Archive of Our Own

Isolated in the quiet, focused light of his desk lamp, Loki scribbled in precise strokes just on the edge of making the proof fall together. Numbers danced in his head lining up to where he needed them and he wrote quickly to capture the delicate train of thought. The last of their Thanksgiving feast was settling in his stomach, the air perfectly warm and if he could just get these last few lines down-

“I have mastered the pigs and my team of irritated fowl has triumphed!” Thor slammed their bedroom door open, smile spread a mile wide. Loki’s pencil skittered across the page. He gritted his teeth.

“Love of my life, light of my heart.” He hissed. “I need you to go find something else to do. Very far away from me.”

Thor hesitated, then took a few careful backwards steps before disappearing back into the living room. A few minutes later, Darcy put her head around the door,

“We’re going Black Friday shopping. We’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”

He waved her away, concentration not wavering from the paper before him. Vaguely he registered the front door closing. The numbers swarmed, coalesced and after another two hours everything made sense. Standing, he winced as his shoulder, knuckles and knees creaked irritably. Everything was silent. Right. The shopping.

The shopping.

He groaned dropped his head into his hands. It wasn’t the idea of cut rate electronics that troubled him. No, this meant that Thor was about to discover Christmas and all of the disturbing parallels to the Winter Solstice festival of their youth. The first year Loki had spent in Arizona they had gone on a road trip over the holidays, during the second they’d been far too busy trying to sort out Thor’s Midgard identity and their own fraught relationship. Apparently the third was not going to be so simple.

Holidays in Asgard had always seen Loki sullen and distant. He had no interest in the dull games or tasteless feasts that usually saw his humiliation or strangeness highlighted once more. The intense cheer of humans around Christmas had always struck him with sick familiarity of those terrible days. It didn’t help that the television was taken over by sentimental treacle about family that made his throat burn.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he vowed to just ignore the whole thing. He would buy a few small things for his tight circle of friends and keep his head down. It would be over soon enough.

~*~

The day had been incredibly long filled with too much studying and followed by too much grease at the diner. It left his hair oily and his temper foul. Juggling cold leftovers for dinner and a pile of books, he pushed into the apartment wanting only to shower, eat and sleep.

He was not prepared for the sight of Thor lounging on the couch in the ugliest sweater he’d ever seen. It looked like someone had skinned Elmo then pasted on a giant tinseled tree. Thor smiled when Loki came in, rising to take his books.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Loki finally choked out.

"Darcy found it at the local Wal-Mart." Thor laughed before wrapping Loki up in a hug, despite Loki’s rigid posture. "She said it was tradition to wear bright festive garments like this."

"It feels like steel wool." He protested even as he melted into it, eager for a quiet warm moment after the insanity of the day.

"Well you can help me take it off later." He smiled brightly, pressing his lips to the corners of Loki's mouth, before stealing a longer, deeper kiss.

Loki shoulders went loose and he sighed right into the kiss, reaching up to wrap a hand behind Thor's neck. "How much later?"

"Hmm..." Thor did his best to pretend as if he was thinking, even as he nipped at Loki's jaw. "Now?"

"Now is good." Loki purred, skimming a hand under the terrible sweater. "Bedroom though. I'd rather not have cold water poured on us halfway through again."

"I didn't mind." Thor used his hold to drag them both towards the bedroom. "When we're done I have much I want to talk about. Darcy has been finally informing me about everything Christmas. I know it isn't our holiday, but it seems Midgardians don't necessarily considered it religious."

"I haven't really paid attention." Loki lied.

"Well then I'll have to tell you!" He grinned, already starting to work the other's shirt off, leaving his own sweater for Loki as promised. "But after this."

"Joy." Loki muttered, busying himself with pulling his lover free of the horrible Muppet gone wrong. He could always conveniently fall asleep afterwards.

They made love as they always did: too hard, too heatedly like something would come between them at any moment. It left Loki boneless and smug, too pleased to do anything, but curl up against his lover with a soft sigh.

"How was your day?" He managed to ask, remembering vaguely that that was important.

"It was good." Thor chuckled, "Go to sleep, love."

"Mmmm." Loki drifted, wrapping himself around a pillow.

When he woke up later, he felt oddly groggy. He shook his head irritably, located a pair of pajama pants with 'Particle Physics Gives me a Hadron' written on the ass and shoved them on before stumbling into the kitchen. Thor was pouring over a cookbook with Darcy debating if they could use cinnamon instead of nutmeg in some cookies they were trying to make. "They are both the same color. I don't understand the difference."

Loki rubbed his eyes and slumped down at the table, opening the now congealing mystery special. "Nutmeg can give you hallucinations."

"...that wasn't what we were trying to figure out." Thor smacked Loki's hand and grabbed the cold food, putting down a plate of warm stuffing and a slightly burned piece of chicken.

"Ow." He sighed and picked at his plate. "What happened to the 'I'd never hit you again' promise? Are you reneging on that now?"

"That wasn't a hit, it was a smack." Thor clucked his tongue. "Stop sulking."

"I will sulk if I like." He sniffed haughtily, tearing careful strips of chicken from the better cooked sections with surgical precision.

"What is there to sulk about anyways?" Darcy asked as she caved and shook cinnamon into the bowl. Thor sat down across from Loki, watching him carefully.

"Nothing." He rubbed at his face. "I don't know. Something just feels wrong. Like someone rubbing all the hair on my arms the wrong way."

"A premonition?” Thor asked, brow furrowing.

"I doubt it. Finals. Send the chills down my spine. What are you making?"

"Nutmeg logs. Darcy said her mother used to make them. And I thought we should do something festive. Christmas sounds like something entirely fun...much like our winter festivals." Thor visibly bounced a little in his chair."I can't believe we didn't celebrate last year."

"Totally unbelievable." Loki chewed through a piece of chicken. "It is very similar isn't it? The Church adapted some local Teutonic rituals into the day at some point which would explain some of it, I think."

“So many people here celebrate it, without even really tying it to the Christ-man that is spoken of in it. Putting up trees...wreaths. I really like the idea." Thor grinned. "I asked Darcy if I could go cut a tree down and bring it back, but she said I wouldn't find the right types around here. But she did show me a tree in the store made of aluminum? It was shiny. I think we're going to get it for the place."

Loki carefully looked around their impossibly cramped apartment. "Perhaps a small one? To put in the window?"

“Are you excited for it then? Us getting each other gifts, celebrating?" Thor looked impossibly eager and Loki swallowed something bitter and cruel.

"We can." He shrugged loosely. "I'm not… I don't really have a holiday spirit about it."

"Why not?" Thor was staring at him, as if there was something fundamentally wrong with him, for not being excited.

Loki shrank back, picking over the rice with a sinking sensation of deja vu.

"Holidays. Not my thing. You know. Too much cheer, I suppose."

"Because it would be horrible for you to have some cheer in your life." Darcy chimed in. There was batter on her nose and steel in her eyes.

"I don't like being forced to be happy because of a calender day. I have things to do like try and pass an astrophysics final that weighs heavily in to my future.” The words came, sharp and angry before he could stop them. “ I'm sorry I don't feel like playing cultural pioneer. You do what you want, but I have to study."

"Fine." Thor stood up, grabbing his keys to the apartment and a light jacket, toeing on slip on shoes.

Rage welled up in Loki, but he forced himself to stay in one place to stare into the depths of ruined chicken and not scream obscenities. He was a mature adult. Digging his fingernails into his palm, he said lightly,

"We need milk if we're going out."

"I'm going out to buy some Christmas decorations." Thor slammed the door shut behind him, shaking the walls.

"Epic fail.” Darcy patted him on the shoulder before putting the cookies in the oven.

“You’re support as ever is deeply appreciated.” He rubbed his forehead. “What about you? You started all this with him, so you must be pleased about the holidays this year.”

“I’m going home.” She said thickly. When he looked up, she shrugged. “My sister wants me there.”

“Oh.” There went their holiday tradition of watching specials and drinking cheap beer. “When are you leaving?”

“Two days.”

“When will you be back?” And winced at the sudden whine in his voice.

“Before New Year’s, don’t worry. We can still get trashed together playing the Ryan Seacrest drinking game.” She set the timer. “I got to go get started packing, actually. If I don’t hear the alarm, turn that off? I don’t want to burn the apartment down.”

He scarped the food into the garbage, no longer the least bit hungry before heading for his desk and attempting to study, the words blurring on the page. He rested his head in his palms and tried not to think about the beautiful crystalline snow of Asgard in winter or his mother’s cool palm on his forehead. By the time Thor came home, there wasn’t any space in his head left to talk. He only offered his hand up in apology, sighing softly when Thor clasped his wrist and drew him in for a long embrace. They settled into uneasy sleep together.

Loki spent most of the next day reminding himself that fighting over a few strings of colored lights was ridiculous. He braced himself to return home at his most mature and loving. It helped that he was off work and only had to contend with school madness.

"Hello, dear." He called out as he shrugged off his coat.

A towering green tinsel monstrosity of a tree had been wedged into the corner behind the couch. It was a difficult thing to make subtle in the tiny living room, but Thor had clearly tried to make it as unobtrusive as possible. Even now he was still fiddling with it, turning only to give Loki a brief smile before fussing again with the fake branches.

"It’s.... uh...." He regarded the thing, trying to think of something positive to say. "It’s very bright."

"I got your favorite color" There was a slight hesitation in Thor's voice as if he was looking for approval. Surprised by the role reversal, Loki smiled and decided against pointing out that trees were naturally green.

"Thank you. It's very festive."

"I'm glad you think so." Thor finally released the thing and climbed back over the couch. He made no offer of his usual homecoming kiss.

“Look. I'll try, ok? But this… doesn't it make you think of..." Loki fumbled because what he wanted to say was that it made him painfully, annoyingly homesick. He didn't want to miss the terrible feast days or their father wrestling with them in the snow or his mother setting braids into his hair or any one of a thousand peaceful memories of their childhood. Because it had been taken from him and he’d coped by making a better life here. If he missed it than he’d failed. "It's just a hard season. Even the humans think so."

"It does." Thor wrapped an arm around Loki's waist "But I have you. In the end, that's more than enough for me."

"That's because you're a fool." Relieved at the offer of forgiveness, Loki closed the space between them and leaned up for his kiss. "But you're my fool, so I suppose I can't complain."

"I'm glad for it." Thor grinned, and pulled back from the kiss. "Oh! I bought something else, too."

"Did you?" He went willingly as Thor pulled him along imagining something that might take them back to the bedroom where they could discuss things in a manner that better suited them.

"Yes." He pointed to the doorway of their bedroom where some mistletoe now hung. "See? Now you have no choice but to kiss me."

The hair raising feeling Loki had had the day before stole back over him and he backed into the doorframe. He started to hyperventilate and sweat. Reality swam in and out of focus.

"Loki!" Thor tugged him away from the door, wrapping an arm around the waist.

The vision took him.

The great hall held dozens of tables, all empty and abandoned. Plates were piled with rotting food while heady mead dripped to the floor. He could hear his mother keening, a terrible unrelenting animal sound. Outside a great storm raged, unrelenting in it’s fury.

At his feet there lay a corpse of a young boy, all gangly limbs, dark hair and frozen accusing eyes as pale blue as frost. Slowly, Loki leaned down, placing gentle fingertips on the eyelids to draw them down. A sprig of mistletoe lay across the boys throat in a puddle of curdling blood. Shaking, Loki reached for it. The spines pierced his skin and he cried out, trying to drop it, but it clung to him, digging under his skin like a determined burrowing insect. A clamorous clap of thunder accompanied his yells of protest and shook the hall as if to take it apart.

“Monster!” His mother’s wails resolved into accusation. “Your own blood. What father are you that slaughters its own child?”

“I am no father.” He choked back tears. “I will never have children for I have seen the end of the world in their eyes.”

Outside the wind screamed out it's anger, battering at the doors.

“Balder is yours. Your flesh, your brother, your son, and you would murder him as casually as one of your tricks.” She stood just behind him now and her hand landed icy hot on his neck. “Death is too good for you.”

When he came to his face was wet with tears. "Fuck, fuck…just get it out of here, please."

"It's done already." Thor was holding Loki tightly, smoothing his hair back from his face

"It's never going to be over." He groaned, letting his forehead drop to Thor's shoulder. "Why can't it all just leave me alone? I gave up my children."

"Another vision?" Thor rubbed his back, and without much effort, picked Loki up moving towards the bed.

"I killed someone. A child. A brother." He shuddered. "Or something closer. It was the mistletoe. Malignant, horrid thing. It longed for blood."

"I don't..." Thor shook his head, squeezing Loki closer. "I'm sorry. It's my fault."

"It's not." He took the comfort greedily. "How were you to know?"

"If I had simply stopped trying to get you to be 'festive' this wouldn't have happened."

"I should honor your enthusiasms." Loki shook his head. "You wanted me to participate and I pushed you away. Sound familiar?"

"Yes. But I'm trying to take the blame for the vision." Thor sighed, pressing his lips against his head again, as if affection could protect them both. "We'll make sure it doesn't come true."

"Please explain to me how it's your fault that I'm apparently always one step away from murder?" He shook his head. "It's me. It has to be. Fate is surprisingly difficult to fight off."

"I'd kill the Norns to stop them."

"Yes, that sounds wise." Loki laughed weakly. "Please unmake the universe to spare me a few bad minutes, won't you?"

"I would for you."

"You would. Wouldn't you?" He bit his lip. "Why is that I'm cast the villain, but you're the one who would end worlds if put in the wrong situation?"

"I don't know." Thor guided Loki to the bed, tucking a warm blanket around them both without bothering to remove either of their shoes. "Perhaps because for good or ill, you drive me to it."

"Ah, so it's my fault for being so handsome." He attempted to joke, but it fell flat. "I just want to be a poor grad student, is that so much to ask?"

"No it isn't." Thor slid a hand under Loki's shirt, letting it rest against his chest to feel his heart. "I just want you happy."

"I am happy." He said miserably. "Most days."

"Just as I am."

"We're probably luckier then most then, right?" He dredged up a half-smile. "No use wallowing. Tell me what else you got for the holiday."

"Well, I'm trying to learn some of the carols. And I bought us big socks for the oven door...since it's the only thing we have that produces fire."

"Well that's very logical of you. Socks with candy in them. Traditions are truly bizarre no matter where you go." He remembered hunting for fruit and nuts in his bedroom during the solstice, hidden away by his parents.

"It simply sounds like a very strong night of drinking with the warriors three."

"That isn't simply anything. The four of you pissed out of your minds could probably reinvent St. Patrick's Day. Like monkeys doing Shakespeare."

"What can I say? We are brilliant." Thor smiled into Loki’s shoulder.

"In an insane modern artist sort of way, yeah." He ticked off on his fingers. "Tree. Stocking. Ill fated mistletoe. What are we missing?

"Presents. Are we going to talk more about this vision?"

"No." He frowned. "Presents. We haven't been great at that in the past. Actually, I can't remember us ever exchanging anything other than bodily fluids that went well."

"The runes did."

"They did." Loki reached, pressing his fingers to the delicate twine of wire. "Do wedding vows count as presents?"

"I think they do, yes." Thor laid a kiss on the soft skin of Loki’s neck. "Best gift I ever received."

"That ups the challenge, doesn't it?" He sighed. "How do I top giving everything I have?"

"You don't have to." Thor slowly started to work Loki's shirt off. "Who said each had to be better than the last?"

"Every one of the Christmas specials I watched with Darcy the first year I lived here while she cried and told me no one would ever love her like a Hallmark movie?"

"Well those are even too much for me. She tried to show me one with clay reindeer. I told her that in Asgard the reindeer are more likely to gore you with their antlers than to sing comically. " Thor rolled his eyes, taking his own shirt off, relaxing back on the sheets. "I just want you happy, Loki. It's all I ever want. I'd ask for the visions to stop, for fate to be kind, but neither are things to ask for, and expect to get."

"Yes, please do try to aim in a range of things I can actually afford and accomplish." He thought of his last paycheck. "Though I can do a little better than usual with all the overtime I’ve been putting in."

“I don't care." Thor sighed. "Truly, I don't."

"I know, I know, but I care. A little." He admitted. "It's nice. To be able to lavish things on you."

"You do. I have you." Thor grinned, kissing him slowly. "And that is better than anything anyone else has."

"See, there's a hallmark moment." Loki teased, kissing him back.

"Yes, I am a cliched blond hero." He rolled his eyes, but snuggled into Loki anyways.

"You are. I'll get you a white horse, you'll be all set. But I refuse to be one of the pathetic princesses. I want to kick some ass."

The next day went by in a rush of exams and it was only when he emerged that he remembered the conundrum of Thor’s gift. He took a bus out to the outlets which was a mistake and fled quickly in horror as the crowds surged around him like ceaselessly pounding river.

Thor wasn’t home when he got back which proved to be something of a relief. He wasn’t sure what to say to him right now that wouldn’t come out in a broken torrent of feeling and frankly, he was sick to death of confession at the moment. The light was on in Darcy’s bedroom and he drifted to her doorway with a half-formed idea of asking for advice.

“You decent?” He asked, even as he turned the knob. Boundaries had long ago become a thing of the past.

“No! Wait...shit.”

Her room generally had the air of joyful chaos where gauzy bits of mismatched fabric oozed off of every surface. Everything was covered with bottles, half burned down candles and costume jewelry. It smelled like the cucumber lotion she spread across her dried skin and faintly of sleeping sweat. A small suitcase stood at attention by the door, clearly ready for departure.

She was fully clothed, sitting cross legged on her bed and crying hard.

“Hey.” He sat down on the bed beside her. “What’s up?”

“Shut up.” She sniffled. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“I have no idea what it looks like, if that helps.”

“I don’t want to go to my parents, ok?” She rubbed fiercely at her cheeks with a tissue. “I mean, they’ll buy me something nice and probably expensive that I don’t have any use for and then it’ll start. ‘Why haven’t you finished college yet?’ ‘Why aren’t you seeing anyone?’ ‘Why can’t you get your life together?’ ‘Have you gained weight?’ It’s so...argh. I shouldn’t even be complaining about it. Jane’s got no one to go home to at all and you’ve been disowned, I should just be grateful right?”

“Just because Jane and I are pathetic doesn’t mean you can’t be too.” It struck him that while he was busy being a shitty husband, he’d managed to be a shitty friend too. She’d probably been stewing about this for weeks and he hadn’t noticed. “What about your sister?”

“It’ll be good to see her.” She sighed. “But then I have all this guilt about leaving her there and she makes me feel like I don’t care.”

“She can come stay with us after Christmas. I mean, she’s off from school right?”

“You want a sixteen year old under foot while we’re trying to party on New Years?” She scoffed, but a smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

“Why not? I always wanted to get charged with corrupting a minor.”

“Don’t break my sister.” She leaned into him and he obligingly put an arm around her shoulders. “She’s wanted to meet Thor for like ever anyway. She thinks he’s hot.”

“Fantastic.” He said dryly. “We can have a possessive marital blowout for Christmas.”

“Are you guys still mad at each other?”

“No. We’ll be fine. Just how we are sometimes.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Sorry that you have to bare witness.”

“Eh. At least I know that it’s because you love each other so much it borders on psychosis. My parents rip into each other as a hobby.” She blew her nose in a balled up tissue. “It’s not even home any more, you know? But I keep going back thinking that it’ll be different this time, you know?”

“Yes. All too well.” He dropped a kiss in her hair. “Wait here.”

There was a nicely wrapped present for her under Thor’s glistening horror of a tree and he left it there for their own post-Christmas exchange. Instead, he went into his room and rifled through his papers until he found what he was looking for. He’d meant to get a frame for the picture for ages and hang it in the living room, but never got around to it.

After explaining modern photography to Thor, Darcy had managed to find a digital camera simple enough for him to use. He’d spent the week photographing everything he’d seen until Loki had pried it from him to upload it all. Most of the photos had been blurry or taken at odd angles, but one had stood out. It had been a hot evening, so Darcy and Loki had done what they always did: stripped down to torn jean shorts and white tank tops, grabbed a box full of popsicles and camped out on the front stoop. The talked nonsense, sweating and laughing. Thor had caught them in the middle of some shared joke, beaming at each with wide smiles and blue stained lips. The photo, all softly lit from the porch light, smoothed away their differences and made them look a little like siblings. Their dark hair pulled away in long ponytails to reveal too many earrings, high foreheads and pale skin. Even their lips quirked at the same ironic angle.

“I thought you might like this.” He took the picture back into her room, passing it to her. “I kept meaning to frame it.”

“Oh, hey, I remember this.” She smiled down at the picture.

“I’ve been neglecting you.” He ventured.

“Maybe a little. That’s all right. You’re all honeymoonish and everything. It’s usually pretty cute.” She shrugged. “And you’re going to want your own place eventually, right? I should get used to it.”

“I hadn’t thought about it.” It wasn’t as if they could afford anywhere and the idea of not having her right there as his partner in crime settled uneasily with him. “Not right away.”

“But eventually.” She set the picture on her bedside table between her alarm clock and the lamp. “You’re pretty much the best friend I’ve ever had you know.”

“I think I can safely say the same.”

“Good. Because I need you to paint my toenails.” She swung her feet up in his lap and tossed him a bottle of sparkly red polish. “Before I get all sentimental and shit and start crying again. I can only do like once a year on the crying thing.”

He wound up driving her to the bus station where they hugged so hard that Loki was a little afraid he’d left bruises on her.

“Merry Christmas.” She muttered into his ear as they finally parted. “Try not to fuck it up.”

“Working on it. Merry Christmas, Darc.”

He watched her get on the bus, before heading back to the little Honda that had gone from hers to theirs over the years. It had carried them many miles and he knew he would be ludicrously sad the day the engine finally gave out.

The apartment was still empty when he returned. He went into the bedroom, hoping that Thor had only settled in for a nap, but the bed was conspicuously empty. There was a note folded on the pillow.

Frowning, he reached for it and found only a few brief lines:

I must turn my attention to Asgard for a day or two. I will return in time for Christmas. I love you.

The paper tore a little in his hands, startling him. He’d been clutching it hard enough to threaten the poor note’s life.

“Goddammit.” He set it down among other papers on his desk and rubbed at his face.

An hour and a few glasses of boxed wine later, he was hanging his head over the arm of the couch and facing some ugly truths. He rubbed at the tattoo on his arm and thought about loyalty, love and strength. He thought about the way his heart still stuttered when Thor smiled at him. He thought about approval in all it’s treacherous forms and what it meant to grow and be tested. He thought about the sweet sour taste of the wine crawling down his throat and the soft honey tones of mead.

In the morning, he woke crusty eyed and nauseous still on the couch. Conviction apparently tasted like day old mold, he decided then levered himself up to brush his teeth and shower. It didn’t take him long to assemble the gift he’d settled on. Thrusting it under the tree, he took himself outside and away from the temptation of taking it back. There was a frantic rush of people on the street doing their last minute errands. Hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders bent, he disappeared among them and spent the day in the loudest silence he could remember.

He stayed out late, hungry and tired, but unwilling to return to the empty apartment or seek out other company. Eventually, he came to rest at the ash tree behind the building, leaning on it’s solid trunk to watch the stars. Drowsing there, he imagined himself walking in the dark space between along the branches of a greater tree.

When the sun rose high enough to blot out the last of the night’s peace, he made his way upstairs to burrow under the covers and let oblivion take him. A warm weight settled alongside him sometime in the afternoon. He didn’t rouse enough to speak, only draped himself over the familiar body and sighed softly in contentment.

“It’s midnight.” Thor whispered when Loki finally agreed to wake, slitting his eyes open reluctantly. “Does that count as Christmas?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Loki kissed him, once on the lips and once on the forehead. “Merry Christmas then.”

“Merry Christmas.” Thor grinned and Loki’s heart obligingly skipped. “Come, I want to open my gifts.”

Thor bounced from the bed, but he had learned and nimbly caught Loki before the rickety frame turned him onto the floor. Giggling, they leaned on each other as they went out into the living room. The sight of the tiny box that he’d diligently wrapped in silver paper twisted at Loki’s stomach and his laughter ceased.

“Open mine first.” He pressed a hand to his face. “I’m...please.”

“All right.” Thor looked concerned, but plucked up the little present and tore through the paper then flipped open the black velvet box. “A piece of paper?”

“Yes, I got you a piece of paper.” Loki said blandly, trying not to hyperventilate. “Read it.”

“Right...” Thor unfolded the tiny square. He read the fours words etched there, eyes widening. “Loki...”

I will go back. Each letter formed with a sure and steady hand.

“I want to get my degree first.” He said quickly. “So we can’t go until after this semester. I don’t intend on living there full time. I want to maintain the life I’ve built here. And you’ll need to be constantly with me until I can regain my magic. Otherwise, it’s a bit like begging for an assassination attempt.”

“Loki-”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll even stay longer than a day or manage not to make a lot of people very angry, but-”

“Loki!” Thor put a hand over his mouth. “Thank you. It is more than...it is very good. And you won’t have to worry about being killed. I know how to get your magic back.”

“Since when?” He asked, muffled into Thor’s palm.

“Since yesterday. I would hardly withhold such information from you.” Thor leaned down and plucked a thick package from under the tree. It was wrapped not in paper, but the traditional white cloth of Asgard. Even before Loki raised his hands to accept it, the familiar smell of rough dyes, clove and apples told him more than he could believe.

“Mother.” He whispered.

“I have other gifts for you, but this...this is from her. To us.”

“Us?” Unable to help himself, he pressed his nose to the white linen. As crisp as the day the memory was formed, he could picture himself pulled into her lap. Listening to her heart beat in time with the shuttle of her loom.

“Open it and you will understand.” Thor was smiling so broadly now that it looked a little painful. Carefully, Loki pulled the cloth away.

The tapestry was neatly folded. He swallowed hard, a vague suspicion already rising as he shook it free. Yggrdassil unfolded before him in a thousand colored threads. A hum of magic skittered over his skin warm and welcoming though not his own. This was a woman’s magic, the songs woven along with wool and cotton.

“This is for a marriage.” His eyes prickled with heat. “Do you know how many years she worked on this? I can remember it as a babe and it wasn’t finished when last I saw her at the loom.”

“It is for our marriage, love.” Thor ran a finger over a delicate branch. “She told me that she cannot accept you back as her son, her word on that was binding, but she would call you son-in-law with more pride than any other mother could summon. She misses you and she holds your magic for you.”

To Loki’s great and everlasting shame, he started to shake with terrible racking sobs. Never could he remember falling apart so completely. He’d shed tears occasionally, over Thor’s arrival on Midgard and his own exile, but nothing so completely wrenching. Thor embraced him and he clung back, the tapestry caught between them.

When the last of the seemingly bottomless well of sorrow and relief had emptied, they lay tangled together on the couch. Loki seized Thor’s wrist, pulling his arm close to lay a kiss where their runes joined under his skin.

“Remember what you promised me.” He said gravely, throat torn to shreds from the outpouring. “That if I...”

“I remember.” Thor’s strong fingers encircled his wrist. “But you should have faith in yourself, my love. You are not what you once were.”

“But I do not know what I will become.”

Thor looked troubled, but made no denials.

“I’m sorry. I’m not very good at the whole joyful yuletide thing.” Loki blew his nose and tried on a dry laugh. “I’m the Grinch.”

“You are suspiciously fond of green.” Thor teased. “But I do not think that your heart is three times too small.”

“Shows what you know.” He reached out to draw the tapestry around them, running his fingers over the fine stitching. “She wants me back, truly?”

“Truly.” Thor kissed his forehead. “She carries much regret.”

“Must be a family trait.” He lifted the fabric to his nose again. “How do you want to spend the rest of Christmas then?”

“Like this.” Thor pulled him impossibly closer. “Just like this.”

Outside, it began, very softly, to rain.