Back inside the townhome, they should have talked about Loki’s ex-wife Sigyn. They should have talked about why Eros formed a general distrust of love aeons before he even met Psyche, and how he didn’t actually believe in love anymore… which would have led them both down a dark and dangerous rabbit hole. They should have talked about whether or not it was beneficial to indulge in the aura of their romance. They should have talked, but they didn’t.

Immediately after shutting the door, Loki started to unbutton Eros’s shirt- the one that was actually Loki’s that Eros had thrown on, and Eros started to re-explore all of the trickster’s many scars and tattoos as they kissed. The white dress shirt barely fell off of Eros’s shoulders as their bodies pressed together, and they were both too absorbed in other things to remove it the rest of the way.

A crash and a bang came from upstairs, and a door creaked open.

They pushed away from each other, and Eros ripped the shirt back around him as Loki crept to the staircase to listen.

“Fucking hell!” came a voice. “Where the hell did the coat rack go?”

Loki buried his face in his hand as he recognized the voice, “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Eros recognized it too and approached the staircase. “Hypnos, is that you?” he called.

“Yeah. Comin’.” Hypnos appeared with his leather trench coat and his buckled boots at the top of the stairs. He looked down at the two men.

“Oi, Eros! What the hell are you doing here? I’m in the right place, right? Loki, this is your crib, innit?”

“Yes, it is,” Loki said as Hypnos descended the stairs.

“Shit, are you two shagging? Doesn’t matter. Listen. I have, uh, a thing” He pressed his tongue against the side of his cheek as he began to reach into the pockets of his trench coat. The pocket swallowed his entire arm and boxes and metal cans rattled around on the inside of it as he searched. “Hang on. It’s in here somewhere. Ow!”

He ripped his hand out of his pocket and cried, “The fucker bit me! Little shit.”

His entire arm disappeared into his pocket again, and he made the face every man makes when he is grasping for something just beyond reach. “Got it!”

He pulled out a vintage, ruby red, cape cod cologne bottle slash candle holder. He held it out with a look which told Loki to take it, but as soon as Loki moved, Hypnos said, “Oh. Hang on! There’s a prophecy that goes wiffit.”

Hypnos began to giggle and buckle over, and he held up a finger, which begged Loki to wait until he caught his breath, and then he cleared his throat. “Okay. Okay,” he said between giggles, “Give this secret to the father of none, when you tell him he has a son.”

“Alright… what is it?” Loki now gingerly took it from Hypnos’s hand.

“What does it look like?” Hypnos gave him a condescending look.

Loki held it up and examined the way the light illuminated the cut ruby glass. “Tacky decor from the late 1800’s.”

“Well, that’s what it is then. So, Eros...” Hypnos leaned against the stair railing, propping his heavy combat boot against it, “it’s good to see that you’re getting out and about. You know you could have been shacking up wif me instead of this stick in the mud? It’s been a while, you and I?”

“Oh,” said Loki pointedly, “You and him have…”

Eros flushed and shrank.

“Yeah,” affirmed Hypnos. “Way back in the day. Can’t you picture it? Dream and Desire. We made a pretty pairing.”

Hypnos pushed himself off the railing and began wandering around, fiddling with Loki’s belongings. “But then I got all self-destructive, and he got self-deprecating. We practically cut it off, but it was a mutual decision and all. I dig it. But this joker? Really, Eros? You should be putting him off for as long as you can, because as soon as you two hook up, that’s the end… Oh, you already shagged, didn’t you?”

Hypnos leaned towards Loki and took in a big sniff. “Yeah. You did. I can smell the shag all over.”

Eros and Loki looked at each other, then back at Hypnos in unison.

“You did!” he accused. “Shouldn’t have done that. Beginning to the end for all of us. Thanks a bunch.”

Hypnos set down a whiskey glass that he had been peering through like a kaleidoscope. He made his way back towards the stairs.

“Oh, please!” Loki stepped forward. “I’ve had prophecies about Ragnarok hanging over my head for aeons, and they never came true. You can’t convince me of this bullshit that him and I having sex is going to destroy the world.” Loki set the bottle down on the coffee table.

“One,” Hypnos said, “Ragnarok just hasn’t come yet, so don’t count your chickens. Two, it’s not just sex, mate, and you know it. Three, why do you think endings have to be bad? Four, when I said thanks, I meant it. Never say that word wiffout meaning it, do I? That and the s word. It’s faery etiquette. Six, put the coat rack back in the closet, I put it there for a reason. Seven, don’t forget the secret I just told you about. It’s important. Me best mate depends on it.”

Hypnos began to make his way up the stairs as Loki began to mumble the rhyme about counting crows to himself.

Eros ran to the stairs, “Wait! Hypnos!”

The Dream god looked down at him, his blond bangs hanging over his mismatched eyes. “Yeah?”

“What was five? You skipped over five.”

“Did I skip five? Oh! Five was, uh… let’s see. Five was… for silver. Oh! Maybe things would go smoother if you admit to yourself you love him back. You haven’t said it yet. I’ve got to split.”

Eros watched Hypnos disappear up the stairs, then he looked back to Loki for questions or answers. Loki was still counting on his fingers the counting-crows nursery rhyme, and without ever making eye contact with Eros he walked away to find paper and a pen.

Eros grunted, rolled his eyes, and ascended the stairs, hoping to catch Hypnos before he vanished, unseen for another three-hundred years. At the end of the hall upstairs was a door, bursting from the seams with radiant golden light, and Eros saw the tail of Dream’s coat and the heel of his combat boot disappear around the door. Eros jogged the rest of the way, knowing that it was too late, even if he place-shifted from there to the door, and it was.

He ripped open the door, and the closet light blinded him and went out. Eros stepped into the closet and pulled on the chain to the lightbulb hanging above his head. There was nothing but a dusty closet with tweed blazers, wool overcoats, and dragonhide shoes.

The dingy closet smelled like Loki- expensive cologne, pipe tobacco, and brandy. Eros reached out and touched one of the blazers. Usually, he would snarl at tweed, but Loki pulled off the quirky professor vibe all too well.

Hypnos was right. Desire and Dream had made a pretty pairing, but dream and desire aren’t solid things. And even though Loki was chaos and absurd order, both of those things were grounded in action rather than fantasy. Loki grounded him, and made him feel real. Tweed was a very grounding fabric, Eros thought. Not like silk or velvet.

And every pair of shoes Loki owned was dragonhide. Eros would have preferred something synthetic, dragons being too majestic and powerful to be hunted down for their pelts, but he supposed Loki wore them because of something symbolic, like having beaten his metaphorical dragons. Although in myth, when one dons a creature’s hide, one becomes that creature. Eros wouldn’t put it past Loki to become the beast everyone said that he was.

It was when he was flipping through and admiring Loki’s vintage look that Eros remembered why he was led into the closet. A small glimmer of light refracted off a button and caught his attention. It came from inside the wall behind the jackets. He pushed a row left, pushed a row right. He moved some boxes and picked away at the peeling, tattered wallpaper, and a beam of the bright light shot through the seam.

***

Eros drifted down the stairs to see Loki mumbling to himself while sitting at the coffee table. He was furiously scribbling down what Hypnos had said on a scrap piece of receipt paper.

Loki didn’t look up as Eros stopped at the foot of the stairs to ask, “Why do you keep your wings in the closet?”

Loki stopped writing. “Where else should they go?” he asked.

“Um… on your back for starters. Why are they in the wall, Edgar Allen? Why are they not attached?”

“I cut them off.” He looked up from his scribbled notes.

“You cut them off?”

“Well, Odin helped…”

“Odin helped cut your fucking Angel wings off?”

“Well, not cut, more like saw. He helped me saw them off.”

“That’s…,” Eros shrugged and made a disgusted face. “Why on God’s green earth would you mutilate yourself that way?”

“God’s green earth, indeed… I was making a stand, because I hadn’t made one when I should have. I was mad at the universe. I didn’t want a way back. I don’t regret it.”

“That’s-” Eros began again, “Not even Lucifer himself cut- sawed off his wings.”

“No, because he wants to go back one way or another, or so the stories say.” Loki shrugged. “I have other opinions, but that would be one of many reasons why he never even thought of such a thing.”

“Dare I ask what your other opinions might be?”

“Well I have a conspiracy theory. Lucifer was His favorite, and some would argue, out of all of us, Lucifer loved God the most. I think, good and evil are dependent on one another. Evil needed to exist. God is omnibenevolent, so he couldn’t do it, and had to delegate, and if you had to delegate such a horrifically important task, wouldn’t you want to put it into hands that you trust?”

Eros rubbed his face with his hands and restrained a yawn. He shook his head and said, “You keep your Angel wings in the wall, in the closet because you and Odin sawed them off to give a giant middle finger to Yahweh?”

Loki nodded and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Yes. Yes it’s true, and just think how much they’re worth to the right buyer.”

“You’d sell your own body parts?”

“Depends on how sentimental I’m feeling that day.”

“Unbelievable. I’m going back to bed.” Eros shook his head. Before he could turn, Loki grabbed the ruby red perfume bottle from off the coffee table.

“What do you suppose this is?”

Eros took it, looked it over, and uncorked the top. Loki flinched at the sound. If the item was magick, which undoubtedly it was, then Eros could have just let out a curse, a spell, a demonic spirit, hope, if the damn thing was Pandora’s.

“What?” Eros shrugged, “It’s fine.”

“Well, it could have not been. Opening the thing could have depreciated the value.”

Eros scoffed, “Yeah, the Jinni escaped. Damn thing’s worthless now.”

“Not how Jinn work, really, but wouldn’t that be exciting!”

“I was joking, Loki…”

But Loki ignored him, “Jinn are incredibly rare and incredibly dangerous. But, if you swindle a person just right, depending on how stupid they are, you could persuade them to give up their house, entire art collection, their firstborn child, their soul, for a bottle that might have a Jinni in it. You could never be certain, however, if there really is a Jinni, because you never open the damn thing!” He finally made eye contact with Eros.

“Really? With how rare they are, why should I have assumed there was a Jinni in it? Because it has an I Dream Of Genie stereotypical vibe? Jinn containers can be in any shape and design. That’s how they get you.”

Loki cautioned, “I’m just saying you don’t open any container until you know what it is.”

“I’m just saying you can never know what’s truly on the inside unless you look.” Eros rebutted.

“You’re so Greek!”

“Well you’re… so…” He struggled to find an insult, but his circling brain landed on something even worse. “You’re Loki! Yes! B-Because that’s what you do! You disguise yourself and trick someone else into opening up the bottle, so if there is a curse or a Jinni in there, it’s on the other person, not you, but you still get to see what’s inside. Rude!”

Loki shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Fine.” He snatched the perfume bottle and its stopper from Eros’s hand. “Just don’t ever open anything I give you.”

“I can’t believe you just did that to me. You’re terrible. I’m going to bed. And I hate you.”

Eros slumped up the stairs.

“It’s a reflex!” Loki cried up after him. He waited and listened until the bedroom door slammed shut. He smiled and laughed to himself. As far as first dates, or first hookups, went, this was good, even if it was the beginning to the end, which he knew was some sort of metaphorical riddle.

He sat down on the couch and continued his chaotic journaling. He wrote down the important phrases Hypnos had said, searched for their common themes or words, connected them to any dreams he had recently, none of which he could recall in full. He tried to connect the words to his own subconscious thoughts.

What does it look like?

Tacky decor from the late 1800’s.

That’s what it is then.

Was that Hypnos saying everything is relative, or was that him implying what Eros had just mentioned? Could this object change shape?

With the stopper off, he could smell the pungent perfume rising from the bottle. It wasn’t bad, just very dated. The bottle had no markings aside from what it had been made to look like, but there was something underneath the surface. It wasn’t really a pretty perfume bottle, but it was really good at looking and acting like one. He’d have to put the object under some major, but delicate, restorative ritual to figure out what it actually looked like.

Sleep began to overtake him, and he smiled as he laid his head down on the arm of the sofa and stretched out. He began to sing Mr. Sandman under his breath as he drifted off. One, because of Eros, and the crazy twenty-four hours they had. Two, because he knew how much Hypnos hated that song.