Happy New Year! Very late, I know... I posted this on AO3 at the beginning of the year, actually.
I don't have a beta and re-reading never seems enough. Also, I wanted to set the story in New York but I've never been to the city and I, uh, had to rely on research and movies for most of the details, winging the rest. So, if anything sounds strange or plain outrageous (like the sled rink in Central Park) I'm so sorry. Please feel free to point out mistakes, strange stuff and even BE-AE mix-ups if you want! :)
According to books Yule was a period of two weeks starting before Midwinter and ending just after New Year; I went with that.
Happy reading.
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Old year, new year
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At sunset, New York comes alive with lights. Under a sky that casts long rays among the highrises, people of all ages and colors run in and out of shops, bars, workplaces, to zigzag between festive puppets and fir trees and queued cars, beyond kiosks selling hot chocolate, beyond little carousels and advertising signs and screens while bright festoons rain magic upon their heads.
Loki observes that flowing stream from his bench. No one bothers him. With a black coat and a scarf high on his neck he blends in well with New York's citizens; and what is strange about a man sitting alone at the edge of a square during a nice evening?
Perhaps the lack of bags and carriers, but today elaborating lies doesn't amuse him. Actually, to be honest–
It's wasted virtuosity.
To be honest, the mere thought is depressing.
The cold air burns his nose. Someone laughs, covering the music broadcast by the theater. The clamour of passersby is a buzz that mixes with the roar of engines and the honking coming from Columbus Avenue. It's like watching an anthill. Some people travel in groups while others, alone, talk on the phone with friends and family. They're running home.
It's the last week of Yule.
In his mind that name retains the golden color of Asgard, of its heaps of gifts, and the scent of its banquets, the cadence of poems recited by inspired skalds. The sound of Thor's laughter. No new memories replaced these; Loki would rather not think about the reason.
Oh, sure, what he's seeing is not Yule; few pagans still celebrate it, and in a different way. New holidays were born to decorate these cities, holidays Loki barely knows, which is perhaps a shame – but who cares? The atmosphere is the same. The season is cold, the days short.
The year ends behind closed doors, among toasts and dear faces – for those who still have them near.
"You're our son, Loki."
He gets up. He puts his chin behind his scarf and crosses Lincoln Center's square, ignoring the welcoming entrance of the Metropolitan. He thinks he could go to London, to Paris or, even better, away from Midgard. Has no reason to stay in Manhattan.
"Did you mourn?"
"We all did! You come home..."
He exhales, stopping at the foot of the great tree. It's blinding in its beauty, just like–
Loki closes his eyes. A few children run past him, circling the fir with their hands full of balloons. The flaps of his coat flutter and fall back against his legs.
No matter how much time passes, he always comes back to him. Always orbits around him. By now, the cycle has repeated enough times that he's forced to recognize it.
He doesn't know what he hopes to achieve by remaining here tonight: since the day his family was shattered (by his own hand) he hates this time of the year; memories crowd his mind to the point of seeming regrets.
(They are.)
But something is telling him to stay.
"Do not go where I cannot follow you!"
If only Thor still thought so.
Thor... all that is left of the past, and of their mother. Of the future. With Odin things will never be the same–
Neither will they be with Thor.
He has understood many things. When he feels disgustingly objective... but that's a feeling he cannot face lightly. Is it awful to open your eyes and realize that you have burnt all your bridged. And for what?
(He's trying to fix it. But it is not easy, and perhaps neither consistent.)
Oh, stop it, please.
With a last look at the lights, he leaves the square and the crowd behind. He goes up the Columbus, then takes a smaller road, and another, and another, walking toward the shops' closing time. When activity thins drastically he slows, then stops.
Waste paper spins slowly on the ground. There are coloured streamers under his soles. A gray, gray... black sidewalk.
Dim storefronts.
Dark storefronts.
An almost deserted street in the city that never sleeps. Loki looks into in a darkened window and thinks that, after all, this street is not very different from his past. Only his mother and Thor, and perhaps the Odin from long ago, were able to pull him out of the shadows.
The wind channeled between two buildings stirs his coat, his hair. The locks tickling his forehead help him go back in time. He doesn't know why he cut his hair.
He doesn't know quite a lot things, tonight.
(He wanted him to see them, and remember the old days.)
What are you doing, Loki?, he asks his pale, melancholy image. Alone and rootless in a foreign land, wandering like a ghost? Create havoc, create panic. Anything is better than this.
But months ago the Norns captured his spirit and wrapped it in a deep, impenetrable fog. He does not want to cause suffering – he's had enough of it. He does not want to socialize. Tonight, like many other nights, he'll go back to his apartment, make himself comfortable and try and distract himself. Or sleep. Or spy the party at Stark's house with magic.
A man passing by casts his reflection in the shop window and draws his gaze. When he's gone, another one is leaning against the side of a van.
He's a big man in a coat and dark trousers; he's alone, like Loki, and the lampposts' beams reflect off his hair. He's blond.
He's Thor.
For a moment, Loki wonders if his desire has been decanted into illusion. Sometimes he uses magic subconsciously. But it is not so: Thor's presence is something tangible that cannot be imitated. Especially in the presence of one who lo–knows him well.
Motionless, they stare at each other in the glass. The road is deserted, swept by a frost-scented wind. Taxi horns resonate in Amsterdam Avenue, accompanied by flashes of light on the asphalt. Someone in the apartments above opens a window and lets out the arias of an opera.
With a heavy heart, Loki turns. Thor meets his eyes and pulls away from the van.
Not much time has passed since the last time they spoke. Months ago, in spring, they talked of mutual friends ("Doom will have a surprise for you all during the exhibition...") and in summer of the weather ("Skrull showers on Washington? Such ideas."), of education ("A school for henchmen in New York's sewers, what an original initiative, don't you think?") and of science ("Magneto is stressed out. He fused all my keys."). They even managed to communicate with civility, Thor and he.
And he thought he saw something on Thor's face. Perhaps not all is lost.
He wants more, he pathetically admits to himself. His love and conscience are not a changing tide, as he believed in moments of anger and despair, but steadfast things alike to the roots of an old oak, burnt and reborn from lightning. He'd rather not have done all the things he's done to attain this knowledge; but correcting past mistakes isn't among his many talents, for bad and maybe for good too.
Midgard's people consider this night a night of hope. If only there were still a miracle for him. Just one.
A baby was crying – and in a desert of ice, someone heard.
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This time he wouldn't waste it.
"Stark plans to celebrate the end of the year," Thor says, eventually. "I may bring a second guest."
And despite everything, Loki cannot believe he's really heard that. He hesitates, unable to look away.
"But if you do not want to come, we could walk a little. The great park is very nice during Yule. "
"You're asking me," Loki says, while his feet take him forward on their own. If he's not careful he will do something foolish. Like pressing his face against one of Thor's shoulders.
Thor smiles slightly. "I do not see anyone else here."
"And your astrophysicist?"
His expression is difficult to read. "Jane is very busy."
There is a story there, and Loki hopes it's what he's thinking.
His feet halt. If he raised a hand, he could touch the lapels of Thor's coat without even having to outstretch it. He'd like to be held.
Oh, please, Laufeyson. A little dignity.
Something must show on his face, because Thor watches him carefully.
"What are you doing here, on new year's eve?"
He'll be damned if he inspires pity. "And you, Thor?" he retorts.
A smile again, this time cautious but more pronounced. "I was looking for you."
Loki opens his mouth, and no sound comes out. Then: "Alright. Let's go to that feast. "
"Really?"
"By passing through the park."
Even though it's the long way. Especially because it's the long way.
They leave side by side, hands in their pockets, faces half-buried in their collars; watching stealthily one another to figure out what to do. What do you say to the brother you betrayed, who betrayed you? Where do you begin to rebuild a relationship that has been deformed to the point of being unrecognizable? How do you find the courage... how do you find the words? Is it possible?
Maybe you're just dreaming, Loki...
He realizes he has deviated from their path when Thor's hand closes on his elbow and turns him around.
"Oh," he says.
"This way."
For a moment he wonders if it's all a trap – if this is the day SHIELD will finally get its claws in him. But Thor is quiet, anything but suspicious. Loki still knows him in this, at least.
The light dims when they reach the park. They cross it silently, accompanied by many illuminations flickering on trees and meadows. While a thin layer of snow crunches under their shoes, bushes light up intermittently everywhere and bridges shine beyond branches, like mirages of the Bifrost. In the distance, on the vast lawn, the tree of the Central gleams with a lighthouse's brightness.
They're not truly alone. New York never sleeps, after all. But most celebrate far from this corner of nature.
They stop to look at a toboggan rink, at its fences and sleds stacked under security chains. Sharp and vigorous, Thor's breath stands out against the black background of the hill.
Silence envelops everything. It's like having crossed an interdimensional passage. But it is not... it is not heavy with unease, Loki thinks. It is the quieter state his mind has been in a–very long time. Very long.
"Do you remember our winter games?" Thor asks, staring at the sleds with a half-smile.
Loki remembers them. As if they'd happened yesterday.
He recalls a thousand other things too, the recollection of which he tried to bitter for everyone, in revenge for the fact they had become bitter in his mind.
So many memories. So many moments, each valuable in its own way.
When he feels disgustingly objective he wonders how he could make all those mistakes – tread on all those bonds. He does not forget the wrongs done to him, he doesn't; but he recognizes his own, and they are many. The day he held the Casket he lost control. From that moment on he abused every affection, weakness, opening, every act of good faith. He went too far until... until it was too late.
How could they do this to him? How could he do this to them?
How could they let it come to this.
"What changed since then, Loki? What did go wrong?"
There is too much to say; and even if he were able to compress all that suffering into concepts, into intelligible words, he does not think he'd just share them with–
"I forgot how to be happy," his mouth replies. "And then... I was angry... and invisible, and useless. I had no purpose and neither had my life."
He looks before he can stop himself. Thor's face is ravaged by grief.
"I've always seen you, Loki" is all he can say.
Loki snorts, low and gentle. Well.
"I know that. It's why I endured it so long" he says, with another glance. "But not even you were able to look deep enough. Not even our mother. People like you don't know what it means to have dark thoughts inside your head, thoughts from which you cannot free yourself. "
Thor's breathing is fast, his body tense. They don't look at each other.
"Maybe you're right" Thor says. "Or maybe it's something that can be learned over time." He tightens his fists in his pockets. "What I know, I've learned from you."
In days not too far away that confession would have been a victory: Thor, dragged down from his pedestal of serenity and perfection. Now it's just a source of bitterness.
Loki turns his head to him and waits until Thor does the same.
"For what it's worth" he says, hoarse, "I'm sorry."
Thor observes Loki's angular, drawn face. A sadness he's never seen hovers around his brother. It scares him, because Loki never shows his vulnerability (except when he's on the very edge).
Thor's breath comes fast. His body wants action. He shouldn't be here, he thinks. He shouldn't have searched for Loki when they got word of his presence in the city, and now he should stop at first damage; leave while he can. He got burned too many times. He's not a boy anymore.
But as much as Loki hurt him... as much as he knows how manipulative Loki can be, Thor cannot forsake him just like he cannot forsake the heart beating in his own chest. He knows it's risky. However, there's a limit to the number of farewells he can say.
For his brother he'll fight to the end.
And if his perseverance could make a difference, someday... if his love could anchor Loki and bring him back, changed but not destroyed, then it would have been worth it.
"Will you still be sorry, when you stop feeling depressed?" he asks. "Or we'll be back to war?"
Loki stares at him with piercing eyes. Oh, there's still everything of him in there. And this hearthens Thor, for his words are born of an alert mind, not a numb one.
"I can be a shadow no longer, Thor. Never again."
Oh, I don't think that would be possible.
"Come with me, then."
Loki presses his lips into a line. When he looks away, his eyes reflect the distant light of the streetlamps.
"Everyone deserves a second chance. Look at us Avengers. "
"That's debatable" Loki exclaims. "It depends on what one did. How he did it. A soldier trained not to feel isn't a murderer who took pleasure in doing harm."
"And you'd be the second? You, who dealt Coulson a non-fatal wound well knowing where to strike to avoid that? You, who froze Heimdall when you could have killed him, and gave me a scratch when you could have stabbed me to death?"
You lack conviction...
"I who drew my real father in Asgard to destroy him" Loki says, in a high-pitched voice. "I, who betrayed those who loved me and brought destruction on others to escape my own. I, who dropped you in that cage... without being sure you could get out of it. "
"And did you get pleasure from that?"
For an instant Thor thinks Loki will lie. But his expression remains naked.
"Sometimes" he says, low.
"I did, too" Thor replies, moving closer. "In the past, raining destruction exhilarated me. Trampling rights and feelings was my privilege, or so I believed. With her" he touches Mjölnir's bulk, covered by his coat "I wrecked a lot more than I built, and it's unexplainable how she didn't consider me unworthy centuries ago. Stark? He made a fortune by creating lethal weapons. Banner? His anger left huge losses behind. And the Widow was a mercenary. But not anymore."
Loki narrows his eyes. "Are you justifying us?"
"No. I'm saying that change is possible. Amends are possible. And so is to get a second chance."
"Second chance? I've already had a second chance" he says, sarcastically. "And a third, and a fourth. I wasted them all. You should know. "
Thor closes one hand on Loki's elbow, warm even through the cloth. He tightens it.
"And if I were to offer you another?" he says. "If we all were to offer you another? You just have to use it. "
Loki feels his eyes burn. "Do you really want to take the risk?"
He's afraid. Unsure of succeeding. He doesn't know if he can trust himself.
Thor's expression is something painful to watch.
"If you say it like that... I do."
Thor pulls him in by the elbow and, in the next moment, he's holding him in a hug big and solid enough to efface the cold. And what Loki feels inside, too. Loki raises his hands and clings to him with all his might.
Despite the turmoil that is shaking him, hope and gratitude fill his chest.
How do you do it?, he wonders.
"Don't cry, little brother."
"How do you do it, Thor?" he asks, choked. "After all I've done."
"I love you much more than I am furious with you, Loki" Thor growls in his hair, squeezing him until he's breathless. "I do it because I can't give up... do you remember? Surrender is not in my nature."
Oh. Oh.
Loki presses his face against Thor's neck, eyes shut.
But satisfaction is not in mine. Norns help me.
When they disentangle from each other, slowly, Thor kisses his forehead.
"Were you looking for me? How lucky" Loki says, disarmed of any artifice. "You've found me."
Perhaps I have found myself as well.
They never make it to Stark's party. They walk for the better part of the night. At dawn they fall asleep on the couch of Thor's apartments, like they did in the Yules of their boyhood. Celebrations that maybe, in another form, will come back.
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"Don't go where I cannot follow you" is what Samwise says to Frodo in one the most beautiful moments of LotR. I love it and it's totally something Thor could have said when we couldn't hear and Loki was, you know, dying.
Hope you liked it! If you have time, I'd really love to hear your thoughts and chat with you :)