A/N: Suddenly getting urges to write sad Loki fics, and I'm loving it.
Disclaimer: If he was mine...but he's not.
In the end, he can't remember when he's lying and when he is not. It frightens him.
He builds the lies again, carefully, cleverly, setting broken edge against broken edge, hiding the cracks and the fissures and the weaknesses.
She's not his mother, he tells himself. They're not his family.
He's not a son, or a brother. He's an enemy. (And he wants to be).
The irony is deep, that for once he and Odin are in agreement.
But Thor and Frigga won't give in. Thor, because he is too thickheaded, perhaps, and Frigga—
Loki does not know. He has done everything he can to push them away, and she won't leave him.
(Knowing that is all that ever lets him rest).
But he is Loki, no longer of Asgard but of all realms and none, and the glorious purpose is a burden now, heavy on his shoulders. On his heart.
If he is to rule over them (someday, in some faint unlikely dream that he tells himself is not impossible), then they must have no power over him.
Not Odin. Not Thor. Not Frigga.
So he smiles and says, "You might want to take the stairs to the left."
Because he doesn't care.
Not at all.