Hello. Things are Not Happy today. Next chapter is probably going to go up Friday and is equally Not Happy in a different way. But the good news is we are getting closer to having some actual progress! Wooooo. I like progress.
Warnings: This one comes covered in trigger warnings again. Body dysmorphia, past suicide attempt, suicidal urges, depression, self-harm, nightmares, ptsd, panic attack.
Rating: Teen at the very least.
What If
He presses his hands down on the bathroom counter, keeping his eyes closed tight. His breath shakes; he draws air in, holds, holds, holds.
(He does not know how long he fell, only that he could not breathe, that he did not need to breathe, magic burning and sustaining and wasting him away even as he clawed for somewhere to land, ache and star glimmer and darkness and vision swimming and silence nothing but eternal silence except what his mind crafted on its own, sound where there was none, sound he has not been able to stop heari-
Air rushes out; he opens his eyes, breath coming in great ragged gasps, torn through him unwillingly and making his lungs feels afire. He cannot stop shaking; he raises his eyes and sees himself in the mirror.
Green eyes without flicker spark of magic in them stare back, face structure lacking the solidity of Aesir structure (even if that were a lie), skin too pale and flawed, damp black hair that sheens only brown and not the multi-hued colours of a raven's wing.
What am I? he (weak thing) thinks involuntarily.
He presses a hand to his reflection's face, palm flat against the shower steamed surface. He cannot stop shaking but ignores it. This is not his body. It is not him shaking. It does not feel like his body, it cannot be his, he feels numb and sick and
(for a little while he did not know if he existed, just music he could not stop, noise that would not stop, not until-
dark angry hate.
He snarls, drawing his hand back a short distance, closing it into a fist and slamming it into the mirror.
(did not know he was real until-
His hand explodes in pain, glass digging into his knuckles, warm wet blood and so very much pain, realness, and whatever barrier between he and this body (not his) breaks, letting them overlap once more.
Not dream.
Not hallucination.
His head aches, throbs, sound of his breathing twisting with shards of mirror falling and tinkling in the sink and drum-thud-rhythm breathing, creating some dissonant symphony pattern he cannot turn off, not since falling. He stumbles away from the sink, back hitting the wall, and he slides down it, studying the blood and shards of reflection in his fist, cradling it close with his other hand.
Something bubbles in his throat; he laughs. Some horrible broken sound, mixing with the rest of the noise in his head. He thuds the back of his head against the wall, closing his eyes, laughs and laughs and laughs, eyes squeezed shut. Hot wet tears slip down his face, but it is only because he laughs so, he thinks, no other reason. None at all.
He has no idea when laughter fades into sobs.
XXXXXX
Eventually, the knife edge ache dulls.
"Are you okay?" Steve asks him, eyes concerned and serious.
"I am well," Loki lies, meeting Steve's eyes as he says it.
Steve frowns at him, opens his mouth as if to contradict, then nods.
"Okay."
(He wants to lash out; he feels trapped and distant.)
He smiles at Steve, leans in for a kiss, and under the table where Steve cannot see, presses tight against the cuts on his hand, until they bleed into the bandages and sting with sharp pain
(everything snaps back into place, but he still wants to scream, to break)
and stays there, forehead pressed to Steve's, eyes closed.
For a moment, things feel solid.
(for a moment, he thinks that he could say something to Steve, admit that no this is not well I am not well I am not help me please—
Steve's hand rests against his neck, warmth and callouses, trust and love and everything good.
—except it is weakness and he is not, cannot, be weak. He is well. He is Loki of... where?)
He pulls away, keeps the bandaged hand beneath the table, and looks at the rest of the restaurant. Quiet. Mostly empty because it is late, because Steve had been away,
(what if something happens to him, his mind whispers insidiously)
and though Loki is not hungry Steve is.
(nothing, he wants to say, wants to believe, nothing because I do not need him I do not I do not there are other things to hold onto)
Steve is talking. Loki cannot hear him; there is too much noise in his head, swirling and reshaping itself into music that he only wants to silence.
(what else?)
He digs his nails into one of the larger cuts until it flares bright and white and grounding. He can't help but hiss at the pain, clearer than any he remembers feeling before.
Steve stops talking.
"Knocked my hand," Loki explains, smiling half-heartedly.
XXXXXX
Everything fades to grey
("Are you okay?" )
routine and schedule,
("How are you?")
drifting without anything from one thing to another,
("Is everything alright?")
hands fumbling through the motions
("Are things good?")
and mind a thousand miles away.
XXXXXX
"Are you well?"
"Stop asking me that!" he snaps, nearly healed hand slamming palm down on the table, sting of skin helping bring things into focus.
Startled brown eyes meet his.
Olek.
It's like waking. Suddenly sound floods in, music stopping and becoming nothing more than the noise of the crowd in the coffee shop, cars outside, sound of rain and... life. Not music. Not endless orchestration punctuated by question.
"Luke?" Olek asks carefully.
He (Loki, he is Loki, this is his body now) blinks. His nerves feel raw, scraped over, and he swallows.
He has no idea what day it is.
He glances around the coffee shop, at school bags and purses and coats, at scarves that trail their ends on the ground, at people who laugh and talk, who slouch and read books, at light bouncing off fly-away strands of hair, steam rising off mugs, the line that hovers by the counter, and actually sees them.
There is snow outside. A thin thin dusting. It is melting.
He looks back at Olek, Olek who is watching him, face serious. Concern twitches one corner of Olek's mouth down.
"Are you well?" Olek asks again.
No.
He opens his mouth
(weakness)
and the word catches. He closes it again.
"Luke," Olek repeats gently. "Do we need leave?"
His brow furrows.
"Come." Olek stands, pulling a light coat on.
"Why?" Loki finally manages to ask; his voice creaks, as if disused. He wonders a little what he has said, how much he has said. If he has spoken. How long it has been since he spoke. (How many people have been asking him if he is well.)
Tuesday, he thinks. It's Tuesday.
"You are shaking."
Loki looks down at his hands, holds one up.
So he is.
Seeing the tremble triggers a chain reaction, as if his body were only waiting to be noticed; his heart thuds in his ears, he can't breathe, he needs to breathe, he has to, this body (his?) is too frail, and whatever connection momentarily grasped evaporates. Except noise is still just noise, loud, too loud, and he can still see without it blurring and...
Olek helps him stand and drapes Loki's coat over his shoulders, a hand placed in the center of his back and then stumbling onto the street. Loki blinks at the sunlight and tries to convince his heart and body to stop shaking so, to convince his lungs that he needs to breathe
(and perhaps it is not his body after all, though it feels it, for a moment, for a few steps, then slips away again, like learning to crawl)
and sometimes, sometimes, manages it.
"Home," he chokes out.
Olek nods but does not look at him.
XXXXXX
He falls into bed still clothed after Olek leaves.
There is less shaking, though when he holds a hand up it is still unsteady. And he can breathe a little, though it is still tight in his chest.
He buries his face in the pillow with a sigh, curls up tightly.
He hears his phone go off on the bed stand, soft chime of an appointment, but does not move. He cannot remember what there is to do and it seems so... unimportant.
He can feel himself again.
(and he is not afraid he will suddenly stop, that suddenly everything will twist sideways and slip apart again, but this, this feels like exhaustion, like a spell worked too long-
He laughs, cracked, at the thought of spell and magic, and opens one eye to look at a hand that will not stop shaking, that is little more than flesh and bone, nothing there.
He rolls onto his back and grabs the phone off the bed stand, holding it up and staring at it until the words make sense because at least it is distraction. Ah. Steve. Dinner with Steve. Here.
He closes his eyes.
Falling star-glimmer and burning and clawing, magic tearing and sustaining and he only wants to die it is why he let go let him go but perhaps he is, dead, star glimmer flash pulses and sound twists in his head, music of energies that throb and give him air when there is none, and he can't feel anything, perhaps he is dead and he does not know except when he lan-
He screams, claws at what is on him, around him, twists and lands heavy in the floor, blanket tangled around his legs and stares at the ceiling.
His apartment. Midgard. Not there.
(He is not weak, he made a choice, he has chosen and decided, was in control, it was for the best, is in control.)
(Nothing else happened.)
"Loki? Is everything alright?"
His throat constricts and adrenaline floods his system at being found, hands ready to break-tear-destroy, strength or no strength.
Steve. Blue blue eyes are looking at him, worried, a brow dipping ever so slightly, a dish towel in his hands.
His heart does not stop hammering, though he relaxes slightly. He cannot remember what it is to breathe normally; thinks of breathing, of regulating it
(how, he has no magic)
and stops.
He twists, the blanket dragging to the floor, then pushes himself to his feet.
"Fine," he spits, ash on his tongue, lets him forget breathing and draw it in again, shaky.
He picks the blanket up and tosses it back on the bed. When he turns, Steve is still watching him. Something sharp and hot flares.
"What?" he snarls.
Steve frowns, sticking the towel he had been drying his hands with in a belt-loop.
"Is there anything I can do?"
Loki stares at him. No 'are you okay,' no 'I am worried about you,' no question of his well-being and instead...
His teeth click as he shuts his mouth.
(somewhere, buried yet still audible, help me. Please.)
(he strangles it; he is not weak, he does not need help, not need anyone, anyone at all)
"Leave me alone," he finally says, voice low.
Steve watches him and then nods. Does not protest, does not object. Just nods as if it is the most reasonable request in the world.
(don't go)
"I'll be in the kitchen. Get some more rest if you can, you look exhausted." Steve smiles, soft and gentle, radiant, and for a moment Loki despises that smile, despises that Steve listens, shakes with hate and loathing and rage even though Steve is gone, noise muffled as he does something in the kitchen.
(what if-
He does not scream, though he wants to, though the one lodged in his chest makes his every breath a struggle, every movement shake and tremble. It is all he can do, teeth grinding together and some low noise-buzz-swirl in his head, just at the edges, and nothing else is clear except break.
He begins with the blanket, until he is shaking from exhaustion and everything is ruined tatters, then forces himself to keep going, shredding, tearing, rending, destroying, pushing this pathetic shell of a body (not his) even though it aches and burns and complains, until feathers are scattered everywhere and he is nothing but heaving breath and aching head and fatigue, heart pounding and anger slow low burn pressing in the backs of his eyes.
He curls up in the ruined bed things, feathers tickling his face and stirring as he breathes, closes his eyes. Something wet leaks; he ignores it. It's nothing. Some mote that got in his eye.
XXXXXX
The sounds of rustling paper and some soft thing scratching against it. Feathers tickling his face, uncomfortable pull of muscles. The bed. Right. He barely remembers it. It feels distant, as if it happened to someone else.
He opens his eyes.
Steve is sitting next to him, sketchpad propped against one knee. His brow is furrowed in concentration, face withdrawn and glimpse of something that Loki has no word there. Something he does not often recall seeing. His eyes flick over to Loki's face, study, then he blinks, whatever glimpse of artist Loki has caught vanishing as he smiles, that soft quirk of his lips that still makes Loki's heart warm.
"Hey," Steve says, letting go of the sketchbook to reach over and run his hands through Loki's hair, fingertips pressing in lightly, soothing.
"What are you still doing here?"
Steve removes his hand and looks at the sketchbook.
"Didn't want you waking up alone."
Not knowing what to say to that, Loki shifts and moves so that he can lean against Steve's side and see what he has been drawing. Steve obligingly moves an arm, wrapping it around Loki's shoulders.
"I don't look like that," Loki says automatically, mouth dry.
Steve chuckles, leaning over to press a kiss the top of his head.
"You do to me."
There is a solidity and strength to Steve's lines that capture bone structure Loki knows is not near so solid any longer, a knowledge of exactly what to leave undrawn and smudged to convey magic, and a love that twines with every stroke to create something god-like. Not exactly as he was, but close, close enough it might near be dirtied mirror in Asgard.
"I want it," Loki says, and tries to make it sound like demand.
"Okay. But only if you do some things first."
Loki reaches out to touch the edge of the paper. It is real, does not vanish or change, and he sighs, drinking it in. That he is still here, even now, somehow.
"What?"
"You're going to eat at least a little I cooked tonight, there is almond paste in the cabinet that hasn't vanished yet, and we need to get you some new bedding."
"In a little while," Loki says. "I am comfortable."
"Okay." Steve sets his sketchbook on the bed stand that has somehow stayed free of the shreds of blanket, sheet, and feathers, then pulls Loki into both his arms, pressing his face into Loki's hair.
"I love you," Steve whispers, not letting go.
Loki shivers involuntarily.
"I love you," he murmurs, overwhelmed and dizzy and tired beyond reason, able to relax, to breathe, for the first time in what must be weeks. He melts against Steve, listens to the beating of Steve's heart, steady warmth and tempo.
Closes his eyes and
(one, two, three, four, one, two, three...