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Loki remembers Thor’s episodes- a collection of vague memories forming a single, stitched-together picture. He couldn’t say where each memory belonged, only that the experience repeated so often it became one long, blurred recollection.
He would awake in the middle of the night to thunder rumbling down the hallway like it had just blown in on violent winds. He would imagine clouds folding over themselves like waves and stare at his door, half expecting them to seep into his bedroom like smoke. He waited until the storm passed his room before daring to open the door. There was no rain, no clouds- just the imagination of a child who thought it fitting.
He would step into the empty corridor where the sound of choking sobs bounced off each wall and pillar. It would always sound like he was suffocating, like some invisible monster had coiled around his throat, yanking tighter with every breath. It used to terrify Loki as his childish brain would worry if he was actually dying this time. The bedroom door would be open by then, and Father would be holding Thor’s tiny hands in his own as his body would jerk and thrash in dangerous convulsions. Mother sat on the other side of the bed, stroking his hair and whispering words too soft for Loki to hear. He never learned what she said- whether they were prayers, comforts, or desperate mutterings to herself. The occasional sharp gasp or rare gurgling scream would break the choking. There was nothing else they could do but wait until it was over; Mother stroking his hair, Father trying to hold him still, and Loki watching silently from the doorway.
Once, he asked Father why he would hold him down during the episodes. They never spoke of them by daylight, but once, perhaps after too many sleepless nights- Father answered. He explained that he came in and Thor had almost clawed out his own eye. Loki noticed that there were frequently scratch marks littering his brother’s arms, and sometimes neck, chest, and face in the middle of the night as if there was some evil spirit he was trying to rip out of himself. They would be mostly or completely healed by the time anyone saw him in the morning, so it was just another thing they wouldn’t discuss during the day.
Loki’s small fingers would twitch with helplessness as he stood there. He had wanted to reach out to Thor, to do something, but always felt frozen, unsure. Once, he tried to say a prayer like Mother did, but the words got stuck in his throat.
Thor would eventually wake on his own, looking groggy and confused, like he wasn’t sure where he was. Mother would ask him loads of simple questions on what he could remember, and would always share a look with Father when he said he couldn’t remember the nightmare. It was as if they wished he did because maybe then they would know what to protect him from, or maybe they were hoping for something else- what that else was, Loki still had no clue.
Father would make a show of throwing open the closet doors. “Checking for monsters,” he would say, and pretend to wrangle one out of the closet and toss it out a nearby window. Despite how drained he looked, the corner of Thor’s lips would always quirk into a smile like he found the visuals of their stoic father pretending to fight an imaginary monster amusing. Sometimes Loki wondered if Father’s forced humor was to keep his own fear at bay, and couldn’t help but notice how he never looked under the bed. That’s where the real monsters hide, but maybe it was easier to pretend they didn’t know that’s where it lay.
There would be times he would wet the bed. As Mother changes the bedding, Father holds Thor upright and invites Loki into the room to help change his brother’s clothes. Thor’s head would loll to the side like he was teetering back into the abyss of sleep, but he would always immediately respond if Loki tried speaking to him. Normally, trying to reassure him that he was fine and it “wasn’t that scary anyway.” It might’ve been more convincing if he hadn’t been in the process of changing his soiled pants. Loki never judged him- he didn’t want to know what kind of fear could break someone like that. That something was frightening enough that it could only exist in the confines of the subconscious.
Thor would be out like a light as soon as he was left in his bed again, and would not wake until late into the morning, exhausted from his own dreams. Loki sometimes felt a flicker of excitement if something fun was planned that day- he could go first, do everything without waiting his turn. Then he would remember what he witnessed at night and feel bad about being happy about it.
He thinks they came to a subtle stop as they grew up, or at least became less explosive that nobody would be woken up by them. He always hoped it was more of the former because the thought of fighting whatever monster that terrorized his brother at night and waking up alone scared him almost as much as the knowledge that there was such a monster out there.
Now, Thor was staying in his chambers before heading off on his next quest. He claimed he only needed rest, as if expecting to be sent away. Loki couldn’t recall if Thor had any current issues with Odin, not caring enough nor having the ability to pay much attention to their relationship as of late, but their strained silence spoke volumes.
He had the intent to continue avoiding him until he heard that familiar choking sound. They may not be brothers, but he still remembers that child’s ghastly face and haunted eyes. The concerned looks shared between parents forced to watch their child fight a monster and being helpless to stop it. There was always something else in their eyes, but he never learnt what it meant.
He took a detour to push the bedroom door open and wander inside before he could tell himself how stupid he was being. Might as well change his name to Thor with how grand of a plan this was.
The blonde in question wasn’t sprawled out, kicking and scratching like when he was a kid. Instead, he lay curled in a fetal position on his side, twitching and jerking in uncontrolled spasms; the sound coming from him was just as disturbing as he remembered it being, though. Maybe describing it as a monster having him from the throat was wrong. It sounded like there was a serpent trapped inside and trying to worm its way out through his mouth, only to end up trapping his airways as it squirmed. He wonders, a bit childishly, if maybe that was what he was trying to claw out during his youth. Loki didn’t want to think about whether the episodes had ever stopped. About the possibility that no one noticed. That Thor had been alone with it for years. The thought made his stomach twist.
Odin’s shadow stretched long over everything- over the halls, over the garden where they once laughed, and over the fragile threads holding them together. His expectations were as heavy as the crown he wore, unyielding and absolute. Loki remembered the rare moments when his gaze softened, but even then, it was fleeting- like a crack in a stone wall. Most days, Odin’s silence spoke louder than any words.
Thor had tried, again and again, to earn his approval: the quests, the battles, the displays of strength, but no matter what he did, the weight never seemed to lift. Loki understood it differently- Thor was fighting to keep the darkness at bay, and Father only saw the thrashing in bed.
And Loki? He was something else entirely- the son who was clever, quiet, unpredictable. The one who slipped between shadows and secrets. He knew all the places that monsters could lie in wait. He just wasn’t brave or strong enough to fight them, so he’d continue to leave that up to his brother.
Loki had tried. He’d tried to be the son Odin expected, yet the task felt like climbing a mountain with nothing to save him when he slipped. That was a when, never an if, and each time he did, the distance grew between him and his father- between him and Thor.
Now, in the quiet of the night, Loki felt the full weight of it all. The unspoken fears, the shattered trust, the desperate hope that maybe, somehow, they could still be brothers again. He didn’t know how. Despite everything they have both been through, he still remembered that haunted face, and it would not let him turn away. He can’t just walk out when he looks this pathetic- scared. He still looks scared. So he accepts a silent defeat and sits down on the edge of the bed on an empty pillow. There was nothing he could do but wait until it was over, pulling the hair out of his face and stroking it like he had seen their mother used to do.
Something surfaced in his mind that Thor would pet his hair the same way when he had nightmares. He would sit at the same spot on the bed, lay Loki’s head in his lap, and play with his hair. One time, he asked him if he had been too loud in his sleep, and Thor laughed, kissed his forehead, and said, “You’re so quiet, not even the forest beasts would hear you coming.” Loki followed up by asking how he knew he had a nightmare; he only showed up like that if there was one, and he got laughed at again. “I just knew you needed me.” That was the only response he got. His childhood brain concluded that Thor must have been so used to nightmares, he learned to sniff them out. That theory now sits in the pile with Thor being possessed by an evil spirit during his episodes; something he knows not to be true, but has accepted to never get a real answer.
Now that he thinks about it, Thor would show up in his room every time he had a nightmare until they were teenagers. He only stopped when Loki shouted at him about how he wasn’t a baby and didn’t need comfort after a bad dream. Oddly enough, Thor just stood there and took it. That was before he grabbed Loki’s face by the cheeks and kissed his forehead. Loki swatted at him, embarrassed, and said he was just asking to be stabbed between the ribs. He laughed and bolted from the room, not willing to see how serious he was being. Thor didn’t say anything when, a week later, Loki slipped into his bed after a nightmare.
He still came, sometimes. Quietly. Without a word. They were just another thing that wouldn’t be acknowledged during the day.
Thor woke up, or at least the choking sound and spasms stopped, and he groaned like he was in pain as he buried his head in a pillow. He probably was in pain. It looked painful- like his body had been fighting something it couldn’t escape. He thinks he asked about it once when changing his clothes, and Thor slurred out something about “not really, but an after-ouch,” which probably means that he was sore and too tired to communicate that normally.
Loki couldn’t quite control it when he blurted, “I thought those stopped.” He cursed himself immediately for the lapse. Maybe he needed more rest. Maybe he’d find time to grieve himself later- write an ode, perhaps, but not tonight.
Thor flinched and attempted to pull away from him. “Sorry,” he croaked. His throat sounded sore, almost as if he had been screaming the whole time. Was that what the horrible sound was? Was he choking on his own screams? Attempting to smother them down to appear braver and stronger, even when asleep. Thor seemed to have caught a glimpse of him and paused to stare with blatant confusion. It looked as if he was trying to recognize who was in front of him before relaxing and leaning into Loki’s hand. He mumbled something indistinguishable that all Loki was able to pick out was potentially the word “died,” but even that was a shot in the dark. He wore that same tired smile like when he would watch Odin fight the pretend monsters as a kid. Maybe the word “died” didn’t make sense.
He knew that Odin would ask what Thor could remember from the nightmare he had just had. That he would have that look like he was trying to find something. Loki’s not going to, though, because the reality is that he didn’t want to know. Curious? Yes, but feels he could accurately guess that Thor would have no recollection of the dream regardless. Thor didn’t seem to expect the question, resting his head on Loki’s lap and letting his eyes flutter back shut.
He waited a few more minutes, just petting his hair in silence until he thought Thor had either fallen back asleep or was close enough to it to slip away and pretend this never happened. As soon as he stood from the bed to leave, he heard, “Check the closet.” Thor’s eyes were fully open now, but staring blankly ahead as if he were mentally somewhere else. He likely was.
“You’re not a babe,” Loki said a bit shortly. He was tired and wanted to get some sleep; he figured it wouldn’t seem off for the person he was pretending to be either. “I’m not checking your closet for monsters.”
Thor didn’t flinch. He whispered, “Not mine.” For the first time since he arrived back on Asgard, he looked him directly in the eye, “There’s a monster in his closet.”
The words sat heavy between them, too sharp to be dismissed, too vague to be understood. Loki didn’t ask who he was- maybe because he already knew. Probably some cryptic nonsense, he decides to tell himself, trying to mimic their mother’s mystique. Thor couldn’t see the future. He didn’t know anything.
"Go back to sleep," Loki muttered.
He was already almost to the door when he heard, “Goodnight, Loki.” It landed like a thunderclap. Loki froze, pulse stuttering. Slowly, he turned back- ready to argue, fight, anything he needed to do, only to see Thor passed out in his bed, mouth hanging open like he was about to start snoring. It looked as if the entire episode never happened.
It was fine. He had to remind himself that Thor won’t even remember by morning.
He checked Odin’s closet just in case. If there were any monsters, he couldn’t see them but had a sneaking suspicion that they were there. Now he knows what their parents were looking for because Thor was surprisingly right. There was a glint of light that bounced off a mirror tucked away. In the mirror, he saw Odin, and for just a second, Loki wasn’t sure if the monster was inside the closet or looking back at him.