Afterward, Thor dreamed.
The Statesman was quieter than it had ever been during the months of their journey. Its halls were empty, too, though Thor had never seen them so. Even at the end, there had been the bodies, but now there was no one other than Thor himself.
There was nothing for him here, but still, his feet guided him to the viewing deck, where he'd spent so many long hours looking out on the stars with--
On the viewing deck, he found Loki, just as he'd found him so many times before, when the Statesmen had been full of the living, or even of the dead...but there were no dead here. Not even Loki, who had died at Thanos' hand. He had a gray pallor, and his throat was swollen around a livid purple handmark, but when Thor took his seat next to him, there was no doubt Loki yet breathed.
"How I wish you were here with me," Thor said.
"Aren't I?" Loki's voice came out in a croak, terrible and yet beloved.
"No. You're nothing more than a dream. A shade. Come to remind me of how I've failed."
Though he'd seemed determined not to look at Thor before, Loki glanced at him now, his interest in the matter of Thor's failings as potent as it had ever been. "Have you failed?"
"More terribly than even you can imagine."
At this, Loki smiled.
"It's not amusing, brother."
"Isn't it?"
"No. I was supposed to avenge you. I meant to. But I went for the painful blow, instead of the killing one. An impulse of a moment. I regretted it at once, but the regret has made no difference. Because of me, half the universe is--what's so funny?"
For Loki was laughing indeed, a painful-sounding whistle vibrating throughout his entire body. When was the last time Thor had seen him laugh like this? He thought he might never have. Not since they were boys, at least; not since long, long before the events of these recent years had been set into motion. It would have been a beautiful sight, if it hadn't been for Loki's throat, and the bruising there; it would have been glorious, if only it had been a true sight.
"You..." Loki managed, at last, seemingly oblivious to Thor's renewed devastation (and wasn't that yet more proof that this could be nothing more than a dream?).
"Yes? What about me?" Thor said, rising, fists closed, a threat even Loki at his most amused could not help but read correctly.
Loki looked up at him, not seeming to notice Thor's ire any more than he'd noticed Thor's grief. "You've taken a page out of my book, by the sounds of it."
"--I." Thor thought about it, all the ways Loki had always been the one to go with what he wished for in the moment, letting what he wished for in the long run (if he wished anything, ever, for more than a moment) be damned. "I suppose I did that, yes. But it's not--it's not funny. It's not. I mean it, brother. Stop laughing. Stop it now."
But Loki was vibrating again, the whistle having been lowered to a hiss. It would have to have hurt dreadfully, if he hadn't been a shade, a figment, a dream.
"I won't warn you again," Thor said, but although part of him would gladly have called for Mjolnir (for if this was his own dream, then surely Loki wasn't the only shade he could conjure within it), it was something else that caused him to sit down beside Loki again, and look at him. Then, without willing it, Thor, too, began to smile, despite himself. A minute later, his shoulder knocked against Loki's as he, too, shook with laughter.
They laughed together for a long while, a glance from one setting the other off every time it seemed like they might be finished.
They were still laughing when Thor was pulled out of sleep, and found he was weeping, after all, in the dark somber quiet of his room at the New Avengers Facility. His pillowcase was soaked, his nose stuffed, his throat aching. He must have been weeping all along, even as he'd laughed.
*
Afterward, Thor dreamed.
The Statesman was as quiet and as empty as it had been on the previous occasion, but he found Loki in the same place. This time, his throat wasn't as puffy, and the hand-shaped bruise had faded to a mottled green and yellow. When he glanced at Thor, his despair was as evident as his amusement had been, the last time Thor had dreamed of him.
"I suppose you've failed again," he said, sounding much more like himself than he had before, most of the hoarseness now gone.
"I killed Thanos. Cut off his head. If that's failing..."
"Would you be here, if it wasn't?"
"--No."
Here, in the dream, it was easier to admit to it than it would have been in life. Here, it was possible to admit to it, even if it was no less foolish than it had ever been to show weakness in front of Loki. He'd always used such things, when Thor was so foolish as to favor a limb in his presence; with Loki, there had never been a line that couldn't be crossed in the pursuit of the throne, or whatever it was he'd wanted when he hadn't gotten that.
It was no less foolish, and yet, as the silence stretched on, it seemed even Loki had little enough to say on the matter.
"What was it you wanted?" Thor asked a minute later.
"Wanted when?"
"Well, when you were alive."
Loki's eyes rolled. "I gathered. But when? You'll have to be more specific. Down to the hour, if you can manage it. The day, at the very least."
"It was a broader question than that, brother."
"Hmm," Loki said. "I'm afraid I can't help, then."
"I've dreamed you up, yet you're as little help as you ever were. Seems unfair."
Between the two of them, Loki somehow seemed the more dejected, even if Thor was quite certain it was only his own heart that ached. After a few moments, he couldn't help but reach for his brother's shade, half-expecting him to fade away, if not reject the offered comfort altogether, as his true self surely would have. But although Loki's shoulder tensed for a moment when Thor's hand came to rest on it, in the next moment he relaxed into the contact, enough for Thor to soon dare to drape his arm over Loki's shoulders entirely. So they sat there together, watching the stars, until Thor awoke.
When he did, he was unsurprised to find himself weeping again.
*
Afterward, Thor dreamed. He came to the viewing deck, expecting to find Loki--but before he could enter through the doorway, metal and darkness melted into greenness and light. He was on Asgard again, in one of the fields they'd played and trained in as boys, and everything around him looked suddenly quite strange. When he looked down at his hands, he found they were a boy's hands indeed--
And when he looked to the left, there was Loki, a boy as well.
"What is this, brother?"
"What do you think it is?"
"A dream, of course. And your doing."
"Don't you like it?" Loki asked.
More shortly than he'd meant to--for he'd realized why everything looked strange; it was because the world had lost the flatness he'd grown accustomed to seeing, these last few months; there was a depth to things that hadn't been there since he'd lost his eye--Thor said, "No, I hate it."
"...I see," Loki said, in that false casual way that meant he was wounded, and was offended at having been wounded, and would make Thor pay for his offense as well as his pain at a later date. "Well, we'll just go back to the shi--"
"No, being here is fine," Thor said, looking now to the horizon, the view that had always been so magnificent from here: the spires of Asgard, next to the Bifrost Bridge, neither near enough to intrude on their outing, but neither far enough for the journey home to be arduous. How often they'd come here, in their boyhood, when neither of them had known of Loki's true heritage or the lies told to conceal that and other things. "I'd rather we be who we are, instead of who we were. That's all."
"--You'd rather have your eye gouged out again than this."
"It's already been gouged out once. Why would you have to do it again?"
"Oh, no reason. Seems like it would be fun."
Loki waved a hand, and the world went back to the flatness it had had before. When Thor reached up to his face, he found an eyepatch over where his right eye had once been. The fabric was soft beneath his fingers, but as carefully as he was to touch it, the cavity still ached at the contact.
"Satisfied?"
Thor looked at Loki to find that he, too, was changed. Instead of looking like the boy he'd been, he looked like himself. His dream self, at least. The bruising on his throat had almost entirely faded, by now, and his armor was in need of polishing.
"Yes," Thor said. "My thanks."
"My pleasure." Then, changing the subject swiftly, as if he expected to be interrupted if he didn't, Loki added, "Let's spar."
Thor hadn't noticed the sword strapped to his back before. Now he did, and drew it. Part of him wished for Mjolnir, but a greater part of him understood that that wasn't what this was. It had always been his sword against Loki's daggers, when they'd been the age they were a minute before; and the battles they'd had out here hadn't been serious, nor meant as anything other than a way to burn off a little excess fire, out from under the eyes of their instructors or even their father.
"Why did you bring us here, brother?" Thor asked as they fought, dodging flashes of steel just as readily as Loki sidestepped his sword. "You must have some reason. What game are you playing?"
"I wanted you to be in the right mindset to remember."
"Remember what?"
"When we were boys, and we sparred like this." Instead of dodging the next thrust of Thor's sword, Loki met it with his daggers, shoving the sword and himself into Thor's space, until their faces were a mere inch apart. "There was something I used to do. Something you loathed. Not an illusion."
So saying, Loki disappeared, along with his daggers, leaving Thor alone, to fall on his ass in the dirt. Thor glanced around wildly, saw nothing; glanced around again, and spotted a figure far in the distance that hadn't been there a moment before. Then, suddenly, the figure was gone, and there were two blades at his throat. They remained there for a second, then disappeared, into one of Loki's precious pocket dimensions, or perhaps merely his pockets.
"--You could have just described it," Thor said, getting up and brushing himself off. "I could never forget how you used to cheat."
"It wasn't cheating. We never had a rule against using magic during sparring."
"Well, why didn't we?"
"Because I didn't want one, and we both had to agree."
That wasn't how Thor remembered it. "Isn't it funny how we only ever had to both agree on rule changes when they'd have benefited me?"
"It is amusing, isn't it?" Loki smiled faintly, the way he had often smiled, when they'd reminisced together during the scant few months they'd had together on the Statesman.
"It isn't amusing at all. That's my whole point."
"And we're departing from mine. Do you have any guess as to how that particular trick is done?"
Thor thought about it. "You made yourself invisible, then ran very quickly." That was what he'd thought when they were boys, but now that he was thinking about it, it didn't make much sense. For one thing, Loki hadn't been out of breath when he'd come back, not more than he'd been when he'd gone; for another thing, neither of them had ever been that fast. "Or: you made yourself invisible, then appeared to have gone so far. When really you were right beside me all along."
"Wrong, and wrong. That particular piece of magic requires me to make myself incorporeal, for just a moment. I focus on my anchor--in this case, a particular stone in that part of the field. Provided my concentration holds, I'll arrive by the anchor almost immediately." Thor had never had much interest in the intricacies of Loki's gifts. Now, despite himself, he found his attention wandering; and what it wandered to was Loki's face, Loki's form in this light. Loki in the light of Asgard, as if he still lived, as if Asgard still stood. Never again would Thor see this sight, or any fragment of it, outside of a dream. Perhaps he would never even dream of it again. But for now the sun shone down on them, and they were home, and together. "But the concentration is key. I found that if I were to lose it, by even the smallest fraction, I'd be in danger of losing myself. I was never able to progress to the next step, of taking another person with--are you even listening? I'm trying to tell you something."
"As tediously as possible, yes," Thor said, and, before Loki could be wounded, and take offense, and start hatching his plots, he reached for Loki, and kissed him. The way he'd so often dreamed of kissing him in life, and never had...at first because they were bound by blood and he'd known he couldn't, or shouldn't (and that even if he could, or did, Loki would surely deny him, and mock him, and use his desire against him for the rest of both their lives); and later because even if the rest was no longer relevant, Loki would still interpret it as a sign that Thor agreed they were bound by nothing, not brothers who shared all but strangers who shared nothing. But if this was a dream, then it was his own, and he could have have this if he wanted it, as he'd had it in so many murkier dreams before now.
"What are you doing?" Loki asked, pulling away just far enough to squint at Thor's face.
Thor hauled him closer again, kissed him a second time, intending gentleness and managing only desperation. "Please, brother. I know this is nothing more than a dream. But let me have this."
"--All right," Loki said, after the third kiss, which was the one that went on much longer than the first two, because it was the one where Loki returned his embrace, and the one where every time one of them tried to pull away to catch their breath, the other followed. "If you insist."
The next few minutes passed in a blur: More desperation, a need stronger than any Thor could remembered having had before, in life or any dream. They undressed, lowered each other to the tall grass. Thor was hard and hot and aching long before then; for a wonder, so was Loki, who shuddered at some touches, and gave bitten-off cries at others. Thor had dreamed of a Loki something like this before: A Loki who'd wanted Thor the same way Thor had wanted him, who wouldn't be able to resist Thor's advances no matter how much he wished to spite him.
He'd dreamed of having Loki like this before, but no dream had never been so clear, or seemed so real.
There was no oil to be had, but in the dream it didn't matter. Thor pushed into Loki easily, finding him slick, and tight, and glorious.
"Not like that," Loki said, before Thor had been inside him for even five thrusts. "--Or like that. Or--do you have the slightest idea what you're doing?"
Thor laughed, breathlessly. He knew the look on Loki's face, that false grimace. It was as old as memory. Long ago, when they were children, they'd often been given treats or treasures; and even when they were identical, Loki had always insisted his was inferior, so that he might end up with twice the treasure while Thor himself ended up with nothing. "Yes, if you'd shut up and let me do it."
He tried a different angle on the next thrust, which caused Loki's grimace to falter, if only for a moment.
"I don't think this is going to work," Loki said.
Thor tried yet a different angle. This one made Loki gasp, all pretense of displeasure banished in a moment. A slight adjustment to the following thrust made him let out a groan. Several more thrusts at the same angle caused him to grasp for Thor's upper arms, holding onto him tightly. That was when Thor stilled within him, forcing his hips to remain unmoving even as he was entirely sheathed inside Loki's body, every inch of him screaming to continue.
His lips brushing Loki's ear, Thor said, "I'm sorry you're not enjoying it. We can stop this at any time. I can pull out right now, if that's what you want. In fact, I think I will."
"That won't--that won't be necessary." Loki was pink in the cheeks, and gasping, and although he'd gone a little soft when Thor had first entered him, he was harder now than he'd been before. "I wouldn't call it good, but it's--tolerable enough, I suppose. At any rate, you know I'd never dream of denying you your pleasure."
"Of course not," Thor said, and began to move again. Now that he'd determined the angle, he was able to brace himself on one hand, so he could reach between their bodies with the other. He stroked Loki in time with the motion of his hips, until Loki cried out and spent on his belly, and on Thor's, and over Thor's hand.
Loki'a face was a thing of glory, again, his mouth open and his eyes rolled back. Thor watched it until Loki came back from it. Then he pressed his face to Loki's chest and chased his own pleasure until he caught it, spending his own seed deep within Loki's body.
Afterward, he fell slowly to lie next to Loki, arms and legs trembling, from the effort or from something else.
Now it was Loki who peered at Thor. "Why are you crying?"
"I'm not," Thor said, and realized as he said it that he was in fact weeping, and must have been for some minutes. "I--it's--you're too much like yourself, in this dream. It's too much as if we were really--but you're not here. I miss you so terribly, but you'll never be with me again."
"I see."
"I miss you," Thor said again. It was all he had left to say.
"If it makes you feel better, I don't miss you in the slightest."
"I don't miss you, either. You're a terrible brother."
"Well, there you have it."
They lay there in the tall grass for a while longer, Asgard's light and warmth upon them. Then, Thor remembered something: "What were trying to tell me, before?"
"--I don't remember." Before Thor could challenge this obvious falsehood, Loki kissed him again, an even more obvious (but no less effective) distraction.
When Thor woke, his pillowcase was as wet as it ever was, and the sheets cold and sticky.
*
Afterward, Thor dreamed, many times. They were terrible, sorrowful dreams, but sweet enough that he was always gladdened to meet Loki there, to bed him time after time, and to share quiet words and recollections as they lay together afterward.
He did not, therefore, expect the change when it came.
He arrived in the tall grass again--the most common place for him to dream of, though they met in either of their boyhood bedrooms occasionally, and had in several memorable occasions known each other in Asgard's throne room as well as atop the Avengers tower--to find Loki was not there. Thor looked around wildly for a moment before he spotted a figure, standing some distance away.
Loki didn't respond to his name, nor did he so much as glance at Thor when he came to stand just behind him.
"Brother," Thor said, laying a hand on Loki's shoulder. He didn't miss the shudder that went through him at the contact, though without seeing his face, it was impossible to guess if it were desire, or revulsion, or something different altogether. "Are you all right?"
"I've been thinking on it," Loki murmured, stepping backward so that his back pressed against Thor's chest. Not revulsion, then. Not unless this were one of his tricks. "I always mean to, yet everything always slips from me, when you've gone back. It always feels as if years must have passed in-between your visits, yet I can never recall being anywhere at all. It's--unsettling."
Nothing in his words made sense, but the misery in Loki's voice caused a pang in Thor's chest anyway, somehow both lesser and greater than what he felt for his own loss when he was awake, and alone. "Whatever you wish for, ask for it. You don't have to try to manipulate me."
"I'm not," Loki said, and turned in time to see Thor's skepticism. "I'm not. I'm trying to tell you something."
"Is that so," Thor said, and could hear that his own voice sounded strange--some combination of desire and grief and confusion.
Whatever it sounded like to Loki, he reached out Thor, pushed him down into the tall grass, as one or the other of them always did.
Lying together afterward, Loki said, "I tethered myself to you."
"...What are you talking about now?" Thor propped himself up on his elbows, the better to see Loki's face, as he was currently angled slightly away.
Loki's face was unreadable. Later, Thor would never be certain if it had seemed so because Loki did not wish to be read, or because he had never worn quite that expression before, or because Thor had simply not wished to know what Loki was feeling or thinking at that moment. "I've tethered myself to you. In the moments before my death. I tried to stop it. The Hulk was gone. Heimdall was dead, and all our people who were left aboard. But I still hoped I could save us. You and I."
Rage blazed through Thor's mind, a white-hot flash followed by a strike of grief in the same place. What Loki was saying wasn't true. Couldn't be true. There was only one reason he would say such a thing, even within a dream; within this dream, which had so long been Thor's only refuge from all his failings. "Don't ruin this for me."
"Ruin it for you? What about me?"
"What about you? You're not here. You're not anything. You're gone, and you've left me alone, and all I have is your shadow, and now you're trying to--to--"
"To?"
"To wound me, the way you've always claimed I've wounded you. Because even when you're not real, you can't stand to let me have even this much comfort without destroying it."
If Loki's face had been unreadable before, it was stone now, as he continued: "I hoped I could save us, so I concentrated on an anchor--it was the Avengers tower, if you must know--"
"I don't want to hear any more of this."
"I concentrated on my anchor, and I attempted to get us out, the both of us. But it didn't work. Or only halfway worked. Instead of taking us away, all I managed to do was tether my soul to yours as I died. And now, here we are."
"Liar," Thor said, raging. Above, the sky grew black, thunder clapped through the dark clouds, the first of their kind of darken the view of these dreams. He would realize only later that he'd put his hand out as well, and that neither Mjolnir nor Stormbreaker had come, though he'd called either and both of them to him on many past jaunts here; would realize only later that even in his dream, they must have known what his words were, and what they were not. "You're a shade, that's all. A product of my mind. You're not my brother. Everything you say is a falsehood."
"I've told you only the truth," Loki said, flatly, and this time it was easy to see that he was feeling some mighty thing, and holding it back just as mightily. "Today, at least."
"Liar," Thor said again, and began looking around for the sword he'd left here, that first time.
He didn't find it, and when he looked back around for Loki, he saw him some distance away, and still walking. He could have followed. Even then, he knew he ought to. Between them, it had always been Loki who transgressed, and Thor who was the peacemaker. It had always before been so, even in his dreams.
Instead, he turned around and walked away himself, in the opposite direction. Even when he woke, fists clenched and gasping, he refused to let himself think upon what Loki had said, the suggestion he had made: That instead of feasting in Valhalla, he was tethered to Thor's mind. Lost in a darkness of own, more terrible even than Thor's own darkness. It couldn't be, was worthy of no more consideration than any other falsehood.
*
Afterward, Thor dreamed.
He hadn't expected to dream of Loki again--for he hadn't dreamed of Loki at all in many months. Not since the harsh words they'd exchanged, the ones that had left him in a turmoil as great as any he'd ever suffered from Loki while he lived. At first, he'd feared the dreams would come whether he willed them to or not; but he'd found that continuing the day's drinking long into the night resulted in a sleep too broken for any dreams at all to come.
He was back on the Statesman this time. He found Loki on the viewing deck again, crouched down on the floor.
"I apologize, brother," he said, for although he knew his mind had been lying to him, in the last dream, he regretted the words he'd said, nearly as much as he would have if he'd said them to the real Loki. "I should never have said such things to you. It doesn't matter how much you provoked me. Or that you're not real."
"It's hardly my fault if you're provoked by truths you dislike," Loki said faintly, not sounding like himself at all, though the sentiment was correct enough.
"We've defeated Thanos now. Truly, this time. We've reversed nearly everything he did."
Loki looked up at him, and now Thor saw that he looked different than he had before--the mottled green and yellow handmark was back on his throat, but there was more than that. The rest of his coloring was grayer than it had been in the other dreams, and he was thinner, almost gaunt.
"What do you mean, 'almost' everything? Send help, you idiot."
Then Thor remember what he had been doing, before this dream began. He'd been walking through the streets of New Asgard, speaking with the ones who had returned to them, nearly ten days before. It had been broad daylight. He hadn't been sleepy at all. He'd been thinking, planning, trying to decide if he'd be able to leave with Rabbit and the others, or if he should wait a while longer, be certain everyone was going to be all right before he went.
Then Thor looked, and saw what he'd missed before, in his assumption that this was like those other dreams: They weren't on the Statesman's viewing deck at all, but in its medical bay. Around Loki and behind him, sitting against the walls or lying flat on the floor, were others--other shades, other people Thor had once known, who had been cut down around him as they'd fought to save them. One of those lying the floor was Heimdall, unconscious and breathing shallowly, with Loki's hand over his eyes. And Loki's eyes, themselves, were amber, unlike they'd ever been in life or any dream.
But before he could speak, to ask where they were, how long they'd been there, how many injured they had, whether they had food, or even whether the life support was holding, any of the questions whose answers needed to be known, he was jolted out of the dream, woken by Val's touch on his arm, her voice saying, "Sire, are you all right?"
"No," Thor said. He was weeping, as he always wept when he woke. Only later would he recognize the mantle that had settled itself back upon his shoulders in those few moments, though he'd held it so lightly the past five years, and meant to toss it aside entirely just minutes ago. "I mean, yes. I will be. But only if they are. We have to go."
*
Afterward, Thor knew no dreams would be coming, for he also knew he wouldn't sleep. Not that night. Perhaps not until everyone was back on Earth, safe and whole again.
As it had turned out, bringing back the Asgardians had been the last thing Banner had tried to do in the moments he'd worn the infinity gauntlet. He hadn't told Thor he meant to attempt it; then, assuming he'd failed, he'd continued mentioning it to no one. What had actually happened, so far as they'd been able to determine, was that the stones had brought those who'd died aboard the Statesman back, and healed them partway before Banner was overcome. They'd been left aboard a half-dead ship--the Statesman, too, having been only partially repaired--with no communications and no steering, until Loki had found the way.
Their ship had docked with the Statesman ten hours ago, and the transport from one ship to the other had begun immediately. The worst of the injured had been moved first, and were now on their way to the nearest planet with a good hospital, with healers to keep them stable along the way. Meanwhile, the rest of them waited their turn, the next time the other ship returned.
As long as there were injured aboard the Statesman, Thor would stay there. He'd spoken with all who'd been moved, if they'd been conscious enough to know him; he'd spoken with all who remained aboard with him, every one of whom was now sleeping. They'd hardly dared sleep, waiting for rescue; now, there was peace on all their faces.
For now, there was little purpose in returning to the cabin that had been his own, five years ago. Instead, Thor went to the viewing deck. It was a journey strangely reminiscent of his dreams, for everyone else was clustered at the other end of the ship, and the halls were emptier than they had ever before been outside of dreams.
When he arrived, he found the stars in all their glory behind those great windows; and he found Loki, standing there, pretending to watch them, as if he truly believed Thor couldn't tell he was following his progress out of the corner of his eye.
"Brother," Thor said, aching already for the greeting they hadn't had yet, between Loki rasping orders at everyone the moment they'd stepped aboard, and everyone obeying them immediately so no one would finish the dying they'd started again, nearly two weeks ago. For a wonder, no one had, but none of the rescuers had been able to slow down even slightly until about an hour ago. Even then, Thor had had to send a few dozen communications back to Earth, updates for every one of their people who hadn't been allowed to come on this mission--which had been everyone except the greatest healers, for they simply hadn't had the room to bring anyone else. "This was well done."
"Was it?"
"You know it was. You don't have to fish for compliments."
"Don't I?"
Loki's voice was low and hoarse, as it hadn't been in the vision he'd sent Thor earlier in the week, but as it had been in an earlier dream, one Thor had had years ago. "Not when you'll have them by the fistful, for your work here. Does it hurt? When you speak?"
Now Loki looked at him, straight-on. Instead of answering the question, he said, "You found an eye."
"I did, yes."
"And you got fat."
Thor didn't usually pay much attention to commentary on this matter. He didn't feel fat. He never felt fat. He felt like he'd always felt. Sometimes, he'd be in the bathroom and wonder who that person was in the mirror, trying to impersonate him, but that was all. Other people's words about it were just words, and had always passed over him by the time he remembered what they were talking about. But this was different. This was Loki, standing here with him, making a measure of him Thor couldn't begin to guess at (other than that it was surely bad, considering this was Loki).
"You got thinner," he countered, because the Loki standing here with him was even more gaunt than the Loki from the vision. "You should eat something. We brought plenty of rations."
To this, Loki didn't bother to croak anything; instead, he gave a noncommittal shrug.
"I'm so glad you're back," Thor said, after several awkward moments, unable to think of anything else that needed to be said while mattering even a fraction as much as this. "I've missed you, brother."
"Have you?"
"Of course."
"Well, I didn't miss you. Not in the slightest."
"I didn't, either," Thor said, and felt so strongly as if he'd truly lived this moment before that he couldn't help but say, "I dreamed of you. While you were gone."
Loki had been still before. Now he went even more still, but did not speak.
"They were...strange dreams. It felt like you were really there with me. In fact, the you of the dreams claimed you were--that you'd bound yourself to me by your magic, as Thanos killed you. I didn't believe it, of course. We exchanged harsh words, and that was the end of it. Of the argument, and the dreams." Through this, Thor watched Loki's face closely, looking for the barest twitch, the slightest hint of a smile or frown. "They were only dreams, weren't they?"
"I should hope so." No smile. No frown. No twitching. Loki's face was so impassive there had to be something behind it, but what it was there was no telling. "Tell me more about these dreams."
Perhaps it was only mischief. Loki had sensed there was something there Thor didn't wish to speak of, and wished to know what it was so he could use it. He was right: Thor had no desire to speak of it. If the dreams hadn't been real, hadn't been shared between them, then he would never tell Loki of their lovemaking in the sun-warmed grass. He didn't think he could bear it, if Loki mocked him for having done it--or for having wanted it, for forever and still.
"I--all right. We were here, for the first couple. After that, we'd be in Asgard, as it was, if you recall that field we used to spar in."
"Did we spar?"
"We did. You with your daggers, me with your sword. I won, of course."
"Is that right?"
"Yes. You cheated, but I came back from it, just as I always do."
Loki opened his mouth, closed it again. Far from remaining impassive, the conflict was visible upon his face, a push and pull that could be read as easily as words on a page. Finally, he said, "I'm sure I didn't cheat."
"Magic is always cheating."
"No, it isn--"
But Thor had had enough of this silliness, of Loki's pretending. Before he could work himself up into true indignation, Thor did what he'd wanted to do always, and what he'd wished he could do again for the past months, even as he denied himself with nightcap after nightcap: he pulled Loki into his arms, and kissed him. Gently, at first, in case he was wrong--
But he wasn't wrong. Or if he was, Loki returned the kiss anyway, and made a sound, a wordless harsh moan that sounded painful, but that came along with him stepping backward, pulling Thor with him until his back back was against the window. Thor took this for the hint it seemed to be, and pressed Loki into the window with his body, his own palms against the glass.
"Tell me if it hurts," he said, not knowing if Loki had taken any other blows in the battle they'd lost so long ago, or how many of those old wounds might still ache.
"It does. Exquisitely." But if Loki wanted to stop, he didn't show it; his hands were already under Thor's shirt, exploring the love handles of his hips, the no-longer-new softness of his lower back. "There's so much more of you."
"You love it," Thor said, breathless after yet another long, deep kiss, one that had caused a stirring where there hadn't been one outside of his dreams in...he didn't remember how long.
"...I think I do. Though I certainly hope you've improved your technique, since our last time."
"I haven't at all," Thor said, for was no way to throw Loki quite like agreeing with his criticisms.
"...Oh?"
"Well, I haven't had any further practice. There hasn't been anyone but you, brother. Not these last few months. Not in five years."
"Ah." Loki didn't sound pleased so much as hoarse, and satisfied in his hoarseness. "So you'll be even worse than you were before."
"That's what I was getting at, yes," Thor said, and pressed Loki more firmly into the glass for another kiss. Loki made a pained sound, clearly not feigned. When Thor tried to pull away, Loki pulled him even closer, then guided Thor's hand to the bulge that waited between his legs.
The rest of it was so much like the dreams, and yet so different. They'd never once lain together here, so close to where Loki had died; Thor had never once known it was real, all those times they'd had one another in dreams.
Afterward, they both sat up against the glass window, trousers down around their knees, suddenly awkward, as they never had been before. It made sense; nothing could ever be as simple in life as it was in a dream.
There were many things they could have said, but so many of them had already been said, at one time or another. In the end, what Thor was left with was, "Is there anything else you needed to tell me? I'm listening this time, I swear it."
Loki rolled his eyes, then made a pained face at the motion. "I may need your help to stand, later. And walk."
"Of course."
"Don't think I've forgiven you for what you said."
"How many times have you claimed I'm no brother of yours, these last few years?" Thor pointed out. "And I can't even say it once. Seems like a double standard."
Loki ignored the question, probably because the answer was a thousand, at least. "I'm going to make you pay for your words."
Loki's wounds and Loki's offense and Loki's grievances, and what Thor wanted to say the most (but couldn't, for this was still Loki, after all) was 'good, I'm so glad.' Instead, he said, "I'm surprised you didn't slip a dagger between my ribs, when you had the chance just now."
"So am I, to be honest."
And for some reason, when their eyes met, they began to laugh. There would be no telling, later, which of them had started it, or to be sure which words or sentiment or expression on the other's face had set him off. They laughed and they laughed, as they'd laughed together when they were boys, as they'd once laughed together in a very sad dream. They laughed until Thor's entire abdomen ached, and Loki's eyes watered from a combination of hilarity and pain.
Then, once they'd both quieted outside of the occasional snigger, Thor helped Loki to his feet, and half-carried him back across the ship, where everyone else waited.