Elle did not look at him when she entered their apartment, and that told Loki all he needed to know.
“Oh, love.”
She shrugged, crossing through the kitchen and tossing the brown paper bag onto the countertop. The pills rattled on impact, and perhaps it was only then that Elle realized she had not so much tossed the bag and thrown it. She sniffed as she slipped off her sneakers, pushing them with her toes into alignment with the other footwear by the door.
Anything, Loki realized, to keep her gaze averted. He stood from the sofa and went to her, pulled by her gravity, or perhaps by the gravity of his desire to take this all away.
She stared past him toward the coffee maker, watching steam curl up from the glass as the fresh pot brewed. The kitchen was warm, filled with morning sunlight and the smell of coffee and cinnamon. Perhaps on aother day, they would both be smiling.
Today, Loki took her hands and waited.
“Relapse,” Elle said finally. “Doc said I need to remember that it’s not my fault. That it’s medical. That I didn’t do anything wrong.” Spoken in a clipped, flat tone. The same tone that had crept back into Elle’s voice over the past few months. The tone that rarely varied, whether she was telling him about the new book she was enjoying, another fight with Dickhead Daniel in Accounting, or admitting she’d gone another day without a shower because it was just too much. The same tone she used when she admitted she’d fallen behind at work again because she looked at a new task and her thoughts slipped away from her, and when she tried to get organized, she got frustrated, then sad, then bored, and it all just slipped away.
“She’s right.”
“Mm.”
“Elle. She’s right.”
“I know. That makes it harder. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.” A sharp, angry inhale, and suddenly her tone was anything but flat. “I’m eating meals on time and I’m not drinking. I’m going to the gym, I’m taking my stupid fucking walks and getting stupid fucking sunlight every day and I’m drinking my fucking water. I’m treating myself like a goddamn houseplant and my brain is still fucking me over! Again! I was supposed to be done with this by now! I was supposed to be able to stop my meds and go back to normal! I felt this way because Sakaar broke me and I don’t want to be broken. I’ve worked so hard to not be broken. I don’t want my trauma, I don’t want to be who I am now! I want my old self back! Where did she go? Why can’t I bring her back?”
The tears were severe and sudden, a storm that had been building for weeks finally crashing against a heart made of glass. Elle pulled in shallow, hiccuping breaths, but this, too, made her angry. “I used to be quick. My brain worked so fast. I was funny and smart, and now it takes me so long to understand. Reading books takes longer. I get tired faster. I don’t daydream like I used to. My thoughts are… are… different shapes than they used to be. Ideas take so much longer to land and I hate it. This used to be easy and I’m tired! I’m tired of putting in the work every single day! I’m tired of taking my pills and forgetting words and thinking so slow! I don’t want to get better, I want to be better!”
Gutted, miserable sobs. Not just guilt—abandonment. Loki heard the cavernous, lonely grief in every choked sound. He pulled her close, stroking the back of her neck as the tears crashed through the wall she had been trying so hard to fortify.
“I don’t want to be broken anymore. I wanted to be able to just… just… just live. And I can’t. I can’t fix it. All I can do is go back on my meds, and I’m just so fucking sad.”
She kept her arms at her sides, rigid, hands curled into defensive fists, but she let him hold her while she grieved. She cried and she cried—for the nights when she wanted to and couldn’t. For the nights when she’d been too flat. “You see it.” Her voice was muffled by tears and his shirt. “I know you see it.”
Meant as an accusation, but it came out soft. Weak. Beneath it, a plea: tell me what you see. Tell me how many pieces you can tell are missing.
Loki stroked her back, rested his cheek against her temple. His precious love. Elle had survived so many brutalities, so much pain. She’d dragged him back from the brink of desolation too many times to count, had defied gods and death for his sake and the sake of their friends. It was fitting, in a cruel way, that the power to undo her was hers alone.
Nothing, not Sakaar or the Grandmaster or any of what came after, could hurt her the ways her own mind could.
He sighed, nuzzling down into her hair. “I see how hard things have been since you stopped your medication. I see a ghost you thought you’d laid to rest creeping back into your heart. I don’t mourn the ghost, love. I mourn your hatred of it, because it is still you. That ghost makes you no less beautiful.”
He kissed her temple. “No less intelligent.”
Her eyelids. “No less powerful.”
The corner of her mouth.
Elle shook her head, refusing to look at him, even as she pushed a fraction closer. Always closer.
Loki rested his forehead against hers. “You trip over your words more often when you’re on your medication. It makes you talk with your hands—you gesture when the right word eludes you, drawing shapes and patterns that show me that your mind is working just as fast, even if it gives you different answers. You come up with the most fascinating, creative alternatives, and it never fails to make me smile.
“You cry more easily, but you also laugh more easily. It shows me where your highs and lows are, and having highs and lows is progress.
“It takes you longer to come.” She slumped against him. “No, no—it is in no way an insult, nor is it a detriment. It means I get to spend more time pleasing you, touching you, holding you. It means we are present together. That you trust me, even when you’ve lost faith in so much else.”
He ghosted his lips over her ear, withholding a smirk. “You do snore.”
That made her laugh. It was a fragile sound, but it was a laugh all the same. “Bullshit.”
“Like an engine. And it means you’re finally sleeping. You’re not tossing and turning all night.” He pulled back and was struck by how lovely she was. Splotchy, tear-streaked, and smiling just a shade. A smile she did not wish to give, but one she would surrender for him and him alone. He would do anything to protect that little smile. Even if it never truly bloomed, he would guard it with his life it if meant keeping even this sliver of joy in her heart.
Loki brushed the tears from her cheeks, unable to help himself from offering back a smile full of love, joy, and all the hope he could muster into one single expression. She pushed forward a fraction more, her chest warm against his.
“Yes, I see ways you’ve changed. I know you struggle to see yourself in those changes, but when I look at you, I see my charming thief, my temptress. You are the same heart, the same soul. Think of it this way: you are a new translation of the same poem. There are variations, naturally. Emphasis has shifted. Some of the favored lines of the original have had to change for the sake of the new rhythm, but that does not make you any less beautiful, meaningful, or precious. You are still poetry, love, and you are still reflecting a universal perfection just by the nature of who you are.
“And selfishly? You are the woman who made me want to live my life again, not a life in someone else’s guise, but as my true self. You are the woman who made me feel worthy for the first time in a lifetime. You are still that woman, still my woman.”
That earned him a small chuckle.
“There is no correct or wrong way to mourn the original poem. You are allowed to miss your favorite lines, the familiar flow. And just as true: the new poem is no less beautiful, no less delicate, and no less moving. You are not lacking for having changed. You are surviving, continuously. Every day, even when you’re exhausted. You take your pills, you treat yourself like a houseplant, and you move through another day. You are more powerful than any realm can contain.”
Elle hid her face against his shoulder, arms winding tight around his waist—she held him as if afraid he was going to pull away. Surely she knew better by now—he only held her more tightly as she began to cry again. But the sound was different this time. There was still an ache, but the thorn had been plucked out. He heard in it the sound of a heart beating through its pain, a heart that felt in each shudder that even if it were to shatter, it would not make it less whole. The pieces were accounted for, like so much stained glass, letting the light in once more.
A watery breath. “I snore?”
“Gods, so loudly. It’s truly impressive.”
A laugh, sure and true. Gods, there was no sound in the world that pleased him so much as her laughter. He kissed her temple again, simply holding her close. “I will love every translation of you. Every draft. Every revision. You are worthwhile, worthy, and radiant in every form. I can’t promise that every day will be good or easy, or that you will always be happy, but I can promise that I will be with you through it all. This is a journey you will never need to face alone.”
“I love you,” she said. It was a soft, simple truth, one that he never grew tired of hearing. It sank into his chest with a glowing warmth that made him feel like spring inside. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
Loki did. He remembered with unflinching accuracy every time she’d saved him, every nuance of rescue, be it from angry tyrants, the gaping cosmos, or the nightmares he hid within himself. She was his protector, his comfort, his pride and his light. His love. The person who saw all his truths and all his lies, and loved him for all of it. On her medication or off of it, when she was angry or bored, sobbing or laughing—she was beside him.
To be her anchor, as she was his, was a privilege. Perhaps not always easy, perhaps not always clear, but a privilege just the same.
“Come,” he said simply.
“Where?”
“We’re going to have our coffee and then we’re going to the bookstore. When we get home, we’re going to take a hot shower and then we’re getting back in bed.”
She peered up at him, and there was, at long last, a brightness in her eyes he had missed so dearly. “Are we spending the day naked in bed?”
“We are, indeed. We’ll tangle up together, we’ll read, we’ll sleep, and when we’re hungry we’ll—”
“Order as much sushi and ramen as we can handle.”
He laughed, teasing his mouth against hers. “Plus dessert, of course.”
She raised up on her toes to meet him, smiling into the kiss. “Of course. Can’t forget dessert.” She kissed him again, then tilted her forehead to meet his. “You’re the best, you know.”
“Oh, darling.” He flashed a cheeky grin. “I know.”
Her attempt at a playful shove only resulted in having Elle spun so her back was pinned to Loki’s chest. The coffee, and thus the bookstore trip, and the shower, and all the rest, was thus delayed by shenanigans and silliness, the likes of which they hadn’t enjoyed in weeks.
Their kitchen brimmed with sunlight and warmth, and all around them was gold.