hamm3rtime | (no subject)

This was not how he wanted to spend his day. Not even one bit.

He should have slaughtered the All-Father before taking his face, he should have driven his daggers deep into that shrivelled excuse for a heart. But it had been far easier to force him into the Odin-sleep and then spell him into imprisonment, or so he had told himself. To keep him alive would give him a ready stream of information to assist in his role, it would be the less dangerous of the options for he did not have the combat skills to match Odin, and so he stayed his hand.

As it turned out, that was a mistake.

Somehow Odin had broken free of his enchanted bonds, enraged at the actions of his second son and determined to end his madness once and for all. The staying hand of Frigga no longer existed to protect his life, and the All-Father surely would have killed Loki had he not fled. A desperate flight through one of his less stable pathways to Midgard.

The last thing he had expected had been to collide with Thor directly upon landing. He was on his feet in an instant, daggers in his hands and every muscle tensed ready to fight.

"Congratulations, Odinson." He spat out the words, bitter and furious. "You have excelled your ability to appear where you are least wanted."

Edited 2016-02-08 01:34 (UTC)

Although Thor's hand edged towards Mjolnir, he remained staring at his brother with obvious bewilderment. "Loki. I do not understand."

Tears came to his eyes, then. Loki was supposedly dead, was he not? Thor had witnessed his death. Yet here he was, claiming not to wish for the older brother's company. It was too much at once, and Thor knew not how to handle this new turn of events.

"That much has been true for your entire wretched life. You have never understood, Odinson, why should this moment bring you any greater wisdom?"

Loki's hands tightened around the hilts of his daggers until his knuckles turned white. He should strike now, while Thor remained bewildered and foolishly struck by his emotions. It would be a lesson to him to retain control. A King should never lose his control this way in front of an enemy.

He should strike.

He does not.

Instead he stood as if cursed to be frozen in place. His every muscle tensed, the lines of fury and hatred writ clear upon his face, but with no more movement in him than Thor himself.

Continuing to boggle for a moment, Thor then began to catch up with the situation. "You lied to me."

Gulping back his anger, Thor found that tears spilled down his cheeks in the process. "I'd thought you dead. Within the same week, even, as mother!"

Thor was so shaken by the surreality of the entire situation, that even his anger sounded a little unsure. "You let me mourn. Again! And am I Odinson to you? Is that all?"

Strongly, he reached out to grasp at Loki's upper arms. The Thunderer tried to keep his grip from being painful, but the grasp was nonetheless a tight one of desperation. He almost needed to know that Loki was solid; that he actually stood before him, alive if not well.

The mention of Frigga hit him as though a blow from Mjolnir, though he did not allow it to show upon his face. Whatever private grief he held for that woman was his own, never to be shared with those of Odin's get.

"Mourn? Do not jest, Thor. You abandoned my 'body' to the carrion eaters and left me to rot upon the surface of that pestilent realm."

He twisted the truth to his own ends, as always, in order to wound. He had known Thor must leave the body for the fight had not yet ended, it had been what he counted on in order to make his escape. It still did not remove the thorn that he had not been worth abandoning the fight and the mortal for, that his body had not been carried forth with respect.

"Now release me, lest you wish me to force you to do so. I will not be held here with you, for there is nothing left to pass between us now but blood."

Flinching backwards heavily at the first part of the accusation, Thor found himself entirely vulnerable to the following summary as well. His hands loosed their grip a little, and his eyes widened. Such words had honestly caused him a physical pain in his chest. For long, long moments he was left speechless.

This wound wasn't only his own, though. Loki didn't understand. How painful must it be for him, to think such things? Gently, Thor released his brother, choosing instead to let one hand drop to his side as he brought the other up to cradle Loki's head. In sobering and mournful haggard tones, he admitted, "I've no wish to draw your blood. Never have I wanted that."

Thor's gentle touch pained Loki in a way the fierce grip of his hands had not. It burned him, furious and wicked, as if there were poison on the very surface of Thor's skin.

"We all want for things that cannot be."

His words were almost soft and very nearly gentle, in the same way that a knife slid silently between two ribs could be called such, before he wrenched out of that hold and back a few steps.

Drawing his hand back slowly, Thor spent a moment to glance between it and Loki. He'd wrenched away from him. Not even with so much as a shove to the chest, as he had before. Just honestly pulled away with viciousness and it was as though he'd somehow lost Loki again.

With a voice weighed down by sorrow, Thor insisted, "This is a dream. It must be. I saw you die. I held you as you died. This cannot be. You do not hate me. You cannot."

Denial, obvious and devastated and confused.

Standing as well, Thor stayed where he was. Loki definitely had his attention.

"Even you cannot be fool so much as to believe that."

Just the look of Thor in front of him, face crumpled in so much pain, brought forth a fierce satisfaction in his chest. This was what he wanted. He needed to see Thor break, to witness his sorrow crush him, that would be his recompense for the wrongs done to him.

So why then did his satisfaction taste so bitter on his tongue? Why then did his chest begin to feel so tight?

Those questions were not ones he wanted to know the answers to, not parts of himself he was prepared to explore or face. Anger at his own weakness for spoiling what should be a moment of triumph spurred him onwards, pushed further words past his lips in a tirade intended to wound.

"You cling to a lie that has long since faded, and you believe in the fantasy of a brother who never existed. I have hated you with each breath since long before I knew we were not of blood relation, why then should I not hate you now? You, the arrogant whelp of liars, the 'Mighty Thor'."

The confusion remained obvious all over Thor's face, but now there was a flash of hurt as well as restrained anger. Thor often enough mirrored others' emotions and Loki's anger was beginning to draw out his own.

It hurt a great deal to be called arrogant. Certainly he thought of himself that way, after his exile had caused him to have a breakdown. But it had been blindness and self-involvement which had driven his cruelty, never any sense of anyone being below him. That his words had devastated those he loved, was difficult enough to grapple with the guilt of. Yet on top of it was now layered this additional phobia of a lack of self-worth. That if he made mistakes unknowing, he would be unworthy of those he loved. That they might even die because of his own missteps.

He didn't feel particularly mighty at the moment, but Thor did usually understand taunts to battle when he heard them. As such, he wasn't so much insulted as unnerved by the insult.

To be called a whelp of liars... At first he couldn't understand what Loki might have meant, parsing the insult as to mean childish liar rather than child of liars. Yet rarely had he lied to Loki and also generally the younger brother was better with words than that, insults or otherwise.

With a suddenness that surprised even himself, Thor's gaze deepened with pain and cold, haggard rage. "Insult me as you will, but you are low to insult her when she loved you so dearly! She lied but not often, and she meant better than you."

"She lied but not often?" Loki repeated Thor's words, but his sneering tone painted them in a different meaning entirely. "Every word from her lips was a lie for the whole of my life, or do you claim she had no knowledge that her younger son was a cuckoo in the nest?"

To speak of Frigga hurt like nothing else ever could. He was angry at her, but most of his anger had been directed at Odin. It had been the All-Father who stole him for designs that would never come to pass. And even if Frigga had lied to him, it was much harder to deny her love than it was to deny Odin's or Thor's. It was hard to maintain his anger when he recalled the cool touch of her hand on his brow, or the loving whisper of her voice as she taught him the magic that was so much a part of him.

His voice tightened and tears stood out in his eyes, completely at odds with the words that continued to spill out like venom. "She holds as much blame for this as any other, do not think her death shields her from that culpability."

Rolling his eyes as Loki asked him whether he claimed Frigga had not done such things, Thor then froze as he noticed the tears shining in Loki's eyes.

"I did not say that it did," Thor countered, still bristling but with far less aggressiveness. "Nor do I think she would claim it, but she was more than that; you know she was. I know you know it."

Bizarrely, Thor felt so out of control even though he knew himself to be directing their conversation and could indeed see Loki's care before him. Even still it felt like they were both so raw, so defenseless at this moment.

Feeling out of control was a thing the brothers shared in that moment. Loki had felt as though everything were spinning out of his control for years now, as if nothing had ever truly been grasped properly since that fateful day on Jotunheim. Since then he had been moving at a full-tilt run, driven by rage and betrayed bitterness.

He was a creature of manipulation and schemes, but even those had oft been the result of previous ones falling through or spur of the moment decisions. It had led him down a path that there was no recovering from, and yet he found he cared little. If he must destruct then so be it, but he would make certain that Thor and all of Asgard were destroyed in the conflagration too.

"What does it matter? She is gone, do you think speaking of her will soften my heart towards your foolish sentiment? I do not care for any of your family, Odinson."

But he does and did, no matter what he claimed. He was complex and contradictory at best, some traitorous tears escaping even as he pulled a dagger from nowhere and launched himself at Thor akin to a snake striking out.

Grunting as he choked on his own tears, Thor barely noticed his brother's approach. He barely had his bracers up in time to deflect the dagger; as it was, the motion of his arm was too gracelessly swift, and the blade glanced off the metal cuff, very narrowly missing Thor's upper arm.

"Loki, I don't understand!" Thor snarled out at loud volume. He reached for his brother's upper arms again, not sure of what else he might do to avoid this battle.

"This is not who you are; this is not who you were! What can this resolve?!"

Loki twisted when he felt his upper arms caught, but Thor had ever had a stronger grip than him and he failed at breaking free. He stilled himself very deliberately. It would do no good to thrash and flail other than to damage his pride further, he would be better suited to wait for an opportunity before escape and retaliation.

"You are living a fantasy, this is who I am. This is who I have always been, you have ever been too blind to see it. The brother you think existed was but a dream, a lie told to us both."

"If this was who you were, I'd have received far more frequent an injury! And never did you so lie to me about your death, until that day!"

With his tears streaming, Thor was for once so focused upon his own emotional memories that it was difficult to pay attention to the present. He couldn't let go of Loki; at this point, it felt as though Thor didn't know how to let go of him. So instead, they ended up raging at each other in close proximity, which felt all the more vicious and disheartening.

"You wish for me to prove the truth of myself? You wish for injury so greatly?"

Loki snarled, rage driving him to an action he would not normally even contemplate. He had never shown his Jotun form to Thor, had rarely allowed any to see it, for it shamed him. It was the sickening truth under the lie of his Aesir flesh.

But now he allowed that illusion to drop for he knew the very touch of a Frost Giant burned to all others. His pale skin melted into blue, green eyes in blood-red, as Loki the Asgardian because Loki the Jotun.

"Look upon me now and call me brother, Odinson."

Grimacing with a choked cry of betrayal and pain, Thor ripped his burned hands away from his brother's arms. How had Loki not burned his arms by doing that, as well? Had his seidr protected him? Had he just not cared?

Crouched over as he panted in pain, Thor's eyes searched the true face of the man before him. The seafoam green was still discernible in those red eyes, turning Loki's irises more of an amber-brown within the rest of his eyes. The raised marks were a little unexpected, but Thor had already seen hints of them, once before.

"You are my brother," Thor insisted, panting from the pain. "And I already knew. I hoped you might find a less painful way to show me. Are you hurt, as well?"

The burns, however painful, would only take a few hours to heal for an Aesir. But they'd be a painful few hours, and in the meantime Thor couldn't use either of his hands very well.

"How can you let that word fall from your tongue and not taste the lie? We are no brothers, or do you believe yourself a monster such as me?"

Loki detested this form and all it stood for. He had been raised as Aesir, he had been brought up with stories of the monstrous Jotuns who had nearly plunged Midgard into another ice age. Who had fought against Asgard, who had their power taken from them by force as a necessity. The crippled realm who watched in the shadows under a forced and uneasy truce.

And he was one.

He was the cuckoo in the nest, disguised in the golden feathers of a prince, but truly no more than a beast. Just the sight of his own skin, deep blue, caused his lips to curl back in a snarl.

"What of your promise to slaughter this whole race? How many times did you tell me of your hatred for them all while we grew? And now you think to lie and claim it changes nothing?!"

He'd been about to refute Loki's first rant, and about to ask his previous question once more, when his little brother threw out the accusation from their childhood.

"Loki..." Hurting deeply for his little brother, Thor reached out again. His blackened hands were wet with blood, and he couldn't risk actually touching his little brother in this state. But he could approximate it, and Thor definitely wanted to. Reaching a hand forward, Thor cradled it in the shape of Loki's head, leaving a few centimeters of space between.

"When last I swore I would do such a thing, I was a young boy." The elder brother tried to keep the pain out of his voice, but still it reverberated there, deepening his tone with sorrow for the younger one. "And I spoke not of hatred for them. For their military force, yes, and occasionally for their high court and Laufey. But all that was earned."

"I'd not speak so, ever, of you. There is no lie in calling you my brother; there cannot be. Ever have we been raised together, fought together, forming our strengths to defend each others' weaknesses. We grew as a family. What we are cannot change that."

Loki flinched from the approximation of touch just as much as he would from actual contact. It was as though he could feel Thor's fingers across the space that divided them, thick and cloying with sentiment that stuck to him like honey and seeped through the cracks in his defences.

He hated Thor. He must. For hatred was so much easier to bear than love. Hatred for betrayal so much simpler than forgiveness for ignorance.

"Do not speak to me in lies and think to pass them off as truths. What of your banishment? Were you not a man grown when you threatened war with Jotunheim? Were you still but a boy then? Your childhood years had passed you, your majority reached." Loki's hands balled into fists at his sides. "I would have destroyed them, I could have done what you would never have had the intelligence to conceive of, and you are the worthy heir?!"

It took Thor's breath away, when Loki spoke of his banishment. The wound was still far too fresh, and the older brother staggered back a step, looking grievously hurt.

Thor had difficulty speaking of his banishment at all, but refuting it was very nearly impossible for him. And he was now put into a situation where he had to speak honestly of it. To explain, without the safer method of claiming that their father's assessment had been right. To own what he'd done and what he'd not done, and to lay those weaknesses bare. To a man who had stabbed and disowned him.

For a moment the risk felt like too much. To overwhelming and terrible, with so little to be gained in return. But he couldn't let Loki go on thinking this. It was Thor's to explain, though just the thought of doing so seemed to put pressure on his chest.

"I never claimed I was worthy." The words came out sounding as though they were some sort of extracted blade. Pained, haggard determination along with vulnerability.

"I had no wish to destroy their world." Thor's stuttering breaths only further emphasized his tears, which caused his nostrils to flare in annoyance at himself. Did he really have to further complicate this by crying??? Loki needed him, now!

"I had no wish to fight any, but those who had caused me a temporary loss. And for that, yes, I would have had war." It was shameful to admit, and Thor felt as though he'd be sick doing so, but he forced himself to continue onward.

"Even then, I would not allow myself to fight, until I'd thought Asgard threatened. But that was not my reason for fighting." So terribly ashamed, the Thunderer couldn't bring himself to look up at his brother. He didn't know how to cease crying either, and instead squared his jaw.

"I did not choose it... because they were jotunn. I chose it because I was a fool and would have fought any force in my way. Not their people. Their military force. Over... nothing."

Thor likely did not realise just how large a blow the battle on Jotunheim had been for Loki also. It had marked the start of when his plans had begun to get away from him, it had been the death toll for his comfortable lie as a prince of Asgard. He had never intended for them to get so far. The guard had been informed to fetch Odin, Heimdall should never have let them pass, it was not his fault that both had proven incompetent.

Everything after that had led him to this moment, standing opposite Thor and hating every inch of him, disgusted by his tears and his desperation.

"You never had to claim you were worthy." Loki's voice had lowered to a furious hiss, the spit of a venomous snake who had sighted prey. "What you said mattered little, you were lauded as worthy by all the fools around you simply for the strength of your arm. You will suit the throne ill, you are incapable of leading. Even now you cry for an illusion broken, like a child who has been forced to confront the harsh realities of life."

Loki took a step backwards and closed his hand once more around a dagger, a comforting weight within his palm though he knew it would likely not be as dangerous a weapon as himself. As the ice he could wield.

"Fight me or bring me in chains to the All-Father, but cease your mewling of kin and kindness."

As Loki insisted that Thor had never had to claim worthiness, the elder brother's heart broke to the extent that he momentarily interrupted with a voice both haggard and desperate. "Loki-ii!"

At the prompting that Thor should fight or recapture his brother, the Thunderer's grimace was deep enough to make his entire face tight with the tenacity of it. "I will not! You do not decide my heart! Nor my choices! I can consider you my brother, whatever your response; I need not your permission!"

"Then you delude yourself, you cling to something that is nothing more than a dream within your head, impossible and fleeting. Why do you shy from reality when I do not have that choice?"

A part of him still longed for his days of ignorance when he had believed himself a prince in truth, when he had been sure of himself and his place in the world. He had been Loki Odinson, nothing could shake him from that, and now he was nothing. Not Odinson, not Laufeyson, but nothing.

"You have always had that choice." The tears were starting to overwhelm him by this point, and his throat constricted painfully in reaction to them. The grimace hadn't left him, but Thor's anger was now met with an equal amount of pain.

His hands hurt. His throat hurt. His heart hurt and he could barely see. The Thunderer had thoroughly had it with this entire situation and he didn't know how to get through to his brother.

"It is no dream; it is a truth you refuse to see. Even as that denial hurts us. I claim no perfection! No innocence in this! I claim to care! Are you so lost to me, now?!"

Loki wanted nothing more than to bury his dagger deep within Thor's breast now and watch as his life's blood pumped over the floor. He wished to grip him by the face and watch as his natural skin froze and damaged Thor's eyes until he was as physically blind as he was emotionally.

He did neither.

Instead, he allowed his skin to shift to his Aesir form, voice and expression a mask of entirely false calm. As if Thor still had hope in this, as if he were getting through in the way he wanted.

"And if I were not lost to you? If I embraced you as my brother, tell me how you believe that would end for us both. Tell me I should be welcomed back through the gates of Asgard as a prince and son. Can you tell so great a lie, Thor?"

For a moment that Thor could swear drew out far longer than it did, he watched his little brother. Loki had just burned him, and tell me how you believe that would end didn't exactly sound hopeful. But Thor was too devoted, too stubborn and loving, than to ever stop when he saw a chance before him such as this.

Three seconds passed, no more. Then the Thunderer had gathered his brother up in his arms. Yes, he feared being stabbed or burned. It didn't make any sense logically, but it was the only answer that he felt was right.

The rest he'd not bother to lie about. They could have that discussion after this moment. For now, the moment itself seemed like answer enough.

It was indeed answer enough, though likely not in the way Thor intended.

Loki stiffened in the embrace before his hand found a dagger and thrust it up and towards Thor's short ribs with the aim of sliding between two and finding vital organs beneath. He knew it would not kill his once-brother, Thor had the constitution and strength of ten warriors, but he wished only for freedom.

"You see? You think with your clouded heart and you do not understand the implications of your decisions. You think an embrace will make all right and that no other obstacle should stand in the way of the family you believe in. You are fool and fool again, Thor Odinson. I shall never be welcomed back to Asgard, only a cell awaits me there."

Choking, Thor released his brother and attempted to remove the blade. But his hands were too badly injured and too wet with blood, than to get a good grasp on the tiny sliver of metal.

He'd meant only to step backwards, away from his little brother. But pained as he was, that step turned into a stagger before his legs gave out entirely.

He didn't answer; he didn't know the words he might answer with. Everything was pain and loss and betrayal. But he wouldn't give up. He didn't know how to give up, and more than that, this was so important.

"...Loki..."

For a singular moment as Thor staggered and fell, Loki felt fear. It was gone in a flash, replaced by intense anger at himself for such a momentary weakness. If his blade had found an even keener mark than intended and this culminated in Thor dead at his feet, then he should rejoice. This was what he wanted.

So why, then, did the victory toll in his chest sound hollow and ache so?

His jaw firmed as he stepped forwards and pressed the sole of one booted foot to the hilt of the dagger still protruding from Thor's ribs, only so he could push it in deeper as if to prove to himself that he was not so sentimentally weak.

"Please tell me you are going to beg, it would be so entertaining."

Choking, then shouting out in pain as the blade was ground deeper, Thor began to pant haggardly.

The pain was too much and he stopped moving, for a second that seemed to Thor as though it lasted forever. Then, even as painful as it was to him, Thor swung out with one padded vambrace, to hopefully knock Loki's legs out from under him.

Between the agony, the rage, and the violence, Thor let out a snarling shout as he swung. Some distant part of his mind was worried that Loki may take such a reaction as a lack of care. But at this moment, Thor had to be focused on the here and now.

A laugh, knife-sharp and brittle, burst forth from Loki's lips as he hit the floor, his legs taken cleanly out from underneath him by Thor's desperate swing. The sound was wheezing and a little breathless for all the air in his lungs had been knocked from him.

"Do you see, brother?"

Loki made no attempt to move or right himself yet. He was not hurt and could come to his feet, but Thor was wounded and bleeding so he was unafraid of a counterattack. He imbued the word 'brother' with every ounce of scorn and venom within him, making it sound a scathing insult rather than a term of familial endearment.

"There is nothing between us but blood and pain."

"Is that your choice?!" Thor howled, still weeping. "It is not mine!"

Forcing his burned hand to clench down on the dagger again, Thor finally managed to pull it out of himself. He didn't look at the blood. Not because of his training to keep his eyes on an enemy, but instead because looking at it would make the betrayal seem too real.

"The time when you had a choice about such matters is gone. You have chosen your affiliates, your Avengers and Odin, you must live with the consequences of those choices."

Just as he must live with the consequences of his own choices. Something that he found hard to do, on occasion. Not that he would admit that even to himself, for to do so would be to risk opening wounds better left closed.

Too much shouting had turned Thor's throat and lungs slightly raw. His tone sounded choking and strained because of it.

"I made no such choices! Do you think they do not think me a betrayer for rescuing you?! Well did you see, the way we fought each other upon that hill, for you left in the midst of it! Need I always choose you?! Above everyone as you hurt them?! Might I not choose all I love?"