Work Text:
Loki was at his desk copying down a list of potion ingredients when it happened. A crack that sounded like the Bifrost and a flash of rainbow light filled his chamber, momentarily overwhelming his senses. He scrambled off his chair, knives already materialized in his outstretched hands, heart thumping erratically.
“Brother,” the figure standing in the middle of his room said.
Loki blinked rapidly. It was Thor. Was it Thor? This man standing before him looked centuries older than his brother. Taller, broader, face deeply lined. Short hair and a full beard and mismatched eyes. Sad in a way that did something funny to Loki's chest.
“Who are you?” Loki said, brandishing his knife.
“Look at you,” Thor said. His voice sounded thick, choked. “Gods. I went back too far.”
“What are you talking about?” Loki demanded. He'd had time to take in more details now. The sheen of sweat and dirt on the man's face. The beat up state of his armor, like it had seen recent heavy use. A necklace with a glowing green stone. An axe the size of Loki's entire body. Loki would clearly be no match for the axe in close quarters, but perhaps if he kept back and tried to throw his knives --
“Loki, it's me,” he said. “Don't you recognize me?”
“My brother is out of the capital at the moment,” Loki said. “And also about four hundred years younger than you are.”
The man had made no move for his weapon, and Loki slowly lowered his guard. He did look remarkably like Thor. The way he was looking at Loki made his neck prickle.
“I know,” the man said. “I went back much too far...I only meant to go a few years…”
“Go back where, what are you babbling about?”
The man finally took a step towards him, and Loki took a step back. He was so large, and rugged, and handsome in a way that made Loki's stomach tighten nervously; like a copy of Thor that had grown into himself in all the best and most terrifying ways.
“In time,” Thor said. “Brother, I've come from the future. And I need your help.”
Thor was very convincing, or maybe Loki was just eager to be convinced. He told Loki of a great conflict in their future, of a Mad Titan and his quest to end half of all life in the universe; how Thor and other warriors were working desperately to collect items of great power from other times and dimensions in order to undo what the Titan had done. How he'd come to Asgard for one of these items, something called the Tesseract, but that he'd gone too far.
“But it matters not,” Thor said, and he put his hand on Loki's forearm and squeezed; heat from his touch forked through Loki like lightning. “For now I get to see you. Besides there are still things from the vault that would be useful.”
“I don't understand,” Loki said. “Surely you see me all the time.”
Thor smiled sadly. “Not this you,” was all he said.
Thor seemed to be in no rush to leave Loki's chamber and get what he'd come for. Instead he sat with Loki on his bed, and they talked. It was like someone had stripped away everything Loki had ever lamented about his brother and left only the best parts behind. He was kind and self possessed and self assured in a way that Loki's Thor could only dream of. His easy confidence would have made Loki green with envy if it hadn't just drawn Loki to him like a magnet instead.
Thor kept touching him. Casually, and yet so often that Loki couldn't help but notice. He started to anticipate each one, shivering under his skin where no one could see, sometimes his eyes falling involuntarily closed at the brush of Thor's hands on him.
Thor kept smiling at him. Warm smiles and sad ones and some that were unreadable and yet filled Loki with even more shivering anticipation.
All at once, he realized.
Lately, he'd been feeling so odd around Thor. His Thor. Irritable and jumpy and hot. Like he wanted to pull him closer and shove him away simultaneously. Like he couldn't breathe when he was around.
I'm in love, Loki thought despairingly.
It looked like Thor might be as well.
“How long will you stay here?” Loki asked. Thor had threaded their fingers together, and the fingers of his other hand were walking along Loki's knuckles.
“As long as I can,” Thor said. “I have the Time Stone, so I have all the time in the world.”
“Stay longer than that,” Loki whispered.
Thor bore him back onto the bed, his lips hot on Loki's throat. Loki pulled him closer, wrapped his legs around Thor's waist and clung to him.
“I shouldn't be doing this,” Thor groaned.
“Kiss me,” Loki begged.
Thor pulled back to stroke his cheek, and Loki mirrored the gesture, letting his fingers trail down into Thor's beard. “You're such a sweet little thing,” Thor said, his eyes bright.
They kissed and every nerve in Loki's body flamed to life, his nipples hardening, his cock filling, and he whined, trying to pull Thor impossibly closer. Impossibly, Thor managed it.
Loki had never lain with a man before.
He spilled with his brother's name on his lips and his brother's cock buried deep inside his body, and was glad that Thor was the first.
They made love until the dawn broke the next morning. Thor worshipped Loki like he was some precious treasure, and filled his chest with an unbearable lightness; like he was made of spun glass, the hollowness inside him expanding until he thought he would shatter and the light would fall out of him in a hundred thousand shards. How was Loki supposed to give this up? Thor's head moved between his legs, swallowing him down, and Loki fisted one hand in Thor's hair and one hand in his own and tried not to wail.
“You have to be patient with him,” Thor murmured. They were lying curled on their sides, nose to nose, Thor stroking Loki's naked hip, his thumb circling the pointy bone jutting into the air. “He doesn't know what he wants yet. Who he is.”
“Does he want me?” Loki whispered. “Like this?”
Thor's hand tightened on him. “He will.”
Loki had been listening to every word that fell from Thor's lips, and also the ones that hadn't. He was no fool.
He knew that he was going to die.
The only question was when.
“Don't leave,” Loki said.
Thor had been down to the vault and back up. They stood in Loki's chamber now, his arms around Loki's waist, and Loki had looped his arms around Thor's neck and gone up on tiptoe to nuzzle into his cheek.
“I have to.”
Grief twisted Loki's heart. It wasn't fair. None of this was.
“No you don't. Stay with me.”
“I want to more than anything,” Thor said roughly, blinking back tears.
“If that was true, you wouldn't go,” Loki insisted. He was holding back tears of his own now. “You don't even know if you'll win.”
“I have to try.”
“Thor,” Loki said unsteadily. “Stay here. Let us love each other.”
“I already do love you,” Thor said, burying his face in Loki's neck. “Your Thor, I mean. He loves you as much as I do.”
“But not as well,” Loki said. His voice broke on the last word, and they clung to each other, weeping. “I'll miss you,” Loki managed to choke out.
Thor pulled back to cup his neck, and Loki leaned into it. “You'll have me.” Thor was smiling through the tears, but his voice was so sad that Loki felt both of their hearts break in that moment -- ”But I won't have you,” was left unsaid. Loki wondered if Thor realized that he knew. He didn't want to tell him. Wanted to let Thor think he'd kept Loki safe from that knowledge.
They kissed one last time, soft and lingering. Loki melted against Thor's chest, molded himself to him, let Thor guide his head with one hand threaded into his hair. Gave Thor everything he had. Thor was going back to nothing. The injustice was enormous. Thor deserved everything. But all Loki could give him was this, and so he did.
Thor kissed the tears from Loki's cheeks. “No matter what happens,” he said, “know that I never stop loving you, not even for a moment.”
And then he stepped back, and with a flash of rainbow light he was gone.
Loki's Thor came back from the diplomatic mission he'd been on. It was startling to see him. He was so fresh-faced and young. Carefree. Immature. Loki tried to see his future self in him, and wondered what in the Nine had happened to get Thor from here to there. The thought was a sobering one.
Decades passed. Centuries. Thor seemed determined to remain a callow boy. Loki wanted to scream. ”Where is he, where is the man I know you can be!” With each passing day, he grew more and more bitter. He'd feasted in Valhalla and now he was supposed to live on scraps.
Maybe the older Thor hadn't been real. Maybe Loki was waiting for nothing.
The first time they finally slept together, Loki thought things might change. Thought Thor might start to become the man who'd been unafraid to love Loki unreservedly. He didn't.
“Am I your first?” Thor asked Loki once, moving inside him. Loki touched his cheek, smooth with youth, not even yet bearded.
“There was one other,” Loki said. “A stranger from another place.” Another time.
“I'll be the last,” Thor said confidently.
Loki began to despair that he'd ever come to know the man he'd met in his room that day so long ago. The possibility seemed more and more remote. As it receded into the distance, Loki grew more and more bitter. Resentful. Finally the day came that Odin announced Thor's imminent coronation, and Loki felt the bile rise in his throat.
Tears in his eyes and a memory of the future in his heart, he began to plan Thor's downfall.