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Chapter Text

When night falls on Asgard, and Loki makes his way to his rooms and slips between the cool sheets of his bed, he does not dream.  That’s not to say his sleep is calm and empty, for it isn’t.  Instead, he suffers nightmares.  And it’s the same thing each and every night.

Nightmares where he wears a different form, the form of a monster, with blue skin, red eyes and strange lines that run across his body.  Nightmares where his home is not the gentle and beautiful Asgard, but a wild, desolate place, cold and barren, empty of all beauty.  Nightmares where his family, his father, his mother, his brother, are nowhere to be found, and instead there are only other monsters, who torment him endlessly.

Loki spends these nights desperately searching for a way out, for some way to end the strange, bewildering, frightening things his mind conjures up.  He doesn’t know why his mind persists in inflicting these cruelties on him night after night.  It makes no sense.  He enjoys nothing about it, wants nothing more than for them to stop.  But they never do.  For all of his life, as far back as he can remember, this has been his reality every time he lays his head down.

He thinks, sometimes, of going to his parents, of asking them to help him end this, but he never does.  Something stops him each and every time he tries.  And he wants to tell Thor.  But his brother has been so distant lately, like he’s across a chasm that grows wider with each passing day and Loki doesn’t know how to cross it, or even call out to him.

A voice inside tells him that he is on his own, that if he wants the nightmares to end, it’s up to him to find the way.  So each night, he tries again, searching through the twisted maze of his mind as if it were an actual labyrinth, knowing that some where there must be an exit, and that he will find it.

Thor has always wanted a brother.  He’s watched his friends play with their siblings and longed for the same kind of bond, the same kind of connection that he sees with them.  He likes his friends, but he knows that it’s not the same thing.

So he creates one, in his mind,  an imaginary friend to play the role of brother in place of a real one.  It is surprisingly easy to picture such a boy, to give him the name that springs readily to his mind, to envision what he looks and acts like.  He becomes so real to Thor that there are times that Thor forgets and starts to believe the small, dark-haired boy really exists.  He hears the laughter, sees the sparkle of mischief in green eyes, and it isn’t until someone invariably asks who he’s talking to that Thor remembers that no one else can see Loki.  That he isn’t real.

When he was young, he talked about his friend to his parents sometimes, and they indulged him with questions about what the pair did.  But as Thor grew older, he would see the small frowns and knew that he was past the age when a boy should have an imaginary brother.  So he stops talking about Loki.  But that didn’t mean he stops talking to Loki, or listening when Loki talks to him.

And it’s odd, but Loki seems to age with him.  He doesn’t remain the same young boy that Thor first conceived of.  He’s smaller than Thor in stature, but he does grow, getting taller, his face maturing, his language and knowledge expanding.  He also seems to grow sadder and lonelier as the years go by, as Thor has less time and less inclination to spend it with him.  It makes Thor feel guilty, and then absurd for feeling that way because Loki isn’t real.

He has to keep telling himself that, though, every time he sees the sad green eyes.  Loki isn’t real.

Loki’s desperation grows with each passing night, until he’s truly scared.  He’s trapped, again, in another nightmare, only lately they’ve taken a truly ugly, terrifying turn.  He huddles in a dark corner, pressing a hand to his bleeding mouth.  It’s not real, he tells himself, over and over.  It’s not real.  But no matter how many times he says it, it doesn’t staunch the bleeding or lessen the pain.  The monsters that inhabit this dark place are no longer content to simply shout at him at him and curse him.  They now warn him in growls to stay away, and should they catch him anywhere they decide he’s not to be, they attack.

The small voice in Loki’s mind tells him dreams aren’t actually supposed to hurt, and that if they do, something is very, very wrong.  But he shoves it brutally down because it isn’t helping.  There is a way out, and he thinks he’s very close to finding it.  And when he does, this will all be over and he will never have to suffer through a single one of these nightmares ever again.

When he does find his way out a few weeks later, it seems almost absurdly easy, and he laughs as the cold empty world of his nightmares disappears around him and he steps out into the warm, golden halls of the palace.  Loki’s a little startled to find himself in the hallway, however, and wonders if he’s taken to sleepwalking during his nightmares.  That might explain why he wakes so tired sometimes.

He’s tired now, and sets out along the hall to his rooms, wanting nothing more than to sleep and see if for the first time he can do so without the ever present nightmares.

But a dark flash in the gleaming walls stops him, and he turns to look into a section polished to nearly mirror brightness.  He lets out a horrified cry when he does, for instead of the familiar face he should be wearing, he still bears the monstrous form from his nightmares.  This has never happened before.  The two worlds, waking and sleeping, have never mixed like this before.  Loki digs his hands into his face, clawing at his skin, trying to find himself beneath the hated blue.  He doesn’t know if he’s still trapped or if something has gone wrong and his dreams have spilled out to contaminate his waking reality.

There is a startled gasp, and Loki whirls, tense with fear.  It is only Thor, however, and Loki relaxes.  He holds out a hand to his brother, distraught, asking for help.  But Thor’s faces twists with…shock and…disgust?  He claws at his side for his sword, brandishes it at Loki and charges toward him.

Eyes wide, fear racing through him, Loki backs up.  He doesn’t know why his brother is attacking him and he panics.  He trips over his own feet, falling to the floor.  Throwing his arms up, he flinches away and cries out, “Thor, no!”  The boots thudding heavily on the marble floor stutter for a second and then continue as if Loki had never spoken, and Loki waits for the bite of steel in his flesh.

The strangled cry sends Thor hurrying through the palace, trying to find the source.  It had been just a little too odd, a little too strange and out of place for him to ignore.  Not the simple cry of pain from a fall or one of surprise or shock, but more akin to the sound a wounded animal might make.  There was something unnerving about it and he will not rest until he discovers the source.

Of all the things he expects to find, a small jotun, staring into one of the polished walls had not been it.  He gasps at the sight of the monster, of one of Asgard’s enemies standing brazenly in the palace, and then immediately curses himself for a fool when it turns.  It seems just as shocked to see him, and in that brief moment, Thor thinks he possibly sees fear etched upon those alien features.

There is also a quicksilver shock of familiarity when the jotun looks at him, as if Thor knows its face, but it fades just as quickly because the thought that slams through his mind is that there is a jotun in the palace.  He goes for his sword and attacks before the monster can, determined to end the threat before it begins.

But instead of meeting his charge, the monster recoils, moves back and falls to the floor, cringing.  The behavior gives Thor pause as he runs, but it is what the jotun says that actually makes him stop for a moment.

“Thor, no!”

How does it know his name?  And why does it think its appeal will stop him?  But he falters for just a moment, his steps slowing, and those few precious seconds are enough for Odin to arrive.

“Stay your hand!” he booms, and Thor obeys instantly.  Within moments, there are guards in the hall, grabbing at the jotun with gauntleted hands while Odin directs them to bring it to the dungeons.  Of course, Thor realizes.  His father will want to question the creature, see how it breached Asgard’s defenses.  He sheathes his sword with a bit of embarrassment at his rashness.

In the grip of the guards, the jotun twists and fights, crying out for them to stop.  That they’re hurting it.  Why are they doing this?  Thor, please help!  Father, stop them!

This time, Thor sees his shock mirrored in his father’s face, though Odin is quick to mask it, and the guards hurry away, bearing their struggling burden, and soon the halls are quiet and silent once again.  Odin gives his son a long look, claps a hand on his shoulder, and tells Thor he has done well.

Loki clings to the bars of his cell, curled on the floor, pleading in a voice that has long hoarse for someone to explain to him what is going on.  He has been questioned repeatedly, endless questions of who he is, what his purpose is, how did he get in?  And no matter how many times he replies that he was just trying to get home, that he doesn’t know what went wrong, it’s clear they don’t believe him.  He asks to speak with his family, to be given a chance too explain to his parents, but he is always denied, the guards not even bothering to say no, simply ignoring him.

He no longer thinks this is a nightmare.  It has gone on too long, it too strange and feels too real to be one of the nightmares he’s accustomed to.  Something has gone very, very wrong, and he doesn’t know how to fix it, though he longs to with every fiber of his being.

He’s on the floor of his cell, arms wrapped around the iron bars, food the guards had brought earlier resting untouched next to him, when Thor cautiously comes into view.  Loki lifts his head and immediately reaches for his brother, a wordless whimper of a plea torn from his throat.  But Thor recoils, backs away from him, and Loki lets his arm fall, his eyes burning as despair fill him.

“How do you know my name?” Thor asks.

Loki gapes at him in disbelief.  “How do I know your name?  Thor, it’s me!  Loki.  Your brother!”

Whatever he has said upsets Thor badly.  His brother retreats until his back hits the wall across from the cell.  “How do you know that name?!” he demands.  “Who told you about Loki?”

Confused, Loki’s face contorts into a deep frown.  “I am Loki,” he says.

“No, you’re not!” Thor spits.  “You’re not because Loki isn’t real!  Answer me now, creature!”

But Loki cannot answer.  There is no answer for him to give, not when his brother doesn’t know him, not when he treats Loki like the monsters they’ve spent their childhoods pretending to fight.

He lets his arm fall and pulls it close to his body.  He curls in on himself, moving to the back of the empty cell, away from the utter confusion that is the world beyond the bars.

Wake up, he tells himself.  Wake up!

Thor goes to his parents, shaken and upset, and asks what is to become of the jotun in the dungeon.  Odin and Frigga exchange a long look, and Odin says that once they are sure he knows nothing else, he will be executed.  It’s too risky to leave him a prisoner within their halls.

And then Frigga asks him why he wants to know.

After only a moment of doubt and indecision, Thor begins to speak, rapidly, telling them of the imaginary brother he had as a child, the one he played with constantly.  The one whose name the jotun knows and claims to be.  And, Thor, confesses in a terrified rush, despite the blue skin and red eyes, the jotun seems familiar to him, and that if he only had pale skin and green eyes, Thor would swear that he is Loki.

Now his parents share a troubled look, and Odin nods to his wife.  She sits Thor down and questions him gently, asking him many, many questions about Loki.  It goes on for a long time, Thor dredging up every memory he has of the imaginary boy, and he is shocked to realize just how much of his life has been spent with a figment of his imagination.  And stunned to realize that he seems to have created something far more complete than he ever thought possible, for now that he thinks about it, Loki has always had his own thoughts and ideas that Thor would never have come up with on his own.

Eventually, the questions peter out, and his parents send him back to his room to rest.  They tell him to not worry about anything for now, and that they will get to the bottom of this mystery.

Light footsteps on the stone alert Loki to that fact that someone else is approaching, but he stays huddled in the ball he has curled himself into in the corner of the cell.  The footsteps stop outside the bar, and there is a rustling of fabric.  A light perfume reaches him, like flowers and sunlight, and Loki knows it.

He lifts his head cautiously, peering out between his arms at the figured seated on the floor, just on the other side of the bars.  “Mother.”

Frigga does not recoil like Thor.  Instead, she looks at him with gentle, sad eyes and beckons him forward with a wordless gesture of her hand.  Slowly, hesitantly, Loki slides across the floor until he’s pressed against the iron bars.  He reaches for her and she takes his hand in her own slim, leather clad ones. She simply holds his hand between her own, but it is enough to reduce Loki to tears.  His mother shushes him, stroking and squeezing his hand, and then she quietly begins to ask him questions.

Everything comes pouring out of him in a torrent, frantic explanations and desperate pleas all mixed in stream of near-babbling and tears.  Frigga listens patiently, picking apart his words to pull the sense out of them.  When Loki finishes, he is exhausted, and his mother encourages him to eat.  He stares at the bread and cheese with disinterest, but eats for the smile it brings to her face.  While he does, she speaks quietly to a guard, and a few minutes later he returns holding pillows and blankets.  The guard pushes them through the bars of the cell and Loki takes them gratefully.  He is not cold, exactly, in the cell, but there is no bed and it hurts to sleep on the bare floor.

Then his mother tells him to sleep, not to worry, and that this will only be for a little while longer.  Then she rises, and leaves him alone.

Thor listens to his mother explain what she has learned.  It seems impossible, but Frigga believes what the jotun has said, and he can see that his father believes his mother.  It makes no sense to him, and he demands to know how this is possible, how something that was never real can suddenly take form, even if the form is wrong.

Carefully, she explains that Loki was always real, that he was always a jotun.  The best explanation she and Odin can find is that somehow in Loki’s attempts to flee his harsh life on Jotunheim, a part of his mind—or perhaps his soul—found a way through and wandered until it found something to latch on to: Thor.  Perhaps Loki was drawn by Thor’s desire for a brother, or perhaps Thor’s desire came from sensing Loki was there.  There is no way to know now, and whatever the reason, what Thor and Loki experienced was very real.  They share memories that only the two of them would know, and through Thor, Loki came to believe he was really Aesir and not jotun, that his home was Asgard, not Jotunheim.  His real life, the one spent among the jotnar, he believes are only nightmares, and that his dreams of Asgard are what his life has really been.  And that he truly believes Odin, Frigga and Thor are his family.

And he loves them.

“Is he insane?” Thor asks.

“No,” Frigga says gently.  “Lonely, scared, confused, yes.  But not insane.  All he wants is for things to go back to the way he thinks they’re supposed to be.”

“So…what do we do with him?”

Odin sighs heavily.  “What can we do?  Whatever he believes, he is a jotun.  He cannot stay and we cannot allow him to return to Jotunheim with what he knows.”

Frigga looks at him with reproach.  “You would kill him for the crime of being a victim?  For simply wanting to escape his tormenters?  He’s barely more than a child, not even as old as our own son.”

“What would you have me do?” he asks.  She says nothing, just looks at him, and understanding dawns.  “You want him to stay,” he says slowly.  “You think we should indulge this fantasy he has.”

“What is the harm?”

“He’s a jotun!” Thor protests.  “It’s not like we can hide that!”  But secretly, his heart leaps at the thought.  He doesn’t know the jotun prisoner, but he knows Loki, and if they are the same, then he wants the chance to see what life would be like with him in it.

“Your father’s magic can hide his jotun form,” Frigga replied calmly.  “And we can simply claim he is the child of an old friend, who suffered the loss of his family and some terrible trauma.  Loki is not stupid.  I do not think the pretense would be hard for him to maintain.”

“This is a bad idea,” Odin warns.

“What if it was Thor?” Frigga counters.  “Would you not want him given the chance?”

His father throws up his hands.  “Fine, then we shall try, though I doubt it will come to any good end.  I have no desire to kill an innocent, but I must weight the needs of the many against the needs of the few.  I warn you, though, at the first sign of any hostility, this will end.”

Frigga smiled sweetly.  “I understand, husband.  But I think you worry too much.  Now, I have much to explain to Loki.”

This time, when Loki hears the footsteps, he goes to the bars to meet Frigga.  She sits them down again, and gently explains to him what has happened.  Loki doesn’t want to believe her, doesn’t want to believe that he has never lived this life he knows so well, but he cannot deny the ring of truth in her words.

He is terrified, though, of returning to his nightmares, so he does his best to understand, and…accept what she says.  If this is the only way he can remain in his home, then he will take it.  When they are done talking, she leads him out of the dungeon and through empty hallways until they reach a small room.  Only Odin and Thor are inside, and he cringes at the blank expressions on their faces.

Odin steps forward and raises his hand.  Loki feels the brush of seidr along with the touch of Odin’s fingers across his cheek.  His skin tingles and when he looks down, the blue bleeds from his skin, replaced the paleness he knows so well.

Loki looks up, his heart feeling like it will burst with happiness and catches the shock of recognition on Thor’s face, blue eyes blown open wide.  He smiles shyly and is rewarded with a tentative smile from his brother.  He steps forward, as does Thor, and their hands meet.

Chapter Text

And all the ways it could have ended….

He tries.

He tries so hard.

But no matter what Loki does, he can’t find the way out. Sometimes the answer seems to slip through his hands, ephemeral and just out of reach, and no matter what he does, he can’t quite grasp it.

It gets harder and harder each time he sleeps to wake in the morning, until Asgard begins to seem like a dream and his nightmares his reality. He weeps at the loss, feeling the despair fill him. He needs to wake, he cannot endure these unending nightmares if he never wakes and can never remind himself what is real.

The monsters around Loki grow ever more cruel, ever more hurtful, and he escapes them be fleeing out into the white emptiness. It’s terribly lonely out here, and he knows that if he doesn’t go back, he will never find the key to escaping his nightmares. But it’s also peaceful. As long as he stays here, the monsters can’t find him, can’t hurt him.

Eventually, he stumbles into a small ice cave and curls up into a ball, out of the cutting wind. He wants to go home so badly, but he’s too tired to try right now. Maybe later, after he’s had a chance to rest, he’ll go back and try again.

He just needs to sleep first.

Who knows? Maybe if he sleeps while he dreams, he’ll wake up.

Loki can’t get away. He thrashes against the monsters that hold him, that beat and stab at him with blades made of ice and their own flesh. Panicked, he reaches for his magic, but it responds fitfully as it always does in his nightmares. The monsters laugh and Loki hears the cruel snarls of weak and freak and runt.

His blood is oddly warm on his skin as it runs down to freeze on the ice, and Loki sees a glimmer of gold, and a flash of surprised blue eyes as his vision darkens.

The strangled cry sends Thor hurrying through the palace, trying to find the source. It had been just a little too odd, a little too strange and out of place for him to ignore. Not the simple cry of pain from a fall or one of surprise or shock, but more akin to the sound a wounded animal might make. There was something unnerving about it and he will not rest until he discovers the source.

Of all the things he expects to find, a small jotun, staring into one of the polished walls had not been it. He gasps at the sight of the monster, of one of Asgard’s enemies standing brazenly in the palace, and then immediately curses himself for a fool when it turns. It seems just as shocked to see him, and in that brief moment, Thor thinks he possibly sees fear etched upon those alien features.

There is also a quicksilver shock of familiarity when the jotun looks at him, as if Thor knows its face, but it fades just as quickly because the thought that slams through his mind is that there is a jotun in the palace. He goes for his sword and attacks before the monster can, determined to end the threat before it even begins.

“Thor, no!”

How does it know his name? And why does it think its appeal will stop him? He doesn’t let himself hesitate, though, and charges forward, his blade sliding through the thin chest with almost no resistance. The jotun didn’t even try to defend itself, and Thor sees the shock he feels reflected in the creature’s eyes. And then, with a soft slide, the jotun sags to its knees, off Thor’s blade to crumple on the floor.

His father and the palace guards find him minutes later, still standing over the body. Odin checks the body, almost perfunctorily, before getting to his feet and clapping a heavy hand on Thor’s shoulder. The guards immediately begin to clear the body away, and Odin guides Thor down the hall.

“You did very well, my son,” Odin says proudly and Thor feels his chest swell with pride. Later that night, there are toasts made to Thor, and in the face of such approval, the memory of red eyes, filled with shock and hurt, is erased entirely.

“So what will be done with him?”

Odin shrugs at his son. “What can we do? The poor thing is crazy, out of his mind. He’s a danger to everyone around him. And we can’t send him back, not with what he knows about Asgard.”

“Execution then?” Thor asks.

“Yes,” his father replies. “In the morning. Not public, though. No one outside the palace knows he’s here, and making it a public spectacle would be unnecessarily cruel.” Odin gives his son an appraising look. “Will you attend?”

Thor considers for a moment, and the nods. “I will. It’s my duty, as a prince as Asgard.”

Odin smiles. “You will be a good king someday, Thor.”

The next morning, Thor is standing beside his father in a small yard as dawn brightens the horizon. Except for the guards, they are the only ones there. Within moments, the jotun is brought outside, dragged between two guards. He’s not fighting or resisting, just completely limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. Thor feels a pang of guilt as the jotun twists his head to look at him, cheeks wet with tears.

The jotun keeps looking at them—well, at him—as the guards manhandle him over the block and set him on his knees before it. He doesn’t resist, doesn’t utter a word as they press him down until his neck is lying on the cold stone. Thor expects to see fear in the jotun’s red eyes, but he sees something else instead—grief, grief and such pain that it steals Thor’s breath. He wonders why he feels that way, and for a brief moment, he wonders if there’s a way to save this poor, broken, pitiful creature from its fate.

But then the executioner is stepping up, and when Odin nods, his lifts his axe, the heavy, newly sharpened blade glinting for a moment in the weak sunlight before cutting through the air with a sharp whistle that ends in a meaty, wet thud.

Thor swallows heavily, and it immensely grateful when his father turns to leave immediately and he can follow.

The jotun never stopped looking at him.

There is a commotion—shouts and yells and a faint rumbling of the ice walls—and it draws Loki’s attention. Carefully, he skulks around in the shadowed edges of his nightmare world that he knows so very, very well by now until he finds the source, and when he does, he nearly laughs with joy.

In all his attempts to free himself, he never once imagined that Thor would come for him. But there he was, his brother, standing with his friends—Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun and Sif—engaged in battle with the monsters that torment Loki. He hadn’t yet had a chance to see Thor in battle, and the sight is magnificent as he bats the monsters away like annoying flies with his hammer.

Loki waits until there’s an opening, and darts out, intent on reaching his brother’s side and helping, nearly delirious with relief that help has arrived and that he will never have to spent another moment in this hated place.

He’s almost reached his brother when Hogun whirls and shouts, “Thor!” and pointing in Loki’s direction. Thor turns and smiles, and Loki lifts a hand, a smile spread wide across his face.

In the next moment, Thor’s hammer is crashing into his chest and Loki is swept off his feet and sent hurtling backward with the force of the blow. He feels his ribs break and cave, feels blood bubble up in his throat, feels pain so intense that his mind can’t handle it and then suddenly he’s left numb.

He lands hard on the ice, but there’s nothing he can do. From the corner of his eye, he sees his blue arms sprawled out beside him, and knows what has happened.

Thor didn’t know it was him. He didn’t come to rescue him. His brother looked and saw only the enemy.

His own brother has killed him.

In the distance, he hears Thor laugh, the whir of his hammer a faint buzzing as he takes down another monster.