st_ormbreaker | (no subject)

(no subject)

Thor started off by knocking. When Loki didn't answer, he let himself in.

It doesn't take him long to find him. The first floor is easy enough to survey, and he saw from outside that Loki wasn't on the roof or the balcony, which left only the upper floor of Loki's room. As gifted as an illusionist as Loki was, it was easy enough for him to see through the alcove, particularly since he was already intimately familiar with the layout of the room.

Thor passes through it easily and drops the journal on the edge of the bed with a little thump.

"We're going to talk about this," he says in a tone that broaches no argument. It is simply a fact. Thor has no interest in wallowing in his own misery, and he has even less interest in allowing his brother to wallow in his own because of him.

It's time to talk.

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“Bullshit,” Loki snapped back, glaring at Thor’s retreating back and returning form. The universe was full of unwinnable games. Thor didn’t realize it only because the universe didn’t constantly rub his face in them.

Snatching the book wouldn’t work a second time. If he’d been up to his usual standard he’d have stashed it over there to be forgotten or burned later. Ah, missed opportunities. There was only one play left to make, and no words could express how much Loki resented being driven to it.

He’d passed a good deal of time on the Isle of Silence as a child, youth, and even later. His constant punishment. Of course Loki had tried to create a spell to reverse the effect, rendering the place bearable. He’d only ever succeeded in copying the Silence, a spell he never wanted to cast, as it was nothing but torture..

He didn’t want to cast it now - Loki hated silence with an absolute purity of hate - but he did. Silence settled on the alcove like physical weight, not simple absence of sound but impossibility of sound. Maybe it was only in Loki’s head that it muted color and deadened touch too. Maybe it was only in his head that the air thickened and became hard to breathe. But maybe not.

Fortunately he didn’t have to face the Silence even slightly sober if he didn’t want to. He flipped Thor off in case a gesture would communicate his anger/frustration/resentment/resolve, then pulled a bottle of vodka out of his stash, opened it, and commenced drinking.

Thor hears (or more appropriately doesn't) as the sound of his voice snaps out of existence. The colors around him appear to vanish with the sound, becoming more muted, more grayscale.

Thor shuts the book and sets it down on the bed. He'd come into this determined, wanting to make things right, wanting for Loki to understand, but he was quickly finding that even his significant willpower was being diminished.

Thor raises a hand, though he doesn't try to take the bottle away. It hovers there in the air for a moment, as if he's not entirely sure what to do with it before letting it rest on the back of Loki's head.

He lets it run down the curve of his neck and stop on his shoulder where he gives him two pats on the shoulder.

I'll stop, he mouths at him, when Loki finally looks at him.

Loki glared, trying to communicate I don’t trust that while trying not to be comforted by the touch; every muscle in his body felt tense, and the gentle touch helped. Still, he finished the vodka before dismissing the spell just to make it even clearer that he could cast and dispel it whenever he wanted.

Ambient noise, rustling, air movement. No one knew how comforting that was, either. “I won’t be trapped, Thor. It’s not a joke to me.”

"I'm not trying to trap you, Loki," he says. "I know --" Thor removes his hand from Loki's shoulder. "-- that there's a chance that no matter how winning your efforts, you may not come out on the other side okay."

Thor looks down at his hands, the one that had been touching Loki's shoulder just a minute before.

"I just want you to know what's coming. Just like I want Tony to know. I truly believe that knowing might be the one thing that keeps everyone's futures from winding up like mine."

“And where Stark is concerned, I’m sure that’s true. It’s provably not true for me.” The same fight again. Maybe this time would be the last, there was already less hissing and spitting involved.

It was worth one more try. One more effort at explaining his reasons and reasoning. “Without knowing a single thing about my thoughts or plans, you decided that they were insufficient and had no chance of success. It didn’t matter what they were or weren’t, you decided I’m an incompetent idiot in need of instruction. Therefore, the only decision I have to make is whether or not I want to keep having this argument over and over or if I want to have it once and be done, because I have no actual chance of....” He paused, considering. “I say ‘winning’, but it’s inexact. ‘Your belief’ maybe.”

Thor listens and after Loki finishes, he doesn't say anything. Not immediately.

"I think something happened that forced you to change your plans," he says quietly. "I don't understand your plans, I don't often even understand you, but I don't think you're an incompetent idiot. Whatever plan you had might have worked, if events hadn't forced you along another course."

“But you left no room for the possibility that my plan, whatever it is or was, had that same flaw. You didn’t even pretend to have any confidence in my ability to not die when I’ve been warned to see it coming from possibly years away.” Loki spread his hands. “How am I supposed to translate that? It’s one thing to offer additional information and something else entirely to stomp and bellow about how I’m determined to die based on I don’t even know what.”

Thor takes a breath, briefly steeples his hands over his nose, then rubs one side of it.

"I'm sorry that you felt that way," he says. "It wasn't my intent."

It wasn't.

"I know that I'm not going to ever know what comes of you when one or the other of us returns," he says. "But that doesn't stop me from being afraid that some other me is going to lose you again. I've gone over everything that has happened hundreds of times now, trying to figure out what I could have done differently and sometimes it makes me crazy."

It had, too, immediately after his brother's death; he'd been so consumed with grief that he couldn't truly see or think straight. Even now, there were moments where his plans to kill Thanos and attempt to destroy the stones transformed into thoughts of using them himself to fix everything.

Thor still wasn't sure things could truly be fixed in his timeline. He could only hope they could be fixed in others.

After a moment, Loki nodded once, provisional acceptance. After another, he moved to sit next to Thor, making their positioning similar to one that had been commonplace when they were younger: close enough for private conspiracy (most often, Loki whispering to Thor), convenient for hanging off each other that they seldom actually did because Loki didn’t encourage physical contact. Old comfort. “I... admit that part of the reason I reacted badly is I don’t especially consider my survival a priority, there. Make no mistake, I intend to survive if I can. But it doesn’t distress me to consider I might not. On that score I only care because you apparently do.”

Thor wishes there was some way to make his brother care, but he can no sooner change that than he can their present circumstances.

"It's extremely important to me that you live," he says. "I know there are no guarantees and maybe there really isn't any real way to make this right, but you being alive would fix so many things."

Thor doesn't elaborate any further. Instead, he looks over at the journal, still sitting on the bed beside him.

Loki had to smile and shake his head. “Sentimental ass. You know you’d just have different problems.” He considered the journal as well, then sighed and reached to pick it up.

It wasn’t a battleground anymore, it might do as a peace offering.

"Maybe," Thor says. He's not entirely sure they'd be any worse than the problems he had in the few days following Loki's death. He's not even sure it's possible to have a problem worse than that.

“I don’t solve problems, I create them.” The argument was automatic, just for the sake of speaking, because Loki had opened the book and flipped past the information meant for Stark to the beginning of the runes. Thor was probably fooling himself if he thought Stark hadn’t managed to translate the runes within a day or two, but it made no real difference. The intent was there.

It was a quick read, a few paragraphs. Once he reached English and meant-for-Stark information again, Loki closed the book and tapped the cover thoughtfully.

Thor says nothing. He just looks over at Loki, as if expecting him to do or say something.

It was tempting, now, to open the book and read from the beginning, the rest and bulk in English and intended for Stark. But Loki only tapped the cover once or twice more, then handed it back to Thor. “You can return this to your human. I’ve read what you intended me to read.”

Thor doesn't take the book.

"You don't want to read the rest of it?"

“I don’t intend to go to Midgard at all. I never did.” Loki was even willing to bet that his dead had intended the same. There was nothing but a cell waiting on Midgard. “That bring the case, Stark’s sections are likely enough to be no use to me that I’m willing to be polite.”

Thor takes the journal from Loki and looks down at it. He looks over at Loki.

"There's no need for politeness, you know."

“Take the win, brother. I’m declining to intrude on what you wrote to your human.” Loki, somewhat daring, leaned on his brother. In his defense, Thor was warm and comfortable, and he was exhausted and some percentage drunk. “Politeness is shield and currency, both for future use. I’ve a decent enough truce with Stark and no idea how long it will need to hold that it’s a bad idea to risk it for a few pages of whatever.”

"I didn't just write it for him," he says, body softening to make room for Loki. True, most all of it was more relevant to Tony than it was to him, but...

"You might find it beneficial to know everything else if you want to help Tony or avoid Thanos."

He wasn't going to count on Loki wanting to help.

"There's no avoiding Thanos." Brothers made excellent pillows when that was safe to indulge or he had an excuse for forgetting it wasn't. "He's going to kill me. Don't get twisted up about telling me, I've known that for years. It's always part of any deal with him. Fail and die. Probably succeed and die too, really. It's just a matter of when and how long he makes me suffer first. Once I'm out in the open, that's that. So I no longer plan to go anywhere near your Statesman. Or Midgard."

"I can kill him," Thor says quietly. "Stormbreaker was forged specifically to kill Thanos. Your death is not an absolute. Not if we can manufacture a scenario where I can get to him at the right place, at the right time."

In the right mind.

"I don't mind." Loki waved a hand vaguely, but didn't detach himself from Thor. He didn't have to, yet. "If I run fast enough it'll buy you time, a living Heimdall, and maybe less graphic nightmares. That's a good deal. I thought maybe I'd sell him the Tesseract in exchange for not killing me and see if I couldn't cut his throat later, but... now I think not that."

"I know you don't mind dying," Thor says,doing all he can to keep the anger from rising in his voice but still not quite succeeding. "I care. You don't have to die. We can work together. I can kill Thanos."

By the time the last words left his mouth, the anger was drained from him, replaced with a stubborn insistence.

"Please."

"I told you, I intend to live if I can. If there's a path, I'll do my best to find it." That was as much of a sign as anything that it was time to pull back, armor up, get to business as usual. On his way, though, he tapped Thor's head. "It's not your responsibility anymore, brother. You've done what you can, and now you have to trust my spite and self-interest."