To be king was a weight Thor would now bear all his days. Months into their journey, he was still not certain he wanted it, no matter how well others claimed it suite.
Certain or not, suited for it or not, he'd discovered the crown devoured his days, from beginning to end. He hadn't slept through a night since Asgard burned, barely recalled what it had felt like to lie down for more than two hours at a time. If there was a need for it, buzzing beneath the surface, it didn't often come out to trouble him--for his days were full with feeding and clothing the people, securing them safe passage through parts of space that had lost little love for Asgard or Odin (or by extension, Odin's son), and addressing their grievances toward one another. The longer they flew on, the more of these latter there were, and the more likely people were to come to blows before they came before the throne.
On the occasions when his tiredness wished to consume him, making him blink too often while meeting with his advisers, causing him to list to the side too often during trade negotiations, there was an easy enough solution. Every few weeks, he went to Loki, to submit himself again to the spell that brought wakefulness. If it brought anything else, lying beneath the surface, waiting for it opportunity for mischief mischief, well, it wasn't as if there were many other options. Besides, if Loki had been going to stab him or try to take over, he'd have done it already.
It was many weeks before Thor realized the other need he'd been neglecting. By then, it was too late. He could hardly go to Loki for help with this particular problem, yet if he took care of it himself, he was likely to bring disaster upon the ship. It was what always happened when he'd gone too long without release. It was why he'd always before sought it regularly, whether by his own hand or with another. (That, and he'd always enjoyed sex greatly, back when he'd had the time.) The longer it had been, the more violent the storm when it came, and already it had been longer than it ever had been before.
He had been more or less fine, before he'd realized the other source of his irritation, the one that had nothing to do with a lack of sleep. Now, he could hardly stand to be alone in his cabin, for every time he lay on his bed, he though not of closing his eyes, but of opening his trousers, and drawing himself out, and bringing himself to a quick and glorious conclusion. Soon enough, he could hardly lie down before he was hard and aching. It was unbearable.
Then, one day, when he was standing by his bed, trying to decide whether it was better to lie here in misery, or to go back out into the halls and deal with whichever petty matters had yet to be settled to their someone's satisfaction, there came a rap upon the door. It was a sound that immediately chased all misery from Thor's mind; no one ever interrupted him here unless it was extremely important.
"You may enter," Thor said, and turned to see the knocker taking him at first word, allowing the door fall closed behind him. "Oh. It's you. Have you seen something?"
For it was Heimdall who stood there. He'd never had cause to come here even in the greatest emergency, for he was perfectly capable of speaking to Thor from any distance, and so speaking to him from across the ship was no trial. Why he was here now, Thor could not fathom.
"I have," Heimdall said, sounding very solemn. "It is a matter of grave concern."
"...And? Are you going to tell me what it is, or do you expect me to guess?"
"I see a king who never slumbers, a sovereign in distress indeed."
"I don't have time for riddles," Thor said, a bark he no longer recalled how to soften. Everyone else was always so irritating these days, no matter what it was they were bothering him about. "I'm not tired, and I'm not in any kind of distress."
"Aren't you?" Heimdall looked at him.
Thor usually didn't mind when Heimdall looked at him, but now he hated it. It was a reminder that Heimdall could see him anytime, and that he must have seen the way Thor tossed and turned in his bed these last few nights, the evidence of the cause of his frustration evident at the merest glance--and Heimdall's glance was neither casual nor fleeting.
"No," he said. "And it--it would hardly matter if I were, considering."
Heimdall knew what he meant. Heimdall had to know. There was, Thor often thought, very little in the universe Heimdall was unaware of--and what was left could hardly be worth knowing in the first place.
"If anyone else were in half as much discomfort, you would have diverted the ship," Heimdall said.
Thor had never once considered it. Landing in some unknown place, just so he could slip off somewhere for a few minutes to take himself in hand-- "I'm the king."
"Is the king not a man? Is that why he believes he deserves less consideration than other men?"
Heimdall stepped closer, and if he thought he was the only one who could see things, he was wrong, for Thor saw it then, exactly why he'd come here, and come so late. "Heimdall. No. You don't have to offer yourself, just because I'm--and besides, we can't."
"And why can't we?"
"Stop pretending you don't know."
Heimdall smiled, a softening that always seemed odd upon his face, considering how stern he'd always seemed when Thor was younger. They'd been good friends for years, of course, yet Thor's first impression was always the same. "You think there are none who can withstand your power, when you've denied yourself for so long."
"There aren't," Thor said, face growing hot even as his trousers grew tight. It was one thing to know Heimdall saw everything; it was another thing altogether to be faced with the evidence of how closely he'd been watching, and to think of everything else he must have seen, all the way back to the crude manner in Thor had often spoken of him, when he and his friends had been very young, and sex had been very new, and Heimdall's forbidding demeanor had been newly fascinating. "Why do you have to come here to torment me when you know there's not anyone?"
"I would not have come if I could not bear your strength," Heimdall said. "I came to bed you, if you wish it."
Even if his claim were true, Thor meant to deny him out of pique. But he'd learned to see people more truly himself, since he'd become the king; and when he looked at Heimdall now, he saw the circles under his eyes, and recalled that, out of everyone else, it was Heimdall who worked the hardest. It was Heimdall who was always near, to answer Thor's questions, to offer his council. To cast his eye out the moment Thor asked him to find what obstacles awaited them, or where they might find allies. It had taken a toll on him, though Thor had not thought to look for it before now. No matter how far above everyone he seemed, Heimdall was a man, and all men could break.
"Yes, all right," Thor said.
Heimdall came to him, then. Their joining was a quick thing, a summer storm, lasting only minutes from when their lips first met--but satisfying, too, in its intensity. At first, Thor held back, but then he saw the white crackle in Heimdall's eyes, the way the flashing cloud shadows rolled up and down his bare skin, and held back no longer.
Afterward, as they lay together, Heimdall lifted his hand to the wall. His fingertips came away, glistening in Thor's sight. "This happened only here," he said. "Everywhere else is still dry as it was before."
"That's good," said Thor, but only through a mighty yawn. A weariness had come upon him with its own great intensity. He knew he should rise from the bed, return to his duties, that he risked far too lengthy a nap if he didn't go to Loki to have the wakefulness spell redone now--yet no part of his body would move at his bidding. He had never aspired to be a mattress, yet it seemed he had melded with this one, which had never been even a fraction as comfortable as this before. "Now, help me up."
He had no expectation of being refused. At least, not until Heimdall said, "It's past time you allowed yourself a proper night's rest, my king."
"But I can't," Thor said, but although he knew had so much to do, that his concerns multiplied not by the day but by the hour and even the minute, he couldn't bring to mind a single specific. Everything spun around in his head, dizzying and just out of reach. "I have to...to...and besides, there's Loki."
"Loki ruled Asgard for years with little incident," Heimdall said. "We are unlikely to perish if he rules this ship for a day, or even two."
It sounded like the worst idea ever, but there was nothing for it now. His eyelids had never felt so heavy, nor the rest of him. "You'll stay here with me, won't you? You should have your rest, too."
"...With Loki on the throne?"
"You're the one who claimed that was fine. You can't..." and there came another great yawn, that seemed to go on forever. "You can't take it back now. Stay with me."
"Very well."
The last impression Thor had before he slept was that of Heimdall shifting beside him, settling in, and a sighing yawn from a throat not his own.
This last impression was also the first, when he woke a day and a half later, to a ship that was still in one piece, a crown that didn't seem as terrible a burden as it had on all those sleepless nights before, and a seer who had no objection to another bout before they emerged.