Who: Strange and Loki
What: Navigating Hotel Hell
Where: The Hotel
When: An indeterminate date
Status/warnings: Unfinished / >.>


Loki disliked the hotel. No. He hated it. The few times he had been here, it had never been a pleasant experience. It showed you things. Things you wanted to leave behind. Things you wanted to forget. And yet - yet something drew him back to it. There was something wrong about this whole place. Katherine had so easily found her footing here. He couldn’t blame her. They were both glad the Losers were here. It had seemed to heal their mother’s wounds, yet it had only put bandages on his own. The cuts underneath were throbbing. An ache in the background, pulsing through every scene of his life. Except for his family there was nothing for him here. Without them, he would have gone mad already. They were provided moments of happiness. But when they were gone… when he wasn’t needed, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. As much as he had always sought out solitude, he wasn’t very good at enduring it. Never had been. His mind - his biggest asset, his dearest ally - it was a hideous traitor when left on its own. Doubts crept in. Perfectionism which always just missed the mark. Ambition not quite satisfied. Never quite satisfied.

So he had needed something to do and he had gone back to the hotel. There was a sweetness in the torture it provided. His brother’s mocking face was still that of his brother. His father’s disapproval still meant he got to see a man that he had once built his self-esteem around. And maybe still did more than he wanted to admit. And a Frigga who blamed him for her death was still his mother.

It was her who he had just seen. He had hated leaving that room as much as he had needed to do it. Every piece of blame had meant another cut. Yet, when he left his mother would cease to exist. He wasn’t sure what was worse.

The door clicked shut and Loki rested his back against the walls of the corridor. A deep breath. Eyes shut. Gather yourself.

—

Strange never wanted to go anywhere near the space-time vortex he believed existed in that hotel, where it stood on its snow-capped island alone like a police cordon. Everything about the hotel screamed to him that it was a bad idea; getting trapped in a place where reality meant little and it could dive into your mind and pull you apart. He’d heard the stories of the wounds dragged open until they felt fresh again and never wanted to go anywhere near it. But it was like the hotel knew somewhere deep in its bowels that Strange wanted nothing to do with its chaos magic because he found himself face down in a hotel room filled with snow, the floor capped with ice like the lake.

He was frozen, almost literally, at the smell in the air of faint burning rubber from the factory downwind of the lake. They’d go skating there every winter when it froze solid enough to skate and oh, god, how she’d loved it. Donna would carve her skates into blunt edges from spending all day there, refusing to come home with him until her fingertips were blanching white and blue from the cold.

But Donna wasn’t there. It wasn’t the lake with its endlessly cloudy skies above and dead forest he used to get lost in. Just a frozen floor and the very end of his worst memory. Strange forced his mind to shut down, to force the entity inside the hotel out of him. The room flickered angrily, the wall lights whiting out the room. It protested, no – it was screaming. Screaming her scream, her screeching pleas as she fell under ice, the iced-up floor shaking as her tiny fists pounded from below, desperate for air. All his defences fell in a second and he scrambled away from the floor like a skittish animal from a predator.

“Get out get out get out get out, GET OUT!” he screamed back, forcing his trembling, frozen hands into the bright yellow light of his magic, forcing it to fill the tiny room.

In an instant, the ice was gone. The screaming was gone but for the echo of it ringing in his mind as he slumped against the wall of a dank hotel room, frozen and alone. Stephen let his eyes slide closed at the sting of tears and anger and shame that washed over him.

Suddenly, his body jerked and lurched forward, the hotel throwing him out through the solid wall until he fell into a heap in a corridor, almost scared to see where it had thrown him next.

—

Loki jumped a little as a figure suddenly appeared next to him. The walls had almost vomited it out. He understood that notion soon enough as he realised just who it was the hotel had gifted him with.

“Oh good…” Dry sarcasm was dripping from every word. “And here I thought my worst nightmares were supposed to be inside the rooms.” He sorted himself, stood up higher. Any weakness needed to leave his expression. Strange’s face, however, was riddled with them. A red flush. The glistering of shed tears. It was uncanny. Loki swallowed. He could have bit down hard with a remark. He didn’t. That didn’t mean he extended empathy. He doubted he would receive any in return.

—

Stephen was still shaking from the cold, his hands unable to stop. God, it was that scream that haunted his nightmares for years after her death, the cracks in the ice spreading beneath her feet before she was pulled under the water. He was glad to be out, breathing deep in relief to calm his racing heart, flopping onto his back.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he said, hearing the inimitable voice of Loki standing above him. Of all the people on the island, the hotel had thrown him perhaps the most incompetent, useless one. Strange stayed flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling because it was better than looking at Loki’s face and getting annoyed on top of fear. “Of all the sentient torture hotels in all the dimensions in all the galaxies, you had to turn up in this one.”

He hoped that Loki hadn’t seen his nightmare, or the remnant of it on his face. Stephen hadn’t shared his greatest shame with anyone, barely even Christine knew what had happened to his baby sister that night. No way he was baring his heart to a God who had tried to decimate New York city.

—

Loki pulled himself together. The shock from Strange’s sudden appearance started to wane. Instead, his own pride kicked in. Straightening himself. He took a step into the corridor. Left it led to a turn left… on the right it turned right. Hadn’t it led to a t-junction just a few moments ago? It hardened his stance. If he had been alone, he might have shuddered. But he wasn’t alone. He was in a rather unpleasant company.

“The pleasure is all yours. Well, as lovely as it is to watch you… take a break on the floor-” The way he said it, harboured an undertone. Something that stated without speaking that he knew very well Strange was struggling. “I have other things to do with my time and certainly more interesting company to seek out.” With that Loki took off… why spend more time around Strange when he needed? He marched off to the right, turned into the corridor and spotted Strange lying on the floor in front of him. Loki froze. He glanced back. And there was Strange again. The same Strange. Reluctantly, Loki’s gaze went past the sorcerer until he spotted himself.

“By Bor and all his children… really?” He glanced down the corridors for a way to escape, looked for a door… a window. Nothing. Unease settled over him. His day had taken a turn for the worse.

—

If anything was going to cheer him up even slightly and break the echoes of bad memories, it was Loki being outwitted by an omniscient hotel corridor. Paradoxes, dimensional rifts, the fabric of reality in flux all around them - of course space and time meant precisely nothing. His magic didn’t work because of course it didn’t. But seeing Loki repeatedly look past him, getting more and more frustrated because of it was no less than fucking hilarious. And Strange couldn’t help but laugh, from his position still prone on his back on the floor.

“What part of ‘sentient torture hotel’ did you not get?” he asked wearily as he ran his hands over his face. “The laws of physics and reality don’t matter here. Un–ending corridors are just the tip of the iceberg, I’m guessing, and it’s trapped us here together for some god-only knows reason. Or, sorry, god-doesn’t-know reason.”

Finally he sat up, his back pressed against one of the walls and half-expecting to fall back through it. “Not that I have a lot of expertise with any of this. Maybe this place is making you hallucinate me. Or I’m hallucinating you and nothing matters or exists or ever has existed or ever will. Better not to try and think too much about it.”

—

Loki rolled his eyes. Not that he was judging any of Strange's words in particular. No, it was just the thing to do when the over man spoke. "You see, you might be quick to give up. But I am not." And that he teleported. Or rather he tried to. A flicker of green and… well, he was exactly where he had been before. Anger radiated out from him. He tried it again. Nothing. A third time out of sheer frustration. Same result.

"I hate this place," he muttered. He didn't just mean the hotel. Nostrils were flaring. His fingers kneading his hand in an attempt to calm down. Another thing he wasn't very successful at.

—

With the last vestiges of his own waking nightmare waning, all Stephen could do was snort in suppressed laughter as Loki kept failing repeatedly at the same thing. “There’s an old, old hypothesis back on earth. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is an indicator of insanity. Not that we needed one when it comes to ancient mischief Gods.” Strange relaxed a little, holding his hands together and trying his own magicks: his fingertips sparked and burned but nothing came of it, like he was a stumbling child struggling to walk.

Whatever it was that had a stranglehold on their new home, it seemed at least, that they were powerless. He hadn’t felt that lack of control in quite some time, either, not since Wanda and her chaos had reigned.

“You might want to think happy thoughts, Tinkerbell,” he said, giving up on trying to summon new magic. “I’m guessing that the hotel will let us go when it wants to let go, not the other way around.”

—

Loki listened with a sour expression. It was one the other man usually evoked. This time it was supported by the implications of his words. Trapped. Powerless. Weak. Everything Loki hated to be.

"So you roll over… hmm…" There was a dry laugh in his tone as he spoke. He hadn't yet given up. The god was stubborn. Most importantly he believed in his own power. "Midgardian heroes… I think you are an excellent representation of your people. Quite fitting." He was too annoyed. His insults on autopilot. He had learned not to insult Midgardians since he called some his grandsons. But it was ready to slip back into old habits. "And what do you suggest we do instead? Tell each other stories? Play around of chess? Or two? Or a thousand?" While he spoke he was holding his hands out, trying to work his magic to identify what was going on. But it kept slipping… didn't want to behave and obey…

—

Ordinarily, Strange would get his ego and back up about it, but the energy felt like it had been drip-drained out of him over hours and he was just too exhausted and saw no point in heatedly arguing with Loki over trivialities. Nothing he could say would bring back either of their power sets or let them free. Instead, they were and only could be pawns led from room to room, nightmare to nightmare trapped together. Perhaps it was the adrenaline rush now calming down in his body, but Strange would take a weird hallway with a mad god over seeing his sister die again.

“You were definitely the kid that ate glue, weren’t you?” He muttered mostly to himself, shaking his head at the foolishness as he stood up from the floor. “Instead of spending hours and expending your energy trying things that didn’t work the first time, how about we just try opening a damn door and see where it leads, huh? It obviously wants us to torture each other, so makes sense it won’t let us leave separately.”

—

"Does it now? Have you read the manual and that's what it says, hmm?" The god of mischief did not believe in sentient buildings with a sadistic streak. People wanted things. Objects did not. "Fine then, pick a door, you go first…" the trickster god said. It was one thing to seek out moments of torture just to see a familiar face again. It was another to go through all of that in the company of someone obnoxious. He at least hoped by making Strange step through first it would be a room taken from the other man's mind and not his own.

—

Strange just rolled his eyes at the man. “No, but neither have you, so let’s try something new instead of something that we know for a fact doesn’t really work.” But he looked around regardless at the few doors that peppered the hallway they were trapped inside. They all seemed innocuous and innocent enough, nothing more than any other door in any normal hotel around the world. Peepholes and worn-away numbers and tarnished wood and metal at the handles. Keeping track was going to be difficult enough.

Number 12. That seemed as good a place to start as any other.

Stephen stepped through the door. The sanctum sanctorum, smashed to pieces, dust covered and barren, blood dripping down the glass window like raindrops. “Looks like this one is mine.” He was loath to walk through the memories of him killing a man, but it felt like the only way forward.

—

Looks like this one is mine… was there ever a sentence as sweet as this? Anger still lingered but now curiosity started to fall in line and march beside it. Loki knew what his own looked like. But Strange’s bore information that could be useful some day. “Cozy…”, Loki commented as he stepped through. It reminded him of the mansion Strange had transported him and his brother. But it wasn’t quite the same. “I think it could do with a bit of spring cleaning.” The traces of a fight were evident and Loki’s thoughts immediately went one way: Strange must have lost someone here. He just wondered who.

—

This wasn’t his sanctum, that much was blatantly obvious as they stepped through the door, the entire thing disappearing as Loki followed him. Normally he could feel the ancient magic in the artefacts around him in the real sanctum, an energy that few could truly pick up on. It might be the most sophisticated sentient building on the island, but nothing could recreate magic in the air from nothing more than memory. He was wearing the same clothes that day too, ragged and worn, his face more gaunt and eyes bagged tired from studying as an apprentice, from what he could see of himself reflecting in the broken glass back at him. It seems it could get those details right, at least.

“You ever stop talking?” Strange asked, knowing the answer. Loki loved to talk and talk and talk, like he would turn to stone if his presence wasn’t acknowledged for more than five minutes. Strange just stepped through the wreckage, looking at the shoeprints he was leaving behind in the dust and the dried blood.

The only way is forward, he repeated in his head, over and over. The only way is forward.

The other doors in the sanctum were missing, just the single path ahead to the dead body on the corridor floor, cold and blue as if drained entirely of all soul and blood. His jaw clenched at the sight of it, the anger burning him.

“You want me to say sorry?” he asked the ceiling. “If you can see inside my head, then you know what I feel too.”

—

Loki walked behind the other man. Followed in his footsteps as they waded through the chaos. He left the man’s question unanswered. The dead body and more importantly Strange’s reaction to it were much more fascinating. The anger was apparent. The sorcerers words provided the last pieces to the puzzle. He had been wrong.

“Ah, so you did not lose someone, you took them…” It was comment. Quite and pensive. The place had a way to pick the parts of your life which crawled under your skin and shove it right into your face. “Come on, no dwelling on the past. We need to find a way out.” And then maybe, this time he would not return. Not if there was the risk to be lost inside these walls. To be trapped and tortured forever.

—

Loki’s response caught him off guard, the anger fleeing from his tense hands in an instant. He had expected more… torture. More needling about how a human life didn’t matter, or that Strange was a born killer but, no, it was just… softer. Perhaps this Loki was indeed a hallucinatory fantasy too, some part of his temporal lobe conjuring something magic couldn’t. Either that or he’d finally gone insane.

“The only way is forward,” he replied in earnest, sparing one last apologetic glance at the dead stranger at his feet before walking through the only sanctum gateway open. “Looking back just leads to this.”

—

Once again, Loki followed. He was ready to be hurled into another of Strange’s nightmares… he half expected to end up in one of his. Doors… gateways… sometimes just a turn around the corner, here they usually led to a different scene. Most likely one of horror. This time, however, they did not end up in another memory. They ended up back in the corridor.

“I think you jinxed us with that forward comment,” he said, leaning towards Strange. His tone was that of polite platitudes. A man talking for the sake of talking. And maybe because he didn’t quite want to be forced to take the next step. Another door meant another risk. “I think it’s trying to inform us that indeed the only way forward is by going back. Not a very sophisticated message, if one might ask me, but here we are.”

—

This place was already giving him a headache, and Strange stretched out his tense back just to shake off the last images gifted to him. Surprising really, that Loki should appear as a balm instead of an instigator of nightmares. He was right, though, they were back in that hallway without even a window to the outside world to give a glimmer of hope to escape.

“For once, I think you might be right,” he muttered, looking down the hallway of closed doors. “It’s definitely not subtle on the confrontation end. How about you pick a door then, if you’re so sure about the right path.”

Strange smiled despite himself. Turnabout was fair play and everything. He held a hand in the direction of the hallway. “How’s it go? Water water everywhere, and yet no drop to drink.”

—

“I’m right surprisingly often, I would like to inform you,” the trickster god started. With a sigh, he started towards a door. He turned the knob. “Many-” He stopped as he recognised the room. “Oh…” The door fell shut behind them, vanishing in return and leaving only a blank wall behind.

It was his father's office. A heavy desk separated the Asgardian king from his visitors. It was a status symbol, painted in gold and heavy like everything in the palace. Odin was sitting at the desk, writing a letter for his ravens to carry. He hadn't looked up yet, hadn't acknowledged anyone else's presence. His father had never needed to. He could see in ways others couldn't. Not as much as Heimdall but enough to know who entered his studies. His behaviour was also a symbol of his power. The King of Asgard was not to be interrupted. No, you would wait for him until he was finished.

"If you came to plea to be taken to accompany me to Vanaheim, you have come in vain, Loki. I will taking your brother with me and your brother only." A quill was still dancing over the parchment. Swirly lines of important messages. Some could change worlds for better or for worse. Odin had yet look up. "Your brother is quite popular there and after the trick you pulled on the young princess, I think it wise not to take you for a while. Actions have consequences, boy."

Loki's nostrils flared as he listened. He stood there rooted to the spot. The same way he had stood there a millenia ago when this conversation had actually happened. He had explained how it had been harmless... had explained how she had misrepresented what he had done. He hadn't begged. Loki never begged. But his explanations had fallen on deaf ears. His father had not cared to listen. The princesses own horrible attitude that evening had meant nothing. The fact that she had deserved it had meant nothing.

"Yes, father, so do yours..." he said quietly. Anger was driving his words. The problem was that he still wanted his appreciation... he still wanted his approval.

And the other problem was that he had forgotten about Strange. Shit. "Let's not get stuck here," he said. There was a second exit on the other side. One leading to his father’s private quarters.

—

This Odin wasn’t quite the one he had met. God, there was a lot of gold everywhere, never a good sign of a just and fair leader, Strange thought. No, this wasn’t Odin of myth or memory, just some father playing favourites whilst trying to maintain a kingdom built on wars. Strange almost felt like stepping into the memory himself, but it was fascinating to see Loki so… beaten. Even a God has parents, ones who were responsible for a lot of pain and suffering and tears. It didn’t excuse anything, it didn’t forgive it, but seeing this? Strange didn’t know what to think.

“So, your Dad’s a giant asshole then,” Strange said eventually. He’d never gotten on well with people in general but those who played favourites among their kids were somehow the worst. “Kind of explains something…”

He knew better than to finish that sentence, though. “The chair’s a lot. Overcompensating, probably.”

Strange cupped Loki’s shoulders from behind, steering him away from the painful memory towards the only door. “Come on now, don’t let him get under your skin again.”

—

Loki’s gaze snapped towards the man at the comment that was left unfinished. Wise. His nostrils flared. But then the man moved on and Loki was more than glad to move on with him. “You should see the throne…”

“What was that?” For the first time, Odin looked up, stared right through his son. The man next to him, however, was ignored. As if Strange wasn’t even there. He swallowed. It was an automatic reaction. He had lived through moments like these too many times.

For a moment, he was glad that Strange was there. That he left him no opportunity to fall back into arguments which only led to feelings of incompetence. “You are just a memory, father. And not one I particularly care for…” His father had always wanted the last word. Had always needed to firmly assert himself as the leader and head of the family. He couldn’t let him have that moment. Even when he wasn’t real.

“Son, you are speaking gibberish.”

“Please…” Loki stated as they reached the next door. “The next one is yours. Neither you nor I want any more of this…” And there was a lot of it to come… he knew that.

—

Strange felt pity for the man, that was certainly a new one. Pity and empathy from an uncaring parent; what overachiever didn’t have that tale to tell. He himself was certainly no stranger to it. Stephen could feel the hatred rolling in the air between father and son, resentment building until he wanted out too.

“Come on,” he said a little softer, taking the door handle like he was the one jumping on the grenade. “Let’s see what else my psyche has to offer this place.”

The door opened inexplicably to a church. Oh fuck. Christine’s wedding day.

People were filling up the rows and he was suddenly wearing his tuxedo like he was the one marrying her instead of having to let her go. He remembered this one too vividly, the thing far too raw and recent to be anything but shatteringly painful. He turned, Loki forgotten, as the music started and she walked in. Radiant and perfect and happy without him and Strange’s heart broke into shattered pieces all over again at the pain of letting her go.

—

Loki took a deep breath when the scene changed. His body had been tense. His mind only focused on his emotions. Eyes darted into the direction of Strange as he finally realised that the man had not used the situation to add to the insults laid out before him. He had stirred him away. For a moment, he pondered it. Tried to think about what it meant and then the busyness of the room swept him away. A wedding. Someone else’s wedding was an odd choice for a bad memory. He watched the play continue. Guests taking their places, the groom standing at the end of a long isle. And then the bride started walking in and all eyes went towards her. One pair in particular.

“You know…” he said, leaning over to Strange. His tone was kept soft as he spoke. No slight in it, just curiosity and maybe a hint of empathy. “I was wondering whether it was the groom or the bride you were - or should I say are - in love with - but I think that one is painfully clear now.”

—

Strange didn’t even hear Loki next to him, really. All his eyes could focus on was Christine, the glow her skin seemed to emit like a radiant beacon. But he’d failed at doing the one thing that was supposed to be easy: love her. His ego - that manic need for power and control in all men - drove her to realise he wasn’t worth her time, effort, or potential emotional damage. Having to let her go, all versions of her, had started right here, watching her walk down the aisle towards the love of another man.

“I can’t blame her. I was dead for five years, but even before that, I think I was long gone to her,” he muttered more to himself than anything. “She looks happy. That pissed me off the most.”

What the hell was he doing, standing rooted to the spot and forcing himself to watch Christine be in love. He didn’t have to do this. Strange suddenly shoved himself out of his seat and strode down the wrong end of the church aisle, tugging open the huge, heavy doors.

—

Loki was still digesting Strange’s words when the other man suddenly bolted out of his seat. It had made him think about the ones he himself had left behind. But then the other man was gone from his seat and Loki was shaken awake from his own thoughts. He got up and with long strides followed.

“I think it’s my turn…” he volunteered. He regretted that a moment later. It had been foreseeable, had it not? He was sitting in a dark room. Thanos’ ship. He looked as terrible as that room made him feel. Dark rings under his eyes, a gaunt face. Lips split from dehydration. He hadn’t known how long he had drifted through space before Thanos had found him. Loki had always been a sweet talker. He gave people what they wanted. Especially when it was about his own survival. Thanos was not a man to mess with. He was not a man to just grant someone mercy. They had not looked for a guest on their ship… hospitality had not been on the table. So he had made himself useful. And his rage had made that easy. But the desperation from that time… the loneliness that he had felt had cut deep. The door was opened from the outside. A guard stepped through. It must have been the first day on the ship.

“Thanos will see you now…”

“Maybe I should you let have step through it…” Loki murmured towards Strange and then he got up. “Let’s play along until we find a door.”

—

The feeling of dread all around them was almost immediate as the church doors vanished behind him, particles of dust seemed to float and form into rocks mid-air as a veil between them and death. He’d only felt this feeling a few times before: Dormammu and Thanos’s ship, trapped on a desolate wasteland of a planet with its inhabitants as nothing more than crumbled rotten bones in the soil. It was a stench of death and decay that followed the Mad Titan throughout all the realms and realities therein.

“I kinda wish we’d stayed at the wedding. At least that had snacks.” Strange muttered, his eyes trailing behind the creature that had just spoken to Loki. “Thanos never did like doing something he could compel others to do, right?”

—

The air was cool. Even Loki could feel it. He padded himself down, smoothing out the lines in his clothes to be presentable. It was a habit more than anything. His clothes were hardly salvageable. Besides, what was there to win in a memory? Even the witty comments he had prepared would only ever reach Strange’s and his own ears.

“I would have gone straight for the mead… or wine?” He wasn’t quite sure what was served at Midgardian weddings. He had avoided them both on the station and in England. “Let’s go find some.” It was a split second decision. He had no idea what would happen if one went against the narrative of the memory without dodging into a door. But so far nothing had helped.

“Actually, thanks,” he commented as he stepped into the corridor. “I think we will go that way…” He pointed away from the chamber he knew Thanos awaited him. “You don’t have a bar by any chance do you?”

The man stopped in his movements and turned around. “Where is yesterday’s begging? Thanos’ hospitality should not be taken for granted. Now, come…”

“It was not begging, merely negotiating,” Loki clarified. It came out automatically. It wasn’t an accusation that he could leave standing. Even though it held some truth to it. He swallowed at the unpleasant memories. This was a memory. He wondered what would happen if he started a fight. He really, really felt like stabbing someone.

—

Strange had no idea it was even possible to go off-script. Why hadn't he thought about it? God, was Loki smarter than - nope. He refused to go down that hallway and open the door to his own overcompensating insecurities. He definitely wanted to go off-script here; God only knew whether they could actually die in these hallucinatory, dimension hopping parallel worlds but there was no reason to assume they couldn't either.

"I don't spose you have any theories about bodily harm being permanent in this place, do you?" he asked, watching as Loki was almost begging to get in trouble. The man had to be a masochist of elephantine proportions to argue with Thanos, even if violence wasn't permanent or possible.

The bar sounded good, though. A stiff drink was always appropriate. "How much do you want to push the boundaries of what we can do in this place?" he asked Loki, getting a slight version of an idea.