A General Misunderstanding

Part 5

Loki slowly opened his eyes. His eyelids were as heavy as lead. Asoft light was beckoning him to rise although he felt drowsy andstill sound asleep... Once his eyes were fully opened, he realized hehad absolutely no idea where the Hel he might be...

It wasn't his dark, spartan room. Even in the full of summer middayin Jötunheim, his chambers were so badly situated, it was alwaysdim. It wasn't the Ice Palace's library, where he kept a cot to hidefrom everyone and everything, under the pretext of studying (notexactly a pretext but, Hel...). Loki couldn't smell thecharacteristic odor of books and parchments. It wasn't the Icepalace's stables, his other hide-out, either. He couldn't hear thecrystal horses neighing and the light was different.

There was a golden ceiling carved with ivory, there was red velvetcurtains, silver furniture...

He was under furs softer than anything he had ever felt and silk thatfelt like a caress...

His head was lying on firm, muscled flesh and the muffled beating hewas hearing was the one of a heart.

Thor's heart.

He was lying on Thor's chest. NAKED chest. A beefy arm was resting onLoki's waist like a bar of iron. Loki was also totally naked. ThoughJötunn didn't fancy clothes that much, he had never felt so naked inhis whole life.

This was the morning. The morning he thought he would never see. Thiswas the sunlight that he thought would never rise again for him.

Why was he alive ?

Why Thor had not killed him as he was supposed to ?

Loki barely remembered his terror while entering the chambers,knowing that he would never get out of it alive. Then Thor'sattitude, his weird dallying...

And then his kisses, his caresses, the way he had undress Loki,rather roughly... Loki had more or less guessed that that was thepart his brother had graciously referred as "rape before killing."But it didn't feel like rape. Thor was gentle, a little too mucheager but still very considerate. He had a tendency to bite out ofenthusiasm. So Loki had made the assumption that he wanted to eatLoki after possessing him without the common courtesy of killing himfirst. Loki had heard dreadful stories about Asgardian drinking thewine of victory out of the cranes of the defeated, of banquets fullof the enemy's flesh... And Thor seemed hungry...

But, though he had begged Thor to end his sufferings, all Loki hadfelt beside confusion was a new kind of warmth. His body hadseemingly taken control and his mind was seeing it in a confused,lost way. It wasn't that bad. It had been actually... Quite good.

Thor had taken possession of Loki in a very surprising and persuasiveway...

Which only made things more painful and incomprehensible for Loki.

Never in his life, Loki had been touched with gentleness or at leastcare. Love for him was an abstract, vaguely heard-of concept. He hadlearned to rely on himself alone for so long, learned how to be assilent as a mouse, not to make any noise, nothing that could make himbe remarked and ultimately punished for being an insolent filthy runtthat didn't know his place that he had no idea whether his life wasstill worth living. His body had remembered more hits and blows,whippings and slaps than casual touch.

That showed how much Thor's actions and tenderness were sodisturbing, so confusing. The hands that had dripped with the bloodof his kind was making his own skin shiver, the mouth that hadscreamed so many curses at his own siblings had burned his neck, thefingers that had held the murderous hammer had gently penetrated hisintimacy...