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villainousshakespeare · 1 year

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Therapy Fit for a God Chapter 29

Loki/OFC Rated E: Trigger Warnings: Smut, Sex, Oral Sex, Angst, talk of suicide, therapy, unhealthy family dynamics, mention of torture and mind control, touch starved, drinking, memory loss.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28

Loki’s plans to conquer and rule Midgard have come to a disastrous end. After being captured by the Avengers, he is being held on Earth. Odin has refused to interfere, and the outlook for the God of Mischief appear bleak. His only hope may lie in one mortal woman, a Psychiatric expert brought in to interrogate him.

Dr. Caroline Thorpe is intrigued by Loki and thinks that more lies beneath his actions than is commonly known. Can she find out the truth before he is shipped off to die for crimes against the Earth? And can Loki bring himself to care?

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"Just lie back on the table and try not to fight."

The words sounded so easy when spoken in Eir's emotionless voice. In actuality, it was excruciatingly hard for Loki to do. His mind, the one thing he relied on more than any other, was about to be invaded. Every instinct within him screamed for him to resist. Instead, he took a deep breath and lowered his mental shields.

"You are doing wonderfully, my son," Frigga praised, her cool hands making spirals on his forehead.

Was it a weakness that her praise had a calming effect on him? Loki had always craved her approval. Over the centuries he had learned the hard way that Odin was never going grant much if any of his, but his mother was different. She would give voice to pride in her younger son along with her elder. He held those memories close, knowing that even if she did not always take his side, at least she saw something worthwhile in him. Before he had met Caroline, that had been a novel occurrence.

Caroline. He had dreamt of her last night. Enticing visions of her lying beside him, their bodies sliding against each other as she let out breathy sighs of desire that formed his name. Loki knew that he had experienced such exquisite moments with her in reality. If this procedure helped him to recall them, it would be worth it.

Gradually his mind began to grow hazy, and he found himself unable to follow a thought through. Giving up on trying, he summoned one image to use as his touchstone. Caroline's eyes, deep and understanding, filled with a warm light of love that against all understanding seemed to be for him.

***

Caroline had desperately wanted to be in the room as Eir and Frigga worked to restore Loki's lost memories. Not only was she afraid of what might happen as he lay on the table, but she knew that Loki himself wanted her to stay. While he would never admit it, but his eyes had implored her, a small flicker of fear that she knew he would show to no one else had flashed as he glanced wordlessly at her.

"Absolutely not," Eir had decreed. "It will be a hard enough needle to thread without the distraction of your emotional energy clouding up the ether."

Caroline had opened her mouth to argue, but Frigga had taken her hand.

"You have brought him this far, my dear," Loki's mother had said. "Trust me to get him the rest of the way home to you."

"It is alright, min kjaereste," Loki assured her. "I will not let anything keep me from you."

And so she was waiting, helpless to do anything but fret, in a nearby room with the other members of his dysfunctional family. Thor paced the length of the space, tossing his hammer continuously as if longing for an enemy to fight for distraction. Odin, disapproval radiating off of him in waves, glowered out of a window, fists clenched into balls on the sill. It was not an atmosphere to make the worry she was feeling any less, and for a moment Caroline contemplated screaming just to break the tension.

"This is a mistake," Odin muttered, sparing her the need by giving her a cause to champion.

"I disagree."

She had tried, really she had. She knew that antagonizing Odin, the supreme ruler of Asgard and AllFather of the Nine Realms was not the wisest or safest thing to do. She also knew that it was not at all professional. But Loki and his family drama had long since moved to a personal matter for her. This man, or God, or whatever he considered himself to be had done unspeakable emotional damage to the one she loved, and now he had the audacity to act like they were imposing on him simply because his son wanted a piece of his life back.

"You have made your opinion abundantly clear, Doctor Thorpe," Odin glared at her with his one eye.

"I understand your feelings, Father," Thor chimed in, halting his pacing to look at his father with worshipful eyes.

"You do?" Caroline asked, wondering how Thor could love Loki and agree with his father.

"Of course. As you have said, Loki was bound to find out about his heritage again ere long. This time, we would be on hand to help him through it. I am no longer banished, and Father has recovered from the Odin Sleep. When Loki was told the truth, we could show him our support and love. That way he would never have to fear that we would turn on him simply for being himself."

It was a beautiful sentiment, and Caroline felt herself warming to Thor for having said it. Despite his lifetime of conditioning in this muscle-bound realm to worship brute strength and scorned difference, it was clear that at heart he loved his brother. She only wished that she could believe Odin's motives were as pure as his eldest son believed them to be.

"Is that the reason?" she asked Odin, daring him to answer.

"I need not explain myself to you," he snapped at her.

"To me, perhaps not. But don't you owe your son the truth? The son that is actually your own that is, since it is clear that you don't believe you owe it to Loki."

"Loki is my son," Odin shot back, banging his scepter on the stone floor hard enough to leave a dent.

"You have strange ways of showing it."

"What do you know of it? Were you a witness to his raising? No, your pathetic little life had not even become a spark of an idea."

"I know that you don't appreciate or encourage him. I know that you withhold affection and treat him like an embarrassment rather than a child you love."

"I do love Loki," Odin snarled. "It would be easier if I did not."

"Father, you don't mean that."

"You have no idea what it has been like," Odin seethed, ignoring Thor. "All that time, waiting for his true nature to emerge. Wondering just when the first bestial signs would begin to break through cultivation of his civilized side that Frigga and I tried to instill in him. Have you ever met a Frost Giant, Doctor? Besides Loki I mean."

"No," she was forced to admit.

"They are towering monsters, creatures from nightmares complete with fangs, claws, and red glowing eyes. Their very touch burns the skin with how cold it is. Duplicity runs icy through their veins where hot blood should flow. Perhaps if you had experienced them for yourself, you would not be so quick to wish your lover to become one."

"He is one," she corrected. "At least in part."

"And I could never forget that, nor should you. You find him handsome, I suppose. He has always known how to present himself so as to be nonthreatening. Even as an infant, he sensed that my people would not accept him blue and ruby-eyed. As I held him, his appearance altered, changing to a rosy faced babe, perfectly formed in every way. But I know what lurks under the skin. He is the son of the enemy of our people."

"But Loki himself is not our enemy," Thor was quick to add.

"Not yet," Odin said grimly. "But we do not know how long that will last. You say I should have encouraged him more. In what way? Should I have reveled that he was growing strong in magic, knowing that any spell he mastered could be used against Asgard? Should I have cheered when he used that magic to win at battles, when I was all too aware that it was his Jotun blood prompting him to value guile rather than skill? For centuries I held a ticking bomb to my bosom, and you want to know why I didn't rejoice to see it become more lethal? Why I might have resented it even more for the place he had in my heart?"

"I wonder if you have a heart at all," she said quietly.

"Why did you do it then?" it was Thor, asking the question at the heart of it all. "Why did you take him as a baby?"

"I told you he was a beautiful child. Sweet, playful. Your mother had wanted another, for you to have a brother or sister, but the Norns had not seen fit to give us one. I knew beyond a doubt that she would love him, and there was that in Loki that spoke to my heart as well. I thought perhaps this was their way of making amends."

"Was that the only reason?" Caroline challenged, thinking of Loki's theory that Odin intended him for the throne of Jotunheim.

"There was a chance that he could have helped build a bridge between the Jotuns and our people," Odin admitted after a moment where he pinned her with his gaze. "Laufey could not live forever. There is a rival clan that has always wanted to take the throne for themselves. I had hoped that in time a match could be made between a princess of that clan, Angrboda, and Loki. That if he was raised to hold Asgardian principles and traditions, he might bring the frozen realm into the modern world as an ally. A King of Jotunheim equal parts Aesir and Jotun, kin to the King of Asgard, might have guaranteed peace."

"We were both born to be kings," Thor said quietly, clearly quoting his father.

"Unfortunately, Loki refused to conform to the ways of Asgard," Odin went on, ignoring his son. "Despite all of our efforts, he still insisted on going his own way. He kept secrets, played tricks, and trusted no one but himself. For all I knew, he might have used the Jotunheim as a base from which to attack Asgard and seize control of the Nine Realms. I realized I could not risk raising him to power."

"How could he have ever learned to trust when he was shown none?" Caroline asked, feeling sad for her love. "So, when you were unable to turn him into a good little soldier for Asgard, you abandoned your plans and all of your use for him."

"We raised him as our own! We cared for him, sheltered him, taught him. I am not a monster, girl. I do not want Loki to fail, I just am not surprised when he does. I wish I could have said what he needed to hear on the bridge. I grieved when he fell into the abyss. It pains me to know that he was tortured. But I know what he is, and the safety of my realm must come before all else, even my child."

"You never gave him a chance," Caroline felt tired and worn down by the stubborn refusal in Odin to see the flaws in his logic.

"I saw the truth for what it was," Odin insisted. "Loki is Jotun, despite our love and good intentions. But how does it help him to know this? Look at the last year of his life - it has been one disaster after another, all beginning when he discovered the secret. Why make him continue that painful trajectory? Do you think a handful of years with you is adequate compensation for forcing him into an eternal life of despair and agony?"

"He will find out anyway," she insisted.

"You don't know that! For centuries we kept it hidden. The Jotun were banned from Asgard, and it was treason for any our people to visit their world without my explicit consent. I saw to it that he had no interaction with them, no reason to put together the pieces."

"That was why you were so angry," Thor gasped, stepping towards his father. "Why you banished me."

"You brought your brother to the Jotunheim!" Odin's anger thrummed through his voice. "I had made it clear that it was the one law you must not break, and you defied me! Laufey had poisoned enough people I cared for, and you let him drip his venom into your brother."

"So, I set all of this in motion," Thor sounded anguished.

"No, your father did," Caroline argued. The last thing they needed was for Thor to spiral into self-recrimination. "He's the one who took Loki. And from what he has told me, Loki was in communications with the Ice Giants even before that when he let them into Asgard during the coronation. So you see, all of your careful planning was for nothing. Loki still found out, and he would again even if we did not reset his mind."

"Odin, Son of Bor!" The door slammed open and Frigga, looking every inch the warrior goddess of myth stormed into the room. "We need to have a conversation. Now."

***

The image of Caroline's eyes held in Loki's mind, deep and compassionate. Slowly, his focus narrowed, white disappearing, followed by the ever shifting color of her iris, until all that remained was a sea of black.

He was lost in it. Only that black, empty and timeless, remained. It was a void. Nothingness and everything all at once.

"You are not lost, Loki," he heard a soft voice speak into the darkness. "You found your way out once, all alone. You can do so now as well. Follow my voice. I will not let you go."

It was true, he did know the way out. He was reluctant to take it though. He knew that way lay pain beyond enduring.

"There is also love," the voice whispered. "Let the hope of that pull you through. We will do our best to shield you from the worst of the pain."

He considered ignoring the voice, just settling for the oblivion of nothingness, but his nature would not allow it in the end. He was too inquisitive, too restless to rest idle for eternity. He focused on the invisible voice, let himself move towards where he thought it called from.

A series of events flashed in his consciousness. It was not love, this series of couplings and other indulgences, but for a time it seemed to numb a bit of the hurt, of the isolation he had experienced in the void. All too soon though, that dread feeling of isolation returned, worse each time he walked away from an unsatisfactory encounter.

"Oh my son," the sadness in the words echoed the sadness inside of him.

The scenes shifted, he was no longer seeking pleasure. Instead, a miasma of fear and pain surrounded him. It burned and froze all at once. He could not endure it. The terror struck at his mind, his soul, leaving no part of him unscathed as it sought to drive him mad and break him to his core.

"You are safe, Loki. I will not let them hurt you again. Forget this. Forget the pain, the anguish. Remember the events, but let the memory be distant, as if from a dream you have awakened to find is not real."

Desperately he followed the loving voice, climbing out of the depths of anger, self-hatred, fear, and agony. He was flying over it all now. Observing it from a great distance, as though watching a play from the top row of a massive theater. An actor dressed in his clothing emerged, beaten and compromised, golden scepter clutched in his hand. As the performer danced through Midgard, battling with his brother and assorted mortals, Loki could catch glimpses of himself, struggling to break the strings of the one making him dance. It was almost entertaining, seeing himself find ways around his would be master.

It was less entertaining when he felt himself crash, with bone jarring immediacy onto a solid marble floor. Over and over again, a large hulking beast flung him about, no reverence given for his Godly form. Pain jolted through him, real and all too present.

"I am sorry, my dear. From here you will feel it all. The good and the bad."

It was bad for some time. The humiliation of losing, a crushing blow despite the fact that he would not have wanted to win. The taunts and threats of lowly humans trying to make him as small as they were. The knowledge that he had been used, had his will subverted by another, even with the use of the Mind Stone, cut him to the quick.

"You resisted more than most could have," he heard. "You survived and kept a part of your mind your own."

It was meant to be comforting he knew, but he held himself to higher standards. The him that he was now agreed, sitting in a jail and longing for death. He saw that now. He had been eager to leave the world of the living and end the misery that was his existence.

"Just a few moments more, Loki."

A bright light. Not in the normal sense, not seen. Felt. A wave of sunlight in an unlit room. A voice, musical and clear as a bell. A touch that gentled rather than cut. Water for a sere soul.

He tried to taunt her, to drive her away. He tried to bring her closer at the same time.

She smiled, and her eyes smiled into his. She listened, listened to all of the things he said and even more to the things he omitted. The soft wings of her aura wrapped around him and held him close, balm for the scabs that still covered unhealed wounds. She freed him, from his jailors and from his own mind.

Snow, fire, laughter, sustenance, beauty. Beauty of sound, of sight, of taste. Acceptance of every part of him. He worshiped her and discovered that it could be even more fulfilling than being worshipped.

He did not want to share her light, her laughter, but grudgingly accepted that he could not be the total sum of her world. Cautiously, he opened the door to others. His brother, loved despite fear. His enemy, more alike than he would have ever guessed.

She thought he could be a hero. He knew she was wrong, he was not the stuff of saviors, but for her he was willing to try. Her bravery inspired even as it terrified him.

The terror was justified. She was gone, drowning in the same horror that had left him a shattered remnant of himself. He could not, would not allow it. Her light was too important to be extinguished.

He dove.

"Oh, my brave son. What a source of pride you are to me. Now I fear, we have to go back. Hold on and follow me."

He didn't want to leave her, but the pain was too profound to stay. He was whirling back now. Past the snowy woods where she spoke of Giants and beauty. Past the doomed invasion where he sabotaged his own success, past the terror and torture of the cage, blessedly out of full sight, and past the void when he had been born.

He was in a different snow now, much colder and harsher without her warmth. A hand that should have burned away his flesh grabbed his arm and turned it blue. Panic welled inside him a fear long suppressed rising up to the surface.

His brother, the one constant in his life, was ripped away before his eyes. His fault perhaps, but not his intention. He had meant to delay, not to separate.

A box glowing the same blue as his arm had turned. As his body turned when he grasped it. His father, but not his father, confronting him. Words shouted in anger, in horror. How could it be? Why was it his fate?

"Remember the beauty," the voice in his head directed. "Remember what she showed you. The music, the art, the love."

Slowly he began to calm down. Images continued to swirl, shameful scenes of deceiving is brother, concealing his true goals. He had been so afraid. Afraid of what he was, of what he might become, of who they might see him as. He saw himself as a monster, but was that all he was? He had been shown a light, a love, beauty and peace. Could that be a part of his heritage as well? Were such things allowed?

He barely watched the rest, so caught was he in this thought. His make up was more than just that of a monster. He didn't understand.

He was spiraling back once more, through centuries of life. Many disappointments, hard won victories, some joys sprinkled in.

"Eir, what are you doing? This is not among the lost."

"Trust me, AllMother," a new voice, hard and distant, spoke.

He could barely form a thought. His world consisted of eating, sleeping, and the pale, green eyed woman who looked down on him, dark hair falling around her face.

"My darling son," she whispered in a voice he recognized though he had never heard in his waking life. "My little Loki. I wish I could stay with you, but my time among the living is at an end. Carry my love with you where ever your path takes you."

"Volla!"

The voice that had been guiding him was suddenly stripped of the soothing calm. In its place was a new emotion, raw and pained. Loki wanted to question it, but he was so tired, and all he could do was let sleep, blessed and cursed all at once, wash over him.

* Volla, also referred to as Folla, was a sister and handmaiden to Frigga in Norse mythology and known as the Goddess of Secrets.

So, this chapter took forever to write. I am still not quite sure how I feel about it, but it mostly does what I hoped for, I think? Let me know your thoughts!

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