~44th Floor, Stark Tower Two~

Day 3 on Earth.

Light.  Bright light.  Behind closed eyelids, Loki saw orange and was vaguely aware of the warming of his face.  The sun must have come up, and he instantly regretted having chosen a bedroom with an entire wall of east facing floor to ceiling windows in Stark Tower Two.  He wasn’t ready to get up, but the sheets haphazardly encasing his body were suddenly too hot, and he found himself breaking into a sweat.  He turned away from the light and kicked off the covers, welcoming the frigid air conditioning blasting from the vent above the bed.

Ah, much better.

Eyes fluttering open reluctantly, Loki struggled to focus on the western wall of the bedroom, his pupils adjusting to the light of morning on his third day in this insignificant realm that was barely worth warranting the term ‘realm’ at all.  Sure that pizza was the best thing he’d ever tasted, and sure he was even getting on with the people he’d met thus far, and sure he was living in absolute luxury compared to most of the inhabitants of Midgard, and sure he was grateful to have escaped the desert and be reunited with Sigyn, but after that meeting with The Other last night and feeling the excruciating pain in his eyes again, he was done.

He sighed heavily and sat up, rubbing his eyes.  It felt good to rub them.  Maybe he could rub them enough, and they’d change back to green.  Snorting humorlessly, he ran his fingers through his hair and swung his legs over the side of the bed and went to the bathroom to relieve himself, the events of the night before scrolling through his mind as they would on a tablet screen with the swipe of a thumb.

Fucking blue—He readjusted his boxer briefs and walked to the vanity, the toilet flushing automatically behind him.  Staring at his hands as he washed them, avoiding his reflection in the mirror, he barely registered the arms that came around his middle from behind.

“Did you get enough sleep?” Sigyn asked.

Her voice surprised him.  It wasn’t small, not laced with emotion, no cracks or warbling, but smooth and full of something else.  Assurance.  Confidence.  Why didn’t she sound upset?  Shouldn’t she be?  At least on his behalf?  She’d seen what happened last night, and she sounded fine.  He wanted to defend himself, to explain why he was instantly angry with her for being anything other than an absolute wreck.  Of all the things she could have said upon seeing him first thing after last night, she’d chosen to ask if he’d slept enough.  Not ‘I love you’ or ‘I hate this for you’ or the far more preferrable ‘this is the fucking WORST’.  No.  Not any of that.  It was as though it was any other morning.  

Did I get enough sleep? 

Fuck no.

“Not especially,” he answered curtly, deciding against swearing at her, his focus on the soap suds in the sink becoming more intense.  

He sounded altogether rude, and he didn’t care.  He would not be lured into pleasantries.  He felt awful, and he would respond accordingly.  She was lucky he hadn’t told her to just leave him the fuck alone.  How dare she sound fine.  He was about to shrug out of her grasp, but thankfully she removed her arms of her own accord, so he didn’t have to appear…. appear what?  Cruel?  He shook his head.  He deserved to be angry.  To be upset at least.  She stepped up beside him then and pushed up to sit on the smooth elegant travertine surface.  He could feel her staring at him, waiting, though what she was waiting for he had no idea.  

“Hungry?” she asked plainly, again as though it were a morning like any other.

He would’ve scoffed if he’d had the energy, which he did not. “Not especially.”

“Loki.”

“Sig.”

“I think you’ve scrubbed off the first layer of your skin.”

He shut the water off and sidestepped her foot which she’d kicked out to stop him from leaving and peeled off his boxer briefs and stepped into the shower.  Water rained down on him, needing no time to warm up.  Steam encased him, the glass walls fogging quickly.  That was good, the fog.  He didn’t like her staring at him, which he knew she still was.  He wanted to be left alone.  He wanted to brood in solitude, and even though he felt justified, he was also fully aware just how childish that was.  

The piney scent of the shampoo provided was absurdly reminiscent of Vanaheim, and his stomach clenched at the thought, his hands stilling on his scalp.  Sig probably hated that smell.  Their last experience in the evergreen realm had not exactly been pleasant.  He rinsed it out of his hair quickly.  See?  He wasn’t being completely unkind to her.  Even in his brooding, he was still being thoughtful, still cognizant of her feelings.  Such a good boyfriend.  

“They’ve put a tracking spell on you,” she said suddenly, her voice bouncing off the bare walls and high ceiling, startling him enough that he dropped the soap and cursed.

What?—He remained silent, choosing to ignore her ridiculous words.

Tracking spell?  Right.  

He stared at the mosaic tile of the shower wall, the warm water running down his back lulling him into a trance of sorts.  It was quite a work of art actually, this mosaic with its beautiful red poppies wrapping around each other almost like vines but with black stems rather than green.  Such lovely flowers grown for such devious recreational purposes, albeit with rather unfortunate and addictive consequences.  Though recreational was a relative and somewhat loose term.   Self-medicating was more accurate.  If he was a human, and thank the norns he wasn’t, no doubt he’d have been lost to the powers of that pretty flower in no time at all.  

He could use some medication right now.  Some good strong chill medication with a dreamy feel good glow that would knock him off his feet and render him positively boneless and fine with everything for hours.  He didn’t really want a rush of euphoria.  That is, he didn’t want the specific euphoria to make him love everybody or feel like he was an unstoppable king.  He didn’t want to hallucinate.  He didn’t want to be drunk.  He didn’t want a hangover.  And gods he did not want to fuck.  Sex required two people, and he had no interest in company right now.

What he wanted, was an ender.  Gods, he could use one.  They were superior to using his magic to knock himself out.  Technically, he could replicate the ender experience with his magic, but it didn’t allow him to relax as much, unfortunately.  Seemed to be his only option though.  What else was he going to do?  Allow himself to feel the anger?  The loss?  The anxiety?  Or the extreme envy of Sigyn’s seemingly ‘okay with everything‘ attitude?  Rolling his eyes, he let his forehead drop to the shower wall, only turning off the tap when he heard the bathroom door close.  

Stepping out, he dried off and pulled out a new pair of boxer briefs from the top drawer in the closet.  He was probably going to hate himself for it later, but right now he didn’t care.  He went back into the bedroom, laid back on the messy bed, and held his fingers to his temples.  Green light flooded his vision, and after the warmth settled heavily into his stomach, he let his eyes slide shut.

---

Sigyn was seated at the kitchen island, eyes fixed on an iPad, when Loki finally surfaced from the bedroom several hours later.  The burst of magic he’d sent into his temples had been significantly more potent than what he’d given Fury yesterday.  It had been a long time since he’d done such a thing, but he really was at his wit’s end.  Lying there on his back, the soft duvet pillowed his heavy body as his mind just stopped.  Everything fading beautifully, the world around him was just fine, and he felt good.  It was a stupid thing to do, he knew, as he watched the beautiful woman who loved him more than her own life browse the contents of the screen in front of her.  She made no motion to move, nor did she bother to look up as he approached her.

Still buzzing faintly, he ran a hand through his hair and licked his teeth.  His entire mouth felt like cotton.  Sucking in his cheeks in an attempt to encourage at least a hint of salivation, he scratched the back of his neck.  What the Hel was he supposed to say?  Good afternoon?  He looked out the window at the dusky orange sun moving below the skyline.  Evening, more like.  He’d been out for most of the day.

“Sig, I-”

“It’s fine,” she said, finally acknowledging his presence, though she kept her eyes on the tablet. “Whether you’re about to issue an apology or have forgotten everything that happened or didn’t happen this morning, it’s fine.  I get it.”

It was probably the best possible greeting he could have hoped for.  He didn’t want to apologize.  He didn’t owe that to her.  She had been there last night.  She understood.  She knew better than to smother him.  She knew it would do neither of them any good.  She knew.  She knew him.  And he loved her all the more for it.  Shit.  Now he did want to apologize.  Because gods damn did he love her, and he’d been such a dick earlier.  She didn’t deserve that.  He hated himself so much.

“I was looking up the tracking….” she trailed off as she looked up at him.

She stood up, her gaze going from confused to suspicious to downright sympathetic.  He decided he hated the sympathy the most.

After a beat, she took a deep breath and turned away from him. “The blue is far more prominent when your pupils are the size of pinpoints, Loki.”

Pinpoints?  What?  Oh….right.

Running his hands down his face and jawline, he groaned and let them linger at the back of his neck.  He rubbed the ache there furiously.  It was one thing for Sigyn to know that he was stoned, as the mortals called it, but it was another thing entirely for her to see the evidence of it on his face.  He hated himself.  He started to speak, but she held up a hand, his words catching in the back of his throat.

“Don’t.” An edge had crept into her voice, and Loki winced at it.

She approached him as though he was a wounded animal, which he was not, and he straightened his slumped shoulders in response.  He hated that look on her face.  Anger?  Disappointment?  Fear?  Panic?  The grey green of her eyes dulled with her quickly forming tears.  He’d made her cry.  He’d hurt her.  He was not good enough for her.  Why did she even want him?  Why did she love him at all?  He didn’t deserve her.  The Other might as well kill him and be done with it.  Fucking blue.  He wanted to scream.  He wanted to die.  He wasn’t sure if he was worth her struggling.  But he wanted her nonetheless.  

Selfish bastard—He wanted her to fight for him.  He wanted her to want him.  But loving him was pain.  He was nothing but trouble.  Trouble and pain and torture.  They followed him everywhere he went, and he was dragging her right along with him.  He shook his head, hoping to literally shake the self-loathing out of himself.  That, and to clear the fog in his brain.  He searched her face as she neared him, one tear falling slowly down her pale cheek, her lips beginning to quiver.  

Oh gods, Sig, love….

“One,” she managed to say, though it was clearly a struggle for her.

The lump in his throat grew immeasurably at the word.  He knew what she meant, even without clarification.  Staring down at her, he felt sick to his stomach.  One—She was giving him one pass.  This was his one pass to do something so utterly foolish, so crudely selfish, as to knock himself out for nearly an entire day, leaving himself utterly defenseless to any and all harm that could have, and in all likelihood, would have come to him.  One pass to even consider giving up on himself, on her.  But that was it.  No more.  Looking at her, he felt the overwhelming urge to drop to his knees and apologize until he couldn’t breathe.

“I know you’re scared,” she began again, slowly, choosing her words carefully, “and you have every right to be.  And I understand why you want to escape, to forget, to numb the pain.  I know it hurts.  Don’t forget, Loki, I can feel it.  But this-” she pointed at his eyes, and he closed them, not able to hold her gaze any longer “-is not going to destroy you.”

Brow furrowing, he looked at her again.  He’d thought she was pointing at his pupils, at the evidence of his intoxication, but it was the irises that held her attention, the blue she saw there.  The blue that he’d thought was for death.  That blue would not destroy him.  That’s what she meant.  Blue was not for death.  It sure as Hel wasn’t for life, but it wasn’t for death either.  What then?

“A storm,” she answered his silent question, her voice still a bit wobbly.

A storm, he repeated silently, the word feeling too small and too big all at once.

“And storms….Loki,” she reached a hand to his face, another tear making its way down her cheek, “storms pass.”

His heart absolutely shattered.  Choking back a cry, Loki grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to him, her words breaking him apart.  

But it’s a TERRIFYING storm, the strongest I’ve ever seen, and I’m TRAPPED in it!—He was drowning in that storm, waves crashing all around him as he searched all directions, being tossed about like the wounded animal that he apparently was.  But storms pass.  The clouds break, the fiery sun shining through, drying up the destruction, burning off the fear.  Hotter than fire sun.  

Fire….Sigyn.  He pulled back to look at her, gazing at her as though she were his savior, and in truth, she was.  Just as he’d saved her in Vanaheim, just as he’d pulled her from Hela’s grip seemingly ages ago, so she had been saving him ever since.  She was the reason he’d refused to give up in the desert, the hope of somehow surviving, somehow escaping, and seeing her again pushing him forward.  She was still his reason.

Her mouth curved up crookedly, the grey green of her eyes brightening a shade. “Your story is not over.”

Swallowing thickly, he nodded once.

“I need to hear you say it,” she said, her eyes not leaving his.

“My story is not over,” he repeated, his voice thick with emotion.

“Again,” she said more firmly, holding up a finger, “and believe it.”

That gave him pause.  He stared at her, searching her face for any hint of doubt.  How could she be so strong?  She’d felt the pain in his eyes.  She knew what was happening.  Wasn’t she terrified?  Yes.  She was.  He could feel the fear coming off of her in waves.  But what was courage without fear?  What was strength without pain?  What power did fire hold if the air wasn’t painfully frigid?  Storms pass, and Sigyn was the fire burning them into nothingness.

“My story is not over,” he said then, bringing his forehead to meet hers.

And gods did he mean it.

FEARLESS CONTINUES IN CHAPTER SEVEN: TRUST ME, I’VE GOT THIS.

Visit the Trilogy main page HERE.

Chapter links: ¹ You’ll Have Answers Later ² Talk Some Sense to Me, Sig. ³ Interlude in Asgard (Endless Grief) ⁴ Wild Magic (It’s All We Have) ⁵ Heat is My Specialty (What is Blue For) ⁶ Storms Pass, Loki. ⁷ Trust Me, I’ve Got This. ⁸ A Heavy Gift ⁹ Sick and Tired ¹⁰ Hold On, We’re Going Home (Green Is for Life Part 2) ¹¹ Home is Chaos ¹² Looks That Kill ¹³ Living Ghosts ¹⁴ No Rules (Tick Tock) ¹⁵ The Calm ¹⁶ The Storm

Chapter 17 Coming October 2021

CHAPTER SIX THEME SONG:

“The Whisperer” by David Guetta ft. Sia

What Readers Have Said

About CH 6 “Storms Pass, Loki.”

“I wonder if Loki’s emotions are being affected as well as his eyes. A few chapters ago he was overwhelmed with feelings of anger this time it’s despair/hopelessness. Granted he has been through more than enough to screw with anyone’s head but it may be another way for them to control him. I’m thrilled that you have updated. I’m seriously addicted to this story.”

-Ferbette, on CH 6 “Storms Pass, Loki.” , 03 Oct 2018 (AO3)

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