Chapter Text
Loki will not stop moving.
Thor kneels on his little brother’s arms, straining against a strength borne of pain, and Volstagg pins Loki's knees. And yet still Loki will not stop moving. His body writhes like some demented lizard as he twists to get an arm free to claw once more at his innards and almost his bones seem to crack as he tries to curl himself inwards about the wound.
“You must hold still,” Thor says, hoarse with fear.
He had been a fool to bring them on this quest. He sees it now, knows it, and yet his knowledge had come too late. Too late to run, and too late to retreat, for Heimdall would not take them back while their foes yet lived.
Well. They live no longer.
And yet before the last of the dark elves had fallen, they had released a cruel dart into Loki’s belly.
“The poison will kill you if but one piece of it snaps,” Fandral says, hand steady about the steel shaft.
“Hurts,” Loki rasps, and there should have been more only Fandral moves a little and Loki’s back arches in sudden agony.
Thor’s fingers tighten as his brother’s lips work uselessly, soundless words mixed with keening cries. He can’t do anything. He can do nothing save sit here watching his brother die knowing none of this would have happened if he had not chosen to come here. That none of this would have happened if just hadn’t let Loki be hit.
That this would not be happening now if Loki would just hold still.
He wants to shake Loki and make him hold still, and he loathes himself for it before the thought has fully formed.
Loki makes a sharp, panting noise that is another drawn out ‘hurts’.
Thor feels helpless. He does not know what to do.
“Brother, you must stop moving,” he pleads.
Beneath him, Loki thrashes more.
Sif, ashen-faced beside Fandral, clenches her hands impotently.
“I can’t risk pulling the arrow out,” Fandral says.
Loki’s eyes are wet with tears and he can’t fix it, can’t help him, suddenly something in him snaps because they’re warriors and they’re trained for this and Loki isn’t supposed to be like this because there’s not supposed to be nothing he can do.
“You shame the House of Odin, Loki,” he says, and Loki’s shallow gasp stings but not enough to make him stop.
“Thor,” Fandral says sharply.
Thor ignores him.
“Your tears are a disgrace. Your struggles are a disgrace. Real warriors do not cry and they do not lose control. They are not cowards. They are strong. You are my brother, and a son of Odin is supposed to be strong. Your weakness is a disgrace.”
His little brother’s eyes go impossibly wide, and the tears don’t stop.
He needs them to stop.
“Stop, Loki. You must stop.”
Something unhappy and shamed happens to Loki’s eyes then, and he looks away like he can’t make himself meet Thor’s eyes anymore. This time, when Fandral twitches the arrow, though every tendon stands out in Loki’s neck, though his teeth half bite through his lips, he doesn’t move.
A dribble of blood trickles down his cheek to the grass.
“The dagger, Sif,” Fandral says, and two seconds later he’s cutting in bluntly and Loki is making pained whimpers and scrabbling his fingers into Thor’s wrists, but he doesn’t scream and he doesn’t twist away.
Thor wonders, vaguely, why Loki couldn’t do this before.
He thinks the hotness inside might be guilt.
“It’s in his kidney,” Fandral says queasily, “That’s—how did his kidney get there?”
“Does it matter?” Sif snaps.
“Not really,” Fandral mutters, “But I know I screamed like a bedded virgin that time you punched me in mine. And that was just a punch.”
That gets something close to a twitch from Loki.
The rest of it passes in a blur.
He thinks he starts repeating ‘You will be fine’ and the words become meaningless long before they stop. He remembers Loki still won’t look at him. He remembers Fandral saying 'I'm sorry' and the sound of metal chopping into meat and those stifled gasps and sharp nails breaking against his wrist and blood and flowers and dusk.
It takes Loki two hours to heal after the barb is out.
Loki sticks close to Fandral and doesn’t say much to anyone while his side closes over.
No one tells Thor he was wrong to say what he did.
No one needs to.
When they return to Asgard, Odin sends Loki to his room with a gruff order to rest and spends the rest of the evening explaining to Thor all the reasons why big brothers Do Not Do what he did.
OoOoOoOoO
Thor never does get around to saying ‘sorry’.
At first it is because he does not know how. And then, later, because he is, and he knows Loki knows he is, of course Loki knows, so why bother?
OoOoOoOoO
He doesn’t remember when it is that what happened stops being horrific and starts being a memory to jest at. A decade at least, he thinks.
Loki laughs with them too.
Fandral doesn't.
OoOoOoOoO
Fifty years later, it is Thor who is hit in the stomach.
Every nerve feels on fire and he knows, just knows, that it would stop if he could just remove his stomach too and he wants to demand that they let him, but it’s all he can do to bite back his screams.
Methodically, Loki gives him a sturdy stick to bite on.
Methodically, Loki’s magic holds back his straining wrists where his friends never could.
And then Loki’s hand is on his stomach and there’s still a hole there but the pain ends and—
“Br—Brother?” he manages.
“I learned spells to counter their poisons. And to dissolve their metals,” Loki shrugs, “It seemed prudent.”
He extends a hand and Thor takes it, drawing himself to his feet.
His cheeks feel wet.
Tears.
“Brother…”
“You wish to be cleaned up before they,” a casual gesture to where Sif and the Warriors Three are killing the last of the dark elf raiders, “see?”
One dark eyebrow is quirked, and there is a hint of a wry smile on his little brother’s mouth.
"Why would you help me with this?" Thor blurts out.
Loki hesitates. Shrugs.
"Why not? You are no coward, Thor. And you are my brother. They will— Not Fandral, perhaps, but the rest. I would not have you so humiliated."
I would not have you so humiliated.
He stares at Loki, limbs shaking, hand about his stomach, and suddenly…
Suddenly he has never felt less like a brother, or more ashamed.
“Loki? I never… I am sorry. I never should have said those words that day. I was wrong to say crying made you weak.”
Loki's eyes widen, and his face goes white.
His fingers spasm.
And then, slowly, his little brother smiles.
“I know that," Loki says, voice choked, "And I forgive you."
Thor smiles back.
And all is well.