Sakaar is a memory like the sluggish squeeze of blood inside of a bruise; Asgard's smoldering remains like a thumb pressing down upon it, choking the pulse off; and Loki gasps when he appears on Earth, rushing to New York in the anxious, churning throes of his fight and flight instincts. Glowing hot like a brand, it alchemizes into heady want as soon as Scott is in his sight and he takes him greedily by the mouth, swallowing the writer’s surprised exclamation.
He wastes no time in fanning peckish flames, encouraging the reunion into the incendiary, ravenous thing he needs, dragging teeth and tongue along smooth planes of clean skin in greedy reclamation, sating the lightyears of wanderlust inch by inch, and the night passes in long stretches of slow-burning intimacy.
When the sun casts a thin streak of light across them both, Loki reaches intently for Scott's jaw to crane his head back and bare his throat, kissing the suckled bruises he'd left there with a savage satisfaction. Scott's skin hisses temptation against the sheets when he points his toes and reaches his arms above his head, a low, thick moan—almost a whine—crawling from his throat, and Loki moves to pin him to the mattress.
Instead, the godling is eased into his back, enchanted and smiling in spite of himself as he flattens with the warm pressure of Scott on top of him. It's his turn to stretch and sigh hotly, a grin sliding into place, and Scott leans down with a soft expression to press a kinder, much more chaste kiss to his mouth. Nothing like the all-consuming passion they'd been enraptured by all night; this was much more leisurely; like a sigh; like finally coming home.
“Scott — ”
Nothing more was said when Scott tensed, scarcely a gasp leaving him, before he broke apart in his hands, his form crumbling to dust which scattered away, Loki’s grasp feeble to hold it, to hold him, together. The trickster blinked in disbelief, ratcheted upright by unease, dread chilling the marrow in his bones as his eyes dart around the room.
“Scott?”
No answer, save for the heavy crash and explosion that comes from outside the brownstone’s window, an echo of the shattered clench beneath Loki’s sternum. Sirens begin to wail, people are screaming in the streets, chaos juxtaposed to the unraveling within the trickster but he couldn’t make a sound, silver tongue struck silent.
vellichor: the strange wistfulness of used bookshops. ( the-scottfitzgerald. ) 🥃
obscure feelings drabble prompt meme
Finals week certainly demanded every ounce of one's focus, but to the point of having not spoken to Scott in almost a week?
Five days, ten hours, and twenty-four minutes, to be exact. But who was counting?
Loki was, actually. He missed the writer, but was also quite proud and he dug his heels in at the mere concept of reaching out himself. His phone remained locked, ignored, in his pocket. Moreover, and on a miniscule scale, he did not want to be a nuisance; he understood the need to study. But still, he envied the object of Scott's fixation, desiring wholly to take its place, whatever it was.
And winter in the college town was bearable at best and insufferable and depressing at its worst, especially when you were at odds with your... What were they? Loki couldn't be pressed to think about that when he was bracing against the freezing wind in search of a quiet place to study, hoping perhaps for a moment to pass the time instead of dutifully, miserably, keeping track of it.
Tea-stained light cast onto the sidewalk from the CoHo promised warmth and unforced distraction and Loki could see an empty table from where he stood in the blustering twilight, wintry clouds of his breath fanning across the paneled glass of the coffeeshop. But he didn't enter. No, he adjusted the the strap of his satchel on his shoulder and cast a nettled glance toward the chromatic glow before before he walked up the street, seeking what exactly? He wasn't sure anymore.
On his way, he passed a used bookshop — A Novel Idea — and as he clutched his scarf and coat closer against the bitter wind, he noted a pair of green eyes following him as he walked.
A cat, charcoal gray with white toes, lay on a stack of sun-faded Shakespearean novels on a high shelf with ears pointing forward, attentive, and tail lazing this way and that, almost motioning toward the rows of bookshelves behind him. And it was that gesturing that drew Loki's gaze beyond to the hunched form of a man on the floor, stacks of books towering precariously around him, and despite the snow flurrying in his vision and the low amber light in the shop, Loki recognized that muss of wavy brown hair in a fluttering instant.
Oh, Scott...
He's pleasantly surprised and more than a little endeared when the entry door's indicative jingles did nothing to stir the English major from the singular subject of his focus. Loki took this moment to examine Scott in private with a shelf of books between them, catching unknowing glimpses of him from between worn spines. Loki had ventured out to study, after all.
The writer looked wearied where he's seated on the carpet, legs crossed with a book in his lap, like he's been at this for hours or perhaps since the shop opened, but the unmistakable glitter is still there, albeit pallidly, in his hazeline eyes, as they sweep left to right tirelessly down the page in front of him. As Loki steps near the end of the stack separating them, he spots a tidy sum of empty coffee cups just behind the man; spent fuel and now he's running on fumes, no doubt. Perhaps he's in need of a break; perhaps Loki could be of some help with that.
He rounds the end of the bookshelf and steps into Scott's aisle without announcement, still savoring the sight of him like it might sate him for the duration of this snowstorm; but Loki's no good at limiting himself and Scott has this habit of being too much and not enough. It's intoxicating.
"Well, well." And the effect of having Scott's eyes on him after so long is immediate; soothing, like a balm, and at the same time incendiary like lighting a match in a gas-filled room.
Too much, not enough.
Scott's expression is soft and turns into an easy smile on the other man. "Loki."
“You don't seem that surprised to see me.” Loki says dryly but there’s a small corresponding curve on his pale lips as he takes a step deeper between the stacks, vanishing from view of the shopkeeper. For all intents and purposes, it was just him and Scott in the bookstore; as far as Loki was concerned, it was ever only him and Scott.
"I'm not surprised." Scott comments with a matching simplicity that nearly sets Loki back on his heels, retreat fleeting through his mind. In his taken aback state, he nearly misses the look Scott casts him - clandestine and flirtatious, but with an edge. Like maybe he was as spurned by finals week, the obstacle of cramming for exams, as Loki was.
Tapered fingers follow along the fraying spines as he saunters nearer to the still-seated writer. "That's a little arrogant, don't you think?" He plays at coy, but Scott's widening grin says they both know better.
"And yet..." And at long last, they're within arm's reach of each other. It's all Loki can do not to sink into Scott's waiting lap right there. "...here you are."
Instead, Loki gives Scott an overt once-over — from his bright gaze to his crossed ankles — and tries not to smile too broadly at the ruby tint showing just below Scott's collar after a heartbeat’s pause. "You've been so distracted lately, Scott," His self restraint is at its end. Loki must lower, bending at the knees to the other man's level, so he could reach, tenderly, to brush a stray auburn strand back into place. "I thought you had forgotten about me."
And he doesn't expect the hand looking to get lost in Scott's hair to be taken with such direction that his train of thought actually comes to a searing halt, wheels smoking on their tracks. "You forget, darling," Smooth fingers find space between his own and Loki's mind is like a flooded engine, unable to jump start again. "You are a T.A. for biology and chemistry — hard sciences," There's some pressure applied around his knuckles and Loki’s synapses feel as though they are actually sputtering. "I'm a soft science major." As if it wasn't enough, Scott actually presses a kiss to his palm and Loki believes, whole-heartedly, he would combust right there amongst the kindling.
As a means of maintaining some semblance of equilibrium, and perhaps it was an overcorrection in hindsight, Loki leans forward until his knees meet the carpet, straddling one of Scott's, and he leans so that he is hovering over him while his free hand finds the angle of Scott's jaw and uses it, gently, to tip Scott's head back so that he was looking up into his eyes. Whatever point Scott was going to make regarding their majors was cast aside as Loki commented hotly, "There's nothing soft about you, Scott."
And wasn't that the truth, but Scott wouldn't vocalize that particular train of thought.
The moment is stolen, a keepsake for them both, as their lips brush and the bookstore melts away around them, an ardent epoch in an otherwise cold and dismal evening. Loki's thumb follows the hard edges of Scott's windpipe down to the valley between his collarbones and satisfaction curls out of him in a low hum when Scott sighs into the kiss. It's hard not to think of ripping Scott's clothes off and kissing every square inch of his body while passersby in the winter storm look on and wish they were them, but Loki knows that was too much.
He also knows there's no way he's leaving that book nook without the other.
"You know," Loki changes the subject, mouth barely an inch from Scott's, who himself is leaning severely forward, nearly crawling to his knees himself to meet Loki halfway. "I happen to have all of my notes from this course back in my dorm." His fingertips are nearing Scott's nape, but the hold wouldn't be necessary.
“Do you now?" Gods, Scott sounds tired even in his facetiousness and it's charming and enticing and Loki wants to guide Scott backward, flat on his back; helpless, tender, and open with only Loki to help.
He blinks to balance his thoughts and hums confirmation, scorching emerald eyes locked onto Scott's tempting mouth. "I'll give them to you," Loki is acutely aware of the way Scott's fingers have found the tassels at the end of his scarf, using them as leverage, keeping him in place. As if he'd go anywhere. "I'll give you anything you need."
"And what about what I want?"
Loki is smoldering anew, on a ledge of his own making, one warm sigh away from breaking some local bylaws and they're both acutely aware of the large, public window behind Scott, the cashier at the counter behind Loki, and there's a vague awareness of the possibility of other patrons being in the shop, but neither care.
( oxlip ) ; would you ever get into a long distance relationship?
✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿
Oxlip: Would you ever get into a long distance relationship?
The question is punctuated with a jolt that courses straight through the god’s heart, triggering a gallop in his pulse that showed as a short glimmer of woe in his eyes. But it was gone as quickly as it showed, replaced with coolness. A nonchalance that might’ve been off-putting were it not for the words that would accompany it.
“Whoever coined the phrase, ‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder,’ had clearly never been fond of something,” Loki straightened and his expression turns foxish. “Or someone.”
Loki had made it abundantly clear that his time was not to be wasted, so he hoped it was obvious (to the beloved writer and to those curious in the world, for all the god cared) that every second spent with Scott was cherished. Whether it was indulging in café noisette on a crisp Sunday morning or walking the Seine as the sun kissed the horizon, every moment was precious to the godling.
In spite of this, however, Loki can’t help but consider how any amount of distance between the two has an undoing capacity. Being in separate cities is a nuisance; separate realms can be insufferable; and when the two are only inches apart, it’s close to be unbearable.
But he returns to the universal comfort that is Scott Fitzgerald all the same and time and time again, like the addictive personality that Loki is.
So it isn’t with the lightest heart that Loki says, “Long distance isn’t preferred,” But it’s with the truest heart and clearest conscience that he adds, “But it is much better than nothing at all.”
"Do I know you," the dark-haired man says, but it doesn't sound like question to Scott—not the way the words fit themselves in the gentleman's mouth and around the rim of his drink; Scott can just see the warmth of his breath mist against the chilled surface of the glass and something like the ghost of a memory tugs at the marrow of his bones.
He answers without thinking, laughs a bit and says, "Not in this life," and then pauses as everything in him goes abruptly still, stunned by a haunting sense of with recognition, of understanding. It's there for just a second, a glimpse of something broad and awing, of some wonder on the horizon, just within his grasp if only he'd reach for it and—
—it slips from him just as quickly, skitters out of sight like some forbidden thing afraid of the light. He chases it but it turns to smoke between his fingertips, evanescent.
He ducks his head a fraction to hide his disappointment, but rubs absently at the rolled paper of his cigarette in quiet frustration. When he looks up again, the other man is watching him strangely—a level, undeniable stare but with a glimmer there that should scare Scott away. ( But doesn't. )
Finally though, after a long moment, the stranger offers a smile of his own and drains his glass with an air of decision. Scott watches, oddly bemused, as he lays the glass aside and then turns slightly in his seat to better face his way.
"Can I buy you a drink, old sport?" The stranger asks, even as he flags down the bartender.
"Old sport?" Scott breathes the phrase over an incredulous laugh. "Are we in a speakeasy suddenly?" He arches an eyebrow at the other guy and tries not to grin too broadly when the darker-haired man smiles back at him ruefully.
"I thought I might give it a try. It seemed fitting," the enigmatic visitor murmurs, turning his attention to the bartender a moment later. "Two whiskey sours."
"Whiskey sour," Scott echoes, tasting the word on his tongue. "I don't think I've ever had one."
"No?" The stranger smiles and it's winsome, but he turns to lean against the countertop, tipping his head toward Scott in a way that conveys an intimacy that Scott feels he should be shocked by—and still isn't.
"I don't think so," he concedes, more because this man gives him the impression that he must somehow be mistaken than because he's actually unsure. He focuses on the bartender moving behind his station, and completely misses the slow, crooked smile the stranger gives him.
"Don't worry, Scott. I would never lead you astray."
Scott's attention shifts, and he blinks owlishly at the man before smiling a little wider himself, enchanted.
"No, somehow I don't think you would."
His newly acquired drinking companion has the most interesting laugh — a low, soft, infinitely amused sound that lingers between them like the warmth of a fire — and Scott is charmed by it, and by him, for a just second too long, his gaze roving over the curve of the man's throat, and the tilt of his head, and the warm familiarity in the curve of his smiling mouth.
He looks so long that he forgets, by the time their drinks arrive, that he never gave the stranger his name.
[txt]: ...God, I don't remember sending those texts last night.
[txt]: And what do you mean you don't wear pajamas? I've been to bed with you before. You wore pants then.
[txt]: These are sleeping pants but they don’t feel like mine.[txt]: Are these your pajamas ?[txt]: Did you leave these here ?[txt]: I’m taking them off now[txt]: but I’m keeping them[txt]: goodnight
