Boltedfruit Archive

They’d been shipwrecked here for over a week before he finally saw Thor shiver. The barest wobble of his arms across his knees, almost missed if not for how close they sat pressed beside each other.

Loki had sighed and tried to conjure flame between them. It flared to life, bright and opulent in his palms before floating out between them. Thor smiled and held his hands out, heedless of the rain pouring all around them.

The flame sputtered and died.

Thor groaned and buried his face between his knees.

They’d managed to build a small lean-to to protect them from the brunt of the wind and slap of waves on the northern side of the rock face they’d crashed against. Thor had dove recklessly back into the raging sea that first night to toss Loki pieces of their scattered vessel, Loki’s heart thundering terribly with every push and pull of the sea’s clinging waves. Thor drifted far at one point and that’s when Loki scrambled to pull him out.

He couldn’t lose his brother.

After Thor had been firmly back on solid ground Loki had slapped him and rose to start building their shelter. Thor helped haul them together while Loki tied strips of ripped fabric between each splintered piece of wood.

Loki still wondered how such a seemingly small rock could obliterate their boat.

   The second week Loki is finally starting to get hungry. Thor cold and him hungry were not good signs, not for their kind.

Asgard seemed so far away.

Thor smirked at him when his stomach growled again.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Loki demanded.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re going to eat me.”

Thor smiled, goofy. “Only once we’re back in our own beds will I think of doing such things.”

Loki sighed, turning away with a shake of his head. His brother was insufferable, always teasing with ill-thought jests. They were jokes, lies told to encourage a laugh here and a chuckle there. It had started up one day, when they were barely out of adolescence. An annoying habit.

Loki hated when Thor teased him like this. Like he knew.

“Don’t tell me you’re hungry, too?” he said instead, to try and steer Thor away from the topic.

Thor took too long in answering, and when Loki turned back he saw a deep frown on his brother’s face. Thor was no longer looking at him, but instead down at his hands. Finally, he turned away altogether, sighing, staring out at the dark waves.

It was calm today, and Loki needed to fish.

   Thor was the first in the water.

Loki hated it. But at least the sea was calm that afternoon.

Thor managed to find nothing when he came back up for air, whipping his soaked hair off his face. He gripped a clump of kelp in one hand.

“How far did you dive?” Loki asked him, amused.

Thor shrugged and said nothing.

   Eventually Loki saw Thor’s cheeks hollow. His waist seemed wispier when he stripped to ring his clothes out for some relief from the constant wet. They hadn’t eaten in a month.

An idea came to him one night, when Thor was asleep and curled against his side. His hands were freezing, his teeth chattering. Loki rolled into him and took the opportunity to nuzzle his face close to his brother’s. A stolen moment he’d never have anywhere else.

Thor hushed, finally evening out into a deeper more peaceful sleep.

He had an idea, yes. But it was dangerous.

   “Why does Heimdall not come?” Thor raged to the sky one morning.

Loki joined him.

   Two months and Loki caught Thor staring at him. His ribs. He didn’t want to look down so he didn’t, content with not taking the state of his own appearance in while they were trapped here. There was a wasting spell on this cursed rock. He’d come to learn that much. It trapped all who ventured too close, destined to die a slow death atop it.

That night, Thor rolled close to him and pressed his nose to Loki’s neck. Loki sucked in a breath and held it, unsure what Thor was playing at. Another one of his silly teases. Too good to be true.

But then Thor shifted against him, one arm worming its way beneath Loki’s head like a pillow, the other going to his waist.

Loki turned to him, wondering. Perhaps it was the cold getting to him.

But Thor kissed him instead and Loki was forced to realize Thor might not have been joking all these years after all.

   “I have an idea,” Thor aimed to the sky as he stretched out on his back one day. Loki had taken to pacing, trying to calm his mind.

“And what is that?”

“Wouldn’t it be so easy to leave if we could swim?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “We can swim just fine. It’s a matter of the curse of this place.”

“Aye, I know,” Thor said woefully as he sat up. He eyed Loki, stopping him in his tracks. “But would it not be better to be able to swim as the Hav do?”

Loki faltered, unsure whether to voice the idea that had been plaguing him for weeks.

To do what Thor asked was dangerous. Loki could kill him.

“The seidr could kill you. I could kill you.”

Thor shrugged. “Nothing you’ve not tried to do before. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Loki went to him, straddled his waist. Thor leaned back on his hands, smiling fondly up at him. But his brow was still marred with worry, the creases at the corners of his mouth and eyes too deep for Loki’s liking. Thor was getting too thin. Thor’s hair was turning limp and dirty. His eyes were duller too, the last few days and Loki hated that the most.

He kissed Thor.

He was already whispering the runes they needed as he withdrew his dagger.

Thor didn’t look away from him, bared his throat.

Loki slashed quick lines across both sides of Thor’s neck before sealing their mouths together. Then he stood and shoved him into the waves. Thor sunk like a stone.

Then he brought the dagger to his own throat and did the same.

   The first thing he saw in the depths of the ocean was Thor’s endless eyes, bright and vivid in the darkness. Already he looked healthier than he has in weeks.

“You saved us,” Thor whispered to him, voice marbled in a funny way from the water.

Thor kissed him and Loki called to their gatekeeper.

And even beneath a cursed sea the Bifrost swept them away home.