Loki’s mind puzzled over the prophetic words right up until he and Eros walked through his door and hung their coats on the rack, which snapped him out of his tangled train of thought. He glared at the coat rack for reminding him of their argument, and he whispered to it, “This is all your fault.”
Eros plopped down on the second sofa in the sitting room. He lit up a cigarette, deeply inhaling. A look of relief spread across his face.
Loki clicked his tongue and with a breath went to sit down next to Eros on the couch. He rolled up his sleeves and propped his feet up on the coffee table, to which Eros rolled his head across the back of the sofa to give him a look.
“What? It’s not your coffee table,” Loki scoffed. Eros rolled his head back to look up at the ceiling and blew out a heart shaped smoke ring.
“I’m sorry,” Loki said, folding his arms. His head was also resting on the back ridge of the sofa. “I mean it. You’re right. My head was in the wrong place, and for that I am thoroughly apologetic.”
“I accept your apology,” Eros said simply. “Your head… well, I’m not even going to pretend I understand what sort of place that is.”
Loki chuckled.
“But, your heart was in the right place. I know that. So, all’s forgiven.”
“Good.” Loki chewed on the corner of his lip.
“I- um,” Eros began, “even before Psyche, I never liked to show my whole self to anyone. I don’t want anyone to… fall in love with that side of me, because anyone who sees it falls in love with it instantly. It is pure heart and passion and desire. So, I’m careful to keep that door closed. Not to let it out, because it feels wrong. Like cheating. Like taking away someone’s free will, which sounds so incredibly vain, but in my case it happens to be true, so… there you have it.”
He cleared his throat self-consciously and continued. “I’ve seen what actual, real, functioning relationships look like, and not saying I’m looking for that right now, but if I ever did, then that’s what I’d want it to be. Honest, open. Not because of the god I am, but because of the man I am, and I don’t even know who that man is anymore.”
He groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. “Tell City was so stupid. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. I just… I don’t know…”
Loki tapped the top of Eros’s hands that were still covering his face.
“I know you,” Loki said, and Eros didn’t glance up. “You are a bit weather-beaten and turned around, but you’re intelligent, and witty, and you’ll figure it out. Though the Cosmos may not see you this way, especially the Netherworlds, you’re brave. And I’m not just saying this because you saved me, who is nearly immortal, from a Vampire today.”
Eros laughed and lowered his hands from his face.
“Which, I now owe you my immortal life,” he smiled. “But, at least you’re trying to pull yourself out of the same habits; the same rut you’ve been stuck in, no offense, for the greater part of your life. Which means you’re admitting your shortcomings and trying to change. Changing is hard. It takes bravery. Gods must adapt, and so many don’t. I think that you still believe in love, and in this desolate wasteland, well… that’s certainly something.”
“Oh. No. Please, don’t stop. Go on.” Eros turned on the sofa to prop his head up on his fist and face Loki.
Loki laughed aloud, “Are you pandering for a compliment?”
“Yes. Blatantly. Keep going.” Eros leaned in.
“Well, I think that it’s a damn shame you feel like you have to close yourself off like that, but I get it. I will respect that about you until your last dying breath.”
Eros’s amber eyes narrowed as they worked over Loki’s expression and posture. Leaning casually on the sofa, the giant’s fingers were laced, but his thumbs fiddled. He was turned towards Eros, and his crooked, scarred smirk was softly wrinkling his face. His sharp hazel eyes were inquisitive, yet smiling.
Then the giant said, “And then in the event of your death, I will pillage through all your personal possessions and ravage all of your hidden secrets like a filthy Viking.”
Eros lit up, and he hid his laughing face into his hands. Loki let out a snort as he tried to keep his composure while Eros caught his breath. Loki, self-satisfied, stretched and put his arms over the back of the couch.
“You’re awful!” Eros managed to say through the laughter, nudging Loki’s shoulder.
“So I’ve been told.”
“You turn everything into a fucking joke.”
“One of my many charms,” Loki winked.
Eros sat up and nodded, “One of many...” His eyes raked over the giant for a moment, taking note of his scarred hands, his stubbled jaw, and his built shoulders, and the giant gloated under his gaze.
“Come on.” Eros stood from the sofa using Loki’s knee as support.
Loki’s brows pulled together. “Where are we going?”
Eros tilted his head and pressed his lips together in a coy smile. “We’re going to move all those spears from off your bed…”
Loki’s jaw fell open, and he blinked. “Are we?”
Eros leaned over Loki and gave him a stern look before grabbing his tie. “We are.”
He gave Loki’s tie a small tug, and the trickster god raised his eyebrow, “Well, when in Rome…”
Loki gave him a nod and hopped off the couch. He followed Eros upstairs.
They shut the bedroom door behind them.
***
Loki lay in bed next to a dozing Eros, entangled in the satin sheets like a fucking Renaissance painting. The giant’s body still hummed with the ecstasy of the pleasure he had endured for hours. He had heard tales of the orgies Eros had thrown back in ancient times before the god of erotisicm was demoted, and Loki’s imagination never did it justice.
He sat up in bed and drew the metal cigarette case from Eros’s pile of clothing on the floor. He lit the end of a cigarette with magick and inhaled a deep breath of smoke.
This seemed to be more than ecstasy and pleasure, though. Or perhaps, it had just been that long since he had felt either of those things, and he was making it to be more than what it was. Or perhaps, all of this really was that he had just lain with the god of desire, and this rush of feelings was a predictable result. The spell would fade, or worse, it might never fade, and he’d find himself fawning over the god for the rest of eternity like a damned fool.
He shouldn’t have mixed business with pleasure, but he was, after all, doing business with the god of pleasure, so really it was a scenario just waiting to happen.
Loki tried to rub out the headache building up behind his eyes and stood. With his cigarette pinched between his teeth, he stepped into his pants and fastened his belt.
He told himself as he slipped from the bedroom that he wasn’t going to glance back. He wasn’t going to gaze upon the god sleeping in his bed, but he did. The bedside light illuminated and shadowed Eros’s face, and neck, and chest, like an artist had fashioned him at just that angle. And Loki couldn’t blame Psyche for what she had done, peering over the youthful god with an oil lamp to gaze upon his visage, because with the unquenchable burning rising up in his chest, Loki also wasn’t certain whether or not he had just lain with a beauty or beast.
Loki shook his head as he closed the door behind him because he knew better. The most dangerous things in the Cosmos are also the most beautiful. The universe was a trickster that way, and he should have seen this punchline coming.
He walked outside onto the stoop to let the frigid night air clear and cool his senses. Loki had always liked chilled and icy air. He found it stimulating, and he realized, as he wiggled his toes against the cold concrete, stimulation was the last thing he needed.
He groaned and descended the steps. He wandered out into the empty street. It was filled with the crisp silence that came right before the dawn, when all the nocturnal things of the Netherworlds were making their way back to their mansions, and caves, and drug dens. With it being so close to dawn, he began counting on his fingers to add up how many hours he had actually spent in bed with the love god.
Over five hours. Over five hours of being completely enthralled and engulfed in a wonderland of sheets and sweat and sweet, sweet sex. And it was wrong of him to think this was all just Eros’s spell because of what Eros had confessed to him earlier- and what? Was Loki going to fall for the propaganda the Fates had spread about Eros all those thousands of years ago? No.
But still, now he could see why it had been such a convincing lie and a fear that spread like wildfire even into Eros himself. To be unable to be loved without the other person thinking they had been lured in by his power… which is preposterous, because a person under his spell would be so undying in their love that they would never question it. Not that Loki was in love, of course. That would be dangerous. He was merely infatuated… though, Loki wasn’t sure if that was any better.
Loki heard his front door creak open. Eros stepped out onto the stoop. He had dressed, but he had grabbed the wrong shirt. Loki’s button down was swallowing him.
When Loki saw this, his smile stretched from ear to ear. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and made his way back to the steps. He leaned against the wrought iron hand railing and looked up at Eros, whose sleepy face was infuriated with the cold.
“What are you doing out here?” Eros asked.
Loki clicked his tongue and admitted, “Thinking.”
“About?” Eros folded his arms against the chill.
A werewolf howled off in the distance.
“I don’t know.” Loki’s eyes drifted to his feet, “About… how much I enjoyed tonight. I worry I enjoyed it a bit too much.”
Loki looked back up at him.
“What do you mean?” Eros tried to disguise the hurt look sweeping across his face.
“I mean- Shit. I mean…” Loki, too, folded his arms, not against the cold, but because he was thinking. He chewed on the corner of his lip. “What… What is this?”
Eros didn’t move an inch. He looked as if he were made of marble.
Loki’s arms flew away from his chest, and he began moving them around wildly as he stepped up the stoop closer to Eros. “This? I mean… I can’t stop smiling. My heart is hammering out of my chest, and I feel ill. My skin is shivering, but I feel like I’m on fire. But I feel so incredible, and those five hours were simply not enough. I need more, more of you, and, dear god, I cannot stop looking at you. You are so… terrifying. I mean, what if this all goes incredibly wrong? Like, for instance, you laughing at me for believing there is a this, in the first place?”
Eros gave him a chuckle and a sympathetic smile.
Loki growled in frustration and stepped back down off the stoop. “Am I losing it? Because my mind won’t stop racing, which is actually rather typical of me, except I can’t seem to make heads or tails of this. What- What is this?”
A cold and quiet moment passed between them with Loki standing in the street and Eros on the stoop to the townhome. Their breath turned to mist in the air.
Strangling all of his emotions, Eros said, “It’s love. I can feel it.”
Loki grimaced, “Are you sure it’s not lust?”
Eros nodded.
Loki lowered his head. “Shit.”
“You’re in love with me.” Eros’s voice cracked. “Without arrows, without magick. You’re in love.”
“How long does it usually last?”
“Hard to say, really. It won’t end well, though.”
“No. The Netherworlds isn’t going to tolerate it.”
Eros shrugged, “And I’m not allowed to leave this world, so…”
“So, what do we do?”
“Enjoy it while it lasts… I suppose.”
Loki dropped his head and walked up to Eros. “Which one of us do you think will get killed off first?”
“Probably you.”
“Why’s that?”
“It will hurt me most,” said Eros.
“I wouldn’t bet on it.” Loki gave him a bashful smile. “Come on. Let’s go in. You’re freezing.”
They walked inside with an ominous cloud hanging over them.
Happily ever after doesn’t last if you live long enough or die too soon, and the Netherworlds guarantees it won’t last. It is a world of despair, heartache, and struggle.
And even without the help of the infernal world, the laws of Greek myth forbid it. Zeus cheats on Hera, who pines for her love’s fidelity. Gaia had Cronus castrated. Hades and Persephone can only see each other for half the year. Every love Apollo chased was the one who got away, even the one who loved him back. Eros was the only one who had a happily ever after according to the myth, but in reality… divorce.
And Loki was just plain cursed. A horrible father to six children, and two ex wives, who maybe didn’t hate him, but would just as soon never see him again. Cast out by the celestial kingdom and then damned by his adoptive family for… valid reasons.
It was plain and clear to both of them that their romance was fated to be doomed from the start.
