Tom Hiddleston & Loki Imagines (xReader)

Loki: Falling to Pieces

—

Loki's POV

She always brought out the best in him.

She made him weak, made him soft. Made him want, if only for a moment, to return to the still mischievous yet innocent version of himself.

Well, mostly innocent.

She was the only woman in the Nine Realms who made him want to change, or made him believe there was hope that he even could. She was the only one who could calm his rages, still his fears, and comfort his sorrows. She made him see reason, and taught him compassion.

No. She didn't bring out the best part of him.

She was the best part of him.

And he couldn't even speak her name. It broke him too much. He feared that, by saying her name, he might taint it and dishonor her memory.

Loki was in isolation, locked in his own darkened bedroom, a prisoner of his own making. The curtains were drawn across his balcony, blocking out the sun. His chambers were illuminated by candlelight, strategically placed in order to use as few as possible.

He liked the dark. The dark was his friend. He'd made peace with it during his time under Thanos.

The candlelight was dim enough not to intrude on that friendship.

Loki exhaled deeply. He sat brooding in his high-backed easy chair, eyes fixed on the pale hands draped across his knees. The hands that should have held her. That should have comforted her in her final moments. That should have stroked her hair as he assured her of her place in Valhalla.

His depression pushed him deeper into himself, like an ever-growing weight placed on his chest that only grew as it fed on his pain. As for his mind—he felt as if he was trapped in the Beast's cage once again, but this time with no army. No hope of rescue or escape.

There is no greater prison than the prison of the mind, and his was the most torturous of all.

He wanted to scream, to claw at himself, to decimate everything within his reach. He loathed himself: the evil, villainous monster who could never change, hidden underneath the cloak of a prince, fallen though he was.

No matter what distractions Loki tried, no matter how hard he fought to escape his despair, the tendrils of his past—his mistakes, his failures—would always drag him back to his mental cell, where he was once again alone with his thoughts. His dark, agonizing thoughts.

The most painful thought of all? The thing he hated himself for the most?

He never told her he loved her.

He'd had opportunity after opportunity, but had been blinded for too long by his ambition and feelings of revenge. He'd neglected her, yet she was still there for him. She had always been there for him, even during the instances when he thought he'd strayed too far for once. She loved him anyway. He'd never appreciated that until now. Until it was too late.

Until she was gone.

He dropped his face into his hands with a frustrated groan. Was there any aspect of his life that wasn't a disaster? In which he wasn't a miserable failure?

In which he wasn't a monster?

Why do the Norns hate me so?

Loki wiped a tear from his face with a shuddering sigh. He couldn't take this stuffy room. He needed air.

Crossing the hardwood floor to his balcony, he threw open his curtains and blinked in the late afternoon sunlight. He leaned on the railing and breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of spring on Asgard.