Distorted & Disordered
Chapter 25
**Trigger Warning:** Eating disorder details, feels, grief
Green eyes squinted at the blank white ceiling in an effort to decode this very strange situation the young teen had landed himself in. The edges of his eyes wrinkled together in the corners, sagging almost in the young teen's face. These lines…they told a story. One etched in shrouded pain not unlike those in the lines of all the other faces in the place he never could have imagined himself to be. Although these lines shouldn't have existed on such a young man's face, it still felt unnatural to think any differently could exist. They were supposed to be lines of laughter and happiness, but what had Loki found instead?
His lips were pursed and confusion lay within his irises, still trying to decipher what exactly had happened when and if there was any way he could have managed to avoid this.
Maybe, maybe he was just asleep and this was a dream all gone awry. Maybe, maybe it wasn't actually playing out like a story in his mind and everything was going to go back to normal soon….
As if Loki ever knew a normal.
"You know, the sky doesn't have all the answers," mused his roommate and Loki cracked the smallest, faintest flicker of a smile.
He didn't exactly glance over to his room's occupant but made some sort of jerking motion as he remarked in a cracking voice, "Sometimes it does."
"Not for what you're searching for," Bruce mentioned calmly but he shifted his own dark brown eyes to the ceiling, pondering to himself, almost in wait.
Loki noticed this, even if it was through his peripheral vision, he recognized a lion in pursuit of its meal. He groaned lightly, the mere thought of food igniting in him a sense of displeasure and gradual unequivocal acceptance. He turned to his side, facing his roommate.
"Okay, I might have a problem," Loki began hesitantly, so uncertain to what he was supposed to be doing in this situation and what would actually help him or make the experience go by faster.
"Shoot," Bruce replied, turning over in a mirror of Loki's body language.
Loki bit his lip, "I… I don't know if I can do this." He sighed. "I, I obviously have a problem."
"Obviously," Bruce remarked in kindness, which Loki noticed and appreciated with a small grimace of an upturned lip.
"But I don't know if I'm ready to face it. If, if I'll ever be ready to face it." Loki added in correction, his mind foggy still, confusion hanging from his neurons like tinsel from a Christmas tree. He shifted uncomfortably, noticing in the back of his mind the way his exposed hip bones and elbows dug into the mattress in a way that could only ever be described as uncomfortable.
"I just—I don't think I'm ready. And I don't know what to do," his eyes grew blurry with emotion. "What if I'm not ready? What if I can't be honest? Then…then what?"
"You're having second thoughts," Bruce replied so casually that it made Loki's vision even more incapable of clearing. "That's okay; that's natural. Anybody in this situation would be afraid. It's your first time, right? Being in a place like this?" Bruce asked, and Loki twitched his head in ascension.
"Then it's even scarier. It's scary to face your problems. Anyone who calls it easy clearly hasn't walked in our shoes. Or, if they have, they're at a different place now. Regardless, it's a scary thing to face. It's a scary thing to want or need to change. But the alternative could mean not feeling this way or not feeling this pain in the same intensity as now, and doesn't that deserve to be explored if you're given the chance?" Bruce's eyes searched Loki's face for something the young teen knew of not. "You're really strong, Loki. Getting help is never a sign of weakness. Admitting to someone that you're struggling will never be not brave because the alternative of lying and pretending you are okay when you're not is far easier to do." Bruce's lips twitched and he stared down at the floor for a moment. "I think anyone who goes through the things we're going through is so strong. I bet not knowing how strong you are and how strong you have been is so hard—it's a burden no one should have to carry alone. And you've been doing that, that business, alone, and now maybe it's time to try a different tactic." Bruce's gaze hovered over the adolescent again, in a way that Loki registered not as foreign but as seeing the whole picture which ignited something in his soul that he hadn't ever felt before.
"Does that make sense?" he was asking and Loki fidgeted uncomfortably but not without admiration.
"Kinda," he answered honestly, still lingering doubt encircling his perspective.
"It's not going to be easy," Bruce was reiterating, gazing at him knowingly. "But it will be worth it. We have to believe in that because otherwise what's the point? One second at a time." Bruce paused and thought to himself for a moment, Loki appreciating the distraction because his thoughts were moving and sliding all over the caverns of his mind more than he wanted to admit.
Hunger… he was so hungry… Hungry for more… hungry for less.
"I take it you've made friends with them, haven't you?"
Loki's eyes fell upon Bruce again in wonder.
"Whatever's happening in your brain," he said softly. "Once you've made friends with them, once you've gotten comfortable with them, the notion of changing or doing differently by them gets… it's a form of loss within its own. Because you have to give up what you know for what you don't know. And that's terrifying." Bruce hummed to himself. "I've gotten really comfortable in my anger; it practically walks with me wherever I go. And I have to realize that unless I do differently by it, it's always going to. I can't exactly leave my brain in my bedroom when I go off to school. It's something that's always with me and something I may always have to manage somehow in some respect going forwards. I can either let that rule me or find a way to overcome it." He shrugged noncommittally. "I guess I just like making more work for myself." He broke a smile and gazed over at Loki again, then shifted to his back and looked up at the ceiling.
"I'll count the dots with you if you want me to."
Loki let out a long breath, not even realizing that he was holding it all in. He held a lot of things in… maybe too much and maybe this experience would prove to be a function of reminding him that he didn't always have to.
He never quite acknowledged Bruce's offer but he did let him count the dots with him as they stared up together at the ceiling.
Maybe this was what hope and togetherness felt like.
"We better get going," Bruce was interjecting a few moments later, glancing at the large black watch on his wrist. "We're already a little late." He frowned but shot Loki a confident glance. "Music therapy," he clarified as an afterthought, already moving across the room towards the door.
Loki grunted in response, not particularly ready for the journey ahead but he clambered up and dragged his peach blanket behind him, following Bruce's quick pace down the hall, around a corner, passing an animated Elijah at the nurse's station who gave the two boys a thumbs up and hurdled himself into the main group room.
Tired and fixed gazes cast towards the two entering teenagers and Loki blushed in embarrassment right away, averting his green eyes as he set them upon a woman at the head of the seated circle.
Her long brown hair nestled against her waist, tied into a neat ponytail as she smiled at the two adolescents and waved a hand towards the circle.
"Pull up a seat, boys," she was saying in admiration, already clutching a guitar in one hand and setting it upon one leg. "We've got the usual folders with song lyrics being passed around. What I'll have you do is pick out a song that calls to you and I'll play it and then we'll talk about any feelings or thoughts that came up from them." She looked towards Loki, her brown eyes glistening. "If you'd do me the honor, of course," she said again, motioning to a pair of empty chairs in the back of the room.
Loki blushed a little brighter and nodded, following Bruce to the chairs and squeaking them up into the circle besides Tony and Steve respectively.
Tony gave a quick nod to the two of them and muttered quietly, "Maibill already picked the song out." He gestured beneath his legs to a thin white girl with bright blue eyes and long bright red hair extending past her shoulders.
Loki's gaze struck her with an intensity and curiosity he hadn't felt in ages as he held the blanket a little closer to himself, his knees to his chest in a protective position. His eyes fell to the sheet of paper that was presented to him from Steve to Bruce from the thin manila folder that the group leader had brought.
The young teen settled into the chair with an air of uncomfortable bated breath just as the notes of music began to swirl around him.
On the paper, half a dozen pairs of eyes read:
The Sun is Rising by Britt Nicole
The notes of the guitar started out with a beautiful melody as Loki's stare from the words on the paper blurred momentarily, his attention span being such a fickle creature as of late that he started to tune out of the moment—until the words began to hit his soul like hail smacking against a car's windshield.
He found himself launched into a world of living and breathing and existing that took his breath away. The words ignited some flicker, some dampened, sense of hope in his soul that he had long since forgotten could ever have existed to begin with. The words of encouragement and effort to see the good in all that was bad made his eyes water, the sneaking suspicion deep within his mind that he could have gone without having this newly evolving experience to begin with, if, if he had…if he had…
A fresh tear rolled down the side of his face as the empowerment of the moment struck something so deep within him that he was sure his heart had stopped beating altogether and that this was a plane of surviving he had never been able to encounter before.
It was within this very moment, that a song of so much healing and brightness struck some match within Loki and made him that much more willing to fight and learn and survive everything he had been in danger of losing. There was something in the way the notes were sung into the air, something about the acoustics of the guitar, something within the lyrics, something within the company he had managed to secure from himself after so many years spent alone and by himself.
He was so grateful.
In that moment, with the warm tears and the bitterness of feeling never enough, he was so grateful that he could breathe. So grateful that he could get the chance to experience what he was experiencing right in that moment. Because he'd gotten so close… so close to never being able to experience it again or at all or forever and that, that scared him. It scared him more than he ever thought it could and it was like all the feelings that he had stored within his skull and behind lying eyes had suddenly and so forcibly been unleashed that he had to let it out, he had to let it go and he had to see that he was strong enough to carry this weight himself.
And that, that no matter how much snot unleashed from his nose and the convenient box of tissues was skittered over to him from Steve on the floor, that he didn't have to carry this alone. That no matter how long he had been thrust into the shadows, he didn't have to be alone in manhandling them out into the light.
The song breathed new hope, new air, new life, into this long emotionally forgotten teenager and he was so…aware of how much he had lost already to the waves of an unkept sea in his brain that he didn't want to give Ananias another inch of his life, of his being, into something that so cruelly and truly wasn't his friend. Friends don't hurt each other. Friends don't harm one another and they don't encourage unhealthy behaviors.
Friends love one another and friends are there for one another.
Maybe Loki was jumping too fast into things with the fact that he barely knew these individuals sitting around him, but in the moment, in the moment of intense emotion and in the moment of hope spilling free from his soul, he felt that they were indeed potentially really great company and he really wanted to get to know them more and learn about them and help himself by being there for them. For him. For all of them.
Because friends don't give up on one another and family isn't supposed to hurt either.
Family wasn't supposed to hurt either. Family wasn't supposed to breathe pain and do unto pain; family was meant to support and lift and cherish.
And maybe Loki's life wasn't exactly perfect, it wasn't exactly the slice of apple pie on a dinner plate, but it was his family and maybe the parts of his family that did work, that did matter to him and that did mean the world to him, maybe that was the part he was meant to be focusing on more than ever.
Maybe it was all too much for the teenager at the moment, maybe too much of a realization out of a three minute long experience, but it was something and something Loki was becoming more willing to bet his life on that the sun would shine again, that the night—and all the pain, and all the efforts to be worth something—channeled in the right manner, all of that could be overcome.
Potentially.
Maybe.
And for once, that felt like it was enough.
"To me it's a song about rebirth, about finding the light no matter how dark the night can be," Maibill's Southern accent was thicker than Loki would have anticipated, not that he'd have much information to go by from her outer appearance. Her bright green chipped fingernails were something she focused on as she spoke, a layer of inadequacy frothing off of her that only one inadequate being could recognize in another. She bit her lip and shrugged, "I thought it could sum up my own hospital stay pretty well. Y'all know how much I love music." She smiled thinly, as though she'd just told herself a joke. "It's in my blood and it carries me through the toughest o' storms. I thought maybe it could do the same for my peers."
She glanced briefly, like a flicker of a bird's wing, towards Loki who blinked as he dabbed at his eyes with the tissue paper.
They locked eyes for the smallest of moments and Loki could have sworn he found something of himself in her, he just wasn't sure what exactly.
Before he could decipher the clues any further, the connection ended.
To his left Steve was humming to himself.
"I liked the notion, in particular, about the singer's relatability with the listener—that no matter how dark the night bleeds, the dawn of a new day will bring forth continued hope and continued life. It's like no matter what trial exactly the listener is going through, maybe even eons differently than the singer, that it still matters and it's still valid." Steve nodded to himself, mulling his words over in his mouth like he was sucking on a lollipop.
Bruce piped up from beside him, "I really liked the part where the singer is pulling from her own faith in the world that things will be all right in the end and how, by crafting this song and releasing it to the world, she's doing much the same, being a voice of power and reason and hope that better days are ahead for the listener to believe in and progress forwards with a little more of a lighter heart."
Loki's mouth formed a small "O" at the marvel between his new friends—feeling instantaneously proud to tentatively call them friends, flabbergasted that the depth of their emotional experience was so very different than his own and jealous that they could form together words and phrases so eloquently that, he was sure of it, he could once do but no longer manag—what was he saying?
Loki shook his head distrustfully, a pang of hurt lingering in his soul. Their differences were so glaringly bright in his mind yet he appreciated them all the same. He felt both like he should be where they are intellectually and still where he was or worse—would this be his unending future? Unable to think and feel appropriately and forced to watch his brain taunt him and pucker at the notion of eating, always focused on what self destruction he could further create and then encased in his ineptitude regardless? Would becoming weightless take everything away from him and—this next thought gnawed on his bones and at the inner pounds of his flesh—would it all be worth it? Or was this a losing battle in the very end?
Donuts. Pastries. Pizza. Bread. Butter. Cheese. Orange soda. Coffee. Cookies.
He could practically feel his mouth water at the thought of these foods and at the same time he felt the immediate pain in his gut that he didn't deserve to eat and he wasn't worthy of ingesting food groups into his system. Lower—he had to go lower. This wasn't enough. He wasn't perfect yet. He wasn't worthy yet. He wasn't thin enough. If they knew the truth then they would see that he truly didn't have any type of condition and that all of this, all of this gibberish, was a product of his own mind and really he was caught and crossed into these four walls purely by mistake. He didn't belong. Genuinely and truly he didn't belong and once they saw that, once they learned it all then they would leave him to the streets, sought to pine after meals he could never consider consuming and forced to make a home out of the nothingness he was always brought into. He wasn't worthy of help or hope or effort. He wasn't worthy of carrying himself flawlessly or having curves to his body or muscles for his abdomen. He'd never be as strong as Thor, as wise as an owl, as belligerent as Volstagg. He'd never be worth a second thought in his father's brain and no matter how thin he got, how long he sustained weightlessness, how many hours he could go without food or drink (because the calories weren't worth it, the price of skinniness was controlled emaciation, the beauty of the bones that protruded from his pale skin dipping into the furniture and the way people looked at him, hidden beneath his clothing, a disappointed stare lingering in their irises, just as he felt so proud to be fragile, to be vulnerable, to be perfect) he knew in truth, in his heart that threatened to stall or cease beating as he could see the skin of his chest flicker with the movement—he knew it would not be enough.
Because there could—would—always be more. Or…less as it were. There would always be a new goal weight. There would always be another Ananias waiting at the corner market. There would always be another shadow looming ahead and another breath left to take with the growls of his stomach as it roared in protest: feed me, it would say. Feed me, please.
But no, he couldn't. Shouldn't dare to.
It was all a part of the plan. It was all a part of the mission. And Loki… Loki had known this getting into it. He knew what he was going to be giving up—he had, hadn't he?
And still the thought questioned, deep within the recesses of his mind: was it worth it? To be this thin, to be this opposite of the fat that resided seemingly immobile on his flesh, was it worth it? Were the hours spent analyzing his food intake, cutting back numbers at a time, measuring, checking the flabs, poking the fat, weighing on the scale, seeing the numbers drop but still not feeling, still not believing, still needing less and less and less—until it was all that he thought about, all that really mattered and how could he think, how could he dare to even consider the possibility that Ananias was anything but a friend, a guiding light away from—into?—the shadows. He could just picture it now—the scale, the sense of euphoria he'd feel when once again he hadn't given into some twisted biological need that everyone else fell victim to to consume their food and consume their numbers. The atrocities they went through to not have to weigh or count or record, having to fold like a house of cards to something so innate to every living being on the planet—Loki was better than that. Better than them in some dark and twisted fashion.
He didn't need sustenance. He didn't need (to be loved? To be worthwhile? To be kind to himself? To others? He hadn't earned it yet. He hadn't met his goal. And if he couldn't make his goal, if he couldn't manage to ignore a signal so primitive and ingrained in his existence, then who would he ever fool into believing that he was worth the entire world?).
It was probably the most coherent Loki had been in a while and it all resulted back to the same thing: weight, numbers…control. Worthlessness.
Even as the teen bit his lip to ground himself in the moment, still he wandered through and through. In the moment, lost to his thoughts, worrying about the next breath and the next absence of hunger, the clanging way his body rolled and the way his clothes hung from his frame, and the familiarity of being so distant and so far that he could barely keep his head on straight, knowing if it were unattached he would have lost it ages ago.
By the time he mostly returned, feeling as lousy as possible physically speaking, they were on to the third song.
The paper shuddering before his green eyes read:
Lighthouse by G.R.L.
The stanzas were spaced out like a poem and Loki couldn't help but think of an old, long forgotten English assignment from over a month ago. By the Norns, had he ever even read that piece? Why couldn't he recall the way the words shifted on the page, the image they described before his eyes? He could just make out the bitter taste of stomach acid on his tongue as he'd just tossed up his meal from the nearest public bathroom and the way Thor, himself, was filing back into his seat for having completed a similar yet far more innocent endeavor.
Loki couldn't help but frown at the memory, feeling unwell as he tried—really tried—to be here even when his stomach and brain screamed at him to be anywhere else. Anywhere else where he could escape his pain and his thoughts, the numbers and the numbness. Anywhere else that didn't reek of his apathy and unhinged hatred for himself.
He managed to catch hold of a breath or two and a fading thought about bright light and a dark sky, something scrambled about homes, another shaky piece about guidance and finally a shred about dying, which he could relate to, of course, but he wasn't sure he was supposed to. His vision danced over the words, almost as though they were blind to seeing them and his disgust for his lack of concentration was too insurmountable to truly face in the moment with a clear mind. In a matter of another second, he only blinked once and the song seemed to be over, the last strums of chords on the guitar flicking across his face and Tony was saying something soft.
"It just makes me think of my Mom," his brown eyed gaze was lowered and his leg bobbed up and down like he wasn't really there but instead fishing on the side of a lake somewhere. Somewhere more peaceful, more at home. "She'd have said something like this to me." His eyes fell shut, mouthing shapeless words and tapping a finger at his pant leg. "I can just make out her voice. I can still hear it, so clearly, or… what I wish to be clear." A tear strolled down his cheek and the green eyed sixteen year old felt both enthralled in his peer's vulnerability and in the pain that broke inside his own chest for him. He felt this sudden unnerving, maddening eruption of emotion for Tony, wanting to protect him and shield him from the cruelty of the world.
"She'd have recommended me this song," Tony repeated, maybe just for his own ears. "If she'd still be here, she'd have told me about it." He smiled thinly; his body language conveying glimpses of darkness Loki never wanted him to ever experience.
"It's not fair," he was mumbling without realizing it.
Tears pricked his own eyes.
"You shouldn't have had to go through that," he continued, looking almost naively towards Tony.
Tony's lip twitched and he nodded for a long moment. "I know."
Brown eyes met green and it was like the world could have stopped turning for all Loki was aware of. "Neither should you."
Green eyes shone confusion, in the smallest way that his lids partially closed and the almost imperceptible way his head twitched.
"Somebody should have been there for you."
Maybe Loki should have felt anger at being called out like that. Maybe he should have felt sub-conscious because he was still sitting in a room of strangers who didn't know his business and he didn't know theirs equally. Maybe he should have felt numb because of the way his blanket sagged on him. Maybe he shouldn't have felt anything because he didn't belong here anyways, and maybe he should have felt like the outsider he always found himself to be.
But he didn't. He didn't feel any of that.
Instead, he felt…He felt recognized.
It felt like someone had finally found him. He wasn't lost in a sea of familiar faces anymore. Somebody saw him. Somebody saw his pain because they, too, knew it for themselves. And his heart broke for that, for Tony, for all the other Tony's that existed in the world. And it made him feel things.
It made him feel all the things that the numbers and the restricting and the avoidance kept him away from feeling. He hadn't realized he'd gotten so numb until all of his emotion just sprang back up like a determined seashell from the ocean, relentlessly washing back onto shore. He felt the most vulnerable he had ever felt in his life. He couldn't even quite compare it to another point in time because he was almost certain this had never, ever occurred. Maybe save for mother's knowing looks, when his mother wasn't there, things had…things had gone so bad.
And suddenly now, suddenly now someone saw him. Someone saw his pain, shared it even, and the entire universe could have exploded around him because he was so adamantly staring back at the one being on the planet who had just given him the greatest gift of all (and Loki was already trying to grapple with how he'd ever be able to properly repay him).
Instead they just looked at each other.
They looked and they saw. They saw themselves staring back, like a mirror, and something in their shared pain, shared inequity, something broke for something else to fly free.
It wasn't a bad thing at all.
Because in that moment, truly in it, they found hope.
And the rest, the rest of what lay ahead, the rest of the room's occupants, the rest of the emotions that rolled back and forth between tell and don't tell—they had all faded away.
Because all there was here was hope. All there was was a new beginning. And it was all shared in that one look. That one moment that would define everything else that came thereafter.
"I want to read again."
Loki's gaze shifted to Bruce, who looked up from a similarly thick item with a loose binding.
"Ooookay," Bruce began. "But I'm kinda in the middle of this one."
Loki sighed in exasperation. "Not that one, just in general." His eyes mirrored determination. "I-I can't right now because… because it's too much." He pouted. "But I'd like to read again." His eyes glossed over with a forlorn expression. "I used to read so much and it came so easily. I never realized how much I took it for granted."
Steve hummed beside Bruce, face deep within his drawing pad laid out over the common area's table. "That's usually how it works." He drew a rounded line then went back and erased it with his large, white rectangle residing inches from his nose.
Loki pursed his lips. "I used to draw, too."
Steve's eyes lit up and he looked away from his work. "Really? What about?"
Loki's cheeks glowed with a small pink hue. "Nothing impressive, really." He looked towards Tony for what exactly he wasn't sure, because in his mind he was convinced the other teen would be too far into his mathematics scrawled across lined yellow paper with tech building instructions skimming the margins. But instead, Loki found the older teen watching him curiously.
"Which translates into that being awesome," Tony chided and looked to Steve. "You better watch out, Capsicle, we've got another artist for you to compete with."
Steve chuckled and tossed back to Loki, "Don't mind him. There's plenty of room for all of us in the group." Blue eyes returned to his friend. "Besides, competition will keep us on our toes."
"You're the one always boasting that we're a team of some kind." Tony remarked dryly.
Steve smiled. "We are."
"A band of misfits, maybe," Bruce muttered but returned to Loki. "Art is a great way of self-expression."
Loki nodded, but he did appear to Bruce as distracted, which he couldn't exactly fault the young teen for, given the circumstances and where they were currently located.
"It's good to have interests coming back," Bruce said as Loki nodded robotically.
Bruce gave himself pause, hovering on his words, as the absence of conversation deepened and the thought he had was discarded.
Steve went back to drawing, Tony scribbling nonsense and Bruce reading over the words between his hands.
Meanwhile, Loki continued to fade in and out like static.
"I feel a lot stronger now than I was," Maibill was saying in a firm voice. She picked at her nails and added, "I'm not all the way there yet in recovery but I think I have an advantage now than what I did before." She smiled a little and blinked rapidly for a moment. "I'm ready to beat this."
Her eyes wandered over to Loki and her mouth formed a thin line before she shifted back to the group therapist and said, "I'm ready now to fight for my life."
The group therapist, Sherryl, nodded in encouragement. "That's great, Maibill. What helped you the most on this journey?"
"Peer support." Maibill answered easily. "Knowing that other people were there, that my sisters were right there alongside me. Knowing that I wasn't alone, and that other people could vouch for me and not my disorder. That other people didn't believe the shit in my head and it was lying to me this whole time." She shifted in her chair, but her gaze remained steadfast.
"If I'd known it before, maybe things could have been different…" she chewed on her bottom lip.
"But you know them now," Sherryl emphasized, pen in one hand with her notebook in the other, splayed across her lap. "We can't fault ourselves for what we didn't know before based on what we know now. It's okay to wish for differences but if we get too bogged down in them, it will only increase our ruminations and lead us down a path that focuses so much on them and not enough on what is actually happening in the here and now."
Maibill was looking at her with expectation and ever-growing knowledge.
"But you knew that already," Sherryl mused and Maibill laughed.
"Yeah, I guess I did."
Sherryl was moving on to the next teenager as Loki wondered to himself what he had missed and what it was exactly that plagued Maibill, caught somewhere between wanting to know and to remain oblivious and focused on his own problems. A stranger then appeared in the window of the room and the door opened softly and their voice was calling, "Loki? We'd like to meet with you." And their smile appeared genuine, and Loki realized in a flash of anxiety that maybe he'd just gotten his selfish wish. He was almost certain that a softly whispered Tony told him good luck before he was out the door, blanket in tow and trailing after him, being led down another hallway he couldn't remember if he ever saw before and into yet another private room.
They were sitting at a wide, white oval table with the young adolescent glaring at a lone, black streak residing in the middle.
"Loki?" the stranger was asking and slow, muddled eyes slowly gazed up. "Can you tell me why you're here? What brought you in?"
The teen clenched his teeth. "I've already told people about it. I don't want to talk about it. Anymore."
The stranger nodded reassuringly. "I read that you attempted suicide. What brought you to that point that death felt like your only escape?"
Loki sighed, eyes dropping back to the streak with his legs pulled up tight against his chest. "The numbers." He managed to whisper finally, because he was starting to realize if he remained as mute as possible, he'd probably be in the room for even longer.
"What numbers?" they asked.
Loki averted his gaze to the wall, unable to look at their eyes in fear he'd see something he didn't want to, or everything he needed.
"The numbers in my head."
It wasn't exactly a lie.
"What do the numbers say?"
He sighed.
"I just… wanted to be weightless." His vision blurred. "I still want it."
The stranger looked at him long and hard, even if he only saw it through his peripheral vision.
"Have you told anyone about this? Before you acted on it or even after?"
He swallowed through the dry expanse of his throat.
"Kinda."
"How did that feel?"
"Like hell." He shuddered then added, "But also okay."
"Do you think anyone could have intervened?"
"What do you mean?" he adjusted his gaze, finding their blue eyes.
"Before you attempted to take your life, do you think anyone could have intervened? Or, after it now, do you think that accessing help will keep you safe?"
She looked at him not with fear or contempt but with interest and curiosity.
It made him feel uncomfortable.
But also nice.
He thought a moment, thoughts skittering across the floorboards.
"Y-yes. But it wasn't their fault. It was mine. It's always my fault." His eyes shifted again. "My father wouldn't care anyways if I was dead or alive. He's made that much truly clear to me. And my brother… he tried to help in his own way. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day… I didn't want anyone to stop me." He picked at the skin around his fingernail clumsily.
"How long ago was it that you ate a proper meal?"
Anger sparked in him, even if he wasn't sure it was his own, and he shot his eyes towards the woman, offended.
"The truth?" he asked so softly he was sure he hadn't said anything at all.
"Of course," she encouraged.
He let out a long breath.
"Months."
"How do you feel about your body?"
"It's a waste of space," was his immediate response, surprising himself.
"Do you think you deserve to take up space?" she asked.
He considered this. "No."
"Have you tried to think of food as fuel for your body? That by putting in time and effort to take care of your body it will help you to feel differently about it in the future? That it'll help reward you of such efforts so that you can think and do everything you want to do?"
Loki blinked. "Why would I do that?" He paused. "Why would I want to do that?"
"Because taking care of yourself is an act of self-love and self-care that you deserve." She said it like it was as simple as reporting the weather.
Loki scrunched up his face and shook his head. "No, that's just moronic."
"Why?" She didn't let a skip in a beat happen as she replied with, "Just for you or for everyone?"
Loki hesitated.
"…. I see your point," he resolved. "But I still don't believe it."
"You don't have to yet," she answered, and she ruffled through some of the papers before her. "I have to contact your parents and your schooling to gather some additional information to find out what your symptoms have been and what others' observations were about your mental status and then, once that is done, I'll have you answer a few technical questions for me and I can provide you with an insight into a diagnosis."
Loki immediately leaned thin elbows onto the table, the wood digging into his pale, bare skin as he urged in a hiss, "Tell me now."
She looked back at him, caught almost between hesitation and being impressed.
"I can't yet," she said slowly. "I have to conduct the interviews and then responsibly I can—"
"Tell me now." Loki repeated, eyes alive and searching hers. "It's probably depression, right? And-and like an-an eating disorder? Which one?"
She held his gaze, nodding slightly, "From what I've read so far and what we've observed, most likely anorexia but you're not—"
"Thin enough?" A shadow fell over his face.
"—the definition of a disorder. Look, Loki, we're here to help you and in order to do that we have to know what you're thinking and how you're genuinely feeling. The more honest you can be, the better the outcome of your treatment. Diagnosis is used primarily to guide treatment for insurance companies and to have a template for what types of interventions can be utilized. Things like therapy, medication, the whole works. But I don't want you to get caught up in identifying as these labels. Some people may only see you as that one thing, and they shouldn't because you're so, so much more than that. So, please, don't fall into that hole. Find support, be an active participant in your journey and fight like hell because it's worth it. Just because people weren't in your corner before doesn't mean no one else wants to be now." She pushed up her thick glasses as a strand of blonde hair came loose.
It was then that Loki noticed the light freckles that were scattered across her nose and cheeks. The way her lips pulled tightly across each other and the nude lipstick brought out the blue of her eyes.
It was like all of a sudden she transformed into a person, rather than just some mere additional occupant to the room.
Loki realized he had a lot to think about. And he didn't exactly feel better for it. But he supposed it was a starting point. And maybe that meant everything.
"My mother doesn't know I'm here," he said very quietly. His eyes shone with dark emotions.
"Would you like me to tell her?"
He thought for a while about this. Uncertain then growing more confident. "Yes."
"What would you like me to say to her?"
"That… that I was in pain. And that it wasn't her fault. That, that maybe I can be okay. And it's…it's not so bad here." Loki ran his fingers along the streak. "That things will be different. Because, because they have to be." Tears versus not caring fought to win over his mind. "And that I'm struggling, and I don't want to be. That… that I'm scared and I wish she was here."
More emotions bubbled up but he shot them down, burying them into a corner he dared not re-enter anytime soon.
"Okay," she was replying, even as he fought so much internally, fighting for each breath and each moment for an escape.
"I have to do these other interviews and tests before I can properly diagnose you with anything and you'll meet with psychiatry on Monday to see if you're a good candidate for medications. Once this is done, I can give you some informational sheets about the diagnoses to help you and your family going forwards. Does that make sense?"
He nodded stiffly, wanting to finally get away from this room.
"It's going to take time, Loki. Medical will have to meet with you to develop a meal plan and how to go into increasing your food intake in a carefully controlled manner. Have you ever heard of refeeding syndrome?"
Loki shook his head.
"After the body has been deprived of nutrients for a significant portion of time, it can react very badly to suddenly being reintroduced to food. This can have significant complications to an even lethal effect on the person and so food re-intake must be carefully controlled and monitored. You'll work closely with medical, psychiatry, and a nutritionist, over this course of time." The woman eyed Loki for a moment before shce ventured forwards with, "Eventually, once you're medically and psychologically stable, the plan is that you'll move towards one-on-one therapy pending that you find a good therapist that fits. The continued goal then will be weight restoration as well as reshaping your relationship with food. I will also recommend a family therapist for you and your parents but, that's a little further down the line." She forced a weak smile. "It's a process for sure, and we'll be here to walk you and your family through it the best we can. You have a whole team of people walking beside you; you're not alone in this, Loki. Do you have any final questions?"
Loki took a small moment to internally look himself over: between the frame of his body and the self-distaste and the caverns of emptiness, he still felt odd being himself and having to relearn who exactly that was at the end of the day. He decided to leap with this thought, quietly saying, "I don't know who I am without this."
Green eyes gazed over to blue.
"I know," came her words and Loki felt a shiver pass through him. "If you believe in us and that we will do right by you, if you believe in you or believe in someone else close to you if believing in you is hard right now, then over time you'll learn who you are again. This doesn't have to hold you back from living a life to the fullest, healthiest extent. You're so much more than a diagnosis, Loki. And you have the rest of your life to prove that so to you and everyone around you. You'll go far, if you have this much determination and persistence, learning how to redirect it in a different way, you'll go very far. It starts with a supportive team, willingness and the courage to face the monster head on. Only you can choose to do this, no one else can make that choice for you." She grimaced a small smile. "I think you can do it. The other half of the battle will be allowing yourself to do it, too."
She slid the papers around the table until they were in a more manageable pile, sheets of white sticking out from various directions as she grinned back at the amused and distracted teenager saying, "Paperwork, it never ends in this field."
Loki snickered and took a long, deep breath. "Okay, I'm ready."
"Ready for what?"
"Ready to fight."
While the adolescent may have felt three times freer and more confident than ever, he was aghast when it all vanished out of his being the moment he stepped into the lunch line extending out of the dining room. He couldn't help but berate himself in his mind for thinking this was going to be that easy. If it were to be, if it were as simple as just eating a meal, he probably wouldn't ever have needed a place like this to help him relearn the way he behaved.
Teeth bit into lips and chewed on his flesh as his short nails dug into his palms. He was caught in a hurricane of emotion and second guessing, clearly hearing the hisses and whispers of Ananias just outside his skull so that by the time he was at the head of the line, he felt and saw so much that he simply could not allow his arms to swing forwards and grab the meal that was being nauseatingly offered to him.
"Would you like a turkey sandwich?" The worker was asking him, brown eyes aglow with curiosity upon her upper lip. "Or some green beans?" She gestured to the side panel where the long green food items were located.
Loki couldn't help but feel both frozen and paralyzed.
Food groups swam in his vision and he just couldn't allow himself to willingly move forwards knowing he was supposed to eat it. He was such a failure and if he took even just the smallest bite, he'd have to pay for that hell later by the throat crushing existence of Ananias in his head. He could feel embarrassment coloring his cheeks and even as he willed himself forwards, he just couldn't make the action happen. He just couldn't eat. He didn't deserve it and he couldn't help but be making a scene for something it felt like he could never begin to control again.
At what point did controlling his hunger and his thinness really make him entirely powerless? Totally out of control in the most ironic fashion?
He didn't know but before he could think another disparaging thought, he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, feather light and delicate.
"Hey," came the whisper. "It's okay, let's go sit down, all right?"
Another voice piped into the conversation with a simple, "It's all good. I'll actually take another slice of cake." There was the faraway sound of rummaging plastic and a murmured, "Thanks."
Loki was led like a zombie to a table and he clunked down into a chair with his blanket forever wrapped around him, his gaze fixed and worried.
The voice returned to his senses, "What's one of your safe foods?"
He jerked for a second, green eyes suddenly landing upon blue.
The returned gaze of understanding made him momentarily slack-jawed. The voice had come from Maibill.
She pursed her lips and ventured forwards with: "Loki? Do you have a safe food that's offered here?" She paused for a second, continuing, "Mine was always cereal. Cheerios to be exact." She sighed for a moment. "It's definitely not the most perfect way for y'all to start recovery but maybe if you can eat one safe food and just take a bite out of something that's not, you can work on it like that for now?" She scrunched up her nose in thought. "You probably haven't met with the rest of the team yet so I wouldn't do more than that for right now." She waved her hand around in the air. "Refeeding and all that shit."
She looked to him in wonder and seriousness. "Food is good. I know it doesn't feel like that right now, but it'll get better." Her gaze hardened. "A few months ago, I was where you're at. I had to get an NG tube, a feeding tube, even." She scratched at her nose at the memory. "Not fun. It's gonna take time but it is possible. Recovery, that is. Recovery is possible. Something that helped me out a lot was thinking that every bite I could manage to get through was another bite closer to being who I was before all this began. …. It helped with all the drive I needed to get better. Plus y'all really helped, too." She flashed a grin at Steve, Tony, Bruce and some of the other currently nameless peers in the room.
She motioned to the counter behind the teens. "Do you want to pick something out and then I'll grab you a mystery yogurt for you to try just one bite of?" Her lips upturned in the smallest flicker of movement. "Are you ready to fight, too?"
Loki studied her for a long minute before he jerked his head in a nod. "I guess." He offered quietly.
"You've got this," chimed in a male voice and green eyes fell towards brown with so much care and determination in them. Tony.
He could tell the exact moment that that flame of hope sparked alive again in his soul. Green eyes narrowed and he forced a smile onto his breaking features. "I'm ready."
"I was eight when I started restricting," Maibill was sharing, eyes glued towards Loki's. "It seemed great at first, ya know, but it soon spiraled out of control." She frowned, glumly. "It sucked. I lost so much of my childhood to some bullshit in my head and I regret it every day." She let out a deep breath. "I know what Sherryl would say about that, and it's true, I guess, what y'all say, but it's just hard. Ever since my Dad died, it just spiraled out of control."
She looked up to the ceiling for a second, closed her eyes and murmured something quietly. "I know he'd be so proud of me now, though. Getting so close to leaving here is a miracle I never thought would actually come true. I'm gonna be going back to my sisters with thicker arms and the best o' hugs. I can't wait, y'all." She grinned and poked at the Graham crackers in front of her, smiling peacefully.
"It all starts with that first bite. And then over and over again until they come more naturally and then from there, it's about repairing ya brain and ya shit." She looked at the teenager at the start of his journey, mulling over what words of wisdom she could share, something that would ignite something in him that he hadn't found just yet. "Just keep at it." She settled with. "Pinpoint y'alls reason for getting better and never let it go again." Emotion encircled her irises. "Y'all never let that go."
For a split second, she let out a small squeal and then shook her head and stood up from the table. "I gotta grab myself another pack." She looked to each of the boys. "Y'all want anything?"
She was out the door of the common area within the same breath when Tony was turning back to Loki, one arm draped over the side of his heavy chair and saying in finality, "They still should have been there."
Loki presented as confused.
"Your family, your friends, someone should have realized something was wrong." Tony said so matter of fact that Loki couldn't help but audibly sigh.
"I don't have friends." He muttered and looked ashamed for a minute or two.
"Now you do," Tony remarked back, easily.
Loki mulled this over, thinking as he said instead, "They, they may have tried to be there."
"Not enough. They didn't try enough. It's okay to be upset about that. When you grow stronger, you can tell them. Make things right."
"My father would never listen," Loki replied, dismally.
"So, you don't tell him, you tell your Mom and your brother. And then anyone else that comes thereafter."
"Do you really believe in that? Do you really think it's worth it?" Loki eyed him with questions to the brim of his mouth.
"I've got nothing else to lose if I do." Tony spun a pen on his fingers. He looked at the younger teen and said, "Plus, anything involving you is worth it." He blushed for a moment then turned his head to Bruce, "Banner, come here so I can punch you and get my manliness back."
Bruce huffed under his breath, his head buried in another book and Loki let out a small laugh, his fire burning bright at the way his heart melted inside his chest in honor.
The teen was glaring at the locked door before him, hoping he could will the door to unlatch from its hook and open up without him having to communicate to another individual to get it so.
"Looking for something, Loki?" Came Elijah's question, looking at the teen with intrigue.
"…. Yes," the teen spoke slowly. "I'd, I'd like some Saltine's."
"How many?"
"Just two."
"You got that." Elijah said, opening the door so that the teen could fumble through the other snacks in the locked room.
Loki tried not to get as flustered outwardly as he felt internally. His hands skimmed the other food items he couldn't begin to process for himself until he finally found the two crackered Saltine's packets and pulled them out in delight.
"Want something to drink?" Elijah asked and Loki paled immediately.
"Just some water." He grumbled, getting out a Styrofoam cup and filling it about a quarter of the way.
"All right," Elijah emphasized, and he lingered for a moment, standing about a little awkwardly off to the side as he noticed something in the air change and he was asking right off the bat, "You need anything else?"
Loki looked down at his chosen snack and even when everything in him told him to stop, he swallowed his pride and replied, "His name is Ananias."
Loki's eyes locked with Elijah's, even as his head screamed in protest, the shadows being uncovered from the bottom of their grave.
"My eating disorder," Loki continued. "I named him Ananias." His gaze flitted right. "And I'm no longer afraid of him." He raised his chin. "I have my life to live and he doesn't fit in it anymore."
Elijah smiled and nodded, identifying something innately remarkable about this conversation.
"That's some excellent insight, Loki. Keep fighting him, and the more you do, the stronger you'll get so that you're able to leave him behind in the dust." He continued to nod in thought as he waved a hand at the teen then looped back to the nurse's station.
Loki walked back into the common area feeling lighter emotionally than he had even since lunch time. He may have only nibbled a little on his crackers and the small cup of water but with the encouragement of his new friends, he was learning that maybe it all came down to baby steps. And maybe everyone's belief in him and not his disorder, maybe that would make all the difference.
A/N: Hiiiiii again! I want to apologize profusely for it being nearly a YEAR, an entire YEAR, since I last updated this story. Gah! Over the last year, I've been uploading and filming videos for my Youtube channel, getting stuck with video editing software, taking breaks (some planned, some not) from writing, updating another story, working at my job and getting intimidated about the writing process all over again (which I've managed to work through and get past now, hooray!). This work overcoming my intimidation about writing popular stories (in fears of disappointment; but it's just as possible there could be high praise! :O) started in Jan 2021 when I was reading a nonfic book that helped me out loads. And I've worked on this chapter pretty heavily since March 2021. Which is awesome.
And wonderful too because by far this is my ALL TIME number one favorite chapter of the entire story haha. I just want to gush about it for a moment: I love the ground I was able to cover in this chapter (I still feel the last 3 scenes are a little weak in comparison to the rest of the chapter and I'm uncertain with the safe foods thing because from my research a variety of foods would more likely be pushed from an ED treatment team but my hope is that I'll cover that exception later and it won't be a common thing for Loki to overuse (eating the safe foods.)) I'm even having SO MUCH to say that I'm having to split up the chapter so Chp 26 will continue right from where this last scene took place.
Additionally, I don't know if it makes any LOGICAL sense but my all time favorite depiction of Loki's ED Ananias (besides the weightlessness concept) is unlocked here in this chapter with the phrase "the price of skinniness was controlled emaciation." Like, I don't know why but it's real for me, it's legit in my head, like a highlighted pinprick. I also LOVED the scene of hope between Tony and Loki and honestly teared up at it.
I also channeled some of my emotional pain into this story and I've played around with more symbolism and structuring paragraphs to signify or convey various streams of consciousness and racing thoughts if you happened to notice! And then of course the instance where Loki automatically thinks his social worker is going to say he isn't thin enough for a diagnosis but really she's saying he wasn't a diagnosis and the way that she presented as so neutral to him and faceless and through the conversation he begins to trust her more and sees her for an actual person.
I don't know, I'm just in love with this chapter I guess ahaha. My other favorites, by the way, include the thunderstorm scene, the suicide attempt scene where he hears that song (I had to change this in the last year because my dumb butt didn't really read through the whole copyright infringement thing so that's why I'm going at music inclusion with a different tactic now) and the chapter where he says "Not today, but soon" dun dun dunnnn.
Any who, that's enough chatter for one night. I hope that you enjoyed the update and I can't wait to work on more stories soon! Next up on the block: D&D, ALU, AUS, S.
Dates Written: 12.9.2020, 12.18; 2.14.2021, 3.8-3.10, 3.23-3.24, 3.26, 3.31.2021
Dates Edited: 2.14.21, 3.23, 3.31.2021
Music: Love the way you lie by Eminem ft. Rhianna, Trauma by NF, The sun is rising by Britt Nicole, Lighthouse by G.R.L, I Should Probably Go to Bed by Dan + Shay, Hallucinogenics by Matt Maeson, Lonely by Violet Skies, and some song I don't recognize with the initials WOPS.
And as always and most importantly—THANK YOU so much for your readership and let me know what you thought of this chapter, if you'd be ever so kind! If you have tips, tricks or prompts or just want to chat, I'm here! I will see you again when I see you. Stay safe! XXX