I'm taking a quick break from writing To Go Beyond to go where my mood is taking me right now. The prompt word for this upload is probably pretty obvious once you reach the end.

Hope you like this shortling (:


It was not often, but every now and then he did really stop to look at himself.

How long had he been on this little ship of odds and ends that are this galaxy's guardians? After what felt like a lifetime – and maybe it had been, maybe he had already died – of living with the Avengers, Thor was well-accustomed to measuring his time in human years.

One year? Two? Maybe more.

Maybe it was several years ago that he had clambered aboard Quill's Milano with the rabbit and the tree, in an ill-fated attempt to escape the horrors of the years preceding that still brought him aches like unhealing bruises.

To an extent, it had worked. Thor was still a warrior – still worthy, said Mjolnir – and knew how to survive with a new team, new quarters, new weapon, new body, while his same past continued to claw at him and threaten to turn him inside out. He spoke of firearm preferences with Gamora and the rabbit. He taught Drax and Mantis several words in the tongue of Flora Collosus. After everyone had several Yirmordan rums at a pitstop, he joined their lighthearted wrestling contest in the cramped confines of the ship, and helped to clean up the next day. He even steered the Milano (while Quill slept).

But Thor still had to stop and look at himself every so often.

Not for the first time, Thor wondered what had happened to himself.

It was not the change in his body that shook him the most. Although often he would catch a glimpse of his former self – before the Snap; lean, enviable, almighty – in a dusty mirror, in the corner of his eye, in someone else's fireside story, and heave a great sigh deep inside.

It was something that felt unnamable, as he stood before the half-length looking glass in his makeshift quarters upon waking, or when pulling on his forearm bracers and being struck dumb for an instant by the engraving of his brother's helm catching the light. It was as though his former self – before the Snap; almighty, spirited, naïve – in these moments would seize his shoulders and say Remember all that had happened before this? Can you believe it?

There was one night, after everyone had several Yirmordan rums at a pitstop, when he asked Mantis to hold his hand and help him put a name to it. She could not quite give him one. Together they bowed as two broken bridges, racked with sobbing until the early morning.

When Thor stopped to look at himself, he thought perhaps it was as if he had donned so many coats that his old self was too far below the surface to make a sound.

Or perhaps it was the other way around – that his old self had really been handsome armour smothering who he was now, his softest, most painful core, that had finally spilt forth. Pain – real pain – was never pretty.

How long had he been on this ship? Five years? Six?

(How long had he been away from home?)

(Where even was that anymore?)

One evening, he felt a touch on his shoulder.

I think I know now, Mantis said.

You are homesick.