Written to Ships in the Night - Mat Kearny, crosspost from AO3.
And remember, if any of you are having suicidal thoughts or feelings, please feel free to contact your counselors at school or any of the national suicide helplines/chatrooms, like I'm .
Loki didn't want to kill himself, not really. He kind of just wanted to go to sleep, for a very, very long time. Or maybe step out into the middle of a busy intersection, that way it would be over quickly.
He could see the cars, brilliant streaks of yellow and red lights, rolling all around him in sparks of colour, and above all that, the soft pastel blue of the sky, maybe brushed with fat clouds, maybe all grey with impending rain. He liked the rain, it tasted like he felt these days, all washed out and breathless.
Maybe after he came home from class. He wanted to tell his economics TA goodbye one last time, lie to him casually that he'd see him next week, thinking about how there was an overabundance of himself and not enough demand for it so he would have to cut back. Supply and demand, you know how it is, don't you, Thor?
But of course he wouldn't say that. He wondered if he'd even be able to look him in the eye, smile, and wave.
As he walked to class, the conversations and colours around him came to him as if through a heavy mist, and he looked around at the other students' happiness and wondered why it had decided to check out for him against his consent.
It was overwhelming. Everything. Less than ideal grades, loneliness, worrying about what would happen after university if he couldn't get a job, and it was all rushing and piling up in the corners of his mind and sticking in his lungs and he couldn't find the room to breathe.
And he was tired of tears running down his collar as he turned away from his roommate in their apartment and told him in a monotone that "Everything was fine." And he was sick of the man that stood in the shadows of the living room and looked at him with huge eyes and whispered things that he didn't understand.
Not that he understood much these days.
His economics TA smiled at him as he entered the room, and Loki felt the corners of his mouth twitch up involuntarily as he gave a shy little half-wave. Thor was always so cheerful and always seemed to have his life so well organised and put together: a Ph.D student with an associate professorship on the way, a fiancee, a nice little flat to live in for the time being if he could be believed.
Loki watched him as he stood up one minute past the hour, brushed his hands on his jeans, and picked up a stick of chalk. His booming voice echoed through the room as he went over opportunity costs, marginal costs and benefits, comparative and absolute advantages. The students in the seats all around Loki were furiously scribbling down notes for the upcoming midterm exam, or texting their friends with secret little smiles on their faces, but Loki kept his notebook firmly shut and continued to stare listlessly at the board. Graphs and diagrams and tables appeared and disappeared before him, and all too soon, the discussion was over and it was time to go home.
Loki dawdled packing up his things, letting the other students go ahead of him; he didn't really want to go home, he didn't really want to kill himself, just maybe go to sleep for a very, very long time, or at least until all of this was over and he was in control again.
He wasn't quite sure how he was going to do it; maybe the razors he kept for shaving, maybe the bottle of sleeping pills he had in the medicine cabinet for when the nights stretched long and looming before him, the cars in the intersection idea seemed somewhat poetic but would cause far too much trouble for other people to clean up and deal with and there would probably be court trials as well and he didn't want other people to think it was their fault or anything.
"Loki," Thor's voice, quieter now that everyone was gone, reached him through his thoughts. "Are you feeling alright?" His TA walked over to him, sat down in the seat next to him.
And Loki felt tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, and he wanted to lie, wanted desperately to say, "Oh, it's alright, I'm alright, everything is fine," but Thor's gaze was piercing through his skin and he could see everything, Loki was sure of it.
He didn't respond, trying to squash the tears that didn't seem to want to flow back down. Thor waited patiently beside him, and when Loki finally did start crying, in soft little gasping sobs, he sighed and placed a firm but gentle hand on Loki's shoulder.
"Listen, Loki," he said quietly, "I've seen you come to this discussion every week, I know you're a brilliant kid what with the way you do on the midterms and the way you can answer questions and talk about the material. Now, I won't claim to know what you're going through, because I don't, but let me just tell you something about economics you've probably never heard before."
Loki looked up at him, still furiously trying to wipe away his tears.
Thor patted his shoulder comfortingly. "You know how, at the very beginning of this class, I stood up front, right there, and told all of you that every decision has risks and benefits?" Loki nodded. "You know, opportunity costs and what not, what you'll be giving up as a result of that decision."
He handed Loki a tissue from his pocket, and Loki took it gratefully, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose.
"Well, that was a bit of a lie," Thor continued. "The decision to keep trying, the decision to try to be happy and go on, that is the only decision that has no opportunity cost at all. There is no next best alternative. You won't be giving anything up by trying to be happy. It is quite possibly the best decision anyone can make as an economist."
Loki looked at him unsurely, hiccupping quietly.
"You're an absolutely brilliant student, Loki. I know it. So," Thor stood up and went back to the front of the classroom to pack his messenger bag, "this week, instead of the assigned problems, why don't you do that for me? Think about and apply the economics of happiness. Alright? Here, let's walk out together."
At the corner of the street, where Thor turns left to the parking structure for his car and Loki turns right towards his apartment, Thor lays a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"I fully expect to see you next week, alright?" he said, smiling gently.
Loki looks up as the setting sun sets Thor's hair on fire in a blaze of gold, at the twinkle of his blue eyes behind his glasses, and he nods.
"Next week," he promises.
And he goes home, looks at his shaving razors and the pills, and puts them away.