“Loki?”
The figure on the throne raises its horned head, and Thor’s heart begins to race as his brother’s face greets him. He knows it isn’t his Loki. It isn’t the one that died to give Thor a chance. The one who came at Thanos with nothing but a dagger. This isn’t the Loki that had promised to see another sunrise with him.
This isn’t his Loki, but in the same breath… it is.
He hurries forward, skidding to his knees in front of the throne, grabbing at the threads that cling to his brother, trying to pull them apart.
“What are you doing, Thor?”
“I’ll get you out. I’ll get you out, little brother.”
A soft sigh, and his brother leans forward, resting his too-sharp chin on Thor’s shoulder—the softness of the movement, the vulnerability, makes him go still. Thor doesn’t know where to put his hands. The very fabrics of the universe are latched onto his brother, and he doesn’t know how to get them /off/.
“And here I thought you’d left your arrogance at the door.”
Thor shakes his head.
This isn’t /arrogance/.
“I’m here to save you. I’m here to free you.”
This is /love/.
“At the cost of everything?”
Thor pulls away and grabs his brother’s shoulders, shaking him slightly to make him see sense. The smile Loki gives him is gentle—the smile his mother used to give him when she was indulging him as a child. The smile Jane gave him when she thought he was being obtuse.
“He’s been contained, brother. Him and his variants. There’s no need for you to suffer anymore. There’s no need for you to stay in this… this… in this /tomb/!”
“Only /you/, Thor,” Loki says with a chuckle, shaking his head. “Only you would see the heart of Yggdrasil as a place of death.”
It is death.
Loki will die in this place outside of time—out of a misplaced sense of duty.
“Isn’t it?” Thor challenges, desperate for Loki to understand. “There is no /need/. You can leave.”
“Look around you, brother.”
Thor does, where the floating threads of lives he’ll never live weave in and out, undulating, branching, splitting—over and over and /over/ again. His Loki had fallen into the void and came out of it /mad/. He can’t let that happen to this one. Thor can’t let it happen to /any/ version of his brother.
“This is not a gallows, this is not a sepulcher,” Loki breathes. “This is everything.”
“But it isn’t you.”
“Of course it is. And here, I can be whoever and whatever I want to be.”
Thor tries to meet his brother’s eyes, but Loki’s own are glued to the cosmos. There is wonder in them, a light that has been reignited. The last time Thor had seen it had been when Loki had discovered how to world-walk. Still, he cannot leave his brother.
“Only in your mind’s eye. Brother. Please. If you do not leave now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to come here again.”
“Is that so bad?” Loki cups his face. “I’ve found my purpose, Thor.”
Thor feels as though he’s collapsing inward, his spine bends as he leans his head down on Loki’s lap. He can’t quite believe even with the power they have combined, they still cannot walk side by side.
Other Thors and Lokis get to.
Why can’t they?
It isn’t fair.
It isn’t /fair/!
“He knew, didn’t he? Mobius. He knew you wouldn’t come back. Not for him. Not for Sylvie. Not even for me.”
“I’m always with you.”
Thor shakes his head, the sob that had been building deep inside his chest ripping itself out of his throat.
“I’m always with you,” Loki repeats, brushing through his hair. “There is no place you can go where I cannot follow.”
“I won’t be able to see you. I won’t be able to punch your smug face if your mischief goes too far. It won’t be the same.”
“You’ll know I’m there.”
Thor takes a moment to compose himself, and when he pulls away, Loki is smiling that damned smile again. Gentle, soft… a touch of adoration. So unlike his brother as a man. This smile is the one he’d had when they were young and had no worries.
To think his tiny, scrawny little brother would become the very being on which the fabric of everything is anchored.
“I’m proud of you. I always am. I always was.”
“I know.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I know that too.”
“Smug little brat.”
“Brutish giant oaf.”
They have a laugh.
Likely the last one they’ll share with one another.
Thor blinks his eyes rapidly, trying to clear it of the tears to sear this Loki’s features into his memory. Into his bones, his heart, his soul, that he may never forget.
“Now go be a hero somewhere else, save some other damsel,” Loki says with a wink, pecking the corner of his mouth. “You’ve already saved this one one too many times.”
“I’d do it a thousand times more.”
“Never doubt that I love you.”
“And I, you.”
This time, it’s Loki that reaches out and cradles the back of his neck. He leans their foreheads together, and when Thor opens his eyes again, he’s back on the cliff in New Asgard.
A small hand slides into his own, squeezing softly. Love’s voice comes after, just as mellow.
“He… he still can’t come home?”
———————————————————————
“Right here, Thor. You must support his head at all times when you carry him.”
Small and fragile.
Big green eyes meet his own.
“Hello, Loki. I’m your big brother, and you are my little brother,” he says to the small bundle in his arms. He shifts slowly, making sure to keep his elbow and the opposite hand at his brother’s neck. “Welcome home. I promise I’ll always watch over you.”
——————————————————
Thor looks up at the stars, takes a deep breath. He thinks he hears a familiar laughter in the crash of the waves below him.
It’s Loki that’s watching over them now.
“He is home.”