A/N: this chapter's more of Loki confronting...life.
The awkard cold of the beginnings of spring had long been forgotten, as May gave way to a steady stream of heat that maintained its peak all the way through to the afternoon, leaving all the residents of Stark Tower rummaging desperately for much more suitable clothing. Stark's air-conditioning could only do so much.
Indeed, Loki was currently struggling to find anything short-sleeved; it all seemed to have been shoved unceremoniously to the bottom of his drawer over time. He wasn't usually one to fling his clothes about, but the ones he pulled out weren't tossed so gently onto the ground.
For Hel's sake, he merely needed-
His fingers froze as they brushed against something cold and hard. A flat, smooth surface, deceptively innocent.
A mirror.
Loki vaguely remembered shoving into the abyss of his drawer after venting his violent frustrations on the larger one in his room, and the other in the en-suite. His knuckles tingled eagerly at the memory, the rush of blood roaring in his ears synchronising with buried screams.
Loki had been careful to avoid his reflection; eyes pointedly darting away from the glass walls and his reflection in Stark's ridiculous sunglasses the man insisted on wearing inside. But it had been too long since he'd seen himself in such clarity.
The last time he'd seen his reflection, his skin had been vampirically pasty, strained blue veins branched across his skin and shadows engraved beneath his eyes.
Phantoms lay beneath your eyes, little prince.
The last time he'd seen his reflection, his skin had been stretched taut by protruding cheekbones, and his lips had been bloodlessly pale.
do not speak do not speak do not SPEAK—
The last time he'd seen his reflection, dead seaweed eyes had stared back at him, full of spite and hate and disgust, and Loki had wanted nothing more than for his reflection to reach out and kill him.
To desire death, to imitate death, but not to receive death. Never to receive death.
But did he truly want death now? In heart and mind and soul—away with the waters of the past that chased him daily—did he truly want death now?
There's a glow about him now, Loki could see, in the way gentle, white skin had moulded itself around cheekbones that didn't scream atrophy. His eyes had come alive with a green that leapt out and claimed a long lost jollity. The zombified look had faded with the dark circles; the phantoms had faded and gone and run away with the past.
He looked... different now.
Healthier.
He should hate this.
There was fat, clinging to him like slime, suffocating him, dragging him down to dissolve into a puddle of grease and lard.
So fat, so fat. You were so close before.
Close? Had he ever been close, ever been happy, with gelid hands clamped over ears taut with pain, an avalanche of screams commanding his brain to not eat, not drink, not breathe—
You only need to lose a little. Just a little weight. It's easy.
But it would always be a little, a little, a little—claiming everything until there was nothing, and then claiming that too. Take and take and take—it would never stop, would it?
Take away the fat, take away what's burdening you, holding you down, and you can be so light you'll dance with the fae. Just as you always wished to.
The voice knew him well. He had always dreamt of flying away with the fae; the two sons of Odin had been odd children. Thor, banging his fists on the table at he raved about joining the legendary ranks of the Valkyrie, whilst the timid raven-haired boy occupied the library at all hours of the day and night, immersing himself in grimoires with the puerile dream to meet with the fae and have them stretch his magical bounds.
The voice knew him well...
The epiphany struck him so suddenly, he almost dropped the mirror.
The only person that knew him as well as the voice was himself. Which drew him to the simple conclusion that...he was the voice.
The voice was his own manifestation.
A paradigm shift.
The concept had seemed fascinating when he'd been 243, under the hazy candlelight and musty fragrance of primeval tomes. At 1048, when the order of the Nine Realms reversed and the roots of Yggdrasil bled silver instead of gold, when winter blue suffused his form as scarlet bled into his eyes, he'd wondered how the concept could've been anything more than horrific, changing his life in a way that he didn't want it to be changed.
But this one—this one righted the universe.
If the voice was his own manifestation, it was his to control.
If the voice was his to control, he could stop it.
If he could stop it, he could be hale and happy again.
He had spent all these months under the illusion that the voice was some undefeatable demon, implanted into his head with painfully sweet whispers, ruling his pysche with jail bars sculpted from the glaciers of Jotunheim.
But now, he had a choice. Now he knew he had a choice.
He could breathe if he wanted to. And think, and eat, drink, laugh and dream. He could sob and cry, scream and shout. He could be happy and sad. Excited and afraid.
It was all his choice. Not the voice's.
His.
At this, the voice screamed in outrage. Talons dripping with the blood and pain of the victims it had already claimed slashing the air, pitiful caterwauls scraping the edges of his mind for re-entry.
And rather than allowing the molten lava to burn him to the bone, for the heat of the words to catch him in inescapable flames, he unleashed an inundation of memories.
The cool waters of laughter swamped his mind as he remembered Stark and Barton desperately trying to wave away the burnt, acrid smell of ruined sausages.
The clamouring cries of the Chitauri's foul words were hastily drowned out by the addictive smell of honey on pancakes in the morning, discussions in the lab and casual banter by insult.
Nightmares, the enactments of his worst fears, his most distressing memories, buried under verses of Hakuna Matata, butterfly kisses on Natasha's forehead as she slept against him, his chin resting atop cherry-scented hair, nose to nose with daring dips, heart pounding with elaborate twists.
He felt he could see clearly for the first time in months.
***
Loki twirled with something soft and scarlet and silken, miraculously not worn with age. It smelt the same, he realised, as he lay it across his face like an ill-fitting veil. Lightning and strength stole his senses, the aftermath of rain woven in silk.
He missed Thor, truly. Loathe as he was to admit it, Thor was his brother. Not by blood, but by a bond that spanned over too long a length of time to be broken. And though Thor was a menace; wearing his heart on his sleeve like some... Gryffindor, he admired his brother for his openness. His strength that carried him to battle, despite the nerves that came with the lightning that crackled restlessly in the air.
But hatred had been waiting. It was so easy to hate. To hate oneself, to hate others. And who couldn't hate him? At a time where he should've been brave and held his pride, he had begged for a death that never came. He had let claws rip him apart and fuck him until he teased the cliff edge of insanity. He had moaned and whined and begged and shrivelled and broken when he should have held steadfast and strong.
True monsters had no saviours; those gallant princes only came for the damsels in distress. And so the monster within had enveloped him, consumed him, and he had done its bidding. He had destroyed himself, destroyed others.
No more.
He could be happy. And he did not need monsters for company. Nor did he need childhood fantasies of acceptance and aristocracy. He had more than enough here, with these people he'd once dismissed as inferior simply because they died sooner. Their lives were fleeting, true, but they meant no more and no less than his. Here was a life he would happily take, with people he would happily consider his own. Here he had control. And he would take it.
With Naeva's infinitesimal huffs as she slept, Loki dreamt. He dreamt of a future that could be, and a past that wasn't so terrible, and a present that came as a gift for one who had killed too many.
For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to hope. To hope and to love.
Some risks were worth taking.
A/N: And this, my friends, is this massive, colossal milestone I have been waiting to release. This chapter's been in the works for a longggg time. Sadly, the next chapter is the epilogue.