Chapter - 4

Loki lit up a fag with the butt of the previous one. His hands were shaking badly. Bugger.

He should not have come tonight. First thing on the first day of therapy school: Avoid triggering situations. Well, he could think of very few situations more triggering than this one he found himself in right now.

Thor had been a selfish jerk for asking him, but Loki had been a downright moron for accepting. It would mean so much to me, Thor had said. Oh, the bastard. He wore his stupid heart on his fucking sleeve, which was a virtue, surely, but translated into never fucking thinking, never fucking stopping to consider what came out of his big dumb mouth. It would mean so much to you? What about what it would mean to me?

Ah, his oblivious, unwittingly cruel brother, marching down glory lane and trampling and crushing everything and everyone in his path, while receiving only praise and adoration in return. How must it feel to be him?

It would mean so much to me... How bloody dare he. Oh, it meant a hell of a lot to Loki too, though clearly not the same thing. It's not like he suspected that Thor had forgotten the last time they had attended an award ceremony together. Oh no, it was vastly, vastly worse than that. Of course Thor remembered, he just did not fucking care, did he? He was over it - Loki tasted bile. On Thor sailed, ravishing and radiant, and didn't even notice that his brother was staying behind, retreating more and more into the distance. Oh, Thor had not had time for this, for Loki, for years now.

But Thor was not Loki's only contentious issue tonight. So many things in Loki's mind, always, The fucking Odin Borson Award for Theatrical Achievement of the Year was one of them.

Loki had been on the phone with his mum. "I can't believe an award in my name will be going to a bloody teenage Hamlet," he had heard his father grumble in the background. If anybody asked, he would surely have said that he was joking. But Loki was not an idiot. And nobody had laughed.

Furious tears were swelling up again. He tried to push them down. One long, desperate drag. The tears receded, but the darkness didn't go anywhere. It was a special kind of darkness, Loki had met it before. He could feel his thoughts becoming darker and more obsessive by the day, spiralling ever downwards, gnawing at him relentlessly, taking one rodent-sized bite of his sanity at a time.

Ah, fool. You should not have dropped your meds.

Listen, Loki was no idiot. He knew not to screw around with this stuff. It's just, he thought that since he was now a prosperous young man on his way up, with exciting professional prospects and growing recognition for his many artistic talents, he would have enough good in his life to fend off the black thoughts all by his little old self, without the chemical crutches.

And for a few months, he had not missed his pills. He had kept busy, implemented every strategy in the book, and firmly believed he was staying strong. He was not stupid, he simply had been on the things for five years, and he had wanted to try and make do without, so sue him. Hell, he just did not want to be a lifer. Sometimes he just wanted to be normal.

Well, he sure as fuck wasn't feeling normal now.

He chain-smoked two more fags, then tried a breathing exercise he had learned in therapy. You can do this, Loki-boy. No, you can't stay out here, and you can't run away and hide under a rock. You've come all this way, come on. Don't think. Just walk. One foot in front of the other, chop-chop. That's it, Loki-boy, you're not a complete and utterly useless mess just yet, not just yet. Atta boy. - He did manage to talk himself into doing most of what had to be done. He had been told he ought to be kinder, though. I don't work like that, he would say.

*

Thor had thanked his mum and dad, the people who had voted for him, and his brother.

"For always being there for me. I love you, man."

And that was it? That was all?

'And what the hell did you expect?' said that ugly, hateful voice in Loki's head. 'Just run home, stupid little boy. Run run run.'

Loki recognised that voice for what it was. It was the sign that he needed to get back to his meds, and very fucking quickly.

*

The party at Chez Stark's was in full swing, and Thor should probably mind his drinking, but he was fucking celebrating, goddammit! He was in! King of the world! He intended to get massively pissed tonight, laugh, fuck, and make merry. He could regret his life and his choices tomorrow.

Loki had only just left.

"Oh, come on, brother!" Thor had said, words slurring. "Hasn't Coulson told you that you need to work on building up your contacts?"

"I'm tired and I want to stop seeing people," Loki had replied, irritated. "Any contacts I make tonight would not be helping my career. Or yours, for that matter."

Thor was very disappointed, and he was on his fifth glass of champagne, and his tongue was running fast and loose.

"I was looking forwards to spending some time with you, brother. All these months, me here, you in England… I miss you."

Loki looked at him with pure contempt.

"You're a slobber when you're drunk," he said, cutting. "I'll see you at mum and dad's next week."

Thor had watched him leave, so slender and graceful; his posture slowly straightened up from that artificial Hollywood slump to his true, proud aristocratic self. He was a prince among commoners, beautiful like some gems and some animals are beautiful, sharp as a razor blade. And he was walking away again, and Thor was letting him again, and some things never change, and it was all so needless and wrong, and nobody was going to do anything about it, as usual. What the hell could they do. What for.

"Hey, Thor, Variety is out!" The mousy nameless little guy who fancied himself Thor's new best friend was waving his smartphone at him. "You're on the cover! Had you seen it yet?"

Thor squinted to try and read the small print in that tiny screen. It was in-depth article on him with some family photos embedded. Made him smile. Mum, so young, as Ginny in Camelot, in a tux in Victor or Victoria, on set with François Truffaut. Not so young with Ken Loach, Jane Campion, Kenneth Brannagh. And there was dad, majestic as Hamlet in the seventies; behind the camera in his classic Death of a Salesman; lifting his three Oscars —best actor, best director, best movie for his adaptation of Henry V. And oh my, there was Thor all ruddy-cheeked at twelve as Jem in a theatrical version of To Kill a Mockingbird, his professional debut. As a teenage heartthrob in a Channel 4 soap (yes, so what? Where did people think the fan base that had landed him this award tonight came from?). Then in his more serious parts for the BBC, and a few recent stills from his three Hollywood movies (the third one still unreleased.) And look at that, Loki in Hamlet —those huge, crazy, bottomless eyes that had scared the shit out of him both times he had attended a performance.

Oh, this one. Loki and him, nine and eleven, in The Secret Garden. The only time they had worked together, apart from their amateur shenanigans around the house. Their first kiss.

Over his shoulder, the guy said, "I didn't know Loki was adopted."

"Excuse me?" Thor tensed, and turned very very slowly to face him.

The guy shrunk, realising he had screwed up with a man who was one foot taller, and forty pounds of pure muscle heavier than him.

"He isn't?" he babbled, voice weak. "It says here…" He scrolled frantically and showed Thor the phone.

Thor snatched it from him.

There it was. In a fucking caption. "Upon returning from Moscow with his adopted brother Loki…"

What the fuck was that. He was used to crazy shit being printed about him, but not about…

His eyes went wide. Oh my god. Loki.

He stood up so vigorously he toppled the chair. He dashed out. He had to dodge, nudge and push to get through the crowd. He would start to throw punches in a minute.

He could only hope that they would have got in Loki's way too. If he was lucky, he could still catch him.

The front yard of Stark Mansion was full of black limos, all looking the bloody same. How to tell them apart.

There. A slim figure standing by the car, pale face turned towards him.

"Loki!" he shouted.

Loki was just standing there, his expression impossible to make out. The light of the lamplights was so dim.

Had Loki seen the article? Had he read it? Had somebody stopped him while he was making his way through the crowd, had they showed him the screen, had anyone poked their nose over his shoulder as he scrolled down, and casually let it drop just like that, "I didn't know you were adopted?"

Loki got inside the car. The door slammed shut. The engine started.

Thor made a run for it. He wasn't fast enough, all those fucking limos. He couldn't make it. The car disappeared down the road. Thor's heart was beating in his mouth. He tasted metal.

Shaking, he tried Loki's phone. It was off. Shit, he didn't have a clue where in L.A. Loki was staying.

"Loki," he muttered, breathless, staring at the darkness that had swallowed his brother whole. "Baby…"