Lies and Illusions | By : LadySkyfire Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Thor 2: The Dark World Views: 4456 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; this story is not for sale or profit. |
A/N: This scene takes place after between chapters 4 and 5 of “Mark of the Beast”.
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Lies and Illusions
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The king closed the door of the bathing chamber, then warded it with a thought and a flick of a wrist. A wave of green light suffused the door, then spread around the walls of the room.
“Alone at last,” he sighed to himself, dropping his illusion with a green flash.
The image of Odin Allfather vanished, leaving a weary Loki standing in his place.
Holding out both arms, he flicked both wrists. There was a hum of his energy, and his armor folded back and up into his anti space, leaving him in a casual green tunic and soft leather trousers and overcoat. He staggered over to sink onto one of the bathing benches with far less than his usual grace and bent to unlace the leather bindings on his boots. The long hike to and from the Garden, combined with the blue spider’s increasing attacks, had left him aching and tired. And he had little forgotten his trip through that vile, stinking drainage ditch.
He cast a covetous glance at the expansive bathing pool set into the middle of the floor. Fragrant steam rose from its magically heated water, promising a perfect temperature to burn away his stress, and expunge the residual memory of the scummy ditch water clinging to his skin and hair. Loki didn’t consider himself terribly fastidious, but there were some experience that would make even the hardest warrior squeamish.
Setting his boots aside, he stood and shrugged out of his overcoat, folding the supple material over twice, the movements so habitual it was almost a ritual, calming in their thoughtless familiarity. There was always danger in letting his guard down in the heart of the realm, but there were moments even he could not remain wholly on edge. His shoulders bunched and stretched with a pleasant ache of an active day as he lifted the green tunic over the porcelain pale planes of his stomach and chest to pull it over his head. He folded that too, placing it neatly atop the folded overcoat. He stood back for a moment, pulling one arm across his chest to stretch the muscles, then the other, frowning at the neat pile of clothing. A habit held over from his youth. Absently, he reached up to knead his shoulder, letting his hand trail down over his collar bone and chest to rest alongside his navel, his thoughts drifting. He’d changed so much in recent years that it often struck him as strange when he came across little ways in which he’d stayed the same.
Shaking his head, he banished his reverie with a rueful smirk. The bath was calling him on. He deftly unlaced his trousers, pushing them down over slender hips and long lean legs. His small clothes followed, and this time, he made sure to toss the items of clothing over the bench beside their neatly folded counterparts, and stood naked beside the bathing pool, smirking vindictively at the minute disarray. A petty rebellion, perhaps, but even so, he somehow felt better for it. Loki the Aesir prince had folded his clothes. But that man had been all lies and illusion. He didn’t quite know who he was now, but wasn’t that man anymore.
That accomplished, he threw over all thoughts of laundry and turned back to the task at hand. Rough textured granite steps led down into the sunken bathing pool large enough to fit a dozen bathers with room to spare. He hissed with pleasure at the delicious sting penetrating his skin as he slowly descended into the near scalding water, which just reached waist when he found the bottom of the basin. Cupping his hands together under the water, he raised a handful of water to his face, closing his eyes and drawing deeply on the relaxing scent of the oils infused in it. He let it trickle down his arms for a moment before splashing the remainder against his chest, relishing the heat.
Craving more, he dropped abruptly to his knees, and lunged forward into the water, submerging himself, so that his entire body felt alive with a million little pinpricks of fire. He floated there, suspended for a long moment, acclimating until the heat was merely intense rather than burning, then turned himself and swam to the far end of the bathing pool. He surfaced, rising out of the water to draw in an aromatic draught of air as water cascaded in jeweled facets down the pale length of his torso. He reached up and smoothed his hair back from his face, noting with some ambivalence how long it had become, especially when wet. He’d always kept it cropped short… But that man was gone, he reminded himself, perturbed. He cast aside all concern over it.
Opening the cabinet situated on the lip of the bathing pool he found soaps and oils, cloths and tools for grooming. He selected a few items and then sank back into the warmth of the water. By now the heat had soaked into his muscles, leaving him utterly relaxed, almost lethargic. His eyelids drooped slightly as he worked a cleansing potion into his hair and lathered a cloth with another. He hummed appreciatively as the slightly rough material slid it over his skin, trailing tingling, sweet-scented bubbles over his torso, massaging the warmth deeper into his muscles as he went. He paid particular attention to his thighs and calves, which remained bowstring taught from the day’s exercise, and left no inch of skin untouched, washing away all phantom trace of his earlier bath in the cesspit. When he was satisfied that he was thoroughly scrubbed, he submerged himself again, turning a few times to let the water carry away the soaps.
A shelf ran around the perimeter of the bath to allow bathers to sit without being submerged; Loki settled himself on it now, clean and comfortable. Leaning back with a contented sigh so that the water lapped lazily around his shoulders, pooling in the hollow of his throat, he settled in to soak away the remainder of the day’s exercise. And to think.
The strength of the blue spider’s attacks was increasing, and there was little he could do about it. In fact, he mused, a twist of misery invading his serenity, anything he might try to do was likely to make it worse. If he stilled, he could hear its insidious whisper at the edge of his thoughts, distracted now with his beloved, but ever ready to attack… much as it galled him, careless provocation was the last thing he could afford at this stage. His darling goddess was a light in the dark, but she was also mortal; mortals were notoriously fragile. Not to mention, the waves of blue magic had to travel through him to reach her. It was disturbing and painful. And a relief, in a way; her suffering was his fault. It was only right that he suffer with her.
His hands ran inattentively over his thighs and up onto his stomach as his thoughts turned inescapably from the unpleasant uncertainty surrounding the Tesseract, to the much more fascinating thoughts of the one it coveted.
The one he coveted.
His eyes fell closed, and in the darkness inside his mind he traced her likeness.
Her eyes were always first, so bright and intelligent, the way they lit with her face when she was eager or curious. Her lips next, the way they parted when she was deep in thought, the curve of her mirth, so quick to smile, the way her lower lip glistened, trapped between her teeth when she was concentrating. The way her hair moved when she turned, brushing the apples of her cheeks, that one unruly lock that constantly fell over her brow, so that she’d made a habit of running a finger over it and tucking it behind her ear when she was nervous.
Her hands then, so small, but so dexterous and sure; he imagined them on his body, methodically searching out all the secrets of his skin like a good little scientist…
“Jane…” he breathed, feeling himself begin to grow stiff under the water.
Her curves now, he envisioned, each one a new delight: the way her neck joined her shoulder in a graceful arc, the curves of her collar bones that begged to be traced, the determined square of her shoulders, and the gentle contour of her back swelling enticingly into the shapely roundness of her rump. Pleasing legs, short, but well-shaped from her vigorous stride, as though she was always racing the ticking of the clock, slender, delicate ankles. The delicious swell of her breasts, each tipped with a rosy peak he pictured puckered and tight with arousal, the gentle curve of her waist, the enticing roundness of her hips begging to be gripped against frantic thrusts, and the mouthwatering mound of her sex, brown curls dark and wet with desire…
He was breathing hard, the rise and fall of his chest creating little waves in the bathing pool. Swallowing hard, he gave in to his body. As he wrapped long fingers around his straining shaft, he felt his magic rise, take shape and flow out. He sucked in a deep breath, both eager and ashamed. He knew what he would find when he opened his eyes. That didn’t make it any less delicious or devastating when he turned his head and looked.
Jane lay on her back on the marble tile beside the bathing pool, just as he’d pictured her in his mind. Unabashedly naked, watching him with heated eyes. One hand toyed languidly with her breast, teasing the puckered peak. Her far leg was bent up and her near leg hung over the edge of the pool, trailing in the water. It made no ripples, but then, it wouldn’t; it was an illusion, after all, just light and shadow. But oh, it was a convincing lie.
Loki stroked himself slowly, gradually building the primal tension higher as he watched her run her hands over skin slick and gleaming with bath oils. Their eyes met and locked and he throbbed with need. A little sigh that was half a moan escaped him
He shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t create this false facsimile of her, make her do wanton things to please his perverse hungers. She was too important, a woman he all but worshipped, his beloved mortal goddess. It was far more than just her body he craved…
He groaned as she brought two fingers up to trace her mouth, watched the little pink tip of her tongue peek between her lips, watched the pearls of her teeth bite down, nipping at the pads as her other hand tweaked and twisted at a taut bud of her teat…
It was far more than just her body he craved… but oh gods, he craved her body so much…
A slow, knowing, seductive smile curved her lips as he began to pump himself harder and faster, panting now with need and exertion. The urge to touch her was almost torture, but he dare not give in. Because she wasn’t real; his touch would break the spell. And he wanted her to be real so badly he could taste it. So much of his life had been lies and illusions, so much of who he was, a façade. He wanted something real. He wanted her hand, her mouth, her sweet, wet slit around him. He wanted her nipples in his mouth, her thighs cradling his hips, her high, breathy moans in his ears… he wanted to pull her down onto him here and now and let her ride him they were both screaming.
“Mmm… ah... Jane!” he begged, utterly at her mercy, tightening his grip, his shaft pulsing against his palm as he thrust into it, sending choppy waves splashing wildly against the walls of the bath. She turned her head further, kneading and fondling her own softness, but somehow her sensual exploration of her own flesh faded into the background as her eyes filled with the same longing he felt, to touch and be touched. Deep into her eyes he fell, and there she was, her wit, her spirit, her intelligence, her earnestness, her curiosity, her ingenuity, her determination… There was the woman he loved…
Lies and illusion.
But his body was on fire, and his eyes were drinking her in, and he surrendered to the falsehood. He’d grown very good at pretending.
Jane tilted her head with a taunting flick of an eyebrow that would have made him laugh if he weren’t so close, and he watched, transfixed, as her free hand trailed with wicked purpose down her belly. Her back arched sharply as her fingers slid between her folds, her mouth flying open in a silent cry of ecstasy. His cry was not so silent, tearing from deep in his chest as his mind spiraled away and his body shook with the force of his release, his seed shooting in milky bursts into the heat of the bath.
Loki collapsed back against the wall, spent, and tried to steady his breathing as he slowly returned to himself. He didn’t remember closing his eyes, but when he regained some semblance of self-control, he made himself open them again, and face what he would find. Or rather, what he wouldn’t.
The magic had gone when he’d come. He was alone again in the bathing chamber.
Pulling in a deep breath of warm, moist air, he blinked hard, marshalling control. There were few notions more pathetic than a man driven to tears after orgasm. Even so, he had to bite the inside of his lip to clear his head.
His beloved was not here. She never had been.
Lies and illusions. All of it.
This game he sometimes played with a tawdry phantasm wasn’t merely shameful, it was pitiable. Had he lived so long with illusions that he could no longer bear, or even recognize the truth?
Jane was not here. Jane was on Midgard, with his erstwhile brother, suffering under a curse of his making, while he lounged in a bath, pleasuring himself to her image. He wasn’t worthy of her…
But perhaps someday…
“No,” he said quietly, his voice echoing off the tile. He pushed away from the wall, rising abruptly, water streaming down his chest and stomach. He pressed a clenched fist to the aching hollow in the center of his chest. “Not perhaps. Someday she will be here, she will be real. And I will show her my truth until she cannot doubt it.”
He would not doubt it either; he could not doubt it, or he would run mad. A day would come when Jane would come to him, and when it came to pass, he would never have need of this lie again.
Thoughts of what he’d do to her when she was at last in his arms made his sex stir once more, but he shook himself, pushing the scintillating thoughts reluctantly aside. Bath time was over. It was time to pull his guard back over him, along with his clothes, both the neatly folded and the carelessly discarded – that confusing combination of the man he had been and the man he was now – and hide himself behind the illusion of power. Veiling himself lies, so that one day he could become the man that Jane Foster would look at with heat and longing in her eyes.
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A/N: Gave in to temptation and wrote this little scene at 4 am over the course of an hour; hopefully it came out alright.
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