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Thor creeps into his brother’s chambers.
“Psst, Loki?” He whispers into the dim glow cast by the scattered sconces Loki has alight. They throw moving and jumping shadows along the floor and walls.
He notices Loki is fast asleep, on his side curled up hugging a pillow. He is only taking up a third of the large bed. It occurs to Thor how different he and Loki are even in sleep. Thor fans himself out like a starfish. Odin help anybody who may have to share a bed with him to find any room.
“Loki?”
He tiptoes even further into the room until he’s right next to the bed looking down at his slumbering brother. He hesitates.
“Oh, for Valhalla’s sake, what do you want?” Loki demands opening the eye facing Thor.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
“Yes, I’ve been awake even before you entered my chambers. Even when you think you’re being sneaky, you still manage to give off a lumbering, brutishness I can sense many lengths away.”
“Well, why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought if I feigned sleep, you’d turn around and leave.”
“Oh. Ok.”
Thor’s voice is small, and he turns around to do just that. Loki catches the wounded look on his elder brother’s face.
“Wait. Why have you sought me out?”
Thor’s eyes are downcast, and Loki swears he looks ashamed.
“What’s happened?”
Thor mumbles something that Loki can’t understand.
“What?” Loki asks sharply.
He’s grumpy; Thor has woken him up from one of the increasingly rare sound sleeps he gets, and for what reason?
“I had a bad dream,” Thor blurts out, not looking at his brother.
“Oh.”
Loki’s voice has blunted, and he says that one word as if Thor’s admission is not a big issue.
“That’s not anything here or there. I have them too.”
Thor looks up at him and meets his eyes.
“What are your nightmares about?”
“Oh, you know, losing my hair, my teeth randomly falling out, people thinking you have a better sense of style than I-”
Thor cuts him off with a snort of frustration and shakes his head.
“Why did I seek you out? You’d never take this seriously. I should’ve just remained in bed,” Thor huffs and turns to leave.
“Thor, wait! I am taking this seriously. And those are legitimate fears of mine I’ve dreamt of, but I suppose I was also trying to lighten your mood as well,” Loki admits.
Thor’s face softens, and Loki sees his brother is deeply shaken and bothered.
“What did you see in your dream?”
Thor is still next to the bed, staring at a spot on the expensive rug in Loki’s room. Loki is now sitting on the edge of the bed looking up at him. Thor’s brow is scrunched in remembrance of the troubling scenes that wrenched him from sleep.
“I was King; there was an invasion of Asgard. I don’t know who it was; it could’ve been anybody because they were faceless, but they came in droves. They slayed our people, and I was useless. But the worst-” Thor’s voice brakes with a sob.
Loki’s eyebrows raise in surprise; he can’t recall seeing Thor cry outside of when they were small children. He quickly recovers.
“What was the worst?” He asks calmly and quietly.
Thor takes a moment before telling him.
“They captured you, and I knew they’d kill you, but I ran! I ran away!”
Loki shushes him gently; the last thing Thor needs right now was for any commotion to bring the Einherjar running to their location.
“Thor, you and I both know you would never do that,” Loki says trying to reassure him. “I think your impending coronation is weighing heavily on you. But you run headlong into trouble, into problems, even when you know you stand a chance of losing. That’s what heroes do. That’s what a good King does. They don’t run away; you don’t run away.”
The quiet settled among them. Finally Thor spoke up.
“It just felt so real, brother. I had to see if you were alright.”
“I was. Until you woke me up.”
But Loki’s voice holds only a tiny fraction of his usual snark, and a tiny, impish smile plays upon his lips.
“Well, don’t just stand there like an awkward bilgesnipe. There’s plenty of room over there; are you going to climb in or not?”
Thor looks mildly bewildered but doesn’t argue. He crosses to the other side of Loki’s bed and gets in. Loki lays back down on his side, hugging the pillow in the same position he was when Thor came to him.
Thor, while shifting and settling into a comfortable position, flings his arm out by habit, and his hand lands on the area where Loki’s neck and cheek meet.
“Get your hand out of my face.”
“Sorry,” Thor says and immediately removes his hand.
Loki soon feels something on the middle of his back and realizes it’s the back of Thor’s hand. He knows Thor just wants some sort of contact as reassurance that Loki’s there, and his dream didn’t come true and he’s not completely alone.
Even though he’s a side sleeper or a stomach sleeper with his face buried in a pillow, Loki casually rolls over and scoots closer to Thor until their shoulders touch, acting like he’s trying to find a good sleeping position as well. He feels the tension his brother’s been holding in his body release as Thor allows his shoulders to relax into the bed.
“Are you awake?” Thor asks after a few minutes, his speech slightly slurred with the beginnings of slumber.
“Barely,” Loki answers just as drowsily.
“Not a word of this to anyone.”
“Of course not, brother. At least not until revealing such information works to my advantage.”
Loki smirks and cracks open an eye. Thor smirks right back at him. After Loki closes his eyes again, he feels Thor lightly grasp his forearm. This time he doesn’t tell his brother to remove his hand.