A few times a week, either after too little drink or - as is becoming more and more frequent - far too much, Thor becomes Aware.
Aware of the stains on his clothes and the couch and the floor.
Aware of the way the entire cabin smells of mold and rotting food and unwashed clothes and body odor and stale alcohol.
Aware of the way the roof leaks into a bucket on the kitchen floor that he merely steps around instead of doing the very basic task of asking Valkyrie to help him fix it.
Aware of the dirty dishes piled in the sink and sometimes swarmed with flies. The garbage can overflowing because it’s easier to just try to keep putting things in the bin than bag it up and bring it outside.
Aware that the food in the refrigerator has gone bad days ago and aware of the fact he’s been eating it anyway instead of ordering groceries.
A few times a week, Thor blinks and looks around and his good mood will plummet as he realizes the truth of things. And then he’ll turn to Korg and say, “After this episode I’m gonna get up and do the dishes.” And then he’ll have a beer. And another. He’ll eat one of the candies made from the herb Korg lovingly cultivates. And then he’ll say, “After this episode.” And by the time he’s too drunk to do anything productive, he’s no longer aware of any of it anyway.
(It’s not that bad, really.)
He opens the windows to air the place out every so often, lets the curtains be tied back so the light pours in. Those are good days, and he’s able to smile and maybe even grab a trash bag to clean up all of the stray takeout containers and empty cans and bottles.
(See, it’s not bad at all.)
He’s never quite able to tackle the clutter, but that’s not so bad either. The things he has are either things he needs - an ever-expanding collection of sweatpants and soft t-shirts and sweaters and raincoats (because for some reason it hasn’t stopped raining in New Asgard for more than a few hours at a time in over a year) - or things he finds on the Internet at two in the morning after several too many rum and cokes that he decides he needs in his life at that very moment.
Valkyrie has gotten on him more than once about that.
(When he had been a Prince, when he had been Worthy, he’d never had to worry about having enough money for something, let alone how to figure out a checking account.)
It doesn’t stop him from ordering a set of golf clubs almost immediately after their latest fight about it.
(He doesn’t even know what golf is).
(Most of what he has comes from Amazon, which, despite losing half its workforce, continues to function with the same ruthless efficiency as ever.)
Valkyrie has all but washed her hands of him, from a trying to get things to change perspective. She knows better than anyone, as she loves to remind him when he’s the most hungover and miserable, so she’s going to give him the time. She’ll take care of their people for now, and when he’s better, she’ll hand him the reins. Where the voice in his head that sounds like Odin and Loki in turns tells Thor all the ways he’s wrong, she tells him ways to keep himself safer as he grieves and tries to wrap his head around what happens next.
(An Asgardian’s lifespan is long. This is but the blink of an eye. He has millennia left to go.
Alone.)
This is all the reality of his life that simmers beneath the surface. He knows he’s unhealthy, knows he’s all but living in squalor. He knows he drinks too much and he knows his inertia is uncharacteristic and worrisome.
He knows all this, and still manages to ignore it on a moment-by-moment basis. That’s all he can really manage anymore; Loki might have said it’s all he ever could manage, never thinking ahead, never planning for anything beyond the very next step.
Sometimes he sits in his chair by the window and stares out at the water as his mind spirals down into depths he once would have said did not exist in his psyche. He pictures in vivid detail all the ways an Asgardian might manage to kill himself. He thinks about how all of the suffering in the universe stems from his own arrogance and pride - then he thinks about what an arrogant and prideful thought that is. Which merely proves his point. And down,
Down,
Down
He goes.
Korg is usually the one to pull him out, offering food or another drink or to pick something else to watch on TV or play on the PlayStation. And Thor will smile and shrug and open another beer and push it all to the back of his mind until he becomes Aware again.
(Sometimes he will go weeks without any Awareness, and the guilt afterwards is always a little crushing.)
(He used to run towards his problems.)
(He used to know who he was.)
So his goal becomes being as unAware as possible as much as possible, if only to spare himself and everyone around him the spiral. He pushes it all away, floods it out and closes his eyes and his heart to the truth. If he must live - Valkyrie making it clear that she will not deliver him to Valhalla should he take his own life and why die if not to be with his loved ones again - then he will live by allowing himself to soothe the pain in any way necessary.
(She isn’t thrilled with the idea, but she understands.)
Someday, he’ll get himself together, pick himself up and dust himself off and move on.
But not today.