[Before Thee Alone; The Avengers/Thor; Loki/Thor; ~3,000 words]
Title: Before Thee Alone
Author: peridium
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe (The Avengers and Thor)
Word Count: ~3,000
Pairing: Loki/Thor
Rating: PG-13 for (pseudo) incest and some general violent grossness.
Disclaimer: Clearly, not mine. Do we still do these?
Summary: So Loki screams. He thrashes. He spits poison and curses at the implacable ceiling of his prison, but the pain never fades. And for the first time in centuries, Thor sneaks up on him.
Notes: Obviously, this is a take on the punishment Loki receives in Norse mythology. The title is a quote from Lokasenna, Loki responding to Thor's continued threats:
Loki spake:
"I have said to the gods and the sons of the gods
The things that whetted my thoughts;
But before thee alone do I now go forth,
For thou fightest well, I ween."
Many thanks to blindmadness for betaing and some handholding.
At first, Loki writhes in pain.
Somewhere in some distant corner of his mind he knows that this behavior shames him, but dignity has lost the desperate importance it once had. The agony is inexorable, the venom eating away at the skin of his cheeks, spilling over his lips. It recalls the humiliation that hideous green monster inflicted upon him in the Midgardian tower, only this never ends.
Pulling at his bonds brings little distraction. The Asgardians designed this punishment well, and the rocks are sharp, meant to discourage struggling. They dig into his hands, leaving scabs that heal, reopen, and then heal again. When his skin goes blue, he closes his eyes against the sight and bites through his own tongue.
So Loki screams. He thrashes. He spits poison and curses at the implacable ceiling of his prison, but the pain never fades.
And for the first time in centuries, Thor sneaks up on him.
"Brother." The word makes Loki flinch, but so does everything these days.
"Get out," he snaps. Thor is looming over him, his jaw set in an expression uncharacteristically enigmatic. Loki sneers up at him. Focusing on the damage he could do to Thor's idiotic, aggravating face makes the hurt, for the first time, lose some of its edge.
"Brother," Thor repeats. His voice is gentle and Loki wants to kill him. It seems that without a single voice of reason in the kingdom, no one has thought to keep Thor from inserting himself where he certainly doesn't belong.
Thor makes the mistake of reaching a large hand to smooth back Loki’s hair and almost loses a finger to the snap of teeth.
"All right, Loki. I understand." It’s the voice Thor uses to soothe spooked horses, which is infuriating. Loki tugs tight at his restraints just to feel them cut into his wrists and spits in Thor’s face.
Traces of venom linger in the saliva that hits Thor’s brow, and he draws back in surprise. "That is powerful stuff indeed," he murmurs, touching two fingers to the spot.
Loki laughs, the sound reedy to his ears. "You haven’t the faintest idea," he hisses.
"No," Thor agrees. He casts a sober look at the serpent poised above Loki. "I haven't."
With the passage of time, Loki learns to bear it, or some of it. He learns how he can shudder, take the pain into himself, let it fill his chest cavity and settle there like an old friend. Like any companion of his, he can at times trick it and convince it to retreat for a time.
This time, he knows Thor is coming. Thor's presence is unmistakable, all crackling thunder and good intentions. It makes Loki's skin crawl, and he aims a thin smile at Thor upon his tentative entrance.
"Loki," Thor begins, and is that a note of pleading? It's music to Loki’s ears. Callused fingertips hover around Loki's shoulder, and he tries to jerk away, but he is weary.
"Get out, Thor."
Thor is silent, unusual in and of itself. Venom drips from the tips of Loki’s ears and he grits his teeth, unwilling to imagine how he must look now, naked and wretched and powerless. "Thor," he repeats, trying to pitch his voice low, to recapture deadliness. He knows it seems only desperation.
Again, a long silence.
“Midgard has welcomed me with open arms, Loki,” Thor says. His voice is farther now, and Loki turns his head to see Thor perched on a nearby outcropping of stone. The sight is absurd, his bright hair and crimson cape out of place against the drab backdrop of this wretched cavern. Mjölnir rests easily in one of his hands, as if it is made of paper. He appears prepared to stay this time.
Loki hisses, chokes on poison, must resort to retching like a child with a weak stomach under Thor's solemn, concerned gaze.
"They accept me as a part of their team. It is … rewarding." Thor smiles, a little thing that's no match for his customary grins. "I believe that if you had simply stopped to look around rather than trying to destroy the place, you would have come to understand its charms as I have."
"Forgive me for being slightly less enamored of Earth's hospitality than you," Loki says. The sardonic drawl in his voice feels like coming home, just for a moment. "I have found it less welcoming."
"Brother, you tried to destroy it," Thor says with clear disbelief. "How could you have been welcomed?"
A fresh shudder of pain rolls from Loki’s curled toes up to where his jaw is clenched tight. “Leave,” he tries again, despising the exhaustion that plagues his voice. “Surely you have people to be saving, do you not? They seem unable to look after themselves.”
Thor doesn’t leave, but neither does he answer. He only sits, massive shoulders hunched and Mjölnir at his feet, reminding Loki of the destructive tantrums Thor would throw as a child and their sulky aftermaths. This, however, is quiet, so quiet that Loki can hear every hitch in his own breath and every jarring drag of his chains across stone. He will not scream again, he vows. He will not.
Hours pass before Thor leaves.
"Loki!"
Loki is rather occupied at the moment. The strangled yells he's making leave little room for idle conversation with an overzealous older brother, after all. He is going to destroy Asgard, all of it; there's another vow, but one he intends to keep.
The snake has taken to spitting venom in his eyes of late. The screaming is back more often than not and it feels as though he has been struggling against his chains for days on end. It may well be that he has.
"Loki." Thor actually sounds as if he might care, because Thor always sounds that way.
It's only his passing blindness that keeps Loki from spitting in Thor’s face again. If he's going to hurt Thor, he’d like to do it right. Instead, he composes himself, as best he can, manages to speak and pretends there is no edge of pain to his voice. "What makes you think you have the right to be here?"
There's no answer. What there is is abrupt relief, the absence of pain such a bone-deep shock that Loki chokes, winces, and can actually feel the icy prickle as the jötunn blue flushes down the skin of his face. Not bothering to mask it, he opens his eyes, letting the poison drain from them as his ears register a rumble of low thunder.
Above, Thor's face is contorted in pain and his broad hands are cupped. Loki has never heard him breathing so unsteadily and the now-unfamiliar stillness in his body distracts him such that it takes him too long to register what Thor is doing.
"Thor," he says with almost-undisguised disbelief.
Another roll of thunder shakes the cavern. "Does it-" Thor takes a heavy moment to swallow, the lines of his throat trembling. "Does this ease your pain?"
Against his better judgment, Loki tells the truth. "Yes."
No response seems forthcoming from Thor, whose wit has apparently grown no quicker. "It is an external issue, as I believe you are aware," Loki adds, relishing the dry tone he can again muster with ease. "My suffering does not spring from the burden of guilt."
It seems that even at a time like this, Thor can sigh with exasperation at his little brother, though the sound is strained. "So you say, Loki." His voice is like a gathering storm, suppressing so much, and for the first time in decades, Loki knows how Thor is feeling. He has felt just this pain for months, hasn’t he?
It is only when Thor’s steely eyes flick down to him that Loki realizes he still looks the jötunn he is, blue and vulnerable and an aberration. He swallows, meets Thor’s gaze: steady, just as steady as ever. Whatever thoughts are trapped in that thick skull, Thor betrays no hint of surprise, nor even the revulsion Loki anticipated.
Loki lifts his chin, flexing his fingers to assure himself that his body functions still. “Does your father know you’re toying with his things? You know how he hates that.”
Thor’s eyes narrow. He bites off a curse and lets his hands fall away. Loki catches a glimpse of the damage done by the miniature pool of venom Thor had gathered before he can think of little but the return of the pain he had already begun to forget.
"You are no one’s thing," Thor growls. Answer enough.
Thor comes back. He never has known when to give up on anything. Each time he sweeps in and Loki rolls his eyes as best he can in anticipation of the coming lecture on responsibility.
As it is, they hardly speak. When Thor stands, surveying Loki with squared shoulders and lips pressed together, Loki hardly feels the inclination to say anything. He is stripped of everything, all his armor and pride, and it is more like a return to their shared childhood than anything has been in a long, long time. Then, he was in awe of the bright being that was his brother, wondered at how he could trick the customs of Asgard into letting them rule side by side one day.
Thor does not name what he is looking to find. Most days, he only sits, a tangible presence that makes the hairs at the back of Loki's neck stand on end.
"Do you find it gratifying to watch me suffer?" Loki demands, at length.
"No," Thor says gravely. Loki isn't entirely certain he likes this new Thor, all solemnity and thoughtful once-overs. Perhaps he saves his typical merriment for the Asgardians.
"You're doing a remarkable impression of someone who does, in that case."
The look Thor gives him is of such honest bewilderment that Loki can hardly help the way his lips quirk up. "Why would I enjoy your suffering?"
Loki lets a laugh escape. "Have they taught you nothing on Midgard?"
Thor's brow furrows. "They have taught me many things," he says. "The metal man, Tony Stark, delights in teaching me the ways of his home, often to the detriment of those around us. But not even he can explain-" Here he stops himself, a rare hint of uncertainty.
Unwilling to provide him an out, Loki quiets again and concentrates on the drip of pain that drums onto his forehead. At least it has settled there for the time being.
That expression of Thor's is familiar, but it belongs on the battlefield, not in a cavern buried in the ice countless leagues from their-his home. "I'm trying to understand, Loki," Thor says after countless moments. A heavy hand settles against Loki’s ribs, and he jerks away from it. "Those on Earth, they are so willing to see you as only a creature gone mad beyond reason."
"Am I not?"
"Oh, I believe wholeheartedly that you are." Thor sounds so long-suffering, so disappointed, that Loki laughs again. "I simply do not accept that madness and ruin constitute all that you are."
"That would make me remarkably one-dimensional," Loki says. He turns his head away, Thor's downturned mouth too much to contemplate. "Your commitment to the familial spirit, imagined though it may be, is inspiring, truly."
When Thor reaches to push Loki's hair from his eyes now, he yields to the treatment. The touch is the gentlest Loki has known for some time. He hates the shudder that crawls down his sides. The quiet in the cavern seems like a living thing, insistent, pressing down on him, making way only for the drip of venom as it strikes his cheek.
"I will have my little brother back, this I promise." Thor speaks with unyielding determination. His hand cradles the back of Loki's head, fingertips finding the spots of tension at the base of his neck. "I can be patient."
Loki believes him. There is nowhere else to go, anyway. As he shuts his eyes and doesn't bother to conjure up a clever answer, Thor's fingers comb through his matted hair, as careful as if Loki could break at any moment.
"Does the All-Father know you're here?"
Thor halts mid-step, his confident stride stuttering. He goes still, the minute flicker of guilt passing over his features something for Loki to savor. "He knows I pay you visits," he says.
Loki sneers. "I imagine he finds your devotion touching."
Still, Thor is somber. "He thinks me foolish."
"Your idiocy will be written in legend for centuries to come," Loki agrees.
There it is: Thor smiles, the corners of his mouth twitching up. Loki almost returns it, but the pain demands too much of his attention.
When Thor next appears, he carries a shell in one hand. It's common, bears no enchantments, gleams dully in the cavern's dimness. Loki wonders for a moment what Thor has done with Mjölnir until he sees the hammer at his side as ever.
"Are you lost?"
Thor grins without warning, the smile at once familiar and shocking weighed against centuries of companionship and years of animosity. "Not in the least," he assures Loki, as boisterous as if they have just returned from one of their childhood expeditions.
Loki's eyes narrow as he considers. Memory loss seems impossible, given the too-obvious sight of Loki himself stretched out, unclothed, suspended, and at the mercy of this infernal serpent’s venom. While he busies himself with increasingly unlikely probabilities, Thor strides to his side, still smiling.
"Oh," says Loki, and, "I see," because once more, the pain has stopped and he's shaking all over and if he can keep on talking, this may pass without humiliation.
There's a beaming Thor hovering above him, shell in one hand. Perhaps the snake is perturbed, but for once Loki cannot see its face. "You see, brother?" Thor claps the other hand to Loki's shoulder, forgetting that the wounds there are still healing. Loki does not flinch, refusing to let on that it can hurt after all this time.
"As I've said," Loki says sourly. He breathes with deliberation as his body tries again to restore itself. "You think yourself clever, don’t you?"
"No, I think you clever." Thor’s hand is so warm against Loki's skin. "And I think myself poorly-equipped to stand aside as you suffer."
"This isn't a game, Thor. I'm meant to be here forever."
In an instant, Thor's grin fades. "I know. So am I, now."
Loki wouldn't have thought it possible, but Thor stays. He stays, he stands, he doesn't move, he doesn't even speak.
There are times when he turns to empty the shell’s contents onto the cavern floor, and the pain seems so fresh that Loki screams and thrashes anew. Still, Thor remains, digging fingers into Loki’s shoulder in a gesture meant to comfort. Loki does not have it in him to pull away.
In time, Loki grows restless.
"Have they no need of you on Midgard?" he inquires, watching Thor’s face for a reaction.
Thor shrugs one shoulder. "If there comes a situation so dire that they cannot prevail without me, I will go for a time. Those on Earth are, for the most part, strong enough in my absence."
The silence stretches on for a long moment. Loki considers the determination in the set of Thor's jaw, the ease with which he holds the shell aloft for hours that turn into days. He considers the possibility of Thor's absence and he considers the empty expanse of his prison. He swallows and gathers the reserves of his composure.
"Thank you," Loki says, the words too quick and easy.
Something about Thor's face changes at that. His breath catches, he smiles, his eyes are warm. "Loki-"
When Thor kisses him, Loki bites. The taste of blood floods his mouth and he bites down harder, drinking in the yelp of surprise Thor makes. Heat is crackling all along his skin, an alien sensation Loki wants to hold onto.
Perhaps he ought to have considered that Thor might drop the shell. He hisses, low in his throat, at the unheralded agony as venom spills over his shoulder.
"Curse this thing," Thor mutters, scrambling to pick it up, one large hand at the back of Loki's neck.
"Not a terribly gifted multitasker, I see," Loki manages. His voice shakes despite himself.
The pain recedes quickly; there is that. Thor looks nonplussed and unsure, as though he has just witnessed a jötunn lifting Mjölnir right before him. "Loki, I-" He stops, obviously searching for words as he flicks a dubious glance toward the shell he is again holding up. He has never been a gifted speaker.
"You’re a fool," Loki says. He allows himself a small smile, buoyed by Thor's flustered demeanor, and licks his lips to taste Thor's blood.
"So some say." Thor seems helpless against his own smile, which proves Loki's accusation correct all over again. "If I should not have," he begins, hesitating.
Loki gives a derisive snort. "It was you, I believe, who succumbed to distraction," he points out.
There’s a kind of wary focus in Thor's expression that Loki has never seen before. When he leans down, though, to tilt Loki's head with his free hand, his touch is careful, his second kiss is light, and Loki hears Thor's heart hammering in the still of the cold hollow.
Resigned to his own growing foolishness, Loki kisses his brother back.
Author: peridium
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe (The Avengers and Thor)
Word Count: ~3,000
Pairing: Loki/Thor
Rating: PG-13 for (pseudo) incest and some general violent grossness.
Disclaimer: Clearly, not mine. Do we still do these?
Summary: So Loki screams. He thrashes. He spits poison and curses at the implacable ceiling of his prison, but the pain never fades. And for the first time in centuries, Thor sneaks up on him.
Notes: Obviously, this is a take on the punishment Loki receives in Norse mythology. The title is a quote from Lokasenna, Loki responding to Thor's continued threats:
Loki spake:
"I have said to the gods and the sons of the gods
The things that whetted my thoughts;
But before thee alone do I now go forth,
For thou fightest well, I ween."
Many thanks to blindmadness for betaing and some handholding.
At first, Loki writhes in pain.
Somewhere in some distant corner of his mind he knows that this behavior shames him, but dignity has lost the desperate importance it once had. The agony is inexorable, the venom eating away at the skin of his cheeks, spilling over his lips. It recalls the humiliation that hideous green monster inflicted upon him in the Midgardian tower, only this never ends.
Pulling at his bonds brings little distraction. The Asgardians designed this punishment well, and the rocks are sharp, meant to discourage struggling. They dig into his hands, leaving scabs that heal, reopen, and then heal again. When his skin goes blue, he closes his eyes against the sight and bites through his own tongue.
So Loki screams. He thrashes. He spits poison and curses at the implacable ceiling of his prison, but the pain never fades.
And for the first time in centuries, Thor sneaks up on him.
"Brother." The word makes Loki flinch, but so does everything these days.
"Get out," he snaps. Thor is looming over him, his jaw set in an expression uncharacteristically enigmatic. Loki sneers up at him. Focusing on the damage he could do to Thor's idiotic, aggravating face makes the hurt, for the first time, lose some of its edge.
"Brother," Thor repeats. His voice is gentle and Loki wants to kill him. It seems that without a single voice of reason in the kingdom, no one has thought to keep Thor from inserting himself where he certainly doesn't belong.
Thor makes the mistake of reaching a large hand to smooth back Loki’s hair and almost loses a finger to the snap of teeth.
"All right, Loki. I understand." It’s the voice Thor uses to soothe spooked horses, which is infuriating. Loki tugs tight at his restraints just to feel them cut into his wrists and spits in Thor’s face.
Traces of venom linger in the saliva that hits Thor’s brow, and he draws back in surprise. "That is powerful stuff indeed," he murmurs, touching two fingers to the spot.
Loki laughs, the sound reedy to his ears. "You haven’t the faintest idea," he hisses.
"No," Thor agrees. He casts a sober look at the serpent poised above Loki. "I haven't."
With the passage of time, Loki learns to bear it, or some of it. He learns how he can shudder, take the pain into himself, let it fill his chest cavity and settle there like an old friend. Like any companion of his, he can at times trick it and convince it to retreat for a time.
This time, he knows Thor is coming. Thor's presence is unmistakable, all crackling thunder and good intentions. It makes Loki's skin crawl, and he aims a thin smile at Thor upon his tentative entrance.
"Loki," Thor begins, and is that a note of pleading? It's music to Loki’s ears. Callused fingertips hover around Loki's shoulder, and he tries to jerk away, but he is weary.
"Get out, Thor."
Thor is silent, unusual in and of itself. Venom drips from the tips of Loki’s ears and he grits his teeth, unwilling to imagine how he must look now, naked and wretched and powerless. "Thor," he repeats, trying to pitch his voice low, to recapture deadliness. He knows it seems only desperation.
Again, a long silence.
“Midgard has welcomed me with open arms, Loki,” Thor says. His voice is farther now, and Loki turns his head to see Thor perched on a nearby outcropping of stone. The sight is absurd, his bright hair and crimson cape out of place against the drab backdrop of this wretched cavern. Mjölnir rests easily in one of his hands, as if it is made of paper. He appears prepared to stay this time.
Loki hisses, chokes on poison, must resort to retching like a child with a weak stomach under Thor's solemn, concerned gaze.
"They accept me as a part of their team. It is … rewarding." Thor smiles, a little thing that's no match for his customary grins. "I believe that if you had simply stopped to look around rather than trying to destroy the place, you would have come to understand its charms as I have."
"Forgive me for being slightly less enamored of Earth's hospitality than you," Loki says. The sardonic drawl in his voice feels like coming home, just for a moment. "I have found it less welcoming."
"Brother, you tried to destroy it," Thor says with clear disbelief. "How could you have been welcomed?"
A fresh shudder of pain rolls from Loki’s curled toes up to where his jaw is clenched tight. “Leave,” he tries again, despising the exhaustion that plagues his voice. “Surely you have people to be saving, do you not? They seem unable to look after themselves.”
Thor doesn’t leave, but neither does he answer. He only sits, massive shoulders hunched and Mjölnir at his feet, reminding Loki of the destructive tantrums Thor would throw as a child and their sulky aftermaths. This, however, is quiet, so quiet that Loki can hear every hitch in his own breath and every jarring drag of his chains across stone. He will not scream again, he vows. He will not.
Hours pass before Thor leaves.
"Loki!"
Loki is rather occupied at the moment. The strangled yells he's making leave little room for idle conversation with an overzealous older brother, after all. He is going to destroy Asgard, all of it; there's another vow, but one he intends to keep.
The snake has taken to spitting venom in his eyes of late. The screaming is back more often than not and it feels as though he has been struggling against his chains for days on end. It may well be that he has.
"Loki." Thor actually sounds as if he might care, because Thor always sounds that way.
It's only his passing blindness that keeps Loki from spitting in Thor’s face again. If he's going to hurt Thor, he’d like to do it right. Instead, he composes himself, as best he can, manages to speak and pretends there is no edge of pain to his voice. "What makes you think you have the right to be here?"
There's no answer. What there is is abrupt relief, the absence of pain such a bone-deep shock that Loki chokes, winces, and can actually feel the icy prickle as the jötunn blue flushes down the skin of his face. Not bothering to mask it, he opens his eyes, letting the poison drain from them as his ears register a rumble of low thunder.
Above, Thor's face is contorted in pain and his broad hands are cupped. Loki has never heard him breathing so unsteadily and the now-unfamiliar stillness in his body distracts him such that it takes him too long to register what Thor is doing.
"Thor," he says with almost-undisguised disbelief.
Another roll of thunder shakes the cavern. "Does it-" Thor takes a heavy moment to swallow, the lines of his throat trembling. "Does this ease your pain?"
Against his better judgment, Loki tells the truth. "Yes."
No response seems forthcoming from Thor, whose wit has apparently grown no quicker. "It is an external issue, as I believe you are aware," Loki adds, relishing the dry tone he can again muster with ease. "My suffering does not spring from the burden of guilt."
It seems that even at a time like this, Thor can sigh with exasperation at his little brother, though the sound is strained. "So you say, Loki." His voice is like a gathering storm, suppressing so much, and for the first time in decades, Loki knows how Thor is feeling. He has felt just this pain for months, hasn’t he?
It is only when Thor’s steely eyes flick down to him that Loki realizes he still looks the jötunn he is, blue and vulnerable and an aberration. He swallows, meets Thor’s gaze: steady, just as steady as ever. Whatever thoughts are trapped in that thick skull, Thor betrays no hint of surprise, nor even the revulsion Loki anticipated.
Loki lifts his chin, flexing his fingers to assure himself that his body functions still. “Does your father know you’re toying with his things? You know how he hates that.”
Thor’s eyes narrow. He bites off a curse and lets his hands fall away. Loki catches a glimpse of the damage done by the miniature pool of venom Thor had gathered before he can think of little but the return of the pain he had already begun to forget.
"You are no one’s thing," Thor growls. Answer enough.
Thor comes back. He never has known when to give up on anything. Each time he sweeps in and Loki rolls his eyes as best he can in anticipation of the coming lecture on responsibility.
As it is, they hardly speak. When Thor stands, surveying Loki with squared shoulders and lips pressed together, Loki hardly feels the inclination to say anything. He is stripped of everything, all his armor and pride, and it is more like a return to their shared childhood than anything has been in a long, long time. Then, he was in awe of the bright being that was his brother, wondered at how he could trick the customs of Asgard into letting them rule side by side one day.
Thor does not name what he is looking to find. Most days, he only sits, a tangible presence that makes the hairs at the back of Loki's neck stand on end.
"Do you find it gratifying to watch me suffer?" Loki demands, at length.
"No," Thor says gravely. Loki isn't entirely certain he likes this new Thor, all solemnity and thoughtful once-overs. Perhaps he saves his typical merriment for the Asgardians.
"You're doing a remarkable impression of someone who does, in that case."
The look Thor gives him is of such honest bewilderment that Loki can hardly help the way his lips quirk up. "Why would I enjoy your suffering?"
Loki lets a laugh escape. "Have they taught you nothing on Midgard?"
Thor's brow furrows. "They have taught me many things," he says. "The metal man, Tony Stark, delights in teaching me the ways of his home, often to the detriment of those around us. But not even he can explain-" Here he stops himself, a rare hint of uncertainty.
Unwilling to provide him an out, Loki quiets again and concentrates on the drip of pain that drums onto his forehead. At least it has settled there for the time being.
That expression of Thor's is familiar, but it belongs on the battlefield, not in a cavern buried in the ice countless leagues from their-his home. "I'm trying to understand, Loki," Thor says after countless moments. A heavy hand settles against Loki’s ribs, and he jerks away from it. "Those on Earth, they are so willing to see you as only a creature gone mad beyond reason."
"Am I not?"
"Oh, I believe wholeheartedly that you are." Thor sounds so long-suffering, so disappointed, that Loki laughs again. "I simply do not accept that madness and ruin constitute all that you are."
"That would make me remarkably one-dimensional," Loki says. He turns his head away, Thor's downturned mouth too much to contemplate. "Your commitment to the familial spirit, imagined though it may be, is inspiring, truly."
When Thor reaches to push Loki's hair from his eyes now, he yields to the treatment. The touch is the gentlest Loki has known for some time. He hates the shudder that crawls down his sides. The quiet in the cavern seems like a living thing, insistent, pressing down on him, making way only for the drip of venom as it strikes his cheek.
"I will have my little brother back, this I promise." Thor speaks with unyielding determination. His hand cradles the back of Loki's head, fingertips finding the spots of tension at the base of his neck. "I can be patient."
Loki believes him. There is nowhere else to go, anyway. As he shuts his eyes and doesn't bother to conjure up a clever answer, Thor's fingers comb through his matted hair, as careful as if Loki could break at any moment.
"Does the All-Father know you're here?"
Thor halts mid-step, his confident stride stuttering. He goes still, the minute flicker of guilt passing over his features something for Loki to savor. "He knows I pay you visits," he says.
Loki sneers. "I imagine he finds your devotion touching."
Still, Thor is somber. "He thinks me foolish."
"Your idiocy will be written in legend for centuries to come," Loki agrees.
There it is: Thor smiles, the corners of his mouth twitching up. Loki almost returns it, but the pain demands too much of his attention.
When Thor next appears, he carries a shell in one hand. It's common, bears no enchantments, gleams dully in the cavern's dimness. Loki wonders for a moment what Thor has done with Mjölnir until he sees the hammer at his side as ever.
"Are you lost?"
Thor grins without warning, the smile at once familiar and shocking weighed against centuries of companionship and years of animosity. "Not in the least," he assures Loki, as boisterous as if they have just returned from one of their childhood expeditions.
Loki's eyes narrow as he considers. Memory loss seems impossible, given the too-obvious sight of Loki himself stretched out, unclothed, suspended, and at the mercy of this infernal serpent’s venom. While he busies himself with increasingly unlikely probabilities, Thor strides to his side, still smiling.
"Oh," says Loki, and, "I see," because once more, the pain has stopped and he's shaking all over and if he can keep on talking, this may pass without humiliation.
There's a beaming Thor hovering above him, shell in one hand. Perhaps the snake is perturbed, but for once Loki cannot see its face. "You see, brother?" Thor claps the other hand to Loki's shoulder, forgetting that the wounds there are still healing. Loki does not flinch, refusing to let on that it can hurt after all this time.
"As I've said," Loki says sourly. He breathes with deliberation as his body tries again to restore itself. "You think yourself clever, don’t you?"
"No, I think you clever." Thor’s hand is so warm against Loki's skin. "And I think myself poorly-equipped to stand aside as you suffer."
"This isn't a game, Thor. I'm meant to be here forever."
In an instant, Thor's grin fades. "I know. So am I, now."
Loki wouldn't have thought it possible, but Thor stays. He stays, he stands, he doesn't move, he doesn't even speak.
There are times when he turns to empty the shell’s contents onto the cavern floor, and the pain seems so fresh that Loki screams and thrashes anew. Still, Thor remains, digging fingers into Loki’s shoulder in a gesture meant to comfort. Loki does not have it in him to pull away.
In time, Loki grows restless.
"Have they no need of you on Midgard?" he inquires, watching Thor’s face for a reaction.
Thor shrugs one shoulder. "If there comes a situation so dire that they cannot prevail without me, I will go for a time. Those on Earth are, for the most part, strong enough in my absence."
The silence stretches on for a long moment. Loki considers the determination in the set of Thor's jaw, the ease with which he holds the shell aloft for hours that turn into days. He considers the possibility of Thor's absence and he considers the empty expanse of his prison. He swallows and gathers the reserves of his composure.
"Thank you," Loki says, the words too quick and easy.
Something about Thor's face changes at that. His breath catches, he smiles, his eyes are warm. "Loki-"
When Thor kisses him, Loki bites. The taste of blood floods his mouth and he bites down harder, drinking in the yelp of surprise Thor makes. Heat is crackling all along his skin, an alien sensation Loki wants to hold onto.
Perhaps he ought to have considered that Thor might drop the shell. He hisses, low in his throat, at the unheralded agony as venom spills over his shoulder.
"Curse this thing," Thor mutters, scrambling to pick it up, one large hand at the back of Loki's neck.
"Not a terribly gifted multitasker, I see," Loki manages. His voice shakes despite himself.
The pain recedes quickly; there is that. Thor looks nonplussed and unsure, as though he has just witnessed a jötunn lifting Mjölnir right before him. "Loki, I-" He stops, obviously searching for words as he flicks a dubious glance toward the shell he is again holding up. He has never been a gifted speaker.
"You’re a fool," Loki says. He allows himself a small smile, buoyed by Thor's flustered demeanor, and licks his lips to taste Thor's blood.
"So some say." Thor seems helpless against his own smile, which proves Loki's accusation correct all over again. "If I should not have," he begins, hesitating.
Loki gives a derisive snort. "It was you, I believe, who succumbed to distraction," he points out.
There’s a kind of wary focus in Thor's expression that Loki has never seen before. When he leans down, though, to tilt Loki's head with his free hand, his touch is careful, his second kiss is light, and Loki hears Thor's heart hammering in the still of the cold hollow.
Resigned to his own growing foolishness, Loki kisses his brother back.