Hey guys! A short-ish chapter here for you lovelies. Thank you so much for your favs/follows/reviews, keep on keeping on.
Entropy
Lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.
LOKI
If Jane were not present, Loki may have screamed upon reentering the physical world. May have vomited. May have torn the closest living thing apart, had it not been Jane.
Loki eyes follow her as she stalks up the staircase. Jane's different now. Well, she's been different since the moment he arrived. What with the cropped auburn hair and ever-looming storm cloud, but this is something different. Something new.
She's not fleeing, not scurrying, not turning back to make sure he hasn't moved. There is no fear of Loki when Jane turns her back to him. Could this be trust?
Perhaps, Loki guesses. But even he knows that more than anything, it's exhaustion. She's tired. Tired of death. Tired of fighting.
He could feel the exhaustion weighing in her mind. It was the same nauseating, not entirely physical weight that Loki felt when he was stuck between the mortal plane and the mists. To think that he only spent mere moments in that limbo but Jane lives her daily life in it. Somewhere between this world and the next, not entirely alive but not exactly dead. Every heartbeat is a swan song and it makes Loki's chest ache.
Loki doesn't move from his spot, but instead stills every part of him to listen. He can hear Jane start a bath upstairs, the water thundering through the old piping of the entire cottage. Footsteps, slow and agonized, move from her bedroom. There is the slamming of drawers, and doors, then the shift of fabric as it hits the floor. Loki flinches. He tries not to think about that part, his throat feeling incredibly tight.
It makes him sick to think about his own feelings for her. He dare not let himself linger on the thought of her fingers tracing the outline of his lips. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, it took everything in him to make her stop. It makes him sick because if she only knew that he was the reason Amora came…
Seeing what Amora did to Jane, it shattered his own mental composure. Seeing Jane in that much anguish, it broke something inside Loki. He felt that invisible tether snap the moment Amora's blade plunged into Jane's stomach. It opened the floodgates between Jane's mind and his own. It released the deepest pain Loki had ever felt, those moments when Thor stitched his lips shut. For as much as Jane feels responsible for the death of her companions, Loki too feels that same guilt for Jane. It may have been Amora's blade that ended their lives and wounded Jane but Loki had given Amora warrant whether he liked it or not. Jane remained unaware of this, unaware that it was because of him that Amora paid her a visit.
What had Amora said to Jane?
'I can see why he was so taken with you…'
For Jane, her greatest moment of helplessness was seeing her friend's corpses. For Loki it was being chained, beaten, and mute but most of all: unable to save Jane. Loki grips the armrests of the chair so hard he hears the wood splinter within his fist. He frowns and eases his grip, worry digging trenches in his stomach.
What if Jane knew that the reason her friends were murdered, the reason that she was nearly killed, was all because he dared feel for a mortal? For her?
She may have guessed that Amora was speaking of Thor's affection for Jane. How sickened would she be to realize it was actually his brother? The monster. Loki braces his forehead in his hand, feeling his heart beat up and up his throat. She could never know that is was really him that Amora was referring to. As much as he hates this. All of this. He hates making Jane relive those terrible moments. He hates being a burden to her. He hates things without his control. He hates the Aether and the fact that it claimed Jane as its host. He hates That Thor could not protect her, that he himself could not protect her. He hates Amora. But what he hates the most is lying to Jane.
Loki would have to let her believe that it was Thor that Amora spoke of. Only because perhaps that was one of the only things keeping Jane sane. Perhaps this is the only thing that makes sense of all she's been through, the thought of nearly dying for the man that she loves. Loved?
Loki isn't sure where her emotions lie for Thor. He knows Jane is angry with him for abandoning her and he almost believed that she abandoned all feelings of love for him. But it was the way that she looked at the stars tonight that made Loki see she still cares for Thor. She almost looked innocent again, free of this weight that bears down on her, free of pain and sorrow and death. Almost. He thinks about the man that Jane sketched, that larger than life hero that would always come to the rescue. The bringer or hope, the breaker of chains. Was that what Thor was to Jane? Is that who she still believes he is? If not love in her eyes, there was longing for that hero, that man to come and save her.
Loki may be the greatest lie-smith there ever was but he found himself beat when he saw Jane looking at the stars. That man Jane admires so much, it's all a fantasy. All some grand lie to make her pain seem worth while. That's why he knows he can't tell her the truth, at least not for the time being.
The sound of water shutting off shakes Loki from his thoughts. His eyes float to the grandfather clock. It's late and he had exhausted himself delving into Jane's mind. He would need as much strength as he could muster to keep the barriers of his mind strong against the Aether. Another feel stabs itself in his stomach, thinking about sharing his mind with Jane. What if she found out about his feelings, about Amora? He couldn't let anything like what happen tonight, happen again. He's lucky she only saw his punishment and nothing more. Loki resolves to retire to his room for a full night's rest, yet, he freezes when he draws his hand from his from his forehead.
Blue. It stretches from his fingertips and leaks up his arms like watercolor paint, the Jotun blood flushing through his Aesir guise. Using his magic to enter Jane's mind had taken a heavy toll it seems. He had forgotten that he was still weak from his arrival into Midgard and prolonging search in the mists. All the more reason to rest. He'd need his strength for tomorrow and the day after that, and all the days until Jane can tame that fire inside her. So, Loki closes his eyes, feeling himself still once more. He thinks about stars and comfort and his mother's smile. He thinks about the scent of juniper and coffee and honey. And when Loki opens his eyes, his hand is once again a pale ivory hue.
JANE
When Jane moves, she feels as though her feet were stuck in cement. In her mind, everything is quiet like the moment between when a child falls and when it screams. There is a pause, a silence, but the kind of silence that warrants chaos. She doesn't know in what way she'll pay for tonight, but whatever the price: it'll be steep.
She feels hot, the Aether making a furnace out of her chest. But despite the heat, Jane draws a bath. At first, Jane thought that hot baths soothed her because they reminded her of comfort or because she could finally feel weightless in a world of heaviness. But now Jane knows why she craves to be consumed by heat. She remembers those moments when she burst into flames. She remembers the relief she felt. It felt so undeniably good to release that power, it felt like cuming, it felt like complete ecstasy. That's what scares Jane because she knows that's exactly what the Aether wants her to feel. The better Jane feels about releasing the power of the Aether, the easier it will be for it to take over her mind.
When she dips herself in the scalding water, it pales in comparison to the Aether but it's enough to fill that void.
Too many things happened too fast tonight and it makes her mind spin. The cramps had been one thing. But reliving that night had been just as bad if not worse than living through it the first time. The worst part about it was that it was just an image of that night, just a memory, a ghost. Jane was just as helpless to stop that night from happening now as she was then. Just a helpless mortal.
Hearing Amora talk about Thor was only further reminder that he had not come to save her. What Jane finds surprising is that for all the hate she feels, all the sorrow, all the madness, there is still that silence. Still that numbness. Could this be acceptance?
Logically, Jane thinks, she had gone through at least four of the five stages of grief. Jane had been in denial when she awoke to a sterile hospital room in London. A neighbor heard her scream and found Jane hanging onto life by a thread. The ambulance came just in time to save Jane but Erik and Darcy were declared dead on the scene. Jane was still in denial when the doctors told her she had suffered irreparable damage and could never bear children.
Through all the police questioning and then SHIELD's further examination, Jane had bargained with God, with any force greater than her, so many times for the life of her friends in return for her own.
She lingers in anger. She lingers in depression. Could this silence be the begging of acceptance? Jane fears that accepting Erik and Darcy's deaths means feeling nothing anymore and she doesn't want to feel numb. This rage is easy because it's easier than feeling sad but anything is better than feeling nothing at all. Jane fears tomorrow. She fears delving into those moments again and perhaps feeling nothing. What will she have when all the hate is gone the all the fires go out?
The feeling of Loki's skin still haunts her fingertips. Her grip tightens on the edge of the tub thinking about it, that cold feeling of embarrassment slipping into her stomach. Jane skinks lower into the tub, until her chin dips into the water, until her lips are submerged and she breathes the steam of the water. She'd have to face him again tomorrow and she's not sure how to gaurd herself around him. The only reason she trusts him enough to let him insider her mind is because she literally has no other choice. It's a rock and hard place, trust Loki or let the Aether destroy everything. That wasn't an easy choice but it was at the very least, simple. There's no entrapment in having Loki help Jane reign in the power she carries inside her. But touching him like that, it holds too many things that Jane doesn't want to think about. Jane doesn't want to feel compassion and tenderness and empathy and all those things that she used to be good at feeling. She especially doesn't want to be left vulnerable again. She'd been vulnerable to Thor, a hero of realms, and look how that turned out for her. Jane doesn't want to think about dropping her guard again, let alone to one of the most dangerous beings in the universe. Jane huffs and bubbles gurgle up from the surface of the water. She'd need to be careful around Loki, careful to trust him enough but not too much. To let him in only enough to overpower the Aether, but only that much.
Maybe you need this, that small voice inside her says. Maybe you need him.
Just then, Jane feels a twisting pain in her abdomen again. Jane winces, and looking down at herself, curses when she sees red.
