Work Text:
I dreamt that I had lost you
I woke up with a tear
I think you left it on my pillowcase
The last time you were here
And we came from nowhere
We came from nothing
And we could go back there
If that's what it takes
But I made a promise
That I'd try to keep you
Until the ribbon breaks
--Until the Ribbon Breaks by UTRB
1.
“Loki, no.”
Thor clutches the ribbon between his fingers, nails ripping into the threads. His arm screams as sinews of muscle and tendon threaten to snap from the strain.
His brother gazes back up at him through drowning emeralds. His own fingers cling to the ribbon just as desperately.
The ribbon breaks.
Thor gasps awake, coughing and sputtering as though surfacing from the river once more. He jerks upright in the stiff chair, messily pushing the sweat soaked hair from his face. His eyes seek out the sterile cot in front of him. They avoid the pale figure laid across it. He sucks in a bleach scented breath, two, three, and forces his eyes to the face of his brother. As soon as he does, he can’t look away.
Loki’s closed lids are purple and veined, his lips the blue of the frozen, his skin the white of the dead. Beneath the starched cotton sheets, his thin body looks young and small. Fragile.
Thor scoots his chair closer to Loki’s hospice bedside, fitting his own fingers between the spindly spider fingers of his little brother. In his mind he sees both of their hands grasping the ribbon, holding on for dear life. He clutches Loki’s fingers as hard as he can.
“Loki. Brother. I am sorry.”
The fingers twitch.
Thor’s entire body jumps in response. “Loki? Loki!” He disentangles their fingers and his hands fly to Loki’s shoulders. “Oh my god. Baby, can you hear me? Hey! Loki!”
Thin arms lift to irritably bat Thor away. Loki’s eyes are still closed.
“Loki, brother, can you hear me?” Thor’s view of Loki is overwhelmed with so much wetness that, for a moment, he thinks they’re back in that river.
The purple eyelids flutter and part, so much green emerging from beneath. To Thor it looks like a butterfly taking flight, a flower opening to the spring.
“Loki, hey. Hey, hun. I’m here. You’re okay. It’s all okay.” Thor babbles impotently.
Dark brows furrow over squinted green eyes. “Wh-what?”
Thor cups Loki’s face, pushes the hair from his forehead, rubs the drool from his lips. “I thought I lost you.”
Loki pushes Thor’s hands away again, more insistent this time. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Thor’s lungs stutter out too many breaths before finally remembering to suck air back in. “You - You fell. Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
The look on Loki’s face is so thoroughly confounding and unfamiliar that Thor thinks for a moment that it makes him look like a different person entirely. Thor reaches a hand out again, lowers it when Loki glares warningly. “The bridge. We were - you slipped.”
Loki’s eyes are suddenly too big for his face. It makes Thor twitch.
“Brother, you--”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
Thor snaps his mouth shut. The words hurt. He knew that Loki no longer considered him a friend but does he not even acknowledge their familial relation now?
Loki’s features twist in an odd dance that has Thor’s fingers twitching to smooth out the lines creasing his young face.
“You - who are you?”
Thor feels again the crash of cold water over his body, the river blocking out light and sound so all he knows is Loki. “You don’t--” he swallows past the river rushing into his lungs. “You don’t know me?”
The unfamiliar look in those green eyes ripples into something clear, something devastating.
“I don’t know you.”
***
The doctor tells them Loki has retrograde amnesia. He doesn’t remember his life. He doesn’t remember their parents. He doesn’t remember Thor. He doesn’t remember himself.
Their mother cries. Their father, for once, has nothing to say. Thor’s first thought is of relief and he hates himself for it. And yet, he wonders if this might be the chance for his and Loki’s story to go differently. Perhaps without the memories Loki will no longer hate him.
But then he remembers the incredible way Loki used to look at him when they were younger. How he saw everything differently, experienced things more strongly than Thor could ever seem to understand. The sound of their combined laughter. The ache of their shared sorrows. Thor would never trade a moment of it for anything. And if Loki doesn’t remember, then was any of it even real?
“Loki, no.”
The ribbon cuts into Thor’s skin as he clutches it like it’s the only thing keeping Loki from falling. It is.
His brother gazes up at him with a face full of fear, eyes sharp with accusation, fingers white with desperation.
Thor lets go.
He jolts awake violently, cracking his head on the window it had been resting against. The surface is still fogged with his breath, now smeared by his assaulted cranium. He looks around at the world outside. It’s early morning and the fields around them are just as endless as he remembers. They lie dormant under snow now. The last time he was here they were heavy with corn.
He looks over to find Loki already awake in the passenger seat. He’s watching Thor.
“You talk in your sleep.”
Thor buckles his seatbelt and revs the car. “No I don’t.”
He takes Loki on a road trip. It’s not the first time. They went on this exact same road trip four years ago when Loki was 14 and Thor was 18. Back when Loki still loved his brother.
The trip was to be their final romp before Thor went off to college. They began in DC, where they grew up, and drove all the way to the opposite coast. It was to be their promise to each other that no matter where they went they would still be brothers, best friends, each other’s number one. Instead, it was the end of it all.
And now Thor is taking Loki on that same trip again. Recreating every moment of it, down to the night they got too tired to continue on in the middle of an endless expanse of corn fields and had to camp out in the car overnight. He can only hope that in recreating one of the most emotionally charged months of their lives he’ll be able to spark some memory is his brother’s enigma of a brain.
“I hated you, didn’t I?”
Thor prides himself on not flinching at the plainly spoken question. He keeps his eyes on the road. “No.”
“Surely I must have. You’re terrified of me.”
Thor can’t argue with that. He keeps driving.
***
They pull off in the sand dunes of Indiana. There’s no snow here but it’s 40 degrees colder than the last time they came. Last time they raced down the peaks of crumbling earth, uncaring of the sand invading all their crevices. This time they stand still and watch the vulture circling above.
“Do you think this will make me remember something? I wouldn’t want to remember this.”
Thor takes the hit, not even flinching at Loki’s words. He remembers the unencumbered joy that had spilled from Loki as he rolled in the sand, the infectious smile he’d directed at Thor as he pinned his older brother beneath his tiny body and claimed victory. “Yes, you would.”
He knows Loki is looking at him. Thor keeps his eyes on the circling vulture. He thinks he may have been naive to hope that even without the memories Loki could ever forget his hatred for Thor.
3.
“Loki, no.”
Thor grips the edge of the bridge with one hand, keeps the other tangled in the ribbon. He can’t let go of either one without losing the only thing that’s important.
His brother clutches the ribbon in one hand, naught but air with the other. Thor doesn’t think Loki knows that him falling would be the end of everything for Thor.
The ribbon slips.
Thor blinks awake to a dim room. The neon lights of the motel sign shine through the ripped gauzy curtains. Everything is painted in their blue. Last time he was here the red letters declaring VACANCY were alight, washing the room in both blue and red. There are no vacancies tonight.
He looks to the other bed. Loki is asleep. Or so he thinks.
“Did you dream about me?”
Thor rolls over and pulls the blankets up to his chin. “Go to sleep, Loki.”
***
They go to Meramec Caverns in Missouri. Last time it was Loki who had pushed to come here. He had researched it to oblivion and when they finally came he was underwhelmed. It hardly compared to the caves they visited with their father years earlier. They didn’t stay long. This time Loki looks around the cave with wide eyes, wants to see everything.
“I’ve never been in a cave before.”
Thor is grinning too much to bother correcting him.
***
They go to Roswell in New Mexico. Last time Loki told Thor tales of foreign beings from other worlds, the source of mythos and voices of legend. This time Loki asks Thor why anyone would believe such silly nonsense.
“You would have to ask yourself. You did.”
“What a ridiculous thing to say. How could I possibly ask myself?”
“By remembering.”
“You say it as though I could, just like that.”
Thor wonders whether he could. He always secretly suspected that Loki must be one of those foreign beings he spoke of. If anyone was to be the voice of legend, it would be Loki.
“Loki, no.”
Thor scrambles to hold onto the ribbon, to keep the most important person in the world from falling.
His brother squints up at him like he can’t see clearly. His fingers hold the ribbon only just enough to not fall to the river below.
The ribbon burns.
Thor wakes to a weight upon his hips.
“I hated you but you didn’t hate me. Why would that be?”
Thor reluctantly opens his eyes. He was a fool to think their story could ever go differently.
“I think I know why,” Loki whispers and leans close, thin hands braced on Thor’s broad chest. 18 years old and he’s still such a skinny thing. Thor feels massive beneath him.
Loki cackles. “The one who is wronged will always be the one who hates. The one who doesn’t hate must be the one who did the wronging.”
Thor knows it’s Loki who holds the ribbon as Thor dangles from it now.
Loki’s breath flutters over Thor’s cheek. “And you want to do wrong again.”
Thor growls, rolling to pin Loki beneath him. “Enough. Cease this torment, Brother.”
Loki’s eyes are manic as they gaze up at him, more white than green. “But is it me who is guilty of torment? Is it? Is it? ”
Thor shakes the thin shoulders where he holds them down against the mattress. “Must it always be this way? Will you never forgive me, even without memory of it?”
“I don’t need memory of it to know what you did.”
***
They go to Salvation Mountain in California. Last time Loki scoffed, said it was a stupid place to go. He does the same this time and it’s a comfort.
“We should skip this one. We’re both far beyond salvation.”
Unlike last time, Thor agrees. They drive on.
“Loki, no.”
Thor can feel the ribbon inching through his fingers. He grasps it hard enough that his arm creaks, his fingers scream, his breath stops.
His brother looks up at him with devastation in his eyes.
Loki lets go.
Thor cries out as he wakes.
The room around him is dark but for two points of unnaturally luminescent green staring back at him.
“You’re finally starting to remember.”
Thor pants, the awful dream fading. “I’m not the one with amnesia.”
“But you’re the one who doesn’t see .”
***
“I thought this was a road trip to the coast?”
Thor grunts. “It’s too cold to go to the coast.”
“I want to go.”
Thor never planned on getting that far this time. Of all the memories he wants Loki to get back, what happened last time they went to the coast is not one of them. But it seems Loki will always hate him now, with or without that memory.
He turns around and drives toward the coast.
***
The drive to the coastline is quiet for a long time. Not long enough.
“What happened at the bridge?”
Thor watches the road and wills himself not to crash. “You fell into the river. Hit your head. Forgot everything.”
“How did I fall?”
“You just did. “
“And how did I get out of the river?”
“I went in after you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t forget anything?”
“I didn’t hit my head.”
Loki stares at him and through him. “You remember me falling?”
“I remember you walking backwards, slipping. I caught the ribbon you’d been holding. Then it ripped, broke.”
“Did it?”
“I didn’t let go. I didn’t.”
Loki tilts his head. “Why did I have a ribbon?”
“I gave it to you. For your hair. You didn’t like it.”
“Didn’t I?”
Thor shivers. “You didn’t like me. It was the first we’d talked since… since the last time we took this road trip. Four years ago.”
“Why?”
“I was at college. And you didn’t want to.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Stop saying that.”
“You gave me the ribbon as a peace offering.”
“Yes.”
“The ribbon broke.”
Thor swallows. “Yes.”
“You didn’t let go?”
“No!”
“Did I?”
The dream from last night screams through Thor’s mind, holding onto the bridge and the ribbon, his brother’s devastated eyes, thin fingers letting go--
“No, no. You didn’t. You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
Thor clamps his hands on the wheel, blinks his eyes fast, gasps for air as memories wash back over him.
“Loki, please. Can’t we just be brothers again? I’m sorry. You know I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again. I miss you. I need you.”
“You’re the one who decided we weren’t brothers anymore. Or have you forgotten?”
Thor’s wet eyes catch on the movement of Loki’s foot as it skids too close to the edge of the bridge. “Brother, wait--”
Loki slips. Thor dives to catch him. He catches the ribbon fluttering in the air instead. Loki still holds it.
“Loki! Hold on, Baby, hold on. I’ve got you.” Thor hangs off the edge of the old wood bridge, clutches the ribbon in one hand. Loki clutches the other end, his feet dangle above the rushing water below.
Even as Thor’s arm is yanked from its socket, even as he can feel the bones in his fingers fracture, even though his heart is breaking, he keeps holding the ribbon as tightly as he possibly can. He’s never been so terrified in his entire life. If the ribbon breaks he has no idea what he’ll do.
His brother gazes up at him with glassy emeralds. He doesn’t look afraid. He looks sad.
Thor clutches desperately at the ribbon, willing Loki to match him for urgency. To keep him holding on, despite the resignation in those eyes. They stare into each other and Thor thinks he sees the future. “Loki, no.”
Loki lets go.
Thor screams.
Then he jumps.
Thor gasps, chokes. He looks over at Loki and nearly has to look away. Loki’s eyes are the same as they were just before he let go of the ribbon. He looks at Thor and smiles. “See? See ?”
***
The coast is as beautiful now as it was then. It was sunset when they came here before. It’s sunrise this time.
Thor watches as Loki walks out into the sand in the exact place he’d stood the last time they came here. Thor follows him into the sand. Just as he had last time. Loki turns back to face him. The orange sun frames him in a fiery halo just as it had back then. He looks like a hell-bound angel. He looks like a memory.
Loki reaches a thin hand up to cup Thor’s cheek, a mirror of how Thor had done the same to Loki four years ago in this spot. And just as Thor had done then, Loki leans forward and kisses his brother.
Thor’s heart stutters slow then fast, irregular as it finds the half it’s been missing.
When Loki pulls back, he doesn’t smile. “I ran from you when you did that. Will you run from me?”
Thor clasps splinted fingers on the back of Loki’s neck, pulls their foreheads to rest together. Sobs a breath. “You remember.”
“I never forgot.”
Thor watches those shimmering emeralds with a strange wonder. Thinks of ribbons, of thin fingers letting go. “I did.”
“Do you hate me for it?”
Thor thinks of his brother looking up at him with eyes that spoke of misery. “No.”
Loki breathes and Thor realizes it’s the first time he has in a while.
He clutches Loki tighter. “Just as I did then, I will keep holding on. Until the ribbon breaks.”
Loki blinks fast and wet. “What if I let go again?”
Thor kisses him soft and breathy. “Then I will jump in after you.”