Staring at the ceiling, it occurred to him that he had not expected Frigga to be kind.
Odin had not been kind. Odin had had him cast out. It had been months since their last audience. And Loki was sure that Thor had long-since forgotten him.
The last time he had seen his brother, was when Thor had gone to take the Tesseract to its place in the Vault. All creatures have a point where their will is broken, and they learn. And Thor had finally learned to give up on him.
He'd grown so accustomed to Thor's resilience, that he had not expected it.
He'd known his brother lost during the battle on Midgard. It was a thing that had had to happen. There would have been no other way.
No other way to bare the plans he could not trust. His mind had fractured under the pressure of the Stone, and with its removal he had shattered. It was a fail-safe he had neglected to consider and it had ruined him.
Though what else had he expected, he mused bitterly. What else was the lot of his kind.
Not just Jotun. Oath-breaker. Kin-Slayer. King-Slayer.
He was a player in intrigues and it was the risk of the game that it could fail. And he was suffering the outcome of failure. He'd known it a possibility.
It was only that he'd rather thought he might be able to speak in his own defense.
And, after everything, he'd expected Frigga to hate him, along with all the rest.
She'd caught him, once, in the throes of a nightmare. He had spoken in his sleep, or cried out – she had not said and he had not dared to ask. She guessed that his actions were not of his own will. She guessed that he was forced.
And it would have been so easy to say yes. To admit that he had been taken. To admit that he had been broken. To face her tears and embraces. To accept her promises of help.
But all the time he would have known it to be yet another snake in the grass. That snake would have raised its head and its bite would have been the death of her.
"Truth will have out, in the end," she had cautioned him as a child. The irony of it did not escape him, though what drew blood as he thought it, was the truth behind the words.
She guessed that it had been against his will that he had acted. But it had not. He had wanted to kill them. All of them. His brother amongst the rest. And once he had claimed that world – through the blood and the ashes he would have turned to Asgard. He would have looked for the recognition he had sought so greedily as a child. And he would have laughed. He would have readied Midgard's strength, teaching them what they did not know, and he would have led them against what had once been his home.
He saw her in his mind, pleading with him that those were only the machinations of he who had applied the Stone's powers on him, but he knew that was not the truth. He tasted lie, and the tang of it curdled in his blood.
She visited him, though not frequently enough to dispel the boredom. In the first days she had begged answer of him, begged that he speak to her as he had once done. The ache of his refusal remained, even once she had ceased to ask. It nettled him, and he lashed out at her. He knew he oughtn't. He wanted to give her the consolation that she was – in part – correct. But he knew she would not rest until he had told her all.
She should not visit him. He seethed to himself. He deserved none of her devotion.
A large part of him was surprised that he had not yet managed to drive her away.
It frightened him that, one day, he yet might.
He had not, truly, expected Thor to leave him.
He'd thought Thor might visit, at least once, to plead with him. To remind him of their brotherhood. But Thor did not, and after a time, Loki stopped expecting it.
If Thor had met him on Midgard and seen the ploy, Loki would have broken. He would have crumbled under old habits, and he would have admitted everything to Thor. All would have been lost.
"Come home."
Recalling the traitorous tug of his heart, and the supplication in Thor's face, Loki closed his eyes.
He'd broken free of Thor's pull. It had haunted him since childhood. He was free of it, now. He supposed he owed Thor thanks, in some off-hand way, for casting him out, that final time. It had finally been enough.
But he had never wanted Thor to forget about him.
His hand closed spasmodically on the cup in his fingers and it bit into his palm. Carelessly casting it on the ground, Loki rolled to his feet and began to pace. He felt cramped and wild. There was nothing on which he could spend his energy, nothing on which he could focus his mind.
Restlessly, he paced.
Kindness, was the cruelest of tormentors.
Chapter 33 of A Little More comes a little after this chronologically, and it will be the next thing I publish. It is also - possibly - my favorite Loki/Frigga interaction yet. It should be up in a couple days if you want to check it out.