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Music blaring, the bass pulses as one with his blood. It’s a nice change from the silence in his former cell.
Across the floor the DJ spins track after track, making the room react with her choices. She holds a power over the people that Loki admires. With a flick of his wrist, her tip jar is beyond full, unnatural good luck will follow her from this moment on; not all of his mischief is used for ill.
Several weak Midgardian drinks later, he’s beginning to feel more like himself. He dances with a man here, a woman there. He is the middle of a sinful sandwich of scantily clad dancers for one particularly heady song. Yes, he enjoys this place and its carefree debauchery set to music.
He comes back night after night, addicted to this new high and freedom. Braids in his hair, thin black tank, and tight denim are his newly preferred garb. No one knows him and he loves it. He can be anyone at any time—sometimes he comes as himself, sometimes as herself, sometimes something in between.
Tonight, he feels on edge. Needing to find a proper distraction for his mind and body to play with. Loki scans the crowd of mingling bodies for something new. Reaching out with his seiðr, he seeks the strong, the agile, those whose body and mind would not so easily break. Few Midgardians fit the bill. Though not surprising, it still disappoints him. Two stick out to him the most, a female by the bar and a male dancing by himself.
The female’s spirit flickers brighter than any he’s seen thus far in this place. And, after all, the bar is technically closer.
Loki sidles up to her, motioning to the bar tender for another drink.
“Hello, pet.” His husky voice sends shivers down her spine.
“Hello to you too, sugar.” Her smirk becomes a full-blown smile as she greedily looks him up and down.
“Have another drink, then we’ll go.”
“Yeah, aight.” She laughs at him, the sound as sweet as any sin.
How bold for a mere mortal. His eyes flash, his face hardens as he leans back on the edge of the bar, eyeing her down. Her reaction is another honey dripped bought of laughter. She seems to have no fear of him. He chose correctly. Oh, how he likes her.
A mohawk of thick braids adorns her head, giving her a warrior appearance. A striking contrast to the way she carries herself like a goddess—all sensual and smooth movements—this woman knows she’s gorgeous.
“This is my girlfriend. Baby, say hello.” She motions to a woman next to her then back to him, voice rising as the music picks up. The woman addressed as ‘Baby’ waves noncommittally, going immediately back to her drink.
“I will not share you.”
“I wasn’t asking you to.”
His body stiffens, jaw clenches, and over the music, she swears she can hear him growl.
“Aren’t you trouble?”
His smiles and it turns feral, nearly predatorial as he speaks, “One of my monikers, yes.”
“Alright, well, we better be going.” She wraps an arm around ‘Baby,’ resting her hand low on the other woman’s hip.
“You are mine, and I will have you in the end.”
“Rory, might want to cut this one off.” She says to the bartender with a sinful smile, before retreating into the crowd.
A snarl tares at his throat, the growing ache in his body pulsing to darker impulses.
“So be it.”
Loki gulps down the rest of his drink with distain. The woman’s laughter rings in his head, a sweet torture that he wills away to no avail. What he wouldn’t give for a draught of Asgardian mead right now.
Pushing off the bar, he stalks through the crowd. The most dangerous predators could learn a thing from his short prowl to the man he felt earlier.
Loki runs a hand down the man’s chest, and whispers sinfully in his ear.
The man smiles, offering his name, pulling Loki into a long, promising kiss.
This will do, Loki thinks as he gets lost in the rhythm of the current song, his body pressed to the man’s. He seems strong of will. Strong enough, at least.
And the man is. He is a most excellent distraction, testing Loki’s bounds in new and pleasurable ways.
But the woman. The woman at the bar with thick braids, gorgeous smile, and honey sweet laugh. She’ll haunt his dreams tonight after the man’s worn out him out.
She didn’t just haunt his dreams that night. She’s haunted his dreams most nights. Or at least, the nights he sleeps, he sees her.
She takes over his mind when things are quiet. He wonders what her name is. Where she is from.
His infatuation starts easily, simply, at first.
Then it grows. He wonders what makes her laugh, what makes her cry. How her relationship is with her family.
It becomes his motivation, in part. He moves from cold and selfish, taking what he wants, when he wants it—to something more. It’s hard at first, sarcasm winning his tongue often. Through small moments, he prevails. Becomes more himself again. More open, more helpful, but still twisted and wicked when the moment calls for it.
Loki still dreams of the woman, of her sweet laugh, though the honeyed notes have become dulled, like unpolished gold, with time. He swears he hears it in crowds, the sound mocking him at the chance he lost all those years ago.
An evening of aimless wandering brings him back. The lights still as bright, the music still as loud, the faces different. The faces were always different.
He makes his way to the bar, ordering a drink, but leaving it abandoned at his elbow.
“Does Rory still work here?” He asks the bartender.
“Quit two months ago.” The man responds with a shrug and continues filling orders.
“Are you looking for Rory?” A smooth voice asks from behind him.
“Yes.” He turns slowly. “I had a rather silly question for her. I wanted to—”
His words fail him, not for the first time. But for the first time he can’t be happier about it. Before him stands the woman that’s haunted his thoughts. She looks freer. Her braids are gone, red voluminous curls in their place and that smile of hers. Oh, how he’s missed that smile.
It’s her, his thoughts scream. An easy smile takes over his features. “Funny running into you here.”
“You too, trouble.” The woman chortles, ordering a drink and sitting beside him.
Dare I ask. “Are you unaccompanied tonight?” He asks her, fear rippling through his veins at the thought of her being with another.
“Nope.”
“Not with the one called ‘Baby’?”
She laughs fully, the sound a pleasant symphony to Loki. “No, no. We haven’t been together in a while.”
“Really?” A flicker of hope. “May I ask why?”
She shrugs, taking a sip. “I wanted more and she didn’t. Neither of us wanted to change.”
“I’m sorry.”
She gives him a look over her drink, silently questioning him.
“And I’m sorry for how I acted prior.” Her smirk grows into a smile. “I was an absolute ass that night.”
“Everyone’s allowed to be stupid every once in a while. I wasn’t so great myself back then.”
Loki chuckles and they both relax more.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to make it up to you.”
She laughs, nudging him. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Loki.” He says, extending a hand to her. “And you are?”
He’s waited so long for this moment, for her laugh to come back into his life, for her name.
She takes his hand, and says her name. Time stops around him, only his heart keeping its steady march onward.
He repeats it. Her name finally on his lips, it sounds utterly perfect to him.
Smiles abound as they both feel it, the pull of a string, formerly intangible, pulling ever so gently.
“Will you allow me another chance?”
“I’d like that.”