On Saturday morning Loki gets up early and dresses in the cleanest, tidiest clothes he can find without making it look forced. He checks on his father, who is also awake, and eats some breakfast with him in the master bedroom. He can't help but feel nervous, butterflies swarming around in his stomach forming shapes and patterns repeatedly, hammering at the edges and making him feel sick.
He says goodbye to his father, grabs his keys and wallet and then leaves the house, walking to the police station. Thoughts swirl round and round in his mind, things he wants to say, things he needs to say. He's never had to do anything like this before, but he's thought about it. He knows they both have, but never concerning each other. The worry was always that Odin would go out and get himself into trouble, and they would have to go and pick him up.
Loki's pace is fast, and he turns heads as he storms through the rain towards the station. He barges past one woman, who gives a disgruntled, "Hey!" as he knocks into her, but he ignores it. Loki is too busy convincing himself to follow this through to care.
He arrives at the station and opens the door - it's made of glass and fits with the transparent windows of the reception of the station. Loki can't help but think how much it looks like a cage, or a tank. Passers-by can stop and look in to see the show as someone is arrested or makes an enquiry. He has never been a fan of being watched, and Loki shudders when he thinks people might see him talking to the police, watching him and silently judging.
A young man is sitting at the desk, and he looks up at the sound of Loki's footsteps. His smile is distant and false, an expression well practised from years of putting up with society's most difficult members. Loki smiles back, and his is just as unreal but for entirely different reasons. He's not sure how to broach the subject he's here for, so he goes for being blunt.
"I need to report a missing person," he begins, swallowing. "Is there an officer or someone I can talk to?"
"Do you have an appointment?" The secretary's question is cool and reserved, the exact sound of someone on autopilot.
"N-no, but I need to speak with someone about this." Loki's having a hard time keeping his composure, cursing himself for getting so close to cracking over just a simple, standard enquiry.
"There should be someone available in about twenty minutes, if you want to wait," he says, scrolling through some kind of spreadsheet on his desktop. "I'll call you when there's a space."
Loki nods gratefully and sits down on one of the battered sofas in the reception room. He takes his fill of the room, noting the shoddy paintwork and cobwebs in the corner. There are attempts to conceal the signs of wear - posters over the walls from the NHS concerning drug abuse and drink-driving safety; notices on what is socially acceptable behaviour in the waiting rooms; appointment sheets for officers and custody cells. Loki's never been to the police station before, but he doesn't find any of it surprising. It's just like a dentist or a doctor's surgery - the same awkward atmosphere in which silence isn't mandatory but is maintained anyway, and those who break it are given condescending looks. Loki's glad he's alone with only the young secretary behind the desk - what would be worse than sitting here and waiting to be seen would be for someone else to be there too. He's had experience of people attempting to make conversation with him, and usually he manages to go along with it, however awkward, but right now he doesn't know if he can even articulate a sound.
He watches a trapped fly hurl itself at the glass window, as eager to escape as he is, and just as unlikely to. Its frustrated buzzing is the only sound other than the tapping of the secretary's keyboard and the occasional ring of the phone - a maddening combination. Loki cracks his knuckles in anticipation, closing his eyes to calm himself down. After what seems like hours the young man coughs and announces that someone is available to see him now. He's directed down a corridor and into a small room, where a tired, grey-haired woman is shuffling some papers on the table. She looks up and smiles at him, not quite genuinely, but with more warmth than the secretary, and Loki feels slightly more at ease.
"Hi, I'm Detective Inspector Symmonds," she says, introducing herself and extending a hand for Loki to take. He shakes it hesitantly, then mutters an oath for making himself look weak. He has to be strong right now. "What's your name, son?"
"Loki," Loki says, responding to her gesture to sit down by pulling out the chair on the other side of the table and sinking into it. He clears his throat. "Loki Odinson."
The inspector nods and starts to make notes on a piece of paper. "And what can I do for you, Loki?" He scrutinises her face for a moment, taking in the lines around her mouth and eyes. She looks like she would have a nice smile, if it were ever allowed to shine through. Her demeanour was one a person could instantly trust, but she herself seemed not to trust anyone or anything. Meticulous and neurotic, but underneath a kind heart.
Loki takes a breath, clenching his fist under the table to control his shaking hands. "I'm here to report a missing person. My brother's gone missing." His cheeks flame as he says it, and he realises how stupid he must sound. A station like this must see thousands of worse cases every month; an experienced officer like DI Symmonds must have worked on hundreds of missing persons cases - why should his be of any significance to her?
"All right," DI Symmonds says, scribbling down some notes. "Can you explain to me the circumstances of his disappearance?" Her pen is poised above the paper, ready to make further notes. Loki starts by explaining how they'd gone shopping together, and then how Thor had needed to get something from the Co-op. It takes him a couple of tries to speak, because his throat clogs up halfway through some vital point, and he has to cough multiple times to restore his voice, but the inspector is patient with him, nodding in agreement and continuously making notes on what he says. At the end of the story, she sits back in her chair and smiles at him again. "Well done. I can tell that wasn't easy for you." She hands him a carbon copy of the notes she made, letting him read them through and confirm some of the details, before standing up.
"As you can probably guess, there's not much I can do to help you right now, Loki." She grimaces as she sees his expression plummet, and Loki swallows hard, nodding slowly. "I can put him on the missing persons list, and I'll make sure we have someone following his case, but it's unlikely anything much will turn up. I'm sorry."
"No, it's all right. I know there's only so much you can do," Loki mutters. His response feels hollow, like he's not in control of what he's saying; the words are just pouring out from his lips. He watches her as she rummages through her pockets and pulls out a card.
"If anything new comes up, or if you just want to talk to someone, here's my card." Loki takes it and slips it into his wallet, thanking her again and turning to leave the room. DI Symmonds follows, letting him out the station and following him with her eyes as he walks down the street. She feels a pool of sympathy well up within her at the thought that a young fourteen-year-old boy has to report his brother's disappearance. Loki mentioned his father, but didn't go into express detail concerning his role in the family, but that their mother left a couple of years ago. Her lips pull into a tight line as she realises she is looking at another case where the children are forced to grow up prematurely because the parents can no longer be considered responsible adults.
.
Thor is roughly dragged out the car and slung over someone's shoulder, since any attempts his captors make to get him to walk result in him sinking to the ground and refusing to move. He's set down on the chair in a basement and his hood is removed. His eyes stare up at the face of the man who had originally bound him, and the tiewraps are cut from his wrists. He absently rubs where there is bruising, letting the natural anaesthetics in his skin take away the pain.
The man leaves the room and the lock clicks shut. Thor instantly jumps up and begins searching the walls for an escape route, seeing how secure the lock is, testing out the small window at ground level near the ceiling of the room. For the moment there seems to be no escape, so instead Thor takes to looking around at what's in the room with him. A bed, which is comfy enough, a sink, a desk with pencil case and exercise books, a plate of food and a hot chocolate, and a pile of clothes in a small chest of drawers. It's like a small bedsit but without a proper bathroom or kitchen, and Thor finds himself thinking that there are worse places to be held hostage.
He wracks his brain and fights to remember the route they took, to see if he can work out whereabouts they are, but it's pointless. For all he knows they could have driven round and round in circles for ages. Loki is still on Thor's mind and he thinks desperately about how he will explain this to his brother. What if Loki thinks Thor's abandoned him, like Frigga did? Thor can see his brother's tired face in his mind, crumpling with confusion and sadness as he realises Thor isn't coming back.
"Loki," he whispers to the walls, pressing his cheek against one of them and feeling the cool brickwork rough against his skin. "I'll find you again, I promise. I'll come back to you."
.
During the walk home Loki takes several detours in order to remain outside in the cold for as long as possible. He feels like if he lets himself freeze for a little longer then maybe he'll feel better, maybe he'll feel like he's fought off the worst of this. Or maybe he'll become numb enough not to care.
He pushes through the front door and calls out to his father that he's home. There's a muffled grunt from the lair, so Loki decides he's going to have a chance to get some cleaning done. He starts by making the downstairs rooms at least presentable again, even if he can't bring himself to do a complete clean like he did with Thor. Then he works his way upstairs and changes all the bedding except in Thor's room, which he brings into his own and arranges on his bed. The red sheet and duvet cover clash with the pale blue walls of his room, but Loki doesn't pay much attention to it. It's the sentiment behind his brother's bedding that makes Loki put it in there, not his interior decorating skills.
Once he's finished with the washing, and it's hanging out to dry in the sunshine which creeps through the half-closed curtains of Loki's bedroom, he goes downstairs and pulls a pasta pot out the fridge, munching on it and letting time slip by. He knows his homework is waiting, along with a large amount of catch up from the lessons he spent daydreaming, but he'd rather not face it. Instead, he throws away his lunch and drifts out the kitchen and up the stairs again, cleaning the landing floor and the bedrooms with the hoover. It's monotonous, tedious work, but it's better than dreaming, better than studying. The tedium is enough to take his mind off of missing Thor for the rest of the day. He doesn't bother to make himself dinner, instead taking some chocolate and a slice of bread up to his room and nibbling as he slides between the sheets, cuddling Thor's duvet close and inhaling the smell. His sleep is interrupted frequently, but he manages to get enough rest to face Sunday morning relatively early.
.
Throughout Sunday Loki works and cleans, passing the time with a rigid plan of work so he can't think too much on anything else. By Sunday evening he's exhausted, and flops out on the sofa in the front room, flicking on the TV for something to distract him now he's stopped. His father can be heard poking around in the fridge, probably for more beer. The first channel to come up is BBC 1, with the local news. The bulletin is relatively mundane, but it's grabbed enough of his attention to merit a despairing sigh when he hears another politician trying to get himself out of trouble with fancy words and smooth composure. There have been times when Thor has joked that Loki would make a good politician, that he could talk himself out of anything, but Loki just laughed and pushed him away. Politics was too tedious.
It's the next article that has him sitting bolt upright. The news reporter's smooth voice fills the room as she calmly explains that yesterday a young man, aged fifteen, was reported missing in the Southampton area. Loki stops breathing.
"The boy's name is Thor Odinson, and he has been missing since Monday evening. Police are currently investigating his whereabouts after his brother informed them of his disappearance early Saturday morning. So far the case has brought up no results, but police will continue to search for Thor until they find something."
Loki doesn't realise he's been biting his lip until he tastes blood on the tip of his tongue. He can't believe Thor's reached the news. It's a mixture of happiness and fear, one because it proves that DI Symmonds took him seriously, and the other because now everyone has the chance to know what happened to Thor, and soon he'll be bombarded with questions. He doesn't hear his father enter the room until a hand rests on his shoulder. Loki's tuned out the majority of the news cast, instead staring at the screen in a sort of numb shock as a brief interview with DI Symmonds flashes by on the screen. Loki inhales but surprisingly can't smell any alcohol.
"You went to the police?" Odin asks, although somewhere in the bottom of his memory he thinks he already knew this. Loki doesn't respond, only turns his head away from the screen as the sport comes up instead and the sports presenter begins to babble on about pointless matches and who scored what. He leans his forehead against Odin's side and closes his eyes. It's suddenly all too much.
Odin strokes Loki's hair and switches the channel to ITV, hoping the local news there will also show something. He holds Loki close while he watches with scrutiny, although in this programme Thor's case is only mentioned for a ten-second article. It's still enough to clarify what has happened, and in Odin's sober state of mind he fully takes in everything that he's missed over the past six days. That his eldest son has gone missing. That his youngest has been coping all alone, at the tender age of fourteen. That he's done nothing to help either of them.
"Loki," Odin says gently, still holding his son close. "I'm going to help you in this, all right?" He hates that he probably doesn't sound sincere, and that Loki will think he's just saying that because he has to. He can't think of a way to prove it, but then suddenly the idea's there, like a spark, and he lets it spill out of his lips.
Loki's nodding against his father's side, not quite believing it - it's all just empty words, in the end. So when Odin's deep voice rumbles through him a moment later, and the words, "I'm giving up drinking," reach his ears, Loki lifts his head in surprise.
"I'm going to give up drinking so we can get through this," Odin says again, decisively. And through his starry eyes Loki looks at his father, and for the first time in two and a half years, he's proud.