rather-be-a-good-man:

icyxmischief:

My muse is suffering from war flashbacks. Send me “You’re safe here.” for my muse’s reaction.

              “Safe?” Loki hisses. 

He is pale. Bruises of sleepless WEEKS have formed
beneath his eyes.  

             “Safe, safe from what?  I am NO VICTIM …! ”

Loki’s first tactic: strive in vain to dismiss that torture and
imprisonment in Chitauri space ever transpired. 

Result: FAILURE.

So he employs his second tactic:  ignite your RAGE.

             “Safe … safe like I was when you dragged me to Jotunheim
             and shattered ALL my illusions of family and self, and purpose?
            SAFE, like I was when I ran MAD while you were galivanting about
            Midgard enjoying your humanity in the company of some woman
            you’d BARELY MET? SAFE, like I was when you never ASKED me
            what that CREATURE did to me, to make me THIS? This shell of 
            the brother you loved, this blight that you now carry out of PITY?
            SAFE, like I was when you THREW ME IN THE DUNGEONS and
            DISOWNED me … only to replace me with your FRIENDS the
            AVENGERS, who DESPISE me … ?!” 

You
LEFT
me
when we were still boys.  
You …  .
No. 
I.
I did it all.
I did it all.
I DID IT ALL . . . ! 

At last his resolve EVACUATES him.  
Loki rushes Thor without warning, greedy and afraid.
He seizes the front of his brother’s armor: claws at Thor’s
red cape, clutches fists of Thor’s hair, VERIFIES to himself
that his brother is REALLY HERE, physically manifest, and 
capable truly of, nay, even WILLING to, protect Loki.  
He clings and claws and violently SHAKES, with the trust of
a child, as FERALLY UNBRIDLED as his suspicions ordinarily
are.  

Noises that shame Loki escape him in a bleating chorus:
howls and whimpers of mingled humiliation and relief.  
They are mostly wordless animal sounds of pain,
but among them, two phrases are distinguishable: 

                          “HELP me!” 
           and the greatest of Loki’s misapprehensions: 
                        “You LET GO!” 

Big brother, you promised.  
When we were small boys who reeked of dirt
and sunshine. 
You promised that we together could forge our 
own constellation high in the night sky above the
Bifrost.
You promised, but when I fell through a wormhole,
and floated encased in ice { a Jotun body is a blessing 
and a curse when all you want is to DIE, and it can
endure the absolute zero of SPACE } in darkness for 
an infinity that I still cannot quite fathom, and landed
hard against that first Chitauri ship, I saw those stars,
i reached out and touched them as I floated past them,
wanting nothing more than to CEASE EXISTING, and
the stars were cruel, because they reminded me of
your promise, and gave me HOPE again, and brother,
it was not our father nor our mother for whom I
cried.

It was YOUR name I screamed into the void,
and I heard nothing. 

So how can you promise me safety NOW? 

Their first meeting in the storm had been the first step on a journey with no clear end in sight, if an ending is to be found or should be found at all. Either way, in the meantime, Thor has tried to keep an eye on and tried to make himself available to his wayward brother, whenever he can do so without leaving a trail for anyone to follow. It helps, of course, that neither of them are necessarily bound to Earth. 

Sometimes, their chance encounters lead to a quiet drink. And sometimes they lead to this.

Even now, his first instinct is to flinch back as Loki rushes at him. Since it’s a defensive instinct rather than a hostile one, however, it does nothing to stop his brother seizing hold of him – and, after the moment of shock passes, Thor recognizes the action for what it is, even if it makes him feel all the more grim and even a little sick to do so. 

Not because of Loki, of course. Thor has always been soft-hearted, but in his time on Earth he has known too many good men and women left shaken and shattered by past pain. It has quite undone many of Asgard’s notions of what makes a proper warrior, even if Thor still winds up trying to adhere to them himself. No, he is sick that this was done to his brother, and longs for the day when he can find those responsible and mete out punishment.

Loki’s attempt to seek reassurance are a borderline assault, but Thor has certainly had worse from his brother, and so he bears up under it without flinching further. Because he is here, he is willing, and if he is not yet able, he will find a way to be. 

Thor closes his eyes and draws in a small, shuddering breath, throat tight and chest aching in sympathy at the sounds pouring forth from Loki. Out of habit, at a loss, he at first finds himself making soft shushing noises without thinking. Then he thinks, and bites his tongue. 

These words have been too long silenced.

So he merely hums his acknowledgement of the words, however painful they are to hear, and rubs his hands along his brother’s upper back and arms as though to warm life back into them. He doesn’t know what else to do. Would an embrace be too suffocating? Loki almost seems to need the freedom of motion.

Then words become distinguishable through the feral agony, and Thor goes still and cold for a long, long moment in recollection and renewed comprehension.

It’s undeniably true that Thor has grown more adept at seeing through Loki’s tricks and deceptions, as hard years and months have given him plenty of practice. It’s a useful skill that’s served him well in other arenas against other foes. In particular, it’s given him a gift for the twisted, true meanings of words that he can at least understand as an outside observer, if not make use of as Loki does.

I remember you tossing me into an abyss.

That moment returns to Thor all the more harshly, even before Loki howls out that same belief. What is not true is not always a lie. A true lie is told knowingly. 

I remember you tossing me into an abyss – there is nothing false about those words. Thor had thought there was, at the time. They had seemed a cold, hard slap at the time, in the face of his own mourning and simultaneous relief to have it ended. He hadn’t understood, and so he had grown angry, and in anger Thor was capable of saying or doing a great many things that he often regretted later. 

That regret finds him again in that moment, sharp as ever, to the point that Thor’s vision blurs for a moment and he doesn’t trust his voice. For a moment, he wonders if he should even say anything. Would it matter, or would it just be a matter of assuaging his own guilty conscience?

But this is a perceived truth that seems to be causing Loki genuine pain, and so Thor makes the attempt, his voice thick with doubt and grief and the by-now familiar taste of self-loathing.

“I wish I had found a way to hold you there. I wish I had followed you, I wish I had known you were alive…” He had wondered as much, once or twice. Frigga had as well. But Odin had shushed them, not unkindly but no less firmly. Do not tie yourselves to the dead when there are living still to be tended to. And Thor, lost in a mire of unfamiliar emotions, still trying to figure out how to be alone, had listened.

“But brother, even if I failed to save you from these torments, it was never because I deliberately cast you aside. Whoever told you that this was how it happened, they are the ones lying.”

Loki pauses to raise his head and VICIOUSLY SEEK
confirmation somewhere on his brother’s stoic, thick-
chiseled face that Thor means all of his pledges and
apologies.  

The God of Mischief, the Prince of Lies, has always
been peculiarly fond of souls that are cannot perform
deceit.  Trust comes by laborious agony 
to Loki, and it has always consoled him to his core
that Thor is so damned blunt, so unabashedly
authentic.  There are no malicious concealments
in Thor. Not like there were in Odin. 

In one moment of diamond-faceted clarity, Loki
comprehends it: Thor is not capable of the mockery,
the derision, that Loki has read, has feared, has even
SOUGHT, in the Thunderer’s person.  

He says he would lunge into the Void after his baby
brother, suffer whatever Loki suffered at Loki’s
side,  and he MEANS it.
He says he never cast Loki out, down, or away on
purpose. And he MEANS it.

                         { Thor DID NOT let go. }

Loki stands riveted in place, with two fists full of golden
hair, tears drizzling down his blotchy red cheeks and 
snot draining down his red nose, a shipwrecked ghost
of his ordinarily tightly-controlled, sleekly regal self. 
There is a long inert moment before he speaks: 

                 ‘I don’t WANT you to FOLLOW me into my torments! For every
                 INCH of me that DESPISES you, there are MILES of a little brother
                 who never wants to see you wounded AGAIN!” 

You
are still
my 
favorite
thing. 

The very creature that proves me LACKING
is still my favorite thing.

The joke is on Loki.

              “ … I’m afraid, Thor.”

It’s spoken feebly as the last vestiges of leaves
on a November branch.  

             “Every moment … of every day. I am afraid. That I never
              escaped.  That I am still in a tiny bright hot room being
              probed and peeled … and … burned… cut.  Made to
              live through … one fabricated visit after another of you
              or Odin or mother … visiting me … telling me to hasten
              with you to exit, to escape … only to have it torn from
             me with my tormentor’s cruel laughter. All tests of my
             mettle, and I was found wanting until I devolved into the
             lean and hungry beast that they wanted me to be.  I 
             have so little faith left that it feels SAFE to express.  Even
             less hope. I’m afraid… .”

Would you let me cling to you, and do I dare
sacrifice so much of my pride and newfound
autonomy? 

Loki has not yet let go of his elder brother. He shows 
no sign of desiring that they be disentangled. 

Hands move down from Thor’s hair and slide meekly
around his waist. From Loki, who is self-contained and
quiet by nature, and who has become so violently
cautious about physical touch of any kind, it is 
extraordinary that he seeks an ordinary expression
of affection from the one remaining member of 
his lifelong family.  Uncertainly his face meets 
the crook of Thor’s neck. It is quiet and dark
there, it is a haven. 

             “ …thank you for … letting me speak without censure.” 

rather-be-a-good-man:

icyxmischief:

◣♛◢ —- –

Loki feels a trickle of warm liquid escaping his nose. In
the wake of Thor’s hard-mustered cheer, the younger prince
of Asgard hastens frantically to conceal the toll taken on his
body.  

At the same moment, a seed of RESENTMENT embeds in
his psyche; can you not see that I suffer on your behalf? 
I am frightened of your disappointment . . . 

But he chides himself all the FIERCER: you are second. Not
first. Second, in all things.  It is his prerogative to be thusly indulged. 

Not yours.

The Thunderer, born first, traded kisses to your scabbed
knees, and plentiful piggy-back rides, and a kind of cliff-bluff-
like shelter, steady and firm, for your subordination. Remember
this lest the ALLFATHER be angrier with you still. 

            “You like it, then?” he finally bleats, and winces at the unexpected
            thinness of his voice.  “it’s meant to imitate our favorite summer 
            romping spot, when we were small.  You recognize that tree, do
            you? It’s fascinating, the particular frequency of magic required 
            to, ehm, simulate the texture of the bark. Feel it! Thor?” 

From Loki’s vantage point, Thor has long since disregarded
his almost elated reiterations of his scientific process. The Trickster
God wilts almost imperceptibly; be quiet, you queer, misplaced, 
slim little scholar.  Do you not recognize already how vastly he 
indulges you, when none of his strapping friends can bear the
nuisance of your company? When they mutter to him at the taverns
such complaints as, “your brother stares at me so, without blinking,
just like a snake,” and “why must your brother not choose a single
form? It is unsettling how at one time he is a man, and an instant 
later, a woman?” and “How do you know he hasn’t enchanted us
all to do his bidding? How can you TRUST a Seidhr Master?” 

This entire landscape is probably more for your benefit than
for Thor’s.  

           “ … thank you,” Loki finally murmurs, balking a good five
          feet shy of where Thor has gone. 

It’s true that Thor is generally much less concerned with the processes behind Loki’s tricks. In fact, he genuinely wonders why Loki often seems so much more wrapped up in the processes than the seemingly miraculous results he can conjure at the end of them

Perhaps it’s only because he genuinely has no hope of replicating or following any explanations Loki gives. Thor is not entirely unaware of his own limits, after all. At times, he does indulge his brother and listens anyway, because no matter how inexplicable, it does truly seem to make Loki happy. Even now, it’s only when Loki says for certain that the bark before him is solid to the touch that Thor reaches out to run his hand over the manufactured surface. “Of course I recognize it. We would play here all the time, when we were young. Though I always hated that father was the one to give us bilgesnipe scales, rather than permitting us to come on the hunt.” 

It only takes a second before he realizes that no, it’s not a perfect copy. But it’s close, very close, and frankly the shock of realizing that Loki could perfectly copy such a thing might have been more than Thor could bear on a night like tonight. So he smiles all the same, before sinking his fingers into the dirt and going digging for their little box. 

And it’s not until he finds it, a moment or so later, it’s not until his fingers brush the scuffed wooden surface with its old engraving left there by Mother, that Thor realizes that he’s still here alone. He has grown so accustomed to Loki’s presence that it’s often in its absence when it hits the hardest. “Loki?” Thor asks, frowning in puzzlement and concern, glancing back at his brother where he hovers entirely too far away. 

For Loki’s presence is so rarely an indulgence at all, to Thor, except in the knowledge that his brother must often be indulging him, to leave the books he seems to favor so much in order to accompany Thor even on the adventures that don’t end as poorly as this. But he so often aches for the familiar company of his brother when it isn’t there, and knowing how poorly equipped he is to keep up with Loki in academic matters, he tries to pass the time between them in other, more exciting ways. Loki usually seems to enjoy them at heart, even if he protests otherwise.

And when his friends voice their complaints – surely only fueled by too much drink sharpening already sharp tempers – Thor’s reply is ready and familiar. “He is my brother, even if sometimes he prefers to be my sister instead. OF course I trust him.” Perhaps not to pick up the bill for the drinks, but to be by his side and support him, yes. Why wouldn’t he?

And that’s usually enough for them, at least for a while. 

Details are slowly starting to filter in, as though they’ve been hammering on the door of his thoughts and he’s only just remembered to open it. Thor rises to his feet, moves over to join Loki, and then reaches out with a hand to carefully grasp his brother’s chin, turning his head slightly this way and slightly that.

Like that, this close, the faint smudge left behind by the blood goes unnoticed no longer. Thor feels his heart stutter a bit in his chest, and finally asks, far too belatedly: “Brother, are you all right?”

◣♛◢ —- –

The duration that it takes the dazed young prince, ordinarily
so quick of wit, to respond to his brother, is answer enough.

               “Hmmmbit taxed,” he slurs, with a relenting frown, after 
               Thor has taken hold of his face and closely examined the
               effects of his spell. “Rather too ambitious of me, just now, 
               I think, but ambition is a bad habit of mine.” 

He is quick to blame himself; Odin, who once closed his sons’
fingers around bilgesnipe scales and refused to let them near
the actual game, has also ever adeptly rendered Loki Thor’s
keeper, counsel and emotional regulator, and as such, Loki
is usually affixed the blame for any joint venture of the two 
princes. Loki speaks, then, from a habit deeply ingrained.  

He leans heavily into Thor’s side.  The confusion on his
features deepens: the sensation of his brother’s large 
warm solid presence emboldens Loki to admit the extent
of his exhaustion.  

             “I may have … mmbeen trying to impress you,” he
             huffs, with a guilty grin.  

Distractedly he wipes blood from his nose. Vertigo seizes
him, a sea of black filled with too-vibrant stars.  He turns
his face into Thor’s shoulder as his knees buckle and his
legs fail him.  

What a contemptible bother he is. 

           “Just a moment, I … shall get my bearings …” 

Give me a moment, for I measure my worth by my
ability to follow you through each and every landscape,
across each and every terrain.  None care for me as you
do; I must convey my gratitude, no matter how marred
by momentary resentments.