Author's Note: Started out as a coda to ep 21, didn't get much further. Still, my first completed Matantei Loki non-giftfic, so.
in the absence of light
There are some things that are easy to recognise, even if Heimdall no longer has superior sight in this weak human form. Perhaps one of the easiest is loneliness; whether it's found in the resigned wryness of Narugami's grin or the way Freyr always has to be doing something to fill his time, Heimdall can tell. He knows loneliness as well as he knows darkness, and he knows darkness as well as he knows light. He has to, after all. Once, the light was all he had.
Heimdall hates so much about Loki. Even if the scar across his right eye were not reminder enough, there are other things to resent. The condescending voice, the mocking smile, the way Loki's never afraid, never takes Heimdall seriously. The way he barely acknowledges Heimdall's existence unless Heimdall's right there and trying to kill him.
The fact that he doesn't need to, because he has a life and a family of his own, and something to care about, and something that needs him as much as he needs them, if not more. A defence against solitude. It's almost...unfair, or would be if Heimdall believed in fairness.
Heimdall doesn't believe in much anymore, except perhaps revenge. Revenge in the form of payback for his missing eye - revenge in the form of Loki's loneliness, because that's all Heimdall's ever known, himself. 'Family' is a laughable concept, something he can't acknowledge. The closest he can get to 'friend' is 'comrade', which is merely another word for 'someone on your side'.
Heimdall's side is Odin's - he has to believe that. It is easier than admitting the doubt which grows tight around his throat in the early hours of the morning before dawn, a doubt which tastes almost like regret and certainly like betrayal and sometimes, though he wouldn't know from experience, like tears. A doubt; a weakness in the conviction that still burns with the steady low flame of pain.
Loneliness, too, is a weakness he refuses to admit.
A short, mocking laugh. "This time your ever-helpful friends aren't around!"
Loki turns, something akin to understanding flashing briefly in his eyes. "You're--"
"You're alone." There's a bitter, blind satisfaction in Heimdall's voice. "All alone."
Heimdall doesn't remember losing consciousness. Just: one moment the fall, Loki's desperate cry fading ( and so much easier to ignore, now ) - teeth still clenched in a grin against the tears that had escaped --
-- and then somewhere else. Cold, beyond all else, with a chill so sharp it cuts much deeper than just to the bone. Heimdall's eyes are closed as he lies still, and the dull familiar pain pulsing behind his right one suggests that it really is over. Funny, almost, how even in death he regains nothing. He raises one gloved hand slowly, and slides it beneath the soft fall of hair; runs it gently over the closed eyelids, the barely-raised ridge of an old scar. ( The tears are dried against his cheek, and he can pretend they aren't there. )
The smile that had frozen bitterly on his lips relaxes, for after all the anger is gone, and the pain somehow dulled. Perhaps this is what death feels like. Everything seems strangely distant now, an irrelevance in this new, hazy world. Heimdall begins to consider opening his eye.
"The white god...Heimdall?"
The voice is female, young and quiet. He does open his eye then, blinking a little. It's out of reflex rather than a need to let his eyes adjust; after all, he can see in the dark - and it is dark here, the dark of despair or emptiness or solitude - far better than any of the other gods.
Heimdall knows the darkness very well.
So sight comes easily, and the figure before him is recognisable enough. Somewhere, in a heart that no longer beats, there is an irrational flutter of something Heimdall does not want to name as 'hope'.
"...yes. Yes, I am."
She nods gently, as though the question was more formality than confirmation, and offers him a hand.
The Norns might tell him that there is never a true choice, and perhaps Heimdall might believe them. But even if there was one, it's still an easy decision to make. The hatred has never gone away, and that itself is an understatement; Heimdall doesn't need pain to remind him of the bitterness that crouches still within him, a falcon waiting for its chance. Even now it raises its head against the wintriness of this grey realm, and something smiles in the shadows.
Her hand is cold and delicate in his gloved fingers. Heimdall meets her eyes, shielded though they are behind cold lenses, and recognises what he finds there --
-- and before she speaks again, before he even gets to his feet to face her, he already knows the offer.