Chapter Text
The thing about Thor is that he means well. He doesn’t mean to be unkind to Loki, and somewhere deep down Loki knows that, but it’s just so easy to be angry. It’s so much easier to rage and storm and plot and execute revenge schemes than it is to merely tell Thor how he hurts Loki’s feeling sometimes. Thor has ever lacked tact. This is one such time.
They are sitting on Thor’s bed eating pilfered honey cakes as Loki attempts to read a manuscript he recently discovered about shifting into animals when Thor spills mead on it. Loki jumps up and attempts to sop up the pages with his tunic but it is no use. The aged pages are thoroughly ruined.
Loki rounds on Thor with fire in his eyes “Thor you bumbling oaf!”
Thor has the nerve to look upset “I am sorry Loki I-“
“You impossible, irresponsible, dense, waste of space!”
Thor’s look turns beseeching “Loki please I-“
All the hurt that has been building up is building up inside of Loki is coming out now, and it feels so good to finally unload all that he has been carrying around on Thor.
“Do you ever think, you jackass? Do you have any brains at all in your thick skull?”
Perhaps Thor thinks hanging his head and staying silent will soften Loki, it doesn’t and Loki continues to heap abuse on him.
“It isn’t enough for you to humiliate me in court with your idiot friends is it? You have to ruin my life within my own chambers!”
Loki is pacing back and forth when Thor speaks.
“Do not bring my friends into this, Loki they have done nothing-“
Loki whirls around a slaps him across the face before he is even aware of what he is doing. Loki has never struck Thor, never with the real intent to hurt and the shock on his brothers’ face at being hit is evident. Loki is making his way to the door intent on cooling his head off in the gardens for a bit when Thor’s hand lashes put and grabs his wrist. Loki lets out a yelp, and it’s that moment, that tiny slip of weakness that Loki will mark as the be end to the last remnants of brotherhood he and Thor have so desperately clung to these last few years.
Thor frowns and pulls the sleeves of Loki’s tunic up to reveal a myriad of bruises ranging from as far back as two weeks ago to as recent as hours before. Thor’s face is stormy.
“Who has done this to you?”
He looks so earnest. Loki is struck with the immediate urge to lie. To tell Thor that he sparred with Sif earlier, that he and Bragi were roughhousing, that Balder got the jump on him coming out of the library, but he’s just so tired of lying. He’s so tired of waking up everyday and going through the motions with his parents, at court with Thor and Balder. He’s so tired of struggling to even pull together the energy to get out of bed in the morning, of having to bargain with himself just to leave his chambers and not sleep the day away as he longs to. He’s tired of no one noticing that he’s upset, that he has been for years. Though perhaps what he is most exhausted with is covering for Fandral, tired of Thor’s constant pressure to hang out with his rapist day in and day out as though Fandral does not already have enough power over him.
“Why don’t you ask your Fandral where I got these?” Loki’s voice has gone deadly quiet.
“Why don’t you go ask Fandral what he uses to gag me with as he rapes me, hm? Why don’t you go ask Sif the real reason I cut her hair?”
Thor’s mouth drops open. Loki shoves him towards the door.
“Do it, Thor! Ask them! Do it! DO IT!” Loki doesn’t realize he is crying until Thor’s hand reaches out to wipe his cheeks.
“This is enough Loki. I know you are upset, but I will not stand by and have you slander Fandral and my betrothed that way.”
Loki lets out a hysterical giggle. “You think I would make this up? You think I would lie about Fandral being a disgusting swine, you think I would lie about Sif being a jealous slut, you bumbling oa-“
The backhand Thor delivers to his face sends him sprawling to the floor. His ears are still ringing and he laughs wildly as Thor kneels down to grab him by the shoulders and shakes him.
“This is enough, Loki. I will hear no more of this.”
Loki conjures a knife and slashes him across the face. Thor stumbles back with a howl of pain and Loki takes it as his chance to run, however Thor is not an honored warrior for nothing. Thor’s hand shoots out and grabs Loki by the ankle effectively tripping him and dragging him back towards him no matter how his nails scrabble for purchase, when they break his hands bleed and make his fingers slick on the marble of his floor.
The feeling of being trapped under Thor; the feeling of being caged in his brothers arms with nowhere to run is too much like Fandral, and Loki has had enough.
He transports himself out of his chambers in his panic, and stares at the door for a few seconds dazedly before turning on his heels and running as far into the forest surrounding to palace as he can.
He is gone for three months.
When he returns, his parents are waiting for him in his chambers with Thor. His mother asks him of what he said was true with tears in her eyes, and he has never seen his father look so angry in his life. It isn’t the first time in his life he feels worthless. If only he hadn’t let Thor get the best of him, they wouldn’t be looking at him with such barely disguised shame. Not for the first time, he decides to spare his family the shame of a spectacle. He knows his chances. He knows if he were to lodge a formal complaint all that Fandral would get would be a reprimand, and Loki would forever carry the shame of being a “deviant” his whole life. He knows things everyone will say. Knows the excuses the Aesir make for rape: Loki must have flirted, Loki must have behaved inappropriately, Loki must have been asking for it he must have wanted it, if not surely he would have fought harder to deter Fandral. It makes him want to scream ad cry and rage at the injustice of it all. He steels himself, looks his father in the eye, and tells them all he has lied. Ironically his “lying” about Fandral will surely carry a steep punishment.
Two weeks after he comes back, in full view of the entire Asgardian court, Loki has his lips sewn shut.