Chapter 23: The Plan
Loki sleeps.
Ellie works from home to give him some peace and tries not to be annoyed when Jane and Darcy call every half hour to check in. They are skeptical when she tells them just how much Loki sleeps.
Which is a fuck ton.
"It seems like he didn't rest at all the whole time he was locked up," Ellie explains. "He looks so tired."
"Just be careful, Ellie," Jane says at the end of each brief conversation. "Don't let your guard down and don't trust him."
Eleanor is not stupid enough to trust him, but she does trust Odin's super freaky magic, but at this point it hardly seems to matter. Loki sleeps.
On rare occasions that he emerges from the bedroom, he is extremely jumpy. Loud noises and sudden movements have him quaking in fear and Ellie learns very quickly to always, always make her presence known.
It's apparent now that his behavior in the presence of the Avengers was performance only. She remains amazed that he was able to hold it together so effectively for the benefit of his enemies, but now that it's just her and him, the extent of his mental scars become clear.
Teeth rotting from his skull. Skin flayed from his bone.
Here with her, Loki lets himself rest, for maybe the first time in years.
Still, his nightmares are horrible and Ellie finds herself gently shaking him from sleep at all hours of the day when his whimpering and thrashing becomes too much to bear. Loki pushes his chest into hers, relearning how to take calm, deep breaths.
He has an extreme aversion to touch when she initiates the contact, but he seems to be constantly touching her, both in sleep and while awake. He seems desperate for basic physical connection and touching her has the potential to bring him both clarity and peace.
Somehow she refrains from pointing this out as the most compelling reason why willing going through a century alone is fucking stupid. She doesn't talk about it. Bringing it up seems like the quickest way to alienate him. The last thing she needs is for Loki's stubborn streak to kick in.
Eleanor learns to let him come to her or she loudly announces her intention to hold his hand or brush his hair, not making any movements without his permission.
Despite all the sleep, Loki still appears mentally drained. Where he was once so careful and precise with his appearance, now he only wears whatever she puts in front of him. He only changes when Ellie reminds him to shower and even now she has to lie out clean outfits. His hair is left free of style. It takes Ellie some time to get used to his unruly, long-ass mess, but at least he keeps it clean and allows her to brush it regularly. Usually she ties it back.
Food holds no interest for Loki, but he develops a fascination with watching her cook. Recently, Ellie's been working hard to get herself healthy, something she tries to pass on to the gaunt god. Unfortunately, Loki's interest in observing meal preparation does not transfer to actual eating. He always sits with her, but only takes a few bites. She badgers him until he growls out "is this a command?"
That always serves to shut her right up.
The one exception to Loki's food aversion is ice cream. The dude loves the stuff. It turns his lips bright blue, a fact Ellie keeps to herself understanding full well that this side effect would cause him to shun the frozen treat forever.
For seven of the fourteen allotted days Eleanor and Loki rarely leave the house, but everyday he spends less time lost in his head, desperately asking her to affirm that this is real, that they are real and in New Mexico.
She thinks of way to convince him to stay, but decides if the very obvious progress he's made towards healing in only seven days is not enough to convince him to stay, than nothing will.
But then he stops speaking, for no apparent reason at all. She lets him be but carefully watches his face and gaging his moods, trying to determine if this is a reflective healing kind of silence or a quiet indicative of something far more sinister.
On the eighth night, he shakes his head furiously when she tries to play the guitar and drags her over to the piano.
It's enough for now.
"What is your game, mortal?"
In her shock Eleanor sloshes a glass filled with juice of the orange all over her shirt. It's been two days since Loki uttered a word and nine since she told him to wait fourteen before deciding to endure a century of solitude rather than allow this humiliating power dynamic to stand.
The shack she call home has been quiet and still, Eleanor's music the only exception to the tranquility. He did not speak, nor did Eleanor force his words. She saw no need to ruin the peace with pointless yammering and Loki appreciates her penchant for silence a new.
But today – day nine of fourteen – Loki's mind is the clearest it been in ages, perhaps even since before his fall, and he will have his answers.
"Shit," Eleanor mutters, frowning down at the sticky stain marring the overly large male garment she favors for sleep. She retreats into the room they will share for only five more days, pulling the shirt over her head as she crosses the threshold, giving Loki a far to quick view at her bare back and legs. The underwear clothing her posterior is so small Loki questions its purpose.
But the clothing is also green and Loki's head fogs for an entirely different reason than his usual insanity.
He is mentally recounting their last few das in the bunker together in vivid detail when she joins him on the couch, unfortunately covered now.
"My game is monopoly," she says, staring at the portable computer on her lap. Loki blinks at her as she pushes her black framed glasses up her nose.
"Pardon?" he asks, worried that he's slipping back to auditory insanity.
"You asked my game. It's Monopoly. I win every time."
"Monopoly?"
"Yeah, it's a board game."
"Loki scowls at the woman at his side. She clacks away on the keyboard, the little "ping" sound indicating that she is communicating instantly with the chatty buxom one or Thor's Whore.
"I was not referring to board games," Loki says through a clenched jaw. Eleanor is being deliberately obtuse and even worse, he is garnering the smallest fraction of her attention. "Eleanor."
"Hum?" She smiles at her screen. Loki wonders if the man out of time mastered such modern technology solely to converse with Eleanor.
"I was not referring to a board game."
"I know." She doesn't even glance at him.
"Eleanor!"
"What?" Not so much as a flinch.
Growling out his frustration, Loki snaps the device shut on her lap and tossing it on the ground. Although she does not respond verbally, her full – and angry – attention is on him now. Behind those glass lenses her eyes are narrowed. She purses her lips, a silent demand for him to explain his admittedly childish behavior.
The muscles in Loki's face twitch strangely and it takes him a moment to understand that his lips have pulled into a truly genuine smile. The movement is unpracticed and something about his expression has the anger melting out of Eleanor.
"Wow," she murmurs.
"What?" He is scowling and suspicious once more. She shakes her head. "Tell me."
"Do you have any idea how attractive you are?" she asks, sounding somewhat annoyed. "You are seriously, ridiculously gorgeous."
Loki's face feels hot.
"I seem to have forgotten my original inquiry," he confesses.
The mental lapse is frightening and frustrating. He struggles to lift his hands, desperate to pound some normality and intelligence back into his mind. Striking his cursed head would be a relief, but he is unable to life his hands. It feels as though his arms no longer are connected to his body. The limbs are beyond his control.
This is Eleanor's doing and Loki lurches to his feet, remembering what he sought to do when he opened his mouth for the first time in two days.
"Your game! Why do this to me?" he demands.
Eleanor sighs and removes her glasses. "Do we really need to go through this again?" she asks.
"You will do as I say," he snaps, wishing it were so. "And I will continue to require this of you until you no longer lie!"
Eleanor sighs again.
"I didn't lie. The thought of you alone for a hundred years hurt me," she says. Loki suddenly remembers similarly false confessions over these last nine days.
"You pity me."
"No." She is vehement now, getting to her feet. "I don't do pity. I would have drown in self pity a long time ago if I did. This is empathy, Loki, because I was just where you are. My mind was once a fucking war zone and solitary confinement leads to insanity. You deserve a change. Why can't you just try to take it?"
He knows not what to think. Eleanor appears so very honest, but he no longer trusts his own judgment in this and the notion that Eleanor could do something so selfless as to burden herself with this arrangement out of a sense of empathy and shared experience is unfathomable.
More likely she is simply attempting to make him care before forcing command after command upon him. It is the perfect vengeance.
"Can I touch your hand? I'd really like to touch your hand please," she murmurs.
Loki nods, allowing Eleanor to step closer and lace their fingers together.
"Look, we have five days until you –can decide to leave. Instead of focusing on me and the whole principal of this power dynamic maybe work on getting your mind right," she says.
"You cannot command my thoughts." Perhaps if she could there would be no more madness.
"It's a suggestion," she says, resting her head on his chest, closing her eyes. "Do you feel better than you did alone in your cell?"
The answer is undoubtedly yes, but he cannot give her the satisfaction of being right.
Perhaps instead he will spend the next five days buried inside Eleanor, losing himself in her heat. The idea is intriguing, but Loki rejects it almost immediately. He will create no further ties with the songbird and it would be so very easy to develop an addiction to intercourse with such an enchanting, enthusiastic, talented creature.
But she is so very warm and so very close. He skims a fingertip down her neck, sliding along the line of her revealing shirt. Bumps of flesh erupt in the wake of his touch and Eleanor shivers, tilting her face towards his. He caresses her collarbone before resting a palm over her heart. It beats wildly in her chest, a bird trying to escape or perhaps a song written for him alone by her body and her breath.
Really, she is stunning, despite her short stature – or maybe because of it – and her incessantly irritating force of will.
He cradles her jaw with his spare hand and Eleanor blushes. The flush is rare for his songbird and very becoming. Surely, there is no harm in enjoying Eleanor while he's here.
The shrieking emanating from the pocket of her trousers serves to jar him from the moment and Eleanor pouts as he drops his hand. She holds his gaze still as she answers the call.
"What?" she snaps.
"You're offline." He can hear the voice of the buxom brunette through the speaker. It makes Loki wince. "We were IMing and then you just disappeared! Did he hurt you? What happened?"
"Calm down, Darcy," says Eleanor, rolling her eyes. "I'm fine."
"Who just goes offline in the middle of a conversation?"
Eleanor glances at Loki. "Technical difficulties."
"Yeah, right. I don't like you working from home. You need to be here where we can keep an eye on him."
Eleanor sighs heavily and Loki's had enough. He plucks the cellular device from her ear.
"You are a miserable little fool to want me near," he snarls. "It is not Eleanor that is in danger, but you, Darcy Lewis. Command or no, I will make it my sole mission to bring you pain and suffering if you continue to annoy my lady. I have my words still, and I will not hesitate to constantly affirm your every insecurity, you mewling—"
"Okay," Eleanor interrupts sticking a hand out for the phone. He hands it over willingly, pleased with his speech. As Eleanor moves away to sooth the buxom brunette he smiles because this is evidence of his returning mental faculties.
Eleanor is correct. This environment is conducive to healing his mind and it would be exceedingly foolish to allow his pride to influence the decision he will make in five days time.
Again, Eleanor's wisdom is irksome, but she is right in that he must focus on righting his mind and finding his magic.
How did he fail to see this previously?
Continuing on this path will leaf to the return of his magic. It never left him truly, but it is concentrated in his head, beyond his reach.
No, he will covet its return for it is only with his magic that he will be able to escape the Isle of Solitude. For the first time in months, Loki plots.
He will stay with Eleanor, developing no further ties with the songbird, until he is healed. With his magic he will return to Asgard, willing turning himself over to Odin's original punishment. He is confident in his ability to combat any magic that would hold him there. Upon his escape he will steal Eleanor away from this dreary realm because he would rather not be parted from her, but breaking the bond is the only way he can see to prevent her from taking her revenge.
Free from Odin, free of their bond, Loki will keep Eleanor hidden and safe.
It is a comfort to know that the power she holds is temporary.
"What's going on in that head there, Mr. Smiley?" Eleanor is seated at the counter in the kitchen, computer open in front of her.
"I found scolding your companion to be immensely satisfying," he replies, grinning.
Eleanor rolls her eyes and returns to her work, none the wiser to all the changes he just made to her future.
The frowning songbird awakes him.
There is laughter in his head and panic in his chest. The dream was so vivid he relives it still even as Eleanor fills his vision.
The titan is mocking him, claiming that Eleanor Tate is nothing but a fantasy created by his captors to torment him further. It is all a delusion, from their meeting to the moment she brought him back to Midgard.
He never went back to Midgard, never went back to Asgard, for it was the Other that found him beaten on the floor of the top of the Man of Iron's tower.
The Mad Titan says that Loki's been in the Void since that time, that he will never leave again and that Eleanor Tate never so much as existed.
But she feels real as she gently shakes his shoulder, pushing his sweat soaked hair off his forehead. Her lips move, but there is laughter in his head and he cannot hear her words.
She isn't real. She never was.
The thought is exceedingly painful and Loki decides in a moment of sudden clarity that it matters not. If Eleanor is not real than he will live in this delusion. He will choose this possibly fake world with Eleanor over the crueler reality of the Void.
"Dream." He hears Eleanor speak as the laughter fades. "Loki, it was just a dream. You are safe."
Loki sits up against the headboard, pulling her into his lap. Pressing their chests together, he matches her breathing. She is panicky at first, but when she understands his need she takes deep, even breaths.
They sit together, propped up against the headboard, for an exceptionally long time, until Loki's chest is free of panic and his mind is free of laughter. The terror of the dream lingers, but Eleanor feels solid and real against him in a way the titan did not.
Loki's made his choice and this will be his reality. Eleanor sings softly in his ear, blessing him with his favorite sounds, but something is not right.
Before closing his eyes to sleep on this night, Loki determined something important, something now forgotten.
Once more Loki had purpose, had goals, had direction, but in the few hours of sleep it all slipped through the holes plaguing his head. Once the source of pride and strength, his mind is now more sieve than anything.
"What happens in five days time?" he asks into her hair. The answer seems important, but the question makes Eleanor tense in his arms.
"In five days you will have been with me for two weeks and I promised that after two weeks I would have the Allfather undo the bond between us and send you off to spend a century all by yourself."
Ah, there is it. His plan, his reason.
"I require parchment," he says, desperate to retain this knowledge now that he's found it once more. "And a writing utensil."
Eleanor gives him a concerned look. But slips out of bed and out of the room without comment, returning a moment later with paper and pen. Loki takes the offered supplies and is momentarily overcome but a profound ache for Asgard. He longs for the small of soft parchment.
Silly, for such a small thing to trigger such disgusting sentiment. Stupid, to long for a home that never truly existed.
"Loki?" Eleanor's hand is on his shoulder. Loki forces the feelings to dissipate and puts pen to paper as Eleanor turns on a light. Writing in a language foreign to Eleanor, he outlines his plan in a script messy from disuse.
Firstly, he will ignore Eleanor's unacceptable power as he strives to regain his mind and magic. He will not allow her to take her vengeance. Then he will have Eleanor break this bond and retreat to the Isle of Solitude. Next he will escape the Isle of Solitude. And lastly he will collect his lady, spiriting her away to somewhere safe and hidden and for Loki only.
With her striped of this control and on another realm she will be unable to hurt him.
Offering no explanation to the ever concerned Ms. Tate, he neatly folds his paper and places it under his pillow as he attempts to sleep once more.
"It's been two weeks," Eleanor says.
Sunlight flows through an open window in the kitchen, making her hair glow. Her beauty wins out over her words for a moment and Loki can do nothing but watch her.
"Loki? You listening?"
He shakes his head and studies her collection of Midgardian literature. His goal for the day is to read a book. It has been far too long, even if the writing of mortals is akin to reading stories designed for Asgardian children. He selects one at random and sits on her sofa.
Eleanor joins him after a moment, handing over a plastic cup filled with tea on ice, his preferred morning beverage.
"Let me see." Eleanor nods to the book in his lap as she cradles a scalding hot mug between her palm. "Written on the Body," she reads, grinning.
"Is it bad?" he asks.
"No," Eleanor smiles like she has a secret. "It's good. It's been two weeks."
Loki fingers the neatly folded piece of paper in his pocket. It is a landmark, a reminder.
"Do you have a decision you want to fill me in on?" she asks. There is a quiver in her voice and it is not like Eleanor to push him into speaking.
"No," he murmurs, longing for the ability to skim her thoughts.
"Loki." She is begging. "Are you leaving me or not?"
He would never willing leave her, no permanently, but admitting so now feel like defeat.
"I will stay here," he says. "For now."
"For now?"
"I reserve the right to take up my original punishment at anytime."
"Really?" Eleanor is beaming and enchanting and happy. Suddenly there is little Loki would not do to put such a radiant smile on her equally radiant face at as great a frequency as possible.
Still, this newfound desire does not extend to staying under her control for a moment longer than necessary. He reminds himself that this to is surely just another way for her to increase his need for her, only to turn hateful on him to extract her revenge.
This truth is difficult to recall when she smiles in such a way.
"Indeed," he manages.
With slow, precise movements Eleanor stands and then leans close. The intrusion into his personal space does not make him flinch away and there is no fear of violence from her approach. He fingers the paper in her pocket and Eleanor traces his jaw.
"Good," she murmurs, kissing the corner of his mouth.
"Is this my reward for the behavior you desire?" Cynicism and cruelty are his only tools to combat the threat Eleanor possesses. She is dangerous in that she sways and manipulates him with ease while his dependence grows daily.
"This is genuine affection, my silly god."
He raises a skeptical eyebrow and she kisses that too.
"I will allow you to command kisses of me in an exchange for a withdraw of the previous command," Loki says, smirking.
Eleanor rolls her eyes and straightens.
"Read your book," she murmurs. "I've got work to do."
Betaed by Heather who got this back to me so super fast! Big thanks to her.
I have the loveliest readers! Seriously, thank you so very much for reading. And my reviewers who amazingly keep coming back every updates- you are the best!
Sorry this was so short. The next chapter is almost done.