[Open] The Boys Are Back In Town

[thorndergod]

WHO: Thor, Anders, Open to any!
WHAT: An open log, gonna put up prompts for people as they come up, or people can pop a prompt in for me if they want either dude.
WHEN: Early-to-mid whatever December is
WHERE: All over the place
NOTES: None at the moment.

[Hit me up on Discord at Nadat#4647 or Plurk at Nadat if you'd like something!]

Comments

[hwaaaitsme]

"Aren't I!?" Thor's sudden shift has pulled a sympathetic and violent peal of anger from Loki, he has taken up the rage Thor abandoned and, oddly, its target has not changed. Loki gestures at himself, at the form he has always worn, and a look of disgust and livid anger settles on his face. He rises and approaches Thor, all but spoiling for a fight.

"We have both seen it, brother," Loki hisses his tone just this side of mockery. "The twisted, corpse colored, horned thing that I truly am. I am a Qunari--a mindless, frothing creature that drags itself through the desert and dresses in rags, playing at being a person. I am good at it, apparently--the facade even had me fooled!

"I neither want nor need your pity, Thor. Call me what I am and be out with it!"

[thorndergod]

Now he looks at Loki, really looks at him, studies the all-too-familiar mage in front of him as if he can see some sort of gap or hole, some flaw, some giveaway. There's nothing there. The illusion is perfect. Thor reaches out to touch Loki's shoulder, feeling it underneath his palm. He's solid. He feels the way he's always felt. It is a lie, but it is a lie that Thor is not ready to let go of and he shakes his head.

"You are Loki." His voice is as dull as his gaze as his focus slips, before he brings it back and repeats himself more forcefully. "You are Loki. The mage who impressed our--" --no. Saying that Loki had impressed Frigga, even with the correction of 'our' to 'my,' would be patronizing. She'd known. She'd had to have known. "A mage who has impressed many with his cunning. Who was loved by my mother."

And that's such a big thing right there. That Frigga had loved Loki was indisputable, and she'd never loved anything lesser. House Asgard's slaves respected her and she'd never been cruel, but she'd never been actually warm to them.

"I do not pity you." He thinks. He's nearly certain. "You are... You are qunari. Somehow. But you are Loki."

Thor straightens, finding his backbone again as he faces Loki. As he faces his brother. What has this changed? Everything, yes, but also nothing. Loki is still Loki.

"I do not pity you," he now says with absolute certainty. "That you are good at illusions is nothing new. We know you are not human now, but what does this change? All it means is that it is certain you will never be heir of House Asgard, and I cannot find a problem with that."

It means Loki won't gain from killing Thor, now. It means a lot more than that too, but he is trying to find the silver lining here because he has realized he is not capable of rejecting Loki.

[hwaaaitsme]

Everything Thor says is washed away when he stumbles, when he reminds Loki of Frigga. Thor's hand rests heavily on his shoulder and, all at once, the weight of it seems infinite. Loki feels faint; the color has drained from him alongside his ire. Thor is being encouraging, or that is what his face says, but Loki cannot hear him over the sudden rushing in his ears.

My mother. Not our mother.

The distinction is so cutting Thor might as well have stabbed him.

He had tried so desperately to save her, he had been bathed in ichor and failed. Thor had resented him for that as well, but that was a loss they shared. But now they don't. Frigga is not his to claim, especially in death.

His whole relationship with her--the one person who loved him truly--it was a lie. It was a horrible trick.

Why?

He looks very faint and, in truth, if Thor's hand had not been on him he might've collapsed.

Why?

He will never get to ask, will he? She never spoke of it, not once. She lied for decades, to this very face, but why? As a joke? As a cruel gambit? To what end?

Loki does not realize panic has taken him, or that his heart is racing and irregular, that he has recoiled into himself, or that his hand grips Thor's arm with force enough to drive his fingertips to draw blood had his skin been exposed.

He is consumed with that question.

Why?

[thorndergod]

His brother is panicking and terrified, and the last straggling strains of anger and suspicion break. Thor grabs Loki and holds him close, tight. He cannot guess what part of this has Loki most troubled, but it doesn't matter.

"I have you," he says firmly. What a mess their House has become, but how much worse would it be if he didn't have Loki? Stabbings and all.

"You are Loki of House Asgard, and I do not care what you look like." What matters is who his brother is, and Loki has never hidden that. The scheming, manipulative murderer is his scheming, manipulative murderer.

[hwaaaitsme]

Suddenly he is being embraced, crushed against Thor's chest so tightly he thinks he heard himself creaking. For a fleeting moment he thinks that Thor is attacking him and, in that moment, he doesn't care if he is. That passes, as Thor avows him, as Thor, of all people, welcomes him into a family he already belonged to--but does not belong to in the slightest.

Loki swallows thickly as his panic calms, crushed under the weight of Thor's arms, and tries to muster some indignation. He can't find any and, in the end, just offers up:

"Our," he corrects and repeats himself again. He could ask Thor the question that consumes him--Why?--but Thor is not so much older than he is. Thor will not know. There is only one person living who would and he is behind enemy lines.

[thorndergod]

He frowns in confusion at the word, unable to search Loki's face for clarification while hugging him. That is no cause to let go. After a few moments his own correction comes to him and Thor has to face something else. If Frigga was as a mother to a qunari, how would that make her less Loki's? He cannot call Loki brother and deny him the parent that loved him.

Thor takes a deep breath and nods. "Our mother." That doesn't change anything about her either. She had loved. And possibly lied. ...Probably, actually, considering her skill set compared to Odin's. Had she lost a child and replaced him? Did Odin even know? Was that the reason Odin had always been somewhat cold to Loki, or is it that Odin simply suspected the child wasn't his?

Did it matter?

Thor is back from the greatest defeat he's ever suffered, involved in a war that has already (temporarily) claimed his homeland. There is so much ahead of him still, and his brother is beside him. In the grand scheme of everything in Thor's life, he can't find that the 'how' and 'who' matters.

He gives Loki a warm thump on the back before straightening and releasing the smaller man. A tiny bit of amusement crinkles his eyes as he looks Loki over.

"Even as a qunari you are smaller than me, brother. You should have eaten more of your vegetables."