A/N: Sorry it took me so long. On top of this being a terrible chapter, I've been working on other things. This fanfiction was meant more as a happy distraction to me while I wrote total angst. XD But I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Day Four

Loki sleeps in the next morning, long after Thor has already gone to classes. As he sits listening to a teacher drone on and on, he starts to regret the series of poor decisions he made the night before. On one hand, he wants to go home and salvage their friendship as soon as possible. On the other hand, he's terrified to even meet Loki's eyes after what happened.

Thor attends his classes for the summer semester as normal, and his nervousness to go home and see his brother makes the day longer. Each minute drags by until finally his last class is released.

The apprehension only increases when he comes home to find Loki still in bed and irritable.

Struck by the tense coiling of his gut, Thor avoids any reminders of last night and doesn't dare to broach the subject at all. "You want to catch a movie tonight?" he asks the lump of pillows and blankets that hides Loki from view.

"No," Loki says. "I'm sick."

"Loki, it's five in the afternoon. You're not hungover anymore."

"I don't want to." Loki buries his face further into the pillows of his bed and goes limp and unresponsive. One of his feet slips out from under the blanket, and Thor reaches to tickle the curve heel. Even that does nothing but drag a patient sigh from Loki's lips.

"'Subtle,'" Thor tries.

Loki's eyes blink open to glare. No words are necessary to convey that his brother is absolutely not in the mood for the game right now.

Thor simply grins."Do you forfeit?"

"'Slight,'" Loki hisses, "'perturbed.'"

"'Irritated.' Come on, get up. I'll buy you ice cream."

There's little Loki can do to resist his dessert. Sure enough, his eyes narrow in interest. "What flavor?" he asks suspiciously.

"What do you think? Strawberry, of course."

"Fine!"

Though the word sounds ferocious, Thor relaxes somewhat at the return to normal bickering, rather than the indifference Loki had shown. It encourages his decision to not remind Loki of last night—maybe he doesn't even remember.

Once Loki pulls himself out of bed, Thor leaves his room and shuts the door so that Loki can get dressed and ready.

After a few minutes, Loki comes out in the tightest jeans he owns, topped by a button-up shirt layered with a close fitting black vest. It reveals the lines of his body clearly to Thor. Loki's hair lies flawlessly with only a couple strands brushing against his forehead, and Thor itches to reach out and brush them away.

Underneath the undone buttons of Loki's shirt, Thor catches a glimpse of the mark he inflicted on Loki's collarbone last night, and turns his eyes away as an incredible amount of guilt explodes within him. The undone buttons are probably deliberate. Loki probably wants him to feel guilty, wants him to humiliate himself and sinfully check out his own little brother.

With that in mind, Thor directs every cell in his body to avoid looking at his brother at all.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Loki stiffen. "Well? The ice cream better be well worth your stupid taste in movies," Loki says. He sounds even more irritable than before.

"Hey, you liked the last one I chose," Thor says.

"I tolerated it. There is a difference."

"Right." Thor glances at Loki's face to see if his brother is teasing, and instead notices this may run deeper than Thor originally thought. Loki's jaw clenches as Thor studies him, as if holding his breath, and—it must be that he remembers last night. Swallowing, Thor forces himself to look away, cringing at the way Loki's shoulders deflate. "Well, let's go find out then."

Thor battles his lust and pointedly ignores Loki's appearance during the car ride—the way tight jeans reveal the exact shape of Loki's legs, the way his unbuttoned collar begs Thor to reach over and brush across rarely showing skin. Unfortunately his peripheral vision sees enough.

It's harder now, to shove such scandalous thoughts aside and simply enjoy the company of his brother, because the secret is out in the open between them. Thor had a taste last night, and now it's even more difficult to not want. But he can't lose his brother, so he perseveres.

Even when Loki crosses his legs and settles one hand on his own crotch, using the other to finger the next button of his shirt—even then, Thor doesn't look.

And Loki's glare darkens—Thor wants to fix that chasm between them by showing Loki he can be just as much of a brother as before and burying his lustful desires, no matter what his brother throws at him. He focuses his eyes on the road for the rest of the way, but strangely, Loki's mood seems to decline even more with each passing second.

"Ice cream now or after?" Thor asks as they park.

"I don't care," Loki mutters and gets out of the car.

Loki always demands ice cream first.

Cautiously, Thor shuts off the ignition and locks the doors as he gets out, only to find Loki staring angrily at the pavement as he kicks a stone.

"We can get ice cream first then," Thor tries and leads his brother towards the mall connected to the theater. It's somewhere new—Sif, who loves ice cream nearly as much as Loki, recommended the place, and he hopes the good quality will brighten Loki's mood.

As much as he wants to, he does not swing an arm around Loki's shoulders, because he doesn't know how his brother will interpret it. Instead, he keeps his hands at his sides, and at one point, Loki walks so closely that their hands brush across each other's.

"Sorry," Thor murmurs awkwardly and folds his arms to ensure it doesn't happen again.

When they reach the shop and Thor buys Loki his promised cup of strawberry-flavored ice cream, Loki barely even touches it. Thor finishes half of his chocolate scoop, before he can't hold back anymore.

"Do you not like it? We can go somewhere else."

"No, it tastes fine." As if to prove his words, Loki takes another few bites, but then stops and takes to staring at the couple noisily flirting behind them.

Thor tries to figure out where he is going wrong—last night was a mistake, but he's been making so many efforts to fix this. Each attempt seems to do the opposite of correcting the problem, and Thor can't figure out why. What happened to the carefree, affectionate brother who used to fight dragons with him, who insisted on late night journeys to the park, who pulled pranks at the dinner table just to make Thor laugh? Even last night, he caught a glimpse of a more playful Loki closer to his brother of the past.

Then, he remembers Loki was drunk. Maybe this is just how Loki normally feels about him now.

Lately they haven't spent much time together, not during the school year when Loki was studying for advanced curricular classes and when Thor struggled to be with him whenever his odd class hours didn't conflict with Loki's spare time. And over the summer, Thor spent so much time studying words in order to convince Loki to stay that he lost time he could have spent with his brother.

Maybe Loki just doesn't enjoy spending time together the way they used to as children. Maybe to him, this is a chore.

Thor bites his tongue to keep his heart from rising any higher in his throat. It takes several moments for him to compose himself enough to speak. "We don't have to see the movie," he says.

Loki's eyes dart towards his. "What?"

The couple behind him giggles uncontrollably at some stupid joke, and Thor's stomach twists. He clears his throat. "If you want, we can skip the movie. And just go home."

Loki's eyes start to sparkle in the light of the ice cream parlor, though Thor thinks it might just be because his own vision grows more blurry with every second. "Okay," Loki says, very quietly, and finishes his ice cream.

Thor makes sure to keep his hand from brushing Loki's again on the way out to the parking lot, though Loki walks a safer distance away this time. They get into the car, and Thor drives off—his mind filled with words. It's his turn

Forlorn, he could say. Bitter. Passion. Unbearable.

He doesn't say any of them, because why should he play this game anymore if Loki does not want to be with him, even as a friend. They don't speak, until they get home and Thor pulls the car into the garage.

"Loki," he says before his brother can get out.

Loki stops and looks at him with an expression of such hope that it nearly blinds him.

"Loki, I should have said this a while ago," he says, heart pounding with guilt. "Last night was a mistake, and I'm so sorry for . . ."

Loki freezes for a moment before his eyes well up with tears. He scrambles out of the car.

Stunned, Thor retrieves his keys to go after his brother, but by the time he makes it upstairs, Loki is shut in his room, and the door is locked. Thor's forehead drops onto the smooth wood of the door, and he withholds everything he wants to say, everything he wants to do.

"Loki?"

There's no answer.

"I'm sorry," Thor says and goes to bed.