Brotherhood - Loki & Thor ♡

31. masquerade of a ghost

"Noobmaster, hey it's Thor again. You know, the God of Thunder. Listen buddy, if you don't log off this game immediately, I will fly over to your house and come down to that basement you're hiding in and rip off your arms and shove them up your butt! Oh, that's right, yea just go cry to your father you little weasel!"

Loki laughed wryly behind the controller, wondering if his brother would still joke about 'father' if he knew who Noobmaster69 was. If Thor knew.

///

Loki couldn't decide whether he should call this a blessing or a curse. When he opened his eyes to learn that once again death spat him out like a piece of rotten meat none would wish to consume, the first thing that went through Loki's head was 'again?' To be honest Loki grew quite tired of this: to be dead only to be alive again and to be dead then something would resurrect him and the unending circle went on and on forever. It was exhausting.

For the first few seconds after waking up he wanted to close his eyes and go back to being dead only to jump like a cat (his cheeks felt hot when he realized belatedly he let his weakness surface) when a familiar female voice startled him. "Welcome back," she said, "took you long enough, huh? I actually started to think you were too far gone."

"You- you're alive," Loki stuttered. His voice hoarse. The second he spoke it felt as though there were thousands of sharp needles piercing through the inside of his throat. They were reminders: they reminded him of the dreadful pressure of Thanos' hand crashing his windpipe it made him flinch. Loki unconsciously reached his hand up toward his neck only to jerk it back down because it hurt when his fingertip touched the still-pretty-much-sore skin.

Hela pretended not to notice it (in which Loki was somehow grateful) and said, "so are you, little brother."

┈┈ ❋ ┈┈

The perks of having the Goddess of Death as your big sister was that you could never truly die. Or maybe you did die, if you wanted to just for a little while. And even if you did die you still had the privilege of walking between the two realms of the dead and the living. During the first couple days since he 'came back' Loki's paranoia was driving him insane. It wasn't Thanos he was worried about but her. No, Loki didn't trust Hela. Not at all. He was convinced (by his own personal experience) she was going to use him somehow, that's why she brought him back. So she could turn him into a weapon. Her weapon. And the thing was Loki have had enough being someone else's weapon: he'd been mind-controlled, forced to commit gruesome crimes he wanted no part in. He have had enough doing the dirty work for other. Let her reverse whatever she did to his body and have it go back to being a corpse. Loki knew he wouldn't beg for mercy.

But it turned out Hela didn't resurrect him for her benefit.

She did it only because she pitied her brother. Only because Loki was that pathetic that she decided to lift a finger and do him a favor. She didn't even expect a thank you. The worst was probably that Loki wasn't sure which one was worse; her helping him because she saw a use in him or her helping him because he was too pathetic to be considered useful for anything - it was probably the latter.

It was the weirdest kind and the most awkward living arrangement one could ever encounter; Loki stayed with her because he didn't have anywhere to be (how pathetic) Hela didn't particularly invite him nor did she say he could stay, and Loki didn't particularly ask if she could render him a shelter. It just kind of... happened. Him not going anywhere and her not kicking him out.

They barely talked (on the bright side they didn't try to kill each other like before) but Loki knew the question was there, in her head; why didn't you come back to Thor? Loki asked himself the same thing, too. Clearly it wasn't because he favored Hela. Deep down, Loki thought he knew the answer; what kept him from running back into Thor's longing arms and tell him he was alive. It was because Loki didn't think he could call whatever-condition-he-was-in alive. He wasn't dead, but he wasn't... alive... either. Just something in between. He felt as though his body wasn't his own. Felt like he wasn't supposed to be here breathing and talking.