Nobody ever got a good look at what came after their ship. Korg on the bridge said there wasn't anything to see, that it was like a creature made of black holes, sucking all the light into itself. Korg tended to have a bard's grasp of the truth, so Heimdall couldn't have said how accurate this particular description was. It didn't really matter. The thing wrapped itself around the hull, and Thor and Valkyrie went out to fight it. Valkyrie wore a suit, but Thor swore it'd just get in his way if he wore one, so he went out in what remained of his Asgardian battle armor, practically naked.
They killed the creature in the end, though whether it was Valkyrie's guns or Thor's lightning, no one could say. Valkyrie came back with her suit in shreds, barely hanging onto her.
Thor came back nearly dead.
The creature had torn through to the bone in many places. Most of Thor's blood had been siphoned off into by space by the time Valkyrie dragged him back inside. Every breath was a wet sound, ragged, as though it tore something in him. Valkyrie laid him flat on the floor. He took one last breath and was still.
“Oh don’t you fucking dare,” Valkyrie said, eyes burning as though she intended to beat him alive again.
The airlock door slid open behind Heimdall and Loki stormed through, alight with that sizzle of power that was always a little bit wrong, nauseating to be near. “Brother,” Loki said, choked, barely audible. He fell to Thor’s side, clutching at him and letting go just as quickly, his hands soaked in blood. The airlock thrummed with power, dangerously, a live wire. Loki would tear the ship apart in grief and never even notice.
As soon as the thick smell of spilled Asgardian blood had first reached Heimdall, he’d known what would happen, and what he would have to do about it. “Let’s get him to my quarters. I’ll see to him.”
Loki spun on Heimdall, eyes a brilliant, sickening green. “You’ll see to him?” he hissed.
“Do you want your brother back?” Heimdall asked. Loki stopped short. He looked sharply into Heimdall’s eyes, and after a beat he stepped back. “To my quarters,” Heimdall repeated, and this time no one interfered as Valkyrie heaved Thor into her arms and carried him out of the airlock. Heimdall and Loki followed.
At Heimdall’s door, Loki said, “If you harm him—”
“He’s dead, Loki. What more damage could I do?” The words fell on Loki like blows, and Heimdall regretted his bluntness. He rested a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Don’t grieve yet.” Then he went into his quarters and closed the door in Loki’s face.
Valkyrie was busy arranging Thor on Heimdall’s bunk—facedown, though Heimdall hadn’t told her to do so. “Are you sure about this?” she said, turning to face him square on.
“Have you seen it done before?” Heimdall asked. He was not yet accustomed to how old she was, how much she knew.
Valkyrie shook her head. “Before my time. It was a favorite general of Odin’s, they said. Fell in battle. Revived fine, I guess. Went on fighting for a lot more years. By the time he died a second time, maybe Odin wasn’t so interested anymore.”
“And the general? How did he feel about the—the ritual?”
She gave Heimdall a long look. “He liked it better than being dead.”
She waved the door shut behind her. Finally Heimdall was alone with the corpse of his king. Thor had always been a man of action, impatient, finding stillness a burden. Even as a youth pretending at adulthood in his father's court, Thor had fidgeted endlessly.
He didn't fidget anymore.
“A hero,” Heimdall said into the empty room. He’d criticized Thor for it more than once, in earlier days. Asgard needs a steady hand, a strategic mind, not a glory hound. But that had given Odin too much credit and Thor too little. Heimdall had had his fill of royal scheming since then.
He shook himself. He had days to do the deed, if he wanted them, but Thor’s body would only grow colder. Heimdall let himself look at Thor for the first time, really look at him, take in his gaping wounds and torn skin wet with blood, now soaking into Heimdall’s bedclothes. Abruptly Heimdall turned to the door. Valkyrie was on the other side of it, her eyebrows high at his sudden appearance. “Water,” he said. “A cloth for washing. Bandages.”
By the time she returned, most of the wounds were only seeping gently. Heimdall soon gave up trying to remove Thor’s armor the usual way and instead cut through the straps with his own sword. When the armor was gone, Heimdall began to clean the wounds. There were so many of them. Heimdall wasn’t sure how many would remain in an hour; the annals were unclear on that point.
It didn’t matter. Heimdall needed this, if Thor did not. In silence he washed his king, and then he treated each wound with salve and bandages.
Finally there was nothing left to be done for Thor that he could not do far better for himself, soon enough. Heimdall could continue to stall, or he could do what he’d brought Thor here for.
He unbuckled his belt and laid it aside—he wore it even here. Old habits died hard. He untied his pants, unwrapped his shirt, loosed the buckles on his boots and stepped out of them. Piece by piece he laid these things aside, the trappings of his position, his loyalty, until he was bare. His skin prickled in the room’s gentle air currents as he looked down at Thor, lying supine and still.
Carefully Heimdall turned Thor over on his stomach again. He spread Thor’s lifeless legs and knelt above him. He looked down at himself, soft and lax, and heaved a sigh to the ceiling, to the vast reach of stars beyond. The vise grip of grief threatened to squeeze terrible, hysterical laughter out of him at this: Thor’s life and Asgard’s future depended on Heimdall’s ability to get it up.
He stood up on his knees, took himself in hand, and closed his eyes. His first thought was for Ilsa, the dark-skinned palace guard so good with a sword, with her hands. But Ilsa was long since dead under Hela’s onslaught, and it felt disrespectful to think of her now. He stroked himself with his thumb and let his thoughts wander to others, warriors and courtiers alike, long-time companions and one-time mistakes like Fandral.
But the image that finally settled in his mind was not one he’d ever seen, but one he’d seen: Thor at the palace baths, some quiet night when no one else had seen fit to bathe. His long hair had been tied back, and he sat on the bath’s edge, his feet hanging in the water while he played idly with his cock.
It was one of a thousand such scenes Heimdall had looked in on before looking away again—tens of thousands, even. Asgard kept no secrets from him. Yet it wedged firmly in his mind now: the moisture of the baths glistening on Thor’s skin, the heat flushing his skin, his shoulders slumped in comfortable repose. He’d gripped himself loosely, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth as he lingered on some fond memory.
Heimdall lingered on his own memory now. He let the bath fill his senses, its wet heat, the glow of the torches.
It felt right, to coax his cock with this image as surely as with his hand. Eventually he let his thoughts move on to other memories: Thor and a shieldmaiden enjoying each other after a battle, still filthy with field grime and dried blood, almost feral in their passion. Thor still quite young, boasting clumsily of his sword work to a man only a little older and infinitely worldlier, who eventually took Thor to bed anyway.
Heimdall fixed on all these glimpses of Thor, vibrant and full of life, until his cock was hot and hard in his hand. He opened his eyes to the sterile walls of his cabin, to Thor lying so very still on the bed, some of his bandages beginning to darken with blood. Heimdall positioned himself again, awkwardly. The angle wasn’t good. It seemed appropriate somehow. There must be a cost to this, if only a strained soreness in his thighs.
He pressed the head of his cock to Thor’s hole. Working himself in was much different like this, with no one to push back against him. Inside, Thor was still warm. His lax (dead) muscles shuddered like jelly with Heimdall’s thrust. Heimdall centered himself above Thor and began again.
With the next thrust, Heimdall saw Thor standing on a balcony, overlooking his shining capital city. With the next, Thor in the midst of battle, the muscles straining in his neck, sword swinging. Even as the cooling body of Heimdall’s king dragged on his cock, old memories of the sight appeared before him until he was barely aware of his own movement, mechanical, driven on now by something more than duty or necessity. He was consumed by the sight, as he’d learned to avoid millennia ago. He was the sight.
He came to himself suddenly, as rudely as if he’d been dunked in ice water. His cock was soft and spent, though he didn’t remember reaching the point of release. His heart pounded.
Beneath him, Thor groaned. Heimdall shifted backward, pulling out. His cock looked incongruously ordinary, after all this. But his cock had only been the conduit.
Thor groaned again. He said something, muffled by the pillow. He shifted weakly against the pallet. Heimdall took him by the shoulder and gently rolled him over onto his back. Thor squinted up at Heimdall, muzzy-eyed. He was pale from blood loss—he was still losing more as blood seeped out from under the bandage around his chest. His recovery would be one slow and painful, rather than instant, like Heimdall had half-hoped.
Then again, Heimdall would have mistrusted that miracle even more than this one.
“Heimdall,” Thor said, as though he had rocks in his throat.
“Sire.”
Thor made to sit up, grimaced, and relaxed back onto the bedclothes again. From there he surveyed, bare as a babe, with none of its innocence. “Something’s happened,” he said finally. “You never call me that.” He paused. Thought was clearly painful. He’d need a great deal of rest. He surveyed Heimdall up and down, utterly bare and starting to goosepimple. “Are you all right?”
The vibrant memories of Thor in battle, in bed were fading now, into a sea of similar unseen sights. Heimdall didn’t need them anymore; Thor was right here, his chest moving with each shallow breath. “I will be.”
Thor smiled gently. Weakly he lifted a hand. There was nothing for Heimdall to do but take it. “Good.”
“You should rest.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Thor agreed. “You’ll be here when I wake up?”
“Always,” Heimdall said.
Thor nodded and closed his eyes. Heimdall should put some clothes on, let Loki in before he blew the ship apart, eat something. The ferocious grief was ebbing in him, leaving him shaky. He had many things to do. Instead he took a blanket from the wall and gathered it around himself, and he sat on the edge of the bed, within reach, if Thor should wake again.
Heimdall had watched Thor all his life. Now, he would keep watch a while longer.
[end]