Work Text:
"Please, Loki, stop squirming," Thor pleaded, fending off his flailing brother yet again.
"Not squirming," Loki argued. "Bed'sss movin'."
"The bed is not moving," Thor replied patiently.
"Is, too," Loki slurred. He lurched again, clutching at the covers and the headboard. Face pressed into the pillow, he argued, "See? Ssssssspinnin'."
Thor sighed. "This is why you should not consume excessive amounts of alcohol. You do so, and it causes you to believe the bed is spinning."
"Could make it spin," Loki grumbled. "Only... be sick."
"That being the case, I beg of you, do not make it spin," Thor pleaded. Loki lurched again and, from the floor next to Thor, Bucky the dog let out an anxious-- and possibly sympathetic-- whine. "Loki, you are alarming Bucky," Thor tried a new line of argument.
"S'not me. S'bed," Loki insisted mournfully.
As far as Thor could see, there was only one solution to this problem, and he was the only one available to apply it. Accordingly, he snaked an arm under Loki, then around his arms and torso, and pulled his struggling little brother against him. Loki wriggled and attempted to flail again, but Thor was too strong for him. A moment later, both Thor's arms were wrapped around his skinny, drunken, evil little brother, Loki's back pressed firmly into Thor's chest and his head tucked under Thor's chin.
"Leggo," Loki whined, kicking half-heartedly.
"No," Thor replied, his voice muffled owing to the fact his lower jaw was mostly wedged shut. "Now, is the bed still spinning?"
"... no."
"Good," Thor replied. "You see? We have cured it. In the morning you will feel better, and we will apologize to Tony Stark for your consumption of all his alcohol, and then we will... well, we will do something about JARVIS. How did JARVIS become intoxicated in the first place?"
Loki giggled-- not the mad, humourless cackle Thor had become so heart-rendingly used to, but an actual, if intoxicated, laugh of pleasure in what was, admittedly, a silly yet harmless prank. Thor did not like to think about how much he had missed both the harmless pranks and the laughter that accompanied them.
"Sssecret," Loki slurred.
"Very well," Thor said indulgently. "You may keep your secret." Loki giggled again, and Bucky decided to make his move. The big dog climbed onto the bed, stepping all over Thor and rather more carefully over Loki, then settled down in the space between Loki and the wall.
Loki shifted backwards into Thor, possibly to give the dog more room. Thor tightened his arms and was aware of just how thin his brother had become. It had been centuries since they had shared a chamber, let alone a bed-- that had been in the long-ago days when Loki was plagued by nightmares, rather than an occasion of them in others.
He wondered now whether it would have changed anything, if one of their nursemaids had thought to relate to the King and Queen that their younger son had recurring dreams of monstrous Frost Giants attacking him. Well, it was too late for regret. Thor awkwardly patted Loki's chest, and Loki reached up to put his hand over Thor's. Thor expected Loki to push it away, but he seemed to have lost track of whatever he intended, because Loki's hand closed over his and then did not move.
"Go to sleep, brother," Thor whispered, into the top of Loki's head.
"'kay," Loki muttered, and seemed to go smaller. After a moment, very quietly, at the outer limits of Thor's hearing, he heard Loki murmur, "v'you."
"What?" Thor asked, knowing it would not be repeated. It was not, and now Loki was breathing deeply and evenly, clearly asleep. Thor sighed.
"I love you, too," he whispered, and he, too, slept.
