a/n:
i get easily sidetracked with writing, you see

Hand in Hand

"What's his name, father?" Thor asks, and he peers over the side of the crib, curious to see the little bundle that was his new brother.

"Loki," his father answers, hand resting heavily on his son's shoulder. "His name is Loki."

Behind them, Frigga watches with an uncomfortable silence.

"Nice to meet you, Loki," Thor says, enunciating each word like he expects the babe to already understand. He reaches down and gives a small hand a poke, and Loki catches his finger before he can draw away.

Loki babbles something at him, and Thor beams. "Good baby," he coos, eliciting a delighted giggle from Loki.

His grip around Thor's finger feels right.

. . .

Hand in hand: they walk like this.

Thor holds his little brother's hand tightly as Loki, four years younger and just learning how to toddle, draws himself up on his feet. He falters, wobbles, nearly falls over, but Thor is there to steady him. Thor is the one who squeezes his hand reassuringly and tells him with a gentle smile, "It's all right. I have you."

He is six and Loki is two.

"No," Loki grouses at him. He makes to tug his hand away, but loses his balance almost as soon as he does, and Thor has to catch his hand again before he hits the floor.

"Let me help you, Loki," Thor says to the child, amused.

"No," Loki repeats stubbornly - it's the only word he knows, really.

Thor shakes his head. "You'll fall and get hurt, and then Mother and Father will be cross at me."

"No!"

But Thor still does not let go, and Loki sulks. Then he manages to take more than three consecutive steps without falling. The boy immediately cranes his head up to smile at Thor, but the pride falls away to faint guilt when he seems to remember something. He clutches onto Thor's arm and mumbles something that sounds like an apology.

"All is forgiven," Thor says, because he can never be angry with his brother. He feels Loki press a childish, open-mouthed kiss to his elbow, and, yes, all is forgiven.

. . .

They are practically joined the hip, if not by hands. No one questions it - rather, they all seem enamoured with the way the older brother cares so much for the younger. They are always in each other's proximity and always touching in some way or another, whether by their sides brushing or hands intertwined loosely.

They roam the halls of the castle like so. Loki almost always trails behind him a few steps, not quite as able as his brother, but Thor makes sure to hold his hand tight. "So we don't lose each other," Thor once told him, and Loki abides by that philosophy.

They share a bed, and Thor is twelve and Loki is eight when the former has his own nightmare. Loki is kicked awake in the middle of the night, and he sits up, rubbing at his eye irately. He turns to admonish his brother, but then catches sight of Thor's expression in the moonlight. "No," he thinks he hears Thor mumble, and then there's an arm swinging carelessly over, nearly smacking Loki in the face.

"Thor!" Loki whispers urgently, and shakes his big brother's shoulder until his eyelids flutter open and bright blue eyes are staring at him.

"What?" Thor slurs, mind still addled with sleep.

Loki huffs and tells him what happened, how he was kicking and talking in his sleep, and what kind of absurd dream was he having?

"Monsters," Thor says solemnly, then uses his outstretched hand to coax Loki back under the covers. "Go back to sleep, Loki."

"Mother says there are no such things," Loki protests, but Thor is already fast asleep, pressed against his side. Loki lies awake for a few more minutes, simply observing his brother and wondering how he can return to sleep so easily after a nightmare. Eventually he falls asleep too, and he does so with an arm curled protectively around his big brother, so that no monster would dare to take Thor

. . .

Loki is ten when the first sparks of magic fly off his fingers, and Thor is fourteen, splayed across their bed and watching with a mixture of pride and envy. "How do you do that?" he queries, wiggling his own fingers as if expecting the same sparks to crackle.

"I don't know." Loki is staring down at his own hands in wonder.

"Of course you know, you did it."

But Loki simply shakes his head.

So Thor takes him by the hand, tugs him down on the bed, and refuses to let him up until he promises he'll at least try.

And try he does (after finally pushing Thor off of him and telling him he weighed like a bilgesnipe), but Thor simply cannot do it. "Curious," Thor says, disappointment at the edge of his voice, and finally puts his hand down.

"It's not as if you would need magic, anyway." Loki shrugs. "You're already so strong."

That does something to elevate Thor's ego, and is enough to quell him for now. "Can I watch you do it, then?"

Loki sits up on the bed and settles in between Thor's legs, back pressed against his brother's chest, and wills the magic back again. It does not come in sparks this time, but tendrils of smoke, and when Thor holds Loki's hand, they coil around their wrists, as if to hold them together.

. . .

When Loki turns the age of twelve, their parents decide that they really are too old to be still sleeping in the same bed. Thor and Loki protest, but their parents have their way and within a week, a new bedroom has been furnished for Loki.

"Come to visit me anyway?" Thor whispers conspiratorially, before they part. He speaks like they are moving to different realms rather than rooms.

Loki hugs him tightly, and that is enough of an answer.

If anyone notices the younger prince sneaking out of his own room to his brother's, they do not say anything.

. . .

Nowadays, Thor finds that people have begun staring at them strangely whenever he holds his brother's hand. So they take to only doing it whenever they're alone.

But Thor has friends, and he finds himself with them more and more. He tells Loki he should come, but his brother declines and instead secrets himself away in the library, learning more about magic.

They begin to drift, and although Thor knows he shouldn't be surprised, it still leaves a sense of disappointment heavy in his gut. He takes comfort in the way Loki still sneaks into his room (but just sometimes now) and spends the night with him.

"Why do you always hold me so tightly when we sleep, brother?" Thor says one morning.

"You once said that you dreamed of monsters."

"Surely you don't still think they're real!"

"Jotuns are real."

"They are realms away."

"Better to be safe than sorry." Loki's back is to him and Thor can't quite figure out what his brother is thinking. "I hold on to you tightly because if one were to try and take you, then they would be forced to take me, too."

"But then we'll both be taken!"

"No." Loki shakes his head. "They'll change their minds once they see me."

It is a puzzling thing to hear. "Why?" Thor presses.

Loki shifts. "Not a lot of people like me," he says, and leaves without another word.

Thor is seventeen and Loki is thirteen. It's an awful feeling, to know that your brother thinks of such things.

. . .

So Thor tells him one night: "It doesn't matter what the others think. I think you're intelligent, and witty and clever and far more talented than them all and-" the last part slips out "-perfect."

Loki stares up at him, from where he's trapped between his brother and the sheets. They are very close and it is very tempting to simply lean up and close the distance between them-

"Are you drunk?" he accuses.

Thor is eighteen and can drink mead if he wishes.

"No," Thor says, and leans down and buries his face in the crook of Loki's neck.

No, if he were inebriated, then he would have already done something very sudden, very irrational, very wrong to his precious little brother.

(Oh, gods, his brother-)

. . .

Thor is twenty when he goes on his first hunt. As he holds his kill up for all of Asgard to see, he looks around for Loki, but cannot find his brother.

. . .

Thor is twenty one when he first beds a maiden.

It's not nearly as much as the warriors glorify it to be. (Perhaps, Thor thinks, it's because it's simply a maiden, not Loki.)

. . .

He imagines being able to take Loki into his arms and kissing his breath away, run his fingers through those soft-looking black strands of hair, stroke his cheek, rest his hands on his slim waist, tell him over and over how valued, how loved he is - and sometimes he dares to imagine how lovely Loki would look, standing on the altar with him.

And sometimes he simply imagines himself taking, claiming his brother, holding him down against the sheets - sometimes against the wall, perhaps on a desk - and watching those emerald green eyes become hazy with pleasure. He'll draw out and relish every single moan and whimper, and then he'll watch Loki come undone beneath him. It's filthy, he knows, the way he dreams of fucking into his brother hard and then spilling his seed deep inside of him, until Loki is his and his alone.

It is wrong, and Thor cannot help it.

He tries to distant himself from his friends, thinking that this might bring him closer to Loki again, but it's a foolhardy plan and one that does not work. He walks the halls by himself. Sometimes he clenches his fist, the ghost feeling of a hand lingering in his thoughts.

. . .

On his twenty-second birthday, Thor finally caves. He leaves the celebration that his parents threw for him - too crowded, too rowdy, too many people, and no Loki. Instead he heads for his brother's chambers.

"What do you need, brother?" Loki asks calmly, not even turning from his desk when he hears Thor enter and close the door behind him.

"Don't call me that," Thor nearly pleads, and in two strides he's at Loki's side and kissing him and relief blooms in his chest, overwhelming and sweet.

Loki's hands come up to his chest, and just as Thor thinks he'll be pushed away, the younger fists his tunic and pulls him closer.

The relief is great but the desire is even greater, and Thor lifts Loki easily and lays him on the bed. Loki is pliant and willing beneath him, and Thor cannot stop touching him, hands roaming across a lithe body he's yearned for years.

This is everything he's ever wanted and more.

. . .

Hand in hand: They sleep like this.

Thor is the first to wake, but he cannot bear to rouse Loki. He marvels at the way they fit so easily, like one was carved just for the other.

"You're holding my hand again," Loki murmurs, slowly coming to.

It is a bright and beautiful morning.

Thor smiles and gives his hand an assuring squeeze. "I don't believe I ever let go."