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“I’m terribly sorry, your majesties, but we have only one room left,” says the innkeeper, wringing his apron between anxious hands.
The man is a good actor, Loki will grant—he looks properly terrified of their wrath—or perhaps he is truly fearful that the ruse will be exposed, now that he’s been introduced to the reality of Thor’s biceps.
Over Thor’s shoulder, Loki gives the man a small, encouraging nod. So the innkeeper delivers the final line, which is certain to propel Thor into action. “Perhaps we can vacate some other guest from their room,” he offers nervously. “Surely they will understand it is necessary to accommodate our princes—”
“We’ll not hear of it,” says Thor, right on cue, and he delivers a hearty slap to the innkeeper’s shoulder that almost sends the man toppling sideways. “One room is more than enough for us, my good man. What say you, Loki?”
“We’d never dream of dislodging another guest for our comfort,” says Loki with all conviction. “My brother and I have shared many times before. It is no hardship.”
Thor turns and gives him a smile of such approving warmth that for a moment—a moment—Loki is almost sorry for the deception.
The innkeeper makes grateful obeisance, then ushers them into the inn’s tavern. They are seated at a good table by the crackling hearth, and a serving maid is soon hurrying tankards of ale into their hands.
With his part played, the innkeeper scurries away, muttering something about readying their room. He has more than earned Loki's gold. The act has been carried off flawlessly.
Quite pleased with himself, Loki toasts Thor with his ale. His brother is bathed in firelight, the yellow of his hair agleam, his eyes bright as his gaze sweeps the crowded room.
Thor might be overly trusting, but he is no fool, and Loki sees the moment when Thor decides there are no threats to them here and relaxes. The line of tension goes out of those unconscionably broad shoulders, and he leans back in his chair. He drinks deep of his ale, then grins at Loki.
Thor has, Loki thinks, failed to consider that Loki is a threat. Loki smiles back.
They pass the first round in a relaxed sort of silence. He and Thor have never needed words between them to feel at ease or to understand each other; often they are together for many hours without saying anything at all. It’s a level of comfort that Loki has found nowhere else, and he washes down sudden panic at what he intends to do with a long drink. He’s come too far, he’s planned this much, he’s gotten them here at last—he cannot reverse course now.
“It seems the weather is holding. The hunt should be a fine one,” Loki says at length, gesturing with one hand for the maid to refill their tankards. Thor has already drained his, which is auspicious.
“Aye,” says Thor. He tilts his head. The way he’s looking at Loki is such a mix of tenderness and happiness that the ale sours in Loki’s mouth. “I’m glad you decided to come, Loki. We’ve not had such a trip in far too long. I thought you might never hunt with me again.”
Loki shrugs, all nonchalance. “I thought I’d lost my taste for it,” he says. “Yet how can I deny my brother anything? I’m sure that I could not.” He bats his eyelashes at Thor, and Thor laughs as expected, but there’s a strained note in the laugh that was not there a moment before.
Good. Yes. The seed is planted. Now Loki need only let it grow.
Thor raises a golden eyebrow as he lifts his tankard to his lips. “Is that so?”
The seed springs into bloom so quickly that Loki almost trips over its roots. Thor’s query hangs heavily between them—innocent, and also the opposite of innocence. The heat in Thor’s gaze has nothing to do with their proximity to the fireplace.
Then Thor seems to realize the doubled implications of his query, and he blinks, the slightest pink flush creeping up his neck when he thinks that Loki is looking away.
Loki plays at ignorance, pretends not to see. Loki is full of cheerful questions. “The stew smells good, don’t you think? We should start with that, unless you want something else? I’m terribly hungry after all that riding, aren’t you?”
Thor nods, his eyes still on Loki. His expression is thoughtful, even introspective; it is not until he is on his third ale and is demolishing a plate of mutton that his normal banter returns.
Oh, this is going so well to plan that Loki could not have scripted it better. He did script it, many times, in his head; but Thor’s reactions in the flesh are a gift. This might be one of the most important nights of Loki’s life, and it’s getting harder to hide his smirk behind his tankard.
The unspoken desire that lies between him and Thor has been present for so long that Loki could not say when it first arose. Perhaps it was always there—some awful anomaly of their birthright.
Thor, Loki knows, has long been tortured by this state. His stalwart, upright brother can only be utterly tormented by the presence of the terrible longing that haunts them. But Loki refuses to be ruled by it himself.
If this strange yearning must persist, Loki has decided at last to turn it to his advantage.
Since it will not cease, he will use it to bind Thor to him for good. Once his brother gives in to their fateful lust, his guilt and recrimination will be such that he will never be able to deny Loki anything until the world ends.
He and Thor will pass a night together; he’s sure that when they’re alone Thor will not be able to resist the temptation—and thereafter, Thor’s self-reproach will settle around him like shackles. After all, it is incumbent upon Thor, the elder brother, the crown prince, the perfect son, to hold the line. Once he crosses it he will be Loki’s to command.
The thought of it all lights sparks in Loki’s belly, so that he finds himself rushing them through their meal—then looking for reasons why they should not linger by the fire with their tankards long into the night, as has always been their custom.
“If we are to have an early start, I suppose we must retire,” Loki says at last, sick of subtle prompts and yawning hugely behind his hand.
“Whatever you wish, brother,” says Thor, with a guileless smile that somehow manages to strike Loki as obscene.
Loki only just manages not to choke on the dregs of his ale, slamming down the tankard to mask his spluttering. Thankfully, a stableboy appears to guide them to their room, and Thor’s polite exchanges with the lad as they navigate dark hallways gives Loki enough time to regain his bearings.
The room is just as the innkeeper had promised it would be. Swept clean and heated with its own pocket-size hearth, it is small—there is barely enough room for a bed piled high with colorful quilts, a washbasin, and a single wooden chair. Though the bed is wide enough for both of them to fit, it will be a close thing, and Loki’s heart is suddenly in his throat as he takes it all in.
Thor seems to have no such concerns. He tips the boy with outlandish generosity, then shuts and bolts the door behind them. The metal lock sliding into place has a air of finality to it, and Loki shivers.
Despite all of his carefully laid plans, now that they have arrived here Loki feels unsure, untethered. He starts fussing about the room, looking for places to stash their bags and gear, for lack of anything else to do save look at Thor or the bed.
Thor claims the chair and starts to remove his boots, as merry and at ease as ever—though he is not totally unoservant. “Loki? Are you well?”
“Of course,” Loki snaps, shoving his bag under the bedframe with the vehemence of trying to hide a body. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I know that you like your privacy.” Thor pulls off his second boot and places it carefully beside the first so as not to take up any more of scant space. “What you said to the innkeeper was kind, but we have not shared a room in a long time.”
“Well, someone decided he was too old, and his little brother a nuisance,” Loki says before he can stop himself, and, fuck, now none of this is going to plan. He’s nervous as a hen, fluttering about, losing feathers, and now he’s engaging Thor in childhood memories. No. This isn’t going to work at all.
All of this hinges on Thor losing control and crossing the invisible lines that they have drawn. Yet finally being here is spinning Loki around and disorienting him. He’s lost the script.
“What are you talking about?” Thor looks genuinely confused. He stands up and tugs his tunic over his head, and Loki’s mouth goes dry. He’s seen Thor like this a hundred thousand times in the sparring ring and the bathing chamber, but Thor’s exquisite body is something else in the hearth’s soft glow, in a room where there’s nothing but a bed.
When Loki blinks back to Asgard, Thor is saying, “Father made me. He said we were too big for bed-sharing, and that you needed quiet for your studies.” Thor folds the tunic neatly and drops it on the chair. “Had the choice been mine I would have stayed.”
“I never knew,” Loki says, unable to meet Thor’s painfully sincere gaze. This is an old, festering wound, and now it seems it should not have sliced so deep. But Thor’s abrupt disappearance from their shared quarters was the worst experience of Loki’s young life.
Loki’s dreams in youth were often bad and filled with terrors; he was afraid to sleep, or else woke shouting; and having Thor so near was the only thing that calmed him.
Thor would insist that he’d fight any monster that came for Loki, and sit up on watch until Loki fell back asleep. He’d put his arms around Loki for warmth when Loki shook with fears of being caught by the icy shadows that pursued him in nightmares.
When Loki could not settle down, Thor would pull Loki close, let Loki’s head use his shoulder for a pillow, and tell exciting stories of adventure he’d learned from his armsmasters. Then Loki would shut his eyes and dream of fighting beasts with Thor at his side instead of being chased by them.
The loss of Thor’s reassuring presence had been so awful that Loki cried himself to sleep for a long while thereafter, hating himself for being so troubled that he’d driven Thor away, hating Thor for leaving him.
It had been his first experience of betrayal—and all along it had not been Thor’s fault, nor Loki’s. Loki aches with sudden rage and nowhere to put it. For a moment his balled fists flare green with seidr.
“I’m sorry, brother, truly,” Thor says, with such regret that Loki looks over at him, and as he does, Thor is closing the space between them. “I thought Father told you the same, and that you agreed. It must have seemed most cruel of me, if you did not know.” Thor is closer, closer. “Know that I missed you every night.”
It’s going to happen, Loki thinks: it’s about to happen. Thor is breathing Loki’s air, his blue eyes alive and electric, he’s leaning in to Loki—
—and he enfolds Loki in a tight, comforting hug before letting go.
Loki swallows thickly when Thor’s arms release him, not knowing what to do with his hands after being clapped to his brother’s naked chest. He needs to sit down; he needs to sit down right now, and so he does on the edge of the bed, only just averting collapse.
“It’s fine,” he tells Thor, which is, strangely, the truth—it’s infinitely better now that he knows the first rift between them was of Odin’s making. Loki feels more determined than ever that he see his plan through to the end. Thor must be well and fully bound to him.
Thor is his, and the sudden fierceness of this knowledge is nearly enough to make Loki do it himself—he should just march over and put an end to all of the subtext, push Thor back against the wall and—
Thor is taking off his trousers, returned to the act of undressing as though it has all been hashed out and fixed and forgotten. He is turned to the far corner, and Loki watches the perfect globes of his ass come into view with a mixture of embarrassment and such undeniable desire that he grows hard within a breath.
Thor paces to the bed, flips back the covers, and climbs in, easy as anything, moving to the farther side. He glances at Loki expectantly.
Loki has no idea what to do. If he gets into bed with clothes on he’ll seem like he’s uncomfortable—like he has something to hide—and it’s completely impractical. Besides, the whole point of getting here was to have Thor’s eyes on his bare flesh.
He wills his erection away as he slowly uncovers himself; in the end it takes forever not because of a successful seduction but because he needs his cock not to be hard. At last Loki gives up, and shutters the one lamp by the bed, plunging the room into darkness. Then he peels off his trousers and quite dives for the covers.
The bed is built for a happy couple. There is nowhere to turn that is not already full of Thor, and the warmth from his brother’s body eclipses the hearth. Getting used to it, their toes glance off each other’s legs; their arms brush, then retreat.
Maybe this will be enough. Nothing more than this. Thor will reach for him in the darkness, and Loki will—
“Do you still have that dream?” Thor asks quietly.
Loki feels his jaw drop, then clench. So Thor remembers: all the nights when Loki would awaken, panicked, convinced that he was frozen in place, stalked by red-eyed monsters with icy shards for teeth.
It feels as though Loki’s mouth is full of sand as he swallows. He wants to say “No,” he wants to say “Sometimes,” but despite himself, what he says is, “Almost always.”
Thor shifts closer, and Loki’s stomach hosts a squadron of butterflies. “You told me once I helped keep the dream away.”
Loki’s lips must be white with how hard they are pressed together. “Yes. You did.”
“Like this,” says Thor, and the heat of him is incredible as he slides his arm across Loki’s chest. Loki’s heart is beating hard enough that Thor must feel it thud underneath his fingertips. Now, surely. Surely.
Thor’s arm tightens around him, but he does nothing else. “Maybe it will still work,” he says, so close that his breath stirs Loki’s hair. “Goodnight, Lo—”
It is Loki who snaps. Loki snaps in two, shatters into smaller pieces, breaks every rule and plan he’s ever made.
He turns under Thor’s arm to face him, grabs hold of Thor with a frantic, two-fisted grip in Thor’s hair, and pulls. At the same time he surges up and kisses Thor, all desperation as he crushes their mouths together. It is dark, so dark, but Loki can see how Thor’s eyes go wide when their lips meet.
Loki has messed everything up. He’s spent years and years planning for this moment, if he’s being honest, but Thor was meant to be the one to fall over the brink. It was supposed to be Thor. Thor, out of control, pushed past boundaries, moving them into transgression from which he will never quite recover, and will be Loki’s thereafter. Thor, damn him, who should have—
Thor is kissing Loki back with such fervor that at first Loki’s brain can’t process it, his mouth is too busy having Thor’s tongue inside of it. Thor follows through by climbing right on top of Loki, fitting between the legs that Loki doesn’t remember letting fall open.
All that Loki can do is kiss Thor so savagely and thoroughly that he tastes blood on their lips and doesn’t know whose it is; perhaps they are both bleeding, they are both biting and bitten.
Thor responds in kind, ferocious in every action, kissing Loki like a man starved for centuries who has found Loki laid out on a banquet table.
Then Thor’s huge hands are everywhere, running over Loki’s body with an urgency that Loki could spend a thousand years trying to describe and not succeed. It’s as though Thor can’t touch enough of him, and each part of him is precious; the bend of Loki’s elbow is caressed just the same as Loki’s cock; Loki’s ribs are found out one by one, the back of his neck is a place that Thor’s hand claims and will not relinquish.
Somehow with his grip there Thor manages to draw them even more closely together. Loki had not thought it possible, seeing as how they are trying to climb into each other’s skin already.
Loki keeps one hand dug into Thor’s hair, afraid to let go, and the other explores Thor with the admiration and awe and envy and unmitigated desire to touch that’s lived in him for as long as he can remember.
He rakes nails down the sculpted slopes of Thor’s back, squeezes Thor’s buttocks until Thor groans into their kiss. He memorizes every muscle working on Thor’s powerful thighs, then lets his fingers stroke over Thor’s cock, so proudly made and so hard where it is pressed between them. Loki, too, is hard, and he rolls his hips until their cocks are aligned; then he wraps his hand around them both, and Thor moves against him. Loki bites Thor’s lip in encouragement as pure pleasure breaks over him like a cresting wave.
They don’t talk. They’ve never needed to talk. They more than comprehend each other in this. It seems to Loki that they are in a kind of uncanny agreement, anticipating each movement, working in concert the way they would in a fight.
Loki only breaks from kissing Thor to pant, “I have a salve,” and Thor says, “Fetch it,” and that’s it. He kisses Thor again, then turns to dangle over the bed, rummaging through the bag he’d shoved underneath. He curses when he cannot find the right vial at first, then curses again when Thor kisses up every joint of Loki’s spine. Thor settles over him like that, heavy on Loki’s back, and Loki gives him the salve.
Thor opens him with skillful fingers, rough only in their insistence and haste, talented enough that Loki could set the entire inn on fire with his magic and the intensity of his jealousy. Loki bites into the meat of his own arm to keep himself quiet; the proof of Thor’s fingers alone is so overwhelming that he feels as though he might pass out.
All his life he’s been right. He’s right, he’s right. Thor wants him with the same undeniable, all-encompassing force. Thor’s need is the twin of Loki’s need, they are in complete accord.
At last Thor pulls his fingers free. He is still atop Loki, on his hands and knees; Loki is stretched underneath him, face down to the bed, though he turns his head so that he can see Thor’s outline over his shoulder.
Like this will be terribly familiar. It implies trust, with Loki so immobilized, but Loki isn’t thinking about that. He can’t think past anything save what they must do. He raises his hips, and Thor’s hand slides under his stomach to hold him at that angle. Then Thor’s cock is pressing in and Thor enters him with a thrust that seems confident and desperate all at once.
Loki knows exactly how Thor feels.
He pushes back on Thor as much as he can, he is made of enthusiasm, but Thor’s cock is large and it has been longer for Loki than he’ll ever tell. Somehow Thor knows this without being told. He moves into Loki steadily but slow, his arm locked tight around Loki’s abdomen now and his head down on Loki’s shoulder.
When he’s fit all the way in, though, Thor doesn’t linger; no, he starts to fuck Loki hard and deep, just as Loki would have told him to if Loki were capable of speech.
There’s no way they’ll last long like this. They’re much too frenzied, the tension of untold years grinding into energy by friction long denied. The air is suddenly dense with charged electricity, as though Thor is creating a storm with every pointed thrust inside Loki. Loki thinks that he could be struck by lightning now and not notice, so deep within him is Thor buried.
Thor lets more and more of his weight down onto Loki, and now Loki is entirely trapped beneath him, if one can be trapped in a place they never intend to leave. Thor surrounds him, the motion of his hips pinning Loki to the bed, his hands coming also to settle over Loki’s hands, holding him down as though Loki might somehow slip through his fingers, as though Loki could possibly want to escape from this.
Loki has been trying to stay silent—imagine reports of the noises he wishes to make spreading around the inn—but as Thor thrusts still harder and faster he cannot. He tugs their entwined hands toward his mouth, and Thor understands at once. He muffles Loki’s cry, then pushes two fingers past Loki’s lips, distracting Loki enough that he forgets to make any noise save the sound of greedy sucking.
This seems to be more than Thor can take; he hauls Loki higher, manhandling him with an ease that Loki should not admire but cannot help himself from admiring. Then Thor murmurs, against Loki’s neck, “Brother,” and he spills his seed into Loki pressed as far inside him as he can. It is very, very far; and afterwards Thor keeps himself held there unmoving, until Loki begins to wonder if Thor intends to simply stay. Perhaps Thor means to never set them asunder again. Loki will allow it.
But Thor pulls out at last, and he flips Loki over onto his back. There’s only the length of a breath to meet the flash of Thor’s eyes before Thor bends down and takes Loki’s cock into his mouth.
The whole time they’ve been eerily in sync, but this, Loki does not expect; his whole body twitches, as though shocked; every ounce of his willpower is employed in order to not thrust recklessly between Thor’s lips.
It turns out that he hasn’t the time. All it takes is the sight of Thor, his cheek distended with Loki’s cock, the suctioning wet heat of him, and Loki comes with an undignified gasp as electrified pleasure seems to course through his veins. He is full of ecstasy then, not blood, and Thor’s mouth—Gods, Thor’s mouth his full of Loki’s spend that he swallows while Loki watches his throat work.
Thor lets slip Loki’s cock and raises his head, but he doesn’t slow down. He slides back up over Loki, back to the cradle of Loki’s thighs, and he brings their mouths to meet in a kiss that knocks out what little breath remained in Loki’s lungs. Loki can taste himself on Thor’s tongue, and that is such a mind-boggling development that it makes Loki break away for air again lest he drown.
Thor looks at him with a question in his eyes: Thor is asking if they should stop—if Loki has had enough—and Loki shakes his head in violent negation. That makes Thor smile, and kiss him some more with his flavorful tongue.
Thor is hard again already, if he ever went soft, and Loki has hold of Thor’s cock, and he spreads his legs and guides Thor back inside. The minutes where Thor was gone from him had felt like freefall.
When they stop they will have to face what they have done—examine the ledge that Loki shoved them over. But that can be put off a while. A long while.
“Don’t stop until I tell you to,” Loki says, and Thor nods; and since Loki never tells him to, Thor has him a dozen different ways until morning. They are halted only by sunlight and exhausted limbs, collapsing together as the first rays strain through the curtains of the small window.
They are silent still, though neither risks sleep. Thor is curled around Loki as they lie sideways, his arm solid across Loki’s chest, the unfairly muscular arm that had really started all of this in the first place.
Loki is so tired and blissfully sore his brain feels as rattled, and he’s having trouble thinking through it. He got what he wanted—got far, far, far more than even he could have conceived of wanting—but it is not as he imagined at all.
Nothing about their coupling was tormented; they came together with the greatest of ease and a most astounding hunger; even more puzzling, Thor does not seem perplexed. Even now his fingers are rubbing idle circles into Loki’s skin, as though he is compelled to stay tactile.
The main problem is that it is Loki who broke. This boundary was meant to be Thor’s to cross, but up to the end Thor did what was expected of him: he held the line, regardless of his desires. It was Loki who dragged them both across. Loki who will have to account for himself.
For now, however, they have both earned a rest, and despite his intention not to, Loki finds himself drowsing in Thor’s arms. His sleep is dreamless, and when he opens his eyes the sun has moved much higher in the window; it spills across their feet.
Loki can sense that Thor is awake behind him from the way that his brother breathes.
“We will miss prime hunting hours,” Loki says.
“Fuck the hunt,” says Thor. He kisses the curve where Loki’s shoulder meets his neck while Loki laughs against him.
“The stags will rejoice to hear it.” Loki turns around so that he and Thor are face to face. Thor’s stunning face wears a serious expression, his brows drawn together. Loki cannot even begin to imagine what his own expression resembles.
He feels on the verge of hysterical laughter, wild elation, and all-consuming despair. For so long he’s pictured a morning such as this, only it is nothing like his scheming, and Loki instead feels stripped to the bone.
He must look it then, for Thor slowly withdraws the arm draped around him. His hand touches Loki’s cheek but once before it is retracted.
“Are you sorry?” Thor’s mighty voice emerges whisper-soft.
Now—now is the time. All Loki need do is express profound regret, for he knows Thor will take full responsibility for what’s happened: he will beg Loki’s forgiveness, swear hidden fealty in recompense. They will not speak of it thereafter, but Thor will keep his shameful vow. Loki should have anticipated that it would be this simple, gaining power over Thor.
A hollow, empty sort of power born of guilt and lies; harsh chains forged from falsehood.
Perhaps—Loki had not accounted for this possibility—perhaps there is another way.
Because Thor does not seem sorry. Nothing about the way he gazes at Loki is ashamed—it is only unsure of Loki’s answer.
“No,” Loki answers, and watches the doubt flood away from Thor’s eyes, replaced by something sharp—a fierce, triumphant joy. “And you, brother?”
“When you kissed me,” and now Thor’s hand makes its return; his thumb traces over Loki’s lips. “It was the best moment of my life.”
Yes, there is another way to ensure that Thor is his, that Thor will swear fealty to Loki before even his oaths to Asgard. This is the way: Loki tilts up to kiss him again, his tongue slipping in to tease Thor’s, his fingers tangling in Thor’s hair. Then he draws away. “What about now?”
“An even finer moment. The finest.” Thor smiles at him, positively beaming. He is so brilliant to look at that Loki must at last drop his eyes.
It is hard for Loki to believe that it is all happening like this, so easily, so beautifully; his nature is suspicious. “Why are you not sorry?” he hears himself say.
Thor blinks. “You’d have me be?”
“I thought you—resistant to what went unspoken between us,” Loki says.
“Only in that I could not see how to resolve it,” says Thor. “You always seemed to steer us away from a confrontation, and I was afraid you’d not forgive me for speaking first.” His lips quirk a smile, small and sly and satisfied. “Or acting first, as the case may be.”
For a moment Loki gapes at him, ready to argue; but it is hard not to see that from a certain perspective—Thor’s, say—Thor is right. It’s Loki who has tiptoed around this, Loki who plotted, Loki who has been fraught with equal parts shame and longing. Thor never gave any indication of embarrassment until Loki made his own plain. Finally Loki shuts his mouth. “Hrrm,” he hums, and Thor grins wider.
“Still, I was unsure what you wished for,” Thor says. “Last night, my intentions were as noble as I could make them. I truly intended to sleep at your side.”
Loki raises his eyebrows. “The arm was pushing it.”
“Perhaps.” Thor’s eyebrows climb in a matching expression. “And what do we call orchestrating a single bed for us to share?”
“I—what?”
“Brother,” says Thor, brushing Loki’s hair back from where errant locks have fallen before his eyes, “you lie well, it’s true, but not to me.”
Loki, caught, can do little else but stare. “You knew?” He jabs a finger into Thor’s chest, where it bounces off a wall of muscle. “You played along!”
“I thought you were testing me,” says Thor, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “It seems I passed.”
“You’re insufferable,” Loki says. “I’m rethinking my answer. I’m terribly sorry now. Very, very sorry. Go away, begone.”
“I won’t,” says Thor. He reaches for Loki and pulls Loki against him, then atop him. “How I love you, Loki.”
“Stupid, too,” grumbles Loki, but he lets himself be pulled, and he is already burying his hands in Thor’s equally stupid hair.
He needs—he needs to regain control over this situation; he’s fast losing control—it would appear that he was never really in control at all. Imagine Thor tricking Loki in return for Loki’s own trickery. Everything has been upended. He needs to be sure.
“Promise me something,” Loki says, staring down at Thor’s stupid, insufferable, wonderful, beloved face.
Thor wraps his arms around Loki. “Anything you like.”
It’s said so quickly and without hesitation that Loki actually smiles despite the seriousness of his intent. “Promise you won’t stop. Won’t stop—feeling the way you say.”
This time Thor does not rush into speech. He kisses Loki first, long and slow, and when he leans back his eyes are as solemn as they are at any oath-taking ceremony. No. More. No posturing. No pomp. Entirely for Loki, centered and certain.
“I swear that I will not stop feeling as I do for you,” says Thor, and he never does.