He needed to get out. He needed to launch himself from the crooks of his clothes and into the thunderous rainfall that came down that October evening.
Wasn't he supposed to be asleep?
Well, of course.
It was 2am, after all.
But could he sleep?
No, no he could not.
The shadows breath lay down and swirled amongst his shaky ones. His green eyes stared out numbly and broken, watching the flashes of lightning illuminate his bedroom as the thunder boomed unrelentingly.
I have to get out. I need to get out. His thoughts rasped to him, choking on the syllables, struggling to suck in one pure, full breath, one after the other.
"I need to get out." He groaned to himself, using his remaining strength to pry himself from the clutches of his formidable bedspread.
He stood, then, peeling off the sweaty dark T-shirt and slipping into his dark green, long sleeved Slytherin top and a pair of jeans that lay crumpled on the floor from the school day before.
He adjusted his sneakers, having gotten messier in the last week, and edged off as quietly as he could from his room, down the hall and towards the steps.
For a split second, he heard his father's mattress squeeze and ache as he pictured him sliding to the right in the large, empty bed.
Their mother wasn't due back for another evening, and Loki's longing for her presence weighed heavily in his chest, prodding him to skip down the steps agilely to get to the outside balcony.
From there he stood stock still for a moment, watching the dark night filled with cool raindrops falling from the sky, the lightning illuminating a fraction of the droplets as they made their descent to the muddy grass.
Loki watched in awe, transfixed by the powerful strokes of Nature, like she were a painter bringing rebirth to the shadowlands.
He listened as he could hear the tampering and the puttering of the leaves being soaked, their yellow and gold encrusted bodies being slung from their homes, twirling in the ebony, fluttering to the ground. He imagined what it might be like to be torn away from everything he had known, to be brought to a world that was not his own, alone and with no one near him to guide him on his journey back.
He wondered what it was like to know love and belonging, to know support and friendship, to know what light it brought to one's soul-and to have the plug yanked away in fury and passion-finding him in a world comprised of pain and bittersweet nothingness.
What was it like to have it all-only to lose it once more?
What was it like to be whole-not empty and broken and cracked?
Loki closed his eyes slowly-because now he was out there, he was living amongst the crashing droplets, amongst the powerful strokes of thunder and white hot light that threatened to take from him his very soul.
It was simpler to stand amongst the wreckage with his eyes closed, a separate being from the thunder, than with his eyes open-as the hungry licks of water would poke his green eyes in a manner that was both rude and obnoxious.
Loki breathed in a cool, refreshing breath. He inhaled the scent of the world surrounding him-a world he could have easily slept through and would be none the wiser of in the morning.
Being there alongside the storm gave to him more comfort and freedom than what he had felt in months. He could sense the love from his mother's hugs here, the encouragement of Thor's boastful personality and the prying eagerness that father, too, would be accepting of him.
In the watery sludge he was engaged in, he felt he could breathe once again.
The shadows of his mind could not dare to overtake him. The numbers and counting and weight and drudgery, were no match for his attention here.
The only trouble?
Loki dreaded the moment he would be forced to disengage, to return to a world where he was questioned for being himself and looked down upon for yearning to be loved.
The storm he stood in may end naturally, but the one behind his pale eyes would never go so quietly.
A/N: Hey everyone! My massive apologies for the longggggg, long absence. I have NOT given up on this story, nor do I intend to. Life got busy for me and I've been having some struggles with the OCD lately, and I've been meaning to write for weeks, and FINALLY got some inspiration to do so today when I was hanging with a friend of mine who also got some fanfic writing done :D
Any who, I'm hoping to work up on Chp 8 next and get that to you guys over the weekend. It will finally be their Mother returning from her business trip and we'll come to find out if she notices the changes in Loki over the time she's been away... dun dun dunnnn.
Hope you all are well and snazzy, you beautiful people! Reviews are lovely, and I want to thank all of you out there who are reading and reviewing and giving me the much needed prods to continue writing this. Thank you so much! *hugs* I've also recently created a blog if anyone's interested in that, hahah ;)
Thank you all again! I'll try to make the next one longer if the Muse obeys.