Unlikely Allies

Chapter 8

"Are you alright?" Thor asks, glancing at his brother warily.

"Mm." Loki forces a nod. He's alright. He's alright, and he'll continue to be alright until they find someplace to settle down for some rest.

Thor doesn't seem to buy it. "You're limping."

"I'm fine," he says. It can't be too much further. Shelter can only be so far away. His knee will make it until then.

"You're not fine; you're limping," Thor says. He nods toward the upcoming hill. "We can take a break up there."

"Thor, I am fine," Loki insists.

"Let's take a break," Thor says. "I think we could both use one."

Well, if Thor wants to take a break, that's different. He agrees this time, and when they reach the top of this hill, they both take a seat. Loki plops rather gracelessly onto the ground, stretching his leg out in front of him. His knee had begun to get used to the constant walking around. Now that there's no pressure on it, the pain is growing worse, which feels rather counterintuitive to him. Hopefully that won't last too long.

"What hurts?" Thor asks.

Loki shakes his head. "I'm alright."

"Something must hurt," Thor remarks. "What is it?"

Loki sighs. "That Variant I helped the Time Variance Authority catch hurt my knee," he says. "But it's alright. It's not bad."

Thor cocks an eyebrow. "You let the other you beat you?"

"It was more complicated than that," Loki says defensively. He could have killed her if he'd been facing the real her, but he wasn't going to gain anything from hurting Jane.

"Did he fight the same way you do?" Thor asks. "Were you mirroring each other's movements? How does that work?"

Loki lies down, his head resting back so he can see behind them. "We were two very different people," he says, "and our fighting styles reflected it."

"But you were both Lokis," Thor says, confused. "Shouldn't he be almost exactly like you?"

"Not quite," Loki says vaguely. He doesn't want to get into that right now. He just... He wants to do nothing. That's what he wants. He hasn't had the opportunity to do nothing in a very long time, and right now, that is what he wants to do: nothing.

It grows quiet after that. Loki finds his eyes drifting closed, and it doesn't take long for him to stop trying to fight it. He's not going to fall asleep, of course. He's just going to rest his eyes for a short while; that's all. Thor probably needs the rest more than he does; he assumes he'll take the first watch once they do finally settle down somewhere. But until then, he is going to rest his eyes and his knee for a short while.

Needless to say, he falls asleep.

He has an awful dream. He's back in the TVA, running and running and running through the halls, searching so desperately for Jane when she's nowhere to be found. He's determined to find her. He's convinced he will. But he doesn't.

It's a bit of a relief when Thor wakes him up. After sleeping in chairs for so long, it was nice to get some real sleep, but that dream was stressful, to say the least – not to mention a painful reminder of the friend he's lost. But he had hope in his dream that he'd find her again. He wishes he could say the same now.

Loki sits up slowly and rubs his eyes. "I'm sorry," he mumbles groggily. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

Thor doesn't seem the least bit bothered by that. "Loki, look!" he whispers eagerly, hitting his arm over and over to get his attention.