Title: Spar With Me
Disclaimer: This story belongs to Marvel. They own all the characters, credit and copyright. This story is made simply for enjoyment and no money is being made from this. No offence intended. No copyright infringement intended.
Warnings: Slash
Pairings: Eventual Thor/Loki
Summary: Thor, telling him he was trusted and wanted… Leaning close and claiming his lips in a bruising kiss… Pinning him with his body and superior strength… Branding him, ravishing him, marking him in ways more than one –
Author's Note: Please don't throw things at me for writing something so high up on the Universal Scale of Lame. Enjoy! (:
Watching his brother battling and felling numerous combatants with terrifying accuracy and grace on the training field had desire coiling in the pit of his belly, though he fought it with every ounce of self-restraint he possessed. He could not, would not, succumb to these degrading fantasies his mind so often conjured up.
That would forever tarnish his brother's reputation, though he cared not for his own. He had always been the lesser brother, the one in the shadows, Icarus flying too close to the sun that was Thor. What was one more act of degradation? But he would not taint the perfection and innocence that was his golden brother.
Clenching his hands into fists, Loki let his eyes slip shut to avoid looking anymore at Thor. Unbidden, his mind supplied him with images, dreams beyond his wildest imagination. Thor, telling him he was trusted and wanted… Leaning close and claiming his lips in a bruising kiss… Pinning him with his body and superior strength… Branding him, ravishing him, marking him in ways more than one –
"What are you meditating on, brother?" came Thor's voice from behind, a large hand clapping him on the back, and startling him from his wayward thoughts.
A glance at the training grounds confirmed that his brother had already incapacitated every single one of his opponents, and they were now recuperating with the aid of the healers on duty.
"Trivial matters, nothing of importance," the lie rolled smoothly from his lips, sending a pang of guilt at doing so through him. If only you knew, brother, of just how low I have sunk, you would not be standing here making idle conversation. You would be rushing to the Allfather to have him banish me for my wicked imaginings.
Thor shrugged, accepting the lie. Then, "Spar with me, brother," he requested, tone light and playful, as he had during their youthful days.
The answer was out of his mouth before Loki had even thought twice on the matter. "No, I will not."
"Why not?" Thor persisted, and the only possible word he could use to describe the expression currently on his brother's face was a pout.
"Because, brother," Loki replied in a long-suffering tone, "I do not spar. I have no use for sparring. Why allow myself to be humiliated even more than I must? All of Asgard knows of my wicked sorcery and inferior combating skills."
Despite his attempts to school his face into an impassive mask, something in his voice cracked, betraying the hurt he felt. The hurt of constantly being bested by Thor, of ever being in his impressive shadow, of never being deemed worthy of anything in their father's eyes when compared to his older brother.
Confusion was the predominant expression on Thor's dumbfounded visage now. And with a sigh of frustration, Loki decided to spell it out for him in simpler words. "No, Thor, I will not spar with you because. I. Am. Weak."
That said, he stood up and turned to head back to his chambers, where he could lose himself in a spellbook and get away from his perfect brother. Before he had taken so much as a single step, however, Thor's hand had shot out and captured his wrist, tugging him back effortlessly.
"You were never weak, brother," Thor whispered, and the conviction Loki could hear in those words was so strong he could almost believe them. Almost.
"I asked you to spar because I knew you were the only one who could face me without fear. In all of Asgard, no matter how fine a warrior, I have never known a single one who is not wary of me, no one but you. You are the only one I feel I can spar with as equals. Come and spar with me, Loki."
Against his better judgment, the raven-haired god found himself acquiescing. "Fine, brother, but you will allow me to return to my chambers once you have won."
Thor's answering grin was wide and infectious, and despite himself, Loki could feel his own lips curve upwards to match. For really, who could resist that smile? No one that he knew of in Asgard was immune to his brother's charm, and he suspected he was the most easily affected of the lot.
They headed down towards the sparring fields, Loki treading subtly a few steps behind Thor, all the better to admire the enticing posterior presented before him. Their destination arrived all too soon.
"Your choice of weapon, brother?" Thor asked, hefting Mjolnir easily from hand to hand, as he gestured expansively to the racks upon racks of assorted weaponry arrayed before them. Swords, spears, clubs, daggers, maces of every shape and size.
"These will be fine," was Loki's swift reply, plucking two of his own daggers from thin air, and twirling them experimentally.
"As you wish," said Thor, and without pause, launched himself at the trickster.
Loki sidestepped deftly, and attempted to get under the thunderer's guard whilst he was still disoriented from the evasion. He was unsuccessful, as predicted, and had to undergo a fair amount of slithering (yes, he supposed that was the right word) to escape the hold Thor had on him.
A rather dangerous version of tag ensued, with Thor trying to capture Loki long enough to declare victory, and having the trickster slip through his grasp in serpentine movements every time.
The brothers somehow ended up tangled on the ground, Thor holding Mjolnir poised to strike, and Loki's daggers held dangerously close to Thor's jugular. Both of them were panting from the exertion, and neither was in too advantageous a position for him to be declared victor.
Baring his teeth in a feral grin, Loki asked, "Shall we call it a draw, brother?"
Thor was about to reply, when a shift in his position astride Loki caused their hips to brush briefly together. A strangled gasp locked in the trickster's throat, and his grip on the daggers loosened somewhat, so that the wicked points were aimed nowhere near any of Thor's vital organs.
His slackened grip was enough for the thunderer to disarm him of the daggers, and Loki found his arms captured and Mjolnir once again positioned to strike.
Above him Thor gave a satisfied rumble, "Yield, brother?"
"Yes, Thor, I yield," Loki hissed, shooting his brother a patented death glare.
Thor's beam could have lit up all the nine realms. "I win!" he exclaimed, as though he and Loki were still toddlers at the mere age of a hundred years.
Rolling his eyes, Loki pushed at him. "Get off, you oaf, I can't breathe."
Practically bounding to his feet, Thor then proceeded to help the trickster up by bodily dragging him upright single-handedly, unheeding of Loki's protests that he was not to be manhandled and that he was perfectly capable of standing on his own.
"You fought well today, brother," said Thor, still beaming in an overly-bright way that made Loki's eyes hurt just from the sheer brightness of it.
"So did you," Loki said dryly, "Now if you'll excuse me, I shall retire to my chambers and never set foot on the sparring grounds again."
Before Thor could stop him with either his charming charisma or distracting physique, Loki teleported himself into his chambers, where he sagged gracelessly into a heap on the floor.
Why did Thor always win? He could count the number of battles Thor had lost easily on one hand. Scratch that, one finger. And that battle was any intellectual battle of wits he had had with Loki.
Perfect Thor, always better, always superior. In Father's eyes, Mother's eyes, and the eyes of every Aesir. Thor's shadow forever eclipsing him, and he just had to find the oaf irresistible in every manner possible.
And even when they had been on the brink of being declared equals, when the fight had come to a draw, Thor just had to go and move, and in that provocative position Loki had been quite lost, powerless in that moment, desire unfurling in him, threatening to consume him, if Thor would just move then he could –
Steering himself away from that destructive train of thought, Loki staggered to his bathing chamber for a – what was that Midgardian term? – cold shower.
As he bathed, he tried very hard to ignore the hot tears tracking down his cheeks, mingling with the icy water sluicing down.
TO BE CONTINUED…