#also just an unrepentant amount of loki fluff

[dilfbane]

It Gets Better(A Silky Pearl)

Summary: It’s been a long time since things have gotten this bad. Loki, returned from his latest mission, lets you know that, with help and support, you can overcome the worst of things, and makes sure you know that he’ll be there with you to get you through it, each and every day. 

Pairing: Loki/Female Reader

Warnings: Reader in this fic struggles with eating disorders. Thoughts and feelings related to these(specifically to anorexia and bulimia), are made throughout the fic, especially those that, in my personal experience, people with these disorders experience. I cannot stress enough that this will be discussed/referenced/talked about, sometimes explicitly(Though not graphically) and sometimes implicitly, so please be aware of that and know that it’s OK to take care of yourself and skip this one if that would be triggering to you! 

Word Count: 3.1k

A/N: I want to preface this by saying that there are a LOT of people, both here and on AO3, who have made some amazing Loki/reader oneshots where the reader is struggling with mental health and/or physical health issues, that really provide a sense of warmth and fluff and support to people who may be going through those things themselves, and I’ve taken a lot of comfort in those fics over the course of the pandemic(I’ll be shouting out a couple of them in the tags!). I want to acknowledge that these exist, and that they’re awesome and have partly inspired my own writing, before talking about this little project I’m embarking on. 

Because, while I have gotten a lot of comfort out of many of those pieces of writing, there are definitely some things which I feel like aren’t talked about as much in pieces like these which I have gone through, and which a lot of other people have gone/are going through, and…. I figured that maybe I could take a crack at trying to provide that hit of fluff for people dealing with those things, if I can, and hopefully use my own experience with them to do it in as respecful and accurate a way as possible. 

All that being said, the first oneshot in this little project is going to be dealing with a pretty heavy subject, that being eating disorders. The reader in this fic does struggle with eating disorders - specifically anorexia and bulimia. I will not be actively describing anything too graphic about these disorders in this fic, except to highlight through implication and some sparse details that this is what’s happening here, as well as show some of the inner thought processes of the reader, but there definitely is enough in here to show that that’s what’s going on, so if anyone would be triggered by that, please take care of yourselves and give this one a pass! Also, I will further disclaim that there are many types of eating disorders, and everyone’s experience with them is different. In this oneshot, I wrote based off what I know to have been true during the time in my life when I struggled with the same conditions, and I really tried to make the fluff and support as kind and encouraging as I possibly could. If for ANY REASON there’s something that I did badly at, or something that’s disrespectful, anyone reading this may feel more than free to let me know and I’ll do my best to fix it! I don’t want this fic to be a place where anyone feels hurt or disrespected, that isn’t my intention at all, and if I make a mistake in that regard for any reason whatsoever, I would really appreciate knowing so that I can correct it!

Anyways, after that extremely lengthy A/N, just… please know, if you’re going through something like this, that you’re not alone, that help does exist and is out there, and that you are seen and heard. And take this Loki fluff, because honestly, there can never be too much of that in the world! 

You know that he worries about you. Even before his latest, three-week mission, you know that he worried about you. In the mornings, as you pour your coffee, you watch him watch you with careful nonchalance, gaze boring into the back of your head, slight furrow creasing his eyebrows, frown pulling small at his lips. He dresses early, because he wakes early; it is a battle, most mornings, for you to get out of bed. And so what, if you take your coffee with more creamer than is necessarily normal - it has to last you a long time, this coffee. You need the sugar of it, to get you to that clean pain. It is sharper, more real, than any scalpel, any knife that Loki keeps concealed by his armor; all that fine Asgardian leather, green and supple and him. It gives you back the control that you lack. Lets you be the person that you would be. 

It’s not that you’re afraid of your body, but you are ashamed by it; cannot fathom, even now with his gaze on you, that Loki could love somebody so dreadfully overweight. 

Today, though - Today, you had thought, you had hoped, that it might be different. You don’t know why you have that hope, but it brims up in you; a physical need, a visible yearning, for you to be enough for once. Someone that Loki can stand to look at. Someone that Loki can love. He is looking at you now like he’s seeing you for the first time, and you flinch from the frown that creases his piercing gaze, unable to bear how it roves up the planes of your body; silhoutted in the light coming in through the window, you can feel each ounce of fat that stretches over your sinew, cartilage. (You know that Loki hates your body - He traces it sometimes like he’s probing you, trying to find where your bones are. You wish that you could call him on it, and know that you never could). 

You stand at the counter, and turn from him; rummage in the cabinet for your coffee mug with shaking fingers; you almost feel like they’re rubber. Blue and cold, like his Jotun skin, but you know that it isn’t enough. Pins and needles prick at them - you can almost convince yourself that it’s only your guilt and shame, but you cannot hide from the pain suffusing Loki’s voice when he speaks. 

“Darling,” He says, on a shaky breath, “We need to talk about this.” 

“I know -” You tell him - you know that you can’t run from this, anymore. He knows how you look, how nothing you do is fixing it. And now, he’s going to leave you. “I know, Loki - I tried, Loki, I’m so sorry -“ 

The agony that wells up in you threatens to overwhelm your ability to speak, and you feel your knees buckle the second before you fall. Your kneecaps slam against the cupboard underneath the sink, your head hitting the edge of the counter as you slide down hard to the floor. It hurts. But every part of your body hurts, these days. It’s as constant as your worthlessness. And something else, too - 

He is there, on the floor with you, in less time than it takes place to blink, pulling you hard and desperate into his arms; you don’t understand why, and you try to wrench yourself from him, sobs bubbling up and spilling out from your tightly shut eyes. You can feel the bruises starting to form on you, a lump throbbing at your temple. 

“Love,” He is saying, “Y/N, sweetheart, come back to me. Come back to me, darling, please.” He is stroking your hair; you feel his fingers at its strands, thin and brittle. God, you think, how pathetic you are - you can’t even keep yourself pretty for him, for this god and all the sacrifices that he’s made. You cry harder, unable to stop your own wailing. When you finally do, you’re exhausted - it takes everything out of you. 

“Loki,” You say, on a wretched whine, “I’m so cold.” 

“Hush,” He says, “You’re alright. You’ll be warm soon - We’ll sort it, darling, I promise.” 

You don’t know how to tell him that it isn’t something you can sort, but somehow you know, deep in your heart, that Loki understands. Still, his voice is so sweet, and the shudders that wrack you begin to halt in the steady hold of his embrace; the tender brush of his fingers over your skin. You feel like you can look at him, now, so you do it, sucking your bottom lip into your teeth to steel yourself for the cruel things you’re certain he’ll start with. But Loki’s gaze isn’t angry at you, not full of fury or disgust. They sparkle with unshed tears and concern, emerald in the daylight. It takes you a moment too long to realize all that pain, all that worry, is for you; when you do, though, you flinch away. Feel Loki’s fingers drop from your hairline to your cheek, then your chin, tilting your head up so that you can’t run and hide. 

“I’m losing you, love,” Loki says. His voice is low, and steeped in sorrow. It is his turn to look down, with guilt and shame, and you feel a pang blossom, raw and red, in your heart. He sighs, and straightens his shoulders. He is filled with some new resolution, some new determination you can’t wince away from. 

“I need to know,” Loki tells you, “How long this has been going on. I need to - I need you to tell me why, love. I can’t bear to see you like this.” 

“I can’t,” You say, blinking back a fresh torrent of tears, “Tell you why. It’s not - I can’t - I don’t know.” 

But you know, and Loki does, too. It’s the god of lies, holding you - of course he can tell that you’re lying. It is something other, and runs deep, this bone-y reluctance. A complex game of mental gymnastics. How could you ever tell Loki about the control that it gives you, the desperation with which you used all your calorie-counting and aching restraint to regain the love that you lost? The nights bent over toilet bowls; the way that, sometimes, you empty stomach made you dig your nails hard into your palms ’til they bled, to stop yourself from crying out at the pain. And he loves you - the part of you that craves his affection, that yearns to burrow fast and fierce into Loki’s embrace and spill all your secrets to him, makes sure to remind you of that.

“Y/N,” Says Loki, soft and tender, yet infused with a note so harsh that you would wince, if you could. “You can tell me anything. You need to.” 

You notice things, now, in the face of his determination. You notice that Loki is looking at you like he’s in physical pain, and that there’s something sticky and red on the pads of the fingers that brushed up against your head. 

“I’m bleeding,” You say. It comes out soft, horrified. 

The frown that creases Loki’s face would bring you to your knees, if you weren’t there already. 

“It’s just - a thing that I do,” You tell him, too ashamed to look at his face as you reveal it. “You don’t have to worry about it.” 

“That’s not enough for me, love.” 

Loki’s lips are pursed tight, and the wound in his eyes has hardened to steel. The you part of your body - the fleeing part, the one who knows how to survive - seizes its’ chance and you duck out of his embrace, with far more strength than you had possessed in what felt like, potentially, years. Scrambles, backwards, like a cornered animal, over the tile floor, before heaving itself up to standing. It faces Loki, and its’ breath comes in stabbing-sharp. It is hard to remember that you have to call it ‘myself’. You feel older than you were, yesterday, and you cannot, quite, get air to come into your lungs. That’s not enough for me, you hear your lover say, ringing in your ears like a hyena’s howl. 

You’re not enough for me, love. Your fingers spasm, clutching the sides of the kitchen table white-knuckled. You wonder, fleetingly, what Loki would do if you died. The thought makes you cry out in pain, a whimper ripping out from a throat rubbed fingernail-raw, but Loki does not move to stand. 

“Come back to me,” He tells you, spiked with sorrow and need. And, perhaps for the first time, you admit it - to yourself, as much as to him. 

“I don’t - I don’t think I know how.” 

He smiles the smiole of someone who’s seen his own pain, faced his own lashing demons, and you pause to take him in fully, this god who says that he loves you, the man he is trying to be. You catch on hixs eyes, those bright emerald coins, his hair like the feathers of crows. His high, pale cheekbones, and his silver-tongue cut like glass. The pads of his fingertips, slender and cold, tender and fierce on your skin or the hilt of a dagger. You breathe in the smell of him, parchment and iron; peppermint tea and the smoke from a lorn, crimson fire. Wet leaves, after a rain. You feel your resolve start to waver. 

“Well,” He says, all thoughtful, all trickster, “Sitting down, I believe, would be a good place to begin.” 

The teasing lilt of his voice - an act that he is putting on, and all for you, always for you - cajoles you, coaxing you to lever your elbows and slide back down onto the floor, your weary legs feeling unimaginably grateful. Loki shoots you a new smile now, light and proud. He beckons you, with a cock of his head and a slim, fond gesture, to him - Of a sudden, the tiles beneath you seem like a desert, an ocean. You feel the weight of your emptiness. It laughs at you, its’ white teeth filed and barred. In your head, your failure is heavy; a hot and cackling creature with seven-foot claws pressing down on your chest, restricting your matchstick limbs. You are lost to the unyielding insistence of it, trapped in the maw of its cage, and Loki’s words, when they come, sound as far away as the shores of a country ancient and foreign. 

“I was hardly gone,” He is saying, but you cannot answer him. “How could it have gotten this bad?” 

It is that - that sadness, that fear in your lover - that breaks you, and you take the thing at a clumsy, terror-steeped sprint, not caring how wretched you look, so long as you can reach him - So long, you finally let yourself think, as there is something left of you for Loki to hold in his arms. Your body hurts worse than anything. You feel every scrape and bruise and chill on it; the pins and knives working at oxygen-starved nerves, and the gnawing clamp of your hunger, a brand pressing into your gut; and you know that Loki can’t save you. But maybe, just maybe, you can find some way to save yourself. And his fingers are there, going up to your hair, thumb rubbing at a hollow cheek and catching the salty dirge of an errant tear. 

“It gets better, you know,” Loki tells you. He gets you onto his lap; you feel his heartbeat under your palms where you clutch tightly at his shirt to hold yourself up. A steady, thrumming proof that he is alive. And when he says it, you get the sense that, somehow, you’ve always know it, this whispered secret he’s weaving into your soul. “If you get proper help for it. If you want it to.” 

He speaks casually, but there is a weight to his words. Miraculously - you’re not quite so sure how - you find yourself able to meet them. 

“I want it to,” You tell him. “I didn’t, before - “ And here his eyes widen, and he shakes his head like you’ve shot him - “But I do. I want to -“ 

“Alright, love,” He tells you, running a soothing hand down over your side, past the hard planes of your collarbone, “Alright. It’s okay. You’re such a strong person- It’s going to be hard, for awhile, but I know that you can get through this. I’ll be right here with you, darling. Right here, by your side.” 

“You will?” You ask him, voice cracking, hardly daring to hope that despite all this, he would stay. He chuckles, sadly, as if your thinking it hurts him, and he is deadly serious when he tells you,

“Y/N, of course I will.” 

Somehow, though he’s the god of lies, you don’t doubt his words for an instant. You nod, and the nodding takes effort. Yet you are certain he understands what you mean. 

“So,” Says Loki, “Can you - Tell me about this?” 

You have to think, for a minute. Can you tell Loki about this? You know that he’s telling the truth, that he isn’t going to leave you. Still, you’ve never been this vulnerable with him before, not even in bed, and the fear in you won’t be put to rest so easily. You shake in his hold, and realize, with a frigid shock, how you must look to him - how badly you are hurting him, and how badly you’re hurting yourself, by keeping your feelings inside yourself and leaving your body to rot. You know, now, that Loki will  help you through this - that he will be there, kind touches skirting the bad days; warm, mischevious smirks smoothing the wrinkles of your persistent self-doubts. There was a time when you needed to do this - there will, probably, still be days when you feel like you need to do this, to get a firm hold over your life, and keep the jackals at bay. There are other words to keep yourself safe, though. Loki’s breath in the dark is more home to you than anything you’ve ever had, and his open waiting, here in the daylight, makes you brave enough to speak. 

“Maybe… Over lunch?” You offer. You bite your lip and hold out the query, a silky pearl in your hand. For one moment, Loki seems to consider; after all, he is the trickster, and a man not given to acting rashly, or stripping the drama from his complicated schemes. If this is a scheme, you think that you might forgive him - Later, when his lips are on your frame, when you’re there with him, again. His lips twitch into a grin so affectionate and proud that you know- you know - that if you seek proper care and really want to get better, you’ll get through the days that feel like walking on broken glass. You’ve done so much for me, that grin tells you. Let me do this for you.

He reaches out, and takes the pearl. You hardly recognize the man who rained hell down on New York, who snorts and jabs with sarcasm at every word that comes out of Iron Man’s mouth. 

“Breakfast?” He counters, shooting a pointed glance at the microwave clock. It is a dare and a promise - a challenge, but never a trick. It tastes like honey on your tongue. 

“Fine,” You say, “But you’ll have to cook.” Some kind of joy is creeping its way into you. Your voice, you find, barely trembles. 

“Midgardians,” Lok says, with an eye-roll - a friendly, loving glint in his eyes that refuses to fade. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who burns water.” The joke prods your tender, new understanding, reassures you that he is still Loki; that he isn’t going to treat you differently, like a child, just because you’re suffering. The smile comes full onto you, and you wriggle, stretching your arms over your head and yawning, exaggerated for effect to add to the banter. 

“I never said that I couldn’t cook,” You tell Loki, “Just wanted you to do it.” 

“Mm,” He says, “And what will you be doing, then, while I cook?” 

You chew at your lip, and choose to answer before your nerves make you panic. 

“Finding the right words,” You admit, laying the truth bare to him. 

His hands are wending through your hair now, and his lips are unberarably gentle on yours. He tastes like embers and ink. That sweet, slightly metalic tang that you’ve come to associate with his magic; cinnamon, tinged with steel. He kisses you for a second or two, before pulling away,  but you could live in those seconds - Unfold it, like a blanket, and let the care of it warm your thin, freezing bones, if Loki weren’t here to show you that, with the right help, you can learn how to do it yourself. 

“Finding the right words,” Loki muses, vaulting himself up to stand in a movement that’s unfairly graceful. “I’d much prefer yours, to be honest.” 

He holds a hand out, and you take it, letting him pull you up. The floor, underneath you, feels solid. The sun is coming through the clouds, and out there in the wide world you can hear bird-song, the low, sugared sway of the breeze. There is something else there, too: 

You let it wrap its tendrils around you, and you decide that it’s hope.