from death. It's unthinkable to imagine that without the protection of this marriage, he would be able to simply walk free.

But even in his rage, he finds it hard to believe that Thor would just hand him over to be executed, which is probably why he works alone and likely without Odin's knowledge. He means to rid himself of Loki and send him away, oblivious to the danger it would put Loki in.

Maybe it's for the best. The Nine Realms are vast and with my magic free...

You'd be a hunted outcast with Thanos and Asgard both after you.

He stays in the library for hours perhaps, lost in his own trembling thoughts. The fire of his anger wanes out slowly and he is left with cold rage, the kind that only comes from betrayal. It will bring Loki great pleasure to make sure he is tethered to Thor for eternity. To make him see how it feels to be forced into a tasteless marriage. Loki is going to erase all the goodwill that they hesitantly shared. He will not hold back this time.

When he returns to their chambers, he is passed by a line of servants with empty dish plates and there is a generous feast for two set on the table. If Thor really went to train after he left the library, he's long since cleaned up. His hair is pulled back and he is wearing dark blue and grey, colours that flatter him. He smiles at Loki brightly and pulls a chair for him.

"What's this?" Loki asks pleasantly as Thor pours them wine and serves the delicacies spread in front of them.

"Dinner," Thor shrugs, an almost shy smile playing on his lips. Loki pops a fig into his mouth and considers Thor.

"I can see that, Thor. Any particular reason? Do you perhaps have something to tell me?"

Thor stops cutting a piece of meat and looks up, frowning slightly. "No, I just wanted... " He gestures slightly between himself and Loki.

"Ah, little romance then," Loki says, not quite trying to keep the derision from his voice. Thor's face falls completely and he puts his knife down.

"I see that it's not a thought you appreciate."

"No, you are mistaken, I think it's lovely, I just have my doubts about for whose benefit you are doing this."

Thor's face hardens just a fraction and he straightens in his chair. Got you, Loki thinks.

"Our shared benefit. That's the nature of these things," Thor tells him stiffly.

"What you want and what I want will never be the same. There is nothing shared between us. That is something you have proven to me over and over again with straight-forwardness that only a mule like you could achieve."

Thor's jaw is flexing visibly. Loki is savagely pleased to see the anger behind the unwitting movement. He will not tolerate this duplicity any longer. Thor owes him the ugly truth at last.

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"I don't care. Our little liaisons are over. So you can cut out the grand gestures," Loki smiles sharply and gets up from the table, walking towards the balcony. He didn't realize how much he wanted to some fresh air until he gets a sweet lungful.

He can hear Thor's footsteps behind him as he leans on the railing and ignores him ostentatiously. Then two hesitant, gentle hands are on his shoulders.

"Get your hands off me."

The light pressure immediately disappears. "Sorry," Thor murmurs.

Loki just keeps staring forward, the back of his neck itching as feels Thor still standing there, hovering and waiting.

"Is it something I've done?" he asks and the ruined, despondent tone is by now quite familiar to Loki.

Loki turns to him and sneers. "Do you want a list?"

Thor shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. Loki is sorely tempted to beat him bloody.

"I'm such a fool," Thor whispers, talking more to himself than to Loki.

"Suddenly it doesn't seem like a good idea to chain me to yourself, does it?"

"I should have been prepared for this. But I- and to think that I have been... "

Loki doesn't particularly follow this train of thought, but it makes no matter to him. Loki has come to appreciate that his brother is a mess. He doesn't know what he wants. But it makes no difference to Loki in the end. He will not be jeopardized by Thor's confusion.

"You should rejoice," he tells Thor before he leaves. "Maybe it means there is still some hope for you, even if no one will ever know."

In the next weeks, Loki starts to doubt himself. Starts to doubt what he saw and what he thought it meant.

Thor doesn't go back to the library – or, if he does, he does it in a way that escapes Loki's most thorough surveillance. His brother fulfils his duties, exercises with his friends, then comes to their chambers only to act in a way that reminds Loki of the very first weeks of their marriage – avoidance and silence ruling over all else.

But despite the lack of evidence, Thor's behaviour only strengthens Loki's conviction that his original suspicion was correct. That Thor has sobered up from his fantasies and his feeling of self-righteousness.

He doesn't try to talk to Loki, much less touch him.

Doesn't ask for explanation of what might have seemed as a rather sudden rejection.

Stops all his attempts at courting Loki (and it's humiliating to notice the lack of it when he didn't even see it when it was happening, but he still does).

He's sitting in a garden with his mother, sullenly sipping tea. She has stopped talking a while ago and is merely watching him now. Waiting for him to speak.

"Thor is searching for a way to put an end to our marriage," he blurts out finally.

"That hardly seems believable," she responds, seemingly unconcerned. "Why would he do that?"

"I think the better question is why would he not?" Loki frowns. That amuses her for some reasons and she pats his arm gently.

"Aren't you a little too hard on yourself?"

He flushes in anger when he realizes she decided to deliberately twist his words.

"I'm sorry, Loki," she soothes before he can speak. "But I sincerely doubt you are right. Your life would be in danger if you were no longer married."

She frowns slightly in thought. "And I don't believe there is a way to end it."

"Well, that's what he is doing," Loki insists, swirling a spoon in his cup, quite aware that it came out much more petulant that he would like. He knows it's ironic, but he is pleased by her confirmation that he is right to worry for his life, that he isn't seeing this unnecessarily grimly.

"And you are hurt."

She says it softly, but it's not a question.

"I am not," he scoffs. "I want nothing more than to get away from him. But his secrecy is annoying."

She gives him a long, hard look that clearly says she doesn't believe him.

"And have you talked to him about this? Asked his reasons?"

"I don't need to speak to Thor to know his mind."

Frigga laughs out loud at this. "Oh, Loki."

And while he does his best to hide it, he is angry at her, which doesn't happen very often. His whole life he could come to her for advice and mostly got it, even when Thor was the centre of his trouble. Now it seems this has changed.

She was the one who told him to appreciate Thor's regard for him and he listened – and where did that bring him? He drinks his tea and steers the conversation away as best as he can, further enraged by her apparent indulgence and he is unusually eager to get away. He will not disrespect her and take his anger out on her, no.

He has a much better target.

And after all, he will only be doing what she asked of him.

"Thor," Loki says sharply, stepping into Thor's way when he finally comes in. Thor stops and waits, dragging his gaze from the floor to meet Loki's eye. "I have a gift for you."

Loki brings his hand up and shows Thor a dagger he is holding. Thor stiffens lightly, but then Loki turns it in his palm so that the blade is facing the floor and offers the hilt to Thor.

"What are you doing?" Thor sighs, taking the weapon. It's clear that this is no gift – it's a regular, used dagger. Loki has dozens of them.

"Making things easier for you. Well, no," he adds, rolling his eyes. "That's not true. I am making things more... honest for you. See the irony?"

Thor looks to the side. "Loki, speak plainly. I have no idea what games you are playing and no strength left to guess."

"If you are so set on killing me, I would rather you have my literal blood on your hands, not just figurative."

Thor jerks at this and his mouth falls open. "Killing you? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, I don't know what I hate more, your stupidity or your selfishness," Loki growls and he has to admit that this feels good. He's been swallowing his anger all this time – rage at being so easily discarded, with the lacing of humiliation that he just couldn't suppress. He planned this, yes, his actions and words are meant to provoke, to hurt, but he is not pretending and he doesn't need to go far for the words. Ice flows through his veins at the sight of Thor – his face, his eyes, even his height drum on Loki's consciousness and hasten the flow.

He grabs the hand in which Thor is still holding the dagger and pulls it towards his own neck.

"Go on," he spits. "Stop pretending. My life means nothing to you, so stop being a coward and a liar for the first time in your pathetic life."

"Loki, enough!"

Thor wrenches his hand away from Loki's neck and Loki punches him in the face for it, the line of his logic lost for the moment. Another blow disarms Thor and the dagger is back in Loki's hand.

He slams into Thor, pushing him against a table. "I thought you couldn't get any lower with your deviance. And yet you prove me wrong. For a second there, I believed that even if it was unnatural, at least your affection was true. But you used me, Thor, nothing more. You used me."

And he is screaming at the end, his free hand clawing at Thor's throat and he doesn't see clearly. It doesn't matter to him that he is revealing the truth, his weakness. He needs to get it out, scream it all out so that maybe, maybe Thor might finally listen. Thor struggles against him, but there his hardly any strength behind his movements. And a beastly feeling seizes Loki, desire to push and break, so that it can't ever be fixed again. He rotates his wrist in a practised motion and plunges the dagger right above Thor's thigh, sinking it deep into his loins. Thor yelps, such a tiny sound compared to the viciousness of the blow and he bends over, almost falling on top of Loki.

Then Loki feels his wrist almost breaking when Thor circles his hand around it and yanks the dagger from his flesh, twisting Loki's arm until he drops it and makes a sound of pain.

But that's not the end of it – Thor returns one of the many punches he's been dealt in the previous months and Loki tastes blood, shocked.

"Stop," Thor shouts and seizes him by the shoulders, shaking him hard. "Stop this right now and tell me just what the Hel do you imagine I've done."

"As if you don't know!" Loki spits. "Do I really have to remind you that you have been trying to get rid of me? Tell me, are you too stupid to realize that it would cost me my life or do you just not care?"

"Get rid- oh. Oh, Loki, no..."

Thor lets him go abruptly and steps away, shaking his head all the while.

"You know I've looked into the the magic of the ceremony that bound us then, yes?"

"And into breaking it. So what happened? Discovered that fucking your brother wasn't as much fun as you have always imagined it to be?"

"Loki..." Thor puts his head into his hands for just a moment. "Loki, it was for the future... I thought that once I am king, I would have the power the undo the bond... and ask you to marry me again."

Loki goes still and uninterrupted silence fills the room. No.

But Thor goes on.

"It was a fool's errand, I know. After we... well I thought that maybe this wasn't quite as hopeless. That in time, we might even grow to be happy and... Loki, you are all but my prisoner. And in that moment of elation, I imagined a better future and... I wanted us to stand on equal ground."

Loki turns on his heel and clamps a hand over his mouth.

No.

He's distantly aware that he is shaking and that his vision is swimming.

Because it's too much. Because he doesn't understand. Because everything he's done has been futile.

He's been wrong, again. And Thor stands with him, blameless, but this time, it doesn't bring Loki the jealous distaste it usually does. It brings him relief and wholly unacceptable feeling of unworthiness.

And he cannot escape the gravity of Thor's intention. It was an idea born out of happiness; guileless, but honest. Striving to give Loki back everything he's been robbed off.

"Loki-" Thor sounds hesitant, but Loki can also tell that he is close, approaching Loki and he can't have that. One of his hands flies up, making a stopping motion.

"I'm sorry if you believed I was trying to dismiss you," Thor whispers.

And Loki still feels it, the icy rage from moments before, except that now it chills him to the core instead of spurring him on. He is glad he has turned away from Thor because he doesn't believe he could stand the sight of him now. He's helpless in the face of him, no matter how hard he's tried to fight him – now and ever before.

Thor hasn't managed to truly do anything to make Loki hate him – but no, that's not correct. Loki does hate Thor, but this hate has never managed to win over the love and this is Loki's undoing.

On their wedding night, Thor gave him a weapon capable of slaying him and Loki hesitated before dealing the final blow. He backed off. He stopped before Thor could be truly ruined, shattered under the weight of his guilt. And Loki went and teased him from that shell of pain and shame and started something new, something fresh, if no less dangerous.

But this game required Loki to give something of himself as well and at the first sign that Thor might be misusing it (which he wasn't, damn that noble idiot), he panicked and tried to burn all the bridges.

And how here he is, exposed and lost, shaken by the force of his own reaction.

He repeatedly assumes the worst and Thor repeatedly shows him the best.

Why?

He is still searching for the courage to face Thor again, to even move, when a quiet grunt jolts him and he turns around automatically. Thor is standing in the middle of the room, slightly bent over and Loki realizes that the rooms smells heavily of copper and Thor's trousers are glistening with blood. But still, Thor is looking at him, ignoring the wound save for the slight hunch in his posture to relieve the pain. Loki moves without meaning to.

"Oh, I-"

The apology doesn't quite pass his lips, but he seizes Thor gently by the shoulders and backs him towards a chair, unlacing his trousers before making Thor sit down, which he does with a little hiss and he arches his back to ease the pressure.

Loki searches for their pouch with healing stones, but his hands are shaking and it takes him a while to find them. When he finally does, he hurries back to Thor and crouches down on his knees in front of him.

The wound is deep and ugly and goes through sensitive muscle and tendons. Thor is a little pale, a subtle sign of what he otherwise belies by his calm silence; he is in pain and losing a lot of blood. Loki carefully grinds the stone in his fist, making sure the dust falls precisely at the centre of the wound. Thor lets out a sigh of relief. When the last specks of magic are absorbed, Loki waits for a while, not taking his gaze of the bloody, but now whole skin and then touches it lightly, checking if it healed well. The stone did its work and Thor is fine, but Loki keeps on gently pressing and poking, stalling.

Thor reaches for him after a couple of moments, sweeping his thumb over the corner of Loki's lip and he is surprised to find it sore.

"Sorry," Thor murmurs and Loki snorts.

"You are a fool."

Thor's hand moves impossibly slowly upwards and soon Loki feels wetness being spread over his cheek with the flat of Thor's thumb.

Oh damn.

Thor wipes the tears from Loki's other cheek as well and he just sags there on the floor, unable to lift his gaze.

"What happened?" Thor enquires, voice earnest but gentle.

Loki shakes his head.

I realized I am a foolish weakling who needs you.

"Bath?" he says instead, finally looking up. His voice cracks even on such a short word. Thor nods and they fumble with each other – Thor trying to pull Loki from the floor and Loki trying to support Thor should he feel dizzy. It brings sad smiles to their faces.

The hot water drains away some of the tension Loki feels and he helps Thor wash the blood away before slotting himself into his arms, shamelessly.

Thor entangles his legs with Loki's and pulls him close, arms wound about Loki's shoulders and they float, their entire bodies soothed by the warmth.

"Loki, please."

"Don't. I'm... I'm sorry."

The apology alone costs him almost more than he is willing to give. He can't explain himself on top of it, but thankfully Thor relents.

He feels empty. Hollow. So much rage and fear was torn out from him in that single moment of comprehension and suddenly there is nothing left. This emptiness seems familiar and he shudders in Thor's embrace (which tightens when Thor feels it) when he remembers why – he felt the same when he let go of the Bifrost.

When the consequences overwhelmed him. When he had nothing left to fight with.

This is surrender too, clearly, but it would be outlandish to continue the comparison. Before, he fell into the void. Now the only place he can fall into are Thor's arms.

And isn't that poetic.

He's not aware of his own self-deprecating chuckle until Thor ducks his head in an odd angle to catch a glimpse of Loki's face, expression puzzled.

"You win," he tells him. Thor goes a bit tense and it's not surprising. Loki is aware how he sounds.

"You are so disgustingly obstinate. You wore me down. Congratulations."

Thor catches on and laughs. "Well, let us see what you will be saying next week."

"Ah, I suppose I deserve that."

He twists in Thor's arms to peck him on the cheek and Thor cards fingers through his hair slowly, gazing at the opposite wall in thought. Loki just watches him until he shakes it off.

"Shall we go?"

In bed, Thor turns from him and Loki doesn't begrudge that. He's not surprised that Thor would be a little distant, but oddly, it doesn't bother him. He doesn't need words for this, or promises.

He just twines himself around his brother's broader back and settles his mouth against Thor's shoulder, pleasantly surprised by this position. Thor seems to share this thought, judging by his wondering hum.

Empty. Empty, but light.