The Thousandth Man, Part III
Jun. 6th, 2011 04:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transemacabreTitle: The Thousandth Man
Pairing: Thor/Loki
Warnings/Ratings: See Part I.
Summary: Now stranded on Earth, Thor and Loki endeavor to get Mjolnir back. Also, they take a shower. Together. And ride a bicycle.
This fic has fanart by the talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
essencerare!
Earlier parts: Part I, Part II.
The next morning, Jane Foster was hard at work pouring over her data, trying desperately for an explanation for her unexpected guests that didn't involve them being, in reality, millenia-old extradimensional godlike beings.
"Bad news," Erik said, walking over to her work station. "I just got off the phone with the mechanic. It'll be at least three days before he can get the van fixed."
Wordlessly, Jane held up a photograph showing the interior of the intense storm from the night before. In the center of the photograph, at the epicenter of the storm, were two human-shaped figures.
Back inside, Darcy was showing Thor and Loki how to turn on a shower. "Okay, you just turn these thingies," she said, twisting the spigots to demonstrate. "But don't take too long because we don't have a lot of hot water. There's some towels in the cabinet."
Loki glared fiercely at the ugly paisley wallpaper as though this whole predicament were its fault.
Darcy had left and Thor had already shed his shirt before Loki thought of something. "There's only one shower," he pointed out to Thor. "Where am I to cleanse myself?"
Thor considered this. "You can share with me." He pushed aside the shower curtain. "It's big enough for two."
Loki looked unconvinced, but began stripping off his clothing as well. He could magick himself clean, but cut off as he was from Jotunheim and Asgard, he didn't want to waste his power on something so trivial. And anyway this was no different from bathing with his brothers and other warriors on Jotunheim. Thor was stark naked in moments, and climbed in the shower first. "Come on in, Loki," he said encouragingly.
Stepping gingerly into the shower, Loki turned this way and that so that the spray could wash him clean. Thor chuckled and playfully pushed at his shoulder, saying, "Let me by, I'm dry as a bone."
It was almost true; although Loki was slighter of build, he was as tall as Thor and blocked most of the spray. Stepping around Loki, Thor plucked a plastic bottle from the peculiar little basket hanging from the shower head. Uncapping it, he gave a good sniff and proclaimed, "Strawberries!" He then smiled so broadly that his eyes crinkled at the corners. "Hold still!"
"Heh?" Loki asked, but was a moment too slow to react, as Thor reached out and rubbed a handful of strawberry-scented shampoo into his hair. Thor laughed heartily at the sight of Loki's dark hair, now mixed with suds, sticking up and about in swirls and whirls.
"You oaf!" Loki said, pushing past him again to stick his head under the spray. Suds poured down his chest and shoulders. Still laughing, Thor combed his fingers through his hair, helping to wash out the shampoo. Satisfied that most of it was gone, Loki lifted his head and wiped at his eyes. Thor's laughter died down, and when Loki peeked an eye open, Thor was watching him with an odd expression. It occured to Loki that they were standing very close, so close he could see water droplets caught in Thor's eyelashes. "What are you looking at," Loki asked, ducking his head again.
Thor's fingers combed through his hair again, but then ventured lower to rub at his neck. Loki's skin prickled deliciously. He felt every rivulet of water pouring down his body, the callouses on Thor's fingers, his own wet hair clinging to his skin. "I'm looking at you, Loki," Thor said.
Loki looked up at him through the wet strands of hair coiled around his face. The moment seemed to stretch between them, as though the world around them held its breath, and then--
"Blast!" cried Thor as a stream of cold water hit him square in the face.
A few moments later, after fighting with the curtain and twisting the spigots this way and that, Thor and Loki climbed from the shower. "Darcy did warn us about the hot water," said Thor ruefully.
Loki smirked. "A little cold water too much for you, Asgardian?"
"I wasn't born in a frozen wasteland," said Thor as he pulled towels from the cabinet. "And I'm mortal, and in this form not so resistant to the heat and cold. You still possess all your magicks and Jotun powers?"
"Odin is your king, not mine," Loki told him as he pulled on his trousers. "I had my magicks before Odin, and I'll have them still long after him."
Meanwhile, Jane was excitedly telling Darcy about her findings.
"Soooo... they're not ridiculously cut, crazy homeless guys?" Darcy asked, pushing her glasses further up her nose.
Jane flipped through a stack of photographs and equations, her eyes blinking rapidly, still unable to process what she was seeing. "I don't know what they are," she said. "All I know is, they weren't there before the storm, and then suddenly there they were. And it looks like the storm just... sat them right down in the middle of the desert. My findings are consistent with a conjectured Einstein-Rosen Bridge."
"Whatever." Darcy sprawled in her seat. "I saw Lo-Lo's arm turn into a spikey blue club thing before he rammed into into your van's grill. I knew he wasn't human."
"I always heard stories about Thor when I was a boy," Erik started to say, but then a door slammed open and Thor and Loki appeared, each clad in their trousers and not much else. Their hair was damp and they had clearly both just come from the shower.
"Jane, Darcy, Erik," said Thor, giving them a wink as he strolled past. Loki favored them with a more enigmatic smile.
After several long moments, Darcy turned to face Jane again. "Ridiculously cut, crazy homeless gay boyfriends," she said.
"Uh." Jane lept to her feet and ran after Thor and Loki. "Let's get you two some clothes," she said, ignoring the tragic look on Darcy's face.
***
Jotunheim
In the icy ruins of a temple stood two living beings: the Jotun king Laufey, and his second son, Helblindi.
"What word from Asgard?" growled Laufey.
"The king Odin Oathbreaker banished Thor and Loki to Earth, and shortly after fell into the Odinsleep," said Helblindi. He was a tremendously tall giant, the pride of Laufey's life, his second-born but chosen heir. Helblindi and his third son, Byleistr, they had not been disappointments like runty little Loki.
Laufey nodded, linking his fingers together before him. "Just cause for war," he said. "We entrusted Odin with your brother, only to see Loki cast into the pit of our enemies. The jotnar cannot be expected to bear such an insult."
Helblindi's lips cracked open at this, revealing a mouth filled with gleaming teeth. Laufey did not smile, but his gleaming red eyes burned and burned with something akin to gratification. He had not expected Loki to give them a pretext for war so quickly. This was going better than planned.
***
Back on Earth, Loki and Thor had accompanied Jane, Erik, and Darcy into town. While getting breakfast, the group spotted a pickup truck with the entire back half torn off parking in front of the coffee shop. Jane inquired as casually as possible as to what happened to it.
"Damnest thing I've seen in my life," said the pickup's owner. "A hammer in the middle of the desert, funny writing on the side. No one can pick it up -- no one! Don't matter how strong. Hell, I chained it to my pickup and tried to pull it, and look what happened."
Thor jumped up so quickly that he flipped his chair over. "You have seen Mjolnir!" he cried, grabbing the pickup's owner by the shirt collar. "You must tell me where!"
"It-it don't matter now," stammered the man. "Those black-suited government boys have the whole area fenced off now. You can't get it it."
"Thunderer," said Loki in a bored tone, "it can't be as simple as just walking up to Mjolnir and seizing it by the handle. It's a banishment, you know. Odin would not allow us to come back so easily." Loki was slouched in his chair, legs spread apart, doing something odd to his fork and knife to make them stand on end. Two small children at the next table watched him intently. Noticing, Loki let his eyes flash red just to see them squeal and then giggle with a mixture of shock and delight.
Nevertheless, Thor got the truck owner to draw a crude map on a table napkin, and pocketing it, determined to go in search of Mjolnir. "You can borrow my bike," Darcy offered. "You just gotta bring it back. And fill the tires if they get low."
Once they returned to the RV, Jane lent Loki a pair of binoculars. "They allow you to see far away," she explained as he attempted to peer through the wrong end. "You might need them to check out where you're going. Here, turn them like this. There you go."
Loki looked through, only to find himself staring at a closeup of Thor's smiling mouth. "What are you so happy about?" he asked, lowering the binoculars.
Thor was wheeling out Darcy's bicycle. "It is like a metal horse," he said, admiring the wheels and dainty spokes.
"But unlike a horse, hard for two to ride," Loki pointed out. He refused to be left behind with the humans, but he was certainly not going to walk. It took a bit of trial and error, but soon Loki and Thor found a solution to their problem.
Erik sat on the front steps of the RV, staring at some notes. "Are you sure we should be letting them run off like this?" he asked Jane.
She sighed. "They'd go regardless, I think. I just hope that whatever they are or wherever they're from, they find what they're looking for..." she trailed off as Thor and Loki rode by on the bicycle, Thor peddling as Loki perched on the handlebars. They waved jauntily at her and Erik.
"Bye!" called Darcy from a window. "And don't forget to BRING IT BACK!"
Thor and Loki zoomed off down the road towards the site where Mjolnir had fallen. Thor hadn't been in such high spirits since their arrival on Earth. "Soon enough, we'll be home," he told Loki as they coasted down a gentle slope.
Loki didn't say anything in reply.
They took a break about halfway to the site, sitting on the roadside, sharing some fruit Jane had packed for them. "Argh," groaned Thor, stretching his legs. "You grow heavier and heavier by the moment."
"Has the Odinsson found a burden he cannot bear?" Loki asked, arching a brow at him.
Thor grinned at him. "You're no burden to me."
"You felt differently in Asgard," Loki said before he could stop himself. He looked away, tossing the pitiful apple core as far as he could throw it.
Thor's grin fell. He took a deep breath, and kicked a little at a mound of sand by his foot. "I... knew not how to please you. I thought at first to merely endure you. Then I wished you to admire me."
Loki tensed up, like a snake cornered and preparing to strike. "Is that why you flung Mjolnir at my feet, to force my admiration?!"
"Ye gods, Loki," cried Thor. "I could not bear seeing you flirt with Fandral! I would have done anything to make you smile, but instead you would give your sweet words to him."
"I have never flirted with Fandral!" said Loki, outraged. "He flirted with me, mayhap, but I never so much as glanced at him. Thor--" And whatever he meant to say next was silenced when Thor laid his hand across Loki's mouth.
The effect was immediate. Loki's eyebrows knitted together but Thor leaned forward and kissed the back of his hand, right above where Loki's lips were hidden by his palm. Thor drew back, flushed to his ears, and Loki stared at him, mouth a little agape, his expression surprised and confused and perhaps a bit hopeful.
"What," Loki finally managed to say, "was that?"
"I needed to kiss you," Thor admitted. "But I did not wish to steal your first kiss. But I needed to kiss you, Loki."
Loki looked around him, blinking rapidly, strangely breathless. "You," he said slowly, "are infuriating." And he grasped Thor by the shoulders and kissed him fiercely with everything he had.
In a moment they had tumbled upon the ground, their mouths locking together, the kiss deepening and becoming more heated with every moment. Thor's hands wandered across Loki's body, from shoulders to hips to chest, and Loki made soft little moans between every kiss that left Thor maddened. It was several long moments before they remembered themselves and sat upright, each reluctant to leave the other's mouth.
"My marriage," Loki whispered, pressing his lips to the hollow of Thor's throat, "will not be consummated on a roadside in New Mexico."
"Aye," said Thor, fighting for control of himself. He cupped Loki's face in his hands. "Am I still infuriating?"
Loki favored him with a half-smile. "Every day more and more."
They sat back-to-back for some minutes, watching the sun sink towards the horizon. Finally, Thor rose and brushed off his jeans, determined to resume peddling. He offered a hand up to Loki, who pushed him aside and stood up on his own. Loki frowned at the clouds in the distance. "A storm is coming," he said.
Even with the map, it was hard to miss the site. Strange vehicles patroled an area that was fenced off and covered in odd white tents; within presumably lay Mjolnir. Thor and Loki hid Darcy's bicycle, and crept closer, taking a high spot on a sand dune.
"How many?" Thor asked as Loki peered through his binoculars.
"Too many," Loki said unhelpfully.
Thor grinned in anticipation. "Are you coming with me?" he asked.
"Someone has to stay behind to rescue you when you get captured," Loki told him. For that, Thor kissed him on the neck, just below his ear, and then slid down the sand dune to make his way toward Mjolnir.
Pairing: Thor/Loki
Warnings/Ratings: See Part I.
Summary: Now stranded on Earth, Thor and Loki endeavor to get Mjolnir back. Also, they take a shower. Together. And ride a bicycle.
This fic has fanart by the talented
essencerare!Earlier parts: Part I, Part II.
The next morning, Jane Foster was hard at work pouring over her data, trying desperately for an explanation for her unexpected guests that didn't involve them being, in reality, millenia-old extradimensional godlike beings.
"Bad news," Erik said, walking over to her work station. "I just got off the phone with the mechanic. It'll be at least three days before he can get the van fixed."
Wordlessly, Jane held up a photograph showing the interior of the intense storm from the night before. In the center of the photograph, at the epicenter of the storm, were two human-shaped figures.
Back inside, Darcy was showing Thor and Loki how to turn on a shower. "Okay, you just turn these thingies," she said, twisting the spigots to demonstrate. "But don't take too long because we don't have a lot of hot water. There's some towels in the cabinet."
Loki glared fiercely at the ugly paisley wallpaper as though this whole predicament were its fault.
Darcy had left and Thor had already shed his shirt before Loki thought of something. "There's only one shower," he pointed out to Thor. "Where am I to cleanse myself?"
Thor considered this. "You can share with me." He pushed aside the shower curtain. "It's big enough for two."
Loki looked unconvinced, but began stripping off his clothing as well. He could magick himself clean, but cut off as he was from Jotunheim and Asgard, he didn't want to waste his power on something so trivial. And anyway this was no different from bathing with his brothers and other warriors on Jotunheim. Thor was stark naked in moments, and climbed in the shower first. "Come on in, Loki," he said encouragingly.
Stepping gingerly into the shower, Loki turned this way and that so that the spray could wash him clean. Thor chuckled and playfully pushed at his shoulder, saying, "Let me by, I'm dry as a bone."
It was almost true; although Loki was slighter of build, he was as tall as Thor and blocked most of the spray. Stepping around Loki, Thor plucked a plastic bottle from the peculiar little basket hanging from the shower head. Uncapping it, he gave a good sniff and proclaimed, "Strawberries!" He then smiled so broadly that his eyes crinkled at the corners. "Hold still!"
"Heh?" Loki asked, but was a moment too slow to react, as Thor reached out and rubbed a handful of strawberry-scented shampoo into his hair. Thor laughed heartily at the sight of Loki's dark hair, now mixed with suds, sticking up and about in swirls and whirls.
"You oaf!" Loki said, pushing past him again to stick his head under the spray. Suds poured down his chest and shoulders. Still laughing, Thor combed his fingers through his hair, helping to wash out the shampoo. Satisfied that most of it was gone, Loki lifted his head and wiped at his eyes. Thor's laughter died down, and when Loki peeked an eye open, Thor was watching him with an odd expression. It occured to Loki that they were standing very close, so close he could see water droplets caught in Thor's eyelashes. "What are you looking at," Loki asked, ducking his head again.
Thor's fingers combed through his hair again, but then ventured lower to rub at his neck. Loki's skin prickled deliciously. He felt every rivulet of water pouring down his body, the callouses on Thor's fingers, his own wet hair clinging to his skin. "I'm looking at you, Loki," Thor said.
Loki looked up at him through the wet strands of hair coiled around his face. The moment seemed to stretch between them, as though the world around them held its breath, and then--
"Blast!" cried Thor as a stream of cold water hit him square in the face.
A few moments later, after fighting with the curtain and twisting the spigots this way and that, Thor and Loki climbed from the shower. "Darcy did warn us about the hot water," said Thor ruefully.
Loki smirked. "A little cold water too much for you, Asgardian?"
"I wasn't born in a frozen wasteland," said Thor as he pulled towels from the cabinet. "And I'm mortal, and in this form not so resistant to the heat and cold. You still possess all your magicks and Jotun powers?"
"Odin is your king, not mine," Loki told him as he pulled on his trousers. "I had my magicks before Odin, and I'll have them still long after him."
Meanwhile, Jane was excitedly telling Darcy about her findings.
"Soooo... they're not ridiculously cut, crazy homeless guys?" Darcy asked, pushing her glasses further up her nose.
Jane flipped through a stack of photographs and equations, her eyes blinking rapidly, still unable to process what she was seeing. "I don't know what they are," she said. "All I know is, they weren't there before the storm, and then suddenly there they were. And it looks like the storm just... sat them right down in the middle of the desert. My findings are consistent with a conjectured Einstein-Rosen Bridge."
"Whatever." Darcy sprawled in her seat. "I saw Lo-Lo's arm turn into a spikey blue club thing before he rammed into into your van's grill. I knew he wasn't human."
"I always heard stories about Thor when I was a boy," Erik started to say, but then a door slammed open and Thor and Loki appeared, each clad in their trousers and not much else. Their hair was damp and they had clearly both just come from the shower.
"Jane, Darcy, Erik," said Thor, giving them a wink as he strolled past. Loki favored them with a more enigmatic smile.
After several long moments, Darcy turned to face Jane again. "Ridiculously cut, crazy homeless gay boyfriends," she said.
"Uh." Jane lept to her feet and ran after Thor and Loki. "Let's get you two some clothes," she said, ignoring the tragic look on Darcy's face.
***
In the icy ruins of a temple stood two living beings: the Jotun king Laufey, and his second son, Helblindi.
"What word from Asgard?" growled Laufey.
"The king Odin Oathbreaker banished Thor and Loki to Earth, and shortly after fell into the Odinsleep," said Helblindi. He was a tremendously tall giant, the pride of Laufey's life, his second-born but chosen heir. Helblindi and his third son, Byleistr, they had not been disappointments like runty little Loki.
Laufey nodded, linking his fingers together before him. "Just cause for war," he said. "We entrusted Odin with your brother, only to see Loki cast into the pit of our enemies. The jotnar cannot be expected to bear such an insult."
Helblindi's lips cracked open at this, revealing a mouth filled with gleaming teeth. Laufey did not smile, but his gleaming red eyes burned and burned with something akin to gratification. He had not expected Loki to give them a pretext for war so quickly. This was going better than planned.
***
Back on Earth, Loki and Thor had accompanied Jane, Erik, and Darcy into town. While getting breakfast, the group spotted a pickup truck with the entire back half torn off parking in front of the coffee shop. Jane inquired as casually as possible as to what happened to it.
"Damnest thing I've seen in my life," said the pickup's owner. "A hammer in the middle of the desert, funny writing on the side. No one can pick it up -- no one! Don't matter how strong. Hell, I chained it to my pickup and tried to pull it, and look what happened."
Thor jumped up so quickly that he flipped his chair over. "You have seen Mjolnir!" he cried, grabbing the pickup's owner by the shirt collar. "You must tell me where!"
"It-it don't matter now," stammered the man. "Those black-suited government boys have the whole area fenced off now. You can't get it it."
"Thunderer," said Loki in a bored tone, "it can't be as simple as just walking up to Mjolnir and seizing it by the handle. It's a banishment, you know. Odin would not allow us to come back so easily." Loki was slouched in his chair, legs spread apart, doing something odd to his fork and knife to make them stand on end. Two small children at the next table watched him intently. Noticing, Loki let his eyes flash red just to see them squeal and then giggle with a mixture of shock and delight.
Nevertheless, Thor got the truck owner to draw a crude map on a table napkin, and pocketing it, determined to go in search of Mjolnir. "You can borrow my bike," Darcy offered. "You just gotta bring it back. And fill the tires if they get low."
Once they returned to the RV, Jane lent Loki a pair of binoculars. "They allow you to see far away," she explained as he attempted to peer through the wrong end. "You might need them to check out where you're going. Here, turn them like this. There you go."
Loki looked through, only to find himself staring at a closeup of Thor's smiling mouth. "What are you so happy about?" he asked, lowering the binoculars.
Thor was wheeling out Darcy's bicycle. "It is like a metal horse," he said, admiring the wheels and dainty spokes.
"But unlike a horse, hard for two to ride," Loki pointed out. He refused to be left behind with the humans, but he was certainly not going to walk. It took a bit of trial and error, but soon Loki and Thor found a solution to their problem.
Erik sat on the front steps of the RV, staring at some notes. "Are you sure we should be letting them run off like this?" he asked Jane.
She sighed. "They'd go regardless, I think. I just hope that whatever they are or wherever they're from, they find what they're looking for..." she trailed off as Thor and Loki rode by on the bicycle, Thor peddling as Loki perched on the handlebars. They waved jauntily at her and Erik.
"Bye!" called Darcy from a window. "And don't forget to BRING IT BACK!"
Thor and Loki zoomed off down the road towards the site where Mjolnir had fallen. Thor hadn't been in such high spirits since their arrival on Earth. "Soon enough, we'll be home," he told Loki as they coasted down a gentle slope.
Loki didn't say anything in reply.
They took a break about halfway to the site, sitting on the roadside, sharing some fruit Jane had packed for them. "Argh," groaned Thor, stretching his legs. "You grow heavier and heavier by the moment."
"Has the Odinsson found a burden he cannot bear?" Loki asked, arching a brow at him.
Thor grinned at him. "You're no burden to me."
"You felt differently in Asgard," Loki said before he could stop himself. He looked away, tossing the pitiful apple core as far as he could throw it.
Thor's grin fell. He took a deep breath, and kicked a little at a mound of sand by his foot. "I... knew not how to please you. I thought at first to merely endure you. Then I wished you to admire me."
Loki tensed up, like a snake cornered and preparing to strike. "Is that why you flung Mjolnir at my feet, to force my admiration?!"
"Ye gods, Loki," cried Thor. "I could not bear seeing you flirt with Fandral! I would have done anything to make you smile, but instead you would give your sweet words to him."
"I have never flirted with Fandral!" said Loki, outraged. "He flirted with me, mayhap, but I never so much as glanced at him. Thor--" And whatever he meant to say next was silenced when Thor laid his hand across Loki's mouth.
The effect was immediate. Loki's eyebrows knitted together but Thor leaned forward and kissed the back of his hand, right above where Loki's lips were hidden by his palm. Thor drew back, flushed to his ears, and Loki stared at him, mouth a little agape, his expression surprised and confused and perhaps a bit hopeful.
"What," Loki finally managed to say, "was that?"
"I needed to kiss you," Thor admitted. "But I did not wish to steal your first kiss. But I needed to kiss you, Loki."
Loki looked around him, blinking rapidly, strangely breathless. "You," he said slowly, "are infuriating." And he grasped Thor by the shoulders and kissed him fiercely with everything he had.
In a moment they had tumbled upon the ground, their mouths locking together, the kiss deepening and becoming more heated with every moment. Thor's hands wandered across Loki's body, from shoulders to hips to chest, and Loki made soft little moans between every kiss that left Thor maddened. It was several long moments before they remembered themselves and sat upright, each reluctant to leave the other's mouth.
"My marriage," Loki whispered, pressing his lips to the hollow of Thor's throat, "will not be consummated on a roadside in New Mexico."
"Aye," said Thor, fighting for control of himself. He cupped Loki's face in his hands. "Am I still infuriating?"
Loki favored him with a half-smile. "Every day more and more."
They sat back-to-back for some minutes, watching the sun sink towards the horizon. Finally, Thor rose and brushed off his jeans, determined to resume peddling. He offered a hand up to Loki, who pushed him aside and stood up on his own. Loki frowned at the clouds in the distance. "A storm is coming," he said.
Even with the map, it was hard to miss the site. Strange vehicles patroled an area that was fenced off and covered in odd white tents; within presumably lay Mjolnir. Thor and Loki hid Darcy's bicycle, and crept closer, taking a high spot on a sand dune.
"How many?" Thor asked as Loki peered through his binoculars.
"Too many," Loki said unhelpfully.
Thor grinned in anticipation. "Are you coming with me?" he asked.
"Someone has to stay behind to rescue you when you get captured," Loki told him. For that, Thor kissed him on the neck, just below his ear, and then slid down the sand dune to make his way toward Mjolnir.
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Date: 2011-06-06 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 01:58 pm (UTC)great!
Date: 2011-08-26 09:27 pm (UTC)