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[ He watches the blood dripping, spreading dark and wet upon the stones between his braced feet, rivulets following the deep-set grout; the stone is rough and cold upon his bare soles, the light filtering only dimly from the barred window above. He has never been in one of Asgard's stone oubliettes, except as a young boy playing where he didn't belong: looking down upon the criminals so dishonored and shamed as to be fit only to be chained below the earth and left to rot. The stone cell is cold, and absurdly large, an arching vault which only taunts him with his spaciousness; Thor has been chained between a pair of columns, his arms stretched like wings in flight, and there left for long, long hours--or has it been days? Weeks? No one has come.
His head is bowed with weariness, his shoulders slumped. For a while he fought and fought the restraints, disbelieving at first, then infuriated, then horrified that anything so paltry as a pair of chains could hold his strength; but of course it cannot be all that. Loki has put some enchantment on him, or else it is a magic in this place which is as old as Asgard itself: which keeps him docile and weak, which separates him from Mjolnir. Here his wounds do not even heal; the ragged slash across his chest has bled slowly but steadily all the while, the blood trickling down his bare torso, pooling between his feet. He has been stripped of armor and garments alike. His only accoutrements are a ragged pair of breeches, such as is given to prisoners, and the metal gag which seals his mouth.
His skin prickles with cold and pain, his arms and shoulders wracked and burning from being too long stretched, and his wrists chafed where the shackles bind them: but all that Thor can ignore. Harder to turn his mind from is the shame, the soul-eating sense of failure, of defeat. His brother routed him and cast him down: first from the towering heights of the city of New York, in Midgard, and then from Asgard's golden throne. What has he done with Odin and Frigga, with his friends the Avengers, with Jane, with all the others that Thor calls his own? He knows nothing of their fates.
Fear and shame are endless. They are serpents gnawing at his heart, wearying him with every moment he passes here, sinking him further into despair.
He does not know how long it is before the iron door at last swings open again. Thor lifts his head, shakes back his shoulders, finding some measure of defiance to draw out of himself. He must find defiance. Despair will destroy him, and that is one victory Loki will not have. ]
His head is bowed with weariness, his shoulders slumped. For a while he fought and fought the restraints, disbelieving at first, then infuriated, then horrified that anything so paltry as a pair of chains could hold his strength; but of course it cannot be all that. Loki has put some enchantment on him, or else it is a magic in this place which is as old as Asgard itself: which keeps him docile and weak, which separates him from Mjolnir. Here his wounds do not even heal; the ragged slash across his chest has bled slowly but steadily all the while, the blood trickling down his bare torso, pooling between his feet. He has been stripped of armor and garments alike. His only accoutrements are a ragged pair of breeches, such as is given to prisoners, and the metal gag which seals his mouth.
His skin prickles with cold and pain, his arms and shoulders wracked and burning from being too long stretched, and his wrists chafed where the shackles bind them: but all that Thor can ignore. Harder to turn his mind from is the shame, the soul-eating sense of failure, of defeat. His brother routed him and cast him down: first from the towering heights of the city of New York, in Midgard, and then from Asgard's golden throne. What has he done with Odin and Frigga, with his friends the Avengers, with Jane, with all the others that Thor calls his own? He knows nothing of their fates.
Fear and shame are endless. They are serpents gnawing at his heart, wearying him with every moment he passes here, sinking him further into despair.
He does not know how long it is before the iron door at last swings open again. Thor lifts his head, shakes back his shoulders, finding some measure of defiance to draw out of himself. He must find defiance. Despair will destroy him, and that is one victory Loki will not have. ]
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Under other circumstances he might be proud of Loki, but now he is only disgusted by the waste of it, by knowing that Loki could be a good king, a fine king for Asgard, but that he has no interest in being anything of the sort; that holding the throne is for vengeance and hatred and nothing more.
Meanwhile, his own humiliation burns in him, to crouch on the floor like a dumb beast and be treated as his brother's furniture, naked for all the court to see: utter degradation, to no purpose but vengeance and vengeance again. How his brother must hate him to do this; how the knowledge of it wears away at him as grief does, and despair: bowing his head, making weak his body, a sorrowing exhaustion in him that does not permit rebellion. He does have to bite his tongue to keep himself silent when Loki banishes a battalion to imprisonment and torture, fearing to worsen their fate by speaking against it. Not here, he will speak in private if he is not gagged again, and hope his brother will listen to reason.
He is exhausted by the passing hours, by the pain and humiliation, and when Loki tells him to shift he does so without arguing: splays his knees wider, and sinks slowly down until he is crouched on his elbows, almost relieved by the change in position; a breath leaves him, and his eyes close as his head bows lower, his legs bracing anew so that the stabbing in his knees is not quite so terrible. ]
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Another spread of time passes. Loki has a pretty maid feed him nuts and grapes from a silver platter; each time she draws her hands to his mouth, he laves his tongue across her soft fingertips with unnecessary flourish. This empty-headed whore had once spurned him in Thor's favor three or four centuries ago; now she has been made cognate with the wooden chairs and the stone walls, like Thor, nothing more than furniture to be used and discarded at will.
As the evening crowds out the day, Loki's patience draws short, and with it, so does his care for the complaints proffered. When the sun nears the end of its descent from the sky, Loki cuts off a milk-faced craven in the midst of his blubbering proclamations of loyalty; this time, his weapon is not a simple dagger, but the straight thrust of Gungnir summoned to his hand. The ceiling above trembles with the force of the magical blow, and golden shimmering light falls to leave smudges of stinging burns on all those unfortunate to be standing beneath. ]
Your king hungers. [ Loki says, with the mischievous glee of one who is still unaccustomed to the great power now invested in him. Before the last syllable has left his mouth, the servants scurry from their posts to ready the great hall for an evening feast. Loki slides to his feet, dragging Thor after him with no acknowledgment save a jerk of his chain. ]
Have him kneel beside my seat. If he speaks, lash him. If he speaks again, lash him again, and fit him with a gag. [ Such are the instructions that Loki leaves for a servant, before he disappears into the hallways of Gladsheim for nearly a quarter of an hour.
Loki emerges again into the great hall still resplendent in the ruby-crusted crown, but he has changed his raiment into the casual elegance befitting a feast untethered to martial matters. The feast begins with a toast; each of the nobles stands to hail Asgard's glorious king — an ancient custom that Odin had long since cast off. Loki, on the other hand, finds the ritual compelling.
Only after the toasts are complete does Loki fall back into his chair, a goblet of wine in one hand and the other sunk into Thor's golden hair. He strokes his fingers through the sunlit strands, gently, indulgently, as he speaks to those surrounding him, as if Thor is a royal pet to be shown off before the court. ]
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When he is brought to the feast hall, he does not speak, for he would not give Loki the satisfaction of seeing him gagged again; but it is a poor thing to grasp at these crumbs of defiance, and to kneel like a docile pet at Loki's feet, with his brother's hand gentle in Thor's hair. So long have they been at war that under other circumstances Thor might have welcomed such affection, only he knows there is no love in this touch, only indulgence and contempt. Thor is his prize, to sit naked at his feet before all the court; once the glory of Asgard, the beautiful golden heir, now a prize of war to be used and degraded as the conqueror sees fit. He burns through the toasts, as one by one the nobles who once swore their unending loyalty to his father stand to hail Odin's usurper.
He does not know how much more of this he can bear.
The feast drags on and on, course after course well into the night, and Thor refuses every scrap of food offered him where he kneels beneath the table like a dog, but stays obediently at Loki's side. What other choice is given him? He is bound to his brother's will, for the price of those lives which are precious to him, and perhaps all of Asgard besides. ]
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So Loki leads Thor through the passageways known to them since their birth, the walls now stripped of red and gold and replaced instead with the green of Loki's newly fashioned standard.
But he does not lead them to his own quarters upon the far side of Gladsheim's reach — he has taken the king's former chambers as his own. Here, little has changed, because Loki has spent a scarcity of his time in pursuit of succor or slumber. Ruling is a tiresome pursuit, after all, and the chains of Fate had shackled him to the inevitability of service instead. So he has writhed through the diplomacy and killed and killed until he is sure of his superiority.
He now chains Thor to a post of the marital bed once belonging to the All-father and his queen — and he finally looks up at him, a hint of surprised mockery in his face. As if he had forgotten Thor's presence entirely. ]
Ah. [ Loki sprawls backwards over the bed, leaving Thor to his own devices. The chain will allow him but a few steps from where it has been fastened, so the options are admittedly rather limited. ] You ate very little upon this night, Thor. [ Loki shifts to his side, looking up at Thor through the fall of his hair. ] Do you not hunger?
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But he would not speak so to Loki, to his beloved brother, to his most despised enemy. Thor kneels again beside the bed, chained to its post like a dog, and lets the fall of his hair disguised the hollow-bellied hunger which lingers stark in his eyes, in the twist of his mouth, for a few moments, for surely he could not will his weakness away from his face. Oh, he starves indeed, he aches for nameless things, and he cannot fathom why Loki means to keep him near, unless it is only for torment and cruel sport--well, he can well imagine that to be his purpose.
At last he speaks, not in answer but to plead. ]
Will you not spare those who spoke against you today, and send them to exile rather than agony and death? Is not a king's mercy to be revered even more than his brutality?
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[ Where Loki might have taken offense, there is only cool amusement left in its wake. He has forged and reforged himself a thousand times since taking Odin's throne, and so the ease of which he wears his composure about himself requires neither thought nor true effort.
But it does rankle, deep past the corruption of his mind: that Thor, even now, shackled to a bed as a thrall, humiliated, wounded, bared to all who cared to look upon his nakedness, would seek to teach him how to rule. As if the one true Odinson had any right to speak to his rightful king and master with anything but fearful respect.
(And yet already Loki knows himself incapable to breaking the shining unbroken circle of Thor's will. He can shackle him, and he can kill all that Thor has loved and will ever love, and still, Thor will again rise and strike him down with Mjolnir's shattering might. So Loki fears, and so Loki knows his fears will one day come to pass.)
It is temporary, oh, the worst is that Loki's dominion is temporary, and so he will suck the marrow from Asgard's bones until his own blood mars the golden walls. ]
I offer you the chance to warm your own hollow belly, and instead you would seek to save the blasphemers that would have torn me down from my throne. Is that the way of it?
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And one day when he rises he will break the chains of Loki's rule, and take back what is rightfully his: the throne and Asgard and his brother himself. ]
Do you refuse to credit them any reason to speak against you, brother?
[ And his own voice is harsh, now, ringing from the walls of the golden bedchamber. ]
You have stolen what is not yours, and so voices will rise against you again and again: and yet if you would have Asgard be yours, you need only rule with mercy as well as justice, equally dispensed, and men will be won to your side.
[ He is trying, in his own clumsy way, to encourage Loki; that he need not destroy what he has conquered, that he too was raised a prince, that he too knows how to be king, and if he must rule then let him rule well. ]
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[ Thor's anger might have once acted as a spark for Loki's own, but that was when Thor was still a prince of Asgard, when he yet had the power of arms and freedom at his behest. Now the son of Odin is caught in the shadows, and now his words will be cast off like a glittering fish caught and praised only with jeers before being tossed again into the waves.
It will come, soon, that realization — that Thor may work his nails to the bloody quick against the stone walls of disregard that Loki has erected about him, and still it will amount to nothing. ]
I do not want Asgard to be mine. I care nothing for the opinions of men and beasts that felt only smug liberation when the true second prince of Asgard fell to his apparent death.
[ And Loki rises from his indolent splay, his demeanor changing all at once: the curve of his body becomes a tight coil, his voice sharpens to a serpentine murmur. ]
Perhaps, one day, I'll be the king you wish to see. [ A lie, but Thor does not see beyond the mockery of truth presented to him, and Thor will not recognize the admission for what it is. That Loki's rule is temporary, and that Loki knows it well. ] But now — you must understand, Thor, it has been such a great deal of time since I last had a bit of fun. Let me enjoy it whilst it lasts. After I've had my fill, your king will allow you again to nag and wheedle like a common whore.
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Then why? What purpose, brother, to stealing our father's throne, to killing our friends and driving our kin into exile?
[ It is not for himself that he asks; no, Thor would gladly lay himself down at his brother's feet and let him flay the skin from his back if that pleased him, to save those who are lost and who might yet still be. If Loki hates, then let Thor bear that hatred, upon his shoulders broad and strong enough to take its weight. What he cannot bear is the senselessness of the harm done to them all.
(They mourned his fall, all of them, but Thor more than any. The loss of him was a black void struck into his heart, and never since has that void closed; Loki's hatred cuts it wide and bleeding again and again.)
His hands have made tight fists and the whole proud length of his body strains towards Loki standing upright and smiling, cold and sweetly mocking, and forever and always out of his reach. ]
I see that I cannot speak reason to you. [ he says in a voice thick with his fury. ] So I will not speak, if that is your wish; there is nothing you want of me, I suppose, but that I should suffer for the insults you imagine have been laid upon you.
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Loki uncurls his serpent's coil of a body, drawing close enough to touch. ]
Our father, our friends, our kin — wicked Loki has never known any such things. Is it not inevitable, then, that he would fall to murder and mayhem to destroy that which all others hold dear, when he has never known such comfort?
[ And so, fatherless, friendless, kinless, Loki Liesmith reaches past the barrier of silence between them, curling the cruelty of false white fingers into Thor's golden hair. The glamor disappears upon the next exhalation of breath; Thor appears again as weak and as wounded as Loki has left him.
And those cruel fingers gently stroke through the gilt hair, tucking a lock behind the curve of Thor's ear. ] I shall destroy aught. All of them. Every last speck of life in the Nine. [ He draws closer still, his fingers trailing across Thor's cheek. ] Or perhaps I'll play the martyred savior instead. Have you only anger to convince me which path to tread upon, son of Odin?
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Loki's fingers stroke through his hair, sweet and cruel, and Thor's face is turned, his throat tight with an agony of fury and betrayal: love and kinship, strength and endurance, all of these things have betrayed him. He is as bound to his brother's hand as a thrall, and he cannot see what to do to turn him from the path of madness, what will save him, save those Thor loves, save them all. ]
I am your kin; I have always been so, and it is you who has shut your eyes and turned from me. [ He swallows, his gaze not upon Loki but upon the golden bed, their father's bed, the bed of the king and his consorts; Loki's now, as Thor is. ] What can convince you? What need I say or do?
[ His voice is stumbling, heat rising to the skin beneath Loki's cold fingers, and there is a trap laid at his feet, he sees its jaws but does not know when or how they will close. ]
If you would have me lay my life at your feet, only say it.
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The offer is answered simply and swiftly: Loki laughs, a guttural thrust of sound that has never been touched by a tongue of silver. ]
I would have stolen your life from you already, had I thought it worth thievery.
[ His answer is a careless brush of words; the gaze that accompanies it is fraught with frightening focus. Loki's gaze alone could flay the skin from Thor's back, if that was the simple end he intended to close the evening with.
No. Nothing is that simple, not in the court that Loki holds. Thor has been left to rot in Asgard's darkest oubliette, and yet he has not known pain, he has not known torture the likes of which only Loki's rotted mind can conjure. And oh — what tortures he has already imagined and discarded as too gentle! Once Loki was a bright young shatter of light tossed into the abyss — like a splatter of blood in an ocean full of hungry beasts — and he had suffered for his innocence.
Now Thor will do the same. ]
Come, now. [ says the smiling king of Asgard. He is more beast that man in this moment, not by virtue of tooth nor claw, but in the depths of madness that have swallowed heart and mind both.
Softly, he strokes Thor's cheek. His hands are warm and damp, long-fingered and clever; the same hands that had once tended to battle-wounds upon Thor's body, the same hands that had once pledged allegiance to the heir to the throne. A brother's hands in shape and sight, but no longer in touch. ] We stand now in the bedchambers of a new king, with the night young and golden about us. Can you think of no sweeter boon to offer save your death?
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His stomach twists when he thinks of these things.
And something else, some strange dark heat writhes in him while Loki caresses him, clever, sweet touches, the soft press of familiar fingertips at his cheek and his jaw, and his brother so near as to make the fine golden hairs across his body rise and prickle: to make his blood throb, his cock stir. And there is a part of Thor which knows very well what it is that his brother is insinuating, inviting, demanding; the rest of him does not want to know it, yet his eyes keep straying to that vast kingly bed, and a hot flush creeps insidiously into his golden skin.
There is no love in Loki's touch. Nothing in his eyes but madness and cold sweet desire. ]
If you would have me so. [ he says at last, thick-tongued and furious, the betraying flush deepening still. He is as motionless as a lion lying in wait in tall grasses, brutal muscles coiled, ready to spring. ] If I must--if I must offer myself towards the appeasement of your madness, so be it.
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[ says Loki, and there is something in his tone reminiscent of the child he had once been — darting into the long grasses in Gladsheim's shadow, his laughter a silver chime of amusement at another mischievous victory. The same brother that had stolen sweet-cakes from the parlor and shared them under the shroud of night, the same brother that had blamed the theft upon the stars and the moon and had thus somehow released both sticky-fingered sons of Odin from the fury of the kitchen maids.
Yet now his shadow looms, and his face is a skeletal remain of what it once was, throwing into stark contrast by the heavy crown set upon his brow. He has draped himself in gold, but he knows how he must look — like a barren tree decked with tinsel and paper leaves, forever lesser than the green-clothed trees of summer.
He draws his hands away, taking up instead the length of gilded chain. A glimmer of seid, and it detaches itself from the bedpost, wrapping about Loki's wrist. ]
I am a king. I will not be appeased. [ Oh, how lovely the flush of shame sits upon Thor's cheeks, but Loki will allow neither shame nor the disgust of the unwilling to mar this night. ] You will beg for my touch upon you, and you will do so with the foundation of all your powers of sincerity. And only then might your meager talents interest me.
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The chain wraps around Loki's fingers; his brother speaks, soft and wicked, and Thor burns all the darker—he cannot help it. He cannot help the way his skin prickles with a heat he does not know he wants, and how he imagines himself begging to have Loki's touch: to have his love and his caring, his passion, his desires. Would his brother acquiesce? Would such sweet things be his for the price of a few paltry words?
Yet words are Loki's weapon, and from Thor's tongue they seem so easy to twist, to turn back against him. ]
What would you give me if I begged it of you? Would you love me again, call me brother again, if I pleaded sincerely enough? [ The note of plea is in his voice already. He cannot keep it away. ] Would you stop this mad pursuit of Asgard's ruin if I begged prettily enough? I do not believe that you would give me even a kind hand, brother, if I knelt to you now.
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Not worth its pursuit.
Loki has wanted worse than this through the long centuries of their brotherhood, and he has hated Thor and hated himself more for the unending pain of it. And yet now his hands are like naked white blades raised to sever the last of warmth and feeling between brother and brother once irrevocably twined. He does so with gladness upon his heart, and nothing more: for finally Loki-king has subjugated the past, and made it into no more than a kingdom reduced to naught but chipped marble and stone.
Loki smiles, his lips drawing back from his teeth. ]
I might give you all that I own, crown and kingdom and the promise of false brotherhood that you still crave. [ And though his voice is soft and lilting, there is brutal strength in his arms when he yanks the chain taut, pulling Thor to him, dragging him across the gilt floors. ] Or I may give you nothing at all, and name your service my due right as your king. Which path will I choose? [ Oh, he sees the heat that pools in Thor's eyes, beyond the broken citadel of his heart. And it does little more than amuse him. Thor's desires have become secondary, after all. ] I wonder.
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I would--I would have your touch upon me. [ he says halting: no great gift for words, no silver tongue in Thor Odinson's head, though sincerity from him is never guised, never falsely offered. ] I have longed--
[ And he stops, confused and tormented, wracked by guilt; he has longed, all the times that his brother has been near him, for an intimacy even greater than that they have ever known. To be as close to his brother as he might be. He has still longed for it, even as Loki has brought Asgard to ruin around him. He trembled for his nearness when he came before him in the dungeon. To put his hands on him, to hurt and wrack him as much as he has been, to hold him near, to embrace him. ]
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I have longed — to shatter Loki's bones, to fling him off the Bifrost's edge and deny him even the right of a warrior's death. To kill him, and to kill him again, until Loki is bone and blood upon Mjolnir's face, and nothing more.
(The Jotnar murder the weak and wage senseless war against the strong; they burn living wives with their corpséd husbands, and they eat still-warm flesh from Aesir bone. They built the towers of Utgard with a thousand slaves murdered and brought back to the realm of the living with the darkest blood-magic. They exist like black rot upon the branches of Yggdrasil, created only to destroy.
Mjolnir's face shines too brightly to be fouled by the blood of such a creature.) ]
You beg like a prince. [ Mockery like a thick painted mask upon his face, mockery in the cruel flick of his wrist that drags Thor nearer still. ] But you've lost your title, have you forgotten? [ His smile, spreading across his face like the spill of black oil. His hand upon Thor's face convulses, his thumb pressing against the seam of parted lips. ] Forget your crown. You are mine, to be used and cast away at my whim. Beg like the thrall that you are, lest I turn my attention to others who may serve me better.
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Instead he denies himself, thrusts away the urge to take Loki's thumb between his teeth and draw it deeper into his mouth; his eyes avert, his face flushes with shame and bewilderment as he wonders how a thrall begs. Thor has never been a thrall; Thor has ever been a prince, a prince who would be king, shining and beautiful; but Loki is not pleased with this. He hesitates long, then, moving slowly lest his brother change his mind and keep him upright with a heave of the chain, lowers himself to his knees. Instead of holding Loki's hand, he leans forward to nuzzle at his knee. Is this well? Is this what a thrall would do? Is this what will please him? ]
Please. [ he says thickly, his throat, his lungs tight. ] Put your hands upon me, my lord, my king.
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(Asgard had been a circle unbroken by even the Great War, but Loki, cloaked in nothing but anger and isolation, had been the one to finally topple its glory. He deserves this.)
So he strips the malice and the mockery from his face, and offers Thor instead a more violent gift: that of hope. ]
There. [ He settles a palm over Thor's bowed head, and pulse after pulse of healing magic flows forth, limning that golden flesh in green. It will be enough to heal the worst of his wounds, but it will do nothing to sever the tie of thrall and master that Loki had spent an eternity perfecting. ] Perhaps you will have my hands, and more of me still. But I would hear first why you believe yourself, above all of my captives, suited for my bed. You've hardly any experience at all, as I understand it.
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Is it so wrong to wonder if perhaps there exists some love between them still? Is the rift between them so vast, so insuperable? Yet he has been stripped of power and made to endure abject degradation—not merely cast down from his throne but dragged as low as a thrall, bound and enslaved to his brother's hand; what worse fate for one who was the god of thunder, all glory draped golden round his shoulders?
What worse fate but to never again know his brother's love? ]
Not—no experience as the part of the—the lesser— [ He seems as though he will choke upon fury suddenly, yet the swell of it passes just as quickly and he swallows. ] But I should learn quickly. I would wish to please you—to know what pleases you.
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It matters not. If Thor has never been taken apart, then he will learn now and again how sweet it is to be conquered. And when his pride and his arrogance is torn from him, when he spreads his legs with eagerness rather than the choked-off remnants of fury, then perhaps Loki will come astride him and teach him again what it is to be used as naught but a swathe of golden flesh to be plundered from within and without. Until Thor-prince willingly gives himself over into the white spider-hands of Asgard's newest god-king, until he ceases to remember that he was ever a prince at all.
It will not be enough, Loki already knows. Pleasure is transient. The hatred and the love he bears, braided together into a lash that strikes him whenever he catches Thor's gaze: they will one day mark the end of all that Loki Liesmith has built himself to be. ]
Ineloquent you remain, but I did not name you my thrall for the shapeliness of your words. [ There is something dark and wicked and mischievous in the twist of his smile, and yet his hands are gentle upon Thor, drawing him to his feet, guiding him down across the furs until he lies supine for Loki's perusal.
Loki drops the length of golden chain, and it rises to fasten itself upon the bedpost yet again. Lazily, he drags a hand down the gleam of his ceremonial armor, until his knuckles brush over the burgeoning swell encased in his britches. ] I'll give you the honor of choice, to prove to you my magnanimity — which hole shall I sully first?
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This is not that.
His gaze snaps to Loki at that question, burning bright and hot, vivid blue—oh, honor indeed, to be permitted to choose which way he shall first be debauched. But after a moment or two he forces his fingers to unclench from the bedclothes and wills the tension to leave his body, watching the fall of Loki's hands across his armor until they are centered at the swell of his body; he swallows, flushes again, reminds himself that Loki will not have him unwilling and sullen, else he shall surely be thrown back into his grave beneath the earth and thus lose all chance of convincing his brother to turn from rage and resentment, from dragging all Asgard along with him on a path to misery and ruin. He must be pleasing, he must not shrink like the maiden brought to her first bedding—and indeed Thor's heart rises at that thought, to the challenge of it; no, the first-born son of Asgard does not shrink from anything, least of all this.
So his voice is only a little stiff when he replies, all his effort turned towards yielding, towards finding some reserve of desire in this as well. ] I don't know what to choose, brother; as you say, I am inexperienced. I don't know what would most please you, or—or me. [ His eye is still upon Loki's hands, pale white and spidery and elegant, upon himself, and his breath quickens a little; there is something to desire, here. ] I would ask your hand to guide me.
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(Thor, the autumnal vestibule from light to shadow; Thor, the only hand that reached out through the darkness — )
No, the last of Loki's mercy was scorched from him when he watched Midgard burn before him, when he bared a treacherous sliver of steel and slaked its violence with the taste of kin-blood.
So Loki shifts forward, bracing his knee against the mattress, bearing down as silently as a shadow in the night. Thor's cheeks are stained with a flush, and desire flickers through his body like a red scarf upon the wind: he may not want this, and he may curse every moment of Loki's mastery over him, but by the time Loki-king allows slumber to embrace him, he will beg and beg again until he forgets his tongue was ever used for anything other than supplication.
Loki's lips fall to the bend of his elbow, laving with lips and teeth; his fingers settle over the extruded curve of Thor's ribcage, stroking with their white tips. His touch meanders, his mouth curling over the swell of golden shoulders, into the hollow of the profferred throat; his fingers pluck and soothe and pluck again at the buds of Thor's nipples.
Strange, that a king should need to dip into his boundless knowledge of seduction to rouse an errant thrall, but in some pursuits, Loki has patience enough for eternity. ]
—oh, my brave warrior. [ says Loki, once he has worked a gleaming bruise upon the arch of Thor's throat. His knees cage the hips below; one of his hands is settled upon the linens by Thor's head, the other is a steady pressure at the crease between thigh and hip. He speaks softly, sweetly, but his eyes glitter with malice. ]
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Brother-king, Loki-king, white and terrible and beautiful above him, gentle hands shifting across the proud expanse of golden skin, and Thor watches him transfixed, his heart in his throat and his pulse a thick slow thudding that quickens when Loki's mouth draws near. He shifts as though he would pull away, and instead twitches and arches to the errant brush of white fingers and firm lips, their surface cool and soft and slightly chapped, where all the golden skin they touch seems to blaze with heat. Thor fixes his jaw, yet a moment later lets it hang slack for a gasp. Strands of Loki's raven hair brush his collar; his fingers toy at Thor's nipples until Thor twists fitfully beneath him, his head falling aside, his own hair spread fanned upon the furs; and the gentle suckling of Loki's mouth at his throat is a strange, beguiling thing.
And the proud root of his desire, half-hard before, swells upthrust from a thatch of dark golden hair; risen fully, his cock aches for touch. Thor hesitates, thinks, half-shamed, to reach for himself, but instead reaches to touch his brother: to smooth his own great, broad hands carefully across his narrow ribs and urge him tentatively closer, as though he has never known shame nor cause for shame, never known anything between them but desire. ]
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