~2:00 am, Oct 1, 2019~

Loki looked across the Mercer Kitchen downstairs bar, staring at Sigyn as she chatted with Carol.  Idly swirling the black cocktail mixing straw in his whiskey and coke, he pursed his lips, one eyebrow raising a touch when his girl laughed at the apparently hilarious words coming out of her colleague’s mouth.  Months ago, when he hadn’t been a lonely waste of space, he would have contained the knee-jerk jealous scoff that was presently escaping his lips.  No, that wasn’t true, because it was an altogether false premise.  Containment was hardly necessary when he’d felt secure in his relationship, when he wasn’t jealous and bitter about the whole damn thing.

Tonight was supposed to be fun.  Well, according to Val- the one responsible for this “congrats on the go-ahead and two enthusiastic thumbs up from your editor on Satellite Tides!” shindig -it would be fun, to which he’d deadpanned “what is this word ‘fun’ of which you speak? Don’t know what that is.” 

He’d earned a shoulder jab for that one.  Fair enough.  Sulking during his own party was, in her words, the ultimate “Prince Petty” response, and that might have been the first time he’d ever thought Prince Lo was a preferable moniker to anything.  But he hadn’t given her, or anyone else, even the slightest indication that Sig had everything to do with his princely behavior, so how should Val know to be less offended at his rather pronounced permanent scowl?

This September had broken its already shitty record of being the absolute worst month of every year for two decades.  Sure, he’d finished the book right on time, and more than that, his editor fawned over this one even more than her previous fawnings over Starboy and Looking for Sunlight, but at what cost?  For the life of him, he didn’t know why the hell Sig had been so angry at him for focusing on his damn job when a deadline loomed ahead.  She, of all people, knew that career-related “my income, and my editor’s income for that matter, hinge on MY ability to do this job as well, if not BETTER than, the predecessors” level of stress.  Here was a woman who’d refused to quit her job despite the sexual-harasser-in-chief lording over her, despite the sometimes seventy hour workweeks, despite the lack of paid bereavement leave, despite the fact that her loving boyfriend could float her through a new job search and had offered to countless times.

As though that one architecture firm was the only one in New York. As though it was the highest paying one (newsflash: it wasn’t!). As though every other boss would leer at her when she wore formfitting- though still professional -skirts, trousers, jackets… all of it. As though his father didn’t have the powerful connections within the New York real estate industry to ensure Ms. Sigyn Frey received the best opportunities and clients. Good lord, even he could set aside his monumental daddy issues if it meant Sig was chosen to redesign one of the exhibits in MOMA’s permanent collection, which did happen by the way… in July.

Yes, despite wishing she would have crossed the Atlantic with him, despite feeling deep in his bones that she’d had other reasons for staying in New York that had nothing to do with work, he’d set aside time every day of that tour to help accelerate his girl’s career goals, and she didn’t even know it. He knew better than to say he’d helped her, to suggest that she might owe him something. Oh but he wanted to tell her, in great detail, that while he’d been sleeping in different hotels every damn night in Europe, between the exhausting hours of book-signing and chatting and racking his brain for new charming quips for each and every fan to make them feel special, he’d also been working behind the scenes with his father (via Facetime, heaven help him) to arrange that top-notch, career opportunity of a lifetime for her! So… you know… maybe she could cut him some slack for spending an excessive amount of time playing catch-up in his own career during September.

It would feel good to throw it in her face, though. To, rather dramatically, prove just how absurd her “are you trying to make me abandon my career for you?” accusation was. She’d tossed that nonsense at him back in bloody January when he’d shown up at her office after hours intent on helping her shut it down for the day. That had been the extent of it. She’d been working nonstop, and he’d missed her. He’d been a boyfriend who wanted to see his girlfriend for a bit more than one hour a day.

THE HORROR.

And that had been only two weeks after he’d given her the literal FIRST hardback copy of Looking for Sunlight, no less. Oh but then he abandoned HER for an eight week book tour that he definitely wanted to go on, didn’t he. How very inconsiderate of him. And even more inconsiderate- he gave her every waking hour when he came back, only to then punish her by taking back a few of those hours to be able to have Satellite Tides on his editor’s desk by the September 28th agreed upon due date.

Still swirling his drink, he saw her glance at him once, twice, three times. Her cheeks were pink, perhaps from the unnecessary heat coming through the ceiling vents, or maybe it was his obvious staring. Did she like him staring? Was that an aroused blush or an embarrassed one? Did she think he was looking at her like this because he wanted to drag her into a restroom stall and pull her hair just right? Or did she know in her heart of cold hearts that he was more likely fuming that she never gave him an explanation for her hypocrisy, and that he was looking for that explanation somewhere on her face? He’d lost the will to verbally ask anymore, to wriggle the answer out of her skull after half-a-dozen attempts to meet her clearly impossible standard of “forever dream boy” by listening to her nonsensical ramblings-on about how he had changed.  He’d also lost the will to sit there in silent reverence as though she’d just given him some enlightened gospel truth that ought to change him back to August Loki.

Whatever the hell that meant.

Good god, it made him think that she must have written “August Loki” in a hidden diary somewhere, probably surrounded by hearts.  And by contrast, she had no doubt turned a page and drawn a quick sketch of him with horns and scribbled “September Loki” all over the face.  Bloody hell, 2019 had been more bipolar than the untreated version of himself.  Eyes lifting to gaze sadly at the ceiling, he inhaled and exhaled slowly until he got that distinct dizzy feeling that always accompanied properly-executed anxiety breathing.  He could not be more ready to bid farewell to this disaster of a year.  He needed the relative stability of 2017 and 2018 to come back.

Don’t let me down, 2020.  BE KIND. PLEASE REWIND.

Please give my girl and me a second chance.

His brother’s voice appeared next to his ear then, pulling his eyes away from the ceiling to focus on the blond gym rat standing next to him.

“Oh my god, brother, stop swirling that cocktail stick, or I’ll knock that drink out of your hand.”

Eyebrows pulling together, Loki blinked at him silently for a few moments before responding. “Cocktail stick?”

“Think he means the mixing straw.” It was JB’s voice on his other side, clearly amused, if the quiet snort from behind his palm over his mouth was any indication. “But you once told me that Thor Odinson was the most stick-obsessed person on the planet, so I guess it makes sense that he would call it a cocktail stick.”

Eyes on his brother, Loki smirked and leaned sideways toward JB, who leaned toward him in turn. “I feel like there are a thousand dick jokes to be made in response to this situation.”

Thor pointed at him. “Do NOT mock the way I say-”

“Cocktail?” Loki raised his eyebrows. “Hard emphasis on the ‘cock’ syllable?”

“The irony here is that the biggest goddamn prick in the room is you, Prince Lo,” his brother retorted, tossing back a shot of tequila.

“Jesus,” Bucky laughed, pulling a hand down his face, then eyed Loki, “totally thought he said you had the biggest prick in the room, man.”

Coughing into his elbow, Thor’s nose scrunched up. “Ugh VOMIT.”

“Vomit, indeed,” Loki agreed, resuming the swirling of his “cocktail stick” (wow) with more force just to annoy the hell out of his brother. “Calling the trouser snake a ‘prick’ is even worse than… I don’t know…” he squinted down at the glass in his hand, looking for the non-existent punchline of this impromptu joke somewhere in the amber liquid.  “Ummmm… calling it a… uh… vvvvv-” he lingered on the ‘v’, slightly distracted by the buzzing sensation that the sound created behind his teeth as they scraped over his bottom lip.

Thor leaned closer. “Vvvvvvv… what?  Loki, are you having a stroke?”

Yes.  A joke stroke, to be specific.

Ignoring his brother, he continued buzzing the v too long. “Vvvvvv-elll…”

Oh the ‘L’ is equally as fun, making my tongue trill like this, like when I kiss Sig, like when she says my name slowly against my mouth… “LLLLLLo-”

Rolling his eyes, he licked his teeth and cleared his throat.  He was not going to get caught up in the better times of the past.  He was going to be present.  Right here and now, he was going to finish this stupid joke.

“Worse than calling it the vvvvelll-vet… shaft of love,” he said, straight-faced for approximately two seconds before his aloof façade cracked, and he burst into a fit of hysterical laughing.

Thor grinned slightly, then raised an eyebrow at Bucky. “Fifty bucks says he stole that from a Buzzfeed ‘writing smut 101’ article after taking some stupid quiz for under-sexxed thirsty millenials.”

Lifting his hand up in front of Thor, Bucky opened his palm. “Might as well pay up, bro.  Not to get overly graphic, but this one here-” he gestured to Loki with his thumb behind his shoulder “-is probably the least ‘under-sexxed’ of everyone in this room.”

Jaw clenching, Loki’s laughing mood flew out the door faster than his girl coming out of Ground Support on New Year’s Day a thousand bloody years ago.  His friend wasn’t wrong about his excessively active sex life, and in another time, a comment like that would have put a smug smirk on his face.  However, at present, it only reminded him of the sad reality of a dwindling should-have-been-his-endgame relationship.  They fought and fucked, sometimes literally both at once.  If she wasn’t forcing his back against metaphorical walls with hurtful nonsense accusations of irrelevant this-and-thats, he was bruising her back against their bedroom walls, trying to force a love that he knew was sinking in the western sky to please, please, please just stay above that imminent-death horizon for a bit longer.

I would have done anything for her.

Correction: I did EVERYTHING for her.

He heard Thor say, “Ooooh, has my baby brother been triggered?  Did my joke strike a sex nerve with Star-” He stopped talking abruptly and cringed.  “Ick, oh I seriously regret having putting the word ‘sex’ in front of nerve.”

“We all regret that you did that, pal,” Bucky said, leaning over the bar a bit to flag down the bartender.  When he caught her eye, he held up his drink and mouthed “one more” while tapping the glass.  He turned back to face the Odinson brothers who were caught in a frowning contest with each other. “You two should go back to the dumb stick jokes.  They seemed-” he raised an eyebrow at Loki “-safer, somehow.”

Snapping his fingers twice, Thor pointed at his brother’s face so closely, he nearly poked the tip of his nose. “What was that one about sticks and stealing cars or something?”

Eyes narrowing, Loki slapped the hand away from his face. “Are you referring to the ‘stick shifts are millennial anti-theft devices’ quip I made when I borrowed your car this summer?”

“Ooh nice one,” Bucky said, taking a sip of the fresh old-fashioned that he’d just grabbed from the bar as Loki shrugged.

Not exactly my original material but whatever.

Head shaking, Thor whistled under his breath. “By the way, that joke would sting if us early 80s babies weren’t now called Xennials inst-”

“We early 80s babies,” Loki cut him off, clucking his tongue. “Us is an object pronoun, but you used it as the subject of a clause.  Pesky personal pronouns can be such a bitch to master for the simple-minded.”

His big brother didn’t miss a beat. “Simple-minded is preferable to whatever the hell is going on in that space between your ears.  You have always been a bit of a disillusioned, Prozac Nation poster boy, but you were less moody before Harvard.  I told Mum your excessive schooling would give you RBF.”

“Wow,” Loki snorted softly, setting his elbow on the counter and leaning on it. “All this time I thought she must have dropped you on your head as a baby, when in actuality you chose to be a paint-chip-eating-moron.” He brought the whiskey and coke (mostly whiskey) to his lips and took a small sip. “This explains why you are so blithely optimistic that people outside of Xennial Twitter have validated the existence of our special little microgeneration.” Another sip. “You might be pushing 40, Thor, but you will be lumped in with current 25-year olds for at least another decade.” He reached up to pull the black Wayfarer sunglasses from their place on the top of his head down onto his nose and flashed a smile. “Deal with it.”

“You fucking deal with it, you walking meme of a man,” Thor scoffed, straightening the zippered collar of his acid-wash blue denim jacket.

Eyes following his brother’s movements, Loki made a face.  How had he only just now noticed it?  Acid-wash? GOD.  All “designer” parties responsible for that trend, both past and present, should receive life sentences for their crimes against humanity.  Thor interrupted his homicidal musings, his voice as loud and unappealing as that jacket.

“I won’t be lumped in with 20-somethings.  I’ll just add Gen Xer to my Twitter biography.  Problem solved,” he said, smirking as he pulled his phone out of the inside pocket of the highly offensive jacket and opened the app.

Sliding his sunglasses down a touch, Loki looked sideways at him. “You might as well add stable genius while you’re at it, you clown.  One cannot be a golden retriever in human form and be an Xer.”

“True story,” Bucky agreed, patting Loki on the back twice.

Scratching his chin, Thor gazed up at the pendant lights hanging over the bar. “So that’s why every woman wants to pet me.”

“Oh look, JB, he made a joke,” Loki droned, eyes rolling as his brother laughed.  He pushed his sunglasses back up on top of his head and took another sip, shifting his stance, so he could see Sigyn more easily.  He missed her.  He was pissed with her too, of course.  But he still missed her.  He couldn’t help it.

This helluva drug girl.

“I’m closer to being an Xer than you,” Thor said, smiling when his brother’s gaze slid back to him.

Fighting to keep his jaw from flat out unhinging at that ludicrous statement, Loki inclined his chin slightly. “Says the happy puppy, his tongue lolling out and tail wagging excitedly, directly after calling me a disillusioned, Prozac Nation poster boy.”

“So I never had a manic Monday like some people-” his brother waved a hand at him “-doesn’t mean I didn’t listen to Nirvana just as much as you did, Loki.”

“Name one Nirvana song other than ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.”

Looking sideways, Thor squinted. “There was…ah…started with an L, I think…Liddy something?  Liddy Yum?”

Loki stared blankly at him.

Dear. God.

“Either you do not know them well enough to remember the song title,” he said, swiping his drink off the counter and finishing the last of it in one go, “or more likely, you just can’t pronounce the word Lithium.”

“I don’t know how you deal with the side effects,” Thor muttered, giving him a pitying look.

“I don’t know how I’m dealing with this conversation with only one drink.” Loki set the glass down with more force than necessary.  A second later, a server behind the counter hurried over and took the empty tumbler, then produced a new one for him from behind her back.  He blinked, somewhat dumbfounded by this woman’s attentiveness, which seemed to be reserved exclusively for him.

She leaned toward him and answered his unspoken question. “Just looking after the star of the show,” she explained, tossing him a wink over her shoulder as she walked away to attend to other customers.

“The dying star of the show, maybe,” he grumbled to himself, feeling a bit guilty for staring at her backside in those extremely flattering jeans.  Shaking it off, he turned toward his brother again. “Not that it’s your business, but I take an anticonvulsant, not lithium.”

“Well that’s proof enough that you are not a proper Xer.”

“Oh we’re back on that now,” Loki said flatly. “I’m overjoyed.”

“You should be,” Thor said, pointing his bottle of microbrew (Loki knew that one tasted like absolute piss) at his brother. “And my real proof that I am an Xer-”

This should be good.

“-is that I had Doc Martens and a Pearl Jam CD.”

Loki gave him a look. “You mean the one you stole from Hela’s discman to impress one of her flannel-obsessed friends from uni?”

“Noooo, that can’t be right.” Thor shook his head. “CDs were barely a thing then.  Hela had a cassette Walkman.”

“CDs were barely a thing?”  Loki repeated, blinking several times at the man.

Okay, just how drunk is my dimwit brother?

He shook his head, eyes rolling yet again. “Hela graduated in ‘93, not ‘83.  Good god, Thor, your memory loss leads me to think you are more boomer than anything else.”

“You are such a goddamn brat,” Thor laughed out loud, slapping Loki’s shoulder just this side of too-painful. “It would feel so good to punch you, but our big sis would gut me for it.  She adores you for some reason.”

“No, she adores me for thousands of reasons,” Loki corrected him, “and she wouldn’t gut you.  She’d just give you a lobotomy and throw you in a padded cell infested with rats.”

“I think I’d rather be gutted.” Thor shivered. “Rats are terrifying.  I swear I can hear them squeaking my name.  Thor…Thooooor…”

How drunk is this dimwit, you ask?  Hmm… hundred bucks says this moron throws up in five minutes.  In the women’s restroom.  In a sink.  Then cries because he can’t figure out how to flush it.

“That’s because someone is yelling your name, genius.” Loki pointed to the girl trying to get his brother’s attention on the other side of the bar “Namely, your pint-sized girlfriend.” She was waving at him, probably while standing on a box so she could see over the counter. 

His brother turned to look. “Ohhhhh,” he drew out the word, then laughed hard enough to throw his balance off.  Still laughing, he grabbed the counter to catch himself.  “I’m relieved it’s not rats.”

“Yes, you dodged quite a bullet,” he droned, watching the man’s back for a moment as he walked away, swaying and unsteady on his feet, but not so unsteady as to fall.

Talk about a missed opportunity.  That would have been beyond entertaining, and he needed something to genuinely laugh about.  Still leaning on his elbow, he sighed and set his chin in his palm.  JB spoke suddenly, making Loki jump since he’d forgotten his friend was next to him.

“I got ‘a great image in my head now of that guy jumping up on a chair and screaming at his teeny tiny girl to kill the rat on the ground,” he said, eyes closing as he laughed and pulled a hand down his face.

“You joke, JB, but that has actually happened.  Not with little Janey over there, though,” Loki clarified, flicking his fingers in her general direction. “No, it was his ex who swatted at one with a broom while he did exactly that,” he said, stopping mid-sentence to taste-test his second drink of the night.

Oh that was a mistake.

Before he could swallow that stupidly huge gulp of FIRE, which was all parts whiskey and zero parts coke apparently, the absurd memory started playing like a comedy-gold film reel, causing him to choke on a laugh bubbling up in his chest.  Slapping a hand over his mouth, he pressed his lips together, trying to collect himself so he could tell the story without spewing a lovely cocktail of hard liquor and saliva in his friend’s face.  After a good twenty seconds, he successfully drained it, and exhaled long and slowly through his mouth.

Rubbing his watering eyes, he finally said, “That overgrown blond baby jumped on a chair when that rat scurried out from behind his refrigerator.”

“OH MY GOD.”

“Oh, it gets better,” Loki croaked, still rubbing his eyes. “He exploded up onto that chair and landed so heavily that the legs actually splintered and broke, and I kid you not, he landed on his ass like something straight out of a goddamn ‘hold my beer’ compilation.”

“That did not happen.” Bucky shook his head resolutely.

Loki held his hands up. “Saw it with my own eyes.  I swear.  You remember that time he came to our gym, coincidentally during one of our training sessions last year?”

“Yeah, he was filming that grass-fed whey protein promotional thing with Sam.  Why?”

“Do you remember Sam asking what the hell was wrong with Thor’s box jumps?  That he looked like he thought the box would, quote, drop him harder than a Travis Scott hook?”

“Holy fuck- the chair traumatized him.  Should we get some PTSD therapy going for him?”

“I would love to be a fly on the wall in his therapist’s office when that story comes up.  No doubt he would defend his absurd overreaction by explaining a truly horrifying event from earlier that day.  You see, his car had stalled out on him, and as we all know, it is impossible that he simply fucked up and stalled the engine with overzealous clutch work and heavy-handed shifting… no no no.  Therefore, the unfortunate rat chair debacle must have occurred only because he was extra… jumpy… now that his baby was at the car hospital, and don’t you understand that the rat was an omen representing the car doctor’s inability to properly lubricate her gearbox.”

“You are making this shit up.  He did not say ‘baby’ or ‘car hospital’ or ‘car doctor’ and he definitely did not say ‘properly lubricate her gearbox’ in any context ever.”

“Believe it or not, JB, my brother is even more stick-obsessed than you and me.”

“I’m havin’ major deja vu right now, Lo.”

Loki tilted his head, squinting at his friend. “Have we had this conversation before?”

JB took a long swig of his drink, then nodded and licked his lips. “Yup. June. M3. On the way to montauk.  Ended with you sayin’ you graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in ‘word wizardry or some shit’ …I think.”

Both men chuckled at the memory as Loki’s phone dinged at him.  Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed it and opened the phone with his thumbprint.  Focusing on the text that had popped up, he pursed his lips.

Hela: You just keep them on their boringly stable toes, love.

The words blurred in his vision, and he blinked several times, squinting at the screen.  Just as he started to think he might need to schedule an appointment with an optometrist, he realized the phone was moving… or vibrating, more like.  He frowned, confused by the damn thing, which he’d set to “never vibrate” for a reason.  He hated that buzzing sound.  It sounded like the inside of his skull, and he hardly needed some wireless electronic gadget to add to the noise.

“You ok, Lo man?”

Still frowning, Loki looked up at JB whose eyebrows were raised in concern.

“Phone’s acting up,” he mumbled, setting it down into his friend’s waiting hand. “Is it vibrating or something?”

JB shrugged, playing around with it. “I’m no iPhone expert because I am an Android man through and through, but…it’s definitely not vibrating.  The apps all work.  Sounds on. Is the software updated?”

Loki nodded. “Just did. This morning.  September 30th, 2019 at 2:07am.  I remember the time  because the bright screen lit up my bedroom and woke me up from a sex dream.”

“Two things.” JB held up one finger. “One: if that’s the first thing that the newest software did with its time in the simulation-“

“Don’t start with the simulation crap again-“

“-then you should burn it for being a minion of Satan who is obviously controlling the architect.”

I don’t want to hear the word “architect” ever again…

“And two-“ JB held up a second finger “-technically that was yesterday.  Today is October 1st.  Also-“ another swig “-I think your hand is shaking pretty bad.  That’s why it seems like it’s vibratin’ or whatever.”

Loki looked at his hand and scowled at his fingers.  Wrist too.  And arm.  And shoulder.  Neck.  Everything was shaking.  Hela’s text was a response to his last message- the one he’d sent after slamming the doors of Sig’s building on his way here tonight.

“Aren’t Harvard alums supposed to be smart?” JB snorted.

Loki couldn’t think of anything clever, so a gruff “fuck you” was all the comeback (not so much) JB heard. “Um, speaking of Harvard alums,” Loki said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but my sister is texting me, and I need to respond.”

“Sure, Lo man,” Bucky said, swallowing the last bit of the old-fashioned from his tumbler then squinted at the empty bottom. “I need a refill anyway.”

As his friend walked to the bar, Loki weaved through a sea of bodies to get to the exit.  He was shaking for a reason.  He wanted a smoke.  Scratch that- he needed one.  He hadn’t had one since Paris, and he hadn’t craved another until now.  The unbearable weight of his manuscript was finally no longer crushing him, and in the email that his editor sent this morning- Re: LO Novel 3 Satellite Tides-she’d been more than a little complimentary.

“Both Starboy and Looking for Sunlight focus heavily on unmoving lights in the sky that we can’t help but run circles around, and I assumed your third effort would be an even more focused progression- a maturation, if you will -of that theme, but instead, you crashed on Earth’s surface and focused on the lights in the sky that are running circles around YOU.  My jaw is on the floor, Loki.  Verdict?- Stunning.  Can’t wait to see Satellite Tides on the shelf.” 

Holding his phone in one hand and his lighter in the other, he pushed through the doors and walked to the other side of the street before removing the yellow pack of American Spirits from his jacket pocket.  He flipped the top open, pulled out the last one, and put it to his lips.  After lighting it, he leaned back against whatever building was behind him- restaurant or retailer or something…he didn’t know, nor did he care.  The brick was nice and warm though, so that was good.  He stared blankly ahead, watching people move in and out of the restaurant across the street where his friends were, presumably, enjoying themselves.  He should feel light as a feather after that raving review from his editor, but he didn’t.  Eyes closing, he leaned his head back against the brick and focused on the smell of smoke.

Oh Starboy- don’t you know those are bad for you?

Another drag.  Another exhale.

Yep. I know. Very bad.

Drag.  Exhale.  Drag.  Exhale.  He frowned then at the sound of his name, and lifted his head to look around.  It wasn’t a familiar voice, which meant it was someone who recognized him but he didn’t know them, and he refused to sign anything or take pictures when he felt like this.  Goddammit- why wasn’t this cigarette doing its job?  No one should be able to see him behind a cloud of smoke, and the smell was supposed to deter them!  

He looked down at his phone and texted his sister with one thumb.

Loki: Oh absolutely.  I’ve no doubt they LOVE the spontaneous whiplash I provide.  Also, “boringly stable” sounds magnificent.

Hela: That helluva drug girl didn’t fall for a “boringly stable” man, so, maybe stop wishing it away.

His eyes nearly popped out his skull. “What the fu…” he trailed off to growl under his breath instead as he tapped his response.

Loki: What even...I can’t...what kind of bullshit take is THAT?  I need head meds to not OFF myself after the delusional rush of tripping on my own goddamn chemicals for two straight months wears off- when all that’s left of me isn’t even ME, but just carbon moving through empty space in the shape of something resembling someone who answers to the name Loki Odinson.

Loki: But sure- I’ll stop wishing that this suffocating, stifling, Sartre-esque hell would stop knocking on my mental front door every few months for DECADES because MAYBE my girl wouldn’t have given me a second glance if I wasn’t a bit...moody.

Her response was immediate.  It was as though she’d written it prior to his text because she’d known what he would say.

Hela: Could you just, for once, not DEFINE yourself by that thing you ‘need head meds’ for, LO?  Is that ALL you are?  Do you think that is all SHE sees?

Head shaking, he scoffed. “Try looking at the bright side, huh?  Piss off, sis.”

Loki: Not interested in looking for silver linings right now, thanks.

He sent the text and started typing a new one.  Talking about Sig made him want to punch something.  Burn something.  Break something.  Yes, he wanted to break anything and everything because his girl was breaking HIM.

Hela: Loki-

Loki: Listen, I’ve had too much to drink, and it’s making me anything but excited to talk about Sig, so I think we should just talk later.

Hela: Okay, Loki love.  Please drink lots of water.

Eyes rolling, he typed his last text.

Loki: Thanks for the advice, Dr. Odinson.  Bye now.

After one final drag from the poison between his fingers, he tossed the cigarette butt on the ground, and squashed the cherry with the toe of his boot.  Looking both ways, he crossed the street again, downright ignoring the person (or group of persons…whatever) who had said his name.  And speaking of his name, as soon as he pushed through the doors again, he heard Val say it, and when he looked up, she was waving him over to the corner of the bar where his closest friends were gathered.  As he approached them, he forced a smile for Val’s sake.  She raised her glass and cleared her throat when he came to a stop at the outer edge of the group.

“A toast to this man right here,” she said, absolutely beaming as she pointed to him, “a man for whom I would take thousands of bullets.”

He felt his jaw tighten reflexively, the muscles behaving as though on auto-pilot, and he swallowed, trying to relax his face.  Dammit- Another dollar, boy.

“When most people see you, Loki, I think they see nothing but excessive privilege.  I mean, look at you, boy!” She gestured up and down the length of his body. “You check all those obvious ‘success’ boxes.  That said, those people don’t know you like I do.  I know the odds of survival weren’t in your favor, hon.  The mental deck was stacked against you in ways that none of these lovable morons will ever know, but I know because I have been with you by choice every step of the way for three decades.”

Oh god.  He might need to fake a sneeze to cover up the growing lake in his eyes, and for all he knew, Val might talk for another ten minutes.

“I’m showing my age here, but-” she waved a hand and chuckled “-whatever.  Listen, I don’t remember much from the 80s, but everything I do remember from then centers around Loki.  I was five years old in 1988 when I met a boy who would become my forever best friend.”

Maybe the floor would be thoughtful enough to open up right under his feet.

“Awwwww,” Thor patted his head, and Loki swatted him away as Val continued speaking of him as though he deserved the world just for being him.

If only Sig felt the same…

“I was too little to know ‘I’m going to hang out with this boy every chance I get for decades’, but I did know that you were so fun, and you were definitely on a different level.  I couldn’t put it into words obviously.  I still can’t.  I’m not a critically-acclaimed writer like some people.  I just knew I liked being around you so much.  For instance-”

“Ohhhhhh we gettin’ stories ‘bout Starboy now,” Sam said, wiggling one eyebrow at him.

Before he had the chance to say “I WILL CUT YOU” in his most venomous tone, Val spoke over him.

“For instance,” she repeated herself, shooting a glare at Sam, “when when my nan threw a little birthday shindig for me at her house, complete with presents and pudding and my mates from school and family that I actually liked, I cried during the entire hour long drive to the party and continued to mope when we got there because I just wanted to go to Loki’s house and play on the tire swing and climb trees and watch Princess Bride and have pretend sword fights with him.  He was Westley, and I was Inigo Montoya because he looked better with a little ponytail, and I wanted to be able to say ‘I want my father back, you son of a bitch’ in a well-executed Spanish accent.”

Loki dragged both hands down his face. “Oh my god, Val, please stop.”

“It’s true!  Five year old Val Keri Brunna only wanted to be around this new tricky Loki kid.  No matter the cost.  And that never changed.  I felt like I was dying when he moved to the states with his family.  He is the reason I moved to New York.  I wish it hadn’t taken thirteen years for me to make it happen-”

I wish Sig loved me as much as you do, Val.

“-but I did get here eventually.  And you know what, Lo?  If I wasn’t here now, if I was still in England, you better believe I’d still be doing everything in my power to get across the goddamn pond.  To get back to my best friend for life.  To get back to the guy who all those twats insisted that I was in love with but just didn’t know it.  Jesus, how many times does a girl have to say ‘I’m ONLY attracted to girls’ before it hits them that I’m not lying?”

Despite feeling like a pathetic, undeserving thing, he chuckled, then gestured to Carol with his chin. “They might believe you are into girls when you get married to one on December 8.”

Once again, his best friend beamed at him, radiating warmth and happiness, and he hated himself for wishing that smile was coming from someone else.  Someone who wouldn’t stick by his side for three decades like Val had.  Someone who couldn’t even give him three years.

“Jealous, are we?  Don’t worry, hon,” she said, smile still in place, “you’ll get married to one soon enough.  I’m sure of it.”

Oh shit. Oh no.

His eyes flicked toward Sigyn, and for a split-second, he thought he saw the corners of her mouth curve upward.  As soon as he saw it though, it disappeared.  As did she.  As in, turned her back on him, zig-zagged through the crowd, and bolted up the stairs leading to the Prince Street exit.  Mouth falling open, he stared after her.  He was vaguely aware of Val’s voice coming closer to him, but it was hard to hear over the sudden ringing in his ears. Oh god, he was going to be sick.

“Lo?  Hon?  You okay?  What happened?  Is Sigyn okay?  That was…that was supposed to be a joke, hon.  I’m so sorry.” A pause, a different voice- this one sounded tinny, like a voice over the phone – another pause, then Val spoke again, though not to him.  “No, I don’t know what happened to him.  He just…froze.”  Her hand was on his arm, shaking him a bit. “I’m trying to, Hela!  Lo, hon, please.  Did you take something?  Xans?”

For hell’s sake, NO, I didn’t take a Xan.  But I SHOULD HAVE.

“Smoke something?”

Yeah, a LEGAL cig, and it did NOTHING.

“Loki??  ANSWER ME.  Are you starting to OD on me?  Oh my god.  Shit.  Hey, Bucky?  Did you see him take anything?  Did he use your pen or something??”

“What?  Hell no, I didn’t let him use my pen, and he wouldn’t take it if I offered.  He won’t go near anythin’ with THC in it.  All I saw him have was two drinks… maybe?  Hey, come on, Lo man, talk to me.  Darcy, hey where’d Sigyn go?”

Away from ME, that’s where.

“She said she felt sick, then she left to go home.”

My girl is gone.  I’ve lost my girl.  Oh my god, this isn’t happening…

“You let her go alone??  Jesus, doll, it’s two in the goddamn mornin’!”

“Woah, calm the hell down, Buck-O.  She didn’t give me more than five seconds notice, alright?  And her building’s only three blocks from here.  Four-minute walk tops!”

“Yeah well, lot can go wrong in four minutes.”

“Come on, Bucky, it’s Soho, not a damn war zone.”

Prince Street IS my war zone.

“Complacency like that will turn any place into a war zone, doll.  Trust me.”

Does he mean American foreign policy? Or when falling in love with Sigyn Frey blows up in my face three months shy of three years later? – the latter being the more destructive of the two, of course.

“I can vouch for him on that.” Was that Sam?

This was… this was awful.  There were too many voices, each one muddling horribly with the next and worsening his own cacophonous internal screaming for Sig to PLEASE COME BACK! God, could everyone stop talking?!

“Ugh. Shut. Up. Sam.” Lewis? Chatty Kathy herself?  Annoyed with someone for not shutting it?

THANK YOU, LEWIS.

“Lady, I got shot over there too.  Scars to prove it.  My wingman was killed in a supposed ‘safe zone’, so sit your princess-ass down.”

Not all scars are visible, Sam.

“Oh my god, one soldier I can handle.  I’m not listening to this shit from two of you.” Heels clicked loudly on the stairs.  Probably Lewis.

“Wait… where’re you goin’?!”

“Anywhere but here!”

Don’t let her leave, JB.  Don’t watch her walk away.  You’ll regret it forever.

“Is that my sister on the phone?” It was Thor’s voice.

Loki’s skull was going to explode any moment now. Two versions of Loki Odinson stood in Mercer Kitchen.  The visible and invisible.  The façade and the truth.  Illusion and reality.  The former, surrounded by a group of humans who loved him for no bloody reason, was frozen in place, still as a statue, save for the barely-there rising and falling of his chest, wide gaze stuck on the red exit sign over the doors at the top of those stairs.  They couldn’t see the real Loki, and that was for the best.  Real Loki had a vice-like grip on his head, his fingers splaying as they dug into his scalp.  Leaky, red eyes were pinched shut, and his jaw was on the floor, allowing the wretched sound of a shattered heart screaming in agony to escape from the prison made of bones, not bars, surrounding his chest.

On October 1st, 2019, I was a 36-year-old loaded gun, a bottle of Oxy, a noose around the neck, a razor to the wrist…

And Sig won’t save me this time.

“Here, hand it to me.” Thor again.

Goddamn LOUDMOUTH.

“Hela?  Yeah, it’s Thor.  I know you know.  Yes… no… what do they look like?  Blue, oval-shaped… does he keep them in… okay… she said to check for a pack of spearmint gum… sorry… an empty pack.  Are they in his pocket?  Wait, front or back?  Oh… jacket… uh he’s not wearing a jacket.”

Loki felt someone shoving their hands in his trouser pockets.  They had to be Val’s hands, right?

“Phone.  Keys.  Wallet.” Val scoffed, then lowered her voice.  “Flip-knife.  Hate that thing.  Shouldn’t even have it in here.”

Yes, they were Val’s hands, and her pointy little fingers were digging into Loki’s skin under the fabric.

“Nope, no gum.  Loki, hon, do I need to take you to a hospital?  Answer me, or I swear I will.”

He finally found his voice. “I’m not fucking OD’ing.”

Still feels like dying though.

How fitting for a dying star boy.  Had Sig said “I swear I won’t let you die, Starboy” or was that just something he’d written in a stupid book?  Either way, he couldn’t breathe in this place that was technically a basement, where everyone was crowding him and touching him, and their concerned voices had his blood boiling under his skin.  Real Loki was trying to break free, and he couldn’t let them see the truth.  Shrugging out of Val’s hold, he pushed through the crowd, ran up the stairs, and out the door.

“Oh my god, Loki!” She was on his heels, grabbing his elbow as he burst out onto Prince Street a few blocks east of the building that he needed to get to now.  War zone or not, bloodied and bruised and beaten half to death or not, he wasn’t laying down his arms without one last fight.

Ignoring his best friend, he turned right and started walking… fast.

“Lo?  LO!  Tell me what the hell is wrong!” She tugged harder on his elbow.  If not for the adrenaline, he’d realize how tight her grip was, maybe even feel the finger-shaped bruises forming under his skin.

How poetic that Sig’s apartment was west of here.  Sunrise was five hours from now, but even if that star were showing its brilliant face over that horizon this second, he was walking away from it.  He was going in the wrong direction, trying to be kind and rewind the tape to the beginning of 2017, or at least to the halfway mark- back to 2018, when he’d written a 350-page novel for someone he couldn’t live without.  For his sunlight. He halted mid-step, eyes moving from their intense focus on the pavement up to the light-polluted October night sky over New York City instead.  So many clouds… only clouds.  No stars, no moon.  Just artificial lights from the concrete jungle below.

“Thank god,” Val breathed, loosening her grip as he stopped. “Where are you going, and will you let me help you get there?  I need to know you’re somewhere safe, Lo.”

His gaze lowered from the dull, thick layer of flat, lifeless, stagnant, grey clouds, and he turned to frown at her.

Safe?  What place is SAFE?  

“Maybe east is safe,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear it.  He looked at the pavement again. “Safer, that is.”

Her eyebrows pulled together. “What?  I don’t understand.  You’re freaking me out, hon.  Did something happen with her?  Oh my god… did she hurt you?”

Lifting his eyes to hers once more, he shook his head.

Not the way you mean, Val.

Her shoulders relaxed, looking more than a little relieved, but after several silent seconds, she faltered. “Are you going to hurt her?”

Keeping his unblinking eyes on hers, he didn’t respond- verbally, that is.  Could one feel their eyes turn dark?  As in, was it possible for him to see a shadow where it shouldn’t be, appear right in front of his face?  He swallowed, his jaw hurting from clenching it too hard.

“Lo,” Val’s voice turned a shade darker than the shade he imagined his eyes to be, “are you planning to hurt Sigyn?”

His fingers twitched.

I think I will, yes.

“Of course not,” he said, pocketing his hands lest they give away his true answer by curling into fists.

Welcome to Prince Street.  Here we make love and make war on repeat until we collapse in on ourselves like the dying stars we romanticized in our “live fast, die right” love-turned-horror story.

“Are you lying to me?” she pressed.

Bending to her eye level, Loki pressed back. “Depends on your definition of ‘hurt’, Val.”

If not for the headlights of a taxi reflecting on the shop windows across the street as it turned the corner from Mercer onto Prince just then, he wouldn’t have seen the tears shining in her eyes.  The hazy beams glowed behind her back, creating a befitting and timely halo for this absolute angel, and swallowing the lump in his throat, he yanked his hands out of his pockets and threw his arms around her neck.  She hugged him back without hesitation, squeezing his ribs so tightly, he could barely breathe.

“I mean physically,” she croaked into his neck. “The man I know wouldn’t do that, right?”

“Absolutely not,” he said firmly against her temple, keeping his mouth there for another minute or so until she loosened her hold on him.  He started to step away, but she grabbed the back of his neck with both hands, and he instinctively dropped his forehead to hers.

“You’re worth drowning for, hon,” she said shakily, “anyone who doesn’t feel that deep in her bones doesn’t deserve you, okay?  Don’t ever forget that.”

Before he could protest, before he could say how he couldn’t agree to those terms because what if the one girl he wanted would not drown for him?- before he could say how fucking terrified he was of that all-too-real possibility, Val pressed her lips to his cheek, just outside the corner of his mouth.  Oh god… he knew it was a harmless kiss, certainly meant to be platonic, but she lingered just a touch too long, and his body was responding a touch too well to the combination of her soft lips and that genuine love in her voice.

This is my best friend.  Best FRIEND.

Mirroring Val’s stance, Loki put a hand on her neck, then turned his head slightly toward her face so he could kiss the opposite corner of her mouth.

Oh my god, this feels good.

Technically, they were kissing each other’s cheeks, but if either of them moved one centimeter to the left… god DAMN.  It would be everything he wanted.  Nothing but warmth and love.  No fighting.  No frustration.  No fear that he was just a really good fuck, and that was all he was good for anymore.

Oh my god, I need to step back.

No, if Val felt uncomfortable, then she could step back.  This wasn’t cheating.  Loki wasn’t cheating.  He was not cheating on his girlfriend with his best friend, and Val sure as hell wasn’t cheating on her soon-to-be wife with her best friend.  He was only returning a friend’s affection.

Step BACK, you vulnerable fool.

Loki stepped closer instead, allowing himself this one moment to pretend Val were his girl.  To imagine that Val didn’t just love him, but was in love with him.  To imagine that she wanted him- that she could want any man at all, and that she would have chosen him out of all the three-and-a-half billion other available options.  To imagine that he wanted her.  To imagine that this glorified peck on the cheek was about to turn into a toe-curling liplock, complete with open mouths, and tongues, and her hands in his hair, and down his trousers like they damn well should be.  To imagine that this was Sigyn Elena Frey, and that she thought Loki Odinson was worth drowning for.

If you are THIS desperate for Sig, then let Val go, turn WEST, and don’t stop until you unlock the door of that third floor apartment with the gold number eight on it.

Dropping his hand from her neck, Loki clenched his jaw and finally stepped back. “Sorry.  I crossed a line there,” he said, reaching up to rub his temples.

Val opened and closed her mouth several times, squinting at him, clearly confused. “What?  A kiss on the cheek?  I mean, people who don’t know us and saw that could interpret it as something else, I guess, but Carol wouldn’t be-”

“I crossed my line, Val,” he spoke over her, giving her a withering look.

Her mouth fell open. “Lo, I’m so sorry.  God, I didn’t mean it like that at all.”

“I know,” Loki said, taking another step back and turning around again.

Turning west.

He was walking the wrong way.  Pushing against the natural turning of this planet.  The turning of time itself. Trying to force that second hand to tick counterclockwise.  Giving the universe a middle finger, telling it to fuck right off with it’s forced linear timeline in this awful 3-dimensional cage.  If the “right” way was constantly spinning east to west, 24 hours, 7 days, 52 weeks, each subsequent “new” year forcing more silver in his hair and more lines around his eyes, but didn’t do so while allowing Sig to walk beside him in the process, then bloody hell, Loki refused to go the right way.

He didn’t need to go back to 2017 if the typical “backward” was his “forward”, yes?  One foot in front of the other could be all kinds of wrong for him.  He was so well-skilled at driving in reverse gear, after all.  Whipping back into a street spot was as natural to him as going 90 on the highway while whipping around all those speed-limit-sticklers.  Shifting up into 6th required pulling the stick back, did it not?  Perhaps he’d been born with a propensity toward chaos that wouldn’t allow him to live by the proper laws of physics.

Loki’s legs were taking him closer to Sig’s building, and he didn’t care if that was right or wrong, forward or backward.  What did that matter anyhow?  Who decided what any of these polar opposites meant in the first place?  Up was down.  Down was up.  Or maybe up and down didn’t exist at all.  Maybe they did, but he only existed in the space between.  Maybe Sig did too.  Maybe everything else other than that in between was a distraction for their combined consciousness to have a feeling of going places, to keep them from feeling lost in a fog leading nowhere.  Maybe those ups and downs- those highs and lows, the rapid shifting of gears, the rolls and the crashes -were invented by their own minds to help them cope with the fear of normalcy.

Maybe that was Sig’s problem with him.  Maybe January 1st 2017 hadn’t been the beginning for her.  Maybe it had simply been the start of her ending, and she’d only just now realized it, and was now running for her life.  He’d drawn her into him like a charismatic villain.  The good girl was charmed into a fast car with the archetypal bad boy.  

He’d been exciting as hell, and she hadn’t understood why, but now she knew.  Now she’d seen the mania sending him to the stars to live like a god- to live like a star boy -only to then blast him with a heavy dose of reality that kicked him right back to the pull of Earth’s relatively weak, but still lethal, gravity.

Oh my GOD, get out of your head, or you’ll turn east like a goddamn coward.

“Your body is right here next to me, but your mind is in outer space, Starboy,” Loki whispered to himself, repeating the words his girl had said to him in her doctor’s office in May.

Shit- the tears filling his eyes had to be saltier than the Dead Sea.

DEAD Sea?!

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he breathed, rubbing his burning, dead eyes as his legs continued moving of their own volition.  His head really was out there with those dying stars, wasn’t it?

All he had to do was keep walking west.  Just focus on the sound of his boots on the pavement rather than any of these angsty postmodern metaphors bouncing around inside his skull.  Just don’t get lost in the word tornadoes.

Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  West.  West.  West.  West.  West.  He wouldn’t let the sun dip below that horizon.  He would chase it west until his legs gave out on him.

But…it’s been dark for hours, LO.  The sun already set… yesterday… in September.

Yeah well, it’s been October for two hours now, and MY sun is in that building ten feet away, and I’m not letting her go.

Not without a fight.

“Do not go gently into the night…” Loki said, pushing through Sigyn’s doors, completely unaware that he was making sounds with his mouth, that he was speaking words from the most heartbreaking poem of all time.  Hand on the railing, he climbed the stairs two at a time, saying each word on beat with his steps.

“Do.” Step. “Not.” Step. “Go.” Step. “Gent-” step “-ly.” Step. “In-” step “-to.” Step. “The.” Step. “Night.” Step. “Rage.” Step. “Rage.” Step. “A-” step “-gainst.” Step. “The.” Step. “Dy-” step “-ing.” Step. “Of.” Step. “The.” Step. “Light.”

Third floor.  Last step.  Round the corner. 

There’s the gold number eight on my girl’s door.

Oh, stars above, he’d loved that gold number since the first time he’d seen it in January 2017. If this turned out to be the last time he ever laid eyes on that door…

Dear god, BREATHE, boy.

Pulling his keys out of his pocket with one hand, Loki reached up to rub his eyes with the other.

Another dollar in the jar, boy.

He found the right one and shoved it in the lock. 

Twist. 

Breathe. 

Click. 

Breathe. 

Turn. 

Breathe. 

Open.

BREATHE!

Chest heaving, Loki bolted into Sigyn’s living room as though she might be waiting on the other side of the door and would slam it in his face if he didn’t move fast enough.  His eyes swept over the room, starting with her little kitchen on his left, table directly ahead, couch to the right of that, and finally her open bedroom doors.  Directly behind those doors, she stood there staring at him with wide eyes, her phone in her hands.  Just then his phone chirped at him from inside his pocket.

Gritting his teeth, Loki swallowed nervously. “That was from you, correct?”

Slowly, Sigyn nodded once.

Afraid to hear his own voice shaking like some pathetic little lovesick weakling, Loki said nothing, but rather held Sigyn’s gaze for at least twenty seconds, the silence sucking up what little available oxygen existed in the space between them. How could such a deep chasm separate him from her in this cramped, claustrophobic shoebox New York apartment?

Sig really had taken her career-obsession several thousand steps too far, becoming an architect of impossible distance, building another wall right here in front of his face. God help him, why did he have to be in love with this ghost of a woman who didn’t even have the courage to use her voice to tell him it was over? Was she actually ending this via a fucking text? The nearly three years of his life that he’d devoted to Sigyn Elena Frey were about to be erased with one swipe of a thumb across a phone screen.

Sig is treating me the way I treat my shittiest, most unsalvageable chapters.

Right click. Select all. Delete.

Lip trembling, Loki finally asked, “What does it say?”

He refused to read it.  He didn’t want to see digital representations of letters strung together into words and spaces that said anything other than “I love you to the stars and back, forever dream boy”…or something along those lines.  Hearing her break up with him would be painful enough.  He hardly needed to add a visual layer to this almost-certain last gasp before the dying of the light by having to read it.

The shadow under her jawline moved, evidence that she was swallowing what he hoped was a gigantic lump in her throat.  Oh hell, he hoped it was hurting her trachea.  He hoped her heart was burning worse than his.  She finally let him hear her voice.  It was shaky as hell.

Good.

“What’s the point of texting if the recipient won’t read it?”

His already clenched jaw tightened further.

Oh, so that’s how we’re going to play this.  FINE.

Nostrils flaring, Loki grabbed the edge of the front door, which he’d been too distracted to close behind him when he first walked in a few minutes ago, and with the force of a tennis player’s backhand at Wimbledon, he slammed it shut.  Sigyn visibly winced, reminding him of that time he’d thrown his Ray Bans through the neighbor’s patio table in Montauk.

Right before I told her she SHOULD BE SCARED of me.

He regretted having said that, though it was probably true.  God, he hated reality.  He saw her scoff before the sound reached his ears.  It was perhaps a strange thing to ponder in that moment, but he couldn’t help but marvel at the speed of light kicking its speed of sound rival in its noisy ass right before his eyes.

The speed of DYING light.

Don’t go gently…

He heard her say “that strong arm is SUCH a turn-on” then suddenly she was in his face, and her hands were on the back of his neck.  His eyes blew wide.  Christ. How had she moved that fast?  Her grip was tight, but not painful.  No, it was just right- such a convincing grip, one that suggested he was her lifesaver in open water after being tossed overboard.

“And you are such a good actress, Sig,” he snapped, shoving his hands in his pockets because they wanted to be all over her, and they deserved better than to touch someone who didn’t think he was worth drowning for.

“It’s not acting,” she snapped back, yanking her hands away, possibly leaving scorch marks behind, “it’s sarcasm.”

Eyes locked on his, she walked backwards, which if his earlier philosophizing had been accurate, might have technically been forward.  Not that it mattered, since she was moving in one direction or another away from him.

Don’t go gently, boy.

He followed her, and she took more backward steps until her back was against the wall.  Coming toe to toe with her, he sucked in his cheeks, annoyed that they were doing the same song and dance routine- the “back me into a wall, then pick me up, and do me against it” routine.  Naturally, this meant that she was turned on by his strong arms, which made her a goddamn liar.  Not that he didn’t also fall into that category, but he was allowed to be a hypocrite because she was a hypocrite too.

“I can’t do this anymore, Loki,” she mumbled, lowering her eyes when he leaned his weight into her.

“Can’t do what?” Seriously.  He needed clarification.  He wasn’t interested in continuing this demeaning and ,for all intents and purposes, masochistic game wherein he subjected himself to the figurative equivalent of getting slapped in the face for loving this woman to the stars and back.

Lips trembling, she put her hands over her eyes, then dropped them to hang uselessly at her sides. “I can’t keep letting you in.”

His heart- what was left of it -stuttered to a stop, and he took a step back.  This was it.  The last gasp.

NO.  Don’t go gently.

Head shaking angrily, he stepped forward again and set both hands on the wall behind her, caging her between them.  Trapping her in the space between.

“Letting me in… where?” he asked, his eyes roving over her wet cheeks. “In… your apartment?”

She didn’t respond, so he inched closer. “In…” his gaze moved to her lips “…your mouth?”

Her eyes snapped up to his, and perhaps it was unintentional, but her tongue poked out to wet her lips.  God, those long lashes looked so thick… so heavy.  He wanted to feel them fluttering against his navel.  She seemed to realize her mistake a second later- probably because his hips were flush with hers, and denim couldn’t hide his reaction beneath it -and her tongue disappeared behind her lips again.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t mean in my body.”

He closed his eyes, trying to will away the another-dollar-boy tears.  Shit.  Was that answer code for “I would allow you to fuck me, if only I could allow it without getting emotionally attached to you”…?  But… weren’t they nearly three years too late for that?

Blinking several times, he removed one hand from the wall and slid it into her hair.  Such an obvious and pathetic, last-ditch effort to keep her in his life. “Does ‘your body’ include your heart?”

He’d assumed she would slap his hand away, but she kissed him instead.  Holy f- the pounding in his chest shot straight down his torso and below his belt.  Heaven help him, he was such a lovesick fool of a man for this girl.  Her arms wound around his neck, and she moaned, doing exactly what she’d said she “couldn’t do” only seconds ago.  She was letting him in… or so he hoped.

“Am I worth drowning for?” he asked without thinking against her lips, only realizing he’d done it when she put a few inches between their mouths.

Sigyn gave him a narrow-eyed response. “Am I?”

Loki’s breath hitched in his chest.

Oh…

that…

was…

IT.

Letting go of her, Loki turned on his heel and walked to the door. “I’m done.”

“WHAT?” Sigyn ran after him, grabbing his shoulder.

Val’s earlier words echoed in the air around him-

“You’re worth drowning for, hon, and anyone who doesn’t feel that deep in her bones doesn’t deserve you…”

Gritting his teeth, Loki grabbed Sigyn’s wrist and yanked her hand off of him, then he reached for the doorknob.

“Please don’t leave!” Sigyn shrieked, crying into the back of her hand. “Oh my god, Loki, all I did was question if you feel that strongly about me!”

“It wasn’t your question to ask at all!” He shot back, twisting the doorknob. “It was my question, and you threw it back in my face, Sigyn.”

He’d “full-named” her, as Sig would say, and it made him sick to his stomach that he’d done so while walking away from her.  The creaking of the door as it opened was ominous, sounding exactly like a dying breath.

I swear I won’t let you die, Starboy.

He was halfway to the stairs when those words- words he’d handwritten in Troy’s book, and also added to the final chapter of Satellite Tides, which no one had read yet -slithered across his mind like a snake in the grass, tempting him to turn back around, to sail back to his forever dream girl siren, his little white rabbit that he would follow through a bad trip Wonderland even if it ended with him losing his head.  Honestly though, it wasn’t that silent sentence, but the silence itself- the lack of her footsteps behind him -that made him turn around.

Sigyn was standing in her open doorway, chewing her lip and staring at him with crying eyes.  Stomach in his throat, he walked straight back to her, but she held up a hand.

“Absolutely not,” she said, visibly shaking. “That right there-” she pointed to the stairs “-that was the last call.  I will not ever watch you do that again.”

She stepped back and started to close the door, but against his better judgment, Loki put his shoulder against the wood and pushed it open before she could shut it all the way.

“You’re not doing that to me,” he ground out, tossing his keys on her kitchen table. He wouldn’t let her slam the door on him. He was staying here goddammit, whether she liked it or not.

Sigyn gaped at him. “This is my apartment.”

Her hands were on his chest, pushing against him.  Pushing him backward.  Toward the door.  She wasn’t strong enough to do that. 

I must be LETTING her do it.

“Last I checked,” Sigyn said through her teeth while grabbing his keys and shoving them in his front pocket, “I’m the one who pays thirty-nine hundred goddamn dollars every thirty days to live here, not you.  Go back to your fifteen-THOUSAND-dollar per month, top-floor, PERFECT room-with-a-view that you made your king-size bed in, and get the hell out of my apartment!”

With one final growl, Sigyn pushed him into the hall and slammed the door in Loki’s face.  Feeling like he’d been kicked in the chest, punched in the gut, stabbed in the back, he stared at the gold number eight, fresh tears pooling in his eyes.  He almost knocked on it.

Almost.

Struggling to breathe, wondering momentarily if he would hyperventilate in this pathetic third floor hall with its flickering horror-film-worthy lights, Loki turned away from the door instead.  His legs were heavier than lead, but he walked to the stairs nonetheless, pausing to look back at that gold eight before setting the heel of his boot down on that first of many steps back to the concrete below.  Lost in his own head, he couldn’t hear Sigyn sobbing on the other side of her door.

NEW YEAR SAME HABIT CONTINUES IN CHAPTER TWELVE: HAPPY NEW YEAR, LOVE.

Visit the New Year Same Habit main page HERE.

Chapter links: ¹ We’re Just Strangers ² Hello, My Name is Loki ³ A Helluva Drug ⁴ Written in the Dying Stars ⁵ This Helen of Troy (Worth Drowning For) ⁶ STARBOY INTERLUDE ⁷ Live Fast, Die Right (Crashing Hard) ⁸ It’s Called “Being Present” (Hit the Gas) ⁹ Burn it to the Ground, Sig. (Just Don’t Burn Me) ¹⁰ Hotel Hell, Closing Bell ¹¹ Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy) ¹² Happy New Year, Love.

CHAPTER TEN FEATURED MUSIC:

“Take What You Want“ by Post Malone ft. Ozzie Osbourne and Travis Scott

CHAPTER TEN THEME SONGS:

“Bleeding Love“ by ASTR (for Sig)

“Good Things Fall Apart vs. Sad Songs“ by Illenium ft. Annika Wells (for Loki)

What Readers Have Said

About CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)”

“I think they do need time apart to work on themselves but MAN that was rough! It’s a really good ending before a new beginning.”

-Mischief76, on CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)” (AO3)

((AO3)

“We know they get back together, but they Have to find a way to move past fight and fuck. It’s not sustainable for either of them.”

-Ferbette, on CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)” (AO3)

“Alright so I know nothing about this pairing (aside from the Marvel movie characters) and I don’t even remember how I got here because that was 6 hours ago and I read the whole thing. What the fuck I am in awe. I feel like I just had a fever dream. Who are you???? This is the first fanfic I’ve read that I believe is a legit work of art (and I’ve read a lot, trust me.) I can only assume you’re some bigshot writer doing this for shits and giggles. Fingers crossed that Sigyn and Loki get their shit together and Loki doesn’t end up like DFW. Mental illness sucks donkey balls.”

-BR, on CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)” (AO3)

“BR, If you like this fic so much, then you should definitely check out Jen’s other stories as well. Her Fearless Immortals trilogy is amazingly beautiful and worth reading. Just saying…”

-Maïté (in response to the above reader’s comment about chapter 11 of New Year Same Habit) (AO3)

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*Notes from the author, which contain chapter 11 spoilers, upon original posting in December 2020: Ouch. Ouch. OUCH. *hangs head* I know, I know. You want to kill me, and I can’t fault you for that. But you HAD to know this one was coming. Especially since I started with a Dylan Thomas poem and the “setting/scene date and time” said it was October 1, 2019 at 2:00 am. I assume that if you read this far, that is a memorable date because it is the date (well… the month, at least) that Sig mentioned in the first chapter as “their awful breakup in October” and again later on as “the earliest hours of October.” I swear, ugh, I don’t know why I do this to myself. October is my favorite month, yet I decided to go with that date as their break-up. *flings up hands* I don’t mean “horror movie” scary. I mean that feeling of dread within the context of a relationship that’s running on fumes. “The last gasp” if you will. I’ll leave it up to you all to imagine what that text might have said, not because I’m trying to make you freak out on Loki’s behalf by forcing his anxiety/fear on you, but because… doesn’t the angst of their October 2019 breakup make the relief of their New Year’s Eve 2019 make-up that much sweeter? You know, when we FINALLY get back to the original December 2019/January 2020 setting… 12 chapters later. You might disagree with my constant “tease” method, but I can’t help it. I prefer the slow build up to the GOOD stuff. Or maybe I had a subconscious intent to finish this story in my real world December. *shrugs* As I write these notes, it IS December, and the bittersweet cherry on top is that the final chapter will “go live” on December 31, 2020. Only 1 week from today. Oh my god… I can’t even. I will be a mess.