Chapter 10
"I've always wondered, did you have anything to do with my pony showing up in Father's study?"
Loki laughed, then winced as his still-knitting ribs protested. "That was an accident. I meant to put him in your bedroom to mess with you but he was spooked by a wall torch flickering and got away from me. Do you remember that one time that you tried to prank me back and…"
He was cut off by a muscle spasm that caused his arm to twitch. "What the…"
"Oh shit." Thor rushed and un-propped him from his pillows.
"What? Why?" But he couldn't get any more out, because the twitching had spread, and then he was completely disoriented.
He was hanging off an abyss, him and Thor both. The Bifrost was broken, the end jagged and sharp. Thor clung to Father's hand with one hand and the royal staff with the other. Loki hung below him, clinging to the staff with all his might , but his grip was slowly sliding down the smooth metal.
"Father!" He yelled, "I could have done it!"
Their predicament was somehow his fault. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew it was. What was it that he was saying he could have done? Something important, he was sure. Perhaps some task that Thor had messed up and landed them in this predicament, that he should have intervened and done for him for everyone's good regardless of who would get the credit. It seemed odd and petty to be asserting that he should have been the one to do some task while hanging in midair, scant inches from falling to his death, but no stranger than finding himself there with no context, really.
"No, Loki." Father's words rang out, resounding with controlled anger and disappointment, just as he reached the end of the staff and tumbled into the bottomless abyss.
He was back in his bedroom, shaking, sweaty, sobbing and inexplicably tangled in his blankets. Thor, slightly older than he had appeared in the scene a moment before, was by his side wiping the sweat and tears from his face and straightening his blankets, murmuring comforting words.
"I was falling." He wheezed dazedly through the pain of injuries aggravated by whatever had just happened, feeling as though he had to justify his tears, "Father was angry and I fell off the Bifrost. I couldn't hold on and nobody held on to me." In his befuddled state, he missed the shadow that crossed his brother's face.
"You're not falling. You're here with me, and I won't let you fall." Thor gathered him in his arms, careful of his injuries but warm and solid and secure and radiating protectiveness. Loki couldn't remember the last time that Thor had been protective of him before the last few days. "Do you wish to talk about it?"
Loki paused. "I don't remember now." He mumbled, exhaustion rapidly overtaking him, "I feel frightened and angry and hurt, but I don't remember what I dreamt to make me feel this way."
"Rest then." Thor told him, gently rubbing circles on his back, "You are overtired and will feel better when you wake."