Brotherhood - Loki & Thor ♡

45. the water's getting colder

Thor could never forget that time when he and Loki were little, and Loki nearly drowned in a river. But that was thousand of years ago. Surely, Loki must have learned how to swim by now, or so Thor assumed, since the subject was never something they brought up for a discussion.

///

They were merely two children playing under the sun in the flower field. Thor remembered; they were pretending in a silly game of their own - Thor being a Frost Giant and Loki an Aesir (or, at that time, with none of them aware of Loki's real parentage, it was just Thor who was pretending) Thor chasing little Loki around trying to look scary, promising he would eat his younger brother alive, if he caught him. While Loki was giggling, challenging Thor to catch him if he could. It all happened so fast; Thor saw Loki climb up a tree, in the blink of an eye he was high above the ground and Thor wasn't fast enough to warn him the branch wasn't strong enough to take his weight. It snapped. Thor could do nothing but watch in horror as Loki fell into the cold, furious river and disappeared under the deep dark water.

He never surfaced.

And Thor never stopped blaming himself.

Thor woke with a start. Chest heaved and forehead covered in thick layers of sweat. He ran a hand down his face. Thor wasn't a child anymore. Loki, too, would have been an adult, if that day didn't happen. If Thor had been a better brother. But Loki was gone. Dead. Drowned. Eaten alive by the hungry river and no matter how hard Thor grieved, he couldn't bring his brother back.

Except Loki was standing there in the dark, hidden in the shadow. As he took his steps forward, Thor saw a pale face not of a little boy Loki was when he died but of a grown up man Loki would've become, should've become.

"Loki?" The word left Thor's mouth reflectively Thor had only known he had said it aloud when the sound of it seemed to echo endlessly in the silence of the room. He pushed himself up on his elbows, but was afraid to get up from the bed or to make any more move. The blanket fell from his chest to his waist, and he never felt so exposed. Loki just stood there, his expression blank. And this was wrong. So wrong. Loki wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be at peace in Valhalla. Why - why was he here?

Before Thor could ask (and Thor had a lot to ask, he just didn't know how to speak - the ability of mustering words something he suddenly lost) he saw water dripping from Loki's body - soaking him, down to the floor where he stood, creating a pool around his feet. And then Loki screamed. No, he did not scream because there was no sound leaving his wide-apart lips. What came out of his mouth was water, black water pouring down and Thor never saw something so terrifying.

Next thing Thor knew his ears were hurt from the loud cry piercing through his every atom, and it took him this long to realize the crying wasn't Loki's but his own.

Everything ended. Just like that, like it never happened (it wasn't real) when a pillow was thrown at Thor's face. Thor jerked himself awake, still screaming - only to stop when reality kicked in and he was relieved to learn it was just another nightmare, a very bad one, but Thor had those a lot in his life of late.

The room wasn't dark. Sunlight filtered through the gap between the curtains creating a pleasant glowing beam across Thor's bed. There were birds chirping outside. At the doorway, Thor turned to look at the doorway where the pillow came from, there Loki stood in his pajamas with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked annoyed, but Thor still saw a hint of concern in his eyes. Loki, alive and well, and definitely wasn't a ghost like in Thor's dream, because what really happened that day was slightly different from the nightmare Thor had just had - in the nightmare, Loki never surfaced. Though in reality - Loki did fall into the river, Frigga was thankfully there and she saved him, snatched him from the brink of death just before the tides could carry him out of reach and before the currents could pull him under. And that was how Loki survived. He could've died. Would've died, if their mother weren't there. Thor remembered getting scolded at, but he was just glad Loki was okay. Loki had a bad cold back then, from how cold the water was, but he was okay.