Shades of Red

Camouflage

So sorry for the person I became.

So sorry that it took so long for me to change.

I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again

'cause who I am hates who I've been.

Who I am hates who I've been.

                   —Reliant K

—

Thor Odinson did not cry.

Weeping was for children. And the weak-hearted. And, occasionally, women. Although no women of Sif's caliber. He remembered making fun of his brother for his cries when they were children, when Hogun swung too hard in the training ring and knocked his nose sideways with a bloodied crack. He remembered the way the sand had darkened with Aesir blood, the blood of his own kin, and he'd stood there laughing at the younger prince's pain. "Man up," he had bellowed, his adolescent swagger swelling as he proved himself superior yet again.

Blubbering and wailing and sniffling was not for warriors. It was not for men.

Yet here he was. Arms wrapped around the fading, frail body of the love of his life, the one woman to capture his tumultuous heart in two thousand years, and the thunder god could not stop his tears.

Jane's thin form was trembling violently, her smooth caramel hair sapped of its natural shine, plastered against her pale forehead. The gentle flush beneath her cheeks had gone long ago, replaced with a frightening pallor and sheen of cold sweat. No matter how tightly he wound his arms around her, she would not warm. Her skin remained frigid as that of a Jötunn.

Thor buried his face in the nape of her neck, his tears hidden away in the limp curls of her hair. She no longer even smelled like his Jane. Her normal scent of sweet cinnamon had given way to something darker. Colder. A deadly mix of ash and dust, a dark rush of unearthliness that stole his breath.  

He squeezed his eyes shut and drew her closer. Something warm and sharp slid down his face, dampening the pillow beneath them.

The light had long ago begun to stream through the thinly shuttered window. A cruel reminder of how little time they had left. He'd slept not a wink the whole night. Every minute he spent counting her breaths, forcing himself to breathe in tandem, repeating the hollow mantra that she was still alive.

Still alive. For now.

Pressing a kiss to the back of her head, Thor untangled himself from Jane's still form and rose from the bed. His every limb felt heavy. But he moved his feet like deadweights until he reached the door, where he stopped to look back at her.

She looked so tiny, there amongst the tangle of sheets and blankets. Her sweat-streaked hair fanned across the pillow. One hand rested beside her white cheek, fingers curled loosely. So small. So breakable, wholly at the mercy of whatever darkness roiled inside her.

His throat clenched. Turning, he closed the door behind him and moved to the living room.

What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks, and for a moment he forgot about the awful twisting inside his chest. Something lighter teased at his heart.

Nudging the remnants of a long-buried hope.

Two figures lay on the couch, which seemed somehow far larger than it had been when he'd first set foot in this tiny abode. A shock of dark hair tangled with flaming red, a small face tucked into the hollow beneath an angular jaw. One pale arm trailed around a tiny waist.