A/N: I am so so so so so sorry for the delay. Life kinda caught up and kicked me in the rear, you know?
Ok. So. In the beginning of this chapter, I had no idea how Norse timelines compare to human ones, so for plot purposes- I used the normal age range that one would use for a human child. Sorry if that bothers anyone but seriously- I have no clue.
Would a ten year old in Midgard be the same as a 100 year old on Asgard or something? Again. No clue. If you would like, I would appreciate forever and ever if anyone could clarify if there's someone out there who knows.
But for now- I'm using relative human ages to make sense for everyone involved. (ahem) Onward!
He has tasted the lure of suicide before.
Countless times, multiple times.
It became as routine as his morning tea. He became insensitized to it, thoughts during breakfast of driving the butter knife home skimming through his head without the clanging of his heart. His mother and father would sit, sipping their tea, unaware. Thor would continue his boisterous talk and jaunting laughter while Loki would roll his eyes and mock him in all of the right places- everyone around him unaware of how the blood in his veins sang for the silver of the knife a mere three inches away and how his fingers itched.
He was thirteen years old.
Falling tastes much like the bitterness of lies. Once spilled over the edge of a mouth or a precipice, there is no return. There is always the swooping feeling in his stomach, the feel of the sudden drop, the immediate realization that it cannot be taken back.
His body free falls over the edge of the cliff and only now does he feel fear. He falls screamless- soundless as the sky all around him is not- thunder crashes with deafening booms and lightning flashes white with such an intensity that Loki swears he can hear the light wailing.
He falls for a second- or eternity.
(Time does not exist in the Void)
But this isn't the Void, he reminds himself feverishly.
(the fall two years ago should have been the last)
But this will be the last, he promises himself faintly.
(the words no, Loki should have been the last too)
But there were so many words since then, all biting and all corrosive on his skin. So many words since then he should not have heard, words that he should have been too far gone to care about.
He did not cheat Death two years ago- Death cheated him.
Thor watches, the air suspended, dreamlike, because- this cannot be happening.
His little brother is not really leaning over the edge of the cliff, arms extended and face turned upwards, holding a peace that Thor has never seen in two years. This Loki cannot be real- not this man whose pallor is brighter than the life behind his eyes.
He was getting better. He was supposed to be getting better.
(Are you ever not going to fall for that?)
Grief cascades down Thor's face in the form of rainwater. Beside him, Sif inhales sharply- her body tensed and poised to rush forward, her arms already forming the shape it would take to grab Loki, to yank him away from the brink of death.
Thor isn't sure if the fall would kill him but the ridges of his bones are clearly visible in the moonlight. He looks starved. He looks fragile. He looks- breakable. Surely, the fall would kill him. But then again, Thor was always taken by surprise, bordering on shock- how much pain his little brother could take. How much he could withstand.
The calculation takes a split second- from Thor's eyes skirting from his brother to the depths below the cliffs, the churning water underneath looking more sinister than any enemy Thor has ever faced. Loki could survive the fall. He could die from the fall.
It is not a chance he is willing to take.
A crash of thunder shakes the foundation of all around him- the guards, the ground, Sif, Thor himself- all tensed and waiting for something to happen, something to shatter the heavy glass that freezes them all in place.
"Loki, no-" Thor begins.
It happens.
Loki leans too far forward, his ghost weight falling over in a wisp of air. He falls too quiet- a whisper hush goodbye. His body disappears and Thor realizes, dimly- that Loki's saccharine look back was the last time he would see Loki's eyes.
Someone shouts the word that Thor's entire being is screaming with- and then he realizes it is his own voice.
(no)
Two years ago when Loki let go, Thor swore he could count the eight seconds it took for Loki to disappear. He could reach deep into the recess of his memory and place Loki where he was still reachable- his ivory fingers still grasping on five inches away. Thor could count the strands of Loki's hair and describe the shining color his tears streaked down his face. He could add up all of the seconds, break down all of the words spoken and looks given. He could paint the clearest picture and freeze Loki there forever- despairing and lost- but still reachable. Salvageable.
Thor convinced himself he would have let go. He would have jumped after him, if Odin's hand did not close tightly over his ankle- daring him to try the same. Thor convinced himself that he tried the hardest he could to catch him, that it was Odin who refused to let him.
It was easier than telling himself the truth.
This time, Thor does not hesitate. He lunges himself over the edge after his brother.
Coldness swallows Loki whole. His porcelain skin absorbs the water and fills his throat, his lungs, his stomach. He cringes- his body has not felt full for years.
The impact must have shattered his bones but he cannot feel anything but the coldness of the water. The burn of his un-oxygenated lungs diminishes into an almost indecipherable pain. He begins to go numb from the bottom up- the cold is eating away at him until all that will be left is a waterlogged corpse. A bag of skin and bones inflated with nothing but water.
Through the slivers of his eyelashes, he looks up at the fading silver of the moonlight. It shines over the rippling surface that is getting farther and farther away as he sinks down. The water itself is a dark, inky blue. The roaring of the sky is silenced- finally. The quiet is soothing, even peaceful.
Then suddenly- it ripples. Shards of moving silver disturb the tranquil surface, a dark figure taking shape that looms ever closer.
The cold spreads to his waist- then his chest. His fingers twitch feebly in the water before they go completely still. He cannot even manage to feel afraid when the figure blocks out the moonlight and everything goes from inky blue to velvet black.
Thor cradles his little brother's body to his chest, silently begging him to absorb some of his warmth. He sprints towards the lights of the palace, every step longing for Mjolnir- wishing he could fly and be quicker, over the length of foliage that drags him ever slower, his steps clumsy and sluggish in the middle of thick woods. But he could not have been able to hold Mjolnir and Loki at the same time. Not with him like this. Not when he is so fragile Thor cannot feel him breathe.
Sif pants ahead of him, her blade slashing down weeds and nettles before they have a chance of getting in Thor's way. She flings down her blade with a furious vengeance, her knuckles white as she grips her sword, power evident in her every limb. The only functioning part of Thor's brain not focused on keeping Loki alive can only stare after her in awe.
Loki does not stir. There is no twitch, not even a whisper of a breath in him.
If it were not for the feeble pulse Thor detected as soon as he pulled Loki out of the black waters, he would have believed he cradled a corpse. He wills himself to push his limbs forward faster. The Aesir guards sprinting around him exchange glances and telltale shakes of the head that Thor completely ignores- at least until he can get Loki to the Healing Room. He can pummel them all to the ground once Loki is safe.
They finally clear the forest and their footsteps echo on stone path now. Ahead is the palace, blessedly near.
Thor sees the Warriors Three a mere one hundred yards away. Fandral's head spins around at the sound of the procession and jolts forward, a large steed in tow. Volstagg's head snaps up from where he was dozing off, seated by the stone wall. Hogun alone looks completely unsurprised by the crowd of Aesir guards and the state of the two princes of Asgard- drenched to the skin and covered with nettle marks- and merely looks grimly at the dripping body Thor holds in his arms.
"How is he?" Fandral asks quickly- yanking the large stallion forward by the reins.
"Alive," is all Thor can manage. He hauls himself and Loki on top of the saddle- awkwardly cradling his still form- and propels the steed forward and takes off in the direction of the castle.
He cares not if anyone else follows. The stallion races ahead towards the looming castle doors, already opening.
"Hold on, Loki," he mumbles as the horse rides straight past the steel doors and into the halls with echoing steps, ignoring the alarmed looks and shouts from passerby. "Hold on, hold on, hold on..." he whispers again and again.
Loki's sharp cheekbones cast shadows over his white face. The biting winter air left frozen slivers of ice in his dark hair, his eyelashes, his eyebrows. Ice crusts over his clothes and falls to the ground like snowflakes with every jolt the horse's steps make.
Thor wonders if he holds a ghost and he tastes a fear deep in the back of his throat. He swallows down the urge to retch and instead urges the horse on faster. They gallop down long hallways, deafening echos of hooves sounding as loud as the hammering of Thor's heart.
"Hold on, Loki- Oh Norns, please, hold on..."
The doors to the Healing Room lie open. Already a crowd of Healers await their arrival- Eir standing tall and formidable in her focus at the head of the group. Several of the younger apprentices jump back in alarm at the enormous horse speeding towards them, exclaiming and leaping away as Thor pulls the steed abruptly to a halt a foot away in front of them. Only a young healer, standing by Eir's right side, remains still and alert.
Eir rushes forward and looks in dismay at the limp figure in Thor's arms. The young healer moves immediately to pull Loki from Thor's arms. Despite his rush to get here, Thor cannot help but feel a desperation in separating from Loki. He cannot shake the feeling that this will be the last time he will see him- the last time he will hold him.
Eir moves towards Loki in a daze. "Oh Norns..," she whispers.
In the torch lit hall, Thor sees Loki clearly for the first time in the entire night, unmasked with the darkness of the night outside.
Without his layers and layers of leather- Loki lies bare, a simple tunic and thin layer of pants halfway ripped to shreds from running through dense forest.
Thor's head reels back to the day before. No- the week before. Had Loki been evading Thor's glances, skirting away from all suspicion by a simple thin smile and calm countenance? Because he cannot remember seeing his brother looking like- this.
Had he even been looking at all?
His skin is so pale- almost bluish lips and eyelids- that Thor believes he must be bloodless. His right arm and left leg are awkwardly bent in an unnatural angle. His skin is lined with scratches and marks from clawing branches. Every ridge of his bones, long shadows cast by the deep crevices, are so sharply pronounced that Thor expects them to cut through his skin. Loki is a skeleton draped with a blanket whiter than the snow littering the ground outside.
But it is not these details that make Thor's head spin, or make Eir's skin turn a delicate shade of green, or make the young healer's eyes fill with trembling tears.
It is the scars.
Lines track the soft inside of Loki's arms and hipbones. The barely exposed white skin of his hip sends a gasp of shock through Eir's mouth and a wave of revulsion through Thor- not only because of how hollow and sharp the crevice is- but because the scars there are so deep that blood forms a shallow pool where the bone and skin should be filled with flesh. Crisscrossing lines of garnet. Deep white marks on skin from years before that will never fade away. The most freshest ones that Loki carved on himself are dripping steadily, either opened once more with the rush of the chaos this night has wrought or never fully healed at all.
The crowd of bodies around Loki take a collective pause- then flurry into action. Eir is already inside the Healing Room, readying tonics and rapidly muttering incantations to stem the flow of blood leaking from his little brother. The two wiry healers carrying Loki flitter after her, their weightless burden in tow.
Thor glimpses a skeletal hand in the rush of bodies before Loki is lost through the doors.
(was it not I who swore to protect you?)
He stands frozen on the spot. Wondering if he was too late. Praying to the Norns this will not be the last time he sees Loki alive.
(Protector of the Nine Realms indeed.)
The young healer is also making her way inside the doors when she pauses- hesitating at the door. She turns to Thor with wide blue eyes and manages a tense smile, even though her eyes and Thor's are still brimming with the horror of what they just saw written in the skin of the younger prince.
"We will take care of him, my liege." Her voice is calm, steady- practiced and refined against the pressure of dealing with broken and bloodied bodies as only an experienced healer can be. Thor can only dimly hope she fares well against broken and bloody minds.
(oh brother, how did you get so bloodied and broken?)
Do you not know? asks a voice that echoes in the hollows of his head, sounding too much like Loki. Do you really not know?
(a shadow)
Do not pretend not to know.
"Thank you," Thor manages. The healer nods, then hurries through the door- thoughts visibly switching from one prince to another in a heartbeat.
(living in the shade of your greatness)
Thor stands dripping black water in the middle of the corridor, feeling strangely alone and utterly useless.
When he dreams, he dreams of monsters.
They stand around him with the metal claws and their sharp glass teeth.
They bite at his insides and send tiny bugs inside of his raw and bloodied mouth- they crawl between his teeth and fester all the way down until he feels their weight settling in his stomach.
The monsters are cramming fluid down his throat.
No. NO. He doesn't want to eat- he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't-
His head is submerged in water and everything sounds muffled. He can hear their chatter- feel their commotion. They know his name and he cannot understand how. He cannot understand why- until he remembers the shadows in the woods and realizes they must have caught him. He must have lost the battle against the dark. They must have seen his arms and fingered out the outline of his name in the scars. Yes. Yes- it is the only plausible explanation.
They speak in their poison soft manner- speaking lies, terrible lies.
Loki- you must lie still. Stop fighting us.
No- no- he doesn't want to.
Lie still! You will hurt yourself further if you do not- calm- down-
He moans aloud and they rush around him, making such terrible noise.
We want to help you, Loki. Let us help you.
The most obscene lie. The most unforgivable. He is a monster and they are monsters and they have come to claim their own with their sharp demon teeth and they will consume him if he swallows their lies.
We only want to help. Why won't you let us help?
He will consume himself before he will let them fill him up with their lies anymore.
Loki. Let us help you.
He rears his head back and lets out a pitiful moan he meant to shape into words. No. Leave me be. Go away. Leave me alone, why can't you just leave me alone...?
He thinks he feels snow in his hair. His shredded clothes are soaked with icy water. Can they see how he does not shiver? He is beyond cold, freezing, yet he refuses to quake with it.
(monster)
The cold has never been alien to him. He has always felt it. Always shivered with it.
(jotun)
He is a monster. They can all see it now, embedded deep in the white of his skin that should be blue.
To be continued.
A/N: Ah well. Hope it was worth the wait, even though this chapter was giving me exceptional trouble. Ugh.
Well, stick around for the next chapter. I promise, things will get rolling plot wise.
Also, thank you for those who review and stick around and follow this story. It makes me tear up how people can be so nice by just offering up the smallest word of encouragement. I love you all and thank you 3