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Asgard.
Bright, colorful, loud, jovial.
Drunk on alcohol and fun, tables loaded with food.
Loki would use practically the opposite to describe how he felt about this party.
After a particularly difficult Time Stream event, Thor had insisted on inviting everyone to Asgard for a time of fun, liquor, and entertainment to lighten the mood and destress the masses.
Loki would’ve preferred to be hulled up in his personal bed chambers. Anything would suffice for his own relaxation. Anything but a major party where the only person who had given him the time of day was Mantis. And that was only for a short period to bring him a drink and a mild chat before Rocket and Groot had pulled her away to something presumably more interesting.
Loki swirled his glass of wine, watching the deep red dance in the golden goblet. He barely drank any of it, sitting cross legged at the head of the table with an empty plate in front of him cleared of the food Loki had indulged in.
The party had gone on for an hour already.
Loki felt an hour was far too long.
He wanted to leave. But he knew Thor would probably hunt him down and drag him back to the party, if only to keep an eye on him rather than the thought of Loki actually enjoying it.
But even then, something in Loki’s chest still stung a little bit.
He had, regretfully, made an effort to distance himself from the Guardians of The Galaxy after the fateful incident at the fair.
He didn’t like that choice. He did consider Mantis and Adam friends… to an extent.
One of them he would like to eventually consider more than a friend but Loki was having a hard time accepting it. Or really even acknowledging it.
He’d thought about it once. That maybe Loki had found his heart had fallen for the perfect man. Fallen to the point that he’d often slip into thoughts of him when things got lonely and painful and just the image of Adam and his smile made Loki feel better. Less lonely. Like there was someone out there who truly liked his company more than some need to befriend everyone or the need to make sure Loki doesn’t mess up or get a little bit silly.
Loki shook off those thoughts, bringing the glass of wine to his lips and letting the deep flavor coat his tongue. He had to think of anything but Adam right now. As much as Loki had accepted he loved Adam, he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Not now. Not when Adam could very well be somewhere in this very hall Loki sat in.
His eyes drifted around the room. Nobody dressed nicely for the event. Not like it really mattered to Thor. The man would be happy to exist with his friends even if they were all bloody and bruised. Loki would’ve preferred some sort of dress code but he had no say in it.
He spotted Mantis, over by the far windows of the grand hall talking with Rocket and Thor. Quill was off somewhere Loki didn’t care much to acknowledge or investigate. He saw Groot by the planted trees, but he couldn’t find Adam.
Loki swallowed another sip of his wine, and that’s when he noticed the presence of eyes on him. Someone was looking at him. Loki hadn’t expected any eyes to be on him besides the occasional glance from Thor. And Thor wasn’t looking at him at all.
Loki glanced at Thor and Mantis again to make sure.
Yep, not Thor.
Loki sat upright more as he swirled his glass with an attempt at nonchalance, an attempt at showing he didn’t care. He cared. A lot. Who would even be—
Loki’s eyes connected with Adam’s, looking at him across the length of the hall. Adam stood by the grand double doors leading out, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall with the casualness of a college frat boy that didn’t fit Adam in the slightest.
Adam smiled as their eyes connected. Loki blinked, tilting his head to the side and watching as Adam mirrored him.
Adam waved, before he motioned his thumb towards the door and made his way out of it. Loki watched the door click closed, and his eyes didn’t leave the spot Adam had been standing.
He waited. Watching a couple he forgot the names of pass by the door together and the woman laughed. An action that apparently took her entire body.
He took a sip of his glass, glanced at Thor, who was still occupied, set the glass down on the table and stood in a subtle flourish of green that rendered Loki invisible to the normal eye. Left in his place, a copy, sitting just as he had with the same bored expression he had worn for the last hour and a half.
Loki didn’t take long weaving through the crowded hall before he made it to the door and slipped through, it clicking shut behind him with the same noise it had made when Adam left. The hall was mostly empty, firelight leaving shadows on pillars as Loki looked left and then right down the hall.
Adam was a good few feet away, looking out at Asgard through a set of open air windows that were fenced at the bottom and coated in plant life. Loki confirmed they were alone before approaching, his form becoming visible again once he was only a foot from Adam.
“Was the event not to your liking, Mister Warlock?” Loki teased as he stopped beside him, placing his hand on the railing and leaning his weight into it.
Adam regarded him slowly, a smile upturning the corners of his lips. “It has been a while, my friend.” Adam hummed, his eyelids drifting in such a way it made Adam look as if he was looking down slightly. But his face stayed angled as if he were looking at Loki’s face.
Loki smiled, and he noticed the way Adam’s head swiftly turned to look out at Asgard’s scenery again. “It has, hasn’t it?”
“I have missed you.” The sincerity in Adam’s voice made something funny swim beneath Loki’s skin and barrel towards his heart. And then something similar to dread sunk into his veins as Adam spoke again. “I thought you were avoiding us.”
Loki also turned to look out at Asgard, crossing his arms over the railing and leaning into it. He crossed one leg behind his other as he spoke. “I wouldn’t say I was avoiding you. More that I… had more important things to do than to entertain you and your companions.”
“I think we were doing the entertaining, right Loki?”
Loki thought back to the strawberry festival. Then he thought back to the state fair. And then his mind drifted to the kiss before he squashed that thought instantly and cleared his throat.
“I suppose,” Loki drew out the syllables as he spoke, before he ran a hand through his hair as he glanced at Adam out of his peripheral. “But who was the one insisting we play the games rather than walk around a bunch of Earth animals?”
Adam took a second to think, bringing a hand up to his jaw as he thought about it. Loki is ashamed to admit that he let his eyes drag across the muscles of his arms, the way they shifted and flexed beneath his skin. He forced himself to look back out at Asgard.
“You, I believe.” Adam eventually responded, and Loki could feel his eyes on the side of his head. “But I do believe I chose to follow your whims.”
“If only for me to entertain you,” Loki teased back, tilting his head and looking at Adam through long lashes.
Adam was smiling. A soft, charming smile as he looked back at Loki. “I suppose.” He said, and as much as it annoyed him before, Loki’s not sure he disliked Adam repeating his phrasing back at him. He found he might actually enjoy this form of banter.
“Then it is settled.” Loki purred as he turned to look over the railing again. The sun was drifting low over the horizon, dusting the view in oranges and pinks with a hint of purple underneath.
It was quiet for a long time. Loki was sure if anyone listened hard enough the beating of their hearts and the evenness of their breath would be the only sound heard if not for the rustling of the plant life on the breeze. It was peaceful, and Loki once again found himself in a moment where time stopped almost.
He found himself like that often. When alone with Adam, or late in his bedchambers when his mind drifted to Adam during the weeks of avoidance he refused to acknowledge as much. There was just something about Adam that put Loki’s mind and body at ease, and he found he liked it.
Found that he loved it even.
Acknowledgement and Acceptance have always been different things to Loki. He could acknowledge something without accepting it, the same way he could accept something without acknowledging it.
He could accept his feelings for Adam without acknowledging that he had those feelings. He was good at it too, as Loki could entertain himself in ways that kept him from acknowledging his feelings.
“You were avoiding us, were you not?” Adam asked, interrupting Loki’s train of thought. He looked at Adam out of his peripheral vision again, and Adam was looking at him with his warm eyes and his smile.
“What makes you so confident?” Loki responded.
“You denied multiple of Mantis’ invites.” Adam responded, before raising his hand to begin listing them off. “You denied a trip to the pyramids in Mexico,”
“As fascinating as history is, I am not welcomed around the Aztec deities.”
“You denied a paintball invitation,”
“Who would have fun being pelted with painful globs of paint that stain your clothing?”
“You denied both a comedy show and circus trip,”
“Stand up gets boring after a point and I see through all of a circus’ tricks.”
“You even denied a tea party invitation with a specialized menu, hand picked tea, and dress code in attire you quite enjoy.”
“I have no-”
“Loki,” Adam interrupted, and suddenly his face was serious. Loki turned his full attention to Adam, tilting his head. “You denied it even after Mantis said that it was made by me for your enjoyment.” Adam’s breath was shaking, and it shocked Loki enough for his usual mask to falter. “You have never denied me, not once, despite giving reasonable explanations for why you were telling Mantis no. That is how I know you were avoiding us, Laufeyson. Specifically, you were avoiding me.”
Loki stared at Adam for a long moment. They were both quiet, Adam giving Loki that serious expression that he didn’t like seeing on those golden features. Loki’s expression, in turn, one of mild shock and discomfort for being caught so transparently.
It made something beneath Loki’s skin crawl. It made something in his chest squeeze his heart and drop heavy stones into the pit of his stomach and weights across his shoulders.
Loki hadn’t realized he had been so obvious. He didn’t realize it had practically been painted in golden letters across a blue sky that he was avoiding them. He didn’t even realize he had allowed himself to be so pliable to Adam’s whims and demands that when he pulled back as subtly as possible it, in fact, had not been subtle. It had been the farthest thing from it, a glaring sign that something was wrong.
Adam spoke again, his voice soft and a little painful underneath. “Have I somehow wronged you, Loki?”
“No,” Loki responded swiftly, waving a hand as if to quell Adam’s thought like he was clearing smoke. “You could never wrong me, Adam.”
“Then what is wrong, Loki?” Adam said again, taking a step towards Loki, invading his personal space and somehow cracking the albeit flimsy barriers Loki had built around his heart and mind.
Loki laughed.
A real laugh.
That bubbled to life from his chest and caused his eyes to close and his mouth to fall open as he just had to take a moment to stand there and laugh. It was funny! Truly humorous how slow the perfect human could be!
“You really don’t know, do you?” Loki let his laugh stifle, covering his mouth with the back of one hand before humored green met confused gold and he smiled behind his hand. “You really have not a clue what you do to me?”
“I’m not following...”
“BROTHER!?”
Loki and Adam flinched, turning their heads together towards the rather large and wide opened doors of the grand hall.
Thor stood in the inbetween, palms flat against the doors as he looked down one hall, before turning to find Adam and Loki together.
“You must come back! There is still so much to enjoy!” Thor’s voice sounded clipped, like his reasoning fell entirely in the realm that Loki had assumed, and not because of Loki’s assumed enjoyment.
Adam turned his body to block Loki, outstretching his arms to block his figure when Loki acted before thinking. Which seemed commonplace now when Adam was a variable in the equation.
Loki’s hand found Adam’s forearm, gripping tightly against his skin before they vanished in a flourish of green. But before them, the image of Loki turning and taking off sprinting in the other direction from Thor, dragging Adam along with him played out.
And despite everything, Thor fell for it.
Thor whizzed past them down the hall with heavy footfalls and a booming voice that irritated Loki and his senses.
Adam went to speak.
Loki put a finger to his mouth to shush Adam, leading him in the opposite direction Thor had chased their imitations.
Loki’s hand stayed on Adam’s, until it slowly drifted from his forearm to the cuffs at his wrist before settling with their fingers laced together and palms pressed flat against each other. Adam’s hand was warm, seeping into Loki’s naturally cooled skin and sinking into his bones.
They turned down a different hall, Loki tugging Adam to hide behind a set of pillars. Loki kept their fingers laced as he checked their surroundings, before he returned both of them to being visible again, which no doubt dissolved their escaping imitations.
“Now, without that distraction we may continue.” Loki huffed, turning to look Adam in the eyes. “You were not following? Then let me take a moment to truly enlighten you.”
Loki took his free hand, felt across his chest until he could feel the rhythm of his own heart through his tunic. Once found, he took their joint hands and brought it to the spot, shifting his grip so Adam’s hand could settle over his heart. The way it beat underneath the fabric and his skin, like any normal human’s heart, steady and sure.
Loki knew that wouldn’t last long.
“You do something to me that I have not truly experienced in a long time.” Loki already felt his heartbeat stutter against his ribs, and by the way Adam’s eyelids moved down to his hand, Loki was sure that Adam undoubtedly felt it against his palm.
“You make me feel weak, pliable to your presence to the point I find it hard to say no when you get so excited about inviting me along on the Guardian’s little earthly adventures.”
Loki took a deep breath, weighing it over in his mind before he decided again to commit entirely. He had already started, what good was there in stopping now? He could feel his heart racing against his ribs.
“Your taste still coats my tongue.” Adam’s eyes went wide. “I think about it many more times than I can count on both of my hands. The feel of it keeps me awake until I take the time to distract myself from how good it has felt to have your mouth on mine.
“My mind wanders to how your fingers might feel through my hair, how your lips might feel against my skin, your hands against my body, your…” Loki could feel himself go red with blush, tinting his skin in a bright display of fluster and embarrassment. “I want you. So viscerally and all consuming that I cannot call these feelings pure.”
“You want me.” Adam voiced, slow and calculated, voice delicate as if Loki were a startled animal prized to run. But it wasn’t a question. It was a simple acknowledgment of his confession.
And sure, maybe Loki left out the deeper details about his feelings. Like the fact that they were as intoxicatingly romantic as they were all consumingly sexual. But Loki didn’t want to date. He didn’t want to let themselves sink into that comfort when the world was practically falling apart around them. Loki didn’t want to acknowledge the fact he could, possibly, lose Adam.
“You were avoiding me because you were conflicted with your feelings.” Adam said as a statement rather than a question again, his eyes wide as he looked at Loki.
Loki had to bite back a bark of a laugh. “Finally using that head of yours, Warlock.”
Adam looked Loki in the eyes, before he let a soft smile come to his features. “Your heart is racing.”
“It is.”
“Would it race faster if you let me kiss you again?” Adam hummed, his hand pressing harder into Loki’s chest as he stepped them back against the other pillar. Loki felt it press against his spine as his eyes stayed with Adam’s. “Would you let me?”
Loki’s hands slowly went to Adam’s waist, trailing up the length of his torso and cool against his skin, causing Adam to shiver softly. Loki’s hands moved up his chest, then settled over his shoulders and crossed together behind Adam’s head. “I would.”
Adam’s lips were on Loki’s before he could finish that sentence.
Adam’s lips were on Loki’s before he could take a breath.
It started soft, Adam’s hand still pressed against Loki’s chest, their lips moving gently in time with each other. It was delicious. Adam’s lips tasted like Asgardian desserts and flourishes, and Loki hated it. He could taste all the Asgardian desserts he wanted, he lived there!
Loki wanted to taste Adam. He wanted to taste his tongue and his teeth and his breath against his own mouth and lips and tongue. He tilted his head to deepen the kiss, letting his mouth fall open just enough in hopes that Adam would take the hint.
Adam’s tongue traced the sharp point of Loki’s canines before sinking further into his mouth with a groan that sent a spike of pleasure down Loki’s spine that settled in his groin.
Their tongues danced together between their mouths, Loki’s hands tangling in Adam’s hair as the man himself stepped closer to Loki. Pressed their bodies closer, pressed Loki more into the pillar they leaned on.
Adam’s hand found Loki’s thigh, squeezing the muscle there before tugging it up enough that Loki could wrap his leg around Adam’s wrist. His hand didn’t leave Loki’s thigh, and Loki didn’t want it to.
It was like an unspoken tether snapped between them. A line drawn in the sand that neither of them had dared to cross before, a rope barring the two from getting too close. Even when it was tested at the fair, when the line was danced around and the rope was plucked and stretched, neither of them crossed it in full. Now the line had footprints over top and the rope was cut and frayed and there was no way it would go back to how it was before.
Loki didn’t want it to return to how it was before. And somewhere deep down Loki hoped Adam didn’t want to either.
Adam’s lips parted from Loki’s with a content noise, and Loki only felt a modicum of shame as he oh so shamelessly chased those same lips. The same feel, the same taste.
Loki let out a gasped breath of air as the hand on his chest found his scalp, tucked into his hair and pulled back slightly to give a gentle sting and Loki’s head tilted back to rest against the pillar.
Loki looked at Adam. Adam looked back at him. The perfect human looked at him and smiled, before he peppered kisses from Loki’s lips to his jaw and then down the front of his throat.
He squirmed, hands tightening in Adam’s hair. “Adam, dear,” Loki managed to get out, voice rough from the kiss that was practically a drug pumped straight into his blood and veins. “Wouldn’t you rather do this somewhere more comfortable?” Loki tried, letting out a soft groan as he felt Adam lick and smile against the skin of his throat.
Adam chuckled against his skin, leaning back to look Loki in the eyes for a moment longer. He connected their lips one last time, pulling back and letting Loki’s leg drop fully to the floor before he pulled back entirely and Loki was left without the warmth of Adam against his skin.
“Another time, Loki,” Adam hummed, and yet still took Loki’s hand into his own, tracing his thumb along the lines of Loki’s palm. “There is still a party to attend, is there not?”
Loki rolled his eyes. “You wish for me to return to that?” Loki hissed underneath his breath, giving Adam a glare.
Adam smiled. “I wish for you to return at my side. Would you show me your favorite wines?”
Loki felt his heart stutter in his chest. He looked at Adam, really studied him for a second before he rolled his eyes. Fine, if he had to return to Thor’s party at all, he may as well do it alongside the man he loves.
“If you must insist,” is what Loki said instead. But he couldn’t help himself from smiling.