Warning: Will contain themes of incest, angst and emotional despair. If you aren't comfortable with any of these please don't read.
"i will wade out till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers"- I Will Wade Out, E.E. Cummings
He long ago accepted that he isn't going to heaven.
He is no religious man. He doesn't go to church and faith is not something he possesses. But he knows that whatever the afterlife is or whatever awaits him after he has passed on from earthly life, it will not be good or kind.
Because from the little he knows of heaven it is a place for heroic, just and kind people. A place for people such as his brother whose moral compass points due north constantly and who sacrifices himself day-in-day-out for a cause he believes in, while serving their country deligently.
Heaven is a place for people such as his mother who has been kind, compassionate and just in her entire life and who has never uttered a cross and unfair word or committed any wrong-doing. Heaven surely reserves a place for his mother who has dedicated her life to rear her children with as much love as she could muster.
He is not meant for heaven. If there was a thing he is certain about it was that.
He is scheming and mischievious, especially when he was a child. He still recalls the numerous times when he tricked Thor out of the new toys that their father gave him for his birthday. He is self-serving and selfish and not at all altruistic as a good person might have been.
Heaven is a place for heroes and saints.
He possesses no redeeming qualities.
Yet perhaps all those characteristics which make him so unpleasant to his brother's friends- Sif can not stand to remain in the same room as him for more than five minutes before she would spit an insult at him and storm out of the room huffingly to escape his company- might have become void with time.
If he had just been self-serving and resentful- so resentful of his father's affection to Thor to the point that he has often just considered pointing one of Thor's guns to his chest and pulling the trigger with rigour- perhaps with time he would have been absolved of those short-comings and gone to heaven.
But he knows that will never happen.
If there is such a thing, he will never see heaven.
The reason for this is currently standing before him, looking up at him. All soft smiles and rosy cheeks that make him think of raspberries on cream.
The reason he is damned for all eternity is currently passing her fingers through the strands of his hair, while standing on her tip-toes as he towers over her tiny form. And she whispers warmly: "You should cut your hair. It has become way too long, Loki."
They break apart when her name is called from the kitchen.
She looks at him once more, over her shoulders, before she exits the living room, giving him a smile which makes her eyes crinkle at the corners.
And his black heart dies in longing for his sister.
He doesn't know the exact moment his sickness began.
Perhaps it has always been there: Since the very first moment that he held the warm bundle of cloth in his arms. In his fifteen years of life it had been the first time ever that he gained any advantage over Thor. Both him and his fair-haired brother were standing at the side of their mother's hospital bed where she was resting after a fifteen-hour-long labour.
His mother first handed his new-born sister to him. And Loki held her before Thor and everytime he thinks back on that moment, he becomes more and more impressed with the monumentalness of it all. And each time, he recalls his fifteen-year-old-self holding her tighter, greedier.
His therapist- who exhibited no visible reaction other than the tightening of his weathered hand on his pen when Loki had savagely confessed that he dreamt of fucking his sixteen year old sister into his mattress- concluded that perhaps his obsession for his little sister springs from that. That perhaps Loki has made her into a symbol of triumph over his brother and due to the fact that he has spent 32 years feeling inferior to Thor in every way, he has these sick urges towards her.
He grasps onto this explanation from his psychologist and he spends his nights reciting the words the middle-aged man had used to appease him as he paced ferociously up and down his office like a caged panther.
He recites these words whenever he pictures her rosy lips or her creamy skin and he starts to positively burn with desire.
The incestous thoughts first started two years ago.
Before that he was... absent from his family to put it mildly.
His falling-out with his father had occured during his semester vacation in his second year of university.
Differently from Thor who had enlisted in the RAF as soon as he had turned eighteen, Loki had chosen to read Classics at Cambridge. And almost as soon as Loki received his acceptance letter from the institution, he had moved out of his parent's home in West Berkshire and moved permanently to his dorm at Cambridge.
It was only at his mother's insistence that he visited during the semester breaks.
His brother made sure to stay every second of his leave in their childhood home. But then again Thor and Loki had always been diametrically opposed.
He had come to his childhood home during winter break to spend Christmas and New Year with his family. His mother had greeted him warmly as was her way and his little sister had not let go of his right leg since he had arrived before lunchtime. But the air around Loki was thick with his father's resentment.
Loki supposed that it was only a matter of time until there would be an argument betwen him and Odin. Tensions had been escalating all afternoon during his arrival. And that build-up had led to an explosive discussion between him and his father.
And as Odin saw fit to accuse him for his absence to the family, Loki did not hesitate to let the man know what he thought of his parenting skills.
The result was Loki waiting for a bus to Cambridge at ten o' clock at night in a deserted bus terminal.
And despite his mother's continuous pleas he had not returned to West Berkshire for thirteen years.
He received the invitation to his brother's wedding one evening when he returned to his flat in Covent Garden.
The white envelope almost lost itself between the bills and advertisements. Yet the sight of his brother's name on the crisp white paper causes Loki's hand to stutter and for his eyes to widen.
He had only just recently started talking to his brother and any of their interactions were tentative and hesitant with an underlying tone of resentment. Thirteen years ago, Thor had taken his father's side during the Christmas fallout and the two brothers had not talked to each other until last year when his mother had called Loki and told him sobbingly on the phone that his brother had been reported 'Missing In Action'. And despite the childhood jealousy that Loki still harboured towards Thor, the news his mother had told him caused Loki's heart to stutter and for him to remain catatonic for three consecutive days.
His brother had been rescued and they'd reconciled when Loki had visited him in the Central London hospital.
The invitation was for his brother's wedding and when he saw the name of the bride, Loki's lips twisted into a small smirk.
He wondered how Sif felt about the fact that his brother was marrying this Jane, considering the woman's less than subtle affection for his brother since they had been children.
Again, as with any matter involving his family, it had been at his mother's insistence that he had made his way back to West Yorkshire on a sunny March afternoon. Him and his father had still not reconciled and Loki could not imagine that Odin felt any more inclined than he did to make peace.
His suspicions were more than confirmed when he received a short handshake from his father and a curt greeting before the man turned away from him and went to talk to some distant cousin of theirs.
And despite the self-deprication he felt at that, Loki could not ignore the pang he felt in his chest at his father's coldness.
Yet he steeled himself because he was loathe to let anyone see that Odin's behaviour towards him had hurt the invulnerable Loki. He didn't want to appear weak infront of all these people who didn't like him or actively loathed him.
So he put on an indifferent expression. He supposed that the ceremony was quaint. Thor and his bride seemed like a perfect couple. He looked like the perfect bridegroom in his dark tuxedo and with his handsome looks while his bride was beautiful and appropriately emotive. The decoration was tasteful and the food served during reception delicious and Loki knew that it had been his mother who had organised the wedding party.
Loki had been truly surprised when his mother had directed him to the central table where Thor and his bride were sat with their family and closest friend. It threw him off for a short second, long enough for Sif to give him a dark and hateful smirk before resuming with her barely concealed scowl at watching the man she loved marrying someone else. For the entire dinner, Loki did not look up from his plate.
He had hoped to be sitting at a table in the far back. He had never expected that his brother would have him sat at his table. It had been twelve years after all.
He rose during Sif's speech where she congratulated the happy couple and Loki openly shook his head at what a poor liar Sif was.
He exited the tent that his father had ordered to be built up in their large estate and he'd distanced himself from the merry company.
And then he was standing, with his tie loosened and a cigarette resting at the right corner of his lips, looking out at the dark, black water of the lake at their estate. The crisp night air of early spring wafted past him.
And then suddenly someone was standing beside him and Loki only looked minimally to his side to see who the intruder was.
To be painfully honest, he'd almost forgotten that he had a sister.
Their ages had been to far apart and she'd only been four years old when he had left after his and Odin's falling out and not returned to West Berkshire until that day. Whenever his mother had told him something about her, he'd only been half-listening.
His sister had positively slipped his mind for the last thirteen years.
And now she was standing beside him.
She had none of the fair and tanned looks that his brother had inherited from his father but he could see definite traces of Frigga in her. Such as her light-golden auburn hair. Or the softness around her rosy lips.
He was the only one of the children who bore no resemblance to either his father or his mother.
And with a dull pang in his chest, he wondered at how much Freya had grown up. And he wondered how he had been able to even recognize his sister.
"So, the wayward son returns," he heard a soft voice remark teasingly. She wasn't looking at him. Her hazel eyes were trained on the inky-black starry horizon and her arms were crossed over his chest so that the pastel-pink cloth of her cress bunched up at her chest-region. Unwittingly, his eyes flickered towards the strip of exposed skin there.
He didn't answer anything and threw the used cigarette to the ground before stomping it out with the tip of his Italian leather shoes.
His silence didn't deter her and she continued: "Mother and Thor were so happy when you RSVP'd. I think..." He interrupted her then, his voice sharp and cutting and spat indiffirently: "I don't really give a fuck what you think."
Without looking at her, he could see that her head had snapped towards him and startled hazel eyes were trained on him.
He saw her, even without looking.
And then he turned on his heel and slowly trudged back to the party area from where one of the newest chart hits was being played.
He'd expected her to remain there looking after him in shock. Even to return to the tent slightly teary-eyed and to remain at the side of their mother for the rest of the evening.
Yet what she truly did was... unexpected.
She stormed after him and then she proceeded to poke his chest- the top of her head came to a stop several inches beneath his shoulders- and she spat at him: "Well I'll tell you anyways. Father hasn't the greatest parenting skills, at least not when it doesn't concern Thor. I've come to terms with that fact and I'm about half your age. It's time you did as well, you've hurt mother for long enough now."
And then she left him standing there. And it was him looking after her in shock.
Later, her flashing hazel eyes would come to his mind as he masturbated and the sight of her pursed lips and pale skin caused him to climax so hard he almost bit off his tongue.
He visited his family more after that.
His father seemed indifferent.
His brother always greeted him with a fraternal pat on his back.
His mother hugged him enthusiastically.
And over her shoulder, he would see his sister's harsh expression thaw.
He told himself that he didn't visit because of her.
He'd always had a propensity to lies.
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