—
Thor meets Loki on a Wednesday, shuffling into his usual coffee shop at half past two. The place is uncommonly busy, Thor’s usual spot in the corner by the window taken, just like all the other seats in the little cafe.
He’s still not sure why Loki stands out to him, only that he does, whether by the fates or through some happy coincidence – but from the very first moment Thor lays eyes on him, even without knowing anything about Loki at all, save for the colour of his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the curl of his hair, Thor knows Loki is the one.
—
Thor bumps into Loki almost every day after their chance encounter; Loki’s there at the bar Thor frequents on weekends, gone before Thor gets enough drinks in him to summon up the courage for an introduction.
Thor sees the back of Loki’s head bobbing amongst the pedestrians as he makes his way to work, spies him a car away in the subways during rush hour. Thor enters a convenience store at the end of his nightly run, and there Loki is, with a deathly blue cast from dim fluorescent lights that only highlight his sharp features, turns his complexion to an otherworldly shade – cool where Thor runs hot.
—
It occurs to Thor, at some point, that the frequencies of their chance encounters is – improbable, at best. There’s an itching at the back of his neck, sometimes, as if he were being watched, and he’s not sure anymore – whether Loki is following him, or he’s following Loki.
One thing’s for certain, though; it’s time someone takes the lead in their little dance.
—
Grocery shopping on a Wednesday night, where the store is quiet and still even with the nervous shuffling of the employees, finds Thor in the frozen foods section, staring at Loki further down the aisle as he browses ice cream flavours.
Thor approaches, loud enough to be heard, and peers over Loki’s shoulder at the selection. He reaches over to grab one, offering it to Loki with a grin.
Coffee.
—
Loki, Thor finds out soon enough, is his opposite in most ways but his twin in others, in the best of ways. Their relationship builds with breathtaking ease, slotting into each others’ lives like ready-made puzzle pieces. Loki fills in gaps Thor never knew his life held, even as spending time together feels all-consuming, leaving Thor with a desperate hunger he can never sate (though he tries, and tries).
—
There are marks on Loki’s skin – cuts and bruises he can’t, or rather won’t, explain. Thor kisses each one with reverence every time he explores Loki’s body, mapping out the faint silver lines with his tongue, burning their shapes into his mind.
He could duplicate them, if he wanted to; he knows exactly which ones were made with smooth or serrated edges, how deep they had to be to leave the marks they leave, which ones healed cleanly and which ones had been torn open halfway through the process.
There is a gleam in Loki’s eyes when he chalks up his injuries to an innate clumsiness; Thor has never seen Loki as anything less than graceful, lithe, serpentine, yet he swallows the lie easily. Thor has his own secrets, too, and is worried his curiosity will unravel their finely woven dance.
—
On Thursday (or Thor’s day, as Loki sometimes calls it, with a knife-sharp smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, a voice that drips venom beneath its honeyed sweetness), a day before their two month anniversary, Thor tidies his apartment with the local news channel running on his tv. He listens with half an ear as he dusts the bookshelves and the tops of the cupboards, but the newscaster’s voice is drowned out by the vacuum when he pulls it out of the supply closet.
He doesn’t hear about a new body found in the park, left by a killer targeting large blue-eyed blond men, doesn’t hear how the victims are electrocuted, their insides liquified, the skin over their hearts branded with the image of a war-hammer.
By the time he’s done cleaning his place, the news channel is replaced with a sitcom rerun, and Thor turns it off, grabs his coat, heading off for his nightly run.
—
There’s something odd about Thor.
Loki has a way of reading people, able to naturally intuit a person’s character within minutes of meeting them, but labelling Thor eludes him still.
Thor is golden, Thor is radiant, Thor adores animals and working out and his smile makes Loki burn.
But there is something else, something more, that Loki cannot pin down. Thor looks at him, and Loki shivers, the cool veneer he’s constructed over the years feeling brittle and paper-thin. Thor’s eyes dilate, and a spike of adrenaline shoots through Loki’s system, his heart thudding in anticipation, in fear, in lust.
Thor kisses him, and Loki is drowning, suffocating, he’s sure their coming together like this is permanent; he wants to carve out Thor’s heart and crawl into his chest instead, to make a nest there where it’s warm and soft and dark, and his drowning will mean consuming a part of Thor, becoming a part of something bright and clean as he never could be.
He settles for sex, for swallowing down Thor’s come, taking it in as deep as it will go and silently praying that the seed takes root and grows in his belly, never mind that he’s a man, never mind that it’s impossible.
Loki never felt he had much of a purpose in life, but now every part of him sings: Thor, Thor, Thor.
And what Loki wants, Loki gets.
—
Loki works in a small used-books shop, likes to hum and dance to the music on the radio as he rearranges the shelves and does his bookkeeping. He switches stations as soon as anything other than a song comes on, or mutes it in favour of his own playlist if all the stations are boring him.
He doesn’t hear the warning on the radio, the serial killer who surfaced a year ago still at large, the most recent victims living in his area, all of them tall, willowy young men with dark hair, pale skin, bright eyes. Loki doesn’t learn of the victims being kept alive for days, weeks, their bodies riddled with a myriad of wounds in various stages of healing, most of them little more thin silver scars that can only be seen in the right light, that form a pattern that resembles Loki’s own skin.
He closes up shop at nine in the evening, alone, and walks the six blocks home, his way lit by flickering yellow streetlights.
—
Thor jogs through the streets for two hours, mapping out his city beneath the pounding of his steps, scaling fences and rooftops to tone his whole body. He used to do this randomly, running and running with no direction in mind, but now he finds himself drawn to the same place, night after night; Thor circles Loki’s flat, drawn like a moth to a flame without knowing why.
Most nights the lights are off, the curtains drawn, leaving Thor anxious and dissatisfied, until Thor calls, and Loki picks up, and they chat in the dark about their day.
If the lights are on, though, Thor climbs the fire escape and knocks on Loki’s window, gets invited in for a cup of tea, and they can talk about their day between soft kisses and cuddling on the couch (or the bed, or in a blanket fort).
It’s the closest thing to peace that Thor has ever felt, even though no small part of him burns with the sort of hunger that will not be denied.
—
They move in together, after six months, and rather than fighting over who moves in to whose apartment, they decide to go for a fresh start together.
Apartment hunting is frustrating. Loki is drawn to flats located in the downtown core, places near clubs and bars and other sorts of nighttime entertainment. And while Thor normally quite enjoys being around people, Loki’s choices set his teeth on edge.
Loki is pretty, and clever, and dances like rent is due that week; Thor is not jealous, of course, but he would prefer a quieter home, where he doesn’t have to think about anyone touching what he considers his.
(And Loki is his, whether he knows it or not; Thor doesn’t realize, not yet, that possession goes both ways.)
—
Thor does all the heavy lifting when they finally find a place. Despite his reservations, they did end up settling on a nice studio apartment downtown, one king sized bed by the large windows overlooking the city, lights filtering through thin gauze-like curtains at all hours of the day.
It’s peaceful, this sense of being above and beyond the bustle of the crowds and heavy traffic; they’re untouchable, in a little haven carved out from a world of chaos.
—
Loki is content, warm and mellow in a way he can’t remember ever being; when he wakes up early to make breakfast for himself and Thor, he finds himself smiling and humming a childhood song, flipping over pancakes with a light heart.
He takes the subway to work, and finds he doesn’t mind the heavy press of bodies against his own, isn’t bothered by the stink of sweat and body odour common in tight spaces. He drops his loose change in a beggar’s cup, undoes the doors to open up his shop, steps inside and takes the heavy scent of old pages deep into his lungs.
It’s the happiest Loki has ever been, enough so that for once Loki can ignore the niggling thought that it simply cannot last.
—
Two weeks later, and Thor comes home from his nightly run with bloody clothes and eyes that gleam with the promise of pain. He radiates anger, something cold and contained, dangerous and exciting all at once.
Loki slides into the shower after him, watching the water run red, pink, clear, lets himself be pinned against the cold bathroom tile as Thor takes, and takes, and takes.
They’re both shuddering, afterwards, clinging to each other with desperate limbs. Loki looks into Thor’s eyes – bright, brilliant, radiant Thor – and sees in its glimmering depths a darkness that matches Loki’s own depravity; how he missed it he doesn’t know, but he thinks Thor recognizes, too, something in him that makes them kin.
And like a storm unleashed, Thor’s very presence feels palpable, the air tinged heavy and heady, washing over Loki in waves and waves, until his knees give out and all that steadies him is Thor.
He is aware, in some far off corner of his mind, that Thor is carrying him to bed, their damp skin sliding against each other in a slick embrace, soft cotton dragging against his back as Thor holds him together in a bruising grip. Loki sinks his teeth into the meat of Thor’s shoulder, tastes blood, hears an answering moan; Thor’s hand comes up to cradles his head, sliding through the damp strands, gentle until it isn’t.
Thor pulls Loki’s head back and sinks his teeth into the exposed column, and Loki can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything other than claw at Thor’s back, as little good as it does him. There’s a roaring in his ears, the taste of copper lying thick and heavy on his tongue, something like panic – only sweeter, sharp, addicting – turns him into a creature of the flesh.
Thor pulls away then, quick and sudden, flipping Loki onto his belly and shoving his legs apart. There’s violence and urgency in his movements, as he shoves one, two, three fingers into Loki’s body, too quick, too rough, the cold lube offset by the burn moving up his spine. And then Thor’s fingers are withdrawing, replaced by the blunt head of his cock, thick and heavy and hard, shoving in with enough force to make Loki keen.
Thor doesn’t give him time to adjust, starts moving in slow, deep strokes that punch the air from his lungs, draws wet streaks down his face – has him pushing back for more, pulling away because it’s too much, and then Thor’s voice filters through, deep and rough and wrecked; there’s a confession in there, too, if Loki chooses to hear it, if he can gather his thoughts back together to understand what Thor is saying between the I-love-you’s and the you’re-mine’s.
But he can’t, and he doesn’t; all he can do is hold on as Thor’s storm washes over him, revel in the sheer power of his lover even as he knows he should fear it.
He comes apart, under Thor’s assault, shaking and trembling and feeling refreshed, reborn. Thor comes, too, deep inside, hot and wet and pushed ever deeper with little thrusts, until Loki knows that this mark he will carry to the end of his days.
—
Thor is gentle and affectionate afterwards, pulling Loki into his arms to murmur soft reassurances, as if he were some wounded bird to be soothed, as if he did not enjoy it when Thor unleashed his full strength on him.
Someone tried to mug me, Thor says, and it takes every ounce of Loki’s willpower not to laugh in his face. As if anyone with half a brain would look at Thor and think, now there’s a guy I can easily overpower.
Still, Loki doesn’t push; past his aches and pains there’s a pleasant, unfamiliar sense of satisfaction, and he intends to bask in it for as long as he’s able.
When he slips off into sleep, he dreams of drowning in oceans of blood, reaching up and out towards a Thor with deep red wings, a Thor who stares at him with cold, impassive eyes, who bares sharp, sharp teeth when the waves finally pull Loki under.