Lead Me Home, Brother

Chapter 2: Why'd You Have to Leave Me, Thor?

**Trigger Warning**: IMMENSE feels.

We've come a long way from where we began.

He wasn't certain if he was blinking or not. He wasn't certain whether the murky black and blue appearance of the world beyond him was really true or not. Was he dreaming? Was he gone? Was he...

"Dead?" A disembodied voice came from his left before a shaggy haired version of his blonde oaf of a brother came into his line of vision, peeking out at him like he used to behind Mother's wardrobe, a grin on his young face, blue eyes sparkling.

But he had only one eye now, after what Hela had done to him...their sister.

Yet despite this, despite their shared revelations from a creakingly old Allfather, even now, as the trickster blinked his lazy green eyes, he saw that there were Thor's true blue orbs back, residing in his skull. His skull…the same one that had been irreparably broken apart with his brains plastering the ground; Loki shook himself mentally, fear striking him in a cold douse.

"Oh, brother," Thor remarked instead, voice gravelly and low, yet warmth and tease lurking in his tone. "Can you not recall your other brush-ins with death?" Thor's smile turned lopsided and he huffed a little under his breath, his shoulders rolling in the gesture. His gaze softened to one of pain but when he looked back at Loki it was with care and forgiveness in his eyes. "Aye, I barely recall mine."

A pained grimace set in and Loki wanted nothing more than to outstretch his hand and wipe away the tears that formed in his brother's eyes. Oh, how he ached and longed to be there with Thor, be back there again when things were easier, when they were young, when they were naïve and when life was easy.

"It's all right, brother," Thor was saying and Loki looked upon him with such deep-seeded shock, because, really, how did Thor know? How did he know?

"I see you," Thor replied again, tears welling up in his eyes just as they did in Loki's. "I see you, brother." He paused to continue, but words escaped him, temporarily. Then he added, "And I am right here with you."

And Loki couldn't help it then. He couldn't help it as the tears flowed freely from his elusive green eyes, eyes that had seen so much, been through so much, so wrought with pain and a jaded heart and everything just fell apart because now Loki knew where he was and where in the world, or not-world, the two brothers were really encapsulated in. And he knew that if he went back, if he left here, if he even dared to breathe another breath again, that he'd be doing it without Thor. Without his brother. Without his love, without his friend, without his sibling, without his family. And somehow, somehow that stung all the more, stung all the most, stung more than it ever had before. Because now he knew what he was in danger of losing. And he had lost. He had lost so much, so much over the course of a few years than what he had ever lost in the course of centuries.

And it made him breathless. It made the blood dripping from his broken skull collide harshly onto his green tunic, and it made the fabric wet with its consistency, and it made his tears flood down faster, stinging his eyes in pain-in so much pain, he was, so much pain-and he tried to pull down his sleeves to wipe again the salty residue but instead, the more his tears came and the more his shoulders shook, the more it stung, the more it hurt, until he was lost in that pain, lost in the hardness of it all, in the depravity of it all, in the nothingness.

And he could almost feel, almost taste, the way he remembered his fall through the Void, the way he had fallen for what felt like years and the way he had landed on his back on the graven planet of the Mad Titan. And he could vaguely, just vaguely recall from the corners of his mind, the pain and the torture he had found there, and the hope, the sickening black, sticky hope that if he controlled the Tesseract, if he overran the Midgardian planet, that he would be a rightful King again, and he'd be worthy, worthy of all that his fake Asgardian blood told him he was lacking in.

So he cried.

And he cried. And he cried.

And when Thor's fingers curled into his-he cried more.

He felt so real. So real.

But Loki knew; knew deep in the chasm of his chest that threatened to make him stop breathing, for his red organ to stop beating, that he, somewhere, somewhere else, far away, was dead and that Thor was dead and they both were dead and that Loki couldn't-no, wouldn't-be able to go on without him. He couldn't fathom it. He couldn't even begin to process it.

"I-I have to…" Loki mewled, tears still dripping from his eyes. "I have to st-stay here with you," he hiccupped, voice choking on the words, as if he knew, as if he already knew.

"Oh, Loki," Thor whispered back and his voice collided into the younger demigod's ears as they ached with an outcry of ongoing pain. He knew, he knew. "You know you can't."

Loki sobbed.

"But-But I have to. I have to, Thor. I have to." Snot came down from the caverns of his nose and Thor did his best to brush them away. He seemed to be supplied with an endless amount of tissues and cloth fabric he was able to pull from somewhere in his bottomless pockets.

"I can't go on without you," Loki shuddered out the words, the pain so eclipsing, the loss so bright.

And Thor nudged him here, nudged his chin up into Thor's blurry vicinity, and he said so lovingly, so loudly, "Loki, you cannot stay here." Thor smiled, or what Loki could only hasten a guess into thinking was a smile, and the gravity of it landed so wetly, so acutely that Loki was sure it had splattered against the ground.

"It's not your time."

Loki was sure he hadn't heard that right. How could it not be? How could he even dare to think otherwise? What was Thor on about now?

"They still need you back there." Thor said, as if it were obvious, as if Loki knew what the pronoun game he was playing meant at all.

"But I need you, too."

Thor's smile flickered away momentarily and he pulled his brother close, not minding the blood at the back of his skull-and Loki wondered for half a second where all of Thor's was-but he tried not to mind, he just tried to memorize every square inch of Thor's being, his full form, his body, his soul. Maybe if Loki could remember this, remember this entire version of Thor, maybe he could carry it back with him. With….wherever he went after this.

Could he do that? Could he remember?

"I will always be with you, Loki. I am not going anywhere."

"Because you'll be here." Loki moaned.

He felt Thor's head bob up and down.

"Because I'll be here. But fret not, brother, you will know of this deep within your heart. You will know of this." His own tears lurched into this reality. Into this dream. "You will know, even if you won't consciously remember. Deep down, you will know. And you will avenge me, revenge me. You always have."

Loki felt the bitterness hug him, then, too.

"Will I remember how you felt? How you've held me just now?" Loki asked so quietly, he was sure he had only thought this.

"No, you won't." Thor answered honestly and Loki blearily saw the white specks twinkle into the sky so far above.

"I only wish to remember," Loki shook, uncontrollably.

"I know. I know." Thor held him another moment longer before he pulled away to arm's length, staring deep within Loki's eyes, even when Loki was trying to look away. It was too much, too painful. He was too unworthy. Too damaged.

"But sometimes there are things in this life that we're just unable to remember." Thor said wisely, looking upon Loki with a mixture of emotions that Loki could never have begun to process. So much love there, so much care. "Words and actions mix into the light years, they fade with time, but how we felt, how others made us feel, is what we carry for centuries more to come." Thor clasped his hand behind Loki's neck, cradling the cool touch of his skin as Loki felt his breath clench in his chest, clinch as though he were a sewing needle clasping into a perfect stitch. "So you won't recall exactly what I say or exactly the way I smelt or the way I felt, yet you'll always have the memories of how I made you feel. And you'll always have me within your mind and within your heart and within your soul, Loki. You will always have me." His smile strengthened. "I am that hard to forget." He chuckled to himself. "You will never forget me, Loki, you can't. It's just not possible. Just like how we never forget those that we love. We never move on, we move forwards. Without them, yes, and yet, with them all the same."

Thor's tears rolled down the sides of his face as he spoke, the emotion there clogging up his pores.

"You are always going to remember me, Loki. You are always going to carry me with you because I am inseparable from you. I'm stitched into you with every fiber of your being. I've made a mark, brother, and I only hope it's for the better." Thor sighed, eyes darting to the sky. "Mother and Father are there. And, Heimdall, too. That's where I'll be next. But I needed to speak to you, Loki, before I left. I needed you to know that I loved you so very, very much." Thor laughed again, like a little giggle. "I would have done anything for you, Loki. Anything. And I know that I did, in the end. I did everything I could to make you proud. I did everything I could to help you along. And I will cherish that for the rest of time." Thor's eyes gazed back to his brother and Loki was there, Loki was there, and he witnessed it all and he stared up at his brother, the blood having been forgotten, as he shared in this exploration, this revelation, this opening of old wounds while preparing for the largest ones he never thought he'd live to see the tale told of.

"There's so much time ahead of us both, brother. And I will tell Father what I did for you and I know that he will be proud of us both. And when I see Mother, I will explain to her how you've grown, because you've grown so much, brother, into a beautiful boy that only just ever wished to be loved."

Thor let out a deep breath.

"And you're going to go so far, back there, Loki. You're going to go so far. Life still needs you. Life needs you to live." He blinked, caught between being coherent and being true to his emotions. "I need you to go back there and live. For me. For you. And one day, one day, for the world.

"You make the universe so bright, Loki. You make life worth living. I want the world to see how you've grown. How you've matured. How you would have done the very same for me. I know you, Loki, I know you and I always have and I always will. This is not goodbye, brother, this is I'll see you again."

Loki was just managing to cling to his brother's hand, to feel the weight of it in his palm, to see him again for all that he was, the flashes in his mind of how they had already gotten older together, and it was with his last words, his last spoken words in this plane of living, that Thor began to fade. He became transparent, gradually, over the course of a few breaths and a few other blinks, and Loki tried to squeeze harder, he tried to memorize the way Thor's eyes crinkled at the ends, the way his peaceful smile brought hope anew to Loki's chest, the way his presence made Loki feel so strong, so grounded, so important. He tried to remember all of this, he tried to remember because he knew he wouldn't, but maybe, maybe for this flicker of a moment, this flicker of life, he could recall it. Maybe he could bury it deep down within his soul, and some part of him, one day, one day would uncover it again and maybe then, maybe then everything would truly be all right.

He prayed for this, the trickster did, he prayed for this and more.

And when the sun shined on him again, when the apparition of Thor blended into the white light and the warmth of the sun that soaked up Loki's pale Asgardian skin, he felt that he remembered it all. He felt that it had left a longstanding impact. It had left its mark.

And he would always have him. They would always be Loki and Thor. Even death couldn't pull the two brothers apart. There would always be a Loki and there would always be a Thor, and together they were unstoppable, and apart, even through the deep veins of life and death, they would be remembered.

Because every thing always was.

And every thing would always breed the same.

So let the light guide your way. Hold every memory as you go, and every road you take, will always lead you home.

A/N: Bottle every one of your tears if you cried as profusely as I did in writing this chapter and listening to the solo version of this song loudly with headphones in as it went along and repeated over and over again for immersion, hooray! XD

So, it's legitimately been over 2 years since I wrote or updated or did anything with this fic. Gotta say though, I LOVE that I wrote it and published it before IW happened so that it aligned pretty canon with how things went (just with the wrong brother, but still). I didn't know how much I needed to write this chapter, explore all my feelings (related to the fic and not) and just grieve as grieving will do. I thought about EG in it and threw in some things I've gone through myself and this book on loss that I'm reading about and it all just fell into place and made me sob as I wrote and came really, really easily. I'm even a little spooked as the first song lyric line at the start of this fic today is the EXACT SAME line I used in a super old draft from 3/31/2018 so that's weird, ahaha.

Anywho, here's something to make you sob like a baby and feel ALL the feels that ever existed. I know that the title of this chapter, now that I've written it, doesn't at all answer the question as to WHY it was Thor who died, why he was taken away from Loki, but maybe that's an ever fitting description of how we never know why death takes each one of us and our loved ones at some point in time. Because some things don't have answers. And sometimes, sometimes, deep down, we can know of things inherently from them that sometimes we cannot ever explain in words. I'll just leave that thought where it's at. xxx

Thank you so much for reading, following and if you have the time, leave me a review! I plan to update more stories soon. Thank you, again! (PS Would you like to see me render Loki's death like in IW or do it completely new and fresh? PPS I'm now thinking one of the next chapters (if my current uploading date is anything to go by, I may include how Loki manages to survive Thanos' attempt to kill him for continuity's sake and then from there it will be canon to Loki appearing at the final battle in EG, just without Thor. Then I'll have a thing on grief as the end of this arc before Thor's set comes into play. Yay, direction!) PPPS: There's a little Thorki in this if you squint. ;]

Written: 5.8.2020; 5.9.20

E: 5.9.2020

Music listened to: "See you again" solo version by Charlie Puth (note: I do not own any of the lyrics highlighted in this story!) and "Somebody loves you" by Plumb. xxx