Unbroken

Chapter 42

Loki wasn't sure why he so quickly volunteered to walk Trinity home, but he didn't really have time to question himself. Right after they finished their tea they got up and started to head to her house, which wasn't terribly far, but Loki didn't know the city very well so Trinity was directing.
They didn't have much conversation as they walked, but Trinity pointed out some things around the city that she thought he might find interesting. Then after a little while they arrived at her house, Loki walked her to the door and she opened it to go inside.
"Good night Loki" she said with a small smile. He nodded a bit.
"Good night. I'll see you..... next time I'm injured..." he said as he turned to go back home. But before he could take a step Trinity spoke up again.
"Loki" she said to get him to turn back around, which he did. "Do me a favor and don't sleep on the floor when you get back" she said, Loki wasn't sure why she cared, it didn't affect her.
"Why? I mean.... why does it matter to you?" He asked.
"Because you can't sleep on the ground forever. Every time you lay down and sleep on the floor, you're letting laufey continue to control you" she told him. He wasn't sure what to make of that, he felt like he already knew that, but now it mattered. He knew he was letting Laufey win when he slept on the ground, but it was easier that way... though, now that he thought about it, all he had ever done was keep his head low and try to make things less difficult, which was smart when he was on Jotunhiem , but now he should try to break away from that.
"Just try. Stay in bed for an hour, and if you still can't sleep then move to the floor" she added when he didn't reply. There was another moment of silence and then he nodded.
"Alright... I'll give it another attempt" he said back. Trinity smiled again, and to Loki, she seemed to warm up the air around them.
"Thank you, good night again" she said as she went inside and closed the door. Loki turned away from her house and walked back to the palace, and oddly, he didn't feel uncomfortable with being out in the city alone. He remembered the way back and he was able to just focus on getting back. He wasn't afraid that someone would hurt him, and for some reason, laufey didn't enter his mind until he got back to the palace and was headed to his room.
Once he got back to his chambers, he remembered the conversation he had with Trinity... he had to attempt to get some sleep in the bed he had barely touched. He sighed a little bit and went to change his clothes to sleep, after a few minutes he came back and got into bed. As soon as he laid down he realized how tired he was, his muscles relaxed completely and suddenly his eyes felt very heavy. He thought he would have a hard time falling asleep, but he had had a very long day and an even longer night, so he fell to sleep almost immediately.
=*****=
When Loki woke up the next morning he felt very relaxed, waking up in bed had proven to be much more comfortable than waking up on the ground. He sat up yawning and wished he could go back to sleep, but he knew that pretty soon Thor would be coming to get him for breakfast, and he decided that for once, he was going to get up and get down to breakfast without someone coming to get him. He quickly got dressed and then went down to the dinning room. Breakfast went as it usually did, with loki speaking very little and the other three having conversations. Loki did a lot of listening, and he wasn't happy when he heard Thor and Frigga discussing that there was going to be some kind of large scale event soon. Apparently it was in celebration of the anniversary of Thor's birth. Loki knew what those kinds of events looked like, and he wasn't looking forward to it.
Loki finished breakfast early and got up to go to the training room. He would normally go to study reading more, but he wasn't going to be able to focus, he had several things that were keeping him distracted (Trinity, the conversation they had the night before, and now the party), so he decided to go do something physical instead.
He had only been there for a few minutes when he heard someone talking to him.
"You really shouldn't do that without someone else in the room" he heard Thor say to him. He was doing some exercises with weights when Thor walked in, apparently Thor felt it was a bad idea to use a bench press with no one around.
"Why not?" Loki asked as he put the bar back on the rack, then sat up so he could see Thor.
"Because you might drop it on your neck and kill yourself" thor said as he came over and made sure the weight bar was secure.
"Oh... well I'll be-" Thor cut him off.
"Yeah yeah I know, you'll be fine" he said, getting a little sick of hearing the word 'fine' from loki.
"Well, its true" Loki said as he got up off the bench and went to wrap his hands for punching.
"Did you want me to do something? You're not normally here" Loki asked. Thor shook his head .
"No, no you can keep doing this. I just wanted to see if you were alright, you left breakfast in a hurry and you looked upset. Did something happen?" He asked. Loki didn't want to mention that the idea of a party stirred him up, so he just shook his head.
"No, I'm- nothing is wrong. I just have a lot on my mind today" he said, which was half true, he had replayed everything that happened with Trinity about a thousand times, and for some reason he just couldn't get her out of his head. Thor didn't say anything else, he just held the bag steady for Loki as he started to punch it.
"Have you thought any more about learning combat?" Thor asked him "you're getting stronger, anyone could see that, and you're clever, you'd be good at it I bet" Thor said after a few minutes of Loki punching the bag.
"I uh.... I don't think I will" Loki said, looking like he was intentionally avoiding Thor's eyes.
"Why not?" Thor asked. Loki sighed a bit and paused to think about how to answer.
"It just- it wouldn't feel right.... I'm- i would be fighting people who actual belong here, people who actually matter, and I'm just a-" Thor cut him off again.
"Don't  of dare call yourself a slave" he said, looking a little too serious for Loki's comfort.
"Well even if I'm not a slave I'm still a possession" Loki said quickly and a little quietly.
"No your not" Thor said, now looking upset.
"You're not a possession, how many time do we have to tell you that before you'll start believing it? You're not a slave, you're not a pet you're not a possession, you're none of those things" Thor said. Loki stopped punching the bag and made himself look Thor in the eye.
"Then what am I?" He asked, which Thor was not expecting at all. "What am I? All anyone ever tells me is that I'm not a slave, not a servant, not a possession. Everyone tells me what I'm not, but no one has told me what I am" he added, and it seemed to Thor that Loki had thought about this question many many times...
"You're...." Thor wanted to answer, but he found himself coming up with no answers. He was going to say that Loki was a friend, but that didn't seem right, he lives with them in the palace, they've given him all the same privileges that Thor has, he not simply a friend. But he's also not family because, as Loki was always bringing up, Odin and Frigga did technically still own him. Thor was realizing that he didn't really know what Loki was either...
"You don't have to answer.... I wasn't trying to guilt you" Loki said after a very long silent minute "it's just hard to think of myself as anything but a possession when no one is able to provide and alternative title" he added. He had accepted that he was basically nothing a long time ago, and Thor didn't like that he could hear that in Loki's tone. Loki was too casual, too calm, like this was just a normal thing. But Thor didn't have any answers... he wished he could tell Loki how wrong he was, but he couldn't... he couldn't give an alternative title.
"Im sorry" Loki said suddenly "I really shouldn't complain, you all have made my life a thousand times better. Before coming here I didn't know what it was like to wake up and not be afraid, now I wake up and get to enjoy a satisfying meal with all of you, I have a room that isn't a blood stained cell, if I'm injured I can get real help. Having a title isn't important" he said, though Thor had a feeling he was also trying to convince himself of that as well as Thor... Thor knew that it was important to know where you stand in life.
Thor wanted to think of Something else to talk about, but nothing came to mind.
"Well, I just wanted to make sure nothing had happened to upset you at breakfast. I'll leave you alone" he said as he turned and left the room. He was going to go do his own training, but he decided he first needed to fix Loki's problem, he can't just think he's nothing for the rest of his life. So Thor went to find Odin and Frigga and work out a solution.