This songfic uses the lyrics from Just a Thought by Gnarls Barkley. I do not own them. I suggest you listen to the song before reading this piece, as it will give it more meaning.

All I want is your understanding

As in the small act of affection

"Why is this my life?"

Is almost everybody's question

Years spent in the shadows. In Thor's shadow.

Years, decades, centuries, wishing, hoping, begging to be noticed.

It built within him with every passing comment, every look, every smallest gesture. It built within him to a fever-pitch, but no one saw because no one ever looked.

And I've tried

Everything but suicide

But it's crossed my mind

Nothing worked.

Nothing ever worked.

Even when he was tearing, ripping, bursting at the seams, bleeding into nothing, bleeding into blue - "the casket isn't the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?" - and Thor was gone - just as he'd hoped, hadn't he hoped? - and the Allfather frail in golden fog -

- and then he was just fighting, fighting the world because the world was a cruel, sick joke and happiness was a lie and fairytales never came true -

- one desperate, last act, but even that wasn't enough, even that couldn't suffice,

and he fell, finally he fell.

I prefer peace

Wouldn't have to have one worldly possession

But essentially I'm an animal

So just what do I do with all the aggression?

He knew anger, then.

Anger that curled and smoked and burned in your veins, and blazed its way down to a cold, icy, ruthless malice.

He froze others with him.

He dragged them into the void.

He broke the chains but really, really all he was doing was tangling them into a web, a trap, a cage that could never be broken - did he really think it would help, did he really think that would keep the darkness away? - because nothing really helps, nothing ever does, and in the end it all fails and you're on your own, and your grandeur is dying with your pride, and you're still shattered and broken and splintered, and how long before nothing even matters?

Well I've tried

Everything but suicide

But it's crossed my mind

He was a monster

a weak, pathetic mess

and he always had been

and he always would be

and everything made bitter, bitter sense now

and still, still he was only Asgard's mistake

Thor's little brother who had never been anything but trouble

who had never been anything but a shadow

Life is a one-way street, and if you could paint it

I'd draw myself going in the right direction

So I go all the way - like I really really know -

But the truth is I'm only guessin'

Oh, they had offered him greatness. They had offered him a throne. And like a fool he had played straight into it, too hurting too broken to see his mistake. Lifted on lies spun of blue thread, soaring on grand visions like wings, power-drunk and high on the attention of the masses.

He told himself he believed.

He ignored his own lie but it was always there, below the surface -

- "you lack conviction" -

- and he'd be damned if any mortal was going to see through it.

And I've tried

Everything but suicide

Ooh but it's crossed my mind

Just a thought

If he'd had a choice, at the end, would he have done it?

Would he have stood at the tip of the tower, wind whistling past him, cool on his face, his shattered army on the streets below?

Would he have leaned forward, tipped, and fell, one more, final time?

He doesn't think so. Even then he clung to the shreds of his glorious future.

Does he wish he had?

It's even dark in the daytime

It's not just good - it's great depression

In the beginning, he had still thought it was possible. He had still thought he might one day succeed.

Those dreams had shattered with everything else.

When I was lost I even found myself

Looking in the gun's direction

Now they pay attention

Now they see

But they don't see, not really

and he can't let them.

And so I've tried

because if they do

Everything but suicide

they can shatter him so thoroughly

But yes - it's crossed my mind

that he will never, ever recover.

But I'm fine