Loki- ~Have you Ever~
Fed a love with just your hands
He offered it to her slowly, unsure how she would receive it. She smiled at the small, premature melon from her garden in his dirt covered hands and took it with sincere silent thanks. She kissed his forehead and sent him on his way. What a sweet boy she was raising.
Closed your eyes and trusted, just trusted
He had to shut his eyes. Surely his brother would miss and hit his head rather than the apple. He knew that this was supposed to be a fun way of training, but he wasn't seeing the fun part yet. He couldn't watch the drawback. He heard the arrow leave the bow and felt the weight of the apple vanish with the lash of the fletching through the hair atop his head and flinched at the soft thud behind him. When he decided to look, the apple was in pieces around him, the arrow was in the tree, and his head was stinging from the fletching scraping by but still intact. He laughed with his brother until the adrenaline was gone from them both.
Thrown a fist full of glitter in the air
He lay on his back, alone in his room until his mother came in to tuck him into bed. He knew he was getting a little old for this but he never tired of her kisses. They exchanged the warmest of smiles as she pulled the blanket closer to his chin and stooped to kiss his cheek and he hers.
"Mother." He called out softly before she could leave.
She turned to face him, still smiling sweetly, "Yes, my son?"
"I learned something for you." He smiled wider and sat up.
She watched and waited patiently as he picked up a small jar of dirt from her garden and dumped it into his palm. He closed his fingers around it, squeezed a little, and threw it in the air. Magically, as it fell slowly, it turned to glitter and sparkled in the dim light peeking in from the hall.
She was in awe and watched with all enthusiasm as the glitter filtered back down into the jar which he corked with a string attached, rose from bed and brought it to her.
She accepted it graciously, one of dozens of gifts he'd graced her with for no particular reason.
Looked fear in the face and said 'I just don't care'
The necklace with the jar in place about her slender neck he smiled a broken smile, "To remember me by." He said.
"Are you leaving?" She asked, concern now in her features.
"I may not have a choice in the end." He looked down at the hands she clasped around his left.
"I don't understand." She held his hand fervently, but he pulled away.
He left her and went to the vault. He summoned the destroyer to send to Thor on Midgard.
Hated yourself for waiting for proof you're not alone
He spun in the abyss forever. He could hear a voice in his head, whispers of revenge, words of malice toward all life that thought they were free. He gained thoughts, not his own, that spread like viruses in his mind, poisoned his soul, but it was something he could feel, the one thing he could feel in the cold and dark nothing. He was so numb otherwise so he let it consume him. Soon, the numbness was gone, but feeling never returned. He was only hollow.
Touched so gently you had to cry
Thor reached for him and he flinched away to avoid being struck. Thor caught his face anyway, but gently. He held the man's face in his hand, stroked his cheek once with his thumb and asked that he come home; he begged him to come home. Tears came to the man's eyes.
Invited a stranger to come inside
"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity." He mocked as the man walked in after removing his metal suit.
"Uh, actually I'm planning to threaten you." The man replied, hands behind his back and moseying toward the stairs.
"You should have left your armor on for that." He threatened first, gesturing with his scepter.
"Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage, and you've got the, uh, glow stick of destiny," the man sauntered down the stairs.
He smiled.
Wished for an endless night
Upon returning to Asgard in chains, night had fallen. It was quiet, and his mother stood at the head of the throne room at the bottom of the stairs when they marched in. She was crying, but smiling at him. It didn't make sense. As soon as they were close enough, she hugged the prisoner and whispered through her tears, "You came home."
He felt a familiar shape pressed between their chests. It was a small bottle.
He wanted to cry, but refrained, and when she pulled away his heart broke for the first time, unrealizing that there was any piece of it left to break.
Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled the rope tight
As he slipped into a deep sleep induced for his first night home, less than death, he stared up through the mural on the ceiling of his cell before the black could take him again. The moon was above him as were the stars and in his slipping consciousness they drew nearer until he was blind, lost in another abyss for his crimes.
Held your breath and asked yourself, 'will it ever get better?'
In the gap between life and death, his torment returned but in silence. There were no whispers nor words, no motive or hope, no feeling, no numbness and only his faint thoughts in the swing of deep and shallow sleep. It was rare that his mind was able to produce a process of thought in a shallower state before the deep dragged him back. It was as though a rope had been tied around him, swinging him back and forth between Hell, the shallow, and nothing, the deep. It was Hell when he could think, because the only thought that came to him, came as foolish, retching hope. The hope that he would be pulled out again, from this abyss. The hope of maybe, just maybe, things getting better.
Half past the point of no return.
He slept.
The tip of iceberg.
He swung back to the shallow, longer every time, and felt his eyelids flutter and saw a flick of light.
The sun before the burn
His eyes opened to a bright light he was no longer used to. He wanted to go back to sleep to get away from it, but found no more rest. He was finally awake.
The thunder before the lightning,
He heard the voice boom in his ears, before he knew who spoke.
"You wake, brother." Thor was stern, but his eyes almost joyful to see a familiar look on his brother's face, the look of fatigue never changed.
The breath before the phrase, 'have you ever felt this way?'
He felt air flood his lungs, tears escape his sticky wet eyes, but no emotion found the whole of his chest and his mind was silent. He merely observed, wondered, and denied that it was so.
"You've been asleep for almost a day and it's time you woke. Mother misses you dearly and father says you still have Hell to pay, but hopes you'll find a mind to learn your lesson."
Hate made wide its mouth, but fear filled the hole. It created a sort of pain he could never explain as anything but betrayal, the same he felt when he first learned that he was a senseless monster before he proved it to the nine realms. He had behaved like a monster but guilt was his hate and it wasn't them he turned it on. He hated himself, but did not regret what he'd done.
His tears dried and his eyes went blank. He desperately wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted to die. He was only a monster, weak thus abandoned as a child, and despised even now; especially now.
When nothing else was said between them, Thor's face contorted, his eyes boiling in sorrow, but no tears, and he took his leave.
A soft hand pushed hair to the side of his forehead and he turned to face his mother. She shed no tears and bore no smile, but she did not look sad or angry either. She looked to be deep in thought.
He let his eyes flicker between either of hers as her look softened and she resumed her usual sweet smile.
"Hello, Loki. How do you feel?"
He swallowed once or twice to be sure his voice would find him if he tried. It came out coarse still, and muffled, but he was still slightly choked by emotion he no longer thought he had, "Wretched."
"I wish I could do more." She kissed him on the forehead and stood to leave while he rose from his cell bed.
He didn't want to move. He could feel his circulation pick back up for movement. He drew in an unsteady breath that stopped her at the door.
She glanced back over her shoulder at him as he whispered.
"Have you ever felt this way?"
She replied, "Every day since I lost you."
Half past the point of oblivion
Her words left him hollowed, only to be slowly filled by each syllable of what she had said, each carrying a new level of sorrow. He felt the same fading of sleep wearing off and coming back at the same time. It became a war for his soul and his emotions switched like the flight pattern of a humming bird. He could only repeat how he felt to himself in the silence, "Wretched."
The hourglass on the table
A small eternity passed alone. He had no one to talk to, no one to offer concern, no one to hate, no one to blame, no one to threaten, no one to cause pain. He had no one to look at, no one to scorn, no one to love him, no one to tell him how torn he was. He had no one but himself trapped inside his cold skin.
The walk before the run
He could feel himself going mad with each passing second, feel every pulse through his veins and every twitch of his face with every flash of emotion running through him. He fought it, he fought it all, the greatest, most trying battle of his life until it was won, and he went numb again. He wasn't numb enough to cease feeling, but enough to hold himself together long enough to test his bounds. He wanted to see how heavily guarded he was and how untrusted. He wiggled his toes and stood slowly. The hem of his pant-legs slipped down to the tops of his feet. He clenched his fists, unclenched, and slowly came to realize he had lost his Asgardian form while sleeping. He was a monster in form now too, and his mother had still touched him, still cared. The emotions came flickering forward again but he buried back in his mind to battle again while his feet followed steps he'd known so long and hoped to have forgotten. In an illusion of magic, he went through a door, through the halls, through a side door, out into the courtyard. He stopped and waited, looked around at all the green before laying eyes on the garden. Tears flooded him seeing a spate illusion blended into his own. His mother was pulling weeds as she would have been any other time the journey was made. He watched the ghost of his childhood run to her side, jump into her arms, and pick leaves from her hair when they sat up again.
She looked up at him and the young boy disappeared. She was really there.
He ran to her.
The breath before the kiss
She stood swiftly, gracefully and opened her arms to him. Enfolded him and all the brunt force he put into falling into her bosom. She felt a trembling child, held a wretched man, and loved him all the same.
His breathing was unsteady; he didn't know how he felt. He could sense some form of peace there, but that was all he knew and denied.
She stroked his hair and hushed him softly reminding him, in just more than whispers, to breathe slower. Upon his first normal breath, she kissed his cheek and held him closer.
The fear before the phrase, 'have you ever felt this way?'
He trembled with the effort of staying composed, unsure of what he thought he was doing. He didn't know anything anymore. All he knew was lost to him and no longer had relevance to anything he'd become. He didn't know who he was, where he belonged, what he was, or who he could trust-
No. He knew. He didn't want to, but the sense of safety in this garden, the memories… He fought it off and buried it. It was too much.
"Don't be afraid." She sang softly in his ear, still running her delicate fingers through his thick black hair. "There's nothing I need forgive you for."
A pit in his stomach churned up what wasn't there and a quiet sob etched a path through his tear-fighting, swollen throat before painfully escaping his lips.
"I don't know anything anymore." He confessed and clung to her dress on her back with just his fingers, feeling himself slipping.
She didn't know what to say, so she hushed him again, stopping her hand at the base of his back before reaching up to hold his head against her shoulder.
He whispered again, "Have you ever felt this way?"
Here you are, sitting in the garden, clutching me softly, calling me sweet.
She bent her knees, implying that she wanted to sit.
He pulled back enough so they could without stumbling, but as soon as she was rested and before he could settle, she wrapped her arms back around his middle and pulled him into her lap. She knew he was far too big for that, but she didn't care.
He tried to fight her, resist the intimacy, reject the kindness, but she held fast and he didn't want to hurt her.
After a moment of surrender, he decided to try and spare her some of the weight. He leaned into her, but slid back a little until he sat on the ground, but his legs stayed across her lap. She let him, keeping one arm around his back to keep him close and removed the other to drape over his bent knees. She started to sway them, and he could see her smiling, his eyes level with her chin, his forehead resting on her cheek.
One of his arms helped prop him up behind him to lean on, the other rested in his lap, but only until she reached down and took his blue hand in hers and lifted it to kiss his fingers, "My sweet boy."
Held your breath and asked yourself 'will it ever get better?'
A small smile found his lips, sincere and full of a love and hope that didn't belong to him, but found him, only in his mother's arms, he felt safe, warm, loved, and forgiven. He was home.