._.
Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Nine – Root, Part One
Loki leaned back on the bench in the sitting room just inside his chambers, in the dark. He didn't need light to think. And the darkness suited his mood.
Jane used to accuse him of disappearing to sit around and brood. What he was doing now came close. He would get her here tomorrow, somehow; Nadrith wasn't going to the South Pole, so Jane would have to come here, while Nadrith was still a prisoner and while Loki could ensure she was safe. He would send Jolgeir in with her – she knew him a little, he knew how to make people feel comfortable with him, Nadrith wouldn't be insulted during the treaty negotiation period with an injured "companion" present as opposed to a uniformed Einherjar, and yet after what he'd observed today, if Nadrith for any reason attempted to do Jane any harm, he felt certain that Jolgeir would find a way to protect her, at least long enough for the guards outside to respond.
Getting Jane to Asgard would require a plan, but it wouldn't be an overly complicated or difficult one, he didn't think. While Odin might not like the idea, Thor would leap at it, and Loki didn't think Odin would reclaim the throne over a visit from a mortal. Particularly not one who had already been here.
Loki's thoughts turned again to Brokk, a far more challenging problem. He'd been so consumed by the immediate goal of ending the war that he'd essentially forgotten his earlier drive to get revenge on him. He'd once fantasized about carving his name into Brokk's dead flesh, as proof that he had not colluded with the cretin. Before, it had been a reflection of impotent rage; now it was no longer impotent. He was at full strength, and all he needed, while he remained under judgement, was to convince someone – namely Thor or Heimdall – to let him go for the Dark Elf.
That, and find him.
He was thinking through every possible place Brokk might flee to, then summarily dismissing them for Brokk was not fool enough to take refuge in any location that Loki knew of, when the door chime sounded. Fid bringing his dinner, he thought.
He padded over to the door, barefoot – the farthest he'd gotten upon his return to his chambers was removing his boots – and found that his ability to predict who was at his door had severely deteriorated.
"What are you doing?" Thor asked, finding Loki looking as he had the last time he'd seen him, before he went to New York, except for his missing boots.
"At this precise moment, standing here and answering a strange question."
"You're needed in the Feasting Hall."
"'Needed'? What for? The second round begins first thing tomorrow morning. And Bragi can inform you of everything you need to know from the first round."
"Yes, though I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts on it, too. But we're having more of an informal dinner, just about ten of us, to talk about what you learned from Tony today."
"With Jolgeir?"
"Of course," Thor answered. "And Finnulfur and Eir. And you. A few others. Will you put your boots back on and come with me? Dinner's already started."
"You're going to make Jolgeir discuss it already, without time for him to consider it for himself first?"
"I'm not going to make him do anything. I invited him to the table and he accepted, and he can speak up as much as he likes, or remain silent. It's a discussion, not an interrogation."
"But you are the king, Thor. Do you not understand the implications of that? Do you not understand that no one can say no to you?"
"You don't seem to have a problem with it."
Loki laughed darkly. "Well, you're not wrong there."
"What would you have me do, then? Tell Jolgeir to go home? Gag him so that I'm certain he doesn't feel compelled to speak?"
"Oh, you have one of those lying around for him, too?"
"Loki! What is wrong with you?"
"It was just me, then? Of course it was, what was I thinking? Do what you want. I don't care. Forgive me for voicing a thought. Hold your meeting, and I'll try to think it over tonight and write out some reflections. Which you can use to light a fire in your firepit if you like. I just want all of this over so I can leave."
"Leave? You're-"
"Yes, which is what you can do now, too," Loki said over the chime at his door. It should be the servant with his meal, but at this point it could just as well be Odin, or Bragi, or Heimdall, and he wouldn't even be that surprised if it was Tony Stark or Steve Rogers or a giant green beast.
Still just a few steps from the door, Thor turned to open it himself. One of Loki's servants, a young woman, stood there with a covered tray. "Come back later. Loki will send for you." The woman acknowledged the command and left. When he turned back around, Loki was staring at him with seeming confusion.
"Did you just dismiss my servant? With my food?"
"Yes. What do you mean 'leave'?"
"I suppose I mean more or less the opposite of 'stay.' I generally prefer to stay on realms where the dinner I order to my chambers isn't turned away by someone else once it arrives."
"You can send for it again later, Loki, it's just food. We need to talk. Where are you planning to go, and when?"
"I have things to take care of at the moment, of course, but after that, once I'm free from judgement, anywhere other than Asgard will do."
"But…Asgard is your home. This is where you belong." And while an eternally optimistic part of him fully expected Loki to agree, the other part knew he would disagree just to be contentious. So he kept going. "I'm glad to have you back here. In just this short time you've been invaluable to us. To me."
Loki shook his head. "You just can't put down the shovel, can you? Can't stop digging. Just go, Thor. We do not need to talk. In fact it would probably behoove us not to."
"What do you mean by that, a shovel? Digging what? Speak plainly for once, Loki. What is so terrible about me being glad to have you back?"
"The problem isn't that you're glad to have me back. The problem is what you want back. And have you ever considered the fact that perhaps I don't want to be back?"
"No," Thor said immediately. "Your freedom is nearly upon you; the dungeon is no more. You have your title, your privileges, servants," he said with a vague gesture toward the door. "All of your belongings, just as you left them. Everyone in the entire realm will know that they have you to thank for saving Asgard from the brink of destruction. We'll have a grand feast as soon as the treaty is signed, and I'll personally make certain that they all know what you did."
"Oh, I see. That's so very kind of you. So caring, and thoughtful. And afterward, I'll be eternally grateful to you for it. In fact I'll owe you then, won't I?"
"Is that what you think? That I'm trying to make you indebted to me? Loki…I wish you would read the journal. And not pick apart every word to twist in some-"
"I have read it. Most of it. I read how you decided you hadn't sufficiently praised me to others, and you've said as much, as well. But do you really think my role in all this will so endear me to Asgardians? How many war songs do you know that extol the virtues of negotiation as a means to victory? You think I'll be lauded as a hero? You heard what Oblaudur said this morning, and you know what they were all thinking. I won the war for Asgard by handing over the Ice Casket. The Ice Casket, Thor. That little trinket that the actual war songs talk about bleeding and dying for. In many of their minds I 'won' by betraying the sacrifices they and their elders made. By betraying Asgard itself! And if they ever found out what I truly am? They would roast me alive, and compose songs about that," Loki said, shuddering at the thought. An image of Thor drowning him in boiling water on Muspelheim came back to him and he tugged at the armor around his neck, suddenly feeling hot.
"Then what do you want me to tell them? I can say it was my idea. Or that we talked it over and both agreed. I told you I don't want it known that you tricked me, anyway."
"I don't care what you tell them. Whatever strikes you in the moment," Loki said, stepping around and past Thor to open the door. Thor, of course, did not take the obvious hint, and just stood there. "You can go now. I don't know what you expect to accomplish by remaining. We talk and we talk and we shout and we never get anywhere and we never will."
"You are infuriating," he said, jaw tightening.
"Me? I am infuriating? I'm hungry and you sent away my dinner."
"Enough about your dinner, Loki!" Thor shouted, fists balling up. "You have always been so smug. I am trying – I have been trying – so hard. To understand what happened, and where I've erred. To show you as much patience and understanding as possible. To tell you again and again how important you are to me, no matter how you mock me for it, no matter how many times you reject me and tell me you aren't my brother. And-"
"I'm not," Loki helpfully supplied with a bright smile.
Thor closed his eyes and drew in a slow, steadying breath. He wanted to knock that smile off of Loki's face, badly. "I know I have made mistakes, Loki. I would not try to deny it. But you present yourself as an innocent victim in all this, as though all the mistakes are mine, as though any mistakes you made were only because I made one, too. As though you bear no responsibility for anything. As though I should spend the rest of my life apologizing, despite knowing that you'll never accept the apology, much less forgive me. I can shoulder the blame that is mine to bear, but I refuse to stand here idly and let you castigate me again and again and again."
Loki's expression hardened, his emotions shifting from mere annoyance into something sharper. "I've never claimed to be innocent," he said, voice dropping lower. "I know what I am, Thor. And of all the descriptions I might choose for myself at any given moment, 'innocent' would not be one of them. I know what I've done. It's just that I also know what you've done. And here's the difference: you don't."
"What have I done, then? Tell me, what have I done?" Thor wanted the answers; he did. If there was something he'd missed, something he'd overlooked, he wanted to know. But no small part of him thought that Loki was just being obstinate and deliberately aggravating, unwilling to accept or even consider Thor's apologies, and anger tinged the questions despite the sincerity behind them.
"No," Loki said, shaking his head. "No, we aren't doing this. I have treaty negotiations to prepare for. I want you to leave."
"I'm not leaving. I'm not giving up. If there's something I've done, then tell me," Thor said, struggling to keep his temper in check. "Truly, Loki, tell me. What am I to make of such vague accusations? If they're real, how am I to address them?"
"If they're real," Loki muttered.
"Yes, if they're real. How can we make things better if we don't speak honestly?"
"You don't want honest. You don't want better. You want the same as before."
"That's not true. I've told you-"
"Yes, I know. You, you, you, you. You've told and you've told and you've told. You're looking for simple explanations and simple solutions. Stop teasing Loki for using magic, tell everyone you meet how wonderful Loki is. And by all means remind him constantly that you still see him as your brother even though he's really a Frost Giant. It's condescending! I don't want to be your brother, regardless of our births or how we were raised. The last thousand years spent as your brother? I don't want that for my next thousand."
"You still hate me that much then?" Thor asked, drawing back. He was still angry, but that hurt, too. "But I thought…"
"I don't hate you," Loki said, less immune to that pained look on Thor's face than he was when he'd rejoiced in it on Midgard. "Usually," he clarified when Thor immediately looked relieved, as though everything was now resolved. "I just don't care to be your brother."
"Be serious. I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't that bad. You know that I loved you, and love you still."
"I know that you think it was love." "Be serious?" Loki decided he'd had enough of this. "If that was love then I wish mercy on those you hate."
"You speak venomous lies, Loki. And foolish ones. You dare tell me how I feel? How I felt? Do you remember some other past, and not the one we actually shared? I've fought at your side, tended your wounds, saved your life!"
"You've fought at the side of thousands, tended the wounds of a nameless warrior trying to hack up a dead man, and you would save the life of anyone who cried help!"
"That's true, yes. But those others don't matter the way you do. They aren't my brother."
"So the only evidence of this vast love is the word 'brother'? Is that why you defend that lie so zealously?"
"Of course not! And it's not… Just…let me think. The night before my ceremony! I saw no one else that night, until I went out. I was in seclusion. But I saw you."
"Because the guard wouldn't let anyone else pass! Is that really your best example? You called me your dearest friend. Do you know how deluded you sound when you say that? When was the last time you came to my chambers, for any reason other than that you needed something from me?"
"Last night. I went to tell you how worried I was when you were buried under the rub-"
"And they call me a liar! You're the biggest liar on all of Asgard. You came because you want me to give in. Because you need for me to forgive you for childish teasing and say that all is well. All is not well, Thor. You have no idea what it's like to be your brother!"
"Then tell me, Loki. I say again, tell me how horrible and miserable it is to be my brother. Because I have been proud to be yours."
Loki's eyes went wide, and not for the first time since Thor had shown up. "It's a good thing you sent my dinner away after all because you literally make me want to vomit. You have been proud? You and reality are further apart than the roots and crown of Yggdrasil."
"And you have gone mad. Sometimes I truly think you have gone mad."
"It's a convenient conclusion, isn't it? Because as long as you call it madness you don't have to listen to a thing I say. 'Never mind Loki, he's gone mad.'"
"I'm happy to listen to what you say. You haven't said anything! Where did this foul mood come from, anyway? Aren't you about to get everything you wanted?"
Everything I wanted? Loki wasn't sure what "everything he wanted" was, but he was certain he wasn't about to get it. He was certain he never would get it. "I don't know. I think it might have started when you sent my dinner away!" he said, voice crescendoing to a shout.
Thor stared hard at Loki, as hard as his fists wanted to strike at him. In the past, after fistfights like that they would wind up on the ground, and usually come back up with tempers sated, ready to be friends again. Thor held onto himself tightly, afraid that if the blows started now they wouldn't end until one of them couldn't get up. A moment later he stormed over to the front door and opened it. "My brother wants his dinner back!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, before stepping back and slamming the door closed again with all the strength he'd wanted to put into his blows. Something somewhere hit the floor and shattered. Neither of them looked to see what it was.
"You are still just an overgrown hairy child," Loki said, fingers tightly clenched to stop them trembling with the rage surging through him.
"At least I am man enough to say what's truly on my mind," Thor said, calmer after taking some of his wrath out on Loki's door. "You never do. You talk around it, and you hint and you accuse, but you never do."
Shut up, he told himself. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. This isn't over. You still need an ally. But it was starting, the pressure of the water building too high behind the dam, and already pieces of the wall were exploding outward. He couldn't stop it. He gave up trying. "You're going to stand in front of the Assembly and commend me?" he asked quietly, a thin veneer of calm over seething chaos. "And this public message, you think, will negate all the times you publicly disparaged me?"
"The times I publicly…Loki, I have never publicly disparaged you."
Lies you believe to be truth. Lies, lies, lies! "Imagined slights? Is that it? It's true that you used to do it only when we were alone. But then, yes, Brother dear, you started doing it in front of others."
"I don't…are you speaking of jests in the presence of our friends?" Thor asked, searching for what Loki could possibly be accusing him of. He knew that Loki had at times taken a joke too seriously, and he knew that he had at times taken a joke too far and wounded his brother. Sometimes that had happened around their friends.
"You speak of jests and teasing and slights. I speak of offenses so grave no one would imagine them," Loki said bitterly, and waited. He knew what Thor would say before he said it; Thor would knock right through whatever was left of the dam all by himself now.
"If such grave offenses actually existed, you would name them. They exist only in your mind. You have gone mad."
"At least with me it happened recently. You went mad long ago. A special kind of madness that allows you to speak words that bring down mountains, without ever hearing the slightest rumble."
"What words!
"It's not so much that you insulted me, though yes, you did plenty of that. But you insulted me even in front of our enemies!"
"I what?" Thor said, wondering if Loki really had finally snapped. "Loki, I defended you to our enemies. When Gullveig or Nadrith sullied your name I didn't remain silent, I spoke up for you. I have never insulted you before our enemies. I wouldn't do such a thing."
"I hear the rumble now," Loki said over laughter, and if it made him sound mad, he didn't care. "I'd wager you don't. If only I could go back in time and show you. Where is Pathfinder when you need it?!" he shouted, looking down at the floor as though searching in the metaphorical direction of Midgard.
"We're not meant to speak of such things," Thor said softly, instantly apprehensive, because while he might forget something like that, Loki never would, not even in the heat of an argument.
"Oh, there's so much we aren't meant to speak of! You say I try to tell you what you really feel? I've experienced what you really feel. The day you were to become king, that day alone you insulted me in front of Heimdall and your friends, and you ignored my every effort to talk you down from the stupidest mistake of your life. And then, yes, you insulted me in front of our enemies! In front of the king of our enemies no less! You humiliated me!"
Thor's ears rang from the scream Loki's voice had reached at the end. Loki's heavy breathing punctuated the silence.
I wouldn't do such a thing, Thor thought. But the words were weak and quiet, even in his own mind. Because, apparently, he would do such a thing. "I didn't-"
"Not another word. Not another word, Thor. So help me I won't be able to restrain myself," Loki said, conscious of his bare feet and the daggers still in his boots. He did still have a couple elsewhere on him, and the sword that could be in his hand in a flash.
Thor opened his mouth – it was instinctive – but quickly shut it. Loki looked serious.
"Do you see why I don't want to be your brother? Why I don't want to let you be my brother? You treated me as though I was worthless, and you were happy for everyone to know it. Do you want to know the truth? I never intended for you to reach Jotunheim, but when you were banished? I couldn't believe my good fortune. I was ecstatic," Loki said, words carefully enunciated as fiery rage turned cold and brittle, the brief moment of uncontrolled fury already burned out.
You were 'ecstatic'? Thor thought amidst an unsettling swirl of resurging anger intertwined with pain. Loki's telling of it wasn't how he remembered their return to Asgard. He had the vague sense of Loki being shocked as Odin dressed him down and relieved him of power and title, but he thought that perhaps he'd been casting his own reflections onto his brother. He hadn't been paying much attention to Loki's reaction. Or to Loki at all. Loki had irritated him with his insipid coddling of Laufey that made Asgard look weak. That made Thor look weak. He'd wanted to silence Loki, immediately. He'd warned him to know his place, and Loki had fallen silent as intended.
He'd reflected on that day many times already; he knew he'd treated Loki badly. Somehow, though, he'd thought of it only as an incident between him and Loki. Personal. Private. Something he could apologize for – if Loki would let him – and try to make right by doing better. That it wasn't entirely private was something he hadn't even considered. That their enemies and even the king of Jotunheim had heard him demean Loki – Prince Loki of Asgard… Thor thought he was beginning to understand why Loki had been ecstatic over his banishment.
"I'm so sorry, Loki," he said. "I…" He paused to lick his lips, to swallow and try to return some moisture to his dry mouth. "I didn't realize I had done that. I'm sorry. I was concerned only for myself, and my pride, and not for anything or anyone else."
The story of your life, Loki thought. "You're not the only one who has pride, you know," he said after a moment.
Thor nodded slowly. "I know. When you were trying to get us out of Jotunheim, and you were speaking so politely to Laufey, so…deferentially…I thought you were humiliating me. All of us, Asgard itself. And-"
"I understand, no need to go on through such troubling memories. I forced you into such grave insults by being courteous to the king you were about to push into war with your discourtesy."
"No," Thor said, head momentarily spinning with yet another of Loki's recasting of his words. "Loki, please stop that. I'm trying to figure this out, to do better. To be better. I know you don't believe me when I say so, and I suppose you have good cause, but I truly am trying. It never occurred to me that Laufey and the others heard what was said between us, what I said to you, though it was right in front of them. It never occurred to me…how that made you look to them. And how it reflected on me as well. What did he call me? A boy trying to prove himself a man? He was right. But I've changed since then, and nothing like that will ever happen again. You have my word."
Loki started laughing, a hand rubbing over his mouth as he turned and took a few steps back in astonishment, before rounding on Thor again. "The Midgardians broadcast comedic performance recordings, in which the characters say absurd things to each other for obvious laughs. You would be perfect in one."
Thor sighed and drifted back to the door, leaning against it and trying to remind himself that he owed it to Loki, now more than ever, to hear him out. No matter how painful Loki chose to make it. He decided he might as well play along.
"How so?"
"You do it all the time! You just haven't had as many opportunities to do it in front of enemies. Let's see…most recently there was that time you shouted at my servant and sent away my food."
"I hardly think that's the same thing. We were talking."
"My food, Thor. My servant. In my own chambers! You took it upon yourself to override my decision to eat. If you cannot respect even that…"
"That was not disrespect, Loki. It's not the same thing. Shall I check right now if the servant is on her way?"
"All right, let's talk about your food instead. Midgard. Also after you changed so much. Another special prison cell constructed by SHIELD. I drank. Weak swill, but nonetheless I drank. Bottle after bottle after bottle. Did that not seem odd to you? Did it never occur to you to wonder why I might be doing that? And whatever knives you took from me, I let you find and take. Did you not understand that, when I gave you the last one?"
"Gave me? You mean the one you threw at me, barely missing my hand?"
"When I miss, it's intentional, and you know it. If you didn't realize what kind of position I was in before, you should have realized it then. They could have done anything to me, Thor. I still had my strength but no magic. I would have fought them for all I was worth" – he barked out a laugh – "there's a poor turn of phrase! But I was one, and they were as many as they chose to send, and I'm certain they had both the means and the will to do me harm."
"They are honorable warriors, Loki. They would not harm a pris-" "Many think that, before the pain starts," Director Fury had told him; Thor remembered well his discomfort when the man had all but asked him to inflict that pain on Loki, to compel him to reveal his secrets. He was grateful it hadn't come to that. The men and women of SHIELD were his allies…but he would not beat prisoners for them, and certainly not his own brother, no matter what he had done.
"Having trouble finishing that sentence, Brother?" Loki asked.
Thor sighed despondently. "I left you alone with your enemies. I'm sorry. You fell asleep, and Tony insisted we feast, and I was hungry, and I thought I would be back before you woke."
"You came back with crumbs in your beard, you idiot. Did you think I wouldn't notice? I wasn't that drunk. I had let myself become weak and you abandoned me because your stomach was growling, and the scepter could have been right around the corner for all I knew! You ignore me, you degrade me, you…ohhhh, why am bothering! I am wasting the air in my lungs, air I've learned to value. Just go, Thor," Loki said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Thor didn't move, but Loki was done. The dam had burst, and all the water had already gushed out. He would rebuild the wall, the water would no doubt amass behind it again, but for now he was drained. He turned to leave, retreating further back into his chambers. "You know where the door is," he said over his shoulder. "That thing you're physically blocking with your body," he added, tracing the loose shape of a door with his finger.
Thor promptly fell backwards, into noise and chaos and something flying at his head that he managed to bat away with one hand while the other grasped Mjolnir as his rear and an elbow hit the marble floor. Above him came a gasp. He wiped something cold and wet from his face – applesauce, he thought when he tentatively licked his lips – and looked up to see the servant from before standing over him wide-eyed. The tray, the plates, and their contents were strewn over and around him.
"I…I'm…"
"Not your fault," Thor told the horrified servant, then licked more applesauce from his lips. He lifted his head just long enough to take in the place where Loki's door used to be, before letting it fall back onto the floor with a smack.
/
/
Loki sank into the bath.
If there was one thing he appreciated here as much as the sun, and maybe even more, it was taking a bath. Stand-up showers he found utilitarian rather than relaxing, and the limit of two two-minute showers per week at the South Pole left it nearly unsuitable for habitation. He'd gotten by with it, though. He'd also cheated, a little, he thought with a fond smile. More so in the beginning than the end.
He closed his eyes.
If there was one thing he needed to help him remember why he couldn't give Thor an inch, why he couldn't let anything lure him back into complacently accepting his place on Asgard, it was the indignant look on Thor's face as he proclaimed, "I have never insulted you before our enemies. I wouldn't do such a thing."
Indignant, and one hundred percent certain.
It would be easier if Thor did it on purpose. If Thor said I hate you before humiliating him like that instead of I love you.
He slid down and slipped below the surface, exhaling a stream of bubbles.
Then choked on a laugh and sat up, sputtering water. He supposed he wasn't beholden to whatever Frost Giant traits he'd brought with him to Asgard. He loved this bath. Wherever he went next, he would make sure he had one just like it.
He should have held back. He'd given in and let the dam burst. So much for resisting but not fighting. Part of him thought it wouldn't matter; he could draw knife after knife, metaphorical or physical, and Thor would never truly turn his back if Loki needed him. But he remembered what Thor wrote in the journal, too, that if he'd ever harmed Jane, that would be a line permanently crossed, the end. There was a knife too sharp, and Loki had already pulled it, if not quite intentionally; Thor just didn't know it. How hard could it be, then, for him to drag Thor across a line he'd technically already crossed? A Thor who turned his back, who rejected him instead of constantly initiating these tugging matches that left Loki rejecting Thor…the idea was more unsettling than he'd expected.
Maybe it still wouldn't matter. He was so close to his freedom, he had Odin's word, witnessed by Finnulfur – it was unlikely he would need anything else from Thor at this point.
Loki reached for his shampoo. Forget about Thor. Brokk, he reminded himself. He had to find Brokk.
/
/
Thor shrugged out of his clothes gingerly, trying not to make any more of a mess. He wasn't sure how the applesauce had wound up on his face and neck; most of Loki's meal had been squashed under his back.
It was an eviction as only Loki could do it.
He thought he could get away with just washing his face, but a hand testing his hair told him he would have to get in the bath. A look in the mirror told him he had food in his beard. "You came back with crumbs in your beard, you idiot!" He usually took more care than that. But he'd been rather dazed, lost in his thoughts about how Loki could have sunk to such depths, and what would become of him upon their return to Asgard. His fellow warriors either hadn't noticed or hadn't commented – Tony Stark being Tony Stark, he had to think it was the former – lost in their own thoughts and most of them more physically drained than he was. Assuming Loki was even telling him the truth about the crumbs.
This isn't about my beard, he reminded himself, taking a damp cloth to his face.
He could have stayed with Loki; the others needed the sustenance more than he did. He'd chosen his new friends over his oldest friend.
It wasn't such a dishonorable choice, though, he thought as he washed himself. He'd chosen the friends he'd fought with instead of the friend, the brother, he'd fought against. What else should Loki expect? he asked himself with a scowl.
He frowned at himself then. Loki wasn't angry over who he chose to feast with. He was angry because… He closed his eyes, returning to what Loki had said, trying to piece it together. Because he'd left Loki alone in the custody of SHIELD, who had indeed shown a willingness to mistreat him. And he'd mentioned the scepter. Because the scepter could have been close? He feared that SHIELD might have used the scepter against him? The idea made Thor's jaw and fists clench in anger. To be enslaved in such a manner, your body's movements and even your thoughts not your own… It had enraged him to learn that Loki had used such a brutal weapon. It enraged him again to imagine it being used against him. Had they tried it, had they done it…Thor would have pounded them nine layers into the dirt.
So Loki had feared what could have happened to him as SHIELD's prisoner. It was a foolish time to overindulge in their ale then, he thought, drying his hair from the quick bath. Loki is no fool, came the immediate next thought. "When I miss, it's intentional. You should have known it." He had known it. Loki didn't miss. "Didn't you wonder why?" Loki had asked. He hadn't. He'd thought it was strange, all of it, but Loki drinking then surrendering a final hidden knife was no stranger than Loki trying to conquer Midgard with the help of an army from beyond the Nine, and he hadn't seriously questioned it. Just as he'd told Loki last night, he had to understand himself first. Now, he thought he understood. Not just the Johnnie Walker Blue Label and the knife.
With what Loki had brought up about his words in front of Laufey…it shook at the very foundations of what he understood about himself, even after all the pondering he'd done. He met his own eyes in the mirror, and had to look away.
Things had really been much easier when he didn't think about such things. But then, he supposed that was rather the point.
He dragged his gaze back to the man in the mirror, and this time he didn't turn away.
/
/
"Annnd you're back," Loki said, stepping forward with little flicks of his fingers to encourage Thor out of his bedchambers. He'd heard the approach, though only by Thor's footfalls.
Thor let Loki herd him out, casting a wary glance around him in response to the movements of Loki's hand.
"How did you get in?" Loki asked when Thor sidestepped him upon reaching the sitting room outside the bedchambers. "I didn't hear the signal."
"The door was open," Thor replied with a dry smile.
Loki gave a begrudging nod. No door, no signal.
"I would have knocked."
"And I would have ignored you, and then you would have come in anyway."
"You could have come up with something to keep me out, if you really wanted to. You didn't even put the door back."
"Merely an oversight, I assure you. Rectified now."
Thor quirked an eyebrow.
"No, Thor, that doesn't reflect my secret desire for you to return so we can continue fighting and perhaps draw in some fists and blades and construction tools. Don't read anything into it." He put his back to Thor, gaze drifting across the books on the shelves there, swiping a hand over them when he saw nothing that interested him. The next group appeared, but was no less dull. He wasn't really looking for a book anyway.
"Apparently I should be reading something into everything you say and do. You forget that's not among my strongest skills."
Loki turned back around. "Don't you have a feast to go stuff yourself at?"
"I did. I sent word for them to dine without me. We'll reconvene tomorrow, if there's time. Loki…please sit with me for a few minutes."
"To what end? Why must we do this yet again? I have other things on my mind, and you surely must as well."
"At least for the time it takes you to eat, if you haven't already."
"To eat what? Whoever you screamed at for the return of my meal you must have frightened to death, because my meal hasn't returned."
"You didn't know?"
"Know what?"
"You'll be sorry you missed it, then," Thor said with a smile. "The servant was waiting right outside your door. I was covered in your meal."
"So that's why you changed," Loki responded. Thor was a creature of habit, but Loki had noticed at first sight that the leather he wore was slightly different. "You're right, I'm sorry I missed it. I thought you were stumbling around and crashed into that old vase from Alfheim. If I'd known otherwise, I would have come running, laughed hysterically, and then replaced the door."
"You could order something fresh. I considered doing it for you…but thought I shouldn't take the liberty."
"Wise choice," Loki said, though even as he said it he thought he would rather Thor have taken that particular liberty, since it meant he would probably be eating right now behind a closed door that Thor was on the other side of.
"Please allow me just this once more, Loki. I swear I won't try to insist like this again, if you say you don't want to talk about it. Just once more. Please."
"You've certainly learned a new word," Loki said, pausing to consider it. He had felt drained and raw after Thor left. But the bath had revived him, and it was always in his best interests to know what Thor was thinking. What Thor was thinking, of course, was usually quite predictable…but curiosity had been his downfall more than once. And then there was that oath. That was new. He wasn't sure what he would do if Thor explicitly dismissed as illegitimate the things he'd said before, things he'd never intended to speak aloud. If Thor ignored them, he could deal with that calmly; he was used to his words being ignored. "All right. I'll agree. For an oath like that it'll be worth it. And trust me, I'll hold you to it. You tend to make them lightly."
"I haven't made them lightly. I just haven't always thought through what they really mean as well as I should have. Can we sit?"
Isn't that the definition of "making them lightly"? "May as well," Loki answered with a shrug, promptly draping himself over a stuffed oversized chair and propping his feet up on the matching footstool. He was already in his nightclothes – well-fitted ones, instead of the shrunken ones he'd been stuck with since ignoring Jane's advice about the dryer – and quite comfortable. Thor could say whatever was on his mind this time, then leave, and then he would throw Thor's oath in his face every time he opened his mouth and Loki didn't like what started to come out. It was, he realized now that he'd agreed, the best bargain he'd made in some time. "You may begin," he said, extending a magnanimous inviting hand.
/
Hello again! Sorry for the long delay; as many of you know, I hit a Perfect Storm of obstacles including a dead laptop that took several chapters with it, the lack of an existing commercial adaptor for the particular hard drive in my laptop, a tech company that wanted to charge me some $3,000 for data recovery (!), a laptop that also took with it my last download of a multi-download copy of Word, no less than three multi-day multi-state road trips, a cold that left me hacking up a lung for like a month (thus sleeping poorly), a cancelled writing vacation (thank you again dead laptop), a house with more renter-damage in it than I expected leaving me crawling around on the floor scraping off dried food gunk drips and candle wax (etc.) instead of writing...I'm sure I'm leaving out plenty of things still! Such is life sometimes though. Anyway, the Word problem is still there (I'm on my old very buggy laptop, which has it), and I'm still scraping up drips and scrubbing at stains and trying to figure out what to do about the various damage the renters left me with, but I guess most things are basically back to normal now (except that I'm living in a hotel, ha). Ch. 180 "Root, Part Two" and Ch. 181 are both finished, and the plan is to get 180 released tomorrow. I'd do it today, but realistically I'm not going to have time.
Wishing everyone a fun New Year's Eve (whether that's out partying like it's 1999 again or curled up at home with a good book...or fanfic, ha, or whatever else you may be up to) and a great 2018.
Previews for Ch. 180: Come on, you already know what it's about, more or less.
Excerpt:
"I'm glad you didn't." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, perhaps, he admitted to himself, just for a few more seconds' procrastination. "When you said you wanted to be my equal…I thought it was sheer madness. Not because you weren't my equal, but because you were. When I looked back on it later, I thought you'd recreated the entire cosmos around the idea that no one cared about you, that…that everyone looked down upon you, as if everyone already knew you were from Jotunheim, and that was why you'd said such a thing."