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“What strange creatures brothers are! You would not write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world; and when obliged to take up the pen to say that such a horse is ill, or such a relation dead, it is done in the fewest possible words. You have but one style among you.”
- Jane Austen
Thor Odinson, King of Asgard and Protector of the Nine Realms, stayed up late long past the daylight cycle aboard the Statesman. In his hands, he held sheets of paper; lists of the names of the Asgardians who remained. Counting the names one by one, they felt long. In the grand scheme of things, they were short.
Much too short.
Protector of the Nine Realms . Thor snorted to himself at the irony.
“Is something funny?” asked a voice as familiar to Thor as the sound of his own.
“I didn’t know you were awake,” Thor admitted.
“Maybe if you’d shut off the Norns-damned light I’d be able to sleep,” Loki grumbled.
Their shared room was cramped—two small beds against the walls, and a miniscule desk currently flooded with papers in Thor’s handwriting (much more elegant than his personality would suggest, given excessive hours spent with royal tutors) tucked into the back right corner. A door to the left led to an even more cramped bathroom.
There were, of course, larger bedrooms aboard the Statesman , but the captain’s quarters had been surrendered to a family of seven that had somehow all made it out alive, so the remaining members of the Asgardian royal family made due with the small beds and the small desk.
Sharing a space with Loki was as familiar as the sound of his voice. Their status as princes afforded them their own rooms growing up, but when they were young it wasn’t rare for nightmares to chase one brother to the other brother’s room. In adventures away from Asgard, they had shared tents much smaller than their current living situation. Thor knew all of Loki’s annoying habits, and Loki knew his, and they both knew how to settle around each other in a way that felt like pulling on an old pair of broken-in shoes.
“I thought you were asleep when I came in,” said Thor. Loki had been curled up on his bed, face and body lax, breathing evenly. The light had been on. Thor would not have turned it on if it had been off.
“No,” said Loki, with a wry sort of frustration. “Never that.”
Insomnia had plagued Loki for as long as Thor had known him. Still—
“You should try to sleep.”
Loki huffed. “And what about you? When will the mighty King of Asgard put down his pen and rest?”
Thor paused, surprised at the sting of hurt that bloomed in his chest at the barb. It was nothing Loki hadn’t poked fun at before. This time it felt different. Thor had always had a sense of self-assurance in his strength, even after his experience as a mortal had humbled him, but he’d never failed quite this spectacularly before.
“That was crueler than I meant it to be,” Loki admitted when Thor said nothing. And wasn’t that the total sum of their relationship? Their whole lives were made up of intended and unintended cruelties towards each other. No one could hurt you so terribly and still be loved by you the way a sibling could.
Thor ignored Loki’s shoddy attempt at an apology (because he was starting to realize that making peace with who your brother was as an individual was not quite the same thing as forgiving years worth of hurt) and said, “I have dreams of Ragnarok.”
“Ragnarok is done with,” Loki told him. Thor recognized this as his prickly attempt at comfort. The worst is over, Brother. What Thor did not know was that this was a lie.
“I know,” said Thor. “That’s why I dream of it.”
Loki said nothing. The sheets rustled and the bed creaked as he rolled over to face the wall. Eventually, Thor turned off the lights and stretched out on his own bed. They both lay in the dark, wide awake and breathing quietly.
There were 653 Asgardians left. Thor had finished counting, and Heimdall confirmed this number with a solemn nod.
Two of those counted Thor and Loki.
“Are you sure you should be counting me?” Loki asked, leaning forward over his shoulder to peer at the paper in Thor’s hand. He was close enough that his long, dark hair brushed against Thor’s cheek. Thor felt an admittedly petty wave of jealousy. He missed his hair.
“Why shouldn’t I count you?” Thor asked. Loki gave him a look that was entirely reserved for when he knew Thor was being obtuse on purpose. Thor couldn’t fight off a smile. “The brother of the king when he has no heirs is the Crown Prince.”
Loki leaned back, his mouth parting in a rare display of surprise. Then his expression closed off into impassivity. “Are you sure you want me for that?”
“I have no one else,” Thor admitted. “Besides, you didn’t do a terrible job for the last few years.”
Loki raised an eyebrow. “You told me that the realms were in chaos.”
“Well yes,” said Thor, “but Asgard was doing just fine, and we’ve no room to worry about anything else now.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Loki relented.
There was a beat of quiet.
“Being king was boring,” said Loki.
“Was it now?” Thor asked, amusement bubbling.
“Yes!” Loki exclaimed. “Everyone came to me expecting me to solve the most mundane of issues.”
Thor snorted.
“I’m serious! I don’t want the crown. It’s all yours.” Don’t you dare die, Brother.
Thor put a hand on Loki’s shoulder and squeezed. His brother was solid under his touch, and so very real. “I know.” I’ll try not to.
It took five years for the grief to hurt properly. Thor’s physical downward spiral (drowning himself in drink and food and empty days) had staved off the worst of it. He’d been numb, and there had been a sense of denial that he couldn’t quite shake. He’d told Rocket that he thought Loki’s death at Thanos’ hand was real, and his head he knew it to be true, but his heart couldn’t quite agree. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time Loki had pulled this particular trick of his. It wouldn’t even be the second.
Loki survived . That’s what he was supposed to do.
It hit him when half of the world returned and Loki was not part of that number. Everyone around him reunited with people they loved, but not Thor. His family died before the Infinity Stones did everyone else in, and he would not be seeing them again.
There was not enough drink in the world to make that hurt less. It would be an insult to their memory to continue to attempt it.
(How dare Loki demand Thor’s survival when he’d already been planning to throw himself into his own demise?)
Agony throbbed from Thor’s newly empty eye socket, drilling its way deep into his skull. He pinched the bridge of his nose. A pile of written complaints from his people towered on the table; mostly about the rooming situations. There was only so much space on the ship, and it was practically impossible to divide it fairly and keep already fractured families together.
Cool fingertips brushing gently against his temple made him open his eye. He looked up to see Loki, who was also sitting at the table with his own pile of complaints, leaning forward to press his fingers against Thor’s skin.
“May I?” Loki asked.
“Please.”
A pulse of magic tingled through his skull, dulling the pain into something much more manageable. Thor groaned in relief.
“I haven’t fixed anything,” Loki told him, settling back against his chair. “I’ve just convinced you to feel it less.”
Thor lifted a hand to prod at the eyepatch, and winced when it sent another jolt of pain through him.
“Ow.”
Loki rolled his eyes. “Don’t touch it, you fool.”
“Could you fix it?” Thor asked, lifting his hand to poke it again. Loki caught his wrist to stop him.
“Stop it.”
Thor shook him off, and Loki relinquished his grip. “Could you?” he asked again.
Loki had never been known for his healing magic, but he had learned it from Frigga the way he learned everything else he knew. Some of Thor’s earliest memories were of the relieving touch of his magic against cuts and bruises.
“Probably,” Loki told him. “But my seidr has been a bit stretched thin, as of late. Tricks are much easier than healing.”
What he didn’t say was that there were hundreds of Asgardians who had needed his help, and he had been making his way through the ship, clumsily relearning a form of his magic he hadn’t had use for in decades. Thor knew this only because Heimdall had told him.
Thor grinned at him. “And why, my dear brother, is your magic so drained?”
Loki scowled at him. “Don’t be difficult. You know why.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It ruins my image.”
Thor barked out a laugh. Loki looked, as he always did when he earned Thor’s laughter, just barely on the right side of pleased.
What Thor wouldn’t do for the relief of Loki’s magic now. His head ached—a phantom pain from his no longer empty eye socket burrowing its way deeper. He raked a hand through his hair, gathering it into a knot at the base of his neck. It needed a wash, but the bathroom wasn’t free, so this would have to do for now.
Outside his room he could hear Quill and Rocket arguing about something or other. If he had to guess, it was about what temperature they wanted to set the atmospheric regulator to, which had been the theme of most of their arguments since they'd upgraded to one that could go cooler for less fuel consumption.
His skin itched where the tattoo he had gotten the day prior rested; a green and gold snake, draped around his shoulders in a distant approximation of a hug. Loki would have been pleased to see it, though maybe he would have insisted on something grander. Left to his own devices, he’s been known to recreate his image in statues of gold.
Despite how recently it had started, this argument had already been worn smooth by the sandpaper of repetition.
“But was the statue really necessary?” Thor asked. His hands were wrapped around a bottle of some sort of liquor he’d sourced from the minifridge underneath the bar. There were multiple bars aboard the Statesman . The only thing Asgard was not short of was alcohol.
Loki, his face screwing up into disgust at the taste from his own bottle, said, “Of course it was. Norns this is awful.”
“I’ll take it then,” said the Valkyrie, as cheerful as she ever could be, snatching it from Loki’s hands as she walked past him. She hopped into the stool next to Thor and brought it to her lips, throat working as the liquor disappeared.
“But how was it necessary,” Thor pressed.
Now bereft of his own alcohol, Loki took Thor’s bottle and had a sip. Thor let him without a fight. Older brothers share with their younger brothers , Frigga had told him centuries ago.
“It boosted morale,” Loki told him, with the air of someone who had chosen their current argument several arguments back and would not be changing their stance.
Valkyrie snorted and tossed her empty bottle over her shoulder. It landed perfectly in the trash bin. “Sure. It boosted your morale.”
“And it benefits all citizens when the king is in a good mood,” said Loki, as if this was obvious. “Therefore, the statue was necessary.”
“You’re so full of shit,” said Thor, taking his bottle back from Loki.
“That one was established centuries ago,” Loki returned. Thor paused, unsure if the undercurrent of bitterness he heard there was real or imagined. He studied the familiar planes of his brother's face, and with a jolt he realized he’d never seen what Loki actually looks like. He tried to picture his pale skin Jotunn-blue instead. He couldn’t.
Loki noticed Thor’s staring and turned his not-really-green gaze towards him. He raised an eyebrow. “What?” Loki asked. “I’m the God of Lies, after all.”
Thor woke up on a planet whose name he could not remember with tears drying on his cheeks.
In a reverse of their situation a few artificial daylight cycles prior, Thor made himself comfortable on his bed while Loki sat at the desk. Thor hugged his pillow to his chest and closed his eye, listening to the comforting scratch of pen on paper. In his heart, that sound would always be Loki’s.
He was editing Thor’s address to the remainder of Asgard, but there honestly wasn’t much for him to do. Thor was ready for this role as king, whether he wanted it or not.
Maybe the fact that he did not want it was what made him ready. (It would not last.)
“Why did you let me think you were dead?” Thor asked before he even realized what he was asking.
Loki’s pen stopped. “Which time?”
Thor cracked open his eye to watch the back of Loki’s head. “You know which.”
There was a pause, then a gentle thunk as Loki placed the pen down on the desk. Thor rolled over as Loki got to his feet; the idea of having this conversation while looking his brother in the face became suddenly unbearable.
“Are you moping ?” Loki asked incredulously.
“I’m upset with you,” Thor told him.
“That’s new.”
Without looking, Thor threw his pillow in Loki’s vague direction. There was an indignant squawk as his projectile hit his mark. Thor smiled into the sheets.
“You’re not getting this back,” Loki informed him, now holding the pillow hostage.
“Worth it.”
Loki heaved a dramatic sigh. The bed dipped as he sat down next to Thor and whacked the pillow back down onto Thor’s head. Thor decided the best course of action was to just accept this.
“If you must know,” said Loki, reluctance coloring his tone, “it wasn’t planned . I did actually get stabbed. I just made it look more fatal than it was.”
“Huh. I thought you faked it all.”
“No. It hurt .”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I’m always dramatic.”
“True. You’re avoiding my actual question though.”
Loki groaned. “You were more fun when you were less clever.”
“ Loki. ”
“Honestly, Thor . What were you expecting? That I’d just crawl back into my cage like an obedient dog?”
Thor said nothing. He let the silence build, and Loki’s guilt carried the conversation further.
Loki sighed again, the sound much more genuine than performative this time. “I wasn’t expecting you to take so long to notice.”
When they were children, ignoring Loki was a sure way to make his life miserable. It’d start with tricks as small as frogs appearing in all his shoes, and escalate to the point where their parents had to intervene. It suddenly dawned on him why Loki had built that statue.
Thor sat up. The pillow fell from his head onto the mattress with a thump . He reached out to his brother, hand closing around a narrow shoulder, and pulled him close. Loki made a little noise of surprise, but didn’t fight the hug. After a moment, he even lifted his arms up to return it.
Thor exhaled a shuddering breath. His eye started to sting. He tucked his nose into Loki’s neck. “I grieved for you. Twice .”
Loki gently patted his back. “I know.”
“You suck .”
“We’ve established this.”
“If you make me do it again, I won’t forgive you.” Don’t you dare die, Brother.
Loki hummed. “You will. You can’t help yourself.”
Back when he was around to have opinions of such things, Loki was usually right.