Yet again, a one-shot idea has grabbed me by the throat and throttled me and distracted me from my chapter fics. But I was listening to my sad/dark playlist on my iPod, and this idea had a will to exist, and so I wrote it.
It is however kind of incomplete and a mess...
WARNING for suicide.
Thor drives Loki over the edge, and Loki tries to escape Fate, only to play right into its hands.
Loki had been tagging after Thor all day, and frankly the thunderer was getting tired of it.
When Thor exited his door that morning, heading to the dining hall, Loki fell into step behind him, and he hadn't left since.
He was quiet and hardly noticeable, padding softly in Thor's footsteps, green eyes open and seeming never to blink.
Watching.
Just watching.
When Thor shoveled food into his mouth, laughing boisterously with Sif and the Warriors Three, Loki was sitting in the chair beside him, not adding a single word to their conversation, but listening.
Just listening.
Loki's silence was oppressive.
And Thor felt as if he was being leveled beneath that intense gaze, flames scorching his back as he turned away, like he was being tested and was failing miserably, unable to move from that spot beside the fire.
When Thor went to the training field, striking his hammer against opponent after opponent, not even Sif and the Warriors Three able to defeat him in battle, Loki was there, sitting on the far fence in the shade, and his fingers twitched as if he was dissecting the duels before him, unweaving them into individual threads of red and silver.
Thor was Asgard's favorite.
One would think he would feel himself worthy.
But still, as Loki looked up at him with those wide and childish eyes, Thor felt himself strangely inadequate.
He was basking in the light that was showered on him, reveling in it, relishing it.
Yet still that shadow followed him.
When Thor retreated to his chambers at the end of the day, Loki was there, standing in the doorway.
Loki walked in, careful as an animal. He reached out, grabbing Thor's hand and examining a bleeding cut Thor had obtained from one of his duels, before placing his other hand, small and pale and soft against Thor's large and tan and calloused ones, green sparks dancing over his long fingers.
Thor jerked his hand away, frowning. "Just go away. I don't need you here," he said irritably.
His brother had been the one to distract him, after all, make him lose his balance and focus and humiliate himself.
Loki blinked several times, taking a step back and clasping his hands behind him, chin tilted down so his dark hair fell forwards into his face, tickling his nose and making him wrinkle it slightly. "How far should I go?" he asked, smirking to make it known that he was simply humoring the thunderer.
"Far enough that I won't have to deal with you," Thor growled.
"How long should I stay away?" His voice was young, with that distinct sound of a child's innocent inquiring of "Why?"
"Indefinitely," Thor snapped, getting up and pacing the room as he looked for his dagger.
"When should I come back?"
Thor looked over at his brother, seeing Loki staring down at his hands, which idly played with Thor's dagger, twirling it around his fingers, then tossing it up and catching it by the blade, holding it with finger and thumb pressed against each flat edge, the sharp point of the blade but a centimeter from his palm.
The thunderer stalked over, grabbing the dagger from Loki's hands (or at least he thought he did), making the boy jump. "Don't. Don't come back till I ask you to."
"And you will ask, right?" Loki said, eyebrows creasing as he watched Thor shove the dagger back into his belt. "What if you don't ask?"
"Don't be stupid," Thor snorted. "Now go do something useful with yourself."
"Like what?"
Thor sighed in exasperation, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "Oh, go save the world or something," he said sarcastically, waving a hand in a vague gesture as he turned away.
"Save the world from what?"
"From whatever it most needs to be saved from. Monsters and the like."
"But..." Loki frowned, looking up at his brother through the tresses of black hair that boyishly fell into his face, like he'd just woken up.
Thor whirled around, blue eyes blazing. "Why can't you just do what you're told?" he snapped, thunder lacing the undertones of his voice.
Loki widened his eyes. "But I want to be here; with you."
"Well I don't want you here," Thor snarled, sneering as he angrily swiped a strand of blond hair back, his locks still clinging together with sweat.
Loki's bottom lip trembled. "Why not?"
"Because you cause nothing but trouble," Thor answered simply. He sat down on his bed, examining the dents in shield.
How many instances had there been that day?
The snakes in the dining hall, the ice slick at the bottom of the steps, the distracting illusions on the training field, the horses getting spooked by something that they apparently could see and their handlers could not, the ale that wouldn't come out till someone raised up there goblet to peer into it and the liquor came splashing into their face, not to mention the countless number of objects that had broken—even those that shouldn't be breakable...
And then there was Mjolnir dropping onto his foot, which Thor was sure was Loki's fault.
"I'll be good, I promise!" Loki cried, eyes beseeching.
Thor just shook his head. "You're a talented liar, brother," he intoned.
"I'm not lying!" Loki protested. He looked completely at a loss, voice choking off slightly as he asked "Why do you always assume I'm lying?"
"Loki..." Thor sighed.
Was it not obvious?
"TELL ME!"
Loki's voice rang around the golden chamber, each fading echo seeming to grow more disconsolate, fiery rage burning down to something soft and quiet and broken.
His brows were knitted, mouth parted as he looked up at Thor, lungs flexing visibly with each quickened breath.
"Oh for Asgard's sake!" Thor leapt to his feet, shouting "You KNOW why! It's because that's what you are—a liar! And that's what you do—you lie!"
"Not always!" Loki's voice cracked.
Tears were streaming down his face.
"Oh just LEAVE ALREADY!" Thor hollered, baring down on his little brother and towering over him. He lowered his voice threateningly, sneering. "Or I will personally grab you by your collar and throw you out that door."
Loki held his gaze, emerald eyes welling with furious tears, his whole body trembling. "...I hate you." he whispered. "I HATE you..."
A blast of energy sent Thor flying back and crashing into his bed, head knocking against the wall.
He stared slack-jawed after Loki as the dark godling fled from his room, the black tails of his too-long tunic flapping behind him as his boots murdered the floor.
Thor pushed himself back to his feet only to slip in a puddle somebody's tears—his or Loki's, he wasn't sure.
He waited for his brother to come back. He waited a long time.
(He never stopped waiting.)
But Loki never came.
(And Thor never asked.)
Are you proud of me now, Brother? Loki thought, hugging his knees to his chest in the darkness, eyes stinging but dry.
It was a barren rock, surrounded by night and stars, far too bright for the likes of him, he knew, his nightmare flashing before his eyes.
He'd been standing over Thor's bloody and broken body, laughing, as all around him the world burned.
It was black and vermilion, smoking a dark and steely gray, flames leaping and dancing, bright and orange and gold and mocking, wavering, flickering, leaping at Loki's legs like young pups.
There was blood covering his hands, and he brought a hand up, absently drawing a finger over his lower lip.
Do you really want?
The ground was littered with fingernail clippings, and he kicked them up with his boots and he regarded the carnage with indifference.
No pleasure.
No remorse.
Just... emptiness.
And he knew, even before blue started creeping up his skin, that he was a monster.
And what scared him most was that he didn't mind.
He didn't mind.
With his hands still and steady, a control like iron, he brought them up, Thor's dagger wrapped in his long fingers.
It pierced his heart—or at least, where is heart should be.
Loki was unsurprised to find that instead of blood, from the wound flowed fountains of inky darkness, gushing down his chest, down his legs, dripping to the ground and hissing like acid where they fell, sending up spatters of lightless sparks and steam.
And still he felt nothing.
He laughed, then, staring up at the galaxy around him, the he didn't care about that were now safe from his subjugation and demolition.
The realms were rid of their most dangerous monster.
And hadn't he done what he'd been told?
There should have been a grim satisfaction.
It was Thor's fault, after all.
This was all Thor's fault.
But instead he felt void.
Do you really want me—?
Falling...
Falling...
Falling...
His eyes fluttered closed, and he hugged his legs closer, feeling the warmth soaking through and leaving his body.
Breath escaped past his lips in rasping hisses, rasping sobs.
Had he been too soon to let go? Lying on a rocky moon with his mind and body broke, he wasn't sure if knew, knew even what had caused his fingers to slip, except that it had felt like blood.
Was it Thor, then, that had impaled himself upon the spear that Loki had held onto? Driven him away with a simple and carelessly crafted weave of words, black and white, then dyed in the vivid color of his own chaotic emotions?
What sentiment.
But as long as what he was never came to be, he was perfectly content to let it go.
Do you really want me dead?
It wasn't as much a scorching self-hatred as it was an act of defiance, to throw back in Fate's face what it had so carefully molded, emboldened by the claws cracking through the cage within himself, leaving fissures in his sanity that whispered unspoken words.
Had Thor really spoken? Or was it just his mind, growing teeth and forked tongue and taloned feet, wings that beat out the light, making it flee like rabbits racing across the hills as falcons swooped after them, catching them and ripping out their throats with glinting bronze beaks.
Once buffed and gleaming, the metal was now darkened by flames.
Tarnished.
Tarnished green with acid, venom dripping from serpentine words, green as his eyes.
Had Thor known? Had he seen?
Throwing him away, so instead of green he became black, black and blue, black and blue his skin and nails and soul? So he ended the means of an end?
He smiled, then.
Because he'd found it.
And Death shooed away Life's covetous fingers, taking Loki's breathless body in her arms and carrying him home.
It was centuries, centuries before Thor swallowed his pride down like a burning lump of coal.
Centuries before he asked.
Waking up in the middle of the night, barely conscious, his lips seemed to move on their own accord.
Wasn't something missing?
Confused and slowly filling with dread, he stumbled outside, wandering out into the forest, searching for something he couldn't remember.
It was a hurricane, howling and roaring, winds and clouds churning and roiling, gray and silver.
And Thor fell to his knees in the center of it.
He closed his eyes, a word rising up in his mind on onyx wings, rising from the depths of his subconscious, from a void he'd forgotten was there, and trailing droplets of silver behind it.
Loki, he breathed. Loki please come back.
Loki please.
Come home.
"You will live to regret this," Loki said, appearing before Thor, tall and dark and gaunt and not at all the boy Thor remembered.
Loki shook his head slightly as he raised his eyebrows, his lips twisted in something that was almost a smile.
"And then neither you nor any other creature will live at all."
And Loki came back. Because he just doesn't stay dead, now does he? O.o
EDIT: I realize now that this fic is confusing, especially the Loki part in the middle, so I'll explain my thoughts about it.
Basically this fic is based around the idea of the Ragnarok cycle (which I believe is from the comics) where Ragnarok just keeps happening, and though their actions are altered slightly each time, they always have the same tragic ending, and Loki's the only one with any recollections of previous Ragnaroks - so Loki was remembering events that had happened in previous lifetimes, so he was remembering falling after letting go of the spear, and he was remembering stabbing himself after he ended the world - but he was also stabbing himself in the reality he's in at the same time because he's trying to avoid that Fate where he brings Ragnarok and kills Thor.
And in the reality here, in the beginning Loki was following Thor around because he admires and loves Thor, but also because he's trying to figure out what makes Thor a hero, because he doesn't want to be the villain, and he's begging Thor to let him change, and to not push him away into insanity - except that Thor does push him away, and holds him to his titles.
I think the reason why Loki leaves so easily is because in the reality here he's a sensitive child, and also because it's not just how he's been treated in this reality, but in all previous realities, and it just kind of builds up, and he can't really keep straight what happened when.
But Loki brings balance, chaos when there's order, destruction when there's creation, and an end when there's a beginning - he's a necessary part of the cycle. So he comes back at the first possibility and excuse, when Thor asks, because it was a tacit promise that he would come back when Thor asked him to, even if it's thousands of years later. And so even though their actions were different in this reality, the end result will still be the same, and Loki will bring Ragnarok.
But I realize now that none of that was apparent in the writing, and that this fic is almost kind of incomplete and not fully fleshed out; it's just something I wrote on whim in perhaps an hour or two around midnight and didn't plan at all. And perhaps posted prematurely.
So yeah, this fic is an absolute mess that badly needs work.
If you have any tips on how I could fix it up, I'd love to hear!