The last time, was not, in fact, the last time.
You and John had made something of a habit of your little meetups, though the schedule was erratic. Sometimes you would see him several times in one week, and sometimes it was several weeks before you saw him. And once he even asked you to stay with him for several nights in a row. The seasons were beginning to change, as much as they ever did in LA, and your friends were starting to couple-up after their summer flings, pairing off in the sweltering days of early Fall.
As you laid in on the floor of his sparse living room, watching the city sweat through the picture window, John ran an ice cube slowly down your side. Water pooled at your waist as he drew the frigid block up over your hips, and down the top of your thigh where it melted away entirely.
You were both naked, but John's skin always felt cool to the touch. Sometimes, when you needed it the most, he felt downright icy himself.
"How do you stay so cool?" You asked once
"It must be my northern blood," He had replied.
He was always doing that, being deliberately, frustratingly vague.
You had reached a level of comfort with each other over the months but there was still a barrier. He still put up a wall. You could count on your fingers all of the personal things you actually knew about him, and even then, most of them could be false.
-name - John
-lives in a nice house in the hills
-Norwegian, kind of
-in the family "business"
-amazing in bed
-beautiful cock
The last two you could verify, and had verified. Repeatedly. The rest however...
He kissed you gently down the trail that he had just made with ice. You shifted your weight under his exquisite touch - not because you didn't like it, you loved it, you loved it too much. It made you... feel things. It made you feel feelings, and that was a problem.
Feelings meant asking more questions. Feelings meant facing hard truths.
The hard truth was that John would never be able to answer any of your questions. The hard truth was that John would never be able to be honest enough to take things much further than this. The hard truth was that John would never be able to commit to much more than the occasional date much less a relationship. And you weren't ready to hear him admit to any of that out loud.
"You're squirming, pet," he sensed your discomfort.
"It's the heat - It's making me restless," you said - not quite a lie.
"Mmmm. Let's do something about that, shall we?"
He grabbed your hips and flipped you on your back. He kissed your breasts languorously, taking time to suck and gently bite at your nipples. He shifted his whole body on top of you and then kissed his way up to your mouth. His hips were connecting with yours and you could feel him hardening. His skin - once again unnaturally dry and cool - was in complete contrast to yours which was dewey and flushed.
John ran his hands along your arms, gripping your wrists and pinning them up above your head. He locked your lips and kissed you hard. You were completely under his power and it was, as he once asked, liberating. Free from having to make hard decisions, free from having to take charge of the situation. You were unable to do anything but focus on the ecstasy of his touch. He shifted and you felt a new sensation in your wrists - soft and silken. He was tying your forearms with fabric bindings. Where had those come from? You wondered before a new wave of excitement and nerves crashed through you.
"Now you're all mine, my dove," and he was right. You were completely and utterly his - incapacitated physically and emotionally. You had given into this man.
He kissed his way back down your body, taking his time, enjoying your incapacitation. You yelped with pleasure when he took your clitoris in his mouth. It was soft, and warm and wonderful. He grabbed you by the hips and raised you up, legs over his shoulders, as he rose to his knees.
His angle from this new position gave him better purchase to explore your depths with his mouth. Bound, and with your upper back on the floor, there was little you could do but let the pleasure flow through you. He used his tongue to trace circles around your clit, and give long, languid licks along your wetness. He dipped in and out of you, eliciting breathy moans and warm rolling sensations.
Just when you thought that the warm rush of blood and pleasure flowing to your head would overwhelm you, he lowered your hips down to rest on his knees. He placed one hand on your stomach, keeping you in place, and slid two fingers from his other hand into your soft and swollen core. His fingers stroked you softly and curled inside you, hitting just the right spot over, and over again.
He looked straight into your eyes while he worked. His gaze was piercing. Soft dusty brown curls came loose down his forehead, and his lips were parted slightly. Your wetness lingered there on his lips. Was it your heightened emotions? Or were the color of his eyes really shifting as he gazed down on you from his looming vantage point? Either way it felt like he was looking into you deeply. Like he knew exactly what your body needed to feel sweet release. Like he knew that he was the only one capable of giving it to you.
For all you knew he was.
You came hard with a primal, breathy moan. You strained against his palm and the pressure he held you with. You strained against the ties on your arms. You strained against his hips and his unrelenting touch. Every opposing force to your body accentuated and framed the orgasm crashing through your body like breaking waves. You didn't think it would ever end. You didn't think you ever wanted it to.
Finally your body eased, and he pulled himself from you. He leaned forward over your body, stopping for a kiss and moving to unbind you.
"That will teach you to squirm, my dove," he said. You could feel his eyelashes flutter against your cheek, and your heart fluttered in turn.
He was hard and you could feel it pressed against you. However, instead of making any move to satisfy it, he scooped you towards him - how was his skin still so cool? - and held you there. With your arms free now you wrapped yourself around him.
"What about you?" You asked
"I'm fine, pet. We have all day for for my needs," he buried his face in your neck, "And you're absolutely beautiful when you come undone like that."
Was it the endorphins, or were you falling for him? You couldn't stand it. How could you not want your life to be like this forever? The reassuring pace of his steady breaths on top of you gave you a sort of courage in that moment.
"You know being here, with you, in this house, it's an escape for me," you confessed, "I've had to re-learn and re-discover so much about myself, after my realizations about my career, my boss. What happened to my friend made me feel so vulnerable, made me realize how mortal we really are. We have heroes to protect us from monsters and villains, but we have to protect ourselves from the smaller horrors. I never quite got that before, not really," you pulled his face towards yours. His eyes were green again. They were green more often lately - easier to look at directly, "Being here with you is like existing in a pocket of magic where only pleasure exists. Where the hardness of reality can be forgotten. Does that sound silly?"
He stared at you for a long moment and shifted his body to lay on his side next to you.
"Not at all," he kissed your bare collarbone, "I've lived for so long under the shadow of my family, of my father, of my brother... I've lived for so long with the burden of my role in their empire - unable to escape the velocity of my destiny. I lived for so long resenting what they had, wishing it were mine. And then suddenly it was all gone. And there was a void. And I felt that void, deeply. And now, improbably, I'm helping to rebuild it. And it's so hard, to feel that leash, to be tethered to a place, and a people, and a job, and a commitment. I know it's important, to choose it, to choose to belong, to choose to help my brother rebuild what our father left us. But it's not natural, not to me," he looked at you again, "This is a pocket of magic you know, for me as well, an alternate reality to exist in without the burden."
You had almost stopped breathing, this was the most he had revealed, or even said at one time, in the months that you had known him. You worried that any sudden movement could break the spell and make him stop.
"My apologies," he chuckled, "I've been told I talk too much."
"You literally never talk to me like that!" You laughed at the absurdity, but hoped that it was an opening, "Can you tell me more about them? Your family?" It was a simple, hopeful question.
"No, my dove. This space should stay free of them. This space is just for us," he looked genuinely serious, his eyes more blue now, like he was concentrating, "How about you tell me what you got up to this week. How is my cunning entrepreneur?"
You expected this, but still it disappointed you. You thought you were finally getting somewhere.
"My week... was good. I picked up another small brand to manage, and I think my portfolio is full enough for now. I'm thankful to be getting by on these new gigs," it felt a little strange to tell him about your life when he was so tight-lipped about his. But you found it hard to not be an open book, even though he wasn't.
"You know, I actually did something fun this weekend," you said, "LACMA currently has the traveling Avengers exhibit from the Smithsonian. It was fascinating. They had Cap's original stars and stripes, and all of the early Iron Man suits. Fragments from the battles of New York and Sokovia. Vibranium technology from Wakanda that you wouldn't believe. It was wild to see it all up close."
"And you have a keen interest in all that? In the Avengers?"
"Absolutely. They're Earth's mightiest heroes. They give us a reason to hope, and to not be afraid, and to keep questioning what is possible."
He gave you a small hum as another of his non-responses.
"You know, they even had a small section about the ongoing situation in Norway and New Asgard," you said, searching for a reaction, "It was with the Battle of New York stuff. It was about the controversy over Loki staying here on Earth."
At that, his expression shifted.
"And what are your opinions on this controversy?"
"I don't know," you admitted, "I think he's dangerous, but I think there are a lot of dangerous people on this planet. I believe Thor trusts him well enough, but I can't imagine why. It's so far away... I think I prefer not to think about it and trust Thor," he was staring at you intently. Why was this point so important to him? "How do you feel about it... as a Norwegian?"
"Mmm... I know the Norwegian government thinks that it's going to be very advantageous for them," another non-answer.
"You look like him, you know," you said.
"Who?
"Loki."
The air changed slightly in the room, and John got a peculiar look on his face.
"You think the egomaniac who brought a Chitauri army to New York with the goal of conquering Earth looks like me?" He asked, incredulously.
"No," you giggled, "I said that you look like him."
"What's the difference?" He chuckled
"He's more solid," your tone got serous again, "John, sometimes you're hard to look at. Like you're not quite real. Like you're a beautiful hologram. Like you shift and shimmer when I stare at you too long. It sounds crazy, but those pictures seemed more real than you do sometimes."
You could see tension in his jaw, briefly, before he composed himself.
"My dove, you were looking at photographs. It's no wonder they don't shift and move as I do."
He was being dismissive and it got under your skin. It itched and bothered you. It made you uncomfortable.
You pressed yourself up off the floor and walked over to where you had discarded your clothes earlier that day. You pulled on your top, and then your shorts.
"Have I upset you?" He pushed himself up to stand as well.
"I just — What are you keeping from me John?" You were reaching your wit's end.
"I thought we had agreed that this wasn't the place for the outside world. I thought we agreed that this was a a pocket of magic just for us."
"I know, It is. But it's a fantasy. It's a lie. Why can't you see that?"
"Why does it matter?"
"It matters because I can't keep coming here, to the lie, pretending that I don't think about you out there, in the outside world. That I don't constantly wonder what you're up to, what you're doing, who you're with. I can't keep pretending like the answers to those questions don't mean anything to me. I can't keep pretending that the questions aren't driving me crazy, that it's normal to know so little about someone after so long," you took a deep breath before saying the next part,
"I can't keep pretending that I'm not developing feelings for you."
He was still naked standing in front of you, completely bare and vulnerable. If he couldn't be honest with you like this, then he could never be honest with you period.
"What do you do when you're not here with me John? Who is your family?"
"I... I'm sorry. I can't give you those answers. I wish I could, but I can't."
"Why not John? What's so hard about telling the truth? I already know you're a criminal, but what more? What worse? What could you possibly need to keep from me at this point?"
"It would break your heart," he said, with sad eyes, "Trust me."
And at that your heart did break. At that you knew the magic spell of this place was broken.
"I can't do this anymore. I really can't," tears were welling in your eyes, but you didn't want him to see it. You turned, grabbed your things, and headed for the door.
"Wait!" He called after you several times, but you never looked back. You had a head start as he grabbed his pants to cover himself up. You hustled to the exit, sure that if you stayed, for even a moment, to hear him out, that you would lose your courage. You passed through his door, reached your car and pulled out before he could catch up.
And that was that. You left him. His voice calling your name still ringing in your ears.
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Fuck
Loki reached the street still half dressed, but the girl was gone.
Not that he knew what to say that could possibly make her stay. Her terms were clear, and he knew he couldn't meet them. The one true thing that he had left to tell her wouldn't even have mattered at that point.
The truth was that he had feelings too.
And he hadn't realized it. He had refused to realize it. Until she said his name. Loki. It sounded so delicious coming from her lips. And she didn't even know, couldn't ever know, what it did for him. He wished he could hear her use it all the time, when she wanted something, when she wanted nothing, when she felt pleasure, when she felt pain.
He hadn't lied when he said that he wished he could tell her more. But he couldn't deny that there was a part of him that was the same person who tried to rob the throne of Asgard. The person who had killed Laufey, his own blood. The person who was so hungry for power he had hardly resisted the mind stone and Thanos's will. But he didn't think that she could reconcile that. He didn't think that she could overcome the realities of his last thousand years and also be happy with him for any more of hers. What had he told Thor about his former paramour, Jane Foster? That mortal lives were but a blink of an eye compared to theirs?
Loki understood a little better now, the sacrifices that Thor had made.
He couldn't stay there, in that house, in that former paradise. It felt empty, and hollow without her. He finished dressing and walked the short distance back to the hidden doorway to New Asgard. Loki dropped his disguise, maybe for the last time, he thought, as he walked through and back home.
It was a little hike to the spot where he kept a car parked for these jaunts - an old four wheel drive truck. He parked it far enough away from the spot so that no one would cotton-on to his secret exit, but close enough to be convenient. It wasn't fancy, but it was reliable. That could practically be New Asgard's catch phrase these days.
There was an unwelcome surprise waiting for him at the truck.
"Ayyyyyy, Loki. There you are!," said the Valkyrie
"You're drunk," Loki observed.
"And you're 'taking a hike' at two in the morning," she used air quotes to emphasize her disillusionment.
"Is that why you're here? To sort out my best hiking spots?"
"C'mon Loki. Thor's not been paying attention, but I am. You've been sneaking up here for weeks, what's going on?" It had been months now, but Loki wasn't going to tell her that.
"There are weird magical anomalies up here. Weird for Midgard. I'm trying to figure them out," half-truths made more believable lies.
"Magical anomalies? And you're looking for them at this hour? Do you expect me to believe that?"
"You don't have to believe me. I'll show you some time. But they all lead to nowhere. Fjords mostly."
"Right. Fjords," she said, not entirely buying it, but not digging deeper, "Give me a ride back to town? Walking here sounded like a better idea several drinks ago."
"Get in," Loki would use all of the good will that he could manage get to keep this quiet. He didn't need anyone asking too many questions. Not now. He didn't need this to be an international incident on top of a breakup. They piled into the truck and Loki turned the ignition.
"You smell like pussy," she grinned and punched his arm teasingly.
"Ow! I suppose you would know," he teased back. He began to pull the car from its spot then stopped, suddenly serious, "You're not going to tell Thor about this are you?"
"Do I need to tell Thor?" Her tone was sober as anything.
"No," Loki paused, considering it, "I suppose it's of no consequence now," and he drove them back into town.
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