★☆★ ANNIHILATION! ANNIHILATION! ★☆★

Loki awoke to Thor’s large figure lingering in the open doorway.

He was dreaming about something— a blue tiger with the wings of a bird chasing him through the enchanted forests of Alfheim, if he recalled correctly.

With a low groan, he stretched his legs out underneath the covers, resisting the urge to shiver from the chill that was working its way down his spine.

“Yes, Thor?” he said, trying to ignore how feeble his voice sounded.

“You’re sick, aren’t you?” Thor said, leaning casually against the doorframe and crossing his arms.

Loki made a low noise in his throat. “An acute observation,” he said. “But yes, it would seem so.”

Loki ignored him and continued further across the ice. The blanket of snow upon the lake had grown thin where he stood, and he could see the surface of its frozen water, frosted but still clear enough to see through to the murky depths below.

“Why the delay, brother?” Loki said, his voice echoing across the ice. “You are the one who wants to kill this beast.”

“I want to do it with you,” Thor said, holding his ground. “Loki, not everything is—“

“Shut up,” Loki interrupted sharply.

Thor scrunched his face, taken aback. “I’m trying to talk to you and you’re making it very difficult—“

“Thor, seriously, be quiet,” Loki hissed.

Thor’s jaw clamped shut with a click of his teeth. He stared at Loki with his hands splayed out in bewilderment, brows knitted tightly together. What is it? he wanted to say. What did you hear?

He didn’t have to ponder for very long before he heard it too. It started off quiet enough, then grew louder as it echoed across the vast expanse of the frozen lake. Thor realized what it was immediately; the unmistakable sound of ice cracking.

Summary:

Link to Fic: “Don’t Listen to a Word I Say”

Mobius trailed a hand downward, to where Loki’s dress shirt tucked into his pants. He gripped the fabric there and pulled it out, sliding his hand up below the newly freed shirt, across the warm skin of Loki’s ribs.

He stopped, however, when Loki flinched away with a sharp hiss, a clear look of pain lacing his features. Mobius scrunched his brow and studied him, cheeks flushed and eyes tight, skittering away when he tried to meet them.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Mobius said, his voice soft.

“It’s nothing,” Loki said breathily, leaning back in to resume the kiss.

Mobius hummed in protest, but Loki was steely and tenaciously stubborn, as always. Experimentally, he poked Loki firmly in the same spot on his ribs.

Loki jerked back with a hitched breath, his face spasming in pain. “You did that on purpose,” he whined.

Summary:

Link to Fic: “Take Only What You Need From Me”

The pain slammed into him all at once with the force of a speeding train, sending a fiery bolt of agony through his midsection and up his spine. His breath seized in his lungs and he choked on it, making an odd sort of strangled gasping noise.

“Shit, I did not mean to do that,” Sylvie said, taking a step towards him.

“That’s… unfortunate,” Timely said, cowering in the far corner of the carriage, at the opposite end of the door.

Loki squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe evenly through the pain. “It’s— it’s okay,” he said, his voice shaking.

It was an error and nothing more. She didn’t mean to stab him, but gods did it hurt nonetheless.

“Are you gonna be alright?” Sylvie said warily.

Nodding, Loki stepped backwards and leaned heavily against the cool glass next to the sliding door. He swallowed thickly and clenched his jaw so hard he quite nearly expected his teeth to crack.

Summary:

Link to Fic: “Either Way, I’ll Disappear”

The bleeding slowed to a trickle, not ideal, but it was good enough.

“Who are you?”

Loki spun around to face Casey, who was backed up against a desk, Tempad in hand.

Not you too, Loki thought, horrified.

“Casey—“

Loki didn’t make it far before, without warning, the world he knew upended violently in a single nauseating stretch and took him with it. It was over before he even realized what was happening, sending him reeling and shaking from the agony of being destroyed and then reformed once again, as if some child’s malleable plaything.

Thinking quickly, Thor knocked Loki to the ground with a firm kick to the knee and snatched the scepter out of his hand. He pointed the weapon at Loki, pressing the tip of it to his chest, barely catching his brother’s stricken face before feeling the magic consume him.

He heard a foreign voice in his own head ask him what he wished for.

He gave it his answer.

Release my brother from the dominion of whosoever may control him.

When Thor’s vision cleared, Loki was scrambling to his feet, horror plastered on his face, shortly succeeded by rage. Thor dropped the scepter, which clattered noisily to the floor.

“What did you do?” Loki said. “Thor, you imbecile, what did you do?”