Another random one-shot I wrote on whim around midnight while listening to The Monster by Eminem, that distracted me from my chapter fics. So I just decided to turn this fic into a collection of these, since I have this urge to post practically everything I write, and so I don't post a whole bunch of strange and random separate one-shots... um...
This one-shot is a post-Avengers AU where Loki is locked up in his chambers instead of in the dungeon. Thor comes to visit him, and their conversation gets a bit... metaphorical and philosophical.
The prisoner was escorted to his cell. And it was a mockery, that the room that had once been his safe haven was now to be his prison, the walls whispering that his life had been naught but a lie.
Entering his room with soft steps, as if the floor was covered with a thin veil of snowflakes and he was trying not to leave any footprints, Loki paused in the center of the floor, turning a slow circle as he surveyed his surroundings.
The chamber was familiar—it was his, after all—and yet still seemed to be the room of a stranger.
He didn't really know himself anymore, did he?
Green and gold furnishings, a door leading out to a balcony that overlooked the gardens, three of the four walls covered with bookshelves, a desk high enough to stand out without the use of a chair, a bed pressed up against the fourth wall, olive covers immaculately tucked, fern pillow fluffed.
Kneeling down Loki lifted the edge of the covers as he scanned beneath the bed.
The darkness fled.
"Afraid there's a monster beneath your bed?" Thor snorted, from where he stood in the doorway.
Loki tilted his head toward his brother, smiling sharply. "There's only room enough for one monster in this chamber."
White teeth and green eyes glinted.
And it's looking straight at you, Thor. Do you see it?
That night, there was a sound beneath Thor's bed—a sighing, almost a moan, almost a sob, almost a growl, almost a snarl, almost the death of a scream.
He couldn't help but reflexively keep his toes far away from the edge, and wonder.
When Thor burst into Loki's chambers, he found Loki lying on his stomach on the floor, chin resting on his hands as he stared beneath his bed, eyebrows pulled low in contemptuous scrutinization.
"What are you doing?" Thor asked in confusion.
Loki wasn't blinking.
"Having a staring contest," the younger boy answered.
Walking over cautiously, Thor knelt beside his brother, tilting his head down to try to see beneath the bed.
There was nothing but darkness, thick as spiderwebs.
"Um," Thor said, giving his brother a strange look. "There's nobody there."
"No—it's a monster. I hear it every night, and I can see its eyes. They're right there."
Loki still wasn't blinking.
"There's no monster beneath your bed," Thor sighed. "How many times do I have to prove that to you?"
"You prove nothing. The monster laughs at you."
Thor's hand hit his face with an audible slap. "You're crazy, Brother."
"That's not fair."
"This isn't good for you, all this lounging inside!" Thor continued, nudging his brother in the ribs with his boot. "Come outside with me to the training field!"
"After I win," Loki answered smoothly, not once having shifted his gaze from whatever he saw beneath his bed—never once having looked at his brother. "I can't lose. I can't."
"Brother this is ridiculous!" Thor growled, kicking Loki harder, the younger boy slapping away, eyes beginning to look slightly watery.
"Do you ever wonder where nightmares go in the daylight?" Loki asked.
"What? No!"
"I mean, they don't just disappear," Loki continued, "If they come back every night. Yet we don't feel them in the daylight, have you ever wondered? They hide, Thor, they hide in little pockets of darkness that we don't see, and when we close our eyes they come creeping back on paws and claws and shaggy fur of night that stinks of fear, with eyes so red they're practically darkness. And they breathe your sobs and your screams and your moans, and they weave your pain into their home, into their soul, growing ever darker. Do you ever wonder why the light hurts them so? And yet they don't disappear."
"The Hel, Loki!" Thor said, as his little brother finally turned away from his staring contest with the shadows beneath his bed and grinned triumphantly at Thor, blinking his watery eyes so fast his eyelashes were like butterfly wings. "That's it! You are going crazy—you're coming outside."
And with that Thor grabbed Loki's arm and quite literally dragged him outside.
"They're not monsters in the light," Loki murmured, Thor almost unable to catch the softly spoken words. "They only have power in the dark, when we can't see them. When we can't see them for what they really are."
"Why does light hurt monsters so?" Thor asked Loki, sitting cross-legged on Loki's bed, staring curiously at the prisoner in front of him.
"I notice you removed the mirrors," Loki said instead, letting his fingers tapdance on the top of the desk as he walked around it, closely examining the dark grain of the wood like there was a secret message written there that he was trying to decipher.
"Only one monster, just like you said."
At Thor's statement, Loki finally looked him in the eye, grinning sharkily.
Thor couldn't tell whether that glint in those green eyes was mirth or mirthlessness.
"Ah yes. How is it living with your own?" Loki asked conversationally, smiling down at his hands where they splayed pallid on the dark mahogany desk.
Thor shrugged. "Waking up in the middle of the night with a parched tongue and not wanting to get up to retrieve a glass of water."
"Do you know why it hurts?"
A pause, heavy as a scream, before, "I can't see it."
"One day you will, Thor. One day you will."
Loki perched himself on the edge of the desk, bringing one leg up and resting it on his other knee, arms slightly behind him as he leaned back.
"And when I do, what will I see?" Thor asked, not letting his blue gaze leave Loki's green one, two orbs shining out from that pale and wraith-like face.
"Nothing," Loki said. "You will see nothing—but you will know. You will know what it is."
"And what is it?"
Loki's voice was cool and dry as winter wind, almost a chuckle. "It doesn't matter."
Thor pondered this for a few moments, letting his gaze drift down to the silken covers, where he traced a calloused finger over the gold threads that stitched curling patterns in the expanse of green.
"But why does it hurt?" Thor insisted, voice betraying frustration, that he didn't understand.
A wintry sigh. "It's easier to see into the light from the darkness, than into the darkness from the light," Loki said coolly. "Don't you see, Brother?"
"No," Thor stated plainly.
Loki shook his head, smile wry. "In the darkness, we can become whatever we want to be, because there's nothing to see us and tell us otherwise. But in the light, everything is laid bare and visible. But that's not what hurts." Loki paused, licking his lips. "In the darkness, we know we can't be seen, and we know we won't be and we can expect to be misunderstood and to use it to our advantage. In the light, we should be seen, as exposed and bare and naked as we are. And that's why it hurts, Brother—because we never are."
"I see you," Thor said after a moment, gaze into on his little brother's hallowed eyes and sharp cheeks, dark hair like raven feathers.
"No you don't," the dark god said.
"Yes, I do," Thor insisted, walking over to stand right before his brother.
Tilting his head, Loki let his hanging leg swing slightly as he asked, "And what do you see?"
"I see my Brother," Thor stated immediately.
A dry, harsh laugh, like crackling flames burning crackling leaves. "Look again."
Thor reached out a hand to his brother, but it fell before it could reach that bony shoulder—all that was there was nothing.
Nothing but a lie, exposed in blue Jotun skin and red Jotun eyes.
This one probably needs explanation too...
Basically my thoughts were that there used to be a monster under Loki's bed, and it was both real and yet not not real - it was the manifestation of his nightmares that plagued him at night, though in the daylight everything's better and those nightmares disappear, yet they leave echoes in his head in shadowed corners, and so also hide in the darkest place in his room - which is underneath his bed. And so he could hear and see that monster, though it was really just part of his mind/his imagination, and he was afraid of it, and was trying to understand/conquer it with that starting contest, which was a memory of Thor's from when they were younger.
But then later when Loki comes back to his chambers, that monster is no longer there - because like he said, there's only room for one monster, and it's him. If Loki's a monster, than he has no reason to be afraid of monsters, and he's now older and been through who-knows-what after falling from the void, and now realizes that pettiness of the fears that plagued him. So like, he doesn't fear the darkness anymore because he's embraced it within himself. Like he used to be in the light and looking into the darkness, and that unknown would scare him when he was younger, but once in the darkness he understands that, and looking out from the shadows into the light he can see things far more clearly, because he isn't blinded like Thor. And also Loki now knows what makes a monster, knows that it's lies and misunderstandings, and when all that is stripped away, there's no monster - there's just something broken.
And Thor never used to have nightmares or those pockets of darkness, but now he's seen more of the world and has matured - he's fought against his own brother and seen him fall, he's seen 'good' turn to 'evil' and 'light' turn to 'dark', and he's trying to see past that and it scares him - all this unknown, and he's starting to get nightmares, starting to hear that monster beneath his bed at night as doubts and fears fill his head, and he gets that paranoia. And he's remembering that instance from their childhood, and how Loki said that light hurt monsters, and he's wondering about that now, and Loki's trying to explain it to him - Loki's trying to explain about how these monsters/nightmares only have the power that you give them to them, and how cloaked in darkness they're powerful because you can't see what they really are.
Loki's trying to explain that the light hurts because in the light they're exposed for all to see their weakness and their frailty, and yet what /really/ hurts is not that they're exposed, but that people still refuse to see those bones jutting out - because when you're stripped of everything and are just like "Well here I am. What do you think of me now?" you want someone to see and to care, and so that people still remain so ignorantly blind just makes the pain worse, because it's like crying out for help when nobody will listen. And so that's why monsters cloak themselves in darkness - to avoid that, and to give themselves security and power.
And then at the end, Loki asks Thor what he sees when he looks at Loki, and Thor says 'My Brother' and is doing exactly what Loki was saying hurt - refusing to see what's there in front of him - so when Loki says "Look again" and Thor is forced to see what's really there, only then does it finally strike him that Loki isn't Loki his brother, but Loki a Jotun and a war criminal, and despite everything Thor says about loving Loki he was still in denial that it had all been a lie, and now he sees that it was, that Loki is not who Thor thought he was. Thor was holding on to this idea, but it turns out to be nothing, and it's Thor's turn to fall.
So um... yeah XD