Control (Ship of Nails: Part 1)
Feb. 19th, 2020 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coldsongIn the days after Harley’s ordeal with the Joker, Loki is hard to live with. He was terrified of losing her, of course, and he’s given up trying to pretend otherwise. But that is an emotion so big and overwhelming he can’t cope with it on top of everything else in his head. The past pushes aside the present and the potential of the future, love crushed beneath the weight of something dark and sickly.
There was a wound in his mind still, from what Thanos did to him. He’s known that all along, known it was festering, and there were times he tried to express that, but for the most part, he failed.
Maybe he didn’t want to succeed. Maybe he wanted to keep suffering, somewhere deep down. He doesn’t believe in atonement or penance or forgiveness, but he does believe in vengeance.
Now the frail scab of functional behavior he’s built over the wound has broken, been split and torn away, and all the necrosis, corruption, infection it held back, has spilled free. It’s drowning him. He wants to hurt and be hurt again and again and again...
He pays Mrs. Hedgeworthy extra to stay overnight. He’s afraid to be alone with the children.
He’s afraid to be alone with the children.
Brushing out Sigrid’s hair before bedtime, he’s always so delicate, untangling elf-knots without pulling, and she trust him utterly, but when he looks into the mirror of her vanity, her face is going grey, eyes bulging, mouth gaping; her hair is tangled around her throat and he’s pulling it tight, tighter, tighter, grinning a slasher smile as she struggles--
No, no, no! He springs up and backs away so wildly he falls over one of her shoes left behind on the floor.
“Loki??” She’s fine. She is untouched, he was hallucinating, but now she looks horrified by his unexplained panic. “Loki, what’s wrong?”
Mrs. Hedgeworthy appears in the doorway in a fuzzy yellow bathrobe with a duckling print all over it. Her eyes are sharp as she looks him over. He feels like prey, pinned down, seen through. He feels like a predator, ready to spring and snap and break necks. It’s too much. His stomach heaves and he has to cover his face with both hands, fighting back the need to vomit.
For a moment he’s not there, ears ringing, vision gone, and when he becomes aware of the room around him again, Sigrid and Agnarr are both there, with Mrs. Hedgeworthy, all standing around him with wide, frightened eyes.
“...call Thor,” Sigrid is saying, words rapid-fire, anxious. “Or maybe Kelly's dad, or Harley but she’s sick, or the other Loki, the one with the bar--”
“No!” He grits out. “No. Not now. Nighttime. Call in the morning.” He gulps air, pulls himself back together so forcibly his teeth rattle. “Mrs. Hedgeworthy, if you would please get the children ready for bed, I--th-think I will take a bath.”
As if water could wash him clean of the Black Order.
He rises, shaking head to toe but able to walk the few steps down the hall to the bathroom. He closes the door, locks it, turns the water on in the shower as high and hard as it will run, then puts his back to the wall and curls up in the smallest knot he can.
He’s not sure how long he stays there, insensate. Eventually he becomes aware his back is against the full-length mirror on the bathroom wall, and he turns his head to look at himself, fearful of what he’ll find.
Did you think you could quiet me forever? The figure in the mirror asks softly. Ivory skin, inky hair, green and gold armor, it regards Loki with a mocking smile, peering from beneath a twin-horned helmet. But his eyes-his eyes are very, very blue. Scepter-blue.
There’s no point talking to a hallucinatory vision of himself. Loki doesn’t bother. Just stares into the glowing cyan of his reflection’s eyes and waits to hear what it wants. After a long moment, its confidence wavers; its smile fades.
Say something! it snarls at last, frustrated.
“Something,” he answers. And then, “Go away.”
It’s just like himself to want to have a moment, here, he thinks. Give a grandiose speech about the inescapability of one’s dark nature, utter a breathless ode to the Mind Stone, perhaps. The only voice from the dark that ever truly understood him.
(The Mind Stone's voice in his head was always female, exquisitely soft and sweet, a music he could not ignore or deny. It's all right, Loki, my sweet little Loki--nothing matters. Freedom is life's great lie.
But he is the god of lies, and that is the only thing that saved him.)
But maybe Loki is learning from Thor. He’s not willing to play along. He lies where he is, dull eyed, watching his doppelganger, his anti-conscience. No protestations that this is not him, that he’s changed. Just: “Go away. Leave the children alone.”
Oh. Your children should remain untouched, it says. How many did you slay with the Order? How many deaths have you held a candle to?
He knows the answer, or at least a rough estimate, but he won’t give himself the satisfaction of saying it.
Your greed for peace and comfort will tear apart the people you purport to love. And after they are dead and gone, you will forget them. You have no heart. You only have me. Get used to it.
He doesn’t think that’s true, but he can’t muster the strength to argue. Remembering Thor throwing objects through his illusionary bodies, he gives a quiet grunt, lifts his hand, and touches it to the mirror’s surface. The steam collecting there from the hot shower suddenly starts to condense, coalesce, slithers between the glass and the silver backing, and the whole thing cracks and shatters, cascading down upon him in a glimmering shower.
A few seconds later, Mrs. Hedgeworthy is pounding on the door. He doesn’t feel like answering.
She’ll probably call someone.
He doesn’t care.
((OOC: Musical Inspiration))
There was a wound in his mind still, from what Thanos did to him. He’s known that all along, known it was festering, and there were times he tried to express that, but for the most part, he failed.
Maybe he didn’t want to succeed. Maybe he wanted to keep suffering, somewhere deep down. He doesn’t believe in atonement or penance or forgiveness, but he does believe in vengeance.
Now the frail scab of functional behavior he’s built over the wound has broken, been split and torn away, and all the necrosis, corruption, infection it held back, has spilled free. It’s drowning him. He wants to hurt and be hurt again and again and again...
He pays Mrs. Hedgeworthy extra to stay overnight. He’s afraid to be alone with the children.
He’s afraid to be alone with the children.
Brushing out Sigrid’s hair before bedtime, he’s always so delicate, untangling elf-knots without pulling, and she trust him utterly, but when he looks into the mirror of her vanity, her face is going grey, eyes bulging, mouth gaping; her hair is tangled around her throat and he’s pulling it tight, tighter, tighter, grinning a slasher smile as she struggles--
No, no, no! He springs up and backs away so wildly he falls over one of her shoes left behind on the floor.
“Loki??” She’s fine. She is untouched, he was hallucinating, but now she looks horrified by his unexplained panic. “Loki, what’s wrong?”
Mrs. Hedgeworthy appears in the doorway in a fuzzy yellow bathrobe with a duckling print all over it. Her eyes are sharp as she looks him over. He feels like prey, pinned down, seen through. He feels like a predator, ready to spring and snap and break necks. It’s too much. His stomach heaves and he has to cover his face with both hands, fighting back the need to vomit.
For a moment he’s not there, ears ringing, vision gone, and when he becomes aware of the room around him again, Sigrid and Agnarr are both there, with Mrs. Hedgeworthy, all standing around him with wide, frightened eyes.
“...call Thor,” Sigrid is saying, words rapid-fire, anxious. “Or maybe Kelly's dad, or Harley but she’s sick, or the other Loki, the one with the bar--”
“No!” He grits out. “No. Not now. Nighttime. Call in the morning.” He gulps air, pulls himself back together so forcibly his teeth rattle. “Mrs. Hedgeworthy, if you would please get the children ready for bed, I--th-think I will take a bath.”
As if water could wash him clean of the Black Order.
He rises, shaking head to toe but able to walk the few steps down the hall to the bathroom. He closes the door, locks it, turns the water on in the shower as high and hard as it will run, then puts his back to the wall and curls up in the smallest knot he can.
He’s not sure how long he stays there, insensate. Eventually he becomes aware his back is against the full-length mirror on the bathroom wall, and he turns his head to look at himself, fearful of what he’ll find.
Did you think you could quiet me forever? The figure in the mirror asks softly. Ivory skin, inky hair, green and gold armor, it regards Loki with a mocking smile, peering from beneath a twin-horned helmet. But his eyes-his eyes are very, very blue. Scepter-blue.
There’s no point talking to a hallucinatory vision of himself. Loki doesn’t bother. Just stares into the glowing cyan of his reflection’s eyes and waits to hear what it wants. After a long moment, its confidence wavers; its smile fades.
Say something! it snarls at last, frustrated.
“Something,” he answers. And then, “Go away.”
It’s just like himself to want to have a moment, here, he thinks. Give a grandiose speech about the inescapability of one’s dark nature, utter a breathless ode to the Mind Stone, perhaps. The only voice from the dark that ever truly understood him.
(The Mind Stone's voice in his head was always female, exquisitely soft and sweet, a music he could not ignore or deny. It's all right, Loki, my sweet little Loki--nothing matters. Freedom is life's great lie.
But he is the god of lies, and that is the only thing that saved him.)
But maybe Loki is learning from Thor. He’s not willing to play along. He lies where he is, dull eyed, watching his doppelganger, his anti-conscience. No protestations that this is not him, that he’s changed. Just: “Go away. Leave the children alone.”
Oh. Your children should remain untouched, it says. How many did you slay with the Order? How many deaths have you held a candle to?
He knows the answer, or at least a rough estimate, but he won’t give himself the satisfaction of saying it.
Your greed for peace and comfort will tear apart the people you purport to love. And after they are dead and gone, you will forget them. You have no heart. You only have me. Get used to it.
He doesn’t think that’s true, but he can’t muster the strength to argue. Remembering Thor throwing objects through his illusionary bodies, he gives a quiet grunt, lifts his hand, and touches it to the mirror’s surface. The steam collecting there from the hot shower suddenly starts to condense, coalesce, slithers between the glass and the silver backing, and the whole thing cracks and shatters, cascading down upon him in a glimmering shower.
A few seconds later, Mrs. Hedgeworthy is pounding on the door. He doesn’t feel like answering.
She’ll probably call someone.
He doesn’t care.
((OOC: Musical Inspiration))