Chapter - 30

"Right, are you ready?" said Sam, one hand on the door handle.

Loki fixed the huge fur collar of his full-length coat, fluffed his hair, still wet from the shower, and put on his sunglasses —even though it was night time, he really hated the flashes in his eyes. If it made him look like a puffed-up diva, so be it.

The bustle outside in the street was a constant rumble, with occasional spikes of hysteria when one of the other cast members went out. This kind of thing still made him anxious. Even after three months, he was not used to it. Well, of course he wouldn't be, since this stage door mania had seemed to grow bigger and wilder every fucking week. He had learned to manage it, but he didn't enjoy it.

Anyway, it had to be done. There were people out there who had crossed an ocean to see him. Surely he could get out there and print his fucking name on a few photos, right?

One last look in the mirror. He nodded to himself.

"Ready."

Sam opened the door. The roar escalated several decibels. The flashes exploded all over the place. Even with the barriers, it always appeared as if the people were closing in on them.

Routine, Loki, focus. There is a fence. Security just there. Sam right here. Look at the faces. It's not a mob, it's people, young boys and girls, nothing more. Wink and they'll faint. Just print your name on the things, say thank you. That's it. Good boy. See? It's not so hard. They're nice, they like you. They're just over excited. Breathe. You're fine.

"Loki! Loki! Oh my god! Loki! Loki please here! Please Loki!"

Loki nodded and said thank you to the pledges of devotion and the raving comments on his performance, scribbled his name again and again, and kept his breathing in check.

Finally, the fucking car, yes. Sam was holding the door for him, bless him.

God knows why, that darkish figure across the street caught his eye.

Thor.

Just there, standing with his hands joined in front of him, like a kid at church or brought to stand in front of the school master, a black knit cap on to hide his golden mane.

Loki took his sunglasses off, slowly, hand shaking, wanting to be sure he was seeing what he was seeing.

Thor held his stare. He was just there. Five steps away, ten at best. Just there. Thor him-fucking-self, in the golden, plentiful flesh.

"Are you alright, Loki?" said Sam, one gentle hand on his shoulder.

Loki was very much not alright. He put his sunglasses on and slipped inside the car, his heart beating madly.

"Go go go," said Loki, feeling sick. "Take me home."

On the way to the flat, they drove past at least three movie theatres with full façades of Thor Odinson's last movie, an uncompromising adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's brutal, gritty Blood Meridian, a kind of Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now set in the Mexican desert. There was talk of Oscars with his name on already. Thor looked haggard, soul-wrenched and desperate in the huge portraits plastered on buses and massive billboards. Loki had had to get used to seeing his face around like that, larger than life, and he wouldn't have thought he would be so affected by the real thing.

Thor had looked as shaken up as Loki himself, as if he had seen a ghost.

Well, he was not wrong there.

_______________

(3 years ago, give or take a few months)

He doesn't remember much from his week in the E.R. After he is revived from the severe hypothermia, he starts talking. He's too tired, confused and yes, fuck, depressed, to watch his mouth. That gets him a pen in his hand and a paper to sign; you are suicidal, the doctor tells him; either you commit yourself or you will be sectioned. If we section you, you're looking at 6 months minimum commitment in a mental hospital. Please, do sign. —Loki signs. Edward Boggs he writes, after a good minute thought, because his brain is slooooooow.

Suicide watch lasts fourteen days, in a little room with a porthole on the door, furniture drilled to the floor, and metal bars on the window, until they consider the meds have kicked in and he's stable. They won't let him out of the ward though, and if he goes for a walk up and down the aisle, there is always a nurse a few steps behind him.

He is bored out of his mind, perhaps literally. Even if the reading material was not dismal, he finds it impossible to concentrate anyway. The words dance on the page and in his head and make no fucking sense. He still tries, because there is nothing else to do.

Or nothing else that he can bear doing. He knows because he has tried. Crosswords, sudokus, spot the 7 fucking differences. Too much. Drawing, scribbling —too artistic, it hurts, his mind cringes if he tries to do anything minimally individual or pleasurable. Out of spiritual coherence. No, Loki, you wanted to die a few weeks ago, you had your reasons, you had given it some thought. You're not going to change your mind so quickly, just because you're taking some tablets now, are you? What are you, a man or a mouse? Stick by your guns. If you're not dead, you suffer. You definitely don't draw shit for doctors and nurses to comment on how good it is. That's how it works. Stuff it.

He hates the common room. He has to drop by a few times a day for his nicotine fix, but he keeps it to the bare minimum, smoking fast and deep (it makes his head light, bonus.) It's rowdy and people act funny, and you never know what the fuck they're going to start screaming at you. Anyway, even if it was all as quiet and civilised as a meeting at the Women's Institute, he'd stay the hell away, because the telly is constantly on in there, and it's that time of the year where Odin is on, non fucking stop, all over the goddamn place. The man directed and acted in one of the most beloved Christmassy miniseries of all times, and then, just for fun, voiced the fucking snowman in the other. God fucking dammit. Loki hated them even as a child. Now they twist his guts. No thank you.

They haven't started asking him about his thoughts and feelings yet. "Not until you're more yourself" said the doctor when he was fourteen. "We won't discuss your therapy options until you're more stable" was the wording this time.

Stable. Himself. Loki huffs. Good luck with that. If he ever turns his eyes to himself, he sees a ravaged, barren land, a city that's been pillaged and burned to the ground, an abandoned ruin. He is not in pain. He is empty, deserted, a shell. Loki doesn't live here anymore. Don't bother leaving a note.

The first time he talks to Frigga, it's over the false name thing. Loki has settled to sleep, the ward is mainly quiet. There'll be screaming and sobbing later on, and nurses talking too loud, he is sure, but right now the place rests.

He waits for his sleeping aids to kick in. He still has hours to go. Frigga sits next to him. She looks younger than she must be —and isn't that a strange thought. Her face is blurry. Her eyes stand out, her mouth, but he can't tell the shape of her nose, or whether her jaw is rounder or sharper. He does get a clear vision of her hair colour, with the greying at the temples. Last time they talked about it, she was going to stop dyeing it altogether. "You'll look even better than Helen Mirren" he had said. She had laughed. "Nobody looks better than Helen Mirren", and she murmured under her breath, "that bitch" with that evil grin Thor always used to say Loki had inherited. (Is that irony or the other thing?)

"Did you hear what they were saying before? About your medical history and your meds?" says Frigga.

They're not in the room anymore. Loki has taken them both for a walk in the meadow at Asgard House, under a purple twilight. It's fitting. Frigga runs her hand on the cowslip and the queen anne's lace that sways within reach under her outstretched palm.

"They don't know who you are. They could treat you so much more efficiently if they could see your medical records. Why don't you tell them your real name?"

"I can't tell them my name, mum. I don't want you to find me."

"Why not?"

"Because you will come. And Thor will come. And even Odin, I'm sure. Just, no."

"We're your family, my darling, we want to be here to help you."

"You're not my family."

"We love you. I love you. I'm suffering. I want to know you are alive and look after you."

"Mum, you tried to help once. And look at me now. I can't do this. I can't see you again leaving the room and come back with red eyes and a smile and trying to be strong for me. It's not worth it, mum. I'm going to disappoint you again. I'm going to cause you more pain. You have mourned me now. Leave it at that."

"But don't you know how happy I would be, if I could sit with you at this very minute. How can you be so selfish, my darling."

"Because I'm a monument of virtue, mum. I have them all. I'm a selfish, self-centred, self-pitying brat that's always going to hurt you and disappoint you. You love me because that's what you do, because you're good and kind, not because I deserve it. I wish dad would have picked a better son for you."

He has won the argument. Frigga is gone.

When the psychiatrist asks him when was the last time he cried, and for how long, Loki usually has to answer "last night before I went to sleep. For hours."