[AO3 Crosspost] The face of his life

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Marvel’s MCU
SERIES: -
RATING: General Audiences
WORDCOUNT: 708
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Loki
GENRE: Character Study
TRIGGER WARNING(S): None
SUMMARY: It took him an awfully long time before he gave up on growing a beard.


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He isn’t bothered by the big picture so much as he frets over the little things.

It’s easy to forget his skin is supposed to be blue when he’s been holding onto the illusion of pink since before he even knew he could use magic. That part is easier than it should probably be, if he is to be honest with himself.

It’s the little things that get to him.

For the longest time, Loki wanted to grow a beard.

It wasn’t so much that he found the look appealing or necessary, really, it was more that always being the odd one out grew tiring, even for him. Oh, he learned to make it look and sound like he wanted nothing more than to stay the different one, and it was true enough most of the time. Still, growing a beard would have pleased him -it wasn’t so big a thing, and at least he would have stopped being part of that group of beardless people composed of women, young boys, Hogun and Loki.

At least Hogun, who wasn’t born in Asgard, doesn’t get mocked for his smooth chin… Though if Loki has to remain fair, nobody ever questioned his lack of a beard to his face. It was always in the looks, always in the whispers, thinking he couldn’t hear, thinking he couldn’t see… He guesses it would have been easier not being aware of the rumors going on about him.

As things were though, Loki did know about the rumors, and he disliked them all immensely… When he came of age, he was determined to grow a beard and fit in Asgard in this way, if none else.

He waited and waited, going so far as to borrow Thor’s shaving kit in secret to run the razor agains his jaw, having heard shaving made the beard grow faster.

Nothing happened.

When he grew tired of waiting, Loki found a spell for hair growth and, with some tweaking, managed to create some peach fuzz on his chin, just enough so that Odin gave him his own shaving kit, green and gold where Thor’s was red and silver.

The present tasted bitter on Loki’s tongue, even as he smiled and thanked his father with as much enthusiasm as he dared to fake. All the while, his cheeks itched, burned with the feeling of hair where there shouldn’t have been any, turning a day that should have been for joy into a day of torture, and it took all of Loki’s attention not to let his discomfort show… When Odin asked why he shaved even his first hair off so soon, Loki shrugged and said he’d tried picturing himself with a beard and couldn’t come up with anything satisfying.

For years afterward, he faked his decision to keep his chin smooth, running his razor on spotless skin and using magic to fake stubble in the shaving cream, leaving none the wiser about the truth of the matter.

Even after New York, when they put him in the cell with its invisible walls, Loki found a shaving kit laid neatly next to the washing basin.

It took him until he completed his routine to remember he couldn’t put fake stubble in the residual cream anymore, and a few days of slightly obsessive thinking after that to realize he would never have to come up with a lie to explain this away.

The basin cleaned itself four times a day, without fail, and Loki remained alone at all time… Without fail.

Months later, perhaps years, Thor comes to take him out of his cell and Loki is too happy at the prospect of relative freedom to refuse him, or even put up much of a pretense of reluctance. He packs the few things he was allowed in the cell, including the book he was reading at the time, for that Tolkien lad wasn’t as much of a punishment as he thought it would be -even if his mortal status showed clearly in his ignorance of what elves are like.

The shaving kit is forgotten next to the washing basin, and Loki doesn’t know what it says about him that it takes two weeks of traveling with Thor before he realizes it.