Disclaimer: I don't own Thor.
It had taken him a long time to give up, to give in. Exactly how long it had been was impossible to tell. It felt like it had been years, although it could have just as easily have been days. But however long it had been, Loki had spent in pain. His lungs grasping for air and continually finding nothing. Only because his magic and sophisticated genetics was he surviving at all, but to survive meant pain. He had lasted as long as he could, hoping that eventually the pain would either stop or he would die. Which he supposed then the pain would stop as well. He had let go intending to die after all so he wasn't afraid of it.
But he wasn't dying. The pain was not ebbing, just staying there, driving at his mind and his skin, lungs and every part of his being. His every nerve endings screaming in pain. He tried to resist, he really did. But the pain one day was too much. There was only one way to protect himself from the pain. Loki had tried his normal magic but he couldn't sustain any spell long enough to help him for more than a few minutes at any time. There was only one resource left. Loki gasped again in pain. Too much pain! Too much pain! It would never stop! It would stay forever unless he did something about it!
Loki swallowed as he was not particularly fond of the alternate either, but he couldn't last much longer. Not like this. This was the only way he knew to protect himself. What if in doing so he ceased to be himself? He didn't have a choice. He wasn't dying and he couldn't live like this. It was too painful, too harsh, too much.
Loki focused on himself even as his breath shuddered with pain. It was dark magic he was invoking, forbidden magic. Loki had only read about it before. It was dangerous, and the results were unpredictable. The pain however was his only alternative. The pain that made him feel like there were a thousands tiny knives always stabbing at every part of his body. Before the fall he thought himself brave. Thought he could stand any amount of pain, but perhaps his bravery had dissolved, either with the pain or even before when he realized that he would never be able to make his father proud. Either way this was his only way to escape the pain... no matter what it turned him into. A monster. A faint voice in the back of his head said. Maybe he said Probably the voice said.
Loki mumbled the words of a spell he had read a couple of times before. He knew the spell because he had been curious and the book had been difficult to get to in the first place since he was not supposed to read it. He was sure those were the right words though especially when the pain started to fade. In it's place a different sensation started.
He felt darkness surrounding him. Not the ever present darkness of the void but a different kind of darkness. Somehow darker than the void. It was dark magic and it was coming to him, he had summoned it. It touched his skin lightly and Loki couldn't help but flinch at the darkness. He had called this to him. Perhaps he should have stayed with the pain. Of course it was easier to think so now that the pain was gone, than to think like that when the pain had still been there.
The darkness seeped into the exposed skin of his face and hands and Loki gasped at the feeling. It was so strange the darkness. It was so dark, cold, threatening...but powerful. It was going to destroy him, he thought with panic. What had he done to himself? Why had he done this? The darkness seeped deeper and deeper threaded its way through his veins until it closed into its target and bleed into his soul. The darkness flowed inside of him encompassing everything in its path until it had bleed into his whole being. It flowed inside of him...until it made him whole. Surprisingly enough he felt whole. For the first time in a long time.
Loki's eyes snapped open again and he realized he wasn't sure exactly when it was when he had closed them. The pain was gone. Not just the pain from the fall. The pain from his family, his pain of never being chosen, of always being in the shadows. Well gone wasn't exactly right either, it was there but different. Rather than the anguish he normally felt he felt rage and hate. He felt powerful rather than weak and the most important he felt was determined. Loki would find a way from the void. He would find a way to get back at those who had gone against him. He would destroy them and anyone one who got in the way of his goals.
A/N: This fic is inspired by and some of the words are directly taken from the lyrics of a song called I am the Douchebag by Christopher Lennertz and Steve Frangadakis and I don't own the song either.
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