It’s on the tip of his tongue to insist that he’ll be fine, despite everyone in the room knowing better than to believe that Thor can overcome blood loss through sheer stubbornness, but what keeps him from saying it anyway is the knowledge that he may need to be fit for battle at a moment’s notice, and having been thoroughly beaten once, the last thing he wants is to weaken himself because he’s too proud to admit to needing help. So instead, he lets out a near-silent sigh, and nods once. “I will. I’m a little tired, but that’s all.”
Granted, he has spent much of the last week in bed, though not all of it had been very restful. He’s not sure whether to blame it on the nightmares, the guilt and the stress, or the simple need for physical recovery from everything he put himself through the day the universe was torn in half. It doesn’t matter, in the end. Either it will go away with rest, or it won’t.
Strange as it is to have Loki being so patient, so gentle, Thor would not trade it for anything else. He has never been one to be patient with being treated as a fragile thing, something liable to break if handled wrong, but now that he has been pushed so close to the edge, it is a lifeline he badly needs. This is not his Loki, but it is his brother, and that matters, still. And for all their petty childhood squabbles over the centuries, the last week has thrown it all into stark perspective. “I just... just want you to be happy. Whatever shape it takes.”
One of them ought to be. Thor’s hope for himself is small, smothered under the weight of all that has happened, but still there. Still burning, if faintly.
It seems there’s no avoiding treading on painful ground, no matter which way he turns, drawn back again and again like a gravitational pull. Everything that Thor can think of to speak about only reminds him more of what he’s lost, and he doesn’t know whether to keep trying to avoid its orbit, or to embrace it as inevitable. He decides to delay that even further, glancing in the healer’s direction again, just a little. “How’s it coming?” It’s probably only been minutes, but flat on his back like this, it feels like a lifetime already.
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Granted, he has spent much of the last week in bed, though not all of it had been very restful. He’s not sure whether to blame it on the nightmares, the guilt and the stress, or the simple need for physical recovery from everything he put himself through the day the universe was torn in half. It doesn’t matter, in the end. Either it will go away with rest, or it won’t.
Strange as it is to have Loki being so patient, so gentle, Thor would not trade it for anything else. He has never been one to be patient with being treated as a fragile thing, something liable to break if handled wrong, but now that he has been pushed so close to the edge, it is a lifeline he badly needs. This is not his Loki, but it is his brother, and that matters, still. And for all their petty childhood squabbles over the centuries, the last week has thrown it all into stark perspective. “I just... just want you to be happy. Whatever shape it takes.”
One of them ought to be. Thor’s hope for himself is small, smothered under the weight of all that has happened, but still there. Still burning, if faintly.
It seems there’s no avoiding treading on painful ground, no matter which way he turns, drawn back again and again like a gravitational pull. Everything that Thor can think of to speak about only reminds him more of what he’s lost, and he doesn’t know whether to keep trying to avoid its orbit, or to embrace it as inevitable. He decides to delay that even further, glancing in the healer’s direction again, just a little. “How’s it coming?” It’s probably only been minutes, but flat on his back like this, it feels like a lifetime already.