Chapter Text
Loki had never cried as a child, but the habit seemed to have developed as he grew older.
There was nothing wrong with it; Thor found it rather endearing.
But after months in their new ship it was still a surprise for Thor to have crawled out of the sleep cabin to find his brother quietly doubled over with tears streaming down his face.
Loki's hands clutched at the side of his waist and squeezed the fabric together as he struggled for breath.
Thor's first thought was that Loki was dying—but that made no sense, he would have woken if any intruders were on the ship, and Loki wasn't making much noise.
“Brother?” Thor asked, quietly as to not startle him. Perhaps, Thor considered, after a year of journeying it was that Loki missed home.
Loki sucked in a wet gasp and quickly dried his eyes.
“I'm fine,” Loki said, unconvincingly for the wetness with which he said it. “Don't worry about me.”
One hand left his waist, but the other only seemed to clutch harder as if to compensate.
“What's wrong with your stomach?” Thor asked.
Loki had been eating and drinking fine—Thor hadn't noticed anything strange.
“Nothing!” Loki insisted, still doubled over in his seat.
Thor made his voice stern. “Loki…”
“It's nothing! Really, it's not recent, you don't need to—”
In a swift motion Thor used the seating interface to drop the backrest as he straddled Loki, holding him in place.
The movement pinned one of Loki's hands down, giving Thor the chance to confirm that the hold over his waist was one of injury as it didn't budge.
‘Not recent’, Loki had said, but Thor couldn't recall any problematic run-ins with other ships or outlaws the past few months. They had bought this ship in relative peace and had no problems having the virtual documents transferred. He couldn't remember Loki acting injured or using any healing supplies…
“How old is it?” Thor asked, as he reached to uncover the spot. “And what kind of injury?”
“It's not— ah, Thor, don't! —it’s not an injury!”
“Oh?” If it's not an injury, why are you hiding it?
“It's—it’s seidr-based, I can't explain it.”
Thor was not impressed by that answer. If there was anyone in all the universe who could find a way to explain anything, it would be Loki.
“Try,” Thor drily insisted.
Loki bit his bottom lip. His eyes darted around the room, as if looking for an escape: there wasn't one. They knew this ship intimately from the time they had spent living on it.
“Before we—before we left, he was angry, and when Father is angry he—you know he can… and then he hit—me? With seidr—It hasn't healed, I really don't know what is wrong with it, it shouldn’t have lasted this long and I don't know what to do and it's only getting worse and it hurts and —why are you looking at me like that?!”
Thor furrowed his brows, trying to catch up to Loki's sudden confession of sorts.
“Father hurt you?”
Thor had always known Father to be a man of harsh words and violent temperament, but he had never been hit. He had watched his Father destroy a wall, or break a palace pillar in rage, but never…
He eyed the hand at Loki's stomach, before tugging it away and pulling at the cloth tunic.
“Thor, what are you— stop that!”
Loki swatted Thor's hands away, but with only one hand free he was no match for him. Even the complaint was lackluster and pained.
The moment Thor laid eyes on Loki's bare skin, he sucked in a harrowing breath.
Deep purple and green tendrils had spread across his brother’s ribcage, convalescing at a dark purple, open wound. It was not bleeding as if merely a bruise, but Thor could tell it was eating at his flesh every time it pulsed with a faint glow.
Thor startled at the sight, almost pushing Loki away to get back from the feeling of hate around it.
His mind worked, trying to think of any other way Loki could have gotten such a marking. Could Loki have done it to himself, unintentionally? No, Loki wouldn't. And would Loki lie about such a thing? No. He would not.
“He struck in anger,” Loki reasoned. He looked too frantic to reassure, as if Thor was angry, and would lash out in his anger. The way father had. “He didn’t—I can get rid of it, I just need—”
“This is why you've been obsessing over Jaro root,” Thor realised. “You could have just said!”
“Said what?” Loki sniffled. “What could I say?”
Thor looked at the wound again. “I don't know,” he confessed. “But we can—we have some healing pockets, they might be able to help?”
“We can't waste those.”
Thor forced his gaze back onto the injury, no matter how the gruesome sight repelled him. He had thought Loki was becoming lazier with their plants and spending more time resting, but he never would have imagined such a cause. “This isn't wasting. I'll see if we can contact one of those patrol ships and buy more.”
When he saw Loki’s hand moving to cover himself again, Thor held and squeezed it. You don’t need to hide it, Thor thought. Not from me.
They both missed home, but Thor had grown detached from Asgard in the time away. He liked space, and he liked that Loki and he got to enjoy it together. Loki had never smiled as much on Asgard, and perhaps Thor had not smiled as much back then either.
Loki’s hand didn't feel weak in his, but when it was just them in the vastness of the universe, Thor would always worry.
He was only sad that he hadn’t been told sooner. Henceforth, Thor would be sure to keep Loki wrapped comfortably in a blanket and away from their usual routine of tasks; If Loki knew of a cure, they could head in that direction instead of the novel planet Thor had wanted to visit.
Thor tapped Loki’s cheek in a light slap. “This was important information to share. Don’t do such a ridiculous thing again.”