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All corpses will bloat under the sun.
Thor knew this. From a very young age he had been on battlefields interacting with the dead and the dying. Decay had long lost its ability to turn his stomach.
“-found ‘im on the rocks to the south of the lighthouse, mi’lord. Just washed up in the night. Hard to tell ‘ow long he’d been in the water. It’s cold enough to keep ‘em fresh a while this time o’ year.”
“And he carried nothing with him? Nothing with which one could discern his identity?” Odin, High King of Asgard, leaned forward in his golden throne, his hands resting on the arms of the chair. The enormous canvas-swathed corpse at the foot of the dais reeked of brine and dead fish, a stench strong enough to distract Thor on his walk to the training yards and lure him to the entrance to the throne room.
“No, mi’lord, just him. I tried to take him to the constable here but he thought you should see him first, what with him being one of them squirmy folk and all. Beg your pardon about the stench. Tweren’t nearly as bad when I had him outside.”
Odin waved off the fisherman’s concerns. “Unwrap his face.”
“Yes your majesty.” He gave a slight bow and took a rickety knee in order to fold back the corner of the canvas, showing the swollen, too-pale face of a dead mercreature.
Thor swallowed down the bile which bit at his throat.
Great violence had been dealt to the corpse before it had met its ultimate end. Two livid gashes, long washed clean by the ocean, raked from the top of his forehead down to his chin. Each cut sliced over one of the man’s eyes, or rather, where the man’s eyes would have been if anything remained. His nose was crushed nearly flat to his face, folded and squished like old leather. Perhaps most disturbing though was the attention paid to the man’s mouth. In a neat row stretching from cheek to cheek, eighteen fine, black stitches criss-crossed his lips.
“Silenced for eternity.” Odin murmured, rising from his throne to walk down the steps towards the spectacle. The fisherman kept his head bowed low, shuffling back a bit to give the king more room.
Thor knew he should move on down the hall. Sif was waiting for him and he was hardly dressed for court, but still his feet carried him into the throne room.
“When did you find him?” He heard himself ask, voice cold. His footsteps sounded loud and echoing in the vaulted space.
“Just past dawn ur highness. Was out to pull up me traps when the red o’ those limbs caught me eye. They’re a might paler what with his veins bein’ all bled out, but that’s still a colour one just don’t see on the rocks.”
“Indeed.” Thor agreed, imagining the blood red sprawl, face dead and washed out as it turned blind sockets to the sky, blue gut split wide, a maw full of rot-
“Was quite the how-now to get that thing aboard, milord. Just me and mah boy out there and our little boat and them squirmers are right heavy.”
“Your diligence is appreciated, friend. My steward will see to it that you are compensated for the time you’ve spent bringing this to my attention.”
“Much obliged milord but ya don’t need to be doin’ that.”
“I insist. Thank you for your help, you can return to your family with my blessings.”
“Yes your majesty, thank you your majesty.”
As his father dismissed the fisherman Thor crouched down and lifted the edge of the canvas, dreading what he might find underneath.
Though his nose wrinkled at the fresh billow of stench, he relaxed when the full body was revealed. There were large chunks missing from the blue-grey chest and limbs, but the white feather edges of the wounds told Thor these damages had been sustained postmortem, flesh stolen away in the hungry jaws of scavengers.
The killing blow itself was disturbing only in it’s precision and neatness. One blow: one deep wound which pierced through the man’s side, angled between his ribs, ripping through a lung, penetrating into his stomach.
It was a horrible way to die. Slow. Crawling. Suffering. The vision of it rattled around Thor’s head.
Odin’s boots appeared in his line of sight, the Allfather standing just to his left. “Well Thor,” He asked, too bright. “Since you have become an expert on our friends from the deep, what do you suggest we do?”
“Expert?” Thor’s laugh sounded forced. “Thank you father, but I imagine I have even less of an idea on how to proceed with this than you do. The only mercreature I know would be a poor standard by which to compare the rest of the species.”
Odin huffed a laugh. “Well, at least you know that.”
He glanced under the canvas Thor still held up with his hands, but it did not hold his interest. “I will have someone come make a drawing of his face, then we shall have his remains buried amongst the graves of the unknown. If his people ever come searching for him, that should satisfy them.”
“Do you think that they will come looking?” Thor pulled the canvas back down and stood. His father’s expression was mild.
“No, but one must err on the side of caution with these half-men, my son.”
“Of course father.”
With Odin’s decision final, Thor did not want to linger. He breathed through his mouth, and left immediately.
He was only rather late when he finally made it to the training grounds. Sif may have forgiven tardiness, but when she found his strikes weak and his parries lack-luster she grew cross. After managing to easily deflect a dozen blows she disarmed her friend out of spite.
With a warrior’s cry she rushed, hooking her cross guard under the head of Thor’s hammer. Twisting, she jerked both weapons sideways, wrenching the hammer from the prince’s grasp and sending it sailing. A cloud of dust billowed up when it slammed to the ground several feet away. Thor stared at his empty hand in confusion.
“What is with you?” Sif’s sword disappeared into her scabbard so she could cross her arms and scowl. “It’s been years since I’ve been able to so easily disarm you.”
Adopting a scowl of his own Thor turned his back on the female warrior and waved a hand dismissively. “You got lucky. It is nothing.”
“Clearly not.” She countered, but Thor had already reclaimed Mjolner and Sif quickly re-drew her weapon, making herself ready. When the prince turned to her again his face was unreadable.
“Fine.” She spat. “I will beat you then, and I will not feel sorry for it!”
“You are never sorry!” Thor goaded.
She smiled at that, and lived up to her word.
Loki wasn’t sorry either when Thor found him in the library an hour later. For a moment his eyes followed Thor’s motions as the prince rubbed a salve into the black purple blotch spreading over his shoulder, then he let his gaze fall back to his book.
“Your ego will be your downfall Thor.” He murmured as he turned the page. “One day you will go into a battle truly unprepared, and your enemy will surprise you with your death.”
Thor frowned. “Lady Sif is not my enemy.”
“She can kill you.”
“She can not!” Thor could not understand why the look in Loki’s eyes was so condescending. “For one thing, we are quite evenly matched. For another she would never kill me. I am her prince, and what’s more, I am her friend.”
“While I cannot speak to the latter,” Loki muttered, “the first is patently false. She goes easy on you.”
“She does not!”
“Yes, she does. If you were to watch her spar with others you would agree with me on this.”
“You’re mad.”
‘Hmm.” Loki hummed. He focused back on the tome in his lap.
Gudrun was asleep in a late afternoon sunbeam, sprawled on her back atop a blanket laid out on the floor. As Thor watched Loki’s eyes darted from page to baby and back again. His foot bounced a couple times, then he uncrossed his ankles before crossing them again the opposite way.
Little, meaningless things they might have been, but they held Thor fixated.
“Move over.” The prince rasped at last, unfolding himself from his chair and walking up to Loki’s chaise. He ignored his friend’s narrowed expression as he reached out with big hands and pushed gently at his shoulder.
Loki made a face. “Your hands are greasy.”
“It’s herbal, it will do you no harm.” Gentle, insistent, Loki gave into Thor with a grumble and shifted to one end of his couch. Thor sank down next to him, casting an arm around his friend’s shoulders and stretching out his legs so his feet shared Gudrun’s sun.
“What are you reading?”
“A book.” Loki muttered, eyes affixed to the page.
Thor frowned and strained to read over his friend’s shoulder. Loki’s spine stiffened but he didn’t move.
“What language is that?”
“An old one.”
“How old?”
“Old enough.”
“Loki.”
Loki didn’t respond. His new toes, only two weeks old, wiggled absently.
Gudrun was wide awake and looking straight at Thor. She kicked her little feet in the air and waved her fists about.
Thor didn’t know much about babies, but Gudrun seemed needy to him. He cocked his head a little to the side and watched her intently, wondering if he should make a face to entertain her or if such a thing would be frightening. He remembered watching Fandral make his nephew cackle in delight by pulling a trick where he appeared to roll his eyes back into his head, but the thought of such a trick now made Thor uneasy.
Gudrun was waiting for something regardless, and grew increasingly restless when Thor did not provide it. When she began to make little fussing noises, Thor tensed and turned to Loki.
“I think Gudrun wants you.”
Loki turned the page. “Is she looking at me?”
“No.” Thor answered slowly.
“Than it’s not me she wants.”
A frown spread across Thor’s face, even as he slid off the chaise on to his knees, reaching for the baby. “Why on earth would she want me?”
One of Loki’s feet pushed lightly at Thor’s thigh. “Poor taste runs in the family.”
Gudrun quieted when Thor reached out and picked her up under her arms, pulling her haltingly towards his chest and arranging her so her head rested in the crook of one elbow. He hauled himself back onto the couch slowly, trying to move her as little as possible.
Loki snorted. “You look as if you have never held her before.”
Thor made a face. “Every other time I’ve held her it has been some sort of emergency. I doubt I was ever doing it right.”
Although Thor never looked up from Gudrun’s open eyes, he knew Loki was watching.
They were orange eyes, Gudrun’s. Yellow and gold shot through with a rim of red nearly as bold as Loki’s around the pupil. Where once there had been no sclera one had been spell-formed, creating a white boarder to hold the lava bright depths. No man had ever had eyes like this.
“They will give away what the spell conceals.” Thor murmured.
There was a soft sound as Loki laid his book on the floor, then the shuffling of fabric on fabric as he shifted closer to Thor and his daughter.
“I like her eyes.” He announced at length, leaning on Thor’s arm. “Very distinctive. Not many of my kind have eyes so bright and golden. In fact I only knew of one living man with them in all the kingdom.”
With a gentle hand he reached out to touch the dark downy hair which had just recently begun to cover Gudrun’s head.
“I like them too.” Thor added after a minute. “But they will give her trouble.”
“Many things in life will give her trouble. Her eyes are among the least of my concerns.”
Thor glanced up to meet Loki’s gaze and found his friend’s eyes fixed upon him. Eyes that were still blood red and broken only by a black pupil. Loki was smiling.
Thor swallowed.
Words rushed past his lips. “I find it so strange to see you pink and pale.” Flushing at the admission, he dropped his attention back to Gudrun. “I find myself worrying that you are ill, then I remind myself that it is a spell, and that you look like me now.”
Loki laughed. “I look nothing like you, Thor.”
“But-”
A fine fingered hand settled over his own and he fell silent.
Both their palms rested on one of Gudrun’s chubby arms. After a moment’s hesitation, Thor spread his fingers so Loki’s slipped into the spaces between. The former mercreature was caught as the prince curled his hand into a loose fist.
Gudrun’s eyes slipped closed.
One of the massive balcony doors was open, letting a breeze wash into the library. Between the shelves and over the work tables, it carried the mixed scents of the world outside and the world within. Brine and paper, greens and dust, salt and leather. Squinting against the sun, Thor could just see Heimdall’s lighthouse from where he was sitting. It made his stomach knot unpleasantly, even as he squeezed Loki’s fingers in reassurance.
“A peasant brought in a body this morning.” Thor began to speak before he really knew what he wanted to say. “He found it on the rocks.”
Loki pet Gudrun’s head again. “Tragic.”
“Perhaps.” A pause, then he said “It was one of your people. A mercreature.”
“Tragic indeed.” The fingers of Loki’s free hand stilled, then withdrew. “There are so very few of us left. Each loss is felt acutely.”
“Would you like to see the corpse? They will bury it soon.”
Loki made a face. “So he will be forever bound to the earth. How barbaric.”
Thor frowned. “If there is a more appropriate burial method we should employ-”
“No, no. It is dead after all, it cannot complain.” Loki waved his hand and switched the way his ankles were crossed. “Has anyone identified it?”
“Nay, there was not a thing found with him which might have named him.”
“Pity.”
With a tug to free his hand from Thor’s grasp, Loki bent to retrieve his book.
A terrible anxiety rose up in the prince.
“He was murdered.”
He realized how loud his words were when Gudrun made a face and fisted his tunic in her tiny hands. Without thinking he started to rock her gently in apology.
“How gruesome.”
Loki snapped his fingers and his book opened to the page he’d left off on.
“You do not wish to see the body at all? Perhaps it was someone you knew.”
Loki turned on Thor with an expression as sharp as it was cold. “It would not move me even if it were my own father.”
With furrowed brow Thor pressed on. “You need not mourn him, but if any of your people were to ask after his whereabouts it would help if we could put a name with the remains.”
Loki snapped his book shut with a snarl. “My people would hardly spare a second’s thought for one lost idiot. No one will miss him.” His knuckles turned white for a moment as his grip on his book tightened, then he relaxed it. He exhaled.
“But fine. If this is to be the price of my peace I shall identify your corpse.” Pushing himself to his feet and dropping his book on the couch, Loki stalked out of the room and left Thor behind, Gudrun still cradled in his arms. The prince looked down at the baby alarmed, then jolted to his feet and tried to rush after Loki without jostling her.
“Loki wait!” he called, wincing mentally when Gudrun mewled plaintively. “I did not mean to pressure you into this!”
Thor reached the hall just in time to see Loki turn to the left. He jogged to catch up. “Loki!”
He drew up even with his friend and fell into step beside him.
“Is it in the surgery?” Loki asked.
Thor nodded. “You do not have to do this though, I’m sorry if I-”
“Just be silent.”
Without looking directly at Thor, Loki reached out and plucked a now crying Gudrun from his grasp, settling her on her side in his own arms.
“I will not be your expert on all things mere.” He spat. “I do this one thing as a favor, and nothing more.”
“Of course.” Thor assured, skipping a few paces ahead as they neared the surgery door, stepping though first and holding it open for his friend. “Thank you Loki.”
“Do not thank me.” he growled, and nothing more.
“Your highness, Lord Loki.” Eir, the head physician, stood from her work bench and curtsied in greeting. “Lady Gudrun.” She added when she straightened up again, casting a small smile towards the crying child before she looked to Loki.
“How do you fare?” She had not seen him since he’d given birth.
“I am fine. I’ve come to identify the dead mercreature brought in this morning.”
Eir frowned, and cast a strange look at Thor before turning her attention back to Loki. “Not to doubt your expertise friend, but I surely don’t expect you to know the face of every member of your species.”
“Just so.” He nodded curtly. “But it has been requested that I try all the same.”
With a shrug she reached for the keys on her belt and turned towards the door which led to the hall for preparation of the dead. “Very well. Give Gudrun to Thor, it is not good for one so young to come close to so much death.”
Loki’s arms only cradled her closer, ignoring her wails. “I cannot imagine how a few corpses will spoil her further.”
Again Eir frowned, but she didn’t press the issue. “As you wish, milord.”
The iron key turned smoothly in the lock, and the heavy oak door was silent on its hinges. Eir pressed herself flat against it to keep it open wide, and she gestured for the lot of them to proceed ahead.
“He’s on the central table. We replaced his missing eyes with sea stones and stitched up the wound in his side, but the elements have already exacted their toll. It’s good you came when you did, some men are coming soon to bury him. Being as dead as he is, time is not on our side.”
Loki walked right up to the edge of the table. With a jerk of his head he ordered Thor to draw aside the shroud.
Thor did.
The face was much as he remembered, except that its long hair was now carefully combed and plaited, its mouth freed, and its eye sockets filled. Sand polished stones of lumpy but essentially round shape had been fitted into the hollows, their smooth matte surfaces gazing unblinkingly at the onlookers.
The stench that had previously surrounded the corpse had been dulled and overwhelmed by one of lavender and myrrh. These new smells affected Thor’s composure far more than ones of decay, and he had to resist the urge to tug his tunic over his nose.
In the span of two breaths, Loki had looked his fill.
“Fimafeng. A warrior and a servant. He was well liked in his master’s court.”
With a nod to Thor the linen was replaced.
Gudrun had quieted to gurgles, Loki rocking her in his arms.
“That is all?” Thor asked.
“Yes.”
Loki did not turn to look at Thor, and his voice betrayed nothing. Even with Gudrun in his arms be remained straight backed and stiff. Cold, and unmoved.
“Can you say why his murderer paid such particular violence to his eyes?” Eir’s voice was softer than Thor’s had been, but Loki did not turn to regard her either.
“If I remember correctly, his eyes were quite distinctive.”
Eir spun her keys absently in her hand. “Curious.” Was her only reply.
It was several minutes before someone spoke again.
“I’m quite fatigued.” Loki eventually announced, shifting Gudrun up so her head rested against his shoulder. “I’ll be going now.” With a short bow to Eir and a bare nod of his head to Thor, he was gone, his sharp footsteps echoing around the stone chamber and fading off down the hall.
“Funny that he-” Eir began, but Thor cut her off. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
“Have the grave digger add ‘Fimafeng’ to the marker.”
If Eir was upset about being interrupted, she did not show it. “Should we move him to the graveyard proper now that we have his name?”
“No.” He said, frowning, forcing his hands to relax. “He is still unknown to us in Asgard.”
The physician replied with a curtsey. “It will be as you say.”
“Thank you Eir.”
“My pleasure your highness.”
She did not watch him leave, and if Thor had noticed he would have been grateful. He felt stiff in his movements, and he could not contribute it all to sparring with Sif.
By the time he reached the corridor Loki had long disappeared, and Thor did not see him for the rest of the day.
It worried him.
Of course, it was not uncommon for Loki to make himself scarce, but still Thor looked for him. When on each pass his eyes did not alight upon his friend, he swallowed down a fresh bout of concern.
When Frigga asked her son about the mysterious Fimafeng it had been all he could do not to flinch. The whole day he found himself keeping his eyes open so he wouldn’t see red tentacles on black rock, empty sockets, stitched lips.
In the end he retired early, hoping that with sleep would come a restoration of his equilibrium, his eyes closing just as the last rays of sun disappeared beneath the horizon.
His shout split the air several hours past midnight. Bolting up right in bed he panted and held his eyes open wide, unseeing. Covered in a cold sweat, one hand clenched in his sheets and the other was already reaching for Mjolner. As the reverberations of his yell faded from the air, a horrible stillness chased after them, chilling him.
He didn’t think then. He only took up his hammer and left his room at a speed just short of running, clad in nothing more than the long tunic he wore to bed and guided by nothing more than moonlight and panic
He didn’t hesitate when he reached Loki’s room. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges the moment he touched it. His skin felt too tight, his body nearly shaking in its tension. Moving on hunter’s feet he slipped into the chamber, his pace slowing so he could register everything. See everything. Hear everything.
Gudrun slept in her cradle tucked into the darkest corner of the room. A sheer curtain hung from the ceiling and surrounded her bed, shrouding her further. She did not move except for the steady rise and fall of her chest.
The room smelled like baby and paper and sea air.
Books and parchments were lined up in neat rows on a mahogany desk next to the cradle, a desk far larger than the room should have held. More books were on the bedside table, on top of the sea chest pushed against the footboard, even one on the ground, opened to a random page, resting where Loki had dropped it.
Loki’s hand hung over the side of his mattress, his face tired and drawn in sleep. More so than it ever appeared when he was awake. His hair, which he had cut to shoulder length the day after he’d affected his transformation, lay messily around his head, stark against the white of his pillow. The door to his washroom was closed and the curtains of his large window were drawn, the darkness of his small quarters complete except for the moonlight which followed Thor in from the hall.
Thor’s heart skipped a beat.
Even as logic began to worm its way into his sleep addled brain he still found his feet carrying him forward, deeper into the room. He was steady until the door behind him swung shut with a click. Then everything was darkness again.
After a moment’s pause, Thor started moving forward again. His steps were cautious as he drew up even with the foot of Loki’s bed. He held his breath. He reached out to touch the covers.
It was then that Loki awoke.
For a moment every muscle in his body pulled up tight, then he sat up like a shot, eyes wide and back stiff. A ball of light exploded out from his right hand to light half a dozen candles around the room, and a white crackling electricity consumed his left. As golden light suffused the chamber Loki’s eyes focused on the intruder and...
It was only Thor. Thor: blinking, half-dressed, and armed.
For a few seconds Loki just stared. Then he bared his teeth in a fury, shaking the lightning off his fist violently. “You!” he hissed. “Leave at once you idiot!”
Thor didn’t leave. He didn’t move. He just shifted his weight form one foot to the other.
Mjolner slipped from his grasp, hitting the stone floor with a hollow crack. His hands now freed clenched and unclenched at his sides.
“I had a dream.”
For a moment Loki just gaped, then with a furious shake of his head he hissed “I do not care!”
“It was a nightmare.” Thor managed to get out, though the words grated at his throat.
“If it is comfort you seek go cry on your mother’s breast. I’m certain she’d be only too happy to coddle you.”
“It was about you Loki.”
Loki bristled.
“I’m sorry I’ve become so abhorrent to you so as to haunt your sleep. Now-”
“Loki.” Thor looked so broken then that the dark haired man fell silent, reluctant to listen but able to do nothing else.
The silence gave Thor pause. He swallowed heavily as he sank down to sit on the edge of Loki’s bed, his thoughts collecting themselves in a rush.
“You were screaming.” He rasped finally. “They’d... Your eyes. They were gone. Then they were... They... You tried to fight them, but there were so many. And you were screaming.
“I was there but my arms were too heavy,” He held out his arms as if to demonstrate, and stared at them in disbelief “and I could not lift them to help you, I could not pull them off you. I just watched as you were, you were abused. All of them on top of you.
“I wanted to help, I swear it to you Loki, I wanted to help you and I could hear you screaming-”
With a jerk Thor fell silent. Loki had shifted his leg under the blankets so his foot touched the prince’s hip. His face was painfully blank now that it was washed of its anger.
For minutes there was nothing but the sound of them breathing, both their hearts going too fast and both their bodies too tense. Thor wanted to swallow, but there was something in his throat fighting him.
“I did not scream.” Loki whispered at last. Thor’s breath rattled out of him. “Not once.”
The prince reached behind himself to take a hold of Loki’s ankle through the covers, and Loki did not shift away.
“It was just a dream you fool.”
“But it wasn’t” Thor choked out, desperate to make his friend understand. “It happened to you Loki, and it was my fault-”
“Stupid.” Loki shifted down the mattress, his knees bending so he could get his face closer to Thor’s without making the prince release the grip he had on his foot. “You’re ridiculous.”
“It was because I kissed you Loki, I know it. A foolish thing, and all the hurt you suffered for it-”
Loki gripped Thor’s shoulder and squeezed, hard. His nails dug into the skin until it was painful. “My fate was decided long before I even met you, Thor. Do not be so vain as to credit yourself with every unpleasantness I’ve had to contend with.”
“But Loki-”
“Be silent.”
“Loki. I saw Fimafeng when they brought him in today. That could have been you.”
“No, it could not.”
“but-”
“I said be quiet.” Loki made a face of distaste. “I won’t have this nonsense. My fate could never be the same as Fimafeng’s, regardless of your kisses or your idiocy or whatever else you’ve inflicted on me.”
When Thor looked ready to interrupt Loki tugged his foot free and shifted so he was close enough to take Thor’s face in his hands, gripping him like they did when they used to speak between the wall of the ocean. Thor grabbed his wrists, but did not pull them away.
“It was just a dream, Thor.”
Thor wasn’t sure he believed Loki but the way the candlelight flickered caused those red eye’s dance, made them come alive like fire and blood and Thor could not stop himself. He had to. Had to take Loki’s face in his hands and, surging forward, press his friend’s lips to his own, breathing deep so close, so perfect, smelling dust and paper and salt and Loki. He let his tongue dart out and dry pink lips parted and between them it was wine and salt and Loki. Loki pale and cool but alive and breathing and still here.
“Thor.” Loki admonished, pulling back just enough to breathe.
“Loki.” And from Thor it was all praise. It was endless adulation, and Loki let him come back, let him kiss him again, parted his lips and closed his eyes and let Thor have his piece.
The Prince curved one big hand around Loki’s skull, cradling it like it was infinitely precious, and shifted until by bearing his weight down he could make them both lie on the bed, mouths not parting as Thor took his fill of the kisses he’d been aching for.
Chest to chest, Thor’s body pinning Loki’s beneath him, the former mercreature felt like he was drowning and it stirred a warmth in him he was not familiar with. Eventually he twisted his face away for air, hands clenching where they’d slid down to rest on Thor’s arms. “Thor.” He said, much quieter than before, rasping.
The Prince just buried his head against Loki’s throat, nuzzling the thin skin there and pressing his nose against the strength of Loki’s heart beat. His own pulse was only just evening out, calming every second he had Loki there beneath him, his arms around him, quiet in the dark. He could hear the tension in Loki’s voice though and he knew all was not so easy.
“Can we discuss it in the morning?” he asked even as he had to fight against himself, every desire pulled tight and aching, listing towards Loki.
For a moment Thor thought Loki would argue, then the thinner man exhaled and relaxed against his pillow.
“Words may not be your strong suit, but we must exchange them eventually.”
“Soon.” Thor agreed against his better judgement. “But not now.”
For several long minutes they were both silent. Loki snapped his fingers once and all but the candle on the bed stand were extinguished. Thor turned his head until his cheek was pressed against Loki’s shoulder and he could look towards Gudrun’s cradle, but it was too dark in the corner to distinguish much.
“May I stay?” He murmured eventually, squeezing the man he held in his arms in a silent sort of plea.
Loki sighed. “Just to sleep, I’m very tired Thor.”
For a moment Thor tensed again “Have you not yet healed? I could send for Eir. I should have known you were not healed, if only you were not so proud-”
“I am healing fine.” Loki’s nails were sharp as they dug into Thor’s shoulders, keeping him where he was. “I’m just tired, Gudrun did not want to sleep tonight nor last night nor the night before that.”
“Oh.” Thor settled again. “I could watch her some nights.”
When Loki hummed Thor felt it quiver in his own belly and he shut his eyes, so he could concentrate on the feeling. Loki snapped his fingers again and the last candle went out.
“Take care with your words Thor, I might just take you up on your offer.”
Thor smiled, Loki feeling the pull of those lips as he pressed the expression against his skin. “It is the least I could do Loki, You deserve so much better than all the hurt that’s been done to you.”
“If you wish to stay, be silent.”
The coolness in Loki’s voice gave Thor pause, but the way Loki’s grip on his shoulders turned to gentle petting calmed him again. Soon enough he was asleep.
For Loki slumber was far more elusive, his mind loud and bright and restless.
‘Thor-’ He began to whisper in the trembling dark just before dawn, but he did not know what else to say. So he said nothing, and waited for day to break.