Distorted & Disordered

Chapter 16

*Trigger warning*: Brief reference to weight and suicidality

"Have you spoken to Loki?" Mr. Winestine asked Ms. Pirelli, hands wrapped around his mug of hot chocolate, trying to keep warm. The weather was starting to turn bleak and bitterly cold for the start of November and Mr. Winestine was not looking forward to shoveling snow in the Connecticut breeze.

Ms. Pirelli pursed her lips and shook her head lightly, scattering the flakes of dandruff free from her scalp.

"He hasn't been turning in his work lately," she mentioned, brown eyes struck with worry.

"He hasn't been on time to my class in weeks, either," he answered, brows drawn together in thought.

"Should we tell Mrs. Greene?" Ms. Pirelli asked, slight alarm raising her facial features into a cartoonish expression.

Mrs. Greene was the school's guidance counselor; Mr. Winestine chastised himself when he couldn't put the name to a clear face.

He sighed, taking another sip of his drink with baited concentration.

"I think he's lost weight," said a new voice, popping into the conversation.

Mr. Winestine's eyes rolled over to the newer substitute teacher who had just parked himself into their (private) conversation.

Once again, Mr. Winestine couldn't place the young man's face, so he communicated this silently with his narrowed eyes and a peculiar expression knotting up his features.

"Mr. Joseph," the man said, lending out his arm that Mr. Winestine only turned his nose up to and did not shake.

Mr. Joseph lowered his hand awkwardly, and then returned to spinning the thin red straw into his cup of hot coffee.

"His brother's Thor, right? Hasn't Loki been acting more distant and to himself?" Mr. Joseph questioned, green eyes looking back and forth between the math teacher and the English teacher.

Ms. Pirelli pursed her lips forwards again, looking like a duck's bill.

"He's never really had many friends," she stated softly, afraid she was wording that incorrectly.

"He's a bright young kid," Mr. Winestine complemented. "Probably going through some hard times at home," he reasoned, either to himself or to his other colleagues he wasn't sure. "Mr. Odinson isn't the kindest of souls." He reiterated, having only met the older gentleman in a few parent teacher conferences and always having dreaded the conversation. It wasn't that Odin was a difficult parent, it was just that he would focus so heavily on Thor's schooling rather than his second son's, as though he had forgotten he had a second son to begin with. Odin wasn't great at being loving and affectionate and Mr. Winestine was afraid what kind of affect that was having on the younger brother.

Loki was a softer soul than Thor. Whereas Thor was boisterous and heavy headed, Loki was technical, analytical and conscientious. They were brothers all the same, but even with a year in between each other it was clear that Loki had a brighter future ahead of him as his personality wouldn't land him in as much trouble as Thor's. Sure, Thor was a great kid too; doing well enough in school and having sportsmanship skills that couldn't necessarily be taught from a textbook, but Mr. Winestine had a special place in his heart for Loki, probably for how much he reminded him of himself.

Mr. Winestine had had to deal with being compared to his older sister and two brothers all his life. He felt some kinship with Loki in that regard. He knew what kind of hell it was to so constantly be compared to your other siblings when you only wanted your parent's approval.

Mr. Winestine feared that with Odin's strictness with Thor and expecting so much out of his older son, that this abrasive attitude towards Loki flopped more than he realized.

Children are not one in the same, rather unique and different in their own ways. Mr. Winestine felt that Odin was likely applying one role of being a parent to both his sons rather than specifying each treatment to each boy separately.

Loki was a young man who wasn't certain of his identity yet, and wouldn't likely come into understanding it until he was late into college. He was a more sensitive and sickly boy, and Mr. Winestine felt that Odin often forgot this or worse, overlooked it.

But Frigga, Frigga was an excellent mother. She had raised her kid's right and she took such pride in both of their accomplishments.

Mr. Winestine was only afraid that Loki underestimated this unconditional love from his mother in order to purely focus on winning his emotionless father's love.

It was a difficult predicament for certain and Mr. Winestine had often hoped that schooling provided Loki with a kind of escape that he couldn't often apply at home. But with his grades now slipping tremendously and the obvious concern oozing from his favorite teachers, he wasn't so sure this was something they could all battle alone.

There was certain strength in numbers, anyhow.

"Thor weighs, what, one-fifty? Loki's already been thin to begin with but you can tell from his face that he's lost more weight." Mr. Joseph continued, without missing much of a beat.

Mr. Winestine's frown deepened: he couldn't help but be biased; he didn't trust people with last names that were also first names.

"Hardly," Mr. Winestine interjected, nursing his dark red mug. "He's been wearing a lot of loose clothing lately."

"All the more reason to suspect something," Mr. Joseph responded. His green eyes poured out concern and well placed compassion. "His grades are slipping, right?" Mr. Joseph implored, even though they all knew he'd been eavesdropping from the start of this exchange. "I'm telling you, he's looking thinner and you should probably get Mrs. Greene involved with this before something else happens."

"Something else?" Ms. Pirelli squeaked in a soft voice, her brown eyes wide.

"Look, I know I'm new and I'm not really part of your team yet, but when I've seen this kind of thing play out in other school districts, well, it didn't end well." He gave a sheepish, firm smile as he shrugged his shoulders, sandy blonde hair bouncing. "Getting support and help involved sooner will pave the way for a better outcome than if we wait until something terrible happens. Trust me. You don't want to wait in these kinds of scenarios. Shit can hit the fan reaaaal fast." Mr. Joseph held up his palms in surrender, backing towards the other exit of the office space. "Just my opinion that no one asked for. Don't shoot the messenger!" He waved before his back retreated through the doorway.

When Mr. Winestine was sure Mr. Joseph was out of earshot, he addressed his co-worker, "Make an appointment for Mrs. Greene and get Frigga Odinson on the line, this is something she should know about soon."

With his hot chocolate becoming lukewarm, Mr. Winestine watched as the anxiety crumpled his shoulders and he bit his lip in thought. Emotions weren't his forte. He liked math because it was calculated and finite, simple and measurable. Emotions? They were not. But he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that even Mr. Joseph picked up on.

Whatever was happening to his students, he wanted to know what to do to help make a positive difference, rather than be reading out eulogies at their funerals.

He cared deeply for his students, wanting them to excel and do well in life. The faculty hadn't faced a student's death since Jeremiah Ferdanez and that was well over five years ago. It still hurt to think about, even if it was a freak ATV accident. To be reminded how powerless he was to protect his students made his skin crawl-especially when it came to protecting them from themselves.

Mrs. Greene, a fair skinned redhead with long hot pink acrylic nails tapped on her keyboard as she looked across from Sunny Michelle who was a freshman at the high school, starting late as she was facing difficulty situating a home for herself with her foster parents.

"And you lived where previously?" She asked quietly, tongue extending over her lip in concentration.

"A shelter," Sunny replied, speech thick with a Spanish accent.

Mrs. Greene nodded in understanding, typing in a few final remarks before setting her eyes back to the young girl before her.

"It'll get easier," she mumbled, wondering how much of her job was to introduce cliché paradigms for her students. "Does meeting with you next Friday at eleven works with your schedule?" She almost slapped herself for how petulant that sentence sounded.

Sunny smiled thinly but nodded regardless.

Mrs. Greene leaned over her keyboard, unsticking a sticky note from its holder, jotting down the date and time then extending out to Sunny a hall pass and note for her history teacher.

"Give this to Mrs. Railley ten minutes before your appointment to assure you have ample time." Mrs. Greene smiled politely then waved to Sunny as she began to leave the room.

"Thanks, I guess," Sunny whispered, wishing to jump her way out of the room.

Once the door had closed, Mrs. Greene sighed.

I don't get enough thanks for this job, she thought to herself in woeful dismay. Just as she was about to start up a new document for the student who would be walking their way into her office next, she heard a clean, thin handed knock on her door.

"Come in," she chimed automatically.

Surprisingly, in popped Ms. Pirelli's head, white fluff and all from the cracked doorway.

"Mrs. Greene, do you have a minute?" She asked in a small voice, as though she were uncertain of every move she was about to make (and it didn't pass by Mrs. Greene that this may in fact be the case).

"Is Thor leading the charge of a rebellion in your classroom again?" Mrs. Greene responded with jest, a smile quirking her thin lips.

"Ha, no, this isn't about him," Ms. Pirelli replied as she anxiously wrung her hands with a saddened expression flitting across her cheeks and brown eyes. "It's actually about his brother, Loki."

Mrs. Greene had been loosely aware of the younger sibling's run-ins lately with clipped responses to staff and almost daily repeated detention slips for running late to Mr. Winestine's classes.

Mrs. Greene raised her brows in question, "Oh?"

Ms. Pirelli chewed on her thick bottom lip. "He's been behind in his schoolwork if he even completes it at all." Seeing Mrs. Greene's immediate reaction, she plowed on, "It's unusual for him. He's a straight A student in a majority of honors level classes. He's always loved his schoolwork and was very attentive to detail but now he seems apathetic and…." Ms. Pirelli struggled to place the adjective before muttering out, "gloomy." Ms. Pirelli huffed under her breath, concern filling her eyes.

"Have you spoken to his parents?" Mrs. Greene asked her cautiously.

"Not yet," Ms. Pirelli explained. "We were hoping you'd know what to do?"

Mrs. Greene's gaze shifted to the doorknob behind Ms. Pirelli.

"Has he been isolating?" she eventually asked, getting her jaw muscles to unhinge from their locked position.

"He didn't have many friends to begin with," Ms. Pirelli inclined. "Though he's not been working with his peers on assignments, I've heard from other teachers." Her worried gaze furrowed further. "Do you think there's something wrong?" she asked quietly, her voice small again as though she were trying to shrink back into her skull like a turtle.

"Could be a number of things," Mrs. Greene responded with. These were delicate matters that required delicate approaches.

"Call his mother and report your concerns and in the meantime, give him one of my cards," she jostled free a business card between the sharp points of her nails, "and this pamphlet." She shimmied away a loose-leaf double-sided page with a graphic of a man holding his head in his hands and a text based scrawled font reading you are not alone.

"The pamphlet has the national suicide prevention lifeline in it as well as some text-based services across the nation and a list of local resources."

Ms. Pirelli's face went flush at the mention of the word suicide.

"You don't think it's that serious, do you?" she asked tentatively.

"All suicidal ideations are serious. They just vary in severity. Some can be acute, others chronic. The warning signs are there though, most often. Has he spoken to you, his parents or others of where his thoughts are?" Mrs. Greene schooled the English teacher, hoping that she would remember some of the trainings that had covered the basics of what teenage students (and also children) could face in terms of stigma and mental health conditions.

"N-no," Ms. Pirelli stammered with tears in her eyes. "He doesn't talk as much these days, his participation scores have been steadily declining. I thought-"

Mrs. Greene interjected right away, "What you thought then doesn't matter now. We just need to get him the extra support he needs. Maybe nothing will come of it or maybe it'll mean the world. Let his mother know where you're coming from and offer solutions. Whatever he is struggling with will come to a close in due time. Provide him with hope that it gets better because it does and the help that's available to him if he should ever require it." Mrs. Greene stared at Ms. Pirelli with an intensity she didn't often carry in her tenth year of the job.

"W-we think he's lost some weight, too," she whispered again.

Mrs. Greene's lips downturned naturally.

"All the more reason to get him to proper resources," Mrs. Greene advised, silently judging a checklist in her mind, not that she would ever dare to armchair diagnose to her colleagues…or anyone.

Instinctively, she plucked out another pink hall pass and handed it to Ms. Pirelli before she realized what she was doing. She laughed like a baby for a split second before readjusting her facial features into a stoic expression.

"Call soon," she advised before Ms. Pirelli had left the room. "Time is of the essence." She nodded knowingly then licked her fingers as she took out another sticky note and waited for the next pupil to walk in.

This was going to be a long day for her, indeed.

It was a quarter past noon when Ms. Pirelli's shaking hand clamped around her black telephone as she dialed in the Odinson's phone number.

The shrill ring lasted for one, two, three chimes before a gruff male voice appeared on the other end.

"Hello?" Mr. Odinson barked with regret for having answered the phone thinking full well that it was yet another scam ringing up his house.

"Mr. Odinson?" Ms. Pirelli's voice questioned in a noticeable quiver; male figures always intimidated her, even when she was young.

"Who's this?" Odin remarked hoarsely, eyeing his gold and brown watch with a wary eye.

"It's Ms. Pirelli from the high school. I'm calling in regards to Loki." She said in a hastening rush, hoping that with more speed in her voice the less ferocity would arise from the gentleman on the other line. "We've noticed a remarkable shift in his schoolwork as of this year. He's not been turning in assignments, asking for shifted deadlines, missing classes, being tardy and the like. We're concerned for him and we're hoping you can keep a more watchful eye on him at home."

Odin bristled in offense.

"I take care of my boys just fine," he growled, then admonished. "I will take your concerns into consideration. I hadn't known he was getting so behind in his schooling. I will talk with him later about it. Is that all?"

"We were hoping that maybe Frigga could speak with him? They seem to have a closer connection than your relationship with him." Ms. Pirelli groaned internally at her less than enthused remark back to the man.

Odin narrowed his eyes, shaking his head in disgust at her remark. "Our relationship is just fine, Ms….?"

"Ms. Pirelli." She immediately supplied.

Odin laughed mirthlessly. "Right, Ms. Pirelli. I've been a father for longer than you've been a teacher. I know my children well, and don't need someone of your caliber weighing in on decisions I make for my family."

Ms. Pirelli began to protest but Odin nearly shouted at her:

"I can take care of it, thank you."

And he clicked the phone off with no further remarks.

Ms. Pirelli sighed with a trembling breath, adrenaline pumping through her system as if she had just been in a high speed car chase.

"That could have gone better," she mumbled to herself, slightly distraught. Her eyes glanced over at the pamphlets she had received from Mrs. Greene earlier that morning. She slid them towards the inner corner of her desk, wondering how that conversation would go with Loki after class as she was planning and what horrors might await him back at home. If his issue was involved with his living situation, she feared she'd just made it thrice as worse.

Mother will be leaving for her next trip in an hour, Thor had scrawled across a loose leaf slice of paper that he had the gall to borrow from Loki's otherwise empty notebook (it was the principle of the matter that grated his nerves the most).

And? Loki wrote back, feeling distressed, ill, irritable and mildly hungry. At least, that's what he thought his body was trying to convey to him. It all got so confusing as of late. He'd started to get used to depriving himself of nutrients that he hardly got the bodily sensation of hunger anymore.

Remember? That's why father was home today, Thor wrote next.

As if I give a shit, Loki replied, tossing the note at his brother in the row in front of him. Loki had started to sit into the third or fourth rows of his classes when his grades had begun to slip. He felt it was easier to pay less attention in these rows than in the front and he could get away with resting his head on his oversized sweatshirts and falling asleep on his desk.

Thor read his brother's response and swiveled a concerned look back at him.

This was strange for Loki, but Loki had been acting stranger and stranger these days.

Are you okay? Thor began to write but then he scribbled it out. If something was wrong with his little brother, he'd tell him…right? Doubt clung to Thor's worried expulsion of a breath.

Before either of them knew it, the bell rang and Thor was shoving the lonely note back into his pockets and scrambling to get his assignments and notebooks back into his backpack. He slowed himself down to a crawl when he waited by the door for his brother to unveil himself from his desk when he saw Ms. Pirelli approach Loki.

Ms. Pirelli lowered herself to one knee and whispered something so softly to Loki that Thor couldn't have made it out even if he wanted to (which he did, by the way).

Loki's face, thinner than usual-was he always this thin? Thor wondered to himself-fell in a mixture of shame and terror.

The younger sibling pocketed two loose leaf pages and stormed out of the room in a disheveled, hasty manner.

Thor easily caught his younger sibling by the bicep and he was instantly overcome with worry when he felt more cloth from his brother's sweatshirt than his actual flesh and blood.

"Brother, are you all right?" Thor asked but Loki spun away from him with more energy than what appeared to be going through his system.

"Leave me the fuck alone!" Loki nearly screamed, eyes welling up with tears as he skittered down the hallway as fast as his thin feet would carry him.

Thor stared at his retreating form in utter bewilderment before registering that there was another culprit in the room who could give him answers. Thor's head shot over to Ms. Pirelli so fast he felt nauseous.

"What did you do?" Thor asked lowly and accusatory. Nobody messed with Loki but him, he determined then.

Ms. Pirelli looked guilty, eyes meeting Thor's in fear.

"Be there for him." She hushed. "Just be there for him."

Thor's head tilted imperceptibly as the gears in his head spun out of control. He retreated backwards with awe and such an intensity of concern that he didn't even register passing by his sibling, who was crying, at the edge of the school grounds. He just hurried along trying to get home, trying to make sense of things, and failing to ever do so. He felt on his toes and he felt incredibly alone all of a sudden.

What was happening to his brother? And was there anything Thor could do to stop it?

A/N:

Well, hello there! This chapter came up pretty quickly, I have to say. Maybe it's because the Muse was kind to me and because it had been so long since my last update, but now there's a few updates in just a few days' time!

An excellent and on point reader had questioned why Loki's family and teachers hadn't been noticing his downward progression so I finally got to answer some of that in this chapter! I think I have a clear direction to go from here so hop on aboard and stick around for the ride! It's going to get a little bumpier before it gets better, and it will get better! Also, I'm about a chapter ahead for the first time ever so I'm really excited for what's to come soon! :D

I have a training happening all weekend so it may be a little while before the next update but I'm really waist deep into this story again and I am grateful for the response it is receiving across websites, so thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and ideas with me!

Here's hoping for a soon to come update! :]

Stay safe!

Written: 4/4/2019

Edited: 4/5; 4/6/19

Songs listened to in the making of this chapter: "Nobody can save me" by Linkin Park and "Attention" by Charlie Puth.