So I saw the preview with Loki sitting against the wall, screaming, and this popped into my head.
This is a one-shot from Loki's perspective, just after finding out Frigga had died. This veers away from Thor 2 a bit but I naturally own nothing.
Screaming
He wouldn't, couldn't stop screaming.
He would scream until he lost his voice, until his throat tore but as soon as he healed he would start screaming again. There were no tears. Tears had been the first prior to the screams, now there was only madness and loss.
He ignored the brother that wasn't his brother berating him. He ignored the guards that shouted at him about muzzles and punishments until the not-brother growled at them. What did it matter? She wasn't here. She never would be again. She had been. She was here but not here…now she truly never would. Because she was gone. She was dead and he was a liar.
Yet something had started to penetrate his shattered psyche. A touch. It was gentle and cocooning in its comfort, as if he were wrapped in her arms once more. Once, when he'd been a good, obedient boy. A son who didn't lie to her face and deny the love that was there. That would always be there. The arms were stronger than hers
and wrapped around him protectively and it had been so, so long since he'd been safe and content.
A chest. His face was pressed up against it, arms wrapped around his torso and holding him there and his back resting in the crook of an arm. There were strong fingers stroking through his hair as if to somehow silence the screams. They weren't in his throat, they were in his soul, his mouth merely opening to release them.
A long beard was tickling his ear, the quiet song that reached him a very old AEsir lullaby that she had sung to him as a child. A song that never failed to soothe the tiny infant that he had once been. He closed his mouth to quiet the screams, wanting-needing to hear the song.
He was cradled on a lap, the pair of them on the bed, but it wasn't the one in his cell. The bed was bigger. Softer. The lights were dim, torchlight, but the smells were familiar. Where was he? Who was holding him? The fingers returned to his dark hair, as if praising that he was keeping the screams quiet, and the lullaby came to an end.
He'd never felt so hollow before. There was always some emotion boiling inside of him, scant few on the positive spectrum but there was always something. No longer. As if his screams, the screams he couldn't give voice to in the abyss, the screams that he'd swallowed in front of Thanos and the Other; as if they had scooped out all of his emotions to leave behind an empty vessel waiting to be filled.
The quiet was comfortable, the touch welcome, new and yet familiar. A touch from long ago. Things like pride and anger and embarrassment were the farthest of concerns. What did they truly matter, anyway? Awareness is what mattered. Blinking slowly, languid, talented fingers reaching up to tangle in the tunic he was pressed against and hoarsely asking his question, "…father?"
The head tilted down, blue eye filled with frightened concern, "Loki?"
Did he lie in court? Was the concern the lie? He was so good at lying it was hard to tell. After all, the son didn't learn to lie from his mother.
Swallowing, feeling child-like in his grief, "I lied."
Normally gruff voice soft and encouraging, "How did you lie, my son?"
Was he a son? Was he an orphan now? He didn't know. He was confused and he hated being confused. Face crumpling, tears blurring his vision, "I loved her. She was my mother and I loved her-I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…"
Odin couldn't tell if Loki was apologizing to him or to Frigga, but it made no difference to him in either case as tears blurred his own sight. He was a king, he had a duty to Asgard, but he was a father as well. He could not sacrifice the boy his beloved had loved, that he should have loved more, to satisfy the court and if that meant he could no longer be king then so be it. Theirs was a shared grief, both of them losing the woman they loved most, "You've never been able to fool your mother. She knew…"
Hand tightening in his tunic, "C-can you stay?"
Nodding slowly, wrapping his arms more firmly around his son, "As long as you need me to."
He stayed with me throughout the night, just because I asked him to. The next day I told him everything and I didn't lie even once. I may never be the favored son of Asgard but I do forgive him, just as he declared that Asgard forgave me. I followed Thor to avenge her and I returned home to protect the people she loved. I am Loki Odinson, of Asgard.
AUTHOR NOTES:
This short, evil little plot bunny would not leave me alone until I was forced to put it in print. And after reading it I liked the ending so I decided to post it.
I'll let you decide if from this story's perspective if he faked his death on Svartalfheim just to mess with Thor (which I could completely see Loki doing).
In my mind's eye, Odin sucks at being a parent but he's not heartless.