Memory

Black Witch Suits

The cloud of blue-black that comes from the Tesseract disintegrates as the both of us appear in the living room of Dad's house in Florida.

I run into my room for a change of clothes after telling Loki to "Do not move and don't touch anything and no stabbing anyone or anything."

Luckily, this is a rarely-used vacation home of ours next to a beach, so there's no JARVIS here. No one to know where the Nightmare or Mavi Stark is.

I find a pair of my glasses on the dresser, so I throw my mask away and, grabbing the glasses, look for a clean change of my clothes.

I come up with a black t-shirt that says Hecky hecky, I crave deathy. I also find a pair of gray sweatpants that came with the shirt and say I want to fucking die. Ironic.

(+)

After the shower, which consisted of mainly me crying, and then cursing after getting shampoo in my eyes because that shit hurt, I walk out of the bathroom with my wet hair dripping onto the hecky hecky  shirt.

I find that death happened to take my ability to see through illusions away, but my shitty eyesight stayed. Just my luck.

I walk into the living room, where I find Loki, surprisingly, standing where I left him. It's kind of unnerving that he actually listened to what I said.

"Well, you certainly took your time," he says. "Did you choose that shirt on purpose?"

"No, I just happened to realize the irony right after I chose it," I say. "And this is my house, so I am entitled to take as long as I want in the shower. Now what do you want me to teach you?"

"How do I fit in with these mortals?"

(Lmao I almost wrote 'mundane' instead of 'mortal' up there, like from The Mortal Instruments ehehehe I'm stupid)

"How often do you plan on going out? Do you plan on making friends, or is that too hard? Um, there are a lot of factors to consider how much you need to know. But why?" I frown.

"So I can fit in here properly and no one will find me. After all this, the entirety of Asgard's army must be out here looking for me."

"Fair point. Well, I only have four weeks here, so let's see what we can do. First, tell me what you know so far." I sigh.

"Nothing," he admits.

"Nothing?" I plop down on the sofa, appalled. "Damn it. Okay, where do you want to start? Food? How to choose clothes properly? I can't help much with that, unless you prefer comfy to looking nice. You can do math, right?"

"Yes?" He says, unsure of where this is going.

"Well, unfortunately, you're going to need that crap."

(+)

After four hours  of teaching Loki how to handle money, how much to take to a restaurant to pay for food without seeming like he has no money or seeming like he has too much, how much to pay when someone says 'bucks' and 'dollars' and 'cents' because "What are those? They don't have those units on Asgard," and teaching him how to handle it and not over- or underpaying, I realize that being dead does not take away my abilities to want to die.

I want to repeatedly bang my hand on a wall and knock myself out. And do it again when I come to.

But I realize what I have bought both myself and Rowan. Another chance. But time is running out. And I miss him. Slowly, I know my emotions are coming back to me.

Loki's gone somewhere, I don't know and don't care, and I am alone again. Finally. I am lying in my bed, closing my eyes and desperately want to take a nap. I don't think I can sleep, though, so this is a whole new form of torture.

At the same time, I'm a little glad. I don't think I could handle any nightmares anymore.

I burrow deep into my blankets, trying to feel any sort of comfort.

Nothing.

I haven't felt any thirst or hunger since I came back, either. Well, the 'not hungry' thing is a regular, but I usually drink water, so I guess my lack of thirst comes with the 'undead' bit.

I can't feel any warmth or cold, either. I stubbed my toe a hour ago on a table leg and felt nothing. Being dead has its perks.

But it is hard to stop myself from trying to breathe, when I don't need to anyway. It feels weird and unnatural and really heavy when I try to breathe. I can't describe it properly. Like asthma, but the feeling's there because I shouldn't breathe, not because I should.

I need something to do, something to pass the time, even though I should be wishing time would slow instead of quicken.

So I turn to Netflix. I log in to my account and continue watching The Magicians,  which is admittedly a very underrated and entertaining show. But I also don't remember what happened in the last few episodes, so I have to go back.

When I settle back to watch it, I find my thoughts drifting elsewhere and not paying attention at all.

I have nothing I want to do, but I want to do something.

I pick up my laptop, kicking off the blankets, and walk into the kitchen.

Setting the laptop on the counter, I decide to try to cook, which is something I have tried before. We have a rule where we don't talk about what happened.

For the first time in a long time, I feel something begin to bloom from deep within my still heart.

Hope.

Minutes pass and I realize there is nothing I can make without going to a store to get supplies. I was looking to make something savory, but there is absolutely no pepper, salt, or anything else I can use to season food with, except possibly toothpaste.

The thought of using toothpaste as seasoning is enough to tell anyone why I am bad at cooking.

That's when Loki walks in, panicky and scared.

"Why--What's got you so panicky?" I ask, turning to look at him.

"Thor's here."

Shit.