Chapter 2
Monday was indeed, not turning out how Loki wanted it to. First, Charly wasn’t at his usual Starbucks. Second, he missed his train because it was early for once. And third, he remembered that the new spoiled rich kid was starting today. It was also raining, even though the forecast had predicted it would just be cloudy, so he was incredibly underdressed. Between his thin jacket which was not really made to touch any sort of water unless it was safely contained in a washing machine and his tennis shoes which were absolutely soggy the second he left the Starbucks, he was soaking wet and miserable.
By the time he got to work, Loki’s mood had already been ruined by the obstacles which arose during his two hours of being awake.
When he got to the second floor, Kate got on with him. She was from level 14, a photographer. Kate had never liked Loki, as he had refused when she asked him to sleep with him within her first month in the building. Kate had been infuriated, but she still hung around Loki, hoping for an opportunity to get with him. She honestly was only interested in sex, and it drove Loki mad. Whatever happened to the never sleep with your co-workers rule? Apparently, Kate had never heard of it.
From levels 2 to 8, all Kate could talk about was how excited she was to have a new person in the building. She went into detail about how much she craved it, how much she missed having someone new to talk to.
Loki felt like clawing his own ears off, just to shut her up.
“I mean, like, how long has it been since we got someone new?” She asked. “Like, two years.”
“No,” Loki interrupted with a sigh, “Kyle was new last month. You just mean, when did the last person I wanted to fuck start here? That was two years ago.” He rubbed his brow in frustration and listened to Kate stammer about how that wasn’t true. He could tell she was blushing just from the temperature change in the confined space.
When the elevator pinged again, signaling it was on floor 14, Kate exited, her head lowered in embarrassment.
Loki relished in the silence, leaning his head back against the cold metal of the elevator wall, and closing his already exhausted eyes. He breathed out a sigh, which did warm up the metal just a bit, but not truly enough to make it heated or comforting.
He listened to the elevator let out 28 more soft signals before the door opened onto his floor.
Loki took a deep breath inward, preparing himself for what he was sure was going to be the worst day of his entire life. He knew that there was a large probability the new guy would be self-centered enough to think that Loki would actually want to talk to him. Which he would be wrong about, of course. Loki didn’t want to talk to anyone.
He stepped out onto the black wood and glanced around. Shockingly, the floor seemed to be completely empty. No coworkers had wandered up to wish the new man luck, and he couldn’t even see the man himself. The hallway, lit only by two bright white lights in the ceiling, which was that only space on the floor that wasn’t a studio, was completely empty and just as dark as always. Loki glanced at the studio closer towards him, which had until today been a storage room, and felt curiosity boiling in him.
Biting his lip, Loki walked down the hallway towards the first door, the new studio. He didn’t even glance at the door of his own studio. Rather, his hand landed on the knob to the door of the opposite.
Slowly, and as quietly as possible, he turned the knob until it clicked, and the door pulled silently open.
It was absolutely black inside, and much colder than any room in the building Loki had ever entered. It didn’t have any of the storage items that had been inside last he had known, but rather he could faintly see the outlines of a few supplies he recognized. An easel, a pottery wheel, a sculpting turntable. If any of them had projects around them, or if the walls had any paintings or frames on them, he couldn’t see them in this lighting.
Now sure that the room had nobody in it, Loki pulled away and closed the door.
He turned on his heel, took look long strides towards his own studio and then stopped as soon as he could truly see it, his eyes narrowing.
Long beams of white light stretched across the floor from underneath his door. The only light that wasn’t from the overhead bulbs was shining on his black shoes.
Loki knew for a fact that he had turned his light off. In fact, he knew that the studios here had motion activated lights. Quite a few times, actually, he had been working so hard on a project and moving so little, that the lights turned off completely.
He really had no idea what could be in that room. Heimdall wouldn’t have gone in without permission. He hadn’t seen anyone on the way up, and nobody from the lower studios ever dared to come to see him. They all thought he was “passive-aggressive” and “snarky.”
Total bullshit of course, who in the world would think Loki was snarky?
With his lips pursed, Loki opened the door to his studio and stepped inside, not even sure what he should expect.
His room looked absolutely pristine. Every single painting on the wall was perfectly straight, the tools he had left on his desk were arranged in their perfect lines, the floor was scrubbed clean.
Really, the only thing out of place was the man standing in front of the window, gazing outward.
He was big, muscular, Loki could tell that even though his back was turned to him. His golden hair was tied back in a bun at the nape of his neck, and he was dressed quite smartly in a casual short-sleeved, olive green button down and some black dress pants, which he paired with a brown belt.
He didn’t look like a person who would be robbing an art studio. Especially since he was only looking out the window.
Loki cleared his throat, “May I help you?” He asked.
The man turned to look at Loki and smiled. He was attractive, more so than Loki expected. He had a sharply cut jaw and shining cerulean eyes that, paired with some tastefully cut scruff and his golden tan skin, he looked like some kind of model.
“I’m sorry for intruding. Heimdall told me that if you weren’t here I should just go inside.”
Loki stared at him for a second, with still no clue who he was or what he could have wanted.
Then it hit him.
“Oh,” He laughed out. “You must be the owner of ‘Venus, Adonis, and Cupid!’ Don’t apologize for coming in then, I’m happy to help any of my clients, especially to return their paintings. It’s actually right over here on the wall for you.” Loki stepped across the room and gestured to the painting.
It was in beautiful condition for its age. The only real touching up the Loki had done was cleaning it, giving it a new stretcher, and repairing a few patches of paint that had scraped off of the canvas. The painting depicted, as its title said, Adonis, Venus, and Cupid. They were all in a forest, with Venus holding Cupid in her arms beneath a tree. It looked as if Adonis and his dogs had caught them mid-hunt, as he was holding a gorgeous bow in one hand. He and Venus were staring at each other, both looking quite shocked. Loki wondered if perhaps the hunter was so surprised because of Venus being mostly nude. He certainly hadn’t been. According to paintings, most everybody in ancient Greece had been naked. Even though Loki saw actual women naked very rarely, and cared to see one even less, whenever he saw one naked in a painting, he didn’t even flinch.
It was a truly stunning painting, in Loki’s opinion. And he told the man so. “ Your painting is really quite beautiful. Annibale Carracci was a wonderful artist. I think this painting was quite a lucky grab. It’s-”
Before he could finish, Loki was interrupted by the man.
“I do agree that whoever owns this painting is quite lucky, but I’m not the owner.”
Loki turned to look at him. “What?” He asked, his eyebrows raised.
“This painting isn’t mine.” The man repeated, his eyes still on the artwork.
Loki nodded his head, “So you’re the owner of Portrait of a Young Woman?”
The man shook his head. “No, actually. I’m not the owner of any of your paintings. I’m not one of your clients.”
Loki stared at him, his eyes blank. He had known that a client would be stopping in today, but he wasn’t certain when, or who, so he kind of wondered if this man was just pulling his leg. He definitely looked the type to own art of some kind.
The man looked at Loki, their eyes meeting, and smiled softly. “I just started here today. Heimdall told me you would be showing me the ropes. So I figured I would stop in and ask you how things went around here.”
Loki continued to stare at him.
“I’m Thor. Thor Odinson, the new artist.”
“Oh,” Loki murmured, “You’re the ‘jack of all trades,’ huh?”
Thor laughed loudly, the kind of laugh that vibrated in your chest and made you smile without thinking. “Yeah, I guess you could call me that. Did you think of that just now?”
Loki shook his head. “No, actually Heimdall used it when explaining to us that you were coming to join us here.”
“I’ll have to talk to him about that,” Thor said, nodding his head thoughtfully. He talked his large hans into the pockets of his trousers and pursed his lips. “Anway, what do you have to tell me about this place?”
Loki looked past him out the window, at the suddenly dull city. He hadn’t anticipated this. Heimdall knew damn well that he was not qualified to explain the workings of this company. He didn’t pay any attention to any of his fellow artists, let alone to what the other people around here did.
He walked towards the window, distancing himself from the strange heat Thor gave off, and soaking back up the cold. He placed his hand on the window, and savored the numbness that seeped into his skin.
“You said Odinson, right?” Loki asked after a long moment of silence.
“I did.”
“As is Odin Odinson, that old dude that’s always on the news for owning a company nobody really knows the purpose of?”
Thor laughed again, and Loki could feel his eyes on his back. “Yes,” He rumbled. “That’s my father.”
Loki nodded and worried his lip, his sharp eyes catching insignificant raindrops racing each other down the window. And then, something focused, and all he saw was Thor. The man stood prone, his shoulders appearing to be broader as he watched Loki’s back.
Loki watched his reflection for a long moment, his vision tunneling until all he could see was this man. This man who had wandered into Loki’s studio with the hope of a helping hand. This son of a trillionaire who shone like the sun. This great beast who could be as insignificant as the drops Loki had watched moments before. His eyes were glancing around the room with content, and the tension in his chest made the feeling of his heavy sigh bubble within the room before it even slipped from his chest.
The two men stood absolutely silently now, both watching each other, both thinking the other was none the wiser.
Until, quite suddenly, cerulean eyes met evergreen in the glass of the window, amongst the cutting wind and pelting rain.
The illusion shattered immediately.
Whirling on his feet suddenly, Loki looked at Thor. “I don’t think that Heimdall actually told me that I would have to be helping you along, so I believe you’ll have to just figure it out yourself.” He said sharply, slicing the webs of curiosity and content that the silence had weaved between them.
“Oh,” Thor muttered, looking abashed. “I’m sorry. I must have misheard him.” He took one more fleeting glance around the room, and then took a step backward, away from Loki.
“Indeed you must have,” Loki agreed.
“I guess that I’ll go, then. Let you work…”
“That would be nice.”
Thor turned towards the door then, reaching out to grab it, before Loki stopped him with a single word.
“Wait.”
Thor turned and looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“Those doors over there lead to your studio,” Loki said, pointing to the french doors that he had hated throughout his entire stay at this building. “It will be shorter if you go that way. “
“Oh,” Thor uttered. “I guess I’ll go that way, then.”
Loki nodded and watched as he crossed the floor and opened the doors.
They shared one more look, and Thor said, “Goodbye then, Loki.”
And then he walked through the doors and closed them behind him.
With Thor’s back still to him, Loki dashed across the floor and unlaced the black curtains he’d had installed years ago, but never used. They fell together with a whoosh, and left Loki with only a slight glance at Thor’s back.
Loki laughed out loud, happy to defeat the enemy, or well, companion.
He turned and looked back at his studio, only to find that it felt suddenly empty. He glanced around him at the perfectly ordinary surroundings, and found he thought that the room looked devastatingly empty of the color gold.