Control (Ship of Nails: Part 1)

[coldsong]

In 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))

Comments

[pirateangelbaby]

The Bifrost roars down on the snow outside the cottage, its lone passenger already charging forward before the rainbow light dissipates, glowing axe held in a white-knuckled grip. Thor's heart is pounding in his chest and in his ears, eye darting over the peaceful tableau in search of a threat, and not seeing any.

This is not reassuring.

The door opens before he can reach it, hand raised to knock fit to break it down, and Mrs. Hedgeworthy hastily steps aside to allow him entry. "Where is he?" he demands, only vaguely aware that he must look a fright, his hair loose and unbrushed, his T-shirt and pajama pants too little protection against the winter. But there had been little time to prepare himself, awakened from sleep by the housekeeper's urgent call, that he did not even pause long enough to summon his armor, alarm wiping the drowsiness from his brain in the span of a heartbeat. He'd paused only long enough to pull on his boots, and even then, the laces are only half tied.

He forces himself to let go of the axe, dropping it at the door, though his hand itches for him to keep hold of it in case he has need. But this is no external threat, and no weapon ever forged will be able to help him here.

The bathroom door is closed, and the sound of the shower droning away on the other side. Thor listens, but he cannot hear movement, cannot hear anything but that uniform hiss of water against the shower floor. "Loki?" he calls out loudly, and raps on the door with metal knuckles a little harder than he intends. "Are you all right?"

A stupid question, and he hates himself for asking it immediately. Of course he's not all right. Thor would never have been called in this manner, at this hour, if he was.

[coldsong]

The children are all gathered in the bedroom at the end of the hall. They could not fail to be kept awake by the activity, and while Mrs. Hedgeworthy has done her best to shelter them, pulling the door mostly closed, Sigrid and Agnarr are watching through the crack, eyes wide and scared. It's a new, weird kind of scared for them, because it's not like knowing a mad queen might kill you, or a fire demon is tearing apart your planet, not like feeling the hull of a ship crumble apart under your feet. It's a quiet horror, something eating their caregiver--their adoptive father--from the inside out. It's scarier, because he's scared.

But Thor is here, and that has to mean something. If anyone can fix Loki...

There is no verbal response to the knock on the door, but there's a grunt and a small incoherent mumble. A moan? A swear word? Hard to say. The sound of movement follows, the scrape of glass on tile as Loki drags himself a little further from the door.

He's not trying to let Thor in, he just doesn't want to be pressed against an object being pounded on with a metal fist. Too loud.

"I don't know what happened," Mrs. Hedgeworthy's voice is a little shaky, but she's otherwise steady, her usual no-nonsense persona. "He was brushin' Sigrid's hair. She says he panicked and she doesn't know why, but he got up from next to her and just collapsed on the floor, and she yelled for me."

"Me and Aggie both came running in and he was curled up whimpering and kind of...rocking. But he came out of it again when Sigrid said your name and said he was okay and not to call you 'till morning. Then he went in there. Been in there almost an hour and I was about to call you anyway when I heard the glass break."

[pirateangelbaby]

If Thor was not already on edge, the noise that comes from the other side of the door would put him there in short order. Is Loki injured? Bleeding? ...dying? He feels frozen at his core, dread settling in as he wonders what he will find on the other side of the door, unable to chase away the memory of his brother’s broken body beneath his hands as the Statesman had burned around them.

He does not want to see that again. But he cannot simply walk away. Not when Loki may need help. When there might be something that Thor can do.

He listens impatiently to Mrs. Hedgeworthy’s explanation, chafing at the delay even as he needs to know what happened, to prepare himself for what he may see. It sounds so achingly familiar, a thing he would not have understood only a year ago - small, unexpected things that hurl you into the depths of panic and despair with little warning, a fear and pain that you cannot reason your way out of, even if you had the capacity for rational thought. Isolating yourself as if it would save you from the agony of your own thoughts, only to find them amplified in the silence.

He cannot even begin to guess what would have brought Loki to such a state from something so simple, but it doesn’t matter. It happened, and his brother needs him, even if he can do nothing but assure him that he is not alone.

Loki had done the same for him.

“I’ll... handle this,” he says, not sure if he truly can, all too aware that no one can be rescued from the torment of their own mind, something he still struggles against day by day. He barely knows how to begin to manage his own demons; how can he hope to help with Loki’s? Still, he has to try. “Don’t let the children see.” They have seen enough of tragedy already. Whatever lies on the other side of this door, Thor is certain it will do them no good to witness.

He tries the knob and finds it locked, as he’d expected, though he’d hoped it wouldn’t be. He can break down the door, but will violence do more harm than good, if Loki believes someone is coming to harm him? Thor is paralyzed by indecision, until the thought rises above all else that he must get inside, and anything else can be dealt with after. “I’m coming in,” he announces, before he can delay further when his brother could be in urgent need of help. Steve once showed him a technique for breaking down Earth-built doors with one’s shoulder and body weight; now Thor must put it into practice.

[coldsong]

Don't let the children see. Mrs. Hedgeworthy presses her lips in a thin line, not entirely sure how to handle that order, but understanding the need for it. "I called a friend of his, too," she says, backing up. "Dr. Malcolm. I'll let Miss Quinn know, too."

She will. But she'll phrase it less like an emergency when she texts Harley. Just a heads up that Loki is unwell and Thor is with him, more details as events warrant. She retreats down the hall as Thor eyes the door with evident destructive intent, bustling into the children's room and closing the door firmly behind her.

Loki, meanwhile, is only half aware of activity beyond the door. The steam from the shower has gone cold. He's stretched out on his side on the floor now, head facing away from the door, caught in a state of deceptive stillness. It's stasis, not calm. He's blank, he's trapped, he's dead. On the floor around him there are mirror shards--

seven years' bad luck? he'd find that bitterly funny if he could think straight

And they reflect dozens of blue, blue, glowing eyes. Mocking, pitying, loathing.

His cheeks are wet, and in his state it takes almost no leap to make the mental connection to eyes weeping blood as his arteries were compressed. In truth, he has a number of small cuts from the burst of glass, and blood streaks one side of his face, but he's escaped any major injury. Most of the moisture is just normal tears.

The Mind Stone has stopped whispering to him. She's gone elsewhere, or maybe she has silenced herself in preparation for Thanos' arrival. That's how it worked, in the end, after he was physically broken down as far as he could be and keep breathing. A cycle of psychological torture, whispers in solitude, and then the Titan's peculiar brand of persuasion: sweet-talk coupled with crushing pain.

Soon, he will--but that can't be right, because Thanos is dead. Thor said so.

Reality blurs in his brain. He is dead, crushed in the Titan's hand. He is alive, on the floor of his cottage in the Nexus. He is bound in the bowels of the Sanctuary II. He is in prison on Asgard, and Frigga is begging him to come out of the corners in the back of his mind that he keeps hiding in.

"Just giving the people what they want," he tells her dully, and then his whole body jolts as the god of thunder slams into the door.

He's a mess, cut and drawn and pale, clothes clinging to his back smelling of fear-sweat and clean steam. It looks almost like he decided to lie down on the floor and then the mirror fell on him, except that's ludicrous. Loki does not sleep on cold, hard floors--and there's a thin layer of ice on the side of the door where the mirror was.

He doesn't look at Thor as he breaks in, trembling, eyes focused straight ahead--but blinking passively. Not dead, but not really here, either.

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor takes in the state of the bathroom at a glance, processing nearly none of it, his gaze fixed on Loki the moment he sees him. And for a moment, it’s as if his heart has stopped, seeing his brother lying limply on the floor, empty eyes staring at nothing, and all Thor can think is he’s dead. That maybe everything since the Statesman has simply been a hallucination in his own final moments, waiting for the ship to blow apart around him, crawling on hands and knees across twisted debris to cling to his brother’s corpse as he awaits the end.

But then he sees Loki blink, and Thor forces his lungs to take a breath, ignoring the broken glass as he drops to his knees at his brother’s side. “Loki,” he says, voice low and thick with relief and concern and dread, and he reaches out hesitant hands to touch, to ensure that his eye is not deceiving him. Loki is here, and breathing, and alive. But not out of danger.

Is this what Thor had looked like in the moments he still can’t remember? He can’t think about that right now, focused on his brother’s safety, both physical and otherwise. “Loki,” he says again, clearing his throat, one hand on his brother’s cheek in an attempt to draw his gaze. “I’m here.”

[coldsong]

So many eyes on him, all cyan blue, so many piecemeal reflections of the worst of himself. Dagger and garrote, blood and ice and darkness. They're not eyes, they're stars, and he's falling, falling, falling until he loses awareness of his body, of time, of pain, numb and nothing in the blackness of the Void.

He's aware of the creak of floorboards, twitches and shudders as Thor kneels down, curling up tighter, but then something happens. The room tilts, shifts, and all the little shards of glass reflect not his own eyes but Thor's, the one that remains. A kinder shade of blue. Sunshine and clear skies after the end of the storm.

He swallows hard at the touch to his cheek and squeezes his eyes shut, clawing his way back from the edge. Thor's hand is callused and warm, and after a slow, still, excruciating moment, Loki shifts and puts his hand on Thor's forearm.

"Is Sigrid all right?" he asks in a rasping croak. "I thought...I was choking her--"

There's a sudden flicker of motion, then, as he sits up and rocks forward. In the next moment, he's buried himself against Thor's chest, trembling like a leaf in a high wind. When he sobs, it sounds like something's dragging the nose out of him and it's tearing up his insides on the way.

[pirateangelbaby]

Perhaps in hindsight, Thor should have suspected something like this might happen. Brothers they may be, but where Thor cannot help but wear his heart openly in joy and agony both, Loki has often kept his hurts from the light of day until at last there are too many to keep contained and it all comes boiling out in a spectacular eruption. But this is not anger or sorrow. No, this is something far, far worse.

He opens his mouth to assure Loki of Sigrid's safety when suddenly his brother lunges upward, and for the briefest of moments, Thor flinches as if he expects a blow. But then Loki is clinging to him as if he is a man drowning, and Thor's arms are around him, holding him safe and secure, wishing against all hope that he could take this horrible pain from him and knowing that he cannot, not any more than Loki could have taken Thor's.

"She's all right," he murmurs, one hand cradling the back of his brother's head, the other rubbing small soothing circles on his back, as if they were young boys again seeking comfort after a nightmare. "You didn't hurt her. She's safe."

CW mention of needles and much existential crisis.

[coldsong]

"I hurt--I--!!" Loki begins, but he's too overwrought to get the words out, choking on his own tears, dissolving into the acid mix of emotions. I hurt everyone else, why not them too? is the thought he would vocalize if he could. Perhaps it's for the best he cannot.

Loki has, despite all his best efforts, always been more inclined to physical tears than Thor. Nine times out of ten his eyes fill up and spill over with rage, not grief, but today only the Norns know where all the tears are coming from. They're cold, icy, dripping onto the shoulder of Thor's shirt, and the keening wails that accompany them are awful to hear. It's a breakdown that's been a long time coming, and all the more intense for the delay.

It takes several long minutes before the petting calms him enough to speak again, and his arms are locked around Thor now, an unbreakable death-grip. "He choked her and I thought she had died," he manages to get out, trying to explain, although Thor has no context whatsoever to know he's referring to Harley and the Joker now.

"Watched her die, and there are so many...needles in my skin down to the bones and I'm on fire, Thor, there's not enough ice in the universe for that burning, there is no balance. It's a lie. Gods are nothing but dust in the end, like everything else." He knows exactly what he's saying, exactly what he means, but whether any of that makes sense to Thor is doubtful.

[pirateangelbaby]

Every cry is like a dagger in his heart, a desperate frustration that he can do nothing to soothe this away, nothing but be someone willing to hold tight to Loki and not let go. There's a guilty pang at the thought that he is glad this did not happen sooner, uncertain if he is prepared to handle this even now but knowing in his heart that the Thor of six months ago would have been worse than useless here.

He's trying to understand, he really is, but it sounds like the fevered ramblings of a madman until the end. Then his own veins seem filled with ice as the specter of the Mad Titan looms over them both, and for a moment it's as if the universe was never set right, that he might return home to empty streets and empty planets and billions dead, and the need to drown himself in drink snares him as strongly as his brother's arms.

He just holds to Loki all the stronger, shakily reminding himself that Thanos is dead, that his universe is slowly recovering, scarred and damaged but not irreparable. But Loki's... Loki's is not.

He'd forgotten.

Too lost in his own pain to help anyone else, Thor hadn't noticed Loki still suffering, or perhaps he'd chosen to turn his blind eye to it to save himself from further madness. Maybe he'd hoped that the Avengers in every universe might find a way to restore the dusted, or he'd begun to fool himself into forgetting that there was ever a difference between this brother and the one that Thor had lost. It hadn't mattered, except it does, and now he reaps the blighted bounty of what he'd unwittingly sown.

"I know, brother, I know," he murmurs, knowing all the while that he doesn't, struggling to find the words that Loki might need to hear, desperate not to lose him too. He may not understand the roots of his brother's torment, but he stands now where Loki once stood, reaching out a hand to keep his brother from slipping into the abyss. "We're... we're not forever. But I'm here, now. I won't let you go."

[coldsong]

With all the things Loki might blame Thor for, justly or unjustly, the inability to comfort him in the midst of his own turmoil isn't even on the list. A man bleeding out from a cut to the heart is in no position to be a medic, and even Loki, with his talent for being selfish and greedy for attention, is aware of that. No word of blame will ever pass his lips on that count--although that in itself might make Thor feel worse.

The truth is, Loki makes himself as hard to comfort as he does hard to forgive. Maybe it's deliberate, a form of self-loathing or punishment of his own. Maybe he was taught too well to man up, when he was a boy, a youth, desperate to fit himself to standards ill-designed for him. Maybe he's afraid those closest to him will not find his companionship worth the burden of the sheer volume of maintenance he actually needs.

Probably all the above, but no matter what, it takes a meltdown of this caliber to make him truly vulnerable; he has to break to let someone try to heal him.

Thor's murmurs are ambiguous. He doesn't know in full detail what Loki means, but for whatever reason the sound of his words, low and gentle and affirming, sink under the younger brother's skin. Like the comforting coos of a mother holding a child after a nightmare. That robs the crisis in Loki's heart of some of its momentum; he remains a mess, shaky and weeping, but the anguished cries ease away into an occasional whimper or moan.

"He hurt me," he half-whispers, "hurt me so much. I can't shake it, Thor. I'm trying, for the children, for you, for Harley, for Ian, but it hurts, it hurts, it hurts...and if I lose, I...I can't lose. I can't."

Because if he does, he becomes that gutted, unfeeling, hollow psychopath in the mirror.

There's a soft tap on the door, and Loki twitches but otherwise doesn't move or loosen his hold on Thor. Mrs Hedgeworthy has a blanket in her hands, which she crouches to toss over Loki's back, then bustles past both Odinsons, picking her way through the glass to turn off the shower.

"I won't pretend I know what's going on," she says, "but you'd cope with it better on the sofa, or in his room." Pause. "The children are watching the Muppets and having brownies and warm milk. You just...sort yourselves out and let me know if I need to get someone else in here."

Loki gives a hiccuping, watery giggle, trying to turn his face so she can't see it, but says nothing.

[pirateangelbaby]

Thor tenses in turn at the sound of someone approaching, but relaxes - just a little - when he recognizes the intruder. Just Mrs. Hedgeworthy, who's far more put together than either one of the brothers at the moment. But she has a good point, and after a moment's hesitation, Thor nods. "Right."

Between the ice and the broken glass and the cold tile of the bathroom floor, this is no place for comfort. "Can you stand?" Thor murmurs to Loki, ready to help him to his feet or carry him entirely, if it comes to that. Whichever the case, he struggles to recall the layout of the house, remembering where he might take his brother where he can be warmer and more comfortable, and maybe clean some of the blood from him so he looks less of a fright. "You're safe with me," he repeats, more firmly, in case Loki might grab it as a lifeline to keep himself from sinking.

[coldsong]

There's a good chance Mrs. Hedgeworthy is always put together than either one of the brothers. She's got a past--she must, or Loki wouldn't like her--but she is reliable and steady in the extreme.

And right now, she's eyeing the mess on the bathroom floor with the resigned, dry annoyance of someone who knows she's going to end up cleaning it up, no matter what anyone else claims. Actually, the sooner she gets a jump on that, the better, so she hastens to help the both of them to their feet. The better to get them out from underfoot.

Loki gives a little grunt in response to Thor's question and loosens his grip on him just enough to gather his legs under him. "I can walk."

His breath, still hitching erratically, and the full body shakes he seems to have, put that claim to the lie, but he at least seems to be able to push himself off the floor. Probably a good thing; the doorway of the bathroom is narrow enough (built for mere mortals) that a Thor carrying a Loki might struggle to get through it. He's going to have to lean on his brother anyway, though, still visibly weakened. If either of them was in any state to notice and be amused by it, it's very much like the 'Get Help' routine.

[malcolmeffect]

Ian had dropped what he was doing when the text came in from the nanny, or he thought that is what she was. He wasn't sure. A normal person would react calmly to a text that someone was "sick". However, Ian knew well enough what that could mean from his own reluctance to say anything about his condition. It was one thing he and Loki shared to the point that it almost seemed a joke between them.

He'd had to find a sitter for Kelly, with how many times he'd taken Lex and Tim for their mother was easy enough, but then he's out the door. Dr. Malcolm would like to pretend he isn't worried for Loki, and the fact that he is only increases the anxiety over the situation.

Getting to the cottage turns into a blur. He'd been sleepless for so long that he's not in the best condition either, sick would be applicable but none of it was physical. A glance between the location he was given and the cottage to confirm it is the right one before he comes in the door. Normally, he was polite but under the kind of anxious panic he was prone to formality was forgotten.

"Loki?" He's not sure where until he hears the people in the hall. He's furious over the encumbrance of the his leg brace more than ever. All the frustration and exhaustion falls away when he enters the hall to see the condition Loki is in. Ian freezes, staring and distressed. It takes a moment for his mind to process. The response is instant, he drops his cane and leg brace be damned he starts down the hall to help.

[pirateangelbaby]

Right, there's a bedroom Thor remembers - not the same one the children are in, fortunately - and it's there that he plans to take Loki. It's a small relief that his brother is able to get to his feet, even if he's as shaky as a newborn colt and leaning most of his weight on Thor. They only get a few steps before he hears the voice.

An... oddly familiar voice.

Thor's head turns sharply to bring the newcomer into his field of view, not recognizing the man at first - a human, dressed all in dull black, some kind of brace on his leg and glasses on his face, all topped with a shock of dark hair. Nobody he's met, or so he thinks, until the stranger gets close enough for Thor to make out the features of his face. He'd only met the man once, face to face, but even without the gaudy clothes and silver hair, he would hardly forget the man who would've happily kept Thor enslaved until the end of his days.

"Grandmaster," Thor growls, shifting his weight so that he is between the stranger and Loki, too close to summon his lightning without harming Loki further. But he is not going to allow anyone to hurt his brother, no matter who he has to fight.

Mrs. Hedgeworthy had said she'd contacted another of Loki's friends, but she didn't say it was him. Something about this isn't right, yet Thor is taking no chances.

[coldsong]

Loki is just coherent enough to recognize the voice from the hallway over his own tapering sobs. Ian? Ian. How would he know to come--but of course, Mrs. Hedgeworthy must have called him as well as Thor. Sigrid said something about 'Kelly's dad'. When the man comes around the corner, Loki blinks at him from where he leans on Thor's shoulder, eyes hazy and wet and wide.

On the one hand, he's mortified. Of all the people he wouldn't want to catch him in the midst of a real breakdown--well, Ian isn't the last. There are others who'd he'd be more humiliated to have them see him like this, but early on in a relationship isn't the best time to display all of one's baggage in gory detail. On the other hand...he came to help at the slightest call, and moreover he's come in much like Thor did, bristling with reckless concern, making a beeline to reach the object of that concern with no pause to check who else is in the room. It's the kind of attitude Loki would have scolded Thor for in years past, actually, or even taken advantage of, but to see it turned to his benefit in not just his brother but in a friend-turning-lover is beyond reassuring.

There's a flicker of an uncertain little smile on his lips for a millisecond before Thor shifts his weight and moves his body in the other man's way, and then growls and Loki feels a jolt of wild adrenaline that has nothing to do with hallucinations and everything to do with potential for a very, very bad misunderstanding here.

"Human!" He stammers out, voice choked and high and strange with panic. "Thor, he's human! He's not the Grandmaster!"

Thor isn't prone, of late, to gratuitously attacking people, especially humans, and yet Loki wouldn't bet a fight couldn't start here. The Grandmaster could take a dozen hits and recover, given he purportedly can't die, but a mortal cannot. The last thing any of them needs to happen here is for a blow from Thor in protective mode to break any more of Ian's bones than are already damaged. And honestly, he's not sure Ian wouldn't try to fight back.

He yanks at Thor's shirt frantically to emphasize his stuttered protests. "Like Jim Kirk, and his father; not him, but you have the same face. This is Ian, he's mine."

Okay, were he in better control of his faculties, he might phrase that with some more finesse. He doesn't mean to imply he owns the man, but he falls squarely within Loki's providence, even if they weren't close and becoming closer.

Now, what Ian makes of all this--Loki clearly distressed, panicked, and covered with small cuts--remains to be seen.

CW: For mention of suicide

[malcolmeffect]

Of all the people who could see Loki in this state, Ian is likely to be the most understanding. More than once in the past year someone had pulled him up from the ground or stopped much worse. It takes all of his will to prevent a spiral into a damning internal dialog. The scene reminds him too much of his overdose, though which time he can't be sure. A brief flash of Sarah wrestling a gun from him at one of the devastating lows works its way into his mind while Malcolm desperately tries to blot it out.

Distress wins out in the emotional flood to drowned out the dark memories. Had Loki been trying to die? It is a question that lingers, even when he sees the faint smile. In the end, all that really shows to the outside is compassion and an exaggerated expression of Ian's typical anxiousness. There's no clarity in what their relationship is, but he cares far too much for Loki to do nothing. Perhaps, if he had the clarity of mind he would have remembered Loki calling him the Grandmaster the day they had met.

The mix of Loki's panicked pull at the person helping him, and the alert from the gifted bracelet gets ignored. Even Thor's presence doesn't cause him to halt or slow his hitched pace down the hall. Once you've faced a Tyrannosaur pounding toward you, more than once, everything else seems lesser. Grant had told him that he was foolishly heroic and Ian scoffed at the claim despite his continued behavior of throwing caution to the wind when anything mattered to him personally.

The sound of his name cracks into his determined foolishness. It wasn't the first time Loki had expressed a measure of belonging to him but it is enough that his eyes turn to Thor.

"Ian Malcolm." It's a brusk introduction when his gaze meets Thor's, but it shifts almost immediately back to Loki. He might not fight outright but Ian had the arrogance to ignore people or get surly with them when he didn't get his way.

[pirateangelbaby]

For a moment, Thor doesn't listen to Loki speaking, the words breaking against him like waves against boulders as he watches the stranger limp closer without the slightest hesitation or flicker of fear. There's a charge building in the air, a heavy static of a storm brewing in the distance, and outside the cottage a roll of thunder rumbles close enough to rattle the windows in their panes. Why did he leave Stormbreaker at the front door? It was forged to kill a Titan, but surely it might find the Grandmaster to be no challenging opponent.

It's only the frantic tugging on his shirt that draws his attention away long enough to actually hear the words, and a moment longer before he registers their meaning. Not the Grandmaster? Is Loki sure? The Nexus is a meeting place of many worlds and rife with coincidences - the medic with Skurge's face, Thor's own resemblance to Kirk's dead father - but he would not put it past the immortal to deceive Loki for his own amusement.

But... somehow he can't imagine the Grandmaster looking this concerned, this distressed, unless it was at the potential loss of one of his... playthings. And then perhaps only disappointment before he would throw them away and find some new poor creature to torment. That, of all things, is what makes Thor stay his hand even as the stranger gets within striking distance, though he stays wary and tense. He does not like this, but Loki is more important, and if this... Ian... really is who he says he is, they can hash it out later.

"Thor," he introduces himself, just as curtly. "I'm taking him to the bedroom." It's not quite the same air of command as Odin had wielded, but nevertheless it's the tone of a man who expects his will to be carried out without argument. Whether Ian wants to help or not is his business.

[coldsong]

As little as Loki likes to admit it, even to himself, one of the things he looks for in both friends and partners is the tendency to protective bristling being displayed here. Harley won his heart months ago when she called him princess, without sarcasm, and declared herself his knight. He doesn't want to need protection; he very much prefers to be seen as tricky and sharp and independent, but he has spent so much time alone, fighting with his back against the wall and no help coming. The behavior he's seeing here is like a drug. The irony of it coming from two directions--one fraternal, one very much not--and those two sources effectively posturing at one another, is too much. He breaks into laughter.

It's not steady, healthy laughter, but it falls short of hysteria, a refrain of breathless thready giggles that he clearly can't control. And he misses the nuances of Ian and Thor's responses to one another, only senses the danger lessened but not quite gone. But neither will lash out if he's in the way (fancy that; what an interesting development!), and so his body is the best distraction here.

He lets his knees buckle, forcing Thor to hold onto him with both hands, let Ian assist, or let him hit the floor. There's a flicker of seidr as he adjusts his weight to more human proportions--the chaotician will likely not notice, but Thor will.

Even at the end of his tether, he can't help but play the trickster card, clinging to Thor with one arm and reaching out to Ian with the other. Too late to hide his breakdown now, so he may as well demand Ian stay.

[malcolmeffect]

Ian is disastrously arrogant when in situations like this. Dangerous or not, whether he was welcome or not, Ian was getting to Loki's side. A glance passes at Thor near daring him to try and stop the human. It's posturing that has taken over to keep Ian out of his own collapse. The scene has too much potential to break the system and send Ian into his own mental health crash.

It's only Thor's words about getting Loki to bed, and Loki himself reaching for Ian that softens Malcolm's presence. The peacocking lessons and turns back to compassionate concern now that it is clear enough for his strained mind to track. It's not an easy task for Ian to get down low enough to put his shoulder under Loki's with the leg brace he wears but he manages through stubborn determination. Even if Loki hadn't changed his weight Ian would have tried, probably ending in injury. Once Loki's arm is around him, his own arm comes around Loki's back gripping fabric to pull him back up enough to walk.

He's worried but those discussions can happen later. For the moment he just gives Thor a nod to indicate he's ready to help.

[pirateangelbaby]

The look that Thor casts Loki is one of both deep concern and mild suspicion, because the sudden lightness of his brother's body speaks of a strange dishonesty, but the hysterical giggle hardly seems faked. He likes even less that Ian is so close, that Loki is between them, but his brother's well-being is his priority right now.

He barely waits for Ian to be ready to help before moving forward once again towards the bedroom and getting Loki onto the soft bedding, tugging the blanket free from around his shoulders to reposition it more comfortably on him and trying not to think of when the Guardians of the Galaxy had done the same for him. "Loki," he says, his voice low and gentle. "What do you need?" How can he help? Thor knows what he would want, in his brother's position, but he has learned the hard and painful lesson that they are more different than he used to think, and now of all times he is frightened of making this worse, even if well-intentioned.

Maybe even Loki does not know. Thor would not be terribly surprised if he didn't.

[coldsong]

The gambit works, and regardless of Thor's suspicion, Loki will never feel bad about this particular trick, if it's forced the two men to call a truce. It just goes to show that you can take just about everything out of the Trickster--hope included--but he's still a trickster.

Still, he's grateful to be placed in his bed, even if the sheets may end up slightly the worse for wear. He's still sweat-damp under the blanket. Thanks to his own healing factor, the little cuts have already healed up to the point it's hard to tell where they ever were, but there's a little blood here and there. He sits up for a moment after the blanket is around him, swaying groggily, then sinks back onto the pillows, knees curled up close to his body. The laughter has faded again, though the quiet hitching breaths that remain are not exactly reassuring.

What does he need? He should be put down like a rabid animal. It would be the kindest thing. He can't say that to Thor, though. He knows he can't. Probably Ian doesn't need to hear it, either, although he might take it less personally. He closes his eyes tightly, tries to breathe, lucidity slipping through his fingers only to snag and catch on the nails.

"Stay," he grits out. "Both of you, stay. I can't tell what's real. He'll come back for me if I'm alone."

He likes lies, Loki, because some truths are extremely unfair. Thanos is dead, the Black Order gone, but they're neither in Loki's head.

[malcolmeffect]

Ian doesn't get in the way of Thor putting Loki in bed. It isn't that he doesn't want to help but that he is aware of his own maneuverability limitations. If the brace has taught him anything it was that sometimes others might be better for a job than he is.

However, by the time Loki is situated in the bed Ian is already sitting on the side of it. He's been to places like this himself from infections, and illness, trauma, and his own brand of self abuse. He doesn't ask, only reaches out and takes Loki's hand in his. He isn't sure how much comfort to offer yet but his concern won't let him sit back and do nothing.

"Lex and Tim's mother has Kelly. I can... stay as long as you need." It was a serious offer weighted heavily with anxiety and worry. Ian would stay bedside for a close friend in this condition, and here there was something more, though still vastly undefined. With all the focus on Loki's condition, Ian has all but forgotten Thor's presence even if he had just asked a question.

[pirateangelbaby]

Loki does not specify who he means by he, but Thor needs no explanation. He can't guess if Ian knows, if he understands the gravity of the demon that haunts his brother, dead or not. Doesn't know anything of their shared history, in fact, other than the incredibly disconcerting resemblance to a man that Thor would never trust in a million years, and he can't tell if it's that or simple jealousy that makes him bristle at the liberties that Ian is taking with Loki's person.

Even so, he knows he should be grateful that someone else is here - that someone else cares about Loki - but it is difficult not to see this stranger as an interloper, someone whose history with Loki pales in comparison against centuries of brotherhood. But Loki wants him here, that much is clear, and Thor bites down on the harsh words that want to spring from his mouth. The storm he's called above the cottage has not abated, and a long, slow roll of thunder rumbles overhead toward the horizon. "He won't touch you ever again," Thor says, his voice as low and wild as the thunder, even as his hands tremble at the thought of facing Thanos a fourth time.

But he would do it, if the Mad Titan came for Loki. Thor would rather die than watch that happen again.

He's going to pay for this later. He knows that already. He'd been doing so well - still nightmares every night, but hazier ones, or so familiar that he knows how to brush aside the horrors in his waking hours, and it's been maybe two weeks since his last serious panic attack - but tonight's nightmares are going to be especially vivid ones, of that Thor has little doubt. But he has built himself up enough that he can face it without crumbling at the first breath of wind, fragile like a sapling in a storm, tested against strong gusts that may shake it to its roots or strengthen it until it can withstand even the harshest storm.

Thor sits on the other side of the bed, close enough that perhaps Loki may even feel his body heat, and runs his hands roughly through his own hair, trying to collect himself. "He won't touch you," he repeats, as much to Loki as it is to himself. What a ludicrous image he must make, sitting here in his soft cotton T-shirt and lightning bolt pajama pants, fingers tangling in his hair. Hardly the image of a king, nor a god, not even a warrior. Yet his resolve to protect his brother is no less for it.

[coldsong]

He does not deserve this attention; Loki knows it. Having them both hovering protectively by his side feels so good and yet utterly strange and wrong. Knowing that he can't help but make Thor's issues worse by exposing his own--and quite possibly Ian's, too--makes him feel small and dirty and sharp, like a used needle. But they're not going anywhere. It's his prerogative to be selfish, isn't it? If he's stuck being what he is anyway. Yes.

Ian's voice is nice. He'll have to mention later how much he likes it. Same vocal cords as the Grandmaster, maybe, but he uses them differently. Smoother, lower, sometimes a purr. He pulls his hand closer and kisses the back lightly, then lets his own arm go slack, just holding the clasp loosely.

Even that is a sign of improvement. The reality of people he can trust surrounding him doesn't entirely mask the trauma bubbling up, but it's a vital counterpoint.

Meanwhile, Thor's determination to protect him from Thanos is heartening. For the first time, though, Loki finds himself picturing the scene of his own demise from his brother's perspective, and it's awful. Having watched Harley's struggle and thought she was dead--Norns, if that has him so unbalanced, imagine poor Thor.

"I didn't realize," he says distinctly to his brother, and grips his forearm. But he doesn't clarify what he didn't realize, merely adds: "I'm here."

He's here. Not dying, not being tortured, not killing the innocent, not watching the innocent being slaughtered. And if the Mind Stone still whispers to him, at least she is a long distance away and no longer under Thanos' control. There's a lull of quiet for just a moment, then, and the sound of thunder and rain lashing the roof filters in through the white noise of his own mind.

"That's nice," he says. "The thunder."

He takes a deep breath, shivers, calms, and looks over at Ian. "That's Thor doing that, you know. I know you don't exactly believe in gods, but he does call the storm. I used to be afraid of it, but not now. Not any longer."

Absurdly, as if his brain has latched onto the distraction of having the two of them there, he squeezes Thor's arm, hand shaking, but there's a lighter look in his eyes for the moment. "Ian studies chaos," he tells him. "He's brilliant. And our children play together."

There. That's everything you need to know about one another, right? Right.

[malcolmeffect]

Ian didn't know who they were talking about staying away from Loki, however, he knew someone had destroyed half of all life. There had to be dangerous things for him to face, death at least, and Ian had thought dinosaurs were bad. He might have gone down a dark mental path with these thoughts, but the kiss to his hand distracts him in time. It seems that Loki has some grasp on reality and his own thoughts. That is good. Ian was already evaluating Loki's mental state. Malcolm wasn't a doctor, but he'd been through a breakdown, more than once, enough to know the good and bad signs.

The mention of thunder clears Ian's mind, if only a small percentage. A smile and a snorted laugh follows the explanation. He knows Loki's heard that laugh brought on by finding yet another shared fear or trauma. It's only now that he realizes Loki didn't know the details about the Rex attack, the thunder and rain. Now isn't the time for these discussion. Not now, but maybe sometime over his stay which he can now see will be a long one, if Loki is anything like he was.

The discussion, or rather Loki addressing them both, finally brings back the idea there is another person in the room. Thor receives a critical look as he studies him. The attire really isn't a surprise. How many times had someone come to his aid without time to prepare for him or visitors?

His mind on the children he gives Loki's hand a squeeze. "You know... I had to bribe Kelly or ..uh.. she would be here too."