hamm3rtime | (no subject)

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?"