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Later—after—Thor and Loki lie together on Thor's bed. Loki keeps his eyes open, watches out the window. Thor is asleep, his newly shorn hair bristly against Loki's collarbone. The spaceship moves so gently through the universe, its motion is unnoticeable unless you can see the stars going past.
Loki did not think—he did not know—he did not—but Loki's business is knowing things. He constructs, for himself, inside his head, a story that he did know all along that Thor desired him. In the story, Loki thought it was a good long con to pretend ignorance. In the story, he teased Thor deliberately, making him arrogant enough in frustrated desire that Odin kicked him out to earn his hammer back again.
Loki likes being the reason for someone else's dissolution. Especially his brother's.
Except, in truth, he did not think or guess or know that his desire for his brother was returned. Until he caught the stopper, curious to see if Thor would truly hug him or turn away, and was startled by the fierce bear hug—and then by Thor's lips on his. By "Loki," whispered low.
Now Thor sleeps. He probably feels safe with Loki. Loki hums consideringly. He'll have to take this form to get close to Thor now; and then he can transform into a snake and bite Thor. Yes, that will be fun. He smiles, just a little.
Thor shifts in Loki's arms and says without opening his eye, "You are going, then." Like they've had a whole discussion.
Loki opens his mouth to say, "It's for the best." It is the next line; it's his; he will say it.
Before he can, Thor adds, "To find Hela."
Loki closes his mouth. He swallows. "Hela."
Sitting up, Thor brushes a hand over his head like he's forgotten he no longer has long hair. By his slight frown, Loki is pretty sure that's exactly what happened. "Hela. Our sister? I guessed by now you would wish to find her. After all, if anyone knows about being mistreated by our father until you wish to conquer planets and slaughter innocents, it is you."
Loki wants to contest this version of events, but lying here naked with Thor sitting next to him, for once he is at a loss for words. His brother is—letting him go? Encouraging him to go, and not facetiously? He isn't sure what to do with that.
Thor pulls on his shirt. "Let me know before you bring her back here, though. I imagine her reception on this ship would be—well. About your own, on Earth." He grins. It is a terrifying sight for the mere fact that Thor is grinning about the alien battle that Loki caused to occur in the middle of a city. Thor finds it amusing, nostalgic, even.
Which means that Thor has forgiven Loki.
"I—I will not fail," Loki says at last. He pushes himself up on his elbows. Thor is fastening his trousers. "You truly wish me to go?"
For answer, Thor leans down and kisses him. His tongue works into Loki's mouth, exploring him thoroughly. When he pulls away, he smiles. "I wish you to return. That's all."
Loki opens his mouth to say, "I will," but Thor is already gone.
He trusts Loki that far. Even. Still.
Flopping back onto the bedclothes, Loki wonders when that started to matter to him, and then remembers it always has.
Odin's children are not easy to kill. Hela, in particular, had eons of her captivity to learn survival. So Loki concurs with his brother's assessment: she is not dead. Only under lava, somewhere, maybe.
Loki transfers himself by magic from the spaceship to the cooling disc of lava rock that used to be Asgard. He bothered to get dressed—but, he realizes as he materializes on the lip of a crater, not in the way he wants to be right now. Loki takes on a female aspect, alters her clothes until they're comfortable, and then looks around.
Featureless lava plain. Good. Hela's probably still under there.
Fetching a knife out of nothingness, Loki touches the tip to the ground. She listens through the conductivity of the metal: to the tiny shiftings of the rock, to the languid burble of still-liquid magma at the bottom of the crater, and—farther off—yes.
She taps the knife in rhythm. Asgard military code; she picked it up once when she was pretending to be Sif for a joke. Loki smiles in memory while she waits for a response. She'd locked Sif in her rooms. Sif climbed out the window and down the palace, found Loki in her guise in combat practice, and challenged her to duel. Fighting Sif in her own form had been as much fun as the joke Loki'd planned originally.
A scratching comes back through the rock. Predictably, it's mostly swearing. "Naughty," Loki muses, and translocates herself to the ground above where Hela's buried. She taps the knife again, more pointedly this time, sending cracks spiderwebbing out and down. Then Loki steps back, prudently, and waits.
Hela digs herself out headfirst. While the rest of her is still underground, she casts her head back for a breath and pulls her antlered crown on in the same gesture. Loki readies herself.
Magic donned, Hela pulls herself out of the solidified lava like a cork from a bottle. She pops into the air and descends slowly, her gaze and her intent all fixed on Loki.
"Asgard," she says. Her hands are holding knives. Her voice is rusty. "Tell me. Where is Asgard?"
"Right now?" Loki says, and shrugs. "I'm not sure."
She hisses. Quicker than thought she's on her, a blade at Loki's throat.
Loki is used to knives. She tilts her head back, her dark hair sliding off her shoulders to reveal her unprotected neck, and says, "You were not the only one served poorly by our father." Slowly, deliberately, she transforms into her Frost Giant self. If Hela is going to be a part of their family, she will have to accept Loki as she is; if not, Loki will bury her again. Will kill her, if she has to. Without Asgard's power—after a week or more in rock—Hela is weak.
But Hela only lifts the knife and says, "Our father slept with a Frost Giant? He was even more of a hypocrite than I thought."
Shrinking back to her previous form, Loki admits, "No, although I would almost believe it of him now. He adopted me, treated me as his own, and did not tell me of my true heritage until I was almost a young man."
Hela glances, minutely, at Loki's form. Loki smiles, showing teeth, to press the issue; Hela inclines her head.
"Later," Loki says, "I assisted several invasions, of Asgard and an allied planet."
"And yet you did not join in mine." Hela's smile is dangerous.
Loki's always enjoyed danger. "No." She leans closer. "Do you want to know why?"
"I don't really care," Hela drawls, "about anything except how to get off this rock." There is a glitter of knives in her hands.
Loki waves a hand. "The Bifrost is gone. The murals—old and new. The treasures. The gold has melted. What will you do now?"
"Find Odin's son, and kill him, and scatter the Asgardians to the solar winds," Hela says, bored, as though it's her shopping list.
"You know," Loki says, "your own desire for revenge may be the most Asgardian thing about you. I learned eventually that mine was." She stands comfortably, weight balanced, so she's ready to vanish when Hela comes at her knives-first. Reappearing behind her sister, Loki says, "Ah, well, if it's that kind of party." She twirls out her knives.
By then Hela's turned. They face each other, knives in each hands. Loki grins. She wanted this all along, she thinks; no Thor, no hammer, no Asgard to get in the way. Just her and Hela, just them and the sweet sheen of steel.
Hela darts in. Loki blocks, cuts back-handed for Hela's arm, and is blocked in turn. They trade blows, knife-blade ringing on knife-blade. Soon they're locked together, hilt to hilt and hilt to hilt. Their bodies strain for some advantage. Hela's knives are longer, and she is a little taller, but Loki's angles are better. Either of them could vanish, but they don't.
Loki lifts her face up, a silent challenge. Hela raises her eyebrows. "Has Asgard become so dissolute?"
For answer Loki leans in and kisses her across the blades. "Sister," she breathes into Hela's mouth.
Hela drops one of her knives. Her hand snakes instead to Loki's collar, dragging her closer. "Sister?"
Loki's face is very close to Hela's. She lets both her arms drop, leaving herself open to Hela's blade. "I have always wanted a sister," she says. It is for once the absolute and complete truth.
Hela studies her, almost smiling. "Have you, now." She is almost certainly playing for some advantage. Fortunately, Loki is too. That doesn't mean they cannot also be in earnest.
Hela puts the tip of her remaining knife at the hollow of Loki's throat. Then she kisses Loki, and works the knife downward, cutting Loki's shirt off of her. The blade-tip goes a little deep sometimes, perhaps deliberately; Loki does not have to fake her delicious shudder at the touch of steel.
She presses her mouth into Hela's, brings her hands up to stroke Hela's antlered brow. If Loki had made that crown, it would have sensation.
From the way Hela moves as Loki touches the horns, she thinks the same way. Loki smiles as Hela reaches the hem of her blouse and uses the knife's hilt to open the flaps. Her nipples are already hard from the cold of dying Asgard. Hela's knife's tip brushing them only makes them harder.
Loki grips Hela's horns and uses her magic to vanish Hela's bodice. Her sister draws away far enough to laugh.
"Oh, you should have seen the Valkyries, before they were sent against me. You would have liked them so." She draws a fingernail along Loki's cheek. "Perhaps you would have been one."
"Perhaps," Loki agrees. "Sometimes. I am almost nothing always." Except Thor's. The thought sits oddly in her stomach. Would he quibble with her methods? Well—they were only his own.
They are not so different from each other, Odin's children, after all.
Loki runs her hands down, over Hela's breasts. Her nipples are dark and perfect. She ducks her head to take one in her mouth. Hela stiffens in pleasure, runs a hand through Loki's hair. "Mm."
Rolling her tongue over Hela's nipple, Loki strokes the other. It springs up quickly, tightening under her touch. Hela's eyes are half-closed when Loki straightens, but she is paying attention: her hand in Loki's hair grips, pulls her mouth toward Hela's other nipple. Loki obeys.
With her other hand, Hela slaps Loki's ass. "Harder."
Loki bites her nipple, lightly at first and then with more intent. Hela pushes Loki's shirt off her shoulders, and Loki lets it fall. A moment later, a knifeblade strokes oh so lightly across Loki's back. Loki nips at Hela's nipple, and is rewarded with a little cut on her shoulder. She can feel the blood well in the shallow incision.
"Ah, sister," Hela says, her voice cruel and delighted. "We will have fun."
In answer, Loki slides her hand down to Hela's crotch and dips it into her skirt. She is not wholly surprised Hela is not wearing anything underneath it; she cups Hela's vulva, runs her fingers around Hela's opening and clit. Her sister is not yet wet, but, Loki thinks, she will be.
Loki looks up, doe-eyed, and says, "Fuck me." Her brother had, the night before. Why not her sister too?
Hela cuts Loki's skirt off of her. The blade leaves marks, raised welts and little bits of blood. Then Hela is moving Loki backward, toward—ah yes, a higher piece of lava stone. Perhaps a piece of the Asgardian throne room, once—the throne, even—better yet. Loki licks her lips and smiles. She still has her hand in Hela's skirt, her fingers a light pressure on Hela's clit but not moving, not yet.
Now that Loki's pinned, both knives are back: dancing across Loki's naked torso, her hips, the sensitive skin inside her thighs. Loki is wet herself, she can feel it, and the shiver every time her sister's blade touches her is involuntary. Her hair tumbles across her shoulders; her sister's knife cuts a lock, which flutters away into the breeze. It will lie here on the lava forever, Loki thinks.
"I," says Hela, "could put my knife inside of you."
"You could." Loki meets her gaze. "Cool and sharp." She would protect it with magic. Probably. "Or you could fuck me with your fingers, your sharp fingernails inside of me. Or get down on your knees, and let me ride your antlers."
Hela laughs, softly. "Inventive. Frost Giant?"
"Asgardian," Loki says, and there, Hela's starting to get wet. She swirls the moisture up to Hela's clit. "Or I can shape-change, and you can ride my penis."
"Next time," Hela says, like a promise. She vanishes one of her knives. The other she keeps just in Loki's peripheral vision, a shining threat of pleasure. Her hand wanders downward; Loki moves her own fingers on Hela, but when Hela pushes three fingers inside of Loki without warning or ceremony, Loki's grip slackens as she relaxes into the lava wall in pleasure. Her sister's fingernails are sharp, a pleasant burn. Her fingertips find Loki's spot inside and rub it.
"Sister," Loki gasps. She turns her face toward the knife. "Please."
Hela cuts her. Slowly, in decorative patterns, across her torso. Shallow cuts; cuts Loki could heal with a thought, and will, later; cuts that sting as Hela fucks her, adding a fourth finger, her thumb, her whole hand inside Loki moving and pressing until Loki cries out.
Then Hela leans in close, and whispers, "Now you'll take my horns." She kneels, balancing on her hands. The angle is awkward. Loki has to put one leg across her shoulder and lean, the tips of Hela's other horns brushing her thigh, her calf. She's fucked out, but her sister's horn slips inside easily—thin, cool, almost pulsing. Hela frees a hand somehow to touch Loki's clit, brushing it gently and slowly, a teasing pressure that drives Loki to grind against her hand, taking the horn deeper inside her.
"Nngh," Hela says, and Loki remembers: sensation. She braces herself on the wall and takes her sister's horn into herself. Hela shudders at last and stills Loki with a hand on her hip. "Now the penis." She flicks a glance up. "If you can get hard, now. No use otherwise."
Loki slips sideways into the other skin. He lounges against the wall, naked, erect. "Sister, dear. Of course I can." He kept the patterns of her knives.
Her grin is feral. "Well, then. What are you waiting for?"
He circles her, straddles her. His exploring hand finds her: wet, open, waiting. He moves into her slowly, but she isn't about waiting. She is ready, and she sets the pace. Loki grips her hips and fucks her harder. He has a flash of an image, Thor as deep in her as he is now, Loki inside his brother, and despite the implausibility it delights him. Is there a world where that might happen? Maybe. Two days ago, he would never have said Thor would have sex with him, after all.
She comes at least three times. Between the first and the second, Loki fetches back a knife and brushes it along her sides; "Cut," she snarls, and he does. She comes when the tip of the blade parts her skin—orgasms continuously, he thinks, all the while he is cutting her.
They are a peculiar family.
He comes again too, eventually, inside her. He isn't worried. He's sure his sister knows how to take care of things like that.
Spent, he pulls himself out and lies down on the ground beside her. He flinches when his cuts touch the lava dust, and heals them absentmindedly.
Hela is breathing hard, still, ragged. She raises her head to look over at him. "Brother," she says. Tasting the word. "Well, well, well."
"We can make restitution," Loki says. It's what he would have wanted, from Odin. Acknowledgment he was not the one in the wrong. Some recompense for the wasted years. All he got was my sons, and that turned out to be enough—would have to be enough. "As long as no one is harmed."
She grins. She must have bit her lip through while he was fucking her: a drop of blood runs down her chin. "What restitution is there besides revenge?"
Loki waves a hand at the landscape. "You've had revenge, sister. You may find you tire of it, after a time."
"What, then, will you leave me here? Naked and alone?" Even feigning weakness her tone is arch.
"Ah yes," Loki says. "Naked. Alone. Hmm." He pulls a thought from the air, clothes her in a gown worthy of his mother—Hela's, too? He won't ask, not now—that drapes over her back and trails past her feet.
She chuckles, rolls onto her back, and flicks something at him. He's braced for a net or a trap, though he tries not to show it, but instead he finds himself wearing precisely the same gown as she is.
"I rather not, like this," Loki says, and changes body instead of clothes. She stretches, luxuriating in the dress. Yes, that's better. "Come with me or don't. You have no power to threaten Asgard now, inasmuch as Asgard survives." Thor thinks Asgard is its people. Loki thinks this is optimistic. Asgard is as much Odin's autocratic will, the murals—familiar ones they grew up with, and Hela's buried underneath—and the mountain streams as it is the Asgardians alone.
But Thor is looking forward, to the future. It is those like Loki and Hela, who grew shaped and damaged by the past, who have a harder time at this.
"Does Thor give up the Nine Worlds, then?"
The question is casual, but Loki answers the question Hela meant. "If you try to conquer them for yourself, it will go poorly for you."
That razor of a smile. "We could go together. Rule, side by side."
"Tempting," Loki says. "But no." A brief thought flits through her mind, of Thor's hand on Loki's face, his breath hot as he fucks his brother. "No. I stay with Thor."
"Incestuous," Hela purrs.
Loki looks her over, until Hela grins.
"What if I agree to—be good"—the phrase drips insincerity—"at least a week? Try out the hospitality of this all-esteemed brother of yours, a second, better Odin?"
After a week, Hela would know every secret, every passage, of the spaceship. She could almost certainly return at any time, wreak havoc on the passengers, vent their air into the vast darkness of space and kill them all.
When Loki was lost, she needed trust the most.
"Deal," Loki says, and stands up, offering her a hand. She sends Thor a silent message: We're coming. Hela takes the hand, snaking to her feet and leaning close enough to kiss.
"Dear," she whispers, "sister. Thank you for coming back for me."
"It was Thor's idea," Loki murmurs back, and transports them while Hela is still startled by that news.
She doesn't know how her brother will react, to their sister really being there. Thor sometimes likes the idea of his siblings better than the reality. But there is no way to know but try, and Loki is willing to take the damage, if damage will be done.
She always did want a sister.