He's not coming.

(If you asked him who's not coming, he'd shake his head, because he doesn't know. He doesn't know, he's never known, only knows he's not.)

(Very occasionally, he remembers red.)

Xxx

It's raining again. His bones ache, his head. His chest—his chest does more than ache, it feels hollow, it feels like there's nothing to support his insides and he's going to collapse into himself. He rubs his breastbone absently, staring at the rain.

(There is a name, heavy on the back of his tongue, lodged in his throat; he's choking on it.)

He goes outside, looks up, blinking the raindrops out of his eyes. Searches. It's worse, here, ears straining for… noise. Thunder.

It's only rain.

(He's not coming.)

Eventually, breathe short under the weight of the name trapped in his throat, he goes back inside.

Xxx

It rains often.

"Move to a desert," a coworker suggests while he works through another cold from staying out in the rain, listening.

He shakes his head, wordless.

(If there's no rain, how will he find him?)

Xxx

He gets pneumonia. Not because of the rain, though his barefoot wanderings don't help. He's bed bound for days, coughing and choking and the rain only makes it press worse against him. His fever spikes and the rain turns to thunderstorms; he claws at his chest, at his throat, tries to vomit the sound up (it's there, the name, it's there, he needs it out, if he calls he will come—this is true, he knows this, in his bones), until nurses restrain him.

His eyes roll aimlessly across the room, fever eating at him, shuddering with each crack of thunder.

Red.

It's only the curtains.

Xxx

He looks for deserts to live in, towns small enough he can hide, towns that don't see rain. An acquaintance who thinks them friends, Charles, mentions Puente Antiguo, says he can get him a job with a research group there. He agrees.

He drives down over a few days. He hates driving, it's stiff and unnatural. The rain chases him across state lines and he pulls by the side of the road and curls in on himself under a blanket, gasping in shallow breaths and fingers digging into his biceps, knuckles bloodless.

Xxx

Puento Antiguo is hot, dry, and sun.

(That hurts, too, though he doesn't know why.)

He has a day before he starts work on whatever research project it is that he's been assigned to. It takes a few hours to bring his things up from the car; he keeps dropping things, keeps trying to get too much at once. He feels clumsy, he doesn't remember having this much trouble packing. Remembers someone helped him pack it all into the car. Scott. Scott, a friend of Charles'.

It seems so distant.

Charles calls—how are you liking it—and Loki says the words he's supposed to say. It's hot. The sky is clear. There's no rain.

He doesn't understand why Charles sounds so sad about that last.

He stumbles his way to the only grocery store and wanders, aimlessly. This isn't New York with a thousand flavours—he's going to have to cook.

(What does it matter?)

He buys apples, yellow, knowing they aren't the right colour, but it feels right.

(How will he follow here?)

Xxx

"Dr. Foster," she says, holding a hand out, "but just call me Jane." She smiles.

She feels like rain. He can't breathe.

"Luke," he manages to get out, pulling back.

"Are you okay?"

He flashes a smile he doesn't feel.

"Not used to the heat. What are you-we-working on?"

She eyes him, like she doesn't believe him (he doesn't believe himself, he can't breathe).

She doesn't push—she tells him about the research, and he lets his mind fall into the mindless and soothing rhythms of quantum physics, tangled up webs that do more for the weight on his chest than the lack of rain.

Xxx

He has nightmares, wakes with his name caught in his throat though he can't remember it. Claws his way out of the bed and then crawls to the bathroom and dry heaves into the shower.

(He's not coming.)

He doesn't know what he needs to be saved from.

He turns the shower on, crawls in, and curls on his side. If he closes his eyes tightly enough, it almost feels like rain.

Xxx

Jane is like rain. He doesn't risk touching her, but so long as he doesn't, he can breathe.

He avoids touching anyone. He doesn't want to suffocate, and there's no one to save him if he starts.

(There never was.)

xxx

He barely remembers the work, though if he looks he can follow paper trails of his thoughts. They're useful enough to Jane.

It doesn't rain in Puento Antiguo. This is why he has no warning.

Jane is talking to someone, quiet, when he comes into the lab that morning, early. He has a cup of coffee, his eyes down.

"Shit, Luke, wait a sec—"

He looks up and everything turns to white noise, rain noise, everything is sun and brilliant gold—

(he's—)

He's choking, there's coffee spilled across the floor, and he claws at his throat because he can't breathe (it's stuck it's stuck get it out-Th—)

"Loki! What is the—"

Blue-desert sky blue, clear, endless-and hands rough and warm as summer sun grab him by the shoulders. He's on the ground, he's dying, his head feels like it's tearing apart, he chokes—

"Thor"

-and the room is chaos, noise, folded in thunder and storms as his eyes roll back.

xxx

He wakes. He's in a hospital, it's loud, his head hurts, the light is too bright. He doesn't know why he's here, what happened. Remembers coming into the office, taking a sip of coffee—

nothing.

He feels hollow, empty. He's going to fall in on himself.

His tongue feels numb, tastes like lightning.

(He didn't come.)

He curls on his side and closes his eyes.