Characters: Loki, Thor
Warnings: none, unless you count bro feels.
A/N: I wanted to say sorry it's been so long since I updated. I lost motivation, and then ffn was being weird and I couldn't update because I needed to be able to italicize things and such. So here's the next one!
He wants to know. Wants to know what keeps Thor doggedly staring at him like…like he wants to…to something. Fix him, or save him, or just give him a hug, or—
"What makes you think you can trust me?"
Doesn't Thor know? Can't he see?
Loki isn't safe.
Isn't trustworthy.
He just got his mother killed.
What in the Nine Realms makes Thor think he can trust him?
Thor only retorts, "I don't."
Loki is Liesmith. Silvertongue. He knows the truth. He's known it ever since he faced his brother on the Bifrost bridge and they'd truly fought for the first time. He knows the truth of every interaction on Thor's precious Earth. They'd traded blows—humans think us immortal, sentiment, where is the Tesseract—but nothing ever happened. He could never truly end Thor, and Thor could never truly give up. You come home, we will stop them together. Thor will always believe there to be good inside the monster he calls brother.
He gives a cracked smile. "When do we start?"
He knows Thor still trusts him. Knows he always will. But he's curious to see how long Thor will pretend he doesn't.
It's only a little while later, squabbling and bickering just like they used to, when he aims them for a stony cliff face and all Thor does is shout half-heartedly, "Are you mad?" and duck over his mortal, then stand and say, "I wish I could trust you."
Loki wants to say many things.
You do. You always will. You'll never stop. I'll be the death of you and everything you hold dear and you'll still think me salvageable.
(But he wishes Thor could trust him too.)
So he promises on the one thing that has sustained him and driven him past everything, through worlds and darkness and the abyss. Loki promises on the one thing he has left, the only thing giving him even a hint of life.
Oh, Thor.
"Trust my rage."
Just don't let it turn on you.
(It won't, never fully. They are two brothers and they will dance around the concept of trust, and they will exist only with each other into eternity.)