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greymantledlady · 3 years

Text

bad blood come and go, but you're still coming home

Michael’s grace quivers all over, his face working as he leans into the touch. ‘How am I here,’ he says. ‘Why would anyone ever bring me back – let alone you – let alone the Winchesters? I doomed us – doomed you.’ His grace is cracking open now, flowing over with pain and recrimination. ‘I knew from the moment he raised his hand. I died knowing I failed you.’

Fic for @midamweek!

Read on AO3 or below the cut:

Adam stands there, his body ready, waiting (Yes, he thinks, Yes, always Yes), and Jack – God – closes his eyes, a soft smile on his face. Dean, standing alone and off to one side, looks like he’s about to be sick. Sam and Eileen wait together by one of the walls.

Jack is still smiling, and then there’s a warm glow next to Dean, and Castiel appears, stumbling a little, eyes wide with shock. Adam hears Dean make a wet, choking sort of sound, lurching forward to catch Castiel in his arms. But his own body is still empty, still aching, and he says again to Jack, begging, ‘Please.’

Jack’s face is serene, untroubled, and for an instant Adam is so afraid that he’s changed his mind that he could choke; and then, all at once, he’s glowing from the inside out, and a presence slots back inside him as though he’d never left.

Michael, he thinks, mad with joy. Michael, sweetheart, Michael, and searches inside himself with frantic nudges of his soul.

He can access their shared headspace again, finally, and that’s where he finds the focus of Michael’s grace, quivering and unresponsive with shock. He wraps his soul around it, weak with relief; in the headspace, he kneels by the shuddering, foetal ball of Michael’s body and touches him, unable to stop himself from running his hands over Michael’s shoulders and face.

‘Michael,’ he says shakily, ‘Michael, hey, look at me,’ but he doesn’t give Michael the chance, crushing his arms around him and pulling him up, pulling him close. Michael’s hands are trembling fists against his chest, his eyes darting wildly.

‘Adam,’ he croaks. ‘Where - ? Adam, why am I – they’ll kill you!’ He’s frantic, panicking, hands flying up to cup Adam’s face. ‘You don’t understand what I – if you knew – they will kill you, to get to me!’

‘Michael,’ Adam says, and he’s crying, now, unable to stop.

‘I have to leave,' Michael says. He sounds agonised, but Adam grips his arms, shaking his head through the tears.

‘It’s okay,' he says. ‘Michael, we’re safe.’ He presses forward, wrapping his arms around Michael’s neck, soul around grace, rubbing their cheeks together softly. Michael is trembling all over, his grace raw and quivering against him.

‘I went back to him,' he says hoarsely. ‘I thought – if I helped him, I thought I could ask him to bring you back. I thought – and then he - ' He makes a wounded, shaky sound, hands clutching against Adam’s back.

‘I know, they told me,' Adam says, and it comes out wet and stuffy. ‘You idiot, of course he was going to do that, Michael – ’

He presses his face into Michael’s neck, folding into the familiar aura and warmth of his grace, soothing the rough hurting patches of it with little healing touches of his own soul. Michael’s face is buried into the hair above Adam’s ear, and he makes another little sound, like he’s crying, too.

‘I’ll go,' he says after a minute, in a low voice. ‘I can’t ask you to forgive - if you revoke your consent, I’ll honour it.’ His hand comes up to cup the back of Adam’s head for an instant, then reluctantly drops away.

Adam stiffens, pulling back a little to glare at him. ‘Don’t you fucking dare,' he chokes. ‘You asshole, don’t you – if you dare leave me again – Michael.’ He puts a hand on Michael’s cheek, runs his thumb under Michael’s eye, his touch immeasurably gentler than his words.

‘Jack’s God now,’ Adam says, stroking his face; he can’t help himself, too overcome with the utter relief of having Michael back. ‘He can do what he wants. He brought you back.’

‘To stand trial, surely,’ Michael says, and his face firms into lines of resignation. ‘I’ll submit to it, granted that you’ll be safe. Free.’ He closes his eyes, and Adam can feel his grace press softly, carefully against the edges of his soul, as though he’s memorising the shape and feeling of it before being dragged away. Adam shakes his head fiercely.

‘You’re so stupid,’ he says, and his voice cracks between a laugh and a sob. ‘I’d die before I let that happen, you stupid – stupid fucking archangel, do you hear me? They can just try.’

‘You can’t fight a god, kid,’ Michael says softly. ‘You’re just human,’ but his voice is so tender that it takes any possible sting out of the words. Adam strokes his face again, overwhelmed by the way Michael – an archangel, the mightiest warrior, the first creation – leans into his touch each time.

‘Yeah, well,’ he says with a heroic sniff. ‘They owed me, big time, and the only thing I wanted was to have you back.’ He pushes his fingers through Michael’s hair, to the back of his head, and tugs, bringing their foreheads together with a painless little thud, grace against soul against grace in every dimension of their shared existence. Michael’s hands come gently to rest on the small of his back, and they lean against each other, breathing in each other’s essence.

‘You called me sweetheart,’ Michael whispers, after a minute, ‘you – what does that mean,’ and Adam flushes.

‘I know it – probably seems stupid and small to you,’ he murmurs, looking away. ‘Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t have to change anything.’ It had been an accident, a slip of the tongue – or heart – in his joy at getting Michael back. In all the hundreds of years of his loving Michael with his whole heart, he had never intended to reveal this particular, pointless, human weakness. What they’d had together had been enough.

But – ‘I want to know,’ Michael says, and Adam wonders – can it really hurt, to simply tell him, now? Michael probably won’t understand, but he won’t judge, or mock him, either. He might even already know.

‘Okay,’ Adam agrees, quiet. ‘Okay. So – you might have already guessed it, that I’m in love with you, by human standards. Sorry. I didn’t mean to, it just – sort of happened, somewhere along the line.’

Michael is looking at his face as though he’s never seen it before, his face a picture of astonishment. Adam winces, gnaws his lower lip. ‘It really doesn’t have to change anything,’ he adds hopefully.

‘I love you more than I loved my father,’ Michael blurts out suddenly, ‘more than the universe, more than the first star, more than anything, in every possible way.’ He looks at Adam, and his cheeks are flushing. ‘I – I want to try kissing with you, I want – the other things as well, all of it. Everything. For a long time now.’

‘You what,’ Adam says blankly, and then, ‘Seriously?! Michael!’ His soul, slowly lighting up with surprise and unexpected joy, is reaching out to curl against Michael’s grace, but what?

Michael looks shifty. ‘I was – working up to suggesting it. In the Cage. As a… way to pass the time,’ he mumbles.

‘Oh my god,’ Adam says, and then starts giggling helplessly. ‘You – you! And there I was! Thinking there was no possible way an – an archangel could feel that way, and you were – you were working up to suggesting it!’ He feels giddy and light with laughter and delight, and he leans forward and shakes happily against Michael’s neck.

Michael holds him carefully, his hands splayed on the small of Adam’s back, his grace wrapping around them both like a tattered blanket. Adam can feel the way it aches, can feel Michael’s love and loss, his pain and guilt; and he presses his soul against it, hugs Michael back.

‘I don’t know what I should do now,’ Michael says shakily, against his hair. ‘Where I begin.’

Adam strokes his back, scrapes his fingers back and forth in a gentle, random pattern of comfort. There’s a lot of things they need to talk about, that Michael needs to explain and atone for and work through, but for now, he thinks that he gets to be a little selfish. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘But I think – I think you should start by kissing me.’

He turns his head against Michael’s, lets his lips skate across his ear, feels Michael shiver through the whole expanse of his grace. ‘And then,’ he says, warming to this idea, ‘then, I think we should get out of my brothers’ weird underground dungeon, and go somewhere nice – like – like New Zealand, somewhere where it’s green and there aren’t any people, and we can kiss some more. And then after that maybe we can get a hotel room, a really nice one with a spa bath, and kiss there, and – and then decide what we do next, maybe help some people, fix climate change or the hole in the ozone layer. But definitely the kissing first.’

Michael is looking at his lips, eyes hazy. His grace is shining despite the rough patches and pain it holds, lighting up and drifting forward and around them both, bright with longing. ‘I’ve never kissed anyone before,’ he says softly.

‘I’ve never kissed an archangel, but I’m about to,’ Adam says, and pulls him in, and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.

#midam week #midam #michael/adam #michael spn #adam milligan #my fic #supernatural

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thewayofthetrashcompactor · 6 years

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choices

(also on ao3)

Chapter Two (Chapter 1)

Summary: After the war, Rey and Ben figure out what’s next. That involves a surprising amount of jizz. (Which is still a type of music)

Words: 3271 Rating: T

Rey smoothes her dress down, trying to look more collected that she feels. It isn’t like she hasn’t met with Kylo -- Ben in countess bars over the past couple years. In between stumbling drunks, pounding bass, and questionable stains, he’s passed along enough information for the Resistance to have a chance against Snoke. She still remembers that final battle, the way they’d come together in perfect synchronization, the pure adrenaline coursing through her, that final moment when she thought -- before reality came crashing back in.

And this is different. It's the first chance they've had to spend time alone together since he killed Snoke. And the first time it's just about them. She’d never had much time for dating, between a childhood of abandonment and being dragged into a war she’d never expected. The thought makes her pause. Is this dating? He'd never really said, just asked her to meet him here. He'd been so nervous doing it too, though she hadn't been any better. It was so hard to know what to say, after all they'd done together. To go out for a normal dinner, no ulterior motives -- it’s like another life.

She takes a deep breath. Whatever this is, she's doing no good waiting around outside. She takes one last look at the bustling street outside, witches and wizards enjoying the evening, and then pushes open the door to Max Rebo's.

(continued under cut)

The room inside is large and holds a decent sized crowd. Brown brick walls, almost earthen in color, can barely be seen under framed photos and records that are hung so tightly that they almost look stacked, some newer, some looking like they survived the last wizarding war. The photos inhabitants jostle one another for space, settling in to get the best view of the stage at the front of the room, where a small crew is setting up a selection of instruments, a few of which Rey recognizes, but most she doesn't. She scans the room, looking for a familiar dark head. Even in the low lights, it isn't hard to find Ben. He sits at a small table alone, tapping his fingers in random patterns while his bouncing leg barely keeps from knocking into the empty chair beside him. She smiles and walks over.

“Hey,” she says as she slides into the open seat. He jerks and looks over to her, smile spreading across his face. She has a momentary vision of her leaning in to greet him with a kiss, on his cheek, on his lips, feeling that smile against her own with a comfortable ease.

But she still doesn't know what this is. She knows more about Ben than just about anyone else, and he knows her as well as anyone, even Finn. But this is new and unfamiliar and anything more than what they've been will have to wait.

“Hey,” he says back, turning to face her. “You found it.”

“Course I did,” she says, laughing. “We've met in much more out of the way places than this.” She glances around the room again. “What is this anyway?”

“It's a jizz bar.” Her gaze snaps back to his. He looks somewhere between sheepish and pleased. “I told you I'd get you to one eventually.”

“You did,” she agrees, taking in their surroundings with a new eye. It'd been one of how favorite threats, ground out every time Rey had needed to stop him from hexing some innocent DJ who didn't meet his standards. Which, given that he hates anything resembling popular music, was often. Rey had denied it every time he'd accused her of choosing places to meet specifically to annoy him, but he hadn't been entirely wrong. She'd gained a new appreciation for the music herself in deciding what to subject him to next. Now, it appears to be her turn.

It had taken a couple confused questions before she'd finally realized that the jizz Ben referred to was a type of wizarding music and not...Well. That. Poe, who'd grown up around magic, had confirmed it in an awkward conversation. Still, the room she finds herself in, that gives a very good impression of being the underground lair of some hoarding creature, is not what she'd expected, even with that information.

“So you finally get your chance to prove to me that this is as good as you say it is,” she said to Ben, grinning.

“It will be,” he promises. His hands twitches as if he's going to reach for hers, but he stops the motion halfway. “This is classic jizz, the best kind,” he says instead.

“I can't wait to hear it,” she assures him. She turns towards the stage, where the crew is making a variety of noises while testing the instruments. Silence falls between then and Rey fidgets. She doesn't know where this sudden need to impress him came from, but things were so much easier when all they had to worry about was keeping each other alive.

“How are you...doing?” Ben asks eventually.

“Good,” she says automatically, then stops to actually think. “Yeah. Good.” She means it, and it's a weird thing to realize. From the sympathetic look on Ben's face, he knows what she's thinking, and she relaxes. He'd always been good at understanding. ”Working on figuring out what's next,” she tells him.

He nods. “Yeah. Same here. It feels surreal.” He pauses. “I'm not sure I ever really considered that this would be over, more or less. If I did, I didn't think I'd still be…” 'Alive,’ he doesn't say, but Rey hears it nonetheless. She wraps her hand around his and squeezes.

“I'm glad you are,” she says, quiet but intent.

He nods again, throat working around his emotions. “Mom --“ And there’s another thing she thinks he never expected, calling the general that again. He says the title hesitantly, like he’s relearning how it sounds. “She’s found me work, some simple stuff at the ministry. Since I need something to do now.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “I’m appreciating that ridiculous mask much more now; no one there recognizes me. It’s...different.”

She smiles too, thinking how the ministry drones would react if they knew the infamous Kylo Ren was filing papers next to them. “How’s that going?”

“Haven’t destroyed any ministry property yet. Or, not anything big enough for them to get mad about,” he says wryly.

She rolls her eyes. “That’s something.”

“It is.” He turns more serious, looking down at where their hands are still joined. His thumb rubs back and forth over her fingers. “It’s good for now. I was...frustrated with Mom at first, that she was already pushing me to do something, but I think she knew how things might go if she let me sit around the house and think too much.”

She’s seen him lost in his own head before, and thinks Leia might have had the right idea. “If you ever --” She searches for the right words. “Need someone. You can talk to me. If you want.”

His hand curls around hers from underneath. “Thanks.” His eyes meet hers briefly, warm with gratitude, before flicking down again. “So that’s me right now. I think, eventually, I want to do something else. Help people. But I need time.” She can tell the admission is hard for him, but he doesn’t dwell on it for long. “What about you? Now that you don’t have to waste all your free time with me.”

“That was never a waste,” she says automatically. He seems taken aback by her insistence, but she refuses to back down. “Never.”

“I’m glad,” he murmurs.

She nods sharply. “Leia talked to me too,” she says, and he smiles.

“Of course she did. Is she trying to convince you to become the next president yet?”

“Not yet,” she says, grinning. “I think she’s going to have to get Finn for that though, or maybe Rose. I couldn’t make it for that long in politics without strangling someone.”

He considers that, lips twitching. “To be fair, my mother’s not above that. But I take your meaning.”

“She offered to pay for me to go back to school though. If I wanted. Wizarding or not.” She tries not to reveal how much this has been on her mind the past few days.

Ben cocks his head. “Do you want to?”

She thinks over her answer. “I never had much time for school when I was a kid, too much going on. So I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it now. But I think I’d like to. There are so many things I don’t know about, and I want to learn all of them.”

“You should do it,” he says firmly.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Definitely. Find something that makes you excited, and let my mom pay for you to spend the next few years proving to everyone how good you are at it.”

“I’d have to pay her back,” Rey insists.

Ben smirks. “You could try. I’d like to watch that.” She scowls, but suspects he’s got a point.

He hesitates over his next question. “Do you think you’d stay here? Or go somewhere else?”

“I don’t know yet,” she says honestly. “I want to see everything. But --” She can’t fully explain her reluctance to leave the city behind. All her friends are here, something she never thought she’d have to tie her down, and then there’s… “What about you?” she asks, not committing to that thought.

He bites his lip as he looks at her. “It depends,” he hedges.

She’s about to ask what he means by that, but then the lights in the room dim as a single light comes up on the stage. The tables around them all begin to clap, and Ben takes his hand from hers to join them. She tries not to feel disappointed at the loss. She claps politely too, and a tall and heavy man steps out onto the stage. In the dark behind him, the musicians take their places by their instruments. The man’s magically amplified voice booms throughout the room.

“Welcome! Welcome, friends, to the best place for jizz in the city.” Rey chokes, unable to help herself, and senses a few glares from around her. “We’re so glad you’ve joined us tonight, because tonight, in a true celebration of jizz, we’re thrilled to present the return of the jizz master, Max Rebo himself!”

A second light appears on the stage over a short and round man with a long, hanging nose. He waves blandly to the audience as they cheer. Rey glances over to Ben. A smile edges at his lips and he claps enthusiastically.

“So without any further ado, my fellow jizz-enthusiasts,” the announcer says as the applause fades, sweeping his arm across the stage, “the Max Rebo band!”

Lights come up across the stage, revealing the rest of the band, a motley assortment of musicians. From the looks of a few of them, they’re not all human, though Rey couldn’t say which magical humanoids the band represents. Max Rebo starts right into the first song, joined by a gaunt man with spiky hair on some sort of horn. A woman with a thin face and thick lips steps forwards and begins crooning words Rey doesn’t understand into a microphone cupped in her hand. Soon, more of the musicians play their own parts, producing noises Rey’s never heard before.

The music builds to an arrhythmic beat, and as Rey looks around, the crowd appears to be enraptured. People sway in their seats, and a few get up to dance at the sides of the room. Beside her, Ben nods his head, hand twitching on his lap like he knows what comes next before the band plays it. She glances back at the stage, trying to make sense of the various sounds competing against each other. If she knew what any of the instruments were supposed to sound like, she thinks she might be able to appreciate this more. Instead, she finds herself wondering if the thing that might be a trumpet is supposed to sound like a duck or not.

With some enthusiastic yelling from the lead singer, the song comes to an end. The crowd breaks into applause but the band starts into their next number before the clapping fades out. The beat speeds up this time, the singer jumping around the stage enthusiastically, and Rey observes in bewilderment.

As the night wears on and one song fades into another, Rey finds herself watching Ben more than the band. He’s always been rubbish at hiding his emotions, everything showing on his face, and she can’t help but smile as she takes in his reaction to each number. His features show the emotion of the music better than she can understand by listening to it. He looks back over at her every once in a while, smiling, and she smiles back. When something strikes him about the music, he leans over to whisper it to her, whether it’s something about a musician’s handle on their instrument or some trivia about the song, like when they play one of the numbers that opened the club. She gets so caught up in him that she tunes the music out entirely and only notices the band has finished when Ben gets to his feet to cheer with the rest of the bar. Slightly disoriented, she stands and claps too as the band bows and accepts their accolades.

The announced strides back out onto the stage, looking as pleased as if he’d been the one playing. “Thank you, thank you all!” he cries. “We cannot thank the Max Rebo band enough for returning tonight. If you’re dying for more jizz, we have another performance later tonight! Invite your friends, your family, and all lovers of good jizz!”

Ben turns to Rey as the lights slowly illuminate the club again, his cheeks flushed and a slight smile on his lips. “So what did you think?” he asks breathlessly.

She hesitates, and his face falls before she says, “It was really different!”

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Different?”

“Yeah!” She flounders. “How they -- you know, the sound and everything, it was really interesting.”

He frowns. “You didn’t like it.”

“No, that’s not --!” She huffs. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” he says dryly. “But you didn’t.”

She sighs. “It might not be my thing,” she admits, and she can see him start to blame himself already before she continues. “But I liked listening to it with you. Even if I didn’t like it, I liked that you did.”

His lips roll in that particular way he has and his brow creases. “I just wanted to take you on a perfect date,” he mutters.

“Date?” Rey asks, sitting up and leaning forward.

Ben looks even more awkward. “Yes? I was hoping -- But if you don’t want to, that’s fine, I don’t -- We can just be friends, or not, or --”

Before he can backtrack any more, Rey pushes off her chair and kisses him. He freezes under her lips, but then she cups his face in her hand and he sighs, relaxing.

“Rey,” he murmurs against her, and she shivers at the taste of her name on his lips. Her hand wraps around his neck to bring him closer to her, and his hands hover over her sides before she leans into him and they settle on her waist.

Kissing Ben is so natural that she wonders how they haven’t done this before. After a few brief fumbles between chins and noses, they find their rhythm, where they can take things deeper. She drags her teeth over his full lip, loving how it gives under her and how his moan rumbles against her. His hands grip her like he’s terrified to let go, tightening every time she hits another sensitive spot, of which he seems to have many. Her fingers smooth along the lines of his jaw, then the incredible silk of his hair, before finding his ears hidden underneath. He jolts when she tugs there, and she grins. She wants to touch him everywhere, see everything that she can do to him. The knowledge that he wants this too; he’d invited her on a date -- it fills her with a giddy high, and she easily loses track of where they are.

Someone clears their throat from next to them, and Ben jumps, jostling her from her new position on his lap. He breaks away, and she reluctantly looks up too, but not before grinning smugly at the bright shade of pink Ben has turned and the deep red of his lips. Her own feel swollen and sensitive, and she really would like to go back to what they were doing. The man still watches them impatiently though, but not without the hint of a smile on his lips.

“We all know the romantic power of jizz, but save it for home, hmm?” he tells them, when he finally has both of their attention.

“Yes, of course,” Ben says, breathlessly.

“We were just leaving,” Rey assures him, standing and grabbing Ben’s hand.

Ben blinks, though he stands and joins here. “We were?”

She nods firmly. “Yep. Is that okay?” she asks Ben.

It takes a second for him to process the suggestion, but she sees the flash in his eyes as it clicks. “Yes. Definitely. We’re leaving.” He threads his fingers through hers, grabs his jacket, and they quickly walk out of the bar together.

Their pace slows as they reach the streets, joining other couples out for a late night stroll before heading back home. Rey takes them down the path back to her apartment, and Ben willingly follows.

“So what didn’t you like?” he asks, breaking into her thoughts of her plans once they get to her place.

“What?” she says.

“The music. What didn’t work for you?” His tone is curious, not accusatory, and she can’t believe that he wants to talk about this again, except it’s Ben, and of course he does.

“I don’t know,” she says distractedly. “I guess I just didn’t understand it. I don’t usually listen to a lot of wizarding music.”

He nods thoughtfully. “That makes sense. Jizz isn’t for everyone, I guess you really have to have a taste for it. And there’s good jizz and not-so-good stuff. Really depends on who’s making it”

She groans. “Oh my gosh, you have got to stop saying that.”

“What?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.

“Do you know what jizz means to anyone not a wizard?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

He thinks. “I’m guessing not music,” he says wryly.

“Definitely not,” she confirms.

“Am I going to have to guess?”

She shakes her head. “You’d never figure it out.”

He takes that as a challenge. “Jizz for no-majs. Is jizz a food? A drink? Is it --”

She stops in the middle of the sidewalk and tugs him down for a kiss to stop that line of questioning from getting any worse. He seems entirely satisfied with the distraction, wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her up so that he can sweep into her mouth and taste her fully. They’re both breathing harder when they part again, and Rey bumps her shoulder against his as they continue to her apartment, walking a little faster now.

“You still haven’t told me what jizz is,” he teases, and she groans.

“Later,” she says, giving in.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he promises. She knows he will.

#reylo #benrey #rffa writers #reylo writing den #reylo au week #my fic #harry potter au #choices #sorry for the delay #I'm considering a follow up #but I have literally no time

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chipper9906 · 3 years

Text

Heal The Cracks Within My Heart - Chapter 3: Healing Touch

<- - - Previous Chapter

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR LOKI SEASON 1 EPISODE 6 ‘FOR ALL TIME. ALWAYS.’

Pairings: Loki/Sylvie

Rating: General Audiences

Chapter Word Count: 7,622

Overall Word Count: 32,322 (In Progress)

Status: Multi Chapter Fic - In Progress (3/?)

Chapter Preview:

Loki did as he was told, putting down the flask and placing his hand over hers that held the make-shift gauze in place. Her hand slipped away from under his, now coated in his blood that she could still see glaring at her despite the less than ideal lighting conditions they were in. She quickly grabs another piece of material, placing it over the deep scratches on his side and pushing with enough pressure to make him suck in a surprised breath through his teeth.

Loki laughed low and slow, resting his head against the thankfully cool but uncomfortable rocky wall behind him. "You know, if you all you wanted was to disrobe me, you only need ask-,"

"How about you flirt with me when you're not bleeding all over the damn floor?"

Link To Fic

Click Below To Keep Reading

You know, at this point, he was starting to get used to the sensation of falling through a portal connecting separate points in time and space.

Still, being used to it didn’t minimize the pain he felt as he found himself slamming into the ground chest first, knocking the wind out of him with a pained grunt. Loki didn’t even get a chance to process the ache in his ribs from the ground coming up to meet him before the wind was knocked out of him for a second time, Sylvie’s entire weight landing on his back and softening the blow for her whilst making his entry into this world less than ideal.

“Sorry…” Sylvie groaned in apology, rolling off of him with a grunt of effort. Loki grimaced as he pushed himself up by his arms, spitting out the few grains of sand that had managed to force their way into his mouth upon face-planting into wherever the Hel they had ended up.

Loki rolled over onto his back, taking a few seconds to re-gather the breath that had been quite forcefully removed from his lungs. He frowned up at the sky overhead, his scrambled feeling mind trying to figure out what exactly didn’t feel right about.

Ah, that’d be it: the sky was vividly, and glaringly red. Just… red. The sun of this solar system was also of a different color, burning a strikingly bright green. And it was hot, its almost unbearable rays of heat beating down on them, making quick work of turning his pale skin into a patchy, leathery, red mess if he’s not careful. What should have been a soothing, cool breeze had also baked in the heat of the sun, blasting them with dry, hot air whenever a gust blew by.

The sand they rested on was at least a familiar golden color and felt just like normal sand as he held some in his hands, watching as the grains slipped between his fingers and flowed back down to the dune below like a stream of water. Loki could already feel his mouth beginning to dry out in the minute they had been here, his tongue starting to stick to the roof of his mouth.

“Uh… what Apocalypse is this?” Loki asked, peering out to the stretches of dunes and dry, sheer canyons that surrounded them.

Sylvie had managed to get her feet, looking none too pleased with the thought of how much sand she was going to have to try and get out of her clothes. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it is an Apocalypse."

Loki could only frown up at her in immense confusion. Hadn’t she just stated the importance of them remaining in Apocalypses to keep under the TVA’s radar? “But… But I thought you said-,”

“I didn’t exactly have time to make a specific selection, Loki!” Sylvie got out through gritted teeth, her movements agitated as she fruitlessly tried to brush off the little grains of sand that had stuck to her outfit. “And I still haven’t quite figured out how to use this stupid thing, if you didn’t remember.”

Sylvie gave the TemPad on her wrist a weak glare as it lit up at her voice, pulsing random light patterns of golden veins in what kind of looked like an attempt to soothe its owner. Loki struggled up to his feet, his footing less than stable as the hills of sand he stood on shifted under his weight. He scanned their surroundings yet again, hoping to see some sign of a civilization existing within this strange, increasingly obviously uninhabitable desert.

“Kind of strange that this is the second time I’ve been spat out in a desert…” Loki mumbled, hands on his hips as he squinted against the harsh light of the green sun burning in the blood sky. “Doesn’t there need to be people for an apocalypse to occur?”

“We don’t know that there are no people,” Sylvie tried to argue, sounding rather unsure of herself as she took in the expanse of dry nothingness ahead. “You’d be surprised how well species can adapt to their environment. Maybe these conditions aren’t ideal for us, but there could be a form of intelligent life on this planet that’s built for these kinds of conditions.”

“Okay, so… where are they?” Loki had to ask, waving out his hand to the horizon in an obnoxious manner. “Hiding underground? A civilization of mole people, perhaps?”

Sylvie shot him an unimpressed look - which she did quite often, now that he thought about it. “Do I need to remind you that I’ve been doing this for… oh, only a thousand years more than you have. I’ve seen more than you have, Loki. Experienced more.”

“So… yes to the possibility of mole people?”

Loki shouldn’t have been too surprised that Sylvie’s reaction to that would be for her to turn around and start walking away from him, leaving him to watch her retreating form for a good twenty seconds before realizing that he should probably be chasing after her.

“What’s the plan, then?” He panted out once he had caught up to her, trudging through the thick sand that seemed to be trying its best to swallow his feet.

“There still might be some people living here,” Sylvie sounded equally as out of breath as him, the warm climate of this planet starting to get to her. “Where there’s people, there are usually buildings. And where there’s buildings, there’s usually some form of power. Not to mention some shade, and some water. You know - the vital things we need to live.”

“And what if we don’t find anyone?” Loki didn’t want to ask this question, but he had to. “What do we do then?”

“We hope that there’s enough power in this thing to get us out of here,” Sylvie lifts her wrist that held the TemPad. “Or we find out that this place is in fact not an apocalypse, and the TVA arrives and either arrests us or prunes us on the spot.”

If he was being entirely truthful, a part of him preferred the dreary, cold atmosphere of the Void to this inescapable heat that already had every inch of his body soaked in sweat.

“Actually, about that… If this is an apocalypse, then… how will we know? How long will we have?”

“I know as much as you do,” Sylvie said, sounding kind of frustrated at this point. “I’ve never been here. It’s not a place I’ve seen on the TVA’s list of apocalypses, as far as I can remember. It’s certainly not one I had saved on the TemPad that you destroyed back on Lamentis. I don’t know where the TemPad spat us out, but I think we can both agree that it’s better than if we had stayed on Miiphus and been burnt to a crisp.”

“I’m not blaming you,” Loki said gently, not letting any of his own frustration seep into his voice. “Just want to make sure I understand everything.”

Sylvie sighed quietly to herself, but more out of annoyance and a slight hint of shame at herself for snapping at him. Loki always found a way to simultaneously be incredibly kind to her whilst also bringing to light how much of an arsehole she was being towards him. “Sorry, but… afraid we both know about the same as each other right now. There really isn’t much we can do but… walk.”

Which is exactly what they did. They walked, the heat bearing down on them seeming to make time go even slower. The sting of heat against their skin made every minute movement all the more painful, every inch of skin becoming covered in a sheen of sweat that evaporated away in moments.

Their surroundings didn’t seem to be changing, which was ridiculous; he knew that they had trudged a fair distance across this dry and hellish landscape. But there wasn’t much to use as a marker to keep track of how far they’ve walked when all you can see is a bunch of damn sand, closed in by imposing cliff-sides that seemed to stretch on forever.

Loki's fairly certain they’re at the second hour of walking when he remembers the flask still tucked into his pocket. He pulls it out, the sound of the liquid sloshing about within sounding like music to his ears. He reaches out to Sylvie, tapping her on the shoulder with the flask to get her attention, then offering it out to her when she turns to look at him.

“No point,” She says, much to his confusion. “It’ll just dry us out more.”

“I don’t think it’s that strong,” Loki counters, peering down at the flask in his hand. “We are Gods after all; I’m sure our bodies won’t be in such a rush to filter it out.”

“Save it for when we’re at death's door,” Sylvie said, and Loki wasn’t too sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not. “Or, y’know, we find a source of water. Then we can drink it to celebrate.”

“You can be very bossy at times,” Loki mumbles under his breath as he stuffs the flask back into his pocket. “I’m not usually a fan of people telling me what to do.”

“Yeah?” Sylvie pants with a huff of laughter. “Tough shit.”

“There’s a reason I said ‘usually’ there,” Loki teases back. “You’re genuinely terrifying at times, so, you know – feel free to be all commanding and domineering towards me as much as you like.”

Sylvie shot him a rather weirded-out side-glance as they walked. “I feel like you’re letting on more about certain personal preferences than you might have intended.”

“Oh, I think I’ve let on exactly what I want to let on,” Loki’s words made Sylvie stumble somewhat in the sand, snapping her head over to him to see his knowing grin. “I’ll leave it up to you to do what you will with that information.”

Sylvie granted herself a few seconds to get her feet back under her again, trying not to curse out loud at the way Loki had caught her off guard. Never one to be outdone by anyone else, she gave Loki a sly smile and a tip of her head, making sure to hold his gaze as she spoke. “I might just take you up on that offer.”

Loki was quite sure it was more than just the deserts heat that had made his mouth so dry. His mind scrambled for another witty remark to reply with, something to get her to trip up in the way she pretended she hadn’t. But then the playful smile drops off of Sylvie’s face, her eyes lighting up as she smacks his arm and points to something behind him. “Look! I think that might be the entrance to some sort of cave system!”

Loki twists his neck around to glance over to where she was pointing, seeing that there was indeed what looked like some kind of hole carved into the side of the cliff-face. It might not be a sign of civilization, but the allure of some cool shade away from the unrelenting sun was just as good. The two share matching smiles of relief, adjusting their course and heading in the direction of what they hoped wasn’t just a trick of the light, or their fried brains making them see things.

The closer they got to the rocky walls of this planet's cliffs, the more it became clear that what they had seen was, indeed, the beginning of a cave. It didn’t seem to go that deep into the cliff, rather, it went down: a steady descent down underground, hopefully to where it’d be even cooler. Loki was about ready to kiss Sylvie in sweet relief for spotting the cave, happy to escape the blistering heat that was sure to have his skin peeling.

Something moves. Right near the entrance of the cave, they can see something shifting from beneath the sand. The two of them freeze in their tracks, eyes fixated on the large lump that slowly rises from the ground, still shrouded in a cover of sand. They both pull out their weapons simultaneously, keeping their grips tight as they prepare themselves for what felt like any possibility of hostile life on this planet unknown to either of them.

It starts off as a low, shaking grumble they can feel vibrating through the sand under their feet. The grumble slowly begins to drift off into a long-streamed hiss of territorial anger, this creature enraged by the strangers who dared to approach its home. The force of its vocalizations shakes off the sand covering it, revealing to them its true appearance. The creature was long, maybe seven or eight feet in length, with thick and bulging muscles that seemed barely contained by the shining scales that armored it. The scales were of a dark, coal-black that absorbed all light directed towards it, appearing like a lizard-shaped black hole against the light-colored sand.

For a moment, it was a stand-off. The creature's long, sweeping tail flicked in irritation as its beady eyes focused on the two of them, whilst they stared back at the creature with just as much caution, stepping closer to one another to form an imposing-looking wall. The creature curls its body as it steps to the side, dangerous-looking claws drifting through the sand as it drags his scaly foot across.

“What are you thinking?” Loki murmurs as softly as he can as not to startle the creature. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to get around it.”

“No. No, I think we’re going to have to fight,” Sylvie replies in agreement. “I think we can take it. There’s only one-,”

It’s of course when she says this that they feel the ground begin to shake once more. Another lump reveals itself, this time seeming more hurried to shake off the sand as an identical-looking beast erupts from the sand. This one, on the other hand, looks a lot more pissed off by their appearance than the first one did. It already had its long snout wide open, displaying rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth as it snarled at them.

“-Only one each…” Sylvie corrected herself, casting Loki an apprehensive look out of the corner of her eye.

Loki makes the mistake of holding his gaze on the aggravated creature for too long, him staring back at its hostile gaze being the beast's last straw. It gives them no warning, no growl or snarl before it starts towards them, its thick legs scurrying through the ground in a blur of movement as it advances. The other started after its partner not long after, trailing just behind with equally impressive speed.

Loki is the first of them to react, sending out a blast of magic that hits the creature square in its chest. It doesn’t quite have the devastating effect he’d hoped, but it does at least blast the one in front a good few meters back. He isn’t sure if the snarl that rips from the creature's throat is one of pain, or of fury that he had dared to fight back against it. The attack on one of the creatures doesn’t seem to distract the other, which seemed to have its sights set on Sylvie. It had reached them in no time, jaw opening wide with long strands of saliva stringing between its teeth, eagerly awaiting its next meal. Before it could even think of biting down, Sylvie had stepped to the side and swung her sword in a large arch, catching the creature across the side of its body.

There is no hiss of pain this time. The sword does nothing, bouncing off the impenetrable scales like her trusted weapon was made of nothing more than cheap plastic. If anything, the creature only looked annoyed that it managed to miss her completely in its strike, reeling around as its eyes swivel between the two of them, trying to decide who would be the easier target.

The other had managed to recover from the effects of Loki’s magic, if not a little disorientated looking as it prowled towards Loki once more. Loki planted himself, gathering as much focus he could as he pushed his magic towards the beast. It did not look too happy as a wave of his telekinesis washed over it, trying to force the creature back. Its long claws left deep trenches in the sand as it tried to keep a grip on the ground, its full-tilt running being brought to a grinding halt.

The sword in Sylvie’s hand was slick with sweat as she wielded it against the creature that seemed to have it in for her, grinding her teeth in frustration whenever the sharp bite of steel only bounced off the creature’s body. In fact, she was fairly sure that the lizard’s hard scales were actually dulling her blade with every strike.

The smug, self-satisfied smile on Loki’s face as he watched the struggling creature under his hold quickly slipped from his face as the creature seemed to do the impossible and fought back against his magic. Every movement it made looked unsteady, its limbs trembling as it forced itself forward. But they were movements nonetheless, movements that it shouldn’t be able to make.

In a blink, it seemed to have shaken off his magic completely. Loki barely had time to react to its lunge, thrusting out his dagger in front of him to parry the swipe of its claws. But the parry wasn’t done in time and, whilst avoiding what would have been a disemboweling blow, he does not escape the creature's claws completely. Loki yelps out, both in pain and surprise as the claws rip through his side, leaving three deep marks sliced into his skin. Blood blossoms from the wound, staining his white TVA shirt a distracting red.

Sylvie knew that the last thing you should do in the midst of battle is to look away from your opponent, but the sound of Loki’s pain-filled cry and the flash of red she saw from the corner of her eye immediately snatched all of her attention away, taken aback by the sickening fear that clenched tight around her chest. With that fear, however, came a type of protective anger she’s never had to deal with before. Even the beast in front of her showed a sliver of fear at the look of wrath that came across her face, seeming to hesitate slightly as it went to make its next move.

Loki had curled in somewhat on itself at the pain that radiated from his side, holding his free hand to his wound to try and stem the bleeding. He could tell it was deep, the gushing of blood from his side quickly coating his hand and soaking his shirt. The scent of his blood excited the creature, whose long forked tongue snaked out to scent the air. Anticipation shined through its eyes as it locked onto his wound, a pleased sounding rumble escaping the beast moments before it launched itself at him. Loki barely had enough energy to swing his dagger up, hoping it would be of some effect.

To his surprise, the dagger does not bounce off. He feels the sickening thud of his dagger sliding into flesh, hears the shriek of agony the creature lets out as thick, dark blue blood spurts out from under its chin. His dagger had slipped straight through a weak spot on the underside of its jaw, where the scales gave away to soft and vulnerable flesh. The creature could only flail uselessly as Loki slid his dagger out from its head, dropping to the ground as the last spurts of blood spilled out onto the sand.

“The underside!” Loki exclaimed in a rush, trying to keep a firm grip on his dagger now it was covered in the lizard's blood. “You need to stab it in the-,”

His words dried up as he turned to face Sylvie, greeted by a sight that made his heart stop. In that brief moment where she had been distracted – had forced her eyes away from the creature to make sure he was alright – the beast in front of her had gotten the upper hand. It had shot out its tail in a long sweeping motion, knocking Sylvie’s feet out from under her. Her back hit the dune, letting out a pained grunt both at the wind being knocked out of her, and the pulsating ache in her legs from the creature's forceful tail strike. She had just managed to lean up on her arms, eyes locking with the creatures as it threw itself at her once more, ready to make the killing blow.

Time seemed to slow. It felt like she had forever to make a move, but in reality, there was nothing she could do. Nothing but watch as those rows of teeth got closer and closer, intent on sinking into her neck and crushing her windpipe with a single clench of its jaw.

But that’s not what happened.

There’s a flash of green light somewhere to her side, and she waits for the coming blow of magic to knock the creature off course. Again, her assumptions are incorrect. The light shimmers in front of her as Loki materializes back into existence, having teleported to place himself between her and the creature. She isn’t sure if he makes some attempt at thrusting the dagger through the creature's throat, but either way, she has to watch in sickening horror as the lizard's teeth clamp down hard on Loki’s arm. There’s a nauseating crunch of bone as it bites down, and she isn’t sure how she manages to hear it over Loki’s pain-filled yell.

Loki finds the strength to grit his teeth through the pain, pushing his arm up against the creature's bite to force its head back, exposing the dark and penetrable flesh underneath. “There! Do it!”

Sylvie doesn’t need his yelled instructions. He had barely got the words out before she had shoved her sword up, taking great satisfaction at the sight of the sword forcing its way up through its skull, pushing it with enough enraged force that the blade exited cleanly out the top of the creature’s head. The lizard falls still, its bite thankfully loosening as the last of its life leaves its body. Loki lets out a grunt as he pushes the weight of the animal off both of them, collapsing down onto his back as the adrenaline begins to wear off and forces him to feel the overwhelming pain of his injuries.

“Loki-,” Sylvie says his name in a panic, scrambling up onto her feet and over to him. His eyes were clenched firmly shut in obvious hurt, cradling his damaged arm to his body as he tried to breathe through the pain.

“C’mon, I’ve got you,” Sylvie utters softly to him, trying to fight down the anxiety she could feel bubbling over. She wraps a hand around his uninjured arm, grimacing at the groan of pain he lets out as she pulls him up. The fact that he immediately leans his weight into her side as he stands does nothing to quell her worries. She takes his arm and wraps it around her neck, keeping hold of his wrist as support as she guides them both towards the entrance of the cave.

“I’ll be fine,” Loki pants out, trying to hide another groan at the fresh wave of pain from his side. Sylvie glances down to his injuries, the sight of his blood steadily dripping down his skin and leaving a dotted trail of startlingly red blood against the yellow sands making her purse her lips with worry.

The shade of the cave wasn't as much of a relief as it would have been in normal circumstances, with Sylvie having to half-drag Loki down into the cave, feet slipping on the occasional steep section of their descent. The only bit of comfort she got was from the strength of his arm wrapped around her waist, reassuring her that he at least wasn't anywhere near passing out on her.

It didn't take long for the floor to eventually level out, leading into a large, cavernous room. The ceiling of the cave must have been somewhere near thirty feet above their heads, large cracks running along the ceiling letting in a few rays of light that kept them from being trapped in a pitch-black space of tripping hazards.

"Alright... Here we go..." Sylvie huffed, carefully lowering Loki down to the ground by a wall of the cave. Loki hit the ground with a huff, scrunching his eyes both in pain and exhaustion. Blood still dripped steadily from both his wounds, but it was his arm that seemed to have gotten the worst of the creature's fury.

Sylvie acted fast, years of experience of patching up her own wounds from the occasional scuffle with pissed-off locals, aggravated wildlife, and the few TVA agents that had been hot on her tail taking over. Although, it was not a skill she had ever really had to use on another person before.

Loki had only just barely managed to push himself up against the wall when Sylvie reached forward to unbuckle the TVA belt that had been wrapped snuggly around his waist. She whipped it off with extreme efficiency, leaving him gaping at her in a blood-loss-infused shock.

She answered his unspoken question of what she was doing by winding the belt tightly around his injured arm, a few inches above his rather nasty-looking wound. Despite his best efforts, the overwhelming pain of the tourniquet being applied punched out a gritted and muffled groan of pain, throwing his head back onto the wall behind him with a hard 'thump' as every muscle in his body tensed, waiting for the waves of pain to lessen.

"I know, I'm sorry-," Sylvie does sound genuinely pained by his pain, frantic eyes scanning around their surroundings for anything she could use. Of course, being in a cave that had only housed giant man-eating lizards, there wasn't much but a few bones discarded around the place. "Don't think you could conjure up some more bandages, do you?"

Loki shook his head with gritted teeth, his pale skin even paler in this dark space and clammy with sweat that stuck his hair to his face. "Afraid not. Not right now, at least. Conjuration takes a bit of effort and concentration which-," He cut himself off with a hiss, the slightest movement of his arm setting off some fresh waves of pain once again. "-Which I don't exactly have right this minute."

Sylvie cursed quietly under her breath, searching through her mind for an idea of what to do next. She could only see one potential thing that could possibly be used to stop the bleeding. She draws her sword from her side and, no matter how much Loki trusted her, he still eyed the blade in her hand with understanding concern as he wondered what the hell she was going to do with it that would help.

"Once we get you stable? You're going to teach me some of your magic tricks," Sylvie all but demands of him, not giving him a chance to respond before she's grabbed ahold of his tie and yanks it off his head. Before he can even say anything, she grabs hold of his shirt, giving it a fierce tug towards her. It tears away like it was barely hanging onto him in the first place, ripping the little plastic buttons off and sending them flying across the cave. "Only fair, considering I taught you my best trick."

Loki glanced down to his mostly bare chest with a genuinely confounded frown, but didn't bother to try and stop Sylvie as she began pulling the shirt off him, taking considerate care as she peeled off the parts that had become covered in his blood, which had created a suction effect against his skin.

Understanding flooded him as she took the sword to his shirt, cutting them up into long pieces of material. The flask he had stored dropped out from its place in his pocket, and Loki quickly scooped it up. He made quick work of removing the cap, taking deep gulps of what he hoped was strong enough to act as a pain killer of sorts.

Sylvie took one of the pieces of shirt she had cut up, scrunching it up and pressing it firmly against the bite on his arm without much warning. "Here, hold this in place. Don't let up pressure on it."

“See? Bossy…” Loki did as he was told, putting down the flask and placing his hand over hers that held the make-shift gauze in place. Her hand slipped away from under his, now coated in his blood that she could still see glaring at her despite the less than ideal lighting conditions they were in. She quickly grabs another piece of material, placing it over the deep scratches on his side and pushing with enough pressure to make him suck in a surprised breath through his teeth.

Loki laughed low and slow, resting his head against the thankfully cool but uncomfortable rocky wall behind him. "You know, if you all you wanted was to disrobe me, you only need ask-,"

"How about you flirt with me when you're not bleeding all over the damn floor?" Sylvie scolds him. Though truth be told, the fact that he was able and willing to make such comments was a great relief – and a good sign that he wasn't about to die on her.

“This will hurt,” She warns him as she gingerly picks up his injured arm, carefully prodding at the underside of his arm in search of a break in his bone. Miraculously, she feels no break despite the awful-sounding crunch she heard earlier.

“Seems you’re lucky and escaped a break,” Sylvie informs him of her findings. Loki doesn’t respond, only sits and watches her fret over him with his hand still held against the bunched-up material of his shirt against his arm.

“Sylvie-,”

“Why did you do it?” Sylvie asks hurriedly, interrupting whatever it was he was about to say. She was refusing to look at him, keeping her eyes focused on her hands as she takes another strip of shirt, getting to work tying it around his side as a makeshift bandage.

“...Why did I do what?” Loki asks slowly, unsure as to what she was trying to get at.

“Put yourself at risk like that,” Sylvie answers, tightening the knot of the shirt-bandage a little harsher than she intended. “Did you even have a plan? Or did you decide you were going to shove your arm in its mouth and hope for the best?”

Loki didn’t give her an answer straight away, for he knew the reason she was reacting like this, in criticizing his choices. He knows because it’s what he does when he’s scared. Lashing out always seemed the better alternative, using this more powerful emotion to latch onto rather than the fear that threatened to take hold.

Sylvie’s hand stilled over the knot she had just created, letting her eyes flutter shut with an almost unheard sigh. Loki lets the beats of silence between them pass, waiting for her to make the next move, or say whatever it is that was on her mind.

“You might have…” Sylvie begins to say, but finds her voice unwilling to cooperate as her throat constricts against her will. She shakes her head, gritting her teeth as she continues. “I wish you wouldn’t make those kinds of risks. Not for me.”

“I’m sorry. But I’ll always be making those kinds of risks,” Loki’s voice left no room for arguments. “As far as I’m concerned, there was no option for me to choose from back there. I saw you, and I saw that thing about to tear you apart, and… I knew I had to stop it, one way or the other.”

“Not by throwing yourself in the firing line!” Sylvie snaps. Loki tries to argue back, but she takes the cruel advantage of pulling his hurt arm into her lap to wrap it up and shut him up with another muffled yelp. She snatches the bloodied patch of shirt from his hand and, despite the anger that made her hands tremble, still took care as she wrapped the last bit of shirt around his wounds. “I’m not worth that-,”

“How could you say that?” Loki blurted out, his head snapping up to look at her in disbelief that she could think such a thing. The frustration boils over when she continues to keep her gaze averted from his, and he reaches out his other arm to grab hold of her forearm, squeezing gently but firmly until she forced her eyes up to his.

“You are,” Loki says with such soft authority, doing all he can to convey just how much he means what he says. “Sylvie, don’t think for a second that you aren’t worth it. Simply knowing you has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. Every moment I get to spend by your side is a gift I sometimes don’t know what to do with -- but one I know I will treasure forever.”

Sylvie ducked her head, breaking his intense gaze, unsure of what to do with such kind words – words she had never heard spoken of her before. His grip around her arm was reassuringly strong, the clarity in his eyes bright for someone who must have been suffering from blood loss.

“I’ve never had to worry about someone else before,” Sylvie finally mumbles in admission. Her hand slides over to where his is placed on her arm, fingers resting just above his.

“I’ll be okay,” Loki reassures her, giving her a small smile as he gestures with a finger to the both of them. “Frost Giants, remember? And Gods? I’ve taken a beating from the Hulk before; I think a little bite and scratch from an oversized lizard will heal just fine.”

Sylvie blinks in a daze at him. “Hulk?”

“Oh, uh… big green guy,” Loki answered unhelpfully. “Deals with some rather unfortunate anger problems.”

“...And… and when you say ‘taken a beaten’, you mean…?”

“I mean he picked me up by my legs and threw me around like a rag doll,” Loki answered with as fake a smile as he could muster.

“Ah…” Sylvie got out, looking away from his affronted glare and biting down on her lip to suppress the laughter that so wanted to force its way out. “That’s-,”

“Don’t laugh-,”

“I wasn’t laughing!”

“It hurt!”

Sylvie failed miserably at hiding her amused smile behind her hand, pretending she was just wiping the sweat off her upper lip. “I’m sure it did.”

Loki huffed indignantly, but the curl of a smile to his lips could only mean he wasn’t too offended at her amusement of his suffering. “Would you believe me if I told you that happened not long before I met you?”

Sylvie answered him by raising an eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate.

“My Glorious Purpose…” Loki drawled out with a lazy-sounding chuckle. “Ruling over Mid-Guard… involving myself with Thanos to procure an army…” Loki shakes his head at his past self. “All to lead us – some versions of us – to the one moment ‘He’ always intended for us to end at. I suppose I could say I got myself into all this mess, but… it was ‘Him’ who paved the road to get me there, in the end."

“If we’re to believe what we were told.”

Loki hums low in his throat, looking blankly to the other end of the cavern as he thinks back to… days ago? Weeks ago? Months? It certainly felt like months at this point. “I was close, you know. My army had mostly infiltrated one of Mid-Guards – Earth’s – biggest cities. It had seemed… easy, I suppose, at the time. They didn’t seem to have many defenses against threats from outside their planet. Don’t get me wrong, they have plenty of weaponry to use against themselves. But I… was wrong.”

“I’m assuming this ‘Hulk’ was used as a method of defense?”

“One of them,” Loki agreed with a grumble. “They call themselves ‘The Avengers’; group of individuals – some with powers, some with advanced skills and technology – who are ‘Earth’s first line of defense’.”

“I take it these are the ‘powerful individuals’ you mentioned before?” Sylvie asked. “Do you really think they’ll help? Considering…. you know, recent events?”

“If something's of a threat to their little planet? Yes, I think they’ll be willing to fight with us,” Loki said. “Especially considering… our sibling became one of them.”

Sylvie’s brow shot up at that, already able to tell the regret Loki felt, knowing that he more than likely had to take arms against his brother as part of his plan to achieve his ‘Glorious Purpose’. “Maybe we should find some variants of them? One’s you didn’t piss off?”

Loki huffs out a short chuckle of laughter. “We could, but… there’s only one version of the Avengers – the one’s that ‘He’ kept track of in the sacred timeline – that were able to take on and defeat Thanos.”

“Part of me’s glad that I never had to deal with all that ‘Thanos’ stuff,” Sylvie admits to him.

“Technically, I haven’t had to deal with it myself,” Loki reminds her. “Only the version of us on the Sacred Timeline did… who’s neck was snapped by Thanos under ‘He Who Remain’s story-telling…”

“I still don’t understand why that was our moment to die,” Sylvie wonders out loud. “What purpose did it serve?”

“To better others,” Loki says with a shrug of his shoulders, wincing at the pull to his – thankfully – healing side. “When I was shown our file, and it got to our death… Thor was there to witness it. I only saw brief moments of whatever time we had spent together on the Sacred Timeline between the events of New York and my death, but… I suppose I must have changed in some way – enough to risk my life to try and stop Thanos – and… enough for our sibling to grieve for us, in the end.”

“Thor always cared a great deal,” Sylvie said softly. Loki’s mouth pulled into a sympathetic smile at the emotion he heard in her voice, flipping his hand under hers around to offer his palm to her. Sylvie slid her fingers between his without much thought, their fingers curling together to keep a consoling grip on one another. “My Thor, from what I can remember, she was… a great deal emotional at times.”

“Well, we can’t exactly talk,” Loki points out. “Perhaps it’s an Asgardian trait?”

“Hmm… Or maybe it’s a ‘Spoiled Prince’ kind of thing.”

“Says the woman who released a burst of power just through yelling back on Lamentis,”

Sylvie nearly scoffed at him. “You had just ruined a plan I had meticulously mapped out for years and doomed us to almost certain death! I think I was permitted to show a bit of emotion at that.”

Loki conceded defeat, though not before rolling his eyes at her in a very childish way that nearly had her smacking his arm before remembering his likely sore wound.

“Well, you certainly seem to be doing better,” Sylvie was relieved to see, noting the color that had been steadily returning to his skin as they talked.

“Suppose there are some advantages to being a Frost Giant,” Loki said. He raised his injured arm up slightly, the pain of the movement already much less than it was not too long ago. “I imagine I’ll be all healed up in no time.”

Sylvie regretfully slid her hand away from his, pushing herself up to her feet. Loki stayed in place, watching her as she took a few exploratory laps around the cavern they had claimed for shelter. Whilst the level of light in this place wasn’t ideal, there was still enough for her to make out a few details, most particular being the unmistakable wet sheen that coated the wall she stood in front of. Sylvie placed a hand against the blessedly cool surface, disrupting the minute flow of water that filtered down as it slowly began to drip down her overheated skin.

“What is it?” Loki asked as she rushed back to his side, scooping up the now empty flask he had placed by his side.

“A change of luck,” Sylvie throws over her shoulder as she hurries back to the wall, holding the flask below one of the stronger streams running down the wall-face. It took a good long while of just standing there pushing the flask against the wall for it to fill up to a good enough level, but honestly, she was just thankful for some sign that life was capable on this horrid planet.

Sylvie pulls the flask away from the wall, taking a much-needed sip from it. The water tasted fresh, infused with whatever materials this cave system held. They were lucky enough to have found a source of water, let alone a fresh running source of water.

“Here,” Sylvie crouches back down by his side, holding out the flask for him to take. “Drink up. Sorry it’s only water; seems this planet doesn’t have a running tap of wine leaking from its walls.”

Loki reaches out to take the flask from her, the cooling sensation of the metal against his clammy hands already a great relief. “Have you-?”

“Yes, I’ve already taken a drink,” Sylvie unsurprisingly guessed what he was about to ask, taking a seat next to him against the wall. “Stop being a white knight and drink your damn water.”

Loki opened his mouth to speak, but Sylvie beat him to the punch. “Yes, I know I’m being bossy again, so there’s no need to remind me. Besides, apparently you’re into that, so I don’t see why I should stop.”

Loki had only gotten down a few swallows of water, choking on the next mouthful at her last comment. He beat furiously against his chest with a closed fist, coughing out most of what he was trying to drink down himself. He cleared his throat once his choking fit appeared to have mostly passed, glancing down at the water he had spilled over his skin, still exposed after Sylvie’s rather tactless removal of his shirt.

“I think you’re supposed to use oil to glisten up your muscles, not your own drool,” Sylvie said much to his embarrassment.

“Just thought I’d give you one last show before I covered myself up,” Loki teased back, savoring the lovely flush of red across her face at his wink. He glanced back down to himself, closing his eyes with a deep breath as he gathered all of his focus. Any lingering traces of pain were pushed to the back of his mind, slowly expelling his magic, instructing it to manifest into his item of choosing. His body lit up in a flash of lime-green light, moving across his skin as his magic formed a fresh, un-torn, and un-bloodied sheet of soft, cottony white material. Loki rolled his shoulders experimentally, trying out the comfort of the button-up shirt he had materialized – nearly identical to the polo shirt the TVA had supplied him with.

“What?” He asked at Sylvie’s questioning look at his choice of wardrobe. “You have to admit, we do wear black a little too often.”

Sylvie could only shrug her shoulders at that with a look that said ‘fair enough'. “I didn’t say it was a bad choice. Just… didn’t think you’d want to be reminded of your time as a prisoner.”

Loki unwound the TVA belt from around his arm, placing it in his lap and running a finger across the blood-stained metal buckle displaying the TVA logo. He tapped at the letters a few times, taking in a long breath through his nose. “It’s… a reminder, I suppose. The events that have taken place, people I’ve met, allies I’ve made… all things that have changed me. In that time, I learned that… that maybe there is some good in me, that I don’t have to follow the self-destructing, hateful path I was always destined to follow. The fact that we’re right here, having this conversation right now is proof of that. And in knowing that, I also know that… that not all of the TVA is ‘bad’. Yes, there are some that take pleasure in the work they do for all the wrong reasons, and whilst the work that they do isn’t necessarily good, it’s… it’s still run by people who had their lives taken away from them. People that still have good in them.”

“...’S a good reminder to have,” Sylvie says quietly, watching as he buckles the belt back around his waist. “Hopefully, one day, you won’t need a reminder to know there’s good in you.”

“I’m not too sure about that,” Loki mumbled.

Sylvie nudged his shoulders with her own, forcing his woeful gaze from his lap up to her. “Wanna know how I remind myself that I’m capable of good?”

Loki didn’t answer out loud, instead nodding his head in a barely noticeable movement, looking genuinely interested in what her reminder was.

“I just look at you.”

Next Chapter - - ->

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