Brotherhood - Loki & Thor ♡

36. the moon follows me home, I'm never alone

Thor kept seeing his brother's ghost. Unfortunately no one believed him.

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The God of Thunder lost track of time of how many hours he had been staring at the white ceiling up above. Was it day or night? Thor wouldn't know. There was no window in here - wait, there was, in fact, one small window on the door, but it was one-way which meant every time Thor looked at it the only thing he saw was his own worn out face staring back at him. Only people from outside could watch him anytime they'd like - like he was some sort of a zoo animal. He was exhausted, yet his body refused to give him any proper sleep. And when he could gradually drift off he would always wake either by the sound of other patients from other cells screaming, scratching at the walls or a nurse coming in his cell to study him, give him whatever drugs the Norns knew as if he was a lab rat.

Thor never took the med they gave. Once the nurse left he would spit them out, hide them underneath his pillow. It wasn't that he didn't want to get better, to eventually be discharged. It was that Thor didn't believe there was anything wrong with him to begin with, and most importantly, he fear he could no longer see Loki, if he were to take the med.

Yes, Thor was locked up in the asylum because he saw a ghost of his dead brother. Because, according to them, he had officially lost his mind. According to them, he had gone mad.

┈┈ ❋ ┈┈

It first started after Thor's failure. Well, it wasn't something Thor took pride of, but he knew he had a lot of failure - he failed as a king, failed as a brother. This particular failure, however, was when he failed to go for the head. After Thanos snapped his fingers and wiped away half the universe the guilt and the shame made Thor push everyone away. He wouldn't accept a word of comfort. A room Tony provided in the Avengers compound became Thor's sanctuary where he could hide, lick his wounds and drown in his sorrow alone. That's when he first saw Loki's... ghost.

It was only by the corner of his eye. A shadowy figure standing in the dark corner, but Thor knew his brother and he remembered him anywhere. Though the second Thor turned to look it was gone. Just a trick of the light, that's what Thor told himself back then, that he imagined it since he wanted so badly for Loki to be here, since he missed Loki so much even though he tried so damn hard not to think about Loki at all (in which he failed. Just like how he failed at everything else)

Still what he saw was enough to haunt his thoughts for the rest of the day. For the rest of the day Thor thought about the shadow, the sadness in its eyes (but shadow wasn't supposed to have eyes, yet Thor felt it; the way it looked at him ; there was so much grief, so much regret)

"You okay?" His trance was broken. Thor turned to his left and Steve was giving him this look of pity (Thor didn't need anyone pitying him, but he wasn't a fool, he knew how pitiful he was)

"I'm fine," Thor said, then his mismatched eyes returned to his lap, opened no room for further conversation.

~~~

Late that night Thor picked up Loki's helmet; the last token he had left of his brother. He held it so dearly in his hands, looking down at his own reflection on the object. "I know I disappointed you," Thor said, as though the helmet was the brother he lost. "I'm..." Thor closed his mouth, not knowing what to say, not knowing what he was doing; speaking to himself like a maniac, perhaps. After a moment of silence he said, "I'm sorry." And he almost - almost - put it down when he saw another reflection in the helmet walking up to him from behind; dishevelled hair as black as he remembered, green eyes, chapped lips, pale skin and dark bruise ringing his throat. Thor dropped the helmet and whipped around to be met with thin air.