Archive of Our Own ^beta

NIKIAS

28 years old, he/they

Wow, looks like I finally got a chance to speak.

I hope I can use it wisely because I am pretty sure you dislike me since Loki is always bitching about me, blaming everything on me, calling me delusional and telling me I hurt everyone and sabotage his relationship with Thor, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. You probably also hate me because I lashed out at Thor and made sure that he won’t play football for a while because you, as everyone else in Loki’s life, probably adore that stupid piece of abusive shit.

Well, you don’t know everything about either Loki or Thor.

But, at least, you’re aware that I am an alternate personality or alternate identity by now, I’m sure. So, let me start by telling you why we exist. We exist because Loki, for want of a better word, ‘created’ some of us when he was in too much pain to handle it, which means that some of us solely exist to retain traumatic memories for him, so that he won’t have to deal with them. That’s a very simplistic way of putting it but maybe it makes you realize why I hate Loki for being so weak and so pathetic. Why I hate him for creating me and bringing me into this world where I have to share his pain every time I am drawn to that cave and basically feel what he’s feeling when he doesn’t let me into the body and pushes me back.

All his feelings, they’re disgusting. Overwhelming. His neediness, it’s all-consuming and it hurts. His love for Thor, I swear to you, it physically hurts. Like, when he misses Thor, there’s this sudden void yawning open inside his chest and it just feels like it swallows everything, you know, all the vital organs that you kinda need to survive and then there’s just emptiness and that emptiness hurts because a body isn’t supposed to be empty.

Thor.

I don’t know what’s wrong with Loki when it comes to that brute. Thor is neither particularly intelligent nor empathetic, he’s misogynistic and ableist and arrogant and selfish, he has zero taste, zero class, zero style, and he’s a walking, living, breathing High School jock stereotype in a football jersey. He isn’t special. I’ve been trying to tell him that but Loki won’t listen. Thor is his whole world and it’s disgusting.

Do you want to know what my first memory of Thor is? Do you want to know what happened to Loki the day I came into existence? Oh wait, I think you actually know what happened, don’t you?

It was the day they locked him inside that closet and, of course, he couldn’t cope with that. It triggered him in all sorts of ways, mainly because he was left alone in the cold as an infant but also because he lived through other, rather unpleasant situations where he was left alone as a kid. His nanny did that to him on purpose after his Mom went back to work when he was little. On some days, when his brother went to his friend’s house to play after school, the nanny—her name was Amora, by the way—put Loki in his room and kept him locked up there to let him cry himself into a frenzy for a while before she finally came for him. Sometimes she hurt him to make him cry even more, pinching his stomach and his arms and thighs and sometimes even his balls.

She was a very disturbed individual who got off on seeing people suffer.

Loki has no mental access to any of that though. He dissociated and imagined himself as a girl without balls to pinch and, boom, he created Leah and, to this day, she’s holding this trauma for him. And she’s stuck at that age too, mind you, just because of him. Just because he can’t deal with shit.

Again, I am oversimplifying, but you’re getting the picture.

At least, I hope you are.

And my first memory is darkness. Imagine that. You pop into existence and you’re locked up in the dark. You try to call out to someone but then again you don’t really know what you’re supposed to say because you have only been alive for like five minutes. That is my first memory. Along with Loki’s last memories before he so kindly fucked off and created a person who would be able to defend themselves against bullies. And Loki’s last memories were of him leaving his classroom, trying to push through the crammed hallway to reach his brother before the bullies caught up to him, but Thor was standing at the far end with his girlfriend, dallying with her and fooling around with his buddies like the fucking Prom King that he is. Loki called out to him but Thor didn’t hear him over the noise of the clamoring students in the buzzing hallway. He called him again and again and again but, eventually, Thor turned around and left the building. And the bullies caught up to Loki and dragged him into another hallway and opened the closet and shoved him inside. No one intervened because no one cared about Loki. They all thought he was weird and they hated him because he was smarter than them and pushed their GPAs down a few points because if teachers gave Loki As, they suddenly had to give former straight A-students Bs and no one liked that sort of downgrading. Literally, ha. They still don’t, by the way. They still hate him. Plus, he’s pale and skinny and people find people who are pale creepy, probably because they give off undead vibes or something.

Anyway, Thor. He just turned around and left Loki there. It’s basically his fault that I was created and that I had to sit alone in the dark for a few hours before the janitor came and let me out and Loki’s consciousness approached close enough for me to know which way I had to go to get to his home.

That beautiful suburban house with a huge backyard and a pool and a giant kitchen and living room and all tons of cool stuff like liquor cabinets and expensive looking wall clocks and a designer couch and a large home entertainment system. Thor’s head popped out of the door of his room when I walked up the stairs, his face pinched. “Where have you been? I tried to call you like three times!”

“I went for a walk,” I said because I didn’t yet know that you could call people on electronic devices and because that’s what I did, I walked there without any idea why or how, guided by Loki’s memories of the neighborhood.

“It’s like 9 p.m.,” Thor replied but I just shrugged and walked into the room I knew was mine. Or, rather, Loki’s. Ours. Whatever. I was the one to suggest the dark walls though, so it’s kind of ours. That evening though, his room was still painted in a light green and I sat down on the bed, patting the mattress, which was so much softer than the bottom of the closet and then, suddenly, Loki pushed me out. As soon as that bitch felt the mattress and knew he was safe again, he sent me to some fucking cave and I had to deal with a guy with long, black hair, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and led me away and into a jungle. I thought he was very weird and the things he told me were even weirder and I didn’t understand them at first. Didn’t understand who Loki was and why I existed. He told me that he’d been with Loki since Loki was in preschool, even though Loki didn’t become aware of his existence until much, much later. He told me that he was a protector and that I was a memory holder and that I was created to, well, hold that memory of being stuck in the dark for hours, so that Loki wouldn’t be harmed. So that others wouldn’t be harmed.

Nice, isn’t it?

Having us is very convenient for Loki but very inconvenient for some of us. Just imagine you could just take your pain, your emotions, your fears and your memories and pass them on to someone else. Great concept, right? Yeah, well, not for the people who you give your shit to and who are stuck with boatloads of pain that shouldn’t have been theirs to endure. I didn’t meet Leah until much later but she’s such a sweet girl and she doesn’t deserve to be a trauma holder for that pathetic fuckwit.

Sometimes, I wish they would integrate, so that he remembers everything she remembers. Sometimes, I even wish the two of us would integrate so that he has my memories of how much his neediness and his memories of being bullied bled into me and hurt me. And yes, I get it, they did horrible things to him. They beat him up and they kicked him and, that one time, they even took away his clothes. Loki is such a poor boy, right? Nope. Not really. It’s his fault. He could have told someone. His Mom for example or his brother, who explicitly asked him if anyone had bothered him in school and he flat-out said no. That little fuck.

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself.

In a way, it is also my fault that Loki and I are so close. Yuck. That sounds disgusting. What I mean is that we share consciousness a lot more often than he does with any of the others so that some of our emotions and memories bled into each other to the point where it becomes hard to tell if I feel something because I feel it or because Loki feels it. To the point where I can’t tell sometimes if this memory is mine or his and that really sucks. And yes, in case, you were wondering, there are others. There is the one in charge, the gatekeeper, and if I were to tell you that he’s a giant speaking serpent-dragon kind of creature living in that cave, you’d probably think I’m crazy too. Whoops, too late. I told you. There are others too, like the one who was co-conscious with Loki when he was in therapy for a moment and told the therapist about the closet incident because my memories bled into them, but Loki hasn’t become aware of them yet and it’s best not to speak of them as long as Loki doesn’t know they exist. At least, that’s what I have been told. Not that I mind talking about things I am supposed to shut up about but it’s too complicated to explain right now.

Where was I?

Right, the whole co-consciousness ordeal is kind of my fault.

Because Loki created someone who wouldn’t take shit and that’s probably why I didn’t contend myself with living just to keep him from getting harmed. Because, honestly, how lame is that? Would you want to live like this? I don’t fucking think so. I wanted to know who Loki was and what we needed to protect him from and why, so I went back to the cave as soon as that weirdo—the one who Loki, in a burst of sudden creativity, named The Voice but whose actual name is Killian—left me to my own devices after showing me around. I could have just stayed where I was, stayed as I’d been told, but I went back anyway.

I walked into the cave and it was very dark in there, darker than before, and only later did I learn that this was because Loki was sleeping. Because the body’s brain was asleep. He didn’t stay that way for long and I remember the unspeakable longing I felt when he woke up. He felt alone, entirely alone, his chest physically hurting in his chest, and he stifled a few sobs that were so painful that I thought I would never draw another breath. He lay in his bed for a while and it felt like I was suffocating and I thought that, yes, of course, someone needs to take that away. From him, from me.

He got up after a while and I could see through his eyes in a way, even if it was blurry. I was lurking in the cave with no knowledge how to push forward yet. It took me eighteen months to take full control of the body for the first time and, back then, I didn’t know anything. So, I just stood there and endured it, hurting, yes, but too intrigued to turn back.

Loki went into his brother’s room.

Thor was lying on his back, his right arm over his head, snoring like a thunderstorm. Loki crawled into his bed and gently shook his left shoulder, getting only a sleepy grunt in response. He shook harder and whispered Thor’s name, his voice low and sobby.

“What?” Thor grumbled without opening his eyes.

“Thor?”

“What?”

Loki didn’t say anything. He started crying instead and Thor half-opened his eyes, asking, “What is it?” but Loki only cried harder and Thor said, “Just come here and go back to sleep, okay?” and then Loki snuggled up to him and Thor wrapped him up in his arms and Loki relaxed almost instantly and the feeling of relief that flooded his body was immensely powerful.

The cave went dark again but still, I kept lurking there until the morning.

Until a weird kind of tune rose Loki from sleep and Thor reached for some device on the nightstand and made the tune stop. “Time for school,” he sighed and then, Loki’s pain and longing and despair returned with full force, slamming into me as well. Loki clung to Thor as he tried to get up.

“Stop it,” said Thor. “We need to get up and go to school.”

“No,” Loki whimpered.

“Yes. I have a test. Come on.”

“No.”

“Come on,” Thor repeated and then he grabbed Loki’s shoulders and yanked him off of him. “What’s wrong, brother?”

Loki shook his head.

“If you don’t wanna talk, I can’t help you.”

“Just don’t go, please,” Loki whimpered.

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little too old for this?” asked Thor. “We can’t just stay home. Or at least I can’t because I have a test, okay?” And then he let go and he got out of bed and Loki crumbled. Literally. He sank back into the pillows and I felt like my existence was unraveling along with his and Thor didn’t even care, he just left the room as he’d left the building the day before, leaving Loki to himself.

“What’s going on?” asked a woman’s voice from the hallway and Thor mumbled, “Loki doesn’t wanna go to school, I guess.” Then, there were some footsteps. “No, he’s in my room.”

“What happened?” asked the woman as she walked into Thor’s room where Loki was lying like this and she sat down and petted his head. Loki didn’t reply, so she yelled, “Thor, what happened?”

“Nothing happened. He came into my room because he had a nightmare and now he’s upset because we’ve got to go to school. No mystery there.”

The woman asked Loki what was going on but he didn’t reply. She hugged him close then, trying to soothe him and it seemed to work for a while until another man appeared in the doorway, a grim, unforgivable expression on his face. “What’s going on here?” He looked at the woman, then at Loki. “Get up, son.”

“Loki isn’t feeling well,” said the woman. “We are going to stay—”

“Nonsense,” blared the man. “You’re old enough to go to school even if you’re upset, aren’t you, boy?”

Loki raised his head and I could feel his fear to disappoint that man in every fiber of my being.

“Come on, just get up and pull yourself together. You’re not a child anymore.”

“Yes, Dad,” Loki gulped and then he untangled himself from his mother’s hug and went to get ready.

“You’d better hurry up or your brother’s going without you,” the man shouted after him.

“Everything alright?” Thor asked him when Loki joined him for breakfast a little later. “Did that Stevens kid bother you again?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Anyone else bother you?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Good.” Thor busied himself with the mountains of food on his plate for a while before he said, “Look, I don’t know how to say this but … you can’t keep doing that anymore, Lokes.”

“What?”

“Come to sleep in my bed at night. You’re thirteen now and it’s getting kinda weird, don’t you think? I’m eighteen, okay? I can’t share a bed with my teenage brother anymore. That’s …” He sucked some air into his mouth through his teeth. “I mean, I don’t mind. I love you, you know that, but, like, Sif broke up with me because she was creeped out by how close we are and, uh, I …”

Loki gulped, embarrassed, and I hated Thor for saying that because he didn’t feel what Loki felt when he hugged him and he had no idea how much he was hurting Loki by pushing him away like that. And Loki didn’t tell him how devastated he was and I hated him for that too.

Like, why not just communicate??

“Like, what if I have a girl over and you sneak into my bed in the middle of the night? That’s creepy, okay? No one’s gonna understand that.”

Loki nodded vaguely. “You aren’t allowed to have girls over.”

“Yeah, as if they’d notice,” Thor snorted.

“What’s her name?” Loki asked, pushing his feelings aside as he always did and still does and probably always will.

“Jane.”

“Jane Foster?”

A smile plucked at Thor’s lips. “Yeah.”

I hated that smile because Thor only cared about himself and I got angry and I pushed forward and I gained a little more access to Loki’s memories and I felt like I could reach his consciousness to make him aware of how Thor mistreated him and that he needed to fight back and suddenly Loki’s voice turned a little sharper and he said, “But she’s so smart. What does she want with you?”

Thor looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not exactly bright. What do you guys even talk about?”

“Excuse me?” Thor snapped. “I might not be you-smart but I’m not dumb, okay?”

Loki shrugged. “I just figured she’d be interested in someone a little closer to her intellectual level, that’s all.”

“Okay, one more word and you can walk to school,” Thor grumbled, shoving the rest of his breakfast into his mouth.

That was the beginning.

It was the last time Loki crawled into Thor’s bed but that didn’t mean he stopped clinging to his brother, of course, and every time Thor rejected him, he got hurt and every time he got hurt, I got hurt because for some reason, I was drawn to that cave like none of the others. I just couldn’t stay away. I couldn’t stay away from those intense memories I felt during my first day of existence and I wanted Loki to let go of that need to be comforted by his brother because it was destroying him and he couldn’t see it.

I had to do something, right?

So, yes, I tried to isolate him from his family. Tried to teach him to endure being alone and suffering insults, rejection, pain. All these things that others have to feel but that he can’t deal with. I tried to toughen him up, make him stronger. Tried to teach him how to live without his fucking brother, made sure Thor wouldn’t stop by as often anymore, even blocked him.

I know what you’re thinking.

It didn’t go all too well so far, I know, which is why I had to do what I did. Loki’s entire existence revolves around his brother and his mother and that’s just not how a person is supposed to live. A person isn’t supposed to crumble every time they’re left alone for a few hours. Loki needs to learn to stand on his own two feet, like his Dad said. And for that, he needs to be as far away from Thor and his parents as possible and I made sure of that.

Now, let’s see what the future holds.