A kiss,
electrifying. His lips are soft and warm and melts the ready blade in Loki’s
quick hand.
“Go on,
then. Sink your knife in. Your teeth, nails. Or work your sorcery on me…not
that you haven’t already.”
Loki can
barely think in the heady largeness
of Thor’s embrace. Everything about his brother has always been overwhelming: the
massive arms that could crush his bones but never do, the very scent of him,
the way his hair catches the light even when it is a tangled hurricane. His
eyes, or eye, the remaining one as piercing as ever. Loki can never look into
them for long without feeling utterly naked.
“Let me
go,” he murmurs faintly as his eyelids fall shut and his lips part. As
predictable as he is chaotic, that hand is there to catch his head as it falls
back, to clasp his neck while another hand is at the small of his back,
trapping him completely. Loki belongs to no one, looks out for no one, but
Loki. Except when he belongs to Thor.
“You
make everything so difficult.” The thrillingly deep voice seeps into his skin,
becoming his weakness and undoing as it always does. “But two can play at that
game, brother.”
“You came back,” Thor said dully. He’d been sitting on the edge of his bed staring at the floor between his feet for the last hour, unmoving, while the sun went down and the darkness crept across the floorboards.
Loki clicked the lamp on and Thor flinched away.
“Who gave you that- did HE give you that black eye?” Loki said, taking a step closer, his arm outstretched.
“Don’t touch me!” Thor snapped. “Of course he did.”
“I waited until I saw his car leave,” Loki whispered. “I couldn’t-”
Thor’s stomach twisted. “Mom told him to get out before she called the cops.” He finally looked up at Loki’s face, all pinched and drawn in on itself, his eyes way too big. They stared at each other for a long moment until Thor broke the silence. “Why?”
Why what? He didn’t even know what he was asking. Why had they been so careless? Why did Loki run? Why did Thor stay to defend them? Why had Odin reacted with such violence?
Why had they thought that loving each other could ever be anything less than heartbreaking?
“I don’t know.”
The answer to every question, really.
“Thor,” Loki said, his voice snagging, his face crumpling. Thor felt the world start to go sideways, spinning away into the abyss. He held out his arm. Loki came to him and wrapped his arms around Thor’s middle and they wet each other’s hair with their tears.
Loki is the Philosopher King 