With all my recent fic, I think people can easily see that I am fascinated by Loki. I'm intrigued by the question of how to sympathetically render his character (totally aware of the whole "nature v. nurture" argument) without denying his agency in his actions – among which include genocide, something that can't be forgiven on the grounds of daddy issues. It's all well and good to argue that Loki is slowly changing into a better person, but it's equally impossible to ignore the repercussions of past sins; this story attempts to deal with that. I've tried to be as faithful as possible to the nuances within Loki's character – neither is he an inherent monster, nor is he purely a misunderstood angel. He exists not in the black and whites of morality, but the shades of gray therein.

Also, this completely ignores the mid-credit scene of Ragnarok. And you do not want to know how many times I almost typed "Muggles" instead of "mortals."

Trigger warning: graphic depiction of self-harm, depression, and thoughts of suicide.

Felix culpa: the sin of Adam as a fortunate mistake, for it ushers in the possibility of redemption.

/ If you cannot or do not seek to understand the villain, how can you claim to understand the hero, and if you do not understand the hero, you are no better than the villain. /

felix cupla

It was dark and cold when Loki roused himself from uneasy sleep, body tangled in the stiff bedclothes Thor had purchased the day before. He blinked for a moment in the darkness; all was silent save the wind that rattled the siding of the ramshackle apartment outside. Thor had also acquired the flat; Loki was sorely lacking in Midgardian skills of bartership.

It wasn't as if he'd had need of buying anything the last time he was here.

Loki sat up in the narrow bed and squinted at the luminescent clock on the nightstand: ridiculous time-keeping aside (why sixty into sixty into twenty-four when it might have just as easily been factored into tens?) Loki had to concede the mortals were rather clever at their clocks. The numbers glowed a quarter after nine in the morning. Loki was not used to sleeping so late.

He was clearly put off by the still-pitch black of the room.

(No. He was clearly exhausted, he just wouldn't admit it, he chided himself angrily from some more cogent, less well-traversed corner of his brain).

He stood slowly from the bed. The wood floor was chill under his bare feet. His body ached in protest as he straightened himself out, trying unsuccessfully to stretch out all the kinks and strains of a battle that felt a millennia ago, at least.

Time and space didn't seem to be responding in a familiar way any longer. Conversations that had happened decades ago felt closer at hand than a mere handful of mornings hence, when the ship had finally descended into a cloud of snow on Midgard's surface.

The field was still recognizable, despite the fresh, crackling coat of frost and whirling snowstorm that had come with falling winter. Loki had never known his brother to be one for poetic irony, and aiming to reinvent Asgard's ruined legacy at the very foot of the funeral pyre of one of its erroneous rulers was a move of dry subtlety Loki had not thought Thor capable of.

Loki crossed the floor of his miniscule room and pulled open the curtains over the window. The land outside was still bathed in the shadows of deep night. Was there no sunlight in this realm? He thought before he remembered that higher areas of latitude experienced reduced daylight in the winter months; in this barren, mountainous region, they would be lucky if the sun managed even for a moment to peak its sickly light over the tips of the crags.

Loki moved in the darkness of his room, changing out of the drawstring pants he'd slept in and into the sparse alternatives folded in his chest of drawers. Thor had bought them both suitable Midgardian clothes: simple shirts, warmer layers for the winter weather, boots, and pants of stiff blue fabric Thor had called Levi's. It was not the attire Loki would have chosen, for it seemed absurdly casual garb, but he did not complain, for he had no desire to embark into the unfamiliar mortal territory in search of a suit and tie, and conjuring such guises with his seidr was needlessly tiresome.

Loki left his room for the kitchen. The flat was small and economic: two sleeping chambers (Thor had taken the larger; Loki had let him), a lavatory, and a small kitchen that spilled into a combination sitting and dining area. It had come with sparse furnishings such as beds, dressers, and a sofa, but Thor had also purchased a flimsy card table, two foldable metal chairs, and for some reason insisted on a coffee maker and a television, the latter still in its box because Thor didn't know how to plug it in.

The imbecile.

Loki padded over to the humming refrigerator and opened the door; the wakened light from within spilled into the otherwise dark kitchen. Loki examined their scant stores: a half jug of milk, a square hunk of cheese that Thor appeared to have taken several bites out of, a package of raw sausage wrapped in polyethylene, a bag of potatoes, and two boxes of "wheaty-grams cereal" which Loki strongly doubted needed to be kept chilled, but considered arguing with Thor beyond pointless by now.

Loki drew out the cereal and milk, sighing. The food of mortals was bland and disappointing after even the simple traveler's fare on the ship. He extracted a porcelain bowl from the cabinet above the sink, also secured by Thor, along with cutlery, glasses, bath towels, and disgustingly scented hand soap.

When did Thor become so damn efficient? Loki wondered just as the apartment door swung open, emitting the very same bumbling king into the room, shorn head covered in the furred hood of a winter coat.

"Ingenious inventions, lamps," Thor greeted Loki, flicking on a switch that caused blinding light to flood the room from a domed bulb in the center of the ceiling. Loki glared at Thor, squinting against the sudden brightness.

And since when did the oaf understand sarcasm?

"And how does the day find you?" said Thor, disrobing himself of his coat and hanging it on one of the hooks behind the door. He clunked into the kitchen with his boots still on, trailing snow onto the linoleum.

Loki did not answer. He was pouring milk into his synthetically processed wheat flakes and oat shaft.

"You are tardy, brother," Thor kept up his insufferable prattle, niftily maneuvering around the kitchen in a way that made Loki feel awkward and incompetent. He tried to remind himself that Thor had had more experience on Midgard than Loki, but could not help the silky voice in his head from whispering that he was, again, inferior to Thor in something, even if it was just operating the coffee machine.

"I have been out of bed now four hours. I have already met with the council and Dr. Strange while you slumbered," said Thor.

Loki rolled his eyes. Loki had seen hardly ten minutes at one time of Thor over the past three days – not that he was complaining – for he was constantly busy establishing his rule, however an unsettled rule it was: messily directing a people without a place, conducting diplomacy without solid ground beneath his feet, and regularly conferring with Dr. Stephen Strange, who was, as yet, the only mortal on Midgard who knew of Asgard's arrival.

Loki and Thor were the only of their people to acquire a Midgardian apartment. The rest of the Asgardians had settled deep in the mountains, outside of the mortal's scope. Neither Dr. Strange nor Thor thought it wise, yet, to reveal to the mortals that their planet was the sight of the relocation of a race of aliens.

Thor's people.

Thor's race.

(However depleted a race it might be. How many were left? A mere fraction. Ten to fifteen percent. They had lost so many.)

Thor had needed a Midgardian dwelling for the inevitability of the mortals discovering Asgard's arrival. It would be better to have familiar, nonthreatening surroundings if there was a confrontation. Loki had simply not wished to remain with a people who now understood the truth behind his – or, should he say, Odin's – latest rule.

"It is snowing again," said Thor. "I believe it will be another blizzard."

"Yes," said Loki. "It is called winter. A novel concept."

"Very funny," said Thor, rolling his one good eye, but nonetheless offering Loki a mug of coffee he filled from the carafe, and Loki nonetheless accepting it (one of the few truly welcome Midgardian inventions, coffee).

Thor gulped his coffee rapidly. He clearly had somewhere else he needed to be. How strange to see him so occupied, Loki thought. Thor the little king, bustling with more important things to see and do – more important things than Loki had, at least. How strange to see Thor burdened with a plan for once, instead of half-assing his way through situations he hadn't thought through first.

Thor finished his coffee before Loki had yet taken three sips. He left the mug in the sink before swinging back around – grandly, perhaps he forgot his no longer wore a cape – and walking back across the kitchen to put his coat back on.

"Well, I must be away once more," he said heartily.

"Pleasant journeys," Loki sneered.

Thor sighed at the tone of Loki's voice, but did not remark upon it. They were growing tired of each other already, Loki could see. It was too close quarters; even if Thor was hardly ever there.

Thor paused before buttoning up his coat. "We are –" he began but stopped. Loki cocked an eyebrow at Thor's apparent discomfort. He certainly had no intentions of making things easier for his brother (not brother).

"We plan," began Thor afresh, "to have a memorial evening soon, in order to honor…all we have lost. It is wise – it will offer some semblance of comfort, I hope. Some kind of closure. I would…very much value your presence there, Loki."

"When will it be?" said Loki carefully (as if he had a calendar of engagements to consider).

"Two nights hence," Thor answered. "It will then be a week by Midgard reckoning since we arrived at this realm, and a fortnight since we departed our own."

A fortnight. A blunt two weeks since the mark of their collapse, their defeat? It was peculiar to hear it so plainly recorded – a time that felt simultaneously infinitesimal and infinite. Loki knew not whether to marvel at its brevity or be shocked it was not shorter still.

Perhaps Thor was perturbed by Loki's silence, for he fumbled at the fastenings of his coat. "So, you will come?"

"I will…think on it," said Loki slowly. It was a lie. He had thought on it long enough. There was no place for him at a remembrance of a home that did not belong to him, no spot of mourning amongst an adopted people who no longer wanted him.

"Please do, brother," said Thor, and his face was so earnest Loki fought the immediate impulse to look away. "You deserve a place among us, just as any other does. It was you, after all, who gave us the avenue of escape. You should count yourself our savior – not an outcast."

But, nonetheless, an outcast Loki was. He shuddered to remember the looks that had followed him aboard the Sakaarian vessel: gratitude swiftly replaced by blatant glares of accusation and mistrust. If not for Loki in the first place, perhaps they would not have been in need of rescue. One moment of folly – of compassion marked more by impulsiveness rather than sincerity was not enough to redeem his multitude of sins.

(As if he sought redemption, he scoffed.)

"You will be late to your kingly duties," said Loki, taking a drink of his coffee, more as an excuse to finally break eye contact with his brother than out of any interest in the beverage; the taste had turned to ash in his mouth.

Thor sighed again – whether at Loki or for the weight of his responsibilities, Loki could not tell – "You are right. I must go. May I ask if you can acquire supper tonight, brother? I will simply have no time, and I'm afraid we are sorely lacking in supplies."

"Must I do everything," Loki pouted.

Thor chuckled as he turned to open the door, slinging a wave of farewell over his shoulder as he went out.

OOO

Loki did not understand why mortals thought it a sound idea to sell soup in cans – why store cold broth, soggy vegetables, and bits of what had once been meat in pressurized metal tubes when soup might otherwise quite easily be prepared by chopping fresh vegetables and stewing meat in a pot atop the stove?

Nevertheless, Loki unloaded ten such cans onto the counter in front of the cash register because he may deign to shop for his brother, but he was certainly not going to cook for him. He added a plastic sack of apples and a loaf of bread that looked like it was made out of Styrofoam to the pile on the counter.

"Hei, hvordan har du det?" the girl behind the register asked, voice automatic and bored as she began ringing up his purchases. Her collared shirt revealed her tattooed arms from her elbows to her wrists and she had a ring through her nose – strange fashions these mortals had; she looked like an ox fitted to be led by a rope to the fields.

"Jeg har det bra," Loki replied awkwardly. He did not understand the social graces of Midgardians in a corner shop. Who was this girl in the mortal class structure – an underling, surely, but a slave or merely a servant? Or perhaps mortal social hierarchies were not nearly so clear-cut. It had been so much simpler last time when Loki had descended as a god: he had been on top and everyone else below him. There had been no need of pesky small talk.

"You are English?" the girl paused while scanning a can of soup. She looked vaguely intrigued, her eyes ran up and down Loki's figure as if she wished to devour him. They evidently received few foreigners in her small, destitute corner of the world.

English, Loki snorted inside his head. Hardly.

It must have been nearing the Midgard's annual Yule celebration, for irritating music was crackling through the muffled speakers of store – something sappy and romantic about twinkling lights and jingling bells. What silly traditions these mortals held. And it was yet another prickling reminder of Odin and the pagan myth of a surly, bearded specter soaring through the skies on his eight-legged steed, Sleipnir, omen of terror for those caught outside on the deathly cold and dark forever-nights but also bearer of gifts, packed into the children's boots to be discovered the next morning.

Ignorant mortals.

"It is your accent," the girl explained, drawing Loki back from his grim thoughts. "You speak Norwegian well. What does bring you here?"

Clearly the girl was in a mood to chat. Loki's presence was a welcome interruption from the tedium of her work. Loki, however, was not.

"If you will," Loki snapped. "Tarry not. I am in a hurry."

"Oh, I am sorry," the girl rang up the rest of his purchases. She muttered beneath her breath in Norwegian: did not realize I was waiting on the fucking Prince of Wales.

Loki paid for the two bags of groceries with a crisp, one-hundred kroner note. The girl's eyes went wide at the money and Loki uneasily wondered if he had somehow made a mistake in his duplications of Midgard currency – of which there were several confusing varieties, all with uneven conversions between the other.

But she accepted the notes and gave him back his change in multiple smaller bills, and he then left the store without another word, bundling his bags of groceries into his arms.

The bell above the shop door gave an annoyingly cheerful jingle as Loki walked out from the relative warmth into the whipping wind and flurry of snowfall, conscious – as the shop clerk behind him turned to share some unkind remark with a coworker about him – that he had so far managed to make at least one unfriendly acquaintance in the mortal world (he had tried to tell Thor it would not be a good idea for him to return to Midgard).

He tucked his chin in the collar of his jacket, dipping his head against the cold and shunting passed the other people on the streets, bundling similar bags and packages to their chests. He didn't mind the chill; in fact, he rather appreciated it. He tried not to think too hard about the ancient, monstrous blood that rumbled to life inside his body, for so long suppressed but now impossible to stifle in this frigid environment that could easily have belonged to a more hostile, unwillingly ancestral land.

Instead, Loki thought about the girl in the shop. Was she unique among her species, or was she a typical specimen? Were all the youth of her race like her? Brash yet simple…a little slow but ultimately harmless. No wonder Thor sought to protect them.

(And Loki sought to – )

The tautness in Loki's chest was unfamiliar and unexpected. His heart thudded with a sickening ache that nearly brought him to a pause in the street. What was this strange stuttering in his lungs? A thickening of his esophagus so he could barely draw breath. Was he ill?

He angrily pushed the feeling aside; refusing acknowledgement would result in dissipation. It had worked in the past, so why did his stomach continue to churn now? Loki stalked through the piling snow on the pavement, breath leaving his lips in harsh gasps of white smoke. He would be glad to return to the apartment and his quarters. He wanted now to be alone, away from the lampposts wrapped in strands of garland and strings of multi-colored bulbs that glared in the premature darkness of day, of the primitive mortal vehicles that slushed through the snow in the roads.

He wanted to be away from their dull glances, gaping, stupid mouths that could not spew an iota of intelligent thought, the dumb light in their eyes of lambs being lead willingly to the slaughter (a people that craved subjugation, that was meant to be conquered). He had no need of this petty mawkishness that thrummed in his stomach, threatening to choke him like vomit.

He had no need of guilt.

OOO

Loki fitted his key into the lock of the apartment and shoved open the door. The hinges squealed unwillingly. He paused on the threshold, eyes falling immediately on the two figures who stood in the center of the kitchen: his brother, propped against the counter, and the infuriating sorcerer, wearing plain mortal work clothes instead of his typical theatrical attire, Dr. Strange.

"Ah, Loki," said Thor cheerfully when Loki stepped in, "I hope you do not mind. I have invited Stephen to sup with us."

"Why would I mind?" said Loki shortly, closing the door behind him with a snap. He deposited his bags on the counter. Thor stepped forward to examine their contents and was clearly displeased, yet stayed himself from remarking upon it.

"Long time no see, Loki," Strange drawled.

"Doctor," Loki inclined his head, voice coolly civil.

Things had not improved between them after their initial meeting on Midgard several weeks ago. Loki did not take kindly to being outmatched – even if he had been taken unaware, dammit – by any show of magic, especially conjured by a petty mortal. And Strange's latest warning, that Loki would do well to neglect his seidr at risk of detection by Midgardian instruments (or Strange's own swift retribution), still rankled. Loki felt strained and sequestered without free use of his powers, even if it was a voluntary confinement. Besides, it always felt like the other man was somehow watching Loki, waiting for any false move so that he might pounce. For that reason, alone, Loki aimed to be on his best behavior.

Until opportunity struck, that is.

"So, you've detached yourself from Asgardian affairs, have you?" said Strange – baiting him, Loki knew.

Loki arched his eyebrows. "I'm not interested in politics."

"That's not what your brother tells me," said Strange. "I have a feeling your ascertained cunning could be put to good use. We would welcome any input you'd like to give us."

Loki was in a tricky spot. To refuse Strange's offer would mean admitting Thor's suitability for the job (or else his own ineptitude), but he could surely not accept.

"Let me rephrase, I have no further interest in the politics of Asgard. I am perfectly content to watch it rise or fall as it will." He made sure not to look at Thor as he said it. He was afraid his brother might be hurt at Loki's words – or not hurt, which could possibly be worse.

"How quickly you change your mind," said Strange. "When only weeks ago you headed the Calvary that charged to their rescue."

"It is one thing to watch and do nothing as a people is threatened by destruction," Loki snapped, "quite another when they face merely the dissipation of a regime. I hold no great interest in the preservation of the current monarchy." Or its monarch.

"I wonder," said Strange, "you never seemed concerned with the destruction of a people before."

Loki felt his anger building; how relieving it would be to simply let go – to forget the moment of hesitation in the streets that Dr. Strange's words uneasily recalled – to lash out at this mortal incompetent who called himself sorcerer but understood little more than magic tricks.

"I warn you, Doctor," Loki stepped forward, "provoke me and you shall see how fully I may embrace destruction –"

"Stephen, my friend. Loki, brother, please," Thor stepped forward, hands extended, one toward Strange, the other toward Loki – and how odd it was to see Thor intervening with a firm voice and level head instead of smashing into the kitchen with his now-shattered hammer.

Thor implored Strange more than Loki, but Loki caught a glimpse of his brother's face and saw that he did indeed look hurt, and Loki tried to ignore it, yet simultaneously felt a rush of regret and victory in his chest. Thor had never been able to withstand cold disdain, and it had been so long since Loki had managed to get in a really good jab.

"My apologies, Thor," said Strange. "But when your brother attacked New York, he attacked my home. Sometimes it's just personal."

Loki rolled his eyes. Why did it always return to New York? Did not Midgard have enough expansive cities of cold metal and concrete? Were there not enough empty, stupid beings populating their trivial planet that a handful could be wiped out without concern? "I'm going to my room," Loki huffed. "Enjoy dinner without me."

"Wait a minute, Loki," said Strange and Loki paused – what was this? An apology or a threat? "I thought you might be bored, seeing as you're not involved in Asgard's current affairs."

"How kind of you to be concerned," Loki said dryly.

"I assure you, it's not your own well-being I'm worried about," Strange quipped, "but rather, what might happen to Earth if I allowed an idle, disinterested god to be set upon it. So I thought this might keep you occupied for a day at least –"

With a simple flick of the wrist Strange created a swirling vertex of light in midair. Loki could not help it: he stared at the show of magic with eyes widened, hungrily dissecting Strange's mastery, examining the deft movements of his hands, the seamless manipulation of the very vibrating atoms that made up the fabric of the universe. Strange reached within the vertical pit, through the dark recesses of space and time, and retracted his hand again, grasping a heavy volume. "You seem like someone of more refined tastes. And your brother mentioned your esteem for theater –"

Loki shot Thor an ugly look, which Thor absorbed with a smirk.

"I thought you might be interested in the works of William Shakespeare," Strange continued as though he had not just watched the brothers' exchange with careful interest. "Earth's very own supreme playwright. Considered the foremost author of all our history."

"I doubt even the finest of earth could live up to the standards enacted by the breadth of the universe," said Loki. He did not step forward to receive the volume.

"Whatever you say," said Strange, leaving the book on the counter. "Nonetheless, I'll leave it here in case you change your mind. I had thought a mind like yours could not reject the idea of unexplored knowledge, however small the morsel – or is that concept not among the wisdom you have learned from this universe of yours?"

Strange was daring Loki to still discard his gift, for to do so now would make Loki look a fool. Loki was inadvertently impressed: the master of sorcery also appeared to be an apt wordsmith. It was a challenge now but one that could linger for a moment untouched until Loki decided whether or not to accept it.

"Consider it at an early Christmas present," Strange added, "although I don't suppose the holidays hold much sway for otherworldly beings such as yourselves."

OOO

Loki had asked Thor if it was a good idea for him to return to Midgard, but he had never stopped to consider what it would mean for himself. He had not considered the isolation, the suffocating claustrophobia of nowhere to go. Exile, the word slipped into Loki's mind like venom. He might as well have been plummeting again through the emptiness of the void.

He did not consider himself a sociable person. Other people were often infantile and tiresome. Yet…this existence, shut up in an apartment with only Thor for occasional, unsatisfactory company was a frustration. Loki was – he was reluctant to bestow upon his situation the ill-fitting moniker – but Loki was lonely.

There was nothing to do, and everyone around him was continuously occupied. They had no time for the abandoned god of chaos; they spared him no thought, and Loki did not blame them.

And what was this dark sludge that had overtaken his thoughts, that coated every movement of his mind? Impossible to peel away, impossible to achieve clarity within the darkness' stifling presence – smothering him, making it difficult to muster enough strength to rise from bed in the morning. His chest felt heavy. Every breath was an effort to draw. It felt more natural to not breathe at all, to simply let his lungs cease their struggle. He was only so exhausted. So terribly exhausted and it would be so much simpler if he could just shut his eyes, sleep for thousands of years, to awaken in a realm and time entirely different then the one he found himself in now, or otherwise never awaken at all.

He was consumed by repetitive thoughts and doubts of the past. It was impossible to escape them on Midgard, impossible to ignore them with reminders around every corner: a child and its mother hand-in-hand departing from the apartment building, children throwing snow at each other in the street, muffled laughter through the wall in the apartment next door. Life was all around him, thudding with insistent vitality. It existed as a constant reminder of its opposite: the absence of life, of death, destruction, and lacking.

Now is the winter of our discontent – began Shakespeare's Richard III.

He turned to Strange's book out of necessity. Loki feared he would go mad if left only to the tumultuous churning of his thoughts. There was nowhere Loki could hide from his roiling mind, the uneasiness in his stomach that grew more prevalent with each passing day he spent on this realm. He needed distraction, and this William Shakespeare provided an apt opportunity for just that.

Loki thought of the deformed Midgardian king: bygone warrior and incapable lover so a villain he would be, a fate Richard would have known to be inevitable, but what the drama proved to be one of choice. Richard was no monster formed at birth. It was a guise adopted voluntarily, perhaps gladly.

And it was poetry beyond what Loki had expected Midgard capable of.

OOO

He dreamed of ice:

Ice shattering into glass-like splinters. Ice torn upward, carved down the middle as a multicolored stream of murderous light plowed through the carved crags and mountains that buckled across a monstrous landscape.

And screams. He could hear them screaming inside his head. Ugly, grotesque creatures squirming on the ground in agony, screaming, screaming, screaming in their howling, animal voices.

Loki bolted upright in bed, head echoing with their yells, heartbeat hammering in his throat, hair glued to his forehead with sweat. The book slid off his chest, where he'd fallen asleep with the covers open across his torso, and fell to the floor with a thump. His heart stuttered at the noise, nerves frayed at the edges.

Deep breaths, he told himself. Take deep breaths, you fool. You coward. There were no yowling, dying monsters here. Nothing here in the sleepy ice kingdom of Midgard that could hurt him.

Loki bent over the side of his bed to retrieve the book from the floor. His hands were trembling as they closed over the spine.

Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am

It was dark in the room. The lightbulb in his lamp must have blown out. Blasted northern winters – Loki could not tell what time it was, nor for how long he had been sleeping. Thor would likely be home soon for supper, if he had not returned already. It was dark, always so damned dark.

Loki stood from his bed and padded out of his room into the lightless corridor beyond and across the hall into the bathroom. He flicked the switch behind the door and a light flickered to life in the ceiling. Loki bent his head over the sink, heart still pattering at an unnatural pace under his ribs. He felt ill. His head pounded.

He looked up to his reflection in the mirror. Was this his face? Was this truly him? Dark shadows under his eyes, cheekbones standing out in skeletal starkness, eyes dull and haunted by ceaseless nightmares. How was he to say what truly was his natural form? Even his skin was a lie.

He had transformed willingly so infrequently that he did not remember how. He did not want to try it, did not want to see his skin morph and melt into ridged blue scales, see his eyes burn with cruel, scarlet light. He did not want to see the slumbering monster emerge through his flesh. He wanted it gone. He wanted to cast it away from his Aesir-casing, to be rid of the underlying threat in his body forever.

Was his blood not red? He saw the web of blue veins that stood out so starkly against the white underside of his wrist. So quick. It would be so quick. Painless. Like falling asleep.

But would it be? What really lay beyond the sweet release of death? He was no hero – he could never be granted a spot in Valhalla, that celestial refuge of legend. What fresh, unforetold horrors could be waiting for him within the shadows of the unknown?

Was this fear? What was this pounding, quaking terror he felt spark to life inside his belly?

He had tried so many times – so many times – yet had he never fully considered what it would mean –

You are not worthy of death, little god.

Loki shut his eyes against the cruel, half-remembered voice inside his head. In a second, before he could be deterred by his thoughts, he conjured a dagger into his hand, leather handle slick in his fingers from sweat. The blade slipped into his forearm, slicing his arm nearly from elbow to wrist.

Blood bubbled out of the wound. Loki, eyes still shut, could feel it spill warmly out of his arm and drip with frightening speed onto the floor.

It would be so easy.

Then came the pain: a gnawing, insistent pain that webbed outward from the laceration on his arm, paralyzing him to his elbow as the severed nerves screamed in protest. But he had felt far worse pain then this. This pain was a mere pittance, a respite in the face of the pain he had felt at the hands of –

No.

Loki waited until he felt dizzy. He fell against the bathroom wall, head spinning, breath harsh. White lights popped in his vision behind his closed eyelids. Someone was yelling inside his head, indistinguishable words that Loki did not want to listen for too carefully.

He waited for as long as he dared.

His knees threatened to give out beneath him: only then did he flood his arm with his seidr, knitting back flesh. The pain lingered still, pulsing through nerves that had not yet realized they were whole once again.

Loki slumped the rest of the way down to the hard floor, knees drawn to his chest. He examined the blood on the blade. His blood. Yes, it was red, not icy and blue. His illusions held.

Still, he felt ugly. He was ugly because he had been taught to think so. A creature with the birthright of death, as his father so eloquently put it.

What of the unknown sister? Loki's thoughts hissed uncalled through his mind. What of forgotten Hela – locked away for eternity to temper Odin's fear. Would Loki have faced a similar fate had Thor not intervened four years since? A child discarded without another thought, deemed a monster by the same harsh voice that made it monstrous.

Loki's was a cold hate. Once fuming, boiling fury had long ago burned out with a puff of smoke, turned wet, then icy and brittle, but that had still solidified until a frozen block of indifference settled into his chest that no pick or hammer could shatter.

He breathed deeply as his heartbeat calmed, until his body no longer thought it was dying, then he raised his dagger to his arm once again –

Two loud, lumbering thumps on the door: "Loki," came Thor's voice, muffled.

Panic woke readily inside Loki's chest. How could he have missed the opening of the door as Thor came back into the apartment? Loki tried to think – think quickly – but his mind was not working – he narrowly managed to keep from dropping the dagger. He was shaking all over. He didn't know what was wrong with him. His body no longer responded to the commands of his mind.

"Loki," said Thor again – but he didn't sound concerned, instead casual, almost cheerful. "I mean to order pizza for dinner. They have it with many different kinds of meat. What shall you have?"

Loki opened his mouth but he could not remember how to make his tongue form words. He could not erase the nightmare scenario of Thor bursting through the bathroom door to see Loki curled in the fetal position, bathed in his own blood.

"Are you alright? What are you doing?" said Thor.

"I am occupied," Loki finally managed to snap, words hot and tight coming up his throat.

"You know," Thor huffed. "I am only trying to feed you. You need not be so hostile." Thor walked away from the door; Loki could hear his heavy footsteps receding into the apartment.

Loki sat there on the floor, arms limp at his sides, dagger glinting sinisterly in the light from the naked bulb in the ceiling, and waited for his body to stop its treacherous shaking. Not until it had completely subsided did he caution to stand, knees curiously weak as if his legs had forgotten how to support the rest of his body. Then he vanished the blood on the floor with a wave of his hand, leaving things exactly as they had been before.

OOO

He had not expected a shrine.

The blackened, glazed stone monument rose above Loki's head: a rectangle spanning the length of the sidewalk, unadorned save for the rows upon rows of unblemished names. Meaningless names. Names that had once belonged to lives. So many names, unremembered faces and voices. Loki had not realized the multitudes, so preoccupied as he had been by other, seemingly more pressing matters that were now dwarfed by the height and weight of the slab of rock before which he stood.

Mementoes were strewn at the bottom of the monument. Bits and pieces of colorful rubbish: wilting flowers, ribboned wreaths, folded letters, stuffed animals, and nubs of candles. A gray-haired woman, bundled in a scarf and heavy coat, bent at the waist to lay a bouquet of flowers on the sidewalk. Loki could not tear his eyes away from her – this lonely mourner, unnoticed accept for an occasional glance of pity from one of the other passersby.

The woman straightened, closed her eyes, and muttered something under her breath. She finished by silently drawing a cross across her chest. When she opened her eyes again they flew to Loki, as if she could sense his gaze. Loki looked away, embarrassed she had caught him staring.

"Which name is yours?" Her voice was gentle.

Lies came so easily to Loki's lips, but he somehow could not bear deception now, and didn't answer the woman. She didn't seem perturbed by his silence, but continued to speak:

"That's my Daniel. Right there. NYPD. Sergeant. He was a brave boy, my Daniel. I'm so proud to be his mother. It's hard to believe it's been five years. Seems only yesterday he was a little boy, learning to walk and talk, and then going off to school and meeting sweet Liz, and then having his own little Robby. Time goes so fast. I suppose it always hurts a little more at Christmas."

Daniel – son, husband, father…there was so much hidden behind a mere scratch into a slab of stone, surrounded by hundreds of other names without context.

How was Loki supposed to have known?

The tragedy was perhaps more distinct for the brevity of their lives. They had so little time – a blink of an eye compared to the lifespan of an Aesir. To have it stripped still further was a calamity unprecedented. And Loki had not thought. He had simply not thought –

"That's it son," said the woman and she laid her hand on Loki's shoulder. He nearly yanked himself away from her touch but he stopped himself just in time, although he could not hide a flinch. No harm, he reminded himself frantically, she meant no harm.

It was then that he recognized he was crying: slow, lumbering tears spilled down his cheeks. He could barely feel them, his face was so numb from the cold. His tears were cold, too, he realized. Cold like the icy blood that pulsed through his veins.

"Let it all out," the woman said, voice wobbly and Loki new she was likely crying, as well.

At least her tears were warranted, Loki thought bitterly. What right had Loki to stand here mewling at a monument to the dead, the construction of which he was the sole cause? What right had he –

"I am sorry," he whispered. Who was he speaking to? The woman with her unknowing hand caressing the back of a murderer? Or the countless murdered? Stacks upon stacks of names lost in the ruins of his failed invasion – his thoughtless – unforgiveable – "I am sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for, love –"

The woman's voice was cut off abruptly as Loki pulled away from her. He must have left her shocked and gaping at empty air when he twisted away into immateriality.

OOO

"Where the hell have you been?" Thor yelled as soon as Loki pushed his way back through the apartment door.

Loki paused on the threshold, blinking at his brother's red face that waited for him in the glaring kitchen lights.

Thor did not give Loki room to answer. He was shouting again. "How dare you? When you did not appear at the memorial service I feared the worst – and then Stephen informed me that you had used your magic and – and how could you be so foolish, Loki?"

Ah, yes. The memorial service. Loki had forgotten. Loki turned his head from Thor's continued shouts and shut the door carefully behind him, conscious of the fact that their neighbors could likely hear every word Thor said regardless; the thin door would not be much hindrance to the noise.

"Why must it always be like this? Why do you insist on slipping away without a word? It is so simple to merely let me know! Is it really so hard for you to talk to me, brother? Wordsmith – Silvertongue – why do you insist on obstructing your voice when it comes to me? I try so hard, Loki. So hard –"

Thor's words slammed into Loki like physical blows. Loki slipped between the ragged spaces they left in the air between the brothers, crossing the kitchen to the sink. He lifted a glass from the cabinet, not heading Thor's voice as it continued to pummel the back of his head. Thor's anger was further stoked by Loki's seeming unconcern.

"I have tried to give you space! I have tried to extend forgiveness and understanding! I have tried everything in my power – but still you insist on dogging my every effort! On tossing aside my every attempt at reconciliation!"

Loki filled the glass at the tap and took a long draw of water, feeling the icy stream fill his throat and spread in tendrils across his chest. How cold, he wondered, did it have to be before he turned blue? Turned into a monster – the worthier form for Thor's wrath – right here and now in this dingy apartment kitchen?

"LOOK AT ME!" Thor bellowed, anger sparking in his voice that Loki had rarely heard. "Can you at least deign to spare your brother a glance? Your king! You told me you would be there! You told me you would come! And when you did not – I worried! I thought you had been hurt, or become ill –"

"Do not fool yourself!" Loki whirled around, words burning as they erupted from his mouth, unable to contain the heat of their fire – a fire that melted the ice in his chest until his body was filled with water, a rising tide of boiling rage that threatened to overflow entirely until he burst into molten fury or otherwise into desperate, keening sobs. "You did not worry for me! You thought I had run! You thought I had abandoned you as I have so many times before – that I had left to go cause more chaos – for what other purpose can I wrought? And you are right to think so! You are right! What else can I do but betray you once more –"

"Do not put words into my mouth!" Thor yelled, face contorted around the black patch in his eye and he looked like Odin – sounded so like Odin Loki wanted to hurl the glass in his hand across the room so it shattered against Thor's oblivious, maddening visage.

"I am not a prisoner here, Thor!" Loki roared. The glass, half-emptied of water, smashed against the cabinet beside Thor's head. Thor did not have to dodge, but he still flinched as glass shards and beads of water ricocheted through the air. "And you are not my king! You are king of the Aesir! You are king of Asgard – pathetic ruin it has become – but you are not king of me! I am no Asgardian! You have no right of rule over me! I am free to roam as I please – to leave you to your petty, woeful ceremonies – mourning for a people who do not belong to me –"

Loki was trembling from head to toe as though struck with the chills of a fever.

"You are my brother!" Thor yelled and there was now more than just rage in his voice, but something dangerously close to pain and Loki felt fear pulse to life in his mind. Thor didn't dare – didn't dare assault Loki with anything besides hate. Thor had no right – no right to twist this back to brotherhood, to taunt Loki again with the impossible mirage of acceptance and forgiveness. "I am your elder brother, Loki, and that is right enough!"

Loki's head was spinning. He could no longer focus on Thor standing beside him, thoughts a vortex of faces and voices: harsh cackling echoed in the chasms of his mind, a pulsing blue light, slick smile spreading across his lips as he pressed the point of his scepter to Barton's heart, blade parting his skin so smoothly like a knife through butter, pummeling blackness of the void, and so many – so many names. So many screams of terror and pain and – no, Loki. No, Loki falling from his father's lips as Loki released his hold from the staff and was embraced by the chill darkness of oblivion only to awaken and start the cycle all over again, reliving, recycling as Thor's eyes peered after him, shouted helplessly after him, and –

"YOU ARE NOT MY BROTHER!" Loki screamed. "You were never my brother! It is nothing but lies! Ugly lies spewed from the lips of a man I once thought to be my father –" and – and –

And Odin had no right – no right to forgive Loki, to still love him after all the anger and hurt – no right because now Loki's anger was severed, cut off from its life-source as Odin's ashes whispered away into the chill breeze across the ocean, and there was nowhere for Loki to focus his anger anymore – nowhere to rage against accept for Thor in the middle of their kitchen, suddenly stricken and naked in the harsh light.

"And lies preserved by the woman I was fool enough to consider my mother and now lies unstifled by you, who was never my brother, and should know better by now than to ask of me – to demand of me more lies. For you know better than all that I am no savior! I have no right among a race of beings held in mutual disdain, and –" and – and

And it was all his fault. All his fault and Thor had said that. Thor's one truth, spat to Loki over the swaying grass that marked the grave of their dead father (not-father). If Loki hadn't cast Odin out – if Loki hadn't stripped him of his magic – if Loki hadn't weakened Asgard's defenses – hadn't summoned the Bifrost out of terror – than Hela wouldn't have – if Loki hadn't – if Loki hadn't –

The voices swirled inside Loki's head like a maelstrom. He clapped his hands over his ears to block them out. He was slipping (falling, falling, always falling), footing lost on the floor as he collapsed against the cabinet behind him. And how could he silence voices coming from inside him, other than to gouge out his consciousness with a finger through his ear, remove his sanity in strings of putty in order to smother the voices screaming villain, murderer, monster –

No. Not a monster. The truth crept into his mind like poison, a voice he could no longer silence with a flick of a switch. The Frost Giants were not monsters. It was an excuse he could no longer cling to.

It was him. It was only him. Something had gone wrong inside his head, some hungry, incessant growth like a cancer had taken root, chewed up his mind and spat out an evil, thoughtless wretch.

The sudden clarity pummeled his head from the inside out: he did not before want to acknowledge that they were not monsters because that would mean he was not inherently monstrous. It would mean to acknowledge his agency in his own atrocities. He chose to hurt people. He enjoyed it. No inborn gene prompted him. He chose to kill. He could have chosen otherwise.

And it was him. It had only ever been him.

His fault. His fault. His fault.

His fault as he wielded his gifted scepter. His fault as he watched buildings collapse into rubble around him, the petty mortals of Midgard crushed under the debris of their fallen city as he relished in the destruction. Hundreds of bodies buried, lives and consciousness lost, families torn asunder and bonds of love shattered by the unending cruelty of a silent grave.

Loki couldn't breathe. He was on the ground, chest aching as his lungs shrieked for air that could not slip through his constricted throat.

He killed them. His fault. His fault. Men women children all dead – father, dead – mother, dead – Asgard crumbling to join Midgard – All his fault. His fault.

Strangled moans tore up his throat, along with a single name, a name called out many times after a childhood nightmare of old (so old, so long ago, a childhood that had died in the blackness of the void):

"Thor – Thor –" he couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe. He was dying. "Brother –"

"Loki." Thor's voice crept into Loki's ear, quiet but somehow rising above the other swelling voices. "Loki, brother, what is it? What can I do? Please, tell me what I can do."

Thor's hands dug into Loki's shoulders, forcing Loki to face him, to stare into his brother's wide and anxious single eye, full of concern and confusion.

"Loki! Look at me, brother! Are you injured? Sick? Breathe with me, brother. Breathe with me. You are alright."

Thor clasped a heavy hand around Loki's neck and drew him forward until their foreheads rested against each other. Loki wanted to scream at Thor to release him, to unhand his shackle-like grip upon Loki's neck but the words would not rise through his throat.

Loki wrapped his arms so tightly around his chest he thought he could throttle his heartbeat, and he dug his fingernails into his flesh. He wanted to bleed. He wanted to hurt. He wanted his blood to spill out of his veins like he had called it forth from the blade of his dagger. He wanted his life to seep away into the cracks in the linoleum floor, to be crushed into nothingness under the weight of all the pain and death he had caused just as those precious, unknowing mortals had been crushed under rubble and twisted scaffolding.

"Thor –" Loki was sobbing now and he couldn't stop, quaking uncontrollably under Thor's heavy arms pulling him against his warm chest. "Thor, I killed them. I killed them. I killed them," he gasped, over and over, words filling him up, solidifying into his very bones. He would never be able to remove them from his body. "My fault. All my fault. I killed them. I killed them."

"Killed who? Loki, I do not understand," said Thor – the oaf, the idiot –

"They're all dead because of me. Because of me. I killed them. I killed them all. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But it's not enough. Not enough."

There were too many. Too many to mourn for all of them. Loki would be swallowed whole by sorrow and guilt if he tried to imagine all their names at once, so instead he focused only on one: Daniel O'Connor, NYPD, father, son, husband, possibly brother… Loki would grieve for Daniel today. Tomorrow, perhaps, he would learn another name. He would find all of their names in an unending penitence of remembrance: collect them in a secured spot in his mind where he could visit before this unnatural urge to destroy threatened to overtake him once again, and he would let their vanished faces, forgotten names no longer forgotten, become his deterrent.

There could be no altering the past, and his future spread before him like a desolate, aching wasteland, and he would try – he could only try – to make sure his destiny would not be stained with the blood of innocents as his former life would be forevermore.

Slowly his sobbing stilled. Thor did not speak, only continued to rub Loki's back like he was some petulant child to be soothed after a tantrum. Thor uttered only formless sounds of comfort, head bowed over Loki's body. Perhaps his kingly duties had finally taught him the art of holding his damn tongue. For now Thor's silent, ignorant comfort – offered willingly and undeservedly – would have to be enough. Perhaps it could act as a foothold for Loki's first step back off the floor and forward.

OOO

Upon coming through the apartment's door, the first thing Thor noticed was the darkness. Loki had not bothered to turn on any lights since Thor had left that morning. The second thing Thor noticed was the cold. The room was frigid. His eyes fell on the open window, leading to the icy three-story drop below. The drapes fluttered in the wind coming in from outside.

"Loki?" said Thor. Unease blossomed in his stomach when he thought of Loki the night before, collapsing in unprecedented hysterics, sobbing about death. He had not released the extent of his brother's suffering, mistaken it as merely passing moodiness, and guilt stirred in his chest now to realize that he had not seen –

"Loki?" he said again and pushed his head through the flapping curtains, looking wildly into the darkness of the night.

He glanced upward and caught sight of a pair of legs hanging over the edge of the roof. Thor was relieved, but he didn't want Loki to know how worried he'd been, even if it had been for less than a minute. He was not as dexterous as his brother, but he was nimble enough, and he hoisted himself onto the windowsill, catching hold of the edge of the roof and pulling himself upward in one fluid motion. He swung his legs over the side of the roof to sit beside Loki, who stared silently into the night, making no sign he had registered Thor's arrival at all.

Thor's voice was gruffer than he meant it to be when he said, "What are you doing out here in the cold?"

Loki didn't look at Thor. He surprisingly didn't raise to the bait and responded gently, "Look."

It was then that Thor noticed the sky. In the distance, over the mountains, the night had been set afire: a spectrum of color from yellow, to green, to blue, to purple danced across the air like wispy clouds. It was beautiful, and for a moment Thor could barely breathe because of its beauty – delightful beauty of a distant, sometimes unfriendly, and ultimately unfamiliar realm.

"That is –" said Thor, "that is –" but he had no words to describe the spectacle. Sometimes, he reminded himself, it was better simply to be silent. A king did not always have to possess all the answers.

The lights reflected off the white crags, and stained the thick snow with watercolors. Loki's face, too, was doused in color. For a moment it seemed to blend away the dark circles until his brother's eyes, and hallows in his cheeks that had once been filled by youth and innocence. Thor did not drape his arm around his brother's shoulders, although he wanted to. He did not always have to reach out to touch. There were some things he would simply have to accept he could not fix.

"Strange magic," Loki muttered beneath his breath, so low Thor could barely hear him; he wasn't sure if Loki meant him to.

Thor thought of the kaleidoscopic colors of Asgard's city towers, of the rainbow Bifrost yawning into the cosmos, all the swirling galaxies, nebulas, constellations – a familiar night replaced by a new, alien skyscape – and he looked at the rippling, multi-colored splashes of light ebbing like waves over the mountains. This was certainly strange, unexpectedly beautiful magic.

Somewhere in the distance, distorted off the echoing walls of the mountains, a Christmas carol wended through the air.

Thor felt Loki sitting there beside him – not stiff and distant but calm and thoughtfully silent as if they were merely boys again, sharing a moment of stillness after one of their shared adventures, drinking in the cool night air before setting off to bed – and perhaps he would never fully understand the torment that occupied Loki's mind, or know the proper words of comfort to offer his brother, but for now, simply silence could be enough.

And he thought, feels like home.

end