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Horseback riding was never Loki’s favorite past time, especially when his brother is a hundred times better at it than him. Its humiliating enough that he would often be the one to fall to the ground during practices with the Allfather. So, it’s not a stretch that Loki felt quite irritated when his brother-whom barged into his room, invited him to go to the stables so that they can ride horses for fun.
“No” Loki spoke, his nose stuck in a book, too unbothered to look at the invasion that had just occurred in his room.
“Come on!”
“Nope.”
“Well why not? What could you possibly be doing that you won’t spend time with your brother!”
Loki, with his head not leaving the pages of his book then added “… I’m reading a very important book”
Thor stares at the book cover as quickly as Loki hides it with his hand. “A book about cats?”
“… yes.”
“Come on… are you telling me cats are more important to you than me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then Play with me!!!”
Loki rolled his eyes to his brothers pleading but before he could reply, he felt Thor’s embrace crushing his tiny form, as his burly big brother hugs the living daylight out of his slender frame. “Thor! I need… to Breath!”
With no trouble at all, Thor picks Loki up from the couch where the green-eyed boy nestled the whole morning.
An invasion… this is an invasion
“pleaasseee”
“no”
“pleaaasssssseeeeeeee”
“no”
“pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”
The whining was too much for Loki that he hadn’t even realized that he had agreed to do the one thing he absolutely hates. “Yes!” Thor exclaimed.
“But after this, you’ll have to do something for me.”
“Alrightt! Anything.”
The young mischief god couldn’t help but smirk as the ideas pile up into his mind. But before he could say anything. His golden retriever of a brother was already dragging him to the stables.
“You can tell me later, right now! We ride!”
…
Well, it could have been worse. At least he didn’t fall down the horse while trying to get on top of it. But it doesn’t change the fact that he still fell off the horse. The horse was running quickly and Loki just couldn’t handle the speed. He lost balance and stumbled to the ground. *humiliating* he thought. Luckily, it was just the two of them who saw the fall.
Norns… why do horses hate me… it’s like I did them a grave wrong in my past life…
“Brother!” Thor rushed to Loki’s side, as he expertly separated himself from the horse.
*Show off…* “I’m… fine… It’s just a bruise”
“Your injured! We need to get a healer!”
“NO!”
…
Thor was left a bit startled by this before replying “Why?”
“Because…” Loki stares at Thor as if trying to explain without saying anything else, Loki would rather jump of the rainbow bridge than talk about his insecurities to his brother that seems so perfect to him.
Thor sits on the ground in front of his brother as he assed the wound on Loki’s leg. It was a massive scrape, but thanks to Loki’s pants-that took most the damage-Loki only received scrapes. A massive one, but it could have been worse.
Loki hissed as Thor touched it. “Hey, that hurts, Thor”
“…”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes, maybe…”
“that’s good enough. Let’s go to my room.”
…
The walk to Thor’s room was filled with silence for both the reason that the two needed to sneak on the way to Thor’s room to making sure no one sees Loki’s current state. As well as Loki not wanting to talk about why he would rather do all this than just head to the healers. Thor may be irritating at times but he’d throw everything away if his brother needed him.
…
“Stay here Loki. I’ll get bandages for you.”
“Do you have any books here?”
“Um… I think the one about sword fighting that mother gave us is in the cabinet… wait…”
Thor then opened the left cabinet in his room, then another, then another, only to find the book was in a drawer full of random things. “Ah! Here it is! Just where I left it! Haha!”
“Clean your room brother-or at least organize it.”
“I shall tell the servants! Here! Catch!”
At Loki’s dismay, Thor throw the book, which absolutely broke Loki’s heart as he gently caught the book with his seidir. “Don’t throw books, brother!”
“Ah- sorry, will not happen again!”
…
30 minutes of waiting passed as Loki reads the book that deserved better care than just being stuffed in a random drawer by a burly child with no ability to organize.
“I’m keeping you” Loki whispers to the battered book just as Thor enters the room with his hands holding a basket of bandages and ointments.
“Why are you talking to a book?”
“I… I wasn’t” Loki placed the book down, his face turning a shade of pink from embarrassment.
“Ookayyy….”
“Let’s get you all fixed up now then”
Loki sits at the edge of the bed whilst Thor was on the floor with his bandages. He takes a scissor and cuts Loki’s pants all the way to the tight to get better access of the wound. He then takes a bottle of water and washes the injury.
“Thanks...”
“What for? This is nothing.”
“Still…”
“Shush now dear brother, if I hadn’t forced you to go riding, this wouldn’t have happened. Plus, that horse seemed to hate you.” Thor adds. As he dabbed a dry towel on the clean injury.
“Don’t you feel irritated that you have to do this because of my lack of skills?” Loki interrupted Thor once again.
“…”
“Loki.”
“Yes?”
Thor stopped drying the injury to look at Loki, with a stoic and confident expression. As he played the semi-dry towel on the bed. “I'm older than you, I had more practice. I’ve been practicing horseback riding for 4 years now, and you only just started a year ago. Of course, I'm better than you…”
“I- “
“I'm not done Loki; you don’t need to compare yourself to me… I used to be just as bad at horse riding as you are and I shouldn’t have made you ride a fast horse like that when you don’t have a lot of experience!”
“You understand me, brother?” Thor asked with a reassuring voice.
‘’…” Yes… thank you brother... no way in hel, Loki would say that out loud but his reddened cheeks can’t hide his embarrassment.
“I can’t hear you”
“I get it! Enough sap... this is too much-”
Thor let out a hearty laugh as he sees his brother’s reaction. Before grabbing the towel again to dry the rest of Loki’s cleaned injury. “Ohh brother, must you be allergic to affection?”
“Oh, shut your mouth…”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“What If I don’t?”
Loki grinned, “Remember when I said you’ll have to do something for me after you’ve had your fun?”
THE END