in_a_peartree | snickfic's Tree

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in_a_peartree

This is the Tree for

snickfic! Below are the requested Pears it can be decorated with (beginning 24 December).

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snickfic
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Snickfic

Request 1: Ficlet, MCU gen, about any combo of Thor, Loki, Valkyrie, Bruce, and Heimdall aboard the Asgardian refugee ship. Maybe there's a holiday involved? Or hurt/comfort?

Request 2: Any kind of shippy sketch or drawing (kissing, cuddling, earnest eye contact, porn?) for any of the following MCU ships: Thor/Heimdall, Valkyrie/Loki, Heimdall/Loki, Heimdall/Valkyrie, Loki/Stephen Strange, Gamora/Heimdall, Bucky/Shuri, Minn-Erva/Maria Rambeau.

Request 3: List of 2-5 of your favorite rock songs and what you like about them. Spotify or Youtube links a bonus!

Request 4: Recs for horror novels from the past ~15 years. I especially love body horror, cosmic horror, horror with lots of atmosphere, and horror featuring female characters; would prefer no stories focused on sexual violence.

Request 5: Mpreg ficlet for any of the following MCU ships: Thor/Heimdall, Valkyrie/Loki, Heimdall/Loki, Heimdall/Valkyrie, Carol/Yon-Rogg, Bucky/Shuri.

Additional Information: Please no Infinity War/Endgame-related content.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sholio

"What is this?" Brunnhilde asked, brushing past a dangling curtain of sparkling ... ice? Beads? And then she got a good look at the Statesman's main hall and fell silent in shock.

The Statesman's main hall was probably meant to be a cargo bay, but the Asgardian refugees, with their fondness for communal feasting and socializing, had taken it over and turned it into their primary community space. Most of the traditional trappings of an Asgardian feast hall were impossible here (no roaring fires, no roasted beasts served on platters the size of tabletops); even tables were difficult to come by. But they'd done their best, outfitting it with makeshift furniture and with mats for wrestling, spaces for gameplay, couches for sitting and listening to stories.

But there was always an industrial quality to the place that nothing could quite cover up. The towering metal walls were the walls of a starship cargo bay; there was really no getting around that.

It had never looked like this before.

A cool breeze blew in her face, scented with pine. Around her, snow-covered hills rolled under a winter sky. There were pine trees, and her people around bonfires, playing in the snow, sitting on snow-crusted logs and sipping mugs of mead. It was the sort of traditional winter scene depicted in a hundred wall paintings, the sort of thing she'd experienced only rarely, even in her youth, at the remotest mountain lodges ... It was a fantasy Yule, the Yule of nostalgia and stage-plays and paintings.

She had a moment's dazed doubt of her own senses, as if she'd somehow lost touch with their closely confined reality and dreamed herself onto a planet, outdoors. She had to touch the doorframe to bring herself down to the ground. There were those same metal walls, hidden as they were by sophisticated illusions. It might be a hologram, but a hologram couldn't have brought the fresh, sharp scent of pine and snow.

"Did you forget it was Yule?" Heimdall murmured, coming up at her shoulder.

"No, I -- well -- perhaps," she retorted, confusing sharpening her tongue. It was hard to keep track of the days here; one was very like another. "But what -- no, wait."

Because of course there was one thing this could be, one thing it had to be. She looked around for the silver-tongued trickster, and found him, of course -- not with the revelers, but at the edge of the trees, in the snow ... the illusory snow.

"Whose idea was this?" Brunnhilde asked quietly. She found Thor (also quite unsurprisingly) in the heart of a knot of his people by one of the fires, belting out Yule songs.

"You will have to ask those two, but you may not get an answer," Heimdall said. And then, to her complete shock, he picked her up and spun her around, as illusory snow drifted down and speckled her hair.

And Loki looked up and smiled, as snow drifted down, covering everything gently.

*

"You should not exhaust yourself, brother."

"Exhausted?" Loki had been sitting on what appeared to be a log, though it was actually a chair; now he rolled to his feet. This was a mistake; though he thought he covered quite well, there was a ringing in his ears and the deck seemed to become unstable for a moment.

"Yes," Thor said, catching him gently by the arm. "I'm sure you know the meaning of the word."

"Mere child's play." In truth, setting up the illusion had been the most draining part; keeping it going was more a matter of concentration, in the way of reading a difficult book. It had been an interesting challenge at first, had quickly grown boring, and now it was giving him a headache.

He'd been entertaining himself for the last little while by inserting incongruous elements: a tree that seemed to grow vines, reaching for the unwary person standing beside it; a troll lurking among the pine trees. For the most part his embellishments had gone unnoticed and had made his headache worse. Ingrates.

"It's a good thing you've done here this day, brother." Thor put an arm around him. Loki decided for the sake of Yule harmony to let him (and also because Thor was warm, and Loki was now discovering he was quite cold).

"I was bored," he said with affected nonchalance.

"Mmm. Yes." Thor was smiling, a light dancing in his one eye. "Well, you've given them a lovely day, a much-needed break from the tedium of shipboard life -- and now you should end it before you collapse."

"I am not going to collapse," Loki muttered. Standing up had, however, been a mistake, and there was the sudden sense of the illusion slipping sideways, sliding out of his grasp -- and suddenly there were only the bare walls again, and the fires (those at least were real) flicking in their metal barrels while the ship's ventilation system whisked the smoke away.

There were some startled and dismayed cries.

And then, one by one, they began to turn, looking Loki and Thor's way. With Thor's stupidly huge arm around him, offering both support and confinement at once, Loki really had nowhere to go (though hiding behind Thor was always a valid option, come to think of it). He braced himself and tried to decide if he had the strength at the moment to teleport away, because he was all too familiar with this particular stage of the end of an illusion, when the payment for the lies came due and a wise silver-tongued liar was two star systems away already ...

And then they began to clap.

Loki just stood there, too confused to move for a moment. And then habit reasserted itself. Right! Adulation it was, then! As was his due for an excellent performance, after all. He bowed, and almost overbalanced, and Thor caught him.

"As you can see, my people," Thor declared, "my brother is deeply wearied, and must rest. A good Yule to all of us!"

"I am not 'wearied,'" Loki muttered, annoyed, as Thor steered him out of the hall. "They were applauding me! I deeply resent -- oh no -- Thor, do not --" It was too late; Thor had already picked him up, bridal-carry-style, as he had occasionally done when Loki was a small boy and had fallen asleep reading a book. It had been undignified then; it was doubly so now. "Thor, if you do not put me down --"

Out of pure annoyance, he managed to portal himself back to his room (closet-sized, with the lack of space on the Statesman; it was next door to Thor's). Even more annoyingly, he accidentally brought Thor with him. Thor deposited him unceremoniously onto his bed.

"It was a very good thing you did this day, brother," Thor murmured, kneeling to pull a blanket over him. "Will you be well?"

"Yes yes, I only need to sleep, do go away."

Thor went, surprisingly, but was back moments later with a tray of sliced fruit, dried meats, and a carafe of water. "I recall when you wore yourself out like this, you always needed food afterward --"

"Yes, fine," Loki mumbled through a mouthful of blanket. "Leave now. Goodbye."

Thor patted him on the shoulder, and left him alone. Apparently for good this time.

Alone, he could finally succumb to the exhaustion -- though it was not a painful weariness, but the good kind of tired, as of long, difficult exertion. It had been some time since he'd exercised his magic like this.

He fell asleep thinking of snow.

From:

snickfic

This is so lovely. :') The moment where Loki thinks everyone's about to be mad at him, because that is his habitual expectation of what happens when his tricks are over, BROKE ME. See, look what happens when you use your powers for good! And then the entire thought process of him flipping to be like, ah yes, I expected this - that was great. :D

But also I just love winter and snow (and have none right now unless I'm willing to drive a couple of hours), so Loki's choice of illusions was especially appealing to me. And then Thor knows how to take care of his brother! He carries him to his quarters and feeds him! This all makes me really happy, thank you. <333

From:

sholio

Thank you; I'm so very happy you enjoyed it, and especially happy that the snow/winter motif turned out to be a good one. <3

From:

schneefink

This is lovely!

Loki just stood there, too confused to move for a moment. And then habit reasserted itself. Right! Adulation it was, then!
Heh!

And I also love Thor remembering how to take care of Loki when he gets like this.