Eviternity | Loki

gifted youngsters

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      ❝ Be as you wish to seem. ❞

~Socrates

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She shook in her sleep, her hair plastered to her head with sweat. She was unable to wake herself as the walls groaned, buckling under an invisible weight. The wallpaper curled in on itself and the pictures in frames began to smoke and burn around their edges. The beams cracked and splintered as the plaster started to fracture and fall.

It seemed like it was ages before she was able to pull herself from her fitful dream, gasping for air she didn't know she'd been deprived of. Rolling off the bed she stumbled to the kitchen to get herself a drink, taking a shaky breath as she splashed cold water on her face.

This has got to stop I don't know what this is but I can't go on like this. She seethed, tramping back to her bed.

The walls heaved and restored themselves as she picked up a singed photo. It filled itself back out around the edges as she traced her fingers over the man standing next to her. It had been a sunny day, and they'd gone for a lovely walk, she'd remembered. Hank had taken their photo in the garden. It was hard to believe that it was only the next day that he'd thrown his whiskey glass across the room at her in a fit. He had been miserable long before that, but the moment he started at her she knew he was a lost cause. She had packed up and walked away from him a heartbeat later, never to see him again.

Oh, Charles.

She didn't miss him, as you'd expect. She missed his face, his fingers, his lips. She missed the good memories of him, but his very soul had been drowned in alcohol until it was completely unrecognizable. So she lived alone, with nobody to pull her from her nightmares, and nobody to go on sunny walks with.

She set the small picture back down on the bedside and drifted back into an unsettled sleep, filled with fragments of bittersweet memories and the dreams of her nearby neighbours.

♡

She woke the next morning with a wicked headache. So she called into work sick and rolled some peppermint oil onto her temples and the back of her neck. There wasn't any way she'd be able to focus on customers in this state.

She reserved most of the day for doing chores and tending to small matters. She paid some bills, picked up some groceries, did the laundry and even spent some time doing yoga. It wasn't until late afternoon that she ventured out to her favourite little coffee shop. It was always calming to sit with a hot latte and listen to the quiet chatter of people and the thoughts which preceded their words. The exercise for her busy brain was soothing, in more ways than one.

She'd been there for about an hour and was on her third latte, flipping through a novel when a pair of men walked in. They looked out of place and more than a little bit confused. One was dressed handsomely in a slim, tailored black suit, his dark hair perfectly manicured. He looked as if he would burst into tears at any minute, but had a cool, mean expression. The other wore his blonde hair in a sloppy ponytail, a hoodie and jeans hugging his bulky muscular frame. He looked rather like a lost puppy.

She could tell immediately that the blonde was Thor. She didn't watch much of the news, so it wasn't his looks which gave him away, rather his thoughts. He couldn't pull them away from his mother, her funeral, Asgard. His mind was complex, ancient and truly beautiful. The other one...she couldn't tell.

She had only glanced up at them briefly, but it wasn't long before she could feel Loki's eyes on her, and she smirked down at her novel.