Drowning The Stars
I.
Thor is all bronze and gold.
He is standing in the alley way and the sun is gleaming on his skin. His armour is glistening and reflects the warm light of the Midgardian sun. Birds are twittering in the trees and a church bell rings in the distance.
It could have been a peaceful picture, but it is not.
Thor's fingers clutch around Mjölnir and his lips are pressed against each other in wrath.
And Loki knows Thor's heart is aching.
The shadows conceal him, hide him from Thor's and everyone else's eyes.
Nevertheless his brother knows he's there. Watching him.
“At last - at last have the courage to show yourself,” his brother says.
And oh, his voice trembles. It is tempting. But Loki stays silent.
“Why do you hide, brother?” It is still brother, then? After all this.
“Why did you do it? Why do you do these things, at all? How can you be so cruel?”
Loki drinks the pain in Thor's voice with pleasure.
“Let me tell you thus, brother,” Loki says and steps out of the shadows behind Thor.
Thor turns around.
“I killed Jane Foster's aunt because it was …” Thor looks at him with wide red-rimmed eyes.
“… because it was quite delightful to hear her cry Jane's name. Poor desolate thing she was. Does Jane yet know it was your brother who killed her aunt, her only family?”
“Loki!” Thor screams as he flings Mjölnir. The hammer crashes Loki's illusion and Loki laughs, high and loud.
“Oh come on, brother.”
Then Thor turns around all of a sudden and his hand is on Loki's throat, squeezing hard and pushing him to the wall of a wooden blue box that hadn't been there a second ago.
“You will regret this, Loki. You cannot do and kill as you please. Not ever again.”
“Well, you better show me someone who can stop me, then. Because you certainly can't.”
“I do love you, brother, but you can't be allowed to continue. I will stop your madness.”
Then Thor does something he hasn't foretold.
He does not beat him. He does not let him go. He does not hug him or whisper words of love and care.
All he does, is pushing him through the wooden door that is opening behind his back.
Thor is all bronze-pain and golden-sorrow and his lips are warm from sunshine as they touch his forehead.
The door closes behind Thor's back. Then there is darkness.
ஓ
They are in a city. He knows because he recognises the smell. It's awful: stupidity and chaos pollute the air. Though there is something faint and fragile he can't quite identify.
His neck is burning and feels heavy. Loki ignores it.
“Very well,” he says, “and how exactly will this stop me killing instead of giving me even more opportunities to do so?,” he asks softly in the darkness. Thor sucks in air.
Stupidity and chaos, Loki thinks. Thor stays quiet for a long time. The darkness stretches around him and somehow Loki can't move. This is no absence-of-light darkness. This is magic.
Eventually Thor speaks: “I am sorry, brother.”
ஓ
“Oh hell-o, very nice to meet you,” says a high-pitched, gleeful voice.
Slowly he opens his eyes and looks into a face too close to his own. A smile that crinkles the skin at the corner of his mouth just a bit, but eyes, eyes old and ancient. Old in way Loki has never felt, never through all the centuries. Stories and so, so many lives smouldering inside the green-grey eyes.
“Your brother told me all about you. Good manners but bad behaviour. Lots of lies. Said you need a therapy - well he said, you are a murderer and deserve punishment. Re-education and this kind of things. And ah.” He stops and looks at him with mirth, his smile spreading a bit wider so his teeth show. “Believe me, everyone who has met me is either dead or became some sort of a good person.” He doesn't say it like a thread. But it is one. “By the way. My name is the Doctor.”
The man takes a step back. He wears an old tweet jacket and a ridiculous bow-tie. Then Loki recognises he isn't a man at all. A god neither. And not from any of Yggdrasil's worlds.
“Currently your brother is away shopping for dinner -”
“Who are you?,” Loki asks with a rouge, brittle voice. He still can't move, but now that the - the Doctor has moved further away he can see that he is in a little room full with papers, strange metal devices and food leftovers. He is sitting on a couch.
“The Doctor. Just call me the Doctor,” says the Doctor.
“What -?” He stops.
The next moment he hears roaring laughter from behind. With heavy steps Thor comes inside. In his hair pearls of water, his boots leaving dirty footprints on the floor.
“You made him speechless!” Thor cries out as if it is some kind of miracle. Well.
“This, brother, is the God of Medicine. He is from another universe, one parallel to ours - at least that's what he said. He was the only one I could ask for help.”
“And how could I refuse that?” the Doctor says still this smile on his lips.
“Bloody hell,” he hears another new voice. A mortal in his mid-thirties and with short military haircut steps inside the room. He has an umbrella, but nonetheless is dripping wet.
“Doctor, who are those? Are we giving a bloody costume party or what? Has Mycroft to do with this? I bet he's trying a new method to -”
“Shhht,” makes the Doctor and the man shuts his mouth immediately. Outside the window a flash of lightening crawls over the pitch-black sky.
“If I may introduce: This here on the couch is Loki Laufeyson, God of Mischief and this one with the plastic bags with your dinner inside is Thor Odinson, God of Thunder.”
“Oh,” says the man and: “Sherlock will love this.”
ஓ
The man and the Doctor are not there. He doesn't know where they've gone to.
He is alone with Thor and his brother has not spoken a word since. His laughter faded. In his face he can read all the pain he is the cause of.
It takes effort to stand up. He feels tired and he doesn't know why. His neck is still burning.
He wants to say something, wants to speak words of mockery and malice.
The magic in his mind, in his blood and bones is heavy and pulls him down. Loki can't stand for more than a minute until his knees hit the floor. Humiliation shudders through him like poison in his veins. He grits his teeth. His brother watches him with worry. It makes him angry. And the more angry he gets, the heavier his limbs feel.
This is ridiculous.
He tries to stand up once more. Thor watches him and catches him as he falls. Inside he is screaming. Thor says nothing.
Loki hasn't spoken a word since the Doctor introduced himself, but in his mind there are spells and words full of spite. He cannot speak them.
What the hell did they do? How did they bind his powers?
“Loki,” Thor says leaning over him. Behind his miserable mask of nonchalance he can see the hurt and anger. A smile creeps over Loki's lips.
“This is for your best. Our all best,” says Thor. And after a while: “Do not hate me more than you already do.”
Loki doesn't answer.
“I cannot keep you company any longer, brother. Farewell.”
Then Thor goes. Leaving him alone. Alone in a universe strange to him.
This, at last, is a feeling he knows. It hurts nonetheless.
ஓ
“He's done terrible things,” says the Doctor blinking down at Loki, poking him with his index finger on the forhead.
“Interesting,” says the man called Sherlock Holmes.
He doesn't know what he expected. But surely not this: Ignorance.
So Loki watches them. Listens to them when they think him asleep.
Still the wrath is burning its path through him, still he can hardly move.
The one mortal - John Watson - is annoying. The other mortal - Sherlock Holmes - is even worse. He is more arrogant than Thor, but without his warmth and beauty. Sherlock Holmes has a sharp intellect, sharper than all of Asgard's warrior's and most of its wise men's.
Which makes it difficult to come up with a plan to trick them.
Most of the time the Doctor is not present. But he has an even sharper mind than Sherlock. His eyes are still puzzling Loki.
He must be a mighty sorcerer. But why has he never heard of him when Thor has?
It's tiring him. When sleep comes he welcomes it with open arms.
“I'll explain to you your brother's ways,” says the Doctor. “He begged for my help so I brought you here where magic works differently than in the universe you know”- so it does work here.
“and where the only man lives clever enough to keep you here”- and there is a way to get back. Well that's good news.
The Doctor smiles. “- Until I will decide you have learned your lesson you will keep this,” he points to a fragile silver necklace that is barely lurking through his dark-green scarf and the black shirt Loki is wearing.
He hadn't noticed it until now. How could that be?
“It binds your dark magic. And as long as you feel wrath it will make it impossible to act on your thoughts, to act at all. Think of it as an alarm system. It's a gift from an old friend from - but well that hardly matters to you.” And that is that.
The sun rises and the sun sets and he does nothing else than lying on this cursed couch, listening and burning with wrath. He can barely move. Just as the Doctor said, but his pride and anger are too strong to be controlled now. Now that Thor has abandoned and humiliated him. One again.
First Sherlock seemed to be interested, but when he didn't answer questions, didn't move nor do anything at all, Sherlock lost interest rather quickly, muttering about the Doctor using them as a hotel for boring aliens. So Watson and Sherlock ignore him most of the time. Sherlock shouts at Watson, Watson comes and goes again, they drink tea and go out to hunt criminals. Sometimes Sherlock shoots the wall.
He is a god, rightfully a king of gods and these mortals have lost bloody interest in him. If he will lift from this couch ever he will tear Thor and the bloody Doctor into shreds. Very slowly. With his teeth.
It's been three days and nothing has changed when Loki decides to act. At last it's a question of will.
He abandons every wrath to a place deep inside his mind. Locks it there. It takes time and all his will power to build a prison for his anger inside his mind, but finally he succeeds.
And suddenly he feels light.
Loki stands in the kitchen and looks at an experiment from Sherlock when the door opens and Watson comes in.
“What the- where are -?”
“In here,” Loki calls softly, voice low.
“How did you-?”
“Oh please. I am a god. Now tell me John Watson … what would you like for dinner?”
“I'm surely not going to-“
“You stood up,” says Sherlock stepping into the kitchen behind Watson. “Well done. Though I thought you would need less time to control your feelings according to all the things Thor told me about you.”
“Thor was never good at calculating things,” Loki whispers with a slim smile.
“You murdered the aunt of his girlfriend,” Watson says bluntly. Loki looks at him in dismay. He frowns but he keeps the smile on his lips.
“We all have our little pleasures in life, don't we?”
“You call it- this was murder, actual murder!”
“Oh, come on, John, we knew that already.” Sherlock's eyes seem to gleam.
And Loki thinks: Ah, there is darkness inside his heart.
“Indeed. Now, I presume you have your plans with me, Sherlock Holmes. Tell me everything.” Loki's voice is soft and he watches how it pours a gloomy interest into Sherlock's mind.
“There is something you have to do for me. Meet someone. A man. He is called-
“-he is called James Moriarty. Though, he isn't a man at all. He's intelligent, he's a spider and most he is bored. But he's not like any other human.”
“This is a lie,” Loki whispers, his smile spreads wider. Now Sherlock smiles, too.
And John Watson slowly touches Sherlock's arm. He wants to warn him, this stupid mortal. As if he doesn't know the risk he's taking with Loki.
“You seem very much the same kind.” Sherlock doesn't reply and neither does he need to.
Sherlock Holmes is not a stupid man. But he loves danger and dangerous people.
Maybe, Loki thinks, The Doctor has made a mistake.
He learns the rules of this world fast. So he leans closer to Sherlock and asks: “What would you want me to do when I meet James Moriarty?”
ஓ
It's easy to tell that Sherlock doesn't trust him, at last he has every reason not to.
It doesn't seem to stop him letting Loki off his leash.
His forth day in this universe begins and slowly Loki takes a hold. He is walking over Oxford Street with a thousand other people. They twitter like birds and chat sweetly. Oh, how he despises this lot.
But it's the first moment he has time on his own, away from Sherlock and the Doctor. Time to think.
Thor might want to take him to Asgard again, but it might also all be in the Doctor's hands alone to bring Loki back into his universe.
Either way, he doesn't like it. Being dependant.
So. James Moriarty could be a start.
He meets him at the Hyde Park. The air is hot and moist, he can smell the rain and thunder from the last night.
Moriarty's sitting on a bench and feeds little sparrows. Moriarty is not a tall nor a handsome man. But his eyes seem to be made of obsidian, filled with black and black and black.
It's time to use his silver-tongue.
“James Moriarty?” he says when he sits down next to him. Moriarty looks up and smiles gently.
“Oh,” he says in a sing-song voice, “Sherlock has sent you.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Rather. 221b Baker Street is written all over you. Though you seem … special. Pleasure to meet you.”
Loki smiles and watches Moriarty. For a while that's all they do. Observe each other. He's never done that with a mortal before.
The silver necklace around his neck is pulsating softly against his skin as if it feels what he's thinking. What kind of technology is this? Questions he cannot answer, for now.
“So,” he says, “what do we do?”
“I'd suggest dinner.” And Moriarty's smile is all teeth.
The restaurant Moriarty chooses is part of a hotel. It's private and the food tastes delicious. They are on the 19th floor and their view is all above London.
A crimson sky and clouds in flames. Red light reflected in glass and steel.
Loki finishes his Carpacio and puts fork and knife to the side. He feels strangely satisfied. After all, he has not eaten for days. Not worth saying for a god, but here everything is different.
“Well …” Moriarty glances through his glass into his eyes. For a brief moment he wonders what a human might have felt now. Then the moment passes and Loki says:
“Let's talk about business.”
“Then tell me what Sherlock sent you for.”
“Actually, when I asked him what I should do, he said … 'Oh, anything you like'.”
“That sounds like a promise,” Moriarty says.
“Maybe it was. You might as well tell me about the two of you. I'm kind of … new.” Loki smiles and takes a sip of the gin Moriarty has poured into his glass. “You are far more than enemies.”
“Oh, I like to think so,” Moriarty sing-songs and leans in closer.
“There is never such a thing as just-enemies, is there? Now, what do you do?” Loki asks.
“We're both consultants. The only of our kind. I create a problem and Sherlock solves it. Usually involves bombs or poison. We played like this a lot the last few months. It's kind of romantic.” The small man with the obsidian eyes gazes dreamily outside the window. Night falls.
Loki likes how Jim makes things sound casual. How he talks like every other mortal and yet is not one inch like one of them. In his words he tastes appetite for destruction. Boredom and intelligence and pain.
Oh, Jim tastes as sweet and fresh as raindrops on a corpse's skin.
“You know,” Jim says as they stand in front of the cab Jim ordered, “I do hope you survive. We should meet up again. Maybe soon. Loki. Such a nice name. Adieu.” With this words he gives Loki a small piece of paper and blows him a kiss. A number is written down there. And:
Give me a call, sweetheart.
xxx Jim
Then Jim is driving away while Loki watches the cab disappear in the crowd of cars.
ஓ
Thor. Were are you now?
“Sure thing. You just met James Moriarty. Consulting criminal, as he calls himself, and you had dinner with him.” Watson seems perturbed.
“Wonderful!” Sherlock shouts. “Tell me everything!”
Loki sits on the couch and looks from Sherlock to Watson and back to Sherlock. Satisfaction warm in his belly.
“Well. First of all you tell me. Who is that Doctor? And are you in touch with Thor? Did you meet either of them before?”
“Oh come on! This isn't really important now. Tell me what Moriarty said.” Loki smiles at Sherlock's impatience.
“Oh no. It is important to me. So, go on, do tell me.”
Watson sighs, then says: “The Doctor is … an alien … from the future. Kind of. He's a friend of ours since he helped us with some … inconvenience. We don't exactly stay in touch with Thor, but the Doctor gave us this mobile phone. We can ring him when we need to talk to him. But it doesn't always work. Timey-whimey stuff - as the Doctor calls it - sometimes gets in the way.”
Loki considers for a moment to steal the mobile phone. But to what avail?
“Ah. And I will no longer sleep on your little sitting-bed,” Loki says.
“Where else than on our couch are you-?”
“Certainly not in you bed, John Watson, so don't worry. I will go to a hotel. My powers might be bound in some degrees, but not in all. Money shouldn't be a problem.”
“You think we are letting you-?”
“Well. Think of it like this. I will give you the address, so you can give my address the Doctor. Needless to stay here. I may as well have my private rooms. That much should be allowed. The Doctor said therapy not imprisonment. Or are you going to deter me from it, John Watson?”
“I definitely- ”
“Leave him be, John. We will meet with him in his rooms and any evil will be noticed by the necklace.”
“Could you stop cutting my sentences?” Watson frowns.
“Very well then,” Loki says, a smile spreading on his lips. “What Jim told me was rather trivial. But he talked a lot about you Sherlock Holmes. He seems to like you very much. He described your game of hide-and-seek as … ah, yes, romantic.”
“All right,” Watson says. “I think that's enough.”
II.
He takes a cab to the West End, stops at the Green Park and walks the rest of the way to Arlington Street. Loki smiles as he looks across the busy street at the neoclassical building he is aiming for. Thick yet elegant arcades that carry a block of flats. The Ritz Hotel seems to have just the right amount of luxury for him. This proves to be true when he enters.
He might not have the power to escape this world now, but that doesn't mean he must be a prisoner.
The suite he books is decorated in gold and red and crème. It reminds him convulsively of his brother. Loki laughs rough and harsh and as he closes the door behind his back the colours change to silver, gold and green.
He wonders.
Where are you now, dear brother? Having fun with Jane Foster while I must stay here deedless?
You brought me here and I swear I will make you regret it. I hope this woman you care so much about is breaking in your arms. And if not I am going to make her break. But not in your arms.
As he feels the wrath burning inside his limbs get heavier, the necklace burns around his neck. So he pushes the anger away, again. Controls himself. Nothing can be achieved through his violent fantasies. Yet.
So he throws the simple but elegant black coat to the big bed with its silken sheets.
First he has to deal with the necklace. And he already has an idea how to do that. So he fumbles out the little piece of paper he put in his vest pocket and walks over to the phone.
“What?” snaps a familiar voice. Loki laughs.
“Not exactly as I imagined,” Loki says in a low and soft voice and slowly walks to the bathroom.
“Oh,” says the voice. “It's you.”
“Listen, Jim Moriarty.” He says Jim because he knows Jim doesn't like James. James tastes too much of childhood memories. “I have a proposal to make.”
A sharp inhale on the other side of the line.
Loki watches himself in the bathroom mirror. His skin as white as fresh snow, his shoulder-long black hair stringy and slicked back. Pale blue eyes follow every motion. Then thin lips shift cold skin to crinkle under high and sharp cheek bones.
“A very easy contract. You help me and I help you,” he says finally.
“This sounds like something I would sign. Well. Not actually sign. But! How do I know you won't just let darling Sherlock come and get me?” Jim stretches the last word in his accent.
“You don't.” Loki says and slowly unbuttons his shirt, then his trousers.
“Ah. Touché. You got me,” says Jim.
Loki smiles and lets hot water run in the marble bathtub.
“You are a diva, sweetheart. Let's meet up and have dinner again. Where are you?”
“At the Ritz. Taking a bath.”
“In one of these splendid marble bathtubs?”
“Want to join me?”
A moment there is silence. Then they both laugh.
ஓ
It is 7:37a.m. of Monday morning when a sheet of paper appears from a cloud of light grey smoke on the kitchen table at 221b Baker Street.
“What the-?” says John and looks at the paper with knitted eyebrows.
He frowns and reads the address.
“Sherlock. I think Loki just checked in to the Ritz. The bastard.”
ஓ
At 11.a.m. of Monday morning Jim Moriarty knocks on the door of his suite. He opens and smiles. Loki wears a black suit and loosely around his neck a green-grey scarf and Jim observes him seemingly appreciating. Jim returns his smile and says: “How was the bath?”
“Wonderful.”
They sit opposite to each other. Loki on an arm-chair and Jim on the couch.
“Before we come to our contract I have some questions,” Jim says. “First, where do you come from? I haven't found anything about you. Nowhere. And I'm good in tracing things back. If you want my help, you should tell me.”
“Well,” Loki says and his eyebrows knit in sudden earnest. He could tell Jim Moriarty a remarkable tale to satisfy him, use his silver tongue to create a new identity. But sometimes he doesn't use his silver tongue. Sometimes he just tells the truth.
“I come from a different world.”
The sun travels from the east to the south and Loki tells him his story. It feels strange.
Maybe he does it because he doesn't know Jim and maybe because Jim is the only creature who is that close to equal to him. He has never thought to find someone like him.
Someone with obsidian eyes in which he can see a reflection of himself.
In a way it disgusts him. To tell a mortal, a creature so weak and fragile. But Jim Moriarty is not how a human should be, of that he is sure. He finds no compassion inside his eyes. He finds no remorse.
He finds hunger.
The way Jim reacts to his descriptions of Asgard and Jotunheim and Yggdrasil's other worlds and what he tells him about the Doctor is another proof of his character.
Jim just says: “Sounds like it'd be a lot of fun to play havoc with those.”
Loki smirks. “Yes, indeed. But you see the problem lays within this necklace. It is some kind of technology that binds my powers and without them I can not return on my own.”
“So. You need to get rid of it.”
Loki nods. “But I cannot get my hands dirty.”
Jim smiles. “Don't worry. I never get my hands dirty.”
ஓ
It's Tuesday afternoon and John and Sherlock are sitting in the living-room. The air is filled with the scent of freshly brewed Earl Grey tea. Sherlock takes a sip and in exactly that moment a wheeling sound comes out of the bathroom. Something breaks.
“Oh! Sorry! I'm so sorry!” The Doctor stumbles out of the door. “I think I might just have crashed into your bathtub. I'm really sorry!”
John frowns. Sherlock raises an eyebrow.
Behind the Doctor Thor comes out of the bath. He's wearing a black suit, he's pale and has dark circles under his eyes.
“What happened?” John asks while Sherlock takes another sip of his tea.
“I crashed the TARDIS into your- ”
“No, I mean what happened to you, Thor?”
They take a seat and before he can repeat the question Sherlock says: “He's been at the funeral, don't you see, John? Black suit, mud on his shoes and trousers from the earth on the graveyard, pale face. Must've been someone he cared about or someone he cares about cared about. Who died recently? The aunt of his girlfriend of course. Still don't see why it bothers you, since you didn't know her, but OK: That's why he brought his brother who is not his brother here and why would he come here after a funeral if it wasn't connected to us in the first place? All rather obvious.”
“Sherlock,” John says.
“Yeah?”
“Timing.”
The Doctor sighs and nods while Thor looks at Sherlock with wide red-rimmed eyes and hurt and anger in his eyes.
“How do you know these things?” Thor asks.
Sherlock waves his right hand. “I've already explain-”
“Be quiet for a sec. We are here to see Loki, but he isn't here, is he?” The Doctor asks.
“No. He isn't,” John says.
Thor growls, a sound deep and threatening. “What have you done to him? Where is he?”
“He's checked out and in to the Ritz.”
“Oh! Excellent choice. One of my favourites through the decades. I once had tea there with my friend Charlie Chap- ”
“Would you all shut your mouths?” Thor rises as his voice does and stares down at them. They stare up at him.
“I'm sorry,” says the Doctor quietly.
“I need to see him,” Thor says.
“Not sure whether that's a good idea.” The Doctor bites his lip and puts a hand on Thor's shoulder.
“I must.”
“Well, then let's go!” Sherlock rises from the couch and smiles brightly.
“What we?” The Doctor lifts his eyebrows. “You mean in like you, Thor, John and I?”
“Just so.”
“Fine with me,” Thor growls.
ஓ
Loki is alone in his room and looks outside the window. He thinks of Jim Moriarty. His child-like smile and his obsidian eyes. And he tells himself it's not loneliness that made him talk. He tells himself it's because he will use him as a means to an end. And he believes himself.
The knock on the door doesn't come as a surprise. He opens the door with a snap of his fingers.
Why is it that every time he sees his brother he feels soar inside?
“Brother,” Loki says with spite and cynicism dropping from his voice. “How was the funeral?”
“LOKI!” Thor shouts and with a few steps he is only six inches away. Close enough to feel his breath on his mouth. That's before the blow strikes him down.
For a moment he considers to do nothing.
Then he jumps in a fluid motion to his feet and his dagger scratches Thor's upper arm. The necklace is burning the flesh around his neck and it's like a thousand tons of water crash down on him. It hurts like hell and he doesn't care.
“You came here to beat me, brother? Oh, I've missed that.” He sneers and takes a few steps back.
“What the hell is going on here?” That's the Doctor.
“Stop fighting!” The annoying mortal.
“Oh!” And Sherlock Holmes.
“Why? Why did you kill her? Just to spite me?” Thor steps closer. Loki purses his lips.
“I've killed for less and you know that, dear brother.”
Thor is all golden-fury and bronze-pain. That's how he loves him the most.
“Enough!” The Doctor steps between them. “Stop it, Thor. He is defenceless. Your anger is only gonna hurt him.”
Loki laughs.
“I don't want to hurt you,” Thor whispers.
“Yes you do,” Loki whispers back.
“Yes he does,” Sherlock Holmes says, eyes sharp and cold.
“Sherlock! Timing!”
“You are talking nonsense detective boy. Now listen up you lot: sit down.” The Doctors smiles and somehow - and Loki really doesn't know why - they do as the Doctor says.
He can see Thor's fingers tremble. That's why Thor tightly grips the cloth of his cape and Loki smirks knowingly.
“Well we've quite a situation here,” the Doctor says.
Sherlock Holmes observes, Watson watches, the Doctor speaks and Thor just stares at him.
He knows what is going on beneath the surface of his brother's thoughts. He is sad because of the woman, he is angry at Loki and he is angry at himself. For so many reasons.
Against his brother's believes, Loki knows that Thor loves him. It's the way he loves that makes Loki want to scream and tear everything apart. This naïve and pitying way.
That's why he killed Jane Foster's aunt. Because he knew what it would do to him.
He can see now that he was right: Thor, consumed by his mad and raging anger, and the anger eats away the pity - and that's what scares Thor so much. Because Thor doesn't know what to do and how to act when there is no pity left.
He barely listens to the carefully spoken words of the Doctor only nods from time to time. The Doctor speaks about humanity and what “marvellous creatures” they are.
He takes the time to watch Thor. His golden brother now sitting like a crumpled, dirty cape in this obscene luxury of his room. The thick blond eyebrows knitted together above once clear blue eyes. His lips a line of anguish. How wrong he looks in this black suit. How wrong he looks, wearing confusion and anger like a second skin. But this is the truth. This.
“So, Loki, that's what I think,” says the Doctor and Loki looks up. “If you get to know this gorgeous creatures when you are on the same level as them …” Loki sneers. As if he'd ever be.
“… then you might get an understanding what it means to kill one of them.”
Loki has to hold back not to break into laughter. Only Thor recognises.
And suddenly Thor stands up.
“Brother. How dare you? How dare you?” There is power in Thor's voice. There is violence.
“Ah, do you want to beat me again?”
“Children. Sit down.” The Doctor shoots them a cold look. “You two behave like 2-year-olds. Let's make this clear. We leave Loki here and Sherlock will keep an eye on him. You Thor will not under any circumstances interfere. You asked for my help, now listen to my advice. That's what we'll do. He'll learn. Eventually. And until eventually he'll stay here. Just as easy as that.” Now the Doctor smiles and somehow it makes Loki shiver. There is no thread in his tone, but he feels threatened anyway.
They leave. The room feels empty except for the silent echo of their presence.
And somehow he wishes Thor would've hit him. Hit him hard and he'd hit back. But they've fought so often and what did it change. Just piling more pain and anger and sadness - and yes, pity.
He presses his lips tightly together, his fingers clenching.
When did they stop just being brothers? But then again, they never were.
Loki laughs, it's a loud and shrill noise reverberating in the room.
TBC