Cellmates

7

Loki was not familiar with regret. He knew it only from his subconscious mind's darkest wanderings in a time of such utter self-loathing that he regretted his existence within an inch of his life. That was a long time ago and put behind him well enough. But he could still recall the cold hand that was shame tugging at the back of his neck until his hair stood on end. It played with his thoughts and riled them into chaos until they were but wild animals, once docile, loosed from their chains and set to tear his conscience apart. If there was anything left of it. If it had even been there to start. He roughly tousled his hair until the raven black strands tangled around his fingers. Was it regret? Or just the sickly repercussions of compassion?

His wit was sharp. His cruel, verbal abuse even more so. It was all part of his charmingly abhorrent nature. With words alone he could crush his enemies without so much as lifting a finger. A thousand times – a tactic employed a thousand times. Hundreds of thousands of times. And yet, he sat at the edge of his bed fussing with his attire as if the fabric had wronged him in some way, regret wreaking havoc. What had he said this time? Such a natural slip of the tongue, he'd almost forgotten entirely. But not entirely.

Her eyes were dark, the brown almost black. And in that moment, when emotion slipped through her mask, he saw terror. Fear of an unholy sort mixed with embarrassment and pain, traces of sadness and nearly defeat – for the first time since he'd ever known her. And in that moment, that weakness only just contained, she confronted him. Her tiny frame was battered and broken, bruised and bleeding. But this time, not a wound self-inflicted for stupidity's sake. She carried herself as a warrior might, wearing scars without concern, but wearing scars all the same. Loki saw the destruction done to her mind, as he had feared. She struck out in anger and he felt it like a whip to flesh already raw from abuse. There must have been something I could have done. Anything?Every mistake rubbed like dirt in his face. He should've done something. I should have done something!

He couldn't speak for her pain, but what he endured waiting and wondering and imagining – surely it came close. But she'd never know. She'd never see it that way – because he was the monster. The monster that would haunt her dreams. The monster that would wake her in fits of sobs and screams. The monster that would lurk forever in the shadows of a paranoid mind. The monster parents tell their children about at night...

He didn't want to watch. No part of him wanted to see first hand what the guards had done to her. That was a show worthy of no one's admission. But that's what he told her – that was his gruesome intent. That's what he told her, even though it was a threat so empty the endless void beyond the realms was pleasantly dwarfed. He hadn't meant it. Or at least, he was fairly certain he didn't. It made him sick to think about it, so he assumed he hadn't. He thought – thought – to apologize. Apologize? Apologize? Apologize for what? For being a captive? For being incapable of helping her? It wasn't his fault! There was nothing he could have done. I could have tried. I should have tried. And therein lie the feeling they called regret.

Waiting and watching for almost a week, he kept thinking she would come around again. But he never saw it. She hadn't spoken a single word since that night. Her mindless fiddling had all but ceased. She hadn't added anything to her sketches on the floor in days. Thinking back on it now, she'd spent more time sleeping than anything else. He had assumed she was simply testing him with the silent treatment, but he was beginning to realize that this wasn't the case.

The water in the shower had been running for a long time now – he guessed a half an hour at least. She didn't sing this time. His ears were met only with the continuous pitter-patter of water falling to the stone and then the gurgling as it moved down the drain. He listened closer, thinking perhaps he'd simply missed it. No. She was quiet.