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“I might even hug you if you were here,” said Thor. He tried to disguise his disappointment with a laugh, though Loki saw right through it. He tossed the lid of the bottle at him and he caught it, a smile spreading across his face.
“I’m here.”
Thor stumbled into an embrace, wrapping himself around Loki as though if he let go, he would look and see that he had imagined it all. A look of surprise washed over Loki’s face.
“I have missed you every day, of every week of every month that you have been gone, so badly, Loki. You have no idea—” started Thor.
“I know exactly,” he interrupted. “Don’t think that through all I’ve been through, to get to where we are now, was just to save myself. Don’t you dare say that I don’t understand what it feels like to be away from you, Thor, because every minute of torture that I have endured was so that I could be here. By your side.” His voice walked the line between anger and desperation. His stiff posture collapsed, fists unclenched. Though Thor had started to pull away, Loki closed his eyes and buried his head deeper into his shoulder. “I-I’m just glad you’re here now,” he said. “I’m sorry. So sorry.” Without realizing, he had started to cry. A tear rolled down his cheek, then another. Keeping a hand around Loki, Thor brought the other to his face and brushed a tear away with his thumb.
“Hey, It’s going to be alright,” he insisted.
“Is it? I can’t keep doing this, Thor,” a dismal tone ringing in his voice. “I can’t keep—keep pretending that I…”
“That you what?” asked Thor gently.
“That I’m fine!” Loki burst out. “Because I’m not! I am not fine, Thor!”
“Loki…”
They were inches apart. It would be so easy, thought Thor, he’s so close. He traced his fingers along his neck. The longing to close that scrap of space... yet there was something there. Unspoken words, a tension that as long as it stood would keep them apart. It was the inches separating them, the air in between their lips, the gravity of the past. Of consequences. Thor looked away, I can't. He lay his head on Loki’s shoulder, closing his eyes for a moment.
The tears didn’t stop for what felt like an eternity. What are you doing? a voice whispered in the back of Loki’s mind. This isn’t you. You are better than this. He bit his lip, jaw clenched. Pull yourself together! He backed away from Thor a few paces, rolling his shoulders back, blinking. He looked to the floor—refusing to look his brother in the eye. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand.
“I should...I should go,” he stuttered.
He could tell his face was still flushed. He turned and made to leave while he could still bring himself to, everything in him told him to turn back and never let go. But the door slid open and he stepped through the doorway.
“Loki, wait!” Thor called, but he was already going down the hall.
<>
Val made her way down the hall to Thor’s room—the door was just sliding closed. She saw Loki coming out, down the hall toward her. His face was red, like he had been crying. Something was wrong, Loki never cried...Except for that one time when—oh no. what just happened?
“Loki?” She asked as he grew closer. “Is everything alright?”
He shot a glare at her as he brushed past, ignoring her. She looked back after him and thought of following, I should let him be for now. She thought, I’ll ask Thor. With an air of confusion, she barged into his room. Thor wasn’t much better. He sat on the bed, head in his hand, eye squinted shut—a look of anguish written all over his face. Val strode over and sat beside him, placing a hand gingerly on his arm.
“What happened?”
Thor sighed. “I screwed up, Val.”
“What did you do this time?” she asked as she laughed a little. She turned to Thor and the look on his face said everything. She stopped laughing.
“I—Loki...I don’t know,” He tried, “I had a chance and I just…”
Val tilted her head. “A chance at what?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
Thor turned to Val, then glanced at the door as if making sure it was really closed.
“You know I don’t trust you with secrets.”
“You can trust me today,” she insisted, moving her hand to his knee.
He sighed again and shook his head.
“I—I love him, Val, and I had a chance to—he needed someone to be there and I just brushed it aside!” A rush of words that hadn’t been said to anyone, save himself. Val was silent for a few moments. She was a confidant to both of them. A relief of tension—so much riding on her shoulders. All the things she knew, the secrets she wanted to tell. Val thought back, back to when they were all teenagers. The night of the harvest festival, back on Asgard, the only other time she had seen Loki in tears.
There was a knock at the door. Val shifted through the cabinet of her bedside table, “Come in,” she called. Loki closed the door gently behind him. He closed his eyes, opening and closing his mouth, his hand trembling on the door handle.
“Val.” He let go of the door.
The clock on her wall let out a quick chime—two in the morning. With her head still ducked beneath the cabinet, she asked, “what’s brought your dramatic ass in here this time?” She stood up and kicked the cabinet closed with her foot, holding two glasses in one hand and an amber bottle in the other. She nearly dropped it when she found Loki bent over in her chair, head in his hands, a look of tired distress written across his face. Every aspect of his position seemed to radiate a tense confusion. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, rubbing a hand across his face. Val darted across the room, setting the drink and cups on a small glass table. She knelt down, grasping his hands.
“What. Happened.” She said as a demand rather than a question.
“I’m fine!” He snapped. Loki leaned back in his chair, eyes closed for a moment, but his rigid posture collapsed.
“Loki, please. Don’t do this again, you can tell me,” insisted the Valkyrie.
With a sigh he began, “I was in the wheat field, by the oak tree where the three of us used to play. I was humming this ridiculous song... Thor came over from the festival and crept up behind me. He covered my eyes with his hands from behind me.” Loki flashed a smile. “It was just sunset and I’m sure he’d been drinking, but he seemed sober enough to talk. He tried to get me back to the festival, but, well, you know me.”
Val stood up and sat in the chair across from him, pouring drinks for both of them.
“They started playing music over at the party and we could hear it well enough from where we were...Thor started dancing to the music and managed to drag me into it. We danced and kept dancing until they stopped playing music and we both sat down in the grass and we were laughing and then we talked for a while and I realized how late it had gotten. I was about to leave and made to get up but—I don’t know, maybe he was drunk and I was too stupid to realize. He grabbed my hand and I sat back down, I was confused. But he leaned over and pulled a couple of pieces of grass out of my hair, we were so close together and I—he kissed me.” Loki’s gaze fell to the floor.
Realization hit Val like a punch to the stomach. Before she could do much but stutter the beginning of a sentence, he leaned over and took the small glass from the table. He tilted his head back briefly and swallowed.
“He kissed me Val, and what did I do? Sit there like the complete idiot I am! And what if he wasn’t drunk? What do I do, Val?”
Val let the situation sink in for a moment. “Why do you think you didn’t pull away? Do you have feelings for him?”
Loki seemed stunned for a moment, as though he wasn’t sure If he had heard her right. “I—I don’t know anymore,” he admitted.
“Val?” Thor’s voice brought the memory to an abrupt halt. She blinked a few times and looked up at him.
“I’m so sorry, Thor,” she said.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he told her.
Val took a breath, “Do you truly love him? Because while you may be my king and my friend, I have always been there for Loki. More than I have needed to be for you, and I need to know that he won’t just be another phase of yours because you have no idea what that would do to him, Thor. No idea.”
Thor knit his eyebrows, “why do I feel like you’re speaking from experience?” He stood and walked across to the window. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked sternly.
With a start, she realized the mistake she had made.
“I—I can’t…” she stuttered. “I swore I would never tell you if you didn’t know,” Val explained.
Thor turned his gaze from the window to her, his eyes burned intensely and she could tell she had no option but to tell Thor. “as your king, I am ordering you to tell me.” He said slowly.
“Do you remember the harvest festivals back on Asgard?” She asked.
“Of course.”
“There was one year when you found Loki away from the festival and…” she went on to explain what had happened at the festival, though in less detail. About halfway through she paused, “You really don’t remember?” Thor shook his head minutely. She told him about the dancing, the talking, how Thor had kissed him. He didn’t remember any of it. How can I not remember that? I remember plenty of things from when I was drunk, not very well, but I don’t completely forget. Either way it doesn’t sound like I was drunk, He thought.
“Loki came to my rooms later that night, he was a complete mess. It was obvious he had been crying, he did at one point when we were talking. I remember being so surprised, he never does. I think that must have triggered something in him, Thor. He went to a dark place. ”
Thor sat in silence, thinking over what she had just said. Val said, “So yes, I speak from experience and if you had any respect for your brother, you wouldn’t have demanded that I tell you that,” she clenched her fists. Val was tired of this, she couldn’t stand the tension between the two of them. They didn’t realize they weren’t the only ones who were in this for the worse. “So for Odin’s sake Thor, swallow your pride and figure things out with him because I am sick and tired of being caught in the middle! I had to do this when I was serving your father, and when I was with the other Valkyries, and when we had to fight Hela and here I am now, still solving his royal highness’s problems.” She made to leave, but Thor grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“I’m sorry. You have to understand that. But I didn’t…" I clearly didn’t know how to fix things when we were kids and I certainly don’t know now! He wanted to say but couldn’t bring himself to. “...I don’t know how to fix this Val. You can’t expect me to know how to do that,” Thor tried.
“I’m not expecting you to know how, I’m expecting you to try.” With that, she yanked her wrist away from his grasp and left.