Loki's fall (sequel to loss and Loki)

No Care For Answers

An immense, full bodied yawn cracked it's way up my throat and wrenched my mouth open in a suffocatingly thick inhale as I clutched the neck of the bottle I'd located in the liquor cupboard and swayed a little on my stool.

After falling asleep against Loki, exhausted, I'd been subjected to a constant chain of unnerving night terrors of troubling reincarnations my mind created that would wake me up yelling and thrashing around at least once every damned hour until I'd given up around six in the morning and went to drown out the waging battle in my head with a litre or two of pure spirit.

And of course, Loki had been there through it all. Every time I'd become restless and rouse him from his sleep with my flailing fists, he'd hold me and wake me carefully, reminding me where I was, where he was. He'd take me in his arms and cling me to him, wordlessly reassuring me I was safe and he was there with me. It helped, almost too much as I allowed myself again and again to fall into a deep slumber and succumb to my cruel mind once more.

"Bastard." I muttered quietly under my breath as I took another long swig and watched a squirrel scale a tree just outside the window opposite me.

"You're gonna kill yourself at this rate." A voice called out behind me as Charlie shuffled into the kitchen, tossing her head towards the bottle in a matter of factly gesture. I allowed myself a prolonged, scrutinising glance at her as I took in her state for the first time in a few days, recognising the deep purple eyebags under her eyes, and the scabbed skin of her rose-tinted lips from biting at them.

"That's the plan." I joked dryly, spying the reserved disappointment in her gaze and feeling an uncomfortable guilt grip my every muscle, until I was tensed to the point of shattering. I knew she was seemingly affected by how I'd spoken to her last night. It didn't exactly need a genius to figure that out. But I also knew exactly what she needed, and I was hard pressed trying to figure out exactly how to go about it.

Again, I wasn't used to this. Reassurance and comfort were not in my nature and I doubted they ever would be. But Charlie was disappointed, and she needed to know she wasn't just an inconvenience, that she wasn't a minor priority and was not likely to be kicked out like she worried she would be so much.

I opened my mouth to say something when the deafening sound of a glass smashing sobered me up and I whipped my head round to find the source of the noise. Seeing a wide eyed Charlie staring at a pile of shattered glass, her brow creased in anxious worry as she looked from me to the glass, over and over, waiting for my reaction.

I bit back a yawn and raised a single eyebrow, leaning up over the island to look at the pathetic crystal shards, glittering devastatingly across the tile. Then I sat back down and rubbed my eyes.

"I broke the glass." She whispered quietly, looking at me with a blatant fear lighting up the dark, glowing embers of her eyes as she swallowed forcibly and I twisted the cap on my spirits bottle.

"Do you want to go through some training then today?" I queried nonchalantly, sliding off the stool to deposit of the bottle, wavering shakily as my healing muscles still trembled with their torment.

"But I broke the glass."

"Okay...Do you want to train?" I repeated again, slower and deliberately like I was talking to someone from another planet.

"But...but the glass."

"That's not part of the training, C."

"But I broke it."

I stilled for a moment, letting the warm water run over my shaking hands as I sighed to myself and tried to understand her obvious trauma-induced trepidation. It was tiring, but I knew I couldn't just breeze past this. I needed her to know she was safe here, and under my protection. And nothing she did could change that...okay maybe not nothing, but definitely not a damned broken glass.