Disclaimer: I don't own Thor, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to Marvel and their respective creators. I only own any original characters that I choose to include, as well as any original plot ideas.
Chapter 15: The Rift
They had not spoken in several weeks, which had been fine by Loki, but it seemed that news of his latest scheme had been what the Allfather needed to break that wonderful silence that flitted about between them. As soon as his mother had finished doting over him, drying him off and ushering him back to his room to dress himself properly, the old man had called him to his study. Now, Odin paced back and forth, and Loki saw fit to stare at the head of the bilge snipe that had been mounted on the wall, even with half of an antler missing. He suddenly found himself wishing that he'd been the one to cut the head from its body, tear the eyes from its skull and replace them with lifeless marbles after what the stupid bastard had done to him.
Why, he hadn't even been able to give the thing a good kick.
The king's gaze turned to him, full of coal and fire as smoke seemed about ready to float out of his mouth and nose at any minute. Loki hoped it would. That would give this whole situation a bit of humor.
"Why would you do such a fool thing?!" the Allfather raged. He turned on Loki, ignored that which he had knocked to the floor, and growled. "Do you not claim to be a man, son?!" That was quite the bite, but Loki grimaced and said nothing. "Then why do you act as a child would?!"
There was little point in defending his actions to Odin. He was king, as the old man had a habit of pointing out, and, being stubborn as he was, would not be listening to reason nor truth any time soon. Particularly if it came from his second born. So Loki would take the tongue lashing given to him, hold his own and make no argument. That way, at least, the storm that was his father's temper wouldn't get any worse.
The writing table rattled, and the prince thought that the legs might give way at any moment, splinter and send the rest of the king's papers and inkwell to the floor as well.
He pursed his lips, openly defiant, and remained silent, taking a strange sort of pleasure in the fact that Odin was growing steadily more irritated. The king wanted him to say something, to try and justify himself so that this could turn into more of a lecture than a one-sided rant on the foolishness of children. Loki bit his lip, eyes downcast to the floor as Odin approached, stood before him with that piercing stare.
"You are satisfied with this game of yours, are you not?" the king said, tone still strained.
That got Loki to thinking again, remembering how miserable Sif had been when she looked at him, knowing that he'd finally done something terrible enough to get under her skin. She'd looked as though her day had been spent trying not to cry, building herself up so that she could take to Thor's advice and face him without showing her fragility, try and prove to him that his actions hadn't had any affect on her or how Sif saw herself. But it had, and she had failed miserably with her charade.
Loki didn't realize that he'd been smiling until Odin's hand briskly wiped the grin right off his face.
"I do not want to hear of this nonsense again," the Allfather said, and waved him away. "Now, I want this taken care of. Immediately."
Suddenly finding himself in the hall with the door closing behind him, it was as though he had never been in the room. AS though the conversation had never even occurred. But Loki could still feel the indent of his teeth in his lip, and the sting on the side of his face.
What a way to break the silence.
# - # - # - #
They were so far distanced from one another now, his brother and their friends, that it bothered Thor to see, in the days and weeks that followed, that the warriors did not speak of him, did not make effort to usher him back into their flock. Rather, they'd been going well out of their way to ignore Loki, and it was worrisome that the trickster seemed perfectly content to stand off to the side, mind his own business until they passed by, and leer after them.
Thor himself had started to drift away from them as well, even as Sif had returned to them, grown her now dark hair long enough to still tie it back. He said little to them himself, having since grown tired of their idle chatter, that which, for the most part, had to do with finding things to occupy their time, or discussing their newfound contempt for his brother. So, Thor had busied himself with wandering about the palace, riding his horse idly about the fields, and, sometimes, following Loki from a distance, though his brother, saying nothing, was sure to know that he was there.
The morrow would be the start of the ninth month, Autumn would soon be settling upon Asgard, and Thor had taken to hurrying after his now isolated brother as he'd run off to the seaside. There was really no place for him to hide on the shore, for there was only sand and shells and seagulls that picked at snails and washed up fish, so Thor stood openly beside his horse, watched Loki settle down and stare out across the water. His brother had had many hiding places over the years, so many that Thor was still certain that he had not found all of them. But this one, his perch in the sand beside the old, unused dock, seemed to be one of the favorites. So much so that, after a while, Thor had begun to think that the imprint of Loki's hands in the sand would linger as though they'd been pressed into the pavement of the streets.
"Do you still want to run away?" Thor said, having finally plucked up enough courage to trudge through the sand.
Loki didn't turn, didn't acknowledge him at all even as he sat down and threw an arm about his shoulders. He didn't like that everything had changed so quickly, that he had failed to fix it all. But, Thor suspected that, even if his brother had properly apologized, it would have still taken Sif some time to truly forgive him, and that the others wouldn't have been so quick to welcome him back either.
"Stop being such a sap," Loki told him. "I'm not crying. Haven't in years, you know that."
Thor almost wished that, for once, he would break down and let all that frustration go, set it free in the tides or in the froth of the fast-paced river.
The sand was still warm from the heat of the day, and Thor tugged the cloak from his shoulders, draped it over Loki as he slumped forward. If they were still sitting in the palace having lessons each morning, Thor would have thought that his brother had grown bored and decided to fall asleep at his writing table.
He shrugged. "Maybe you should."
Loki gave him a genuinely stunned look, let sand slip through his fingers and leaned into Thor's shoulder with a frown.
"It's your fault, too," he said. "If you weren't so caught up in war and silly contests, maybe you would have noticed the way she looks at you." A sigh. "I'm sorry..." Thor smiled and patted him on the head the way he used to. "But I did it for you..."
It had taken some serious thinking on his part to even attempt to understand his brother's logic. But, if all was as he claimed, if Sif had always held some alternate manner of affection for him, then how could he not have noticed? They had grown up together, had been nearly as close as himself and Loki, had spent the days arguing about petty things and cramming food into one another's faces at parties when their parents had not been looking. So how, after all this time, had he not seen it? And how had Loki been able to?
His eyes widened then, taking in the light of the sunset as it cast orange and pink shades about their skin, and moved to his brother. This wasn't just about himself and Sif. It never had been. Loki had, somehow, played a part in the whole of their strange little dance all these years, had been the only one to see with objectivity while being steadily pushed out of the circle. That left a lump in Thor's throat that he could not swallow.
His lips parted, eager to ask the burning question that thrummed through his skull, for he wanted to know if that malicious act had been out of something more than for his benefit and his brother's growing disdain for the woman, but Loki's words beat him out.
"You will be king," he said plainly, and Thor felt his stomach drop. He didn't like hearing talk of that sort. Nothing was set in stone as of yet. "We both know that Father adores you." A sigh and a sideways smirk. "And, as rumor has it, he has plans to present the mighty God of Thunder with a gift for his valiance. For saving his liar brother once again..."
Thor scooped up a handful of dirt and dropped it on Loki's head. He fell back, not smiling as he would have ordinarily, watching as his brother shot to his feet and tried to shake the stuff from his hair as he growled.
"Why did you do that?!"
The prince stood up, kicked at the sand with a boot. "Because you're being stupid," he said, and Loki spat at him.
"It's true, isn't it?" He leered at Thor, pointed over his shoulder towards the palace. "They all believe it! All of them! They talk behind our backs, you know. The servants, the citizens. Have nothing but good to say about you. Meanwhile, I'm the back end of all their jokes!"
"But you're–"
"I know what I am, Thor! I know I'm a liar, the bane of Asgard's existence!" Loki sat down again, flopped back into the sand, gathering it in his hair again. "But, if there's no one else... I'm glad you're the one who understands me."
Thor sighed, bent down and pulled a shell from the sand and threw it out across the water, watching as it sank.
"I will not be king," he said, and Loki, still not moving, looked at him.
"What will you be then? The hero? The one who rides off in search of–"
"I will be your brother." Thor smiled faintly. "That's all."
Loki pursed his lips, almost as if to fight off a smile. He was likely playing at being angry. "And if I say that I have no brother?"
A shrug. "Then I will just be Thor."
That broke him then, that grin sweeping across Loki's face as the thunderer lay down beside him in the sand. The tide would soon reach them, cause them to itch and smell of sea salt, but it didn't matter. They couldn't be bothered to care.
Thor reached over, brushed the white grains away from his brother's face as his eyes closed.
"Loki?"
"Mm?"
His other hand clawed at the earth, leaving marks where his fingers had been. "Do you love me?"
"What kind of fool question is that?" The waves made their advance upon them, and Thor could almost feel the foam graze the ends of his hair as he waited with bated breath. Loki looked at him. "Of course I do. You're my brother."
"Would you die for me?"
So many times they'd run off together without a word to their parents, their friends, had limped home bloody and beaten and so near death. It had always scared Thor, though he had not yet admitted it, to think that, one of these times, he or Loki would return home alone, dragging a lifeless corpse behind. And yet, there was a strange sort of comfort in that fact, to know that, were he to return, his brother would have died to save his life.
"A thousand times over. Why?"
Thor grabbed him by the hand, pulled Loki to his feet just as the waves skirted up the shore, and smiled.
"Then promise me," he said, shifting. "Promise me that nothing will ever come between us. That, even if the Nine Realms fall, we'll stand and die together."
Loki rolled his eyes, gave Thor a playful shove, and smiled.
"Always."
Even were Loki to burn every other bridge, force everyone else away from him with his fondness for tricks and lies, what they were wouldn't change. Nothing, Thor told himself, could pull them apart.