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There had been a long, dark time after Odin had revealed his true origin, his true inheritance, when Loki had thought he would never be happy again. How could he if he was a medusa, son of a race cursed by the norns themselves to turn everyone that ever looked into their eyes to stone?
No-one in their right mind would want to be seen with him, or claim him as friend, let alone as a lover. No-one would dare come near him, not without a sword in their hand to sever his head from his neck.
Yet not even fleeing his father's - kidnapper's - castle into the endless solitude of the wild forests could help him forget what he was. Not when he felt the strange shifting weight of the moving snakes on his head, or heard their hissing that not even the thunder of a mighty storm could drown out. Not when he saw a monster’s claws every time he looked at his hands.
Still - the first time he’d seen his likeness in a clear lake it had been a shock.
Not because of the snakes surrounding his face but because aside from them, if he just pretended he couldn't see them, if he narrowed his eyes just so, he looked ... the same still.
The same and yet not, with his magic bound to chain him to this form, driven from the place he once called home and with the pretense of family ripped from his life.
Those ... those had been dark times, with him fleeing every wanderer that traversed his woods for fear of being hunted, or leaving them turned to stone as he had Hogun when he fled the castle in the first place. His days were filled with worry and regret and anger, his nights spend shivering under the cold tears of loneliness.
A warm hand on his shoulder startled him out of his memories and he could feel his lips curl into a smile without his say-so when the sneaker pressed a little kiss into his nape, his snakes eagerly parting for him with a noise that was as content as a snake could ever produce.
There were few people in this universe that his snakes wouldn't have warned him about and one only that they greeted this way.
"Are you wallowing in dark thoughts again, beloved?", Thor asked.
Loki let himself rest against the hand a little. "You cannot see my face, and still you think you can read my thoughts?"
Thor chuckled only. "We have grown up side by side, Loki. When I can read your thoughts while you lie in darkness beside me plotting mischief far beyond the toddlers we were than I can certainly read you when you are unguarded in a light meadow from your stance alone."
Maybe ... no, certainly this words would have made him feel uncomfortable only a few years back, before Thor left his family and friends and his place in the world (though his friends were far too persistent in their friendship and pursued him until they both returned home) to find Loki.
To find Loki, and make sure that he was okay as if he wasn't a two-thousand year old immortal god with a head fill of snakes that could turn every sentient being into stone with just a look. To find him and stay with him, because sometimes Thor was disturbingly perceptive and he wouldn't allow Loki to be alone, even if it meant stumbling around blind most of the time.
Which reminded Loki - "I don't have my glasses with me." The glasses, courtesy to one Tony Stark, that reflected everyone's look back at them and made it possible even for a medusa to walk among crowds, and that he had left with the horse he had taken out here because he thought he would be alone.
Thor only shrugged, then used his touch on Loki's shoulder to step around him. "I will just keep my eyes closed", he said. "It's not like I don't have experience."
Smiling a little Loki watched as his lover made his way around him, then used his free hand to find his face.
For a moment it was like back then, when they were still alone in Loki's cottage out in the wild. Precious weeks that had gone a long way to heal Loki's wounded heart, even if they had spend them alternatively wearing a blindfold to make sure that he wouldn't accidentally turn Thor into a statue.
Or maybe because of that. For years he had felt like nothing but Thor's shadow, a follower whose absence he would barely notice. Leading him around when he couldn't see, being led around with his eyes covered by the black cloth, had helped build back the trust between them.
Hearing Thor declare that he would only return with Loki at his side when Sif and Fandral and Volstagg had found them had helped, too. And on their quest to find a way to turn Hogun back - which had led them to Midgard and making new friends with the band of misfits that Tony Stark belonged to - that bond of trust, of brotherhood and friendship, had turned into something else entirely. Something more.
"And now you're thinking naughty thoughts", Thor said and Loki looked at him, startled, to make sure that his eyes were still shut.
"You surprise me", he admitted, seeing no reason to lie about this.
Thor leaned forward, his right hand starting to trace the lines of Loki's face and he couldn't help the shudder that went through him.
Maybe it was the electricity that always was around Thor, surrounding him like his personal aura, raising Loki's hairs and making him so very very aware of his lover's presence.
"What are you thinking of?", Thor asked and his voice had this curious tilt that Loki had never noticed before their cottage, where they both had had to ask this question so very often because somehow not having their eyes to aid them had made them more perceptive to each other's moods.
Raising his own hand to Thor's chest, just to feel his warmth through his clothing, he smiled. "Do you remember that night on Midgard? After Tony gave me the glasses, and when we celebrated that the potion had worked and Hogun had turned back into a being of flesh and blood ..."
Unlike Loki himself, Thor wasn't the kind of person for restraint expressions. So when a smile came to his face it wasn't the slight curve of his mouth that Loki could feel on his own face, but much more like watching the sun rise. His whole face lit up in a humor so wicked, most would blame Loki - rightfully - to teach it to him, his teeth sparkling and the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling deeply.
"That's what you're thinking of? The night we actually made Tony Stark interrupt us to complain about noise?"
Loki couldn't help the chuckle at the memory. "Though to be honest, I'm almost sure the other Avengers send him up. And did you see his face?"
Thor laughed, his whole body shaking with it. "He was jealous. Yes, I remember. If it hadn't been our first night together with both of us seeing I might just have invited him."
Grinning Loki leaned forward. "We could go back. Ask him", he whispered conspiratorially.
But Thor shook his head. "He has the Lady Pepper at his side now, and I think she would not share."
"Aye", Loki agreed. "She is a true dragon at heart."
Thor's finger wandered over his mouth, tracing his upper lip with the gentleness he reserved for his lovers, before moving on to one of Loki's snakes who hissed contentedly at his petting.
Loki felt his smile turn softer as the sensation of touch whispered down his spine. It had taken him a while to realize that the snakes weren't true separate beings, their actions not true independent emotions but mere reactions to Loki's own state of being. His snakes pretty much purring at every contact with Thor's skin was nothing but an expression of how much Loki himself loved to have him near, to touch him.
It made lying almost impossible, but thankfully very few people had worked this out yet.
And then Thor leaned forward, his forehead almost touching Loki's, his electric heat warming Loki’s skin. His smile so gentle that Loki felt his own follow suit, his darker emotions settling in the love of this man that he treasured more than anything in this world.
"You are more precious to me than any hammer, any weapon could ever be", Thor said, the words sounding like a vow, no matter that they came out of seemingly no-where.
But Loki had been there when Thor made it the first time, when Odin threatened to take Thor's beloved hammer if he didn't stop in his insistence that Loki return with him, that he marry Loki.
Remembered also his own words in turn, a vow as well. "We need no weapon to stay together, and if anyone tries to come between us, we will rip them apart."
A vow like this, dark and churning from emotions and memories, should dampen the mood. And yet Loki just felt lighter, warmer - loved.
Curling his hand against Thor's chest he leaned forward a bit more, just enough to press his lips to his beloved's.
And when Thor kissed him back, with all the ferocity of his love and the carefulness of an experienced warrior, he felt like the happiest person alive.