In every work of fiction Loki had ever read, the characters had felt hot and sweaty when under pressure. It had always struck him as odd; one of those phrases you don't understand as a child and ignore as an adult. And then he'd found out how different he was and it'd clicked, and then he'd learned what sweat and heat really were when Thanos had stuffed the fire warmth down his throat.
Now he is cold, blood turned to winter slush, sticky dark red rust in his mouth, and they are going to kill him.
They.
Not Thanos, thank Valhalla, not Thanos. Not Thanos. Thor.
He wants to be angry like he was when his eyes were blue, but he can't because they're green now, they're green and the tesseract is out of his bloodied head and all he is is petrified.
It has been a long long long long day and the trial is even longer; all of Asgard has shown up (or there is enough hate in the room for it to feel that way). It's a trial before execution; there is a black hood with a sword in the shadow behind Odin, and Loki has so much trouble looking away and he keeps wondering if they'll go for his neck or his heart and whether he deserves it.
(He does.)
(And that's obvious.)
(But will it hurt oh I know it hurts to have that go through you)
He holds his neck high as they list his crimes, and he can remember the anger, feel the shell of the fury empty husked inside him when they say how he stabbed -
The acid in his muscles settles, the acid that the Blue had churned - always there but boiled by the cube (it touches everyone differently).
Thor's there and, cruel, the crown price has got to make the verdict in the end. His hands rest on his hammer, thick with tendons and muscle and well practiced in holding on tight to a sane brother. The crazy version hasn't felt the touch as often, because a hobby of insanity is pushing away what it needs. Red cape over armoured arms, Thor's the picture of a king-to-be except for the indecision in his eyes.
It's obvious what it's going to be, though, because Thor is noble enough to lift where Loki could only stare and seethe, and the good of Asgard is at stake and father -
Loki swallows past the rock in his throat. Father is watching, Thor's father, and even though Loki's been the imagination of the family since the beginning, he can't picture a son wanting to disappoint his father.
Instead of looking at paternal disappointment, Loki's eyes go back to the sword and the black hood behind the royal family on the platform in front of him.
"Do you have any defence for yourself, Laufeyson?" Someone (Odin, it's Odin calling him by another father's name, a father he killed so that dad look at me look here over here and it's getting ignored Odin Odin Odin) says.
Well there's always the truth. Loki heard that that was a good defence, once.
"You did this to me," he says, then shuts his mouth. A rumble (Asgardian warriors don't murmur) earthquakes through the hall, and Loki looks at Thor with sea glass eyes. Sea glass: guilty, sharp, willing to draw blood, but not blue.
"Is that all?"
Don't kill me. Don't kill me. Don't kill me, brother. Don't kill me.
"Then, Thor, your verdict is awaited."
Don't kill me.
Thor stands, walks down, comes close enough to see Loki's skin covered in goosebumps - anxious and Frost-Giant-cold.
It wouldn't take much to say it, low, low and fast, trying not to choke on panic. I don't - I don't want to die, Thor, I don't want to die. But he's a coward (or maybe he's dauntless) and he doesn't speak.
"Innocent or guilty?"
The brothers stare each other down.
"Innocent," Thor says, and the hall explodes with sound.
Loki's heart bursts into action, speeding far too fast. He sucks in joy, noticing every detail of the room, things he will be able to see, unbelievably, for more than a few minutes, for the rest of a lifetime, forever.
And then his eyes, turning over the whole room, catch a glance of Odin. The All-Father is wearing an all-too-recognizable look, recalled from that other time Loki was hanging on for dear life and his father let him go.
"Don't be a fool, Thor," Loki says, voice shallow from a lack of oxygen. Harsh as fire. "I admit to everything and you let me go, when I'm prepared to do more, to kill again? Reckless, sentimental, like you've always been. Asgard needs a better king. Take responsibility for once in your life. You were there when I killed your comrade, laid your precious earth to its knees, and you're going to untie me? You're going to untie me?"
Odin stands.
The flickering seconds before he speaks are suddenly quiet, dizzy and electric like the air before a thunderstorm.
"He has admitted his guilt," he says.
"He's your son," Frigga says, also standing, and as Thor starts arguing something, the hall explodes with shouting again.
It's Loki's brother and mother against the ocean tide of a king and a country. And a prisoner who doesn't want to be set free because he doesn't want to see his brother feel the same sting of rejection he's lived with.
Guess which side wins.
Down on his knees in the shadow of the sharp silver sword, Thor breathing fast and deep behind him, Loki has a crazy urge to apologize. But he's been crazy for a very long time. He could have picked his own side, because Odin's real disappointment is a much lighter thing than the burden he'd crushed himself underneath for years, and Thor didn't need to be spared it. Not in exchange for a life.
But maybe he is brave and maybe there's gold underneath the blackleaf.
Or maybe he isn't, there isn't.
How do we know?
He can't tell us.
He's dead.