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Under normal circumstances, when a blond muscular seventeen year old rushes into a hospital with a raven haired teen in his biceps, you should definitely panic.

But then again, the hospital was actually Asgard's resident healing facility and the surfer looking blonde and his tiny black headed companion were actually the friends since childhood gods Thor and Loki. The sheer lack of panic was quite disturbing.

Anyway, back to Asgard.

Thor threw open the doors to the infirmary where his mother Frigga was tending to a very pale looking Asgardian noble. Frigga looked up from stitching the man's arm, her fingers bloody from the Asgardian's wound. A look of sheer horror crossed her weary face as she took in the state of her son and his best friend.

If not for Loki's ghostly white skin and skinny frame or Thor's crazed expression of pure terror, the pair would have been slightly comical.

Frigga regained her composure, though only slightly. "What happened?" she asked, wasting to time in washing her hands and taking the god of mischief from Thor. He was so light and he wore a half-lidded expression that suggested rest and contentment, except for the blood that trickled from a wound in his forehead and out of his lower lip. It looked like roses under a blanket of snow. Frigga found pain almost beautiful, like a violent storm that gives way to a breathtaking rainbow. Perhaps that was why she had offered to take the job of nurse. Frigga loved to see pain work in its own mysterious ways.

Thor let his mother lift his best friend out of his arms and did not reply to her question. Despite being a god of thunder and bravery, despite having won so many battles and fought so many foes, despite being perceived as the strongest, the alpha, the firm foundation, despite all of this, he felt incredibly and undeniably weak. It was as if all his resolve had been stripped away along with Loki. His best friend really was something else, and Thor had known there would be none like him ever since they'd met at age five. They had spent almost every waking moment together, laughing and playing and sharing secrets like they were real brothers. Loki had come to mean everything to him, which was why they started to drift apart.

Thor didn't mean to do any of it, it all sort of just happened, like a flash of lightning. "Lightning," he grimaced, his stomach clenching, "Don't remind me." It had all started that day when Thor discovered the true power he possessed, commanding lightning. It wasn't that he didn't know about his gifts. He just wasn't aware of their raw strength.

The memory burned through his self-made barricades and lit his whole consciousness with the flames of guilt. Thor and Loki had been practicing hand to hand combat, just the usual quick defeat by the sheer might of the Odinson and his hammer, or the crafty battle strategy carefully planned by Laufeyson......

Thor was determined to win that day, long blond hair rippling in the cool wind, brandishing his hammer like it was a sword. "Are you ready to go down in a glorious defeat?" he challenged his friend from a few feet away. Odin had built this open roofed training deck just for the two of them.

Loki rolled his green snake like eyes at his friend's foolishness. Honestly!  Did he think of their battles as sport? Still, the Laufeyson knew these little training sessions together had been requested by Thor for many years. Loki had to admire the blonde prince's effort. He tried to put on a nonchalant look, but Thor could see right through it. Eventually, the frost giant had to smile. "Whatever his majesty pleases." he winked.

This caught the Odinson off guard, so much, in fact, that Mjolnir had slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a metallic ring. He blushed profusely, his face now the color of his scarlet cape. "I-I-I..." he stammered. Loki had been doing a lot of this lately. The flirting, followed by the purely lustful glances. Thor didn't know how to feel. Happy, aroused, scared? Maybe all of them at once? He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. What in Odin's name were these new desires and urges?

Loki stepped closer and closer, making his way towards his friend like a cat stalking its prey. Thor tried to back away, but his body told him "No!" His friend eventually got so close that he had to look away from those bright, calculating, and entrancing eyes. They seemed to be entities of their own, separate from Loki's body and mind. They haunted him during the day and riddled his dreams at night. The Laufeyson was now so close that they could have touched noses.

"A little blood won't hurt him," Loki thought, using one hand to reach behind him and grasp his dagger. His other hand, however, reached to Thor's waist and pulled him closer with surprising strength. He had to maintain the lie.

The Odinson gasped as his friend tugged him nearer. What the devil was Loki thinking?!? The god of thunder didn't know what he was thinking, or how to control himself. The Laufeyson's hand was warm against his back causing his face to flush even more. He tried to gather his wits and form a sentence, but he couldn't even muster a complete thought. Why couldn't Loki just hit him like a man? Or rather, why couldn't Thor put an end to the endless sparks that crackled in his brain like fireworks?

Loki gazed into his friends eyes. So bright, so innocent, and so, so blue. They were the blue of an ocean, a wide and vast expanse that seemed to go on forever. Except when the prince of Asgard was angry. Then, those once-unassuming eyes turned wild and vengeful, like the same sea had been overcome with a savage thunderstorm. Loki had never seen this merciless rage, but he knew it existed. He knew it bubbled just under the surface of the hot headed Odinson. Sometimes he longed just to fix his eyes on those blue ones, to just stare vacantly into them forever.

Loki bit his lip, banishing the emotion. He could not afford to feel anything for his friend, not even the slightest centimeter of his heart could be reckless. Even their friendship felt unreal to him now, after years of carefully calculating and manipulating Thor. He knew he would regret it, even though his father Laufey congratulated him every day and promised his son great rewards for slowly winning the Asgardians heart. Loki knew with every fiber of his being that he would live to regret it.

The Odinson wanted to look away. He wanted to push Loki far, far away, so far that he would never be near him again. But, one part of him was so overcome with pleasure that he had to continue. He had to continue, though he did not know where it would lead him. Thor wanted....he pursed his lips. What did he want, really? Just as he was trying to figure out what exactly he was supposed to do besides awkwardly breath into his friend's face, Loki kissed him.

The kiss itself lasted only a couple seconds, but the Odinson felt like it lasted for a lifetime. How to describe it? Amazing, heart-stopping, beautiful, and wonderful all in one. Loki's lips tasted soft and fresh, sort of like a meadow after rain. The Odinson wanted to feel more, wanted to experience everything Loki had to offer. The kiss stretched out for eternity, the Laufeyson experimentally pushing his tongue past Thor's lips every once in a while. The reaction was always the same. His blue eyes widened and Loki had to ease him back into the all over again. This routine went around and around in circles until it happened.

It, the it in question, was awful. It wasn't the fact that Thor pushed his own best friend away. It wasn't even the look Loki saw on his blond prince's face when he realized what had happened. It was the lethal events that followed.

The Odinson was in a daze as the phenomenon transpired, in a state between watching it all play out and not being able to lift a finger. All he remembered where five different words.

Push. Skin against skin. Human contact. An completely controlled action fueled by fear.

Crack. Thor hadn't meant to, but alas, it had happened. He felt the lightning in his veins race to his fingertips and jump into the air before he had time to say, Watch out!

Snap. More specifically, the snap of his lover's neck as he flew backwards with alarming speed. The Laufeyson's knives were scattered in various directions as he made his way, slowly but surely, towards the concrete. Thor hated the look of surprise and the unjust betrayal when Loki's green eyes bored into him.

Silence. The silence and void of absolutely nothing. The feelings of confusion and pain mixed together. It was terrible, but it was not lengthy.

Then, and this was the part Thor wished he didn't remember as accurately, the final word.

Screams.

The Odinson could hear them, hear the screams of his horror as he cradled his brother in his arms and grieved at his handiwork. The screams of unbelief as he cried over and over again, "Loki! Loki, please let this be a trick! Please...please wake up."

A part of him died that day.

The rest was a blur of all the words and somehow he ended up here. In the infirmary with his mother and broken best friend.

"Thor!" Frigga snapped, yanking Thor back into the real world. Though, when she saw his wispy, empty, depressed blue eyes staring in a way no man should ever look, she softened her tone. "What happened?"

The Odinson did not answer, yet again. He just stared blankly at his own hands, like he wished they weren't attached to his body. Like he couldn't believe they were capable of doing such a malevolent deed. He did this. He did this. "I did this." he whispered.

Frigga turned to where she had laid Loki, assessing his wounds. She did not say anything for a long time, working diligently over her sons former playmate. The minutes turned into hours. Eventually, Thor had to sit on an empty bed, his palms digging into his eyelids as if pressing in harder would form some sort of invisible link between his mind and his magic. As if pain was the answer, the gap to fix the burned bridge. Sometimes Thor thought of pain as an escape. It seemed to run in the family.

Frigga finally washed the blood off her hands and turned to her son. "Thor, you need to rest." He looked better than he felt, but not in a good way. He hurt immensely and indescribably. He never knew the power of pain, but he had a taste of what it could make people do.

"No." he said shakily. "I..." Thor cast his eyes on the floor in front of him. He would never forgive himself. Maybe, if Loki awoke, he wouldn't remember anything. Maybe he would be ever ignorant to the monster the blond boy had become. "Maybe he'll forget me altogether. That would be better than the alternative."  Thor refused to think about the possibility of Loki remembering. If the prince of Jotunheim recalled even a sliver of the former events, the Odinson didn't know what he'd do. Die, maybe. Just slip away into the murky, dark, depressed waters of morosity that seemed so very attractive at the moment.

Odin's wife put a hand on her son's shoulder. "My son. Rest." she gestured with her other hand to Loki. When she saw that he was about to protest, silenced him with her next words. "He wouldn't want you to worry."

"Wouldn't he? After all, it was I who did this. It's all my fault." Thor thought dejectedly. But, his mother had a point. What use was he half-awake if something went wrong? He needed to rest. He nodded and stood. "All right."

Frigga's eyes saddened when she saw him glance back at his friend just before he left the room. "My son?"

The god of thunder tried to twist his droopy face into a grin of reassurance, but all he could muster was a sad, weary smile. "Yes, mother?"

She hesitated. She didn't know if what she was about to say would help him or hurt him. Her powers of prophecy were limited, but her powers of observation did not lie. Just how much could she afford to reveal? "Just...." the queen of Asgard bit her lip. This was her last chance. If she did not say something, and quickly, she would never get another opportunity. Frigga tried to dig a little deeper into the future, to chisel just a tiny bit more off of her foresight. She got a bit more than she wanted. But, she had been trained to recover quickly. She let go of her now bloody lip and smiled warmly, as if she hadn't just foreseen a very important drop in a timeline. "Just...try to get some sleep, okay?" Thor's smile dropped even further. She could tell he was just barely holding himself upright. It was a kind effort, though, and much appreciated. 

 "Okay." Thor heard himself say before he knew the words had left his mouth. He walked back to his chambers in a cloud of mist. As he lay in bed, he did anything but sleep. Instead, most of his time was spent staring at his ceiling.

He could sleep. He could do that one simple task, couldn't he? Just for her? And if not for his mother, for Loki? Just remembering Loki's name made him glance, just once more, at his friend's unconscious figure. One of his pale hands fell off the side of the bed, so dainty and frail. He longed to rush back into the room and take up the skinny hand and hold it forever. "There's one thing that I know I want." Thor almost smiled. Once again, pain had given him clarity. Pain had taught him a lesson.

He had a feeling this would not be the first, nor last, time that this would happen.