Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1569164.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      Thor_(Movies), Thor_-_All_Media_Types, Thor_(Comics), The_Avengers_
      (Marvel_Movies)
  Relationship:
      Loki/Thor, Loki/Sigyn, Sif/Thor_(Marvel), Loki_&_Thor_(Marvel)
  Character:
      Thor_(Marvel), Loki_(Marvel), Sigyn, Sif_(Marvel)
  Additional Tags:
      Voyeurism, Alternate_Universe_-_Human, Alternate_Universe_-_High_School,
      First_Time, Sibling_Incest
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-05-05 Words: 9943
****** Long After the Thrill ******
by asktheravens
Summary
     Loki never can say no when his adored older brother asks him for a
     favor, but going on a double date turns out to be nothing like he
     expected.
Notes
     This is for a wonderful human being, the author who made me love High
     School AUs, on her birthday. I hope she likes it even though it's a
     little weird.
     A MILLION thank yous to Mari for her lovely, thoughtful beta.
     This began its life long ago for one of those 30 day prompts:
     voyeurism.
     And finally, the books are drawn from my own Goodreads, but I've
     never read John Green either, and the title is from the John
     Mellencamp song "Jack and Diane".
The tires weren’t touching the pavement anymore; the heavy steel car seemed to
float in full hydroplane down the steep back road as lightning flashed above
them.  Thor was laughing, actuallylaughing, as the aging Volvo sailed into a
curve, playing chicken with the large oak tree beyond the flimsy guardrail
before the rubber hit drier pavement and gripped.  Loki couldn’t tell if he’d
screamed aloud or only in his mind; he certainly felt about ten years older
than he had before he’d gotten in his brother’s car to chase the last big storm
of summer.
Thor hauled on the wheel and pulled the handbrake, spraying a huge plume of
water off the wet road as the Volvo whipped around and the headlights glinted
silver off the pelting rain.  A summer’s worth of accumulated junk rattled
across the station wagon’s cavernous trunk and Loki’s head clipped the window
as they finally jerked to a stop.
“Want to go again?” Thor asked.  His breath came quick and his eyes caught the
bright flashes of lightning.
“Are you insane?”  Loki hated the shrill note in his voice but couldn’t keep it
out.  If he didn’t want his evening with Thor to be over, he had to get control
of his fear.
“Come on, it’s fun!  Like our own private ride.”
“Is this what you do when you go out without me?”
“Sometimes.  But I wanted to show you.  You didn’t like it?”
“You just want to kill me so you can have our room to yourself.  Why did you
really bring me out here, Thor?  You never invite me anywhere.  Not anymore.” 
Thor ducked his eyes and Loki knew he had him.  He could hear what came next
before Thor even said it.
“I need you to do something for me,” Thor admitted.  Loki heaved a theatrical
sigh.
“Was the brush with mangled screaming death meant to be an enticement or a
threat?”  The rain drummed on the car so loudly that Thor probably didn’t
notice the hint of genuine bitterness mixed in with Loki’s barbed sarcasm. 
Thor silenced the steady tak-tak of the wipers with a click and a rumble of
thunder ate whatever he started to say.  “What do you want me to do?” Loki
asked, cutting him off.
“Go on a date with me,” Thor implored, and Loki flushed hot and cold at the
same time.  His stomach clenched like he was at the crest of the hill again,
about to free fall into something dark and bottomless.
“Wh…What?” he gasped.  Maybe they’d hit the tree after all, and this was his
afterlife, where Thor finally wanted to do the things that had haunted Loki’s
thoughts for years.
“Sif’s dad said I could take her out if we went on a double date.  Come on,
Loki, I’ve been trying to get a chance with her all summer and she goes back to
boarding school in a few days, you’ve got to help me.”
“I don’t…I don’t have a girlfriend!  I don’t want a girlfriend.”  Loki caught
up quickly with the conversation and his anger and embarrassment made his voice
rough and harsh.  His tone seemed to surprise Thor, but he kept on with his
case.
“It’s OK!  I got you a girl already.  She’s Sif’s friend from school,
visiting.”
“So I won’t even know her.  That’s going to go well.”
“Maybe if you weren’t such a dick to all the girls we DO know I wouldn’t have
to get you a blind date from out of town.”  Loki wanted to protest but it was
entirely true, so he let it pass.
“So I just have to sit on the couch and play awkward Skyrim with some doughy
reject while you put the moves on Sif and see if you can stay hard longer than
it takes to unhook her bra, is that about right?  Why the fuck would I want to
do that?”  I would rather set myself on fire, he thought.  I would rather set
HER on fire.
“Shows what you know.”  Thor punched him in the arm just hard enough to hurt. 
“I’m going to give her the best she’s ever had,” he boasted. 
“She’s a virgin, you idiot, just like you.  Unless your Pornhub history is
accurate about what goes on at the average all-girl boarding school, in which
case you’ll still be very lacking.”
“Hey!  I told you to stay off my computer!”
“Then try changing your password more than once a decade.  And you still
haven’t answered my question.”
“Her name is Sigyn, and trust me, you don’t want to miss this chance.  You have
no idea what I’m offering you.”
“That’s what worries me,” Loki said.
“She isn’t like the girls at school, OK?  She’s been to Paris.  She parties
with college guys.  She’s experienced,” Thor told him with reverance.
“If she’s so amazing, why aren’t you hitting it yourself?”
“You know Sif is the one for me,” Thor slapped him on the shoulder, but he
barely felt it over the stab of bitter jealousy in his heart.  “I’ve been
waiting for her since we were kids.  But I want your first time to be good,
too, so come with us.  She’s a sure thing if you don’t embarrass me.  Unless…”
Thor studied him closely in the pale light of the fading storm.  “Do you even
like girls?”  Thor didn’t sound judgmental, just curious, like he had never
considered this before.
“What?”
“Are you, like, gay?”
“No!”  Only for you, he thought miserably.  For years.
“It would be cool, you know, if you were.”
“I’m not gay!”
“OK.  So you’re coming, right?”
“I really don’t know about this.  Her dad will literally murder you and bury
your body in the woods if he finds out.”
“Please, Loki?  I’ll…I’ll owe you one.  A big one.”  Thor didn’t take on a debt
lightly, Loki knew from experience.  The full weight of his brother’s charisma
turned on him and snuffed out his will to fight.  Thor always got what he
wanted if it was important; there had never been any real question that Loki
would agree.  Still, he made a show of hesitating, soaking in the adoration in
his brother’s blue eyes, before he shrugged and nodded.
“Fine.  But she’d better not be ugly.  Or stupid.”
“Yes!  The sons of Odin will conquer together!”  Thor beamed and grabbed Loki
in an awkward but enthusiastic hug, yanking him half out of his seatbelt and
over the divide in the wide bench seat.  “Let’s go one more time before the
rain stops!”  Thor cranked up the radio and the Volvo lumbered into life.  He
turned it back up the deserted, rain-slick road and Loki found his hands
tightened into bloodless fists, one in his shirt and one in the door handle. 
He thought to mutter a prayer, but he stopped after a few words.  Whatever gods
there were in the world, they’d shown their sense of humor was perverse where
he was concerned.  Why else would they put the one thing he desired on earth
close enough to touch and yet infinitely far away?  Thor shouted with joy as
the car sped back down the hill, and Loki contemplated the unfairness of a
universe that would make his brother so irresistible.
 
 
Sometimes it felt like Loki had been trying to catch Thor his whole life.  He
had crawled early, grim and quiet as he doggedly followed his toddler brother. 
Thor never waited and Loki always wanted to be with him; he talked, walked and
even learned to read well before the normal milestone ages to get closer to the
golden light ever on his horizon.  He grew toward Thor like a flower toward the
sun.  He pushed and pushed, doing his own schoolwork and Thor’s until at last
he got permission to skip fourth grade entirely and joined Thor in fifth. 
Despite his mother’s hints that she would like to see an Ivy League bumper
sticker on her car, Loki privately planned to attend whatever massive state
school successfully wooed his athletic brother as well.  Only one entity
remained entirely unswayed; no matter how many times he proved his maturity,
the Department of Motor Vehicles would not relent, and he would not get his
license until he turned sixteen in November, while Thor had gotten his the
previous August.  He made occasional perfunctory complaints about this, but
they had no heat.  He liked that Thor had to drive him places, and the sense of
power made his brother generous.
Loki rarely got Thor to himself anymore unless he was catching a ride; his
brother played football, wrestled, and ran track while still doing enough
homework to keep a respectable B average and mowing enough lawns and picking up
enough shifts at the Burger Lord to keep gas in the Volvo and contribute to the
exorbitant insurance it required.  When he did come home, he ate everything
that wasn’t nailed down and pitched into bed, where he snored too loudly for
Loki to sleep.  He tried to tell himself he didn’t miss Thor banging around the
quiet house in the afternoons, bugging him to play XBox or bouncing Skittles
off him as he tried to read.  Loki spent many hours helping their mother with
her mail order business, preferring the quiet, feminine order of her office to
the rest of the house.  He kept her appointment book, answered emails, and
packed the delicate jars and bottles for shipment, accepting whatever she paid
him for the help.  He didn’t much care if she paid him at all, but he had
amassed a balance in his savings account that would have surprised his parents,
even with his expensive taste in clothes and books.
Thor had charmed him into lending him two twenties early on the appointed day,
and then spent the whole afternoon making secretive preparations for their
date.  Loki ignored it as much as possible, though he did make sure to get a
shower before Thor took all the hot water.  The afternoon had the feel of
autumn already, crisp and golden, and as the sun cast long late shadows he
found his nerves starting to fray.  He didn’t care about the girl at all, he
told himself.  He’d never have to see her again after tonight.  If he were
really honest, he was obsessing over his hair and choice of clothes for Thor,
and Thor alone.
When his brother walked into their room, Loki forgot how to button a cuff for a
moment.  He could see Thor in the mirror, a towel around his waist and water
dripping from his hair, his skin flushed pink from the shower.  Loki usually
conspired to be “asleep” or out of the room when Thor changed, and he ripped
his eyes from the glass and focused on his wayward button.  The graceful line
of his brother’s muscular back still lingered in his mind as he tried to work. 
He could feel heat in his face and, even worse, in his pants.
“Did you use my conditioner?” Loki asked instead.  He thought he smelled
something familiar wafting off his brother.
“Yeah.  The strawberry thing is nice.”  Loki shut his eyes entirely as Thor
moved the towel from his hips to his hair.
“I knowit’s nice.  It’s expensive!” He also knew Thor would have slathered it
on with reckless abandon, damn him for inheriting their mother’s gorgeous thick
hair.
“I think the girls will like it,” Thor told him.  Loki heard the familiar
squeak of his underwear drawer that meant he was almost safe.
“Well, you could ask first,” Loki sighed.  He should say something nastier or
Thor would just help himself whenever, but he didn’t care enough.
“Sorry,” Thor said.  “Are you wearing that?”
“Is that skepticism I hear?  You know, I feel a headache coming on and I’m not
sure I should really go…” Loki put his wrist to his forehead theatrically but
Thor could see in his eyes he meant it.
“No, I mean, you look great, but…I thought you didn’t care?  And it’s just the
Pit, anyway.”
“Say that first part again for me,” Loki kept his tone dry, but he did want to
hear it.
“You look great?”
“There you go.”
“But could you lose the tie, at least?” He turned and saw Thor had dressed in
his favorite jeans and his prized Metallica Ride the Lightning T-shirt, faded
from repeated washing to a dark, soft grey.  His damp hair was starting to curl
and he still gave off the tantalizing springtime scent of strawberry and soap. 
A dull ache took hold of Loki’s chest and he wanted, once again, to call the
whole thing off.
“All right,” Loki agreed.  The Pit was not a tie sort of place.  He took it off
and unbuttoned his crisp, dark shirt to expose his own favorite tee, a
tastefully battered Nine Inch Nails tour exclusive that someone had gotten
signed back when Pretty Hate Machine was new.  It felt like removing armor to
venture into a den of lions, so he added a hooded sweatshirt he’d stolen from
Thor over everything else and felt a little more secure.  “Tonight doesn’t
merit a tie, but it does merit the rockstar sex god jeans?”  Thor loved them
dearly and rarely wore them, believing they possessed some sort of shamanistic
power that had to be conserved.
“Hell yeah,” Thor grinned.  Loki already knew the shirt was the same one he’d
been wearing the first time he kissed Sif, behind the bleachers after track
practice one afternoon in freshman year.  They’d bought the vintage shirts at
the same time, on a special trip to the city, and he remembered the irrational
sting of betrayal he’d felt when he realized Thor now associated his with his
girlfriend instead of Loki.  “They make my ass look amazing,” he said, and he
rocked his hips back and forth a few times to demonstrate.  Loki rolled his
eyes and went back to fixing his hair, but he didn’t bother to contradict him,
because it was absolutely true.
“Loki?”
“What now?”
“Could you…is there any way you would…”
“What, Thor?  Is there any way I would what?”  That Thor couldn’t even ask
meant he wanted something big.
“Well, I wanted to practice with a bra, and…”
“No Thor.  There is no way I am putting on a bra.  None.  Zero.”  Not so you
can look better for her, anyway, he thought.
“OK, OK, forget it.  Please.  I just want this to go well,” Thor muttered.
 
They left the house as the sun began to sink below the horizon, but enough
light still lingered to see that Thor had scrubbed the humble Volvo until it
gleamed.  Loki’s palms began to sweat right away from more than just the still-
warm evening and he wiped them on his jeans.  Thor jingled the keys, shook them
and tapped them against his thigh, and Loki knew he was nervous too.
“You were busy this afternoon,” he said.  He took shotgun, though he knew he’d
have to give it up to Sif when they picked up the girls.  The interior of the
car was clean as well, no more dust or leaf bits of drift of litter on the
floor.
“Yeah,” Thor admitted.  “Check out the back.”  Loki looked around, past the
wide back seat, to the cavernous trunk.
“What on earth did you do?” he asked.
“Just redecorated a bit.”  The back had been emptied out and lined with a
shaggy carpet remnant.  Thor had added some camping mattresses and a homely
collection of mismatched thrift store throw pillows as well.
“Are you going to plug in a lava lamp?”
“That would be sweet!”
“I’m making fun of you, you dolt.  What are mom and dad going to think?”  Thor
only shrugged.
“Look what I got her,” he said.  His face flushed pink with excitement and he
took a little battered box out of his pocket and opened it for Loki.  Inside a
pale blue teardrop gemstone pendant nestled in the dogeared satin lining,
complete with a dainty gold chain.
“What is that?” Loki asked.  His voice got a little shrill at the end of the
sentence and he couldn’t help it.
“It’s aquamarine.  Her birthstone,” Thor said.  “And it’s the color of her
eyes.”  It’s the color of your eyes, Loki thought.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because it’s awfully dark for aquamarine.  It looks more like blue topaz,”
Loki told him.  Topaz would make it November’s stone, which happened to be
his.  Against all reason, Loki wanted the gift and knew he’d never get it.
“The guy said it was aquamarine,” Thor said.  His jaw tightened like he would
argue about it, but Loki could see the doubt he’d planted in his brother’s
eyes.
“Well I’m sure she’ll like it either way,” Loki said.  The bitch.  “Where did
you get it?  You only borrowed forty bucks.”
“I got it at the pawn shop,” Thor admitted.  “I gave them my DS to get the
money.”
“You did?” Loki’s surprise was genuine.  “But you had Yoshi’s Island up to
93%!”
“It’s fine,” Thor said, though his eyes were grief stricken.  “I’ll get it back
later.  But she’s leaving the day after tomorrow and I won’t see her until
winter break.”  Thor shut the box and put it back in his pocket.  The Volvo
lumbered into motion and they set off down the lonely road that connected the
widely spaced houses.
“Besides,” Thor continued, “I wanted to sweeten her up a little.”
“Worried she’ll back out?” Loki asked.  
“No,” Thor grinned.  “I think she’s looking forward to that part.  But…she
didn’t really want you to come along.  She’s nervous about setting you up with
her friend, too.”  Thor gave him space to ask why, or protest, but there was no
point.  Although they had grown up together and all three of them had been
close once, Loki was, for good reason, no longer welcome in her company.
“I don’t know why she’s so mad at me,” Loki lied.  He’d walked in on them in
the Stark’s hot tub after Winter Formal, Sif with her hands down Thor’s
swimsuit, and he’d been filled with a cold rage that knew no reason.  That
night he’d used everything he’d ever learned as her friend to start several
nasty but vaguely believable rumors about her.  He wasn’t proud of it anymore,
but he didn’t entirely regret it; after all, all was fair in love and war. 
What had surprised him was the vicious and ever-escalating dogpile of their
classmates, who had no reason to be angry.  The whole thing grew until Sif at
last agreed to go to the private boarding school her father favored rather than
face it anymore. “But what can I do about it?”
“Just…be nice to her, OK?  And your date.  Maybe if you hit it off with her
friend, she’ll forget about all the Facebook shit from freshman year.”
“I don’t think that’s very likely.”
“Me either,” Thor sighed.  “But I really want you guys to be able to hang out
together again without any screaming or punching.  So try for me, OK?”  Loki
nodded.  The whole thing had ultimately been a zero sum, as Thor did not
believe the rumors about Sif but also did not believe that Loki had had
anything to do with them starting.  Loki supposed he won, though, as she was
now safely in Vermont, and away from Thor, for eight months of the year, and
all it had cost him was a friend.
“But if either of them starts punching me, you owe me TWO big ones.”
“Deal,” Thor said.  “But only if you don’t deserve to get punched.”
 
Sif waved to Thor from the front porch swing of her family’s big, old house. 
She sat there with another girl, rocking softly, their legs out in front of
them glowing in the fading daylight.  Sif’s house crouched at the top of a bald
hill, and above them the stars swirled in the rosy indigo vault of the sky. 
Loki got out a few seconds after his brother, wiping his sweaty palms on his
pants again, and went to meet his date.
Sif looked lovely in a cream colored sundress with a pattern of bright red
flowers.  Her long, dark hair hung over her shoulder in a high ponytail and the
dress showed off her tanned and muscular arms and legs.  Loki watched like a
masochist as she and Thor grinned at each other, and the anticipation in both
their faces filled him with a stinging, self-loathing jealousy that burned like
venom.  Only after he had gotten his fill of hating them did he turn his
attention to Sigyn.  Sif introduced him, glaring a warning at Loki, but when he
got a good look at her, he thought she could take care of herself.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, really, but it wasn’t what he got.  He’d
thought he would spend an awkward evening with another Sif, trying to make
conversation about soccer and Betty Friedan or whatever else was popular at an
isolated all-girls school.  He didn’t think it was really lingerie and pillow
fights, no matter what Thor imagined.  Instead, Sigyn was short with a
curvaceous hour glass figure, and if he’d met her on the street he would have
guessed she was a junior in college instead of high school.  She had a pretty
face, round and open, and a sprinkle of freckles covered her upturned nose. 
She had her hair in a coppery blonde braid, thick as a rope, and the end of it
came to a shapely curl which sat on the swell of one full breast.  She wore a
low cut white blouse and a plaid pleated skirt that showed a lot of creamy
white skin.  Her eyes were what caught his attention, though.  He had expected
her to be both bored and stupid, but she met his gaze with intelligent,
mischievous eyes as grey as afternoon thunderheads, and when she said she was
pleased to meet him and offered him her hand, she sounded like she meant it.
Loki bent at the waist and brushed a kiss over her knuckles, which made her
giggle and Sif emit an almost inaudible scoff.  He opened the car door for her
as well.  He liked her smile, so much older than her face, and the remembered
touch of her soft, plump fingers in his hand.  She sat, knees together, on the
wide back seat of Thor’s Volvo and crossed her ankles.  When he came around to
his side, she patted the velour upholstery where he would sit.  Loki smiled
back at her as they fastened their seat belts and felt both more and less
nervous.  The sound of the engine and the stereo was loud enough that they felt
no need to shout over it, but they could hear Thor and Sif in the front seat.
Their usual comfort with each other had vanished tonight, and they were awkward
and stiff.  Thor had started saying “uh” about every third word and mumbling,
and Loki wanted to both reach over and smack the back of his head and apologize
to Sigyn for him, but he did neither.  Sif was just as bad, and the atmosphere
in the car just got weirder.  He felt a rising urge to defend his brother, but
when he looked over at Sigyn she just cocked her head and rolled her eyes.  
“Can you believe these losers?” she mouthed to him, and he grinned and shook
his head no.  Her hand reached over the divide of seat between them and in a
gentle but decisive move closed over his.
 
The Pit was, of course, packed.  There were no empty seats around the little
stand and all the parking places in the gravel lot were full as well, so Thor
parked on the grass.  The last weekend of summer always had an air of
desperation to Loki, as everyone clutched at the last days of the dwindling
season.  They got out of the car and their feet kicked up little clouds of dust
as they crossed the balding grass.  Thor put his arm around Sif and she leaned
into him, but Sigyn kept her distance now that she’d pulled her hand away.  The
air already had a hint of crispness, the old familiar promise of a short autumn
and a long, cold winter.  They were surrounded with raucous laughter, forced to
his ears, and the savory, meat and smoke smell of the Pit.  It was funny, Loki
thought, how the same smell didn’t always mean the same thing.  The first whiff
of barbecue each year, usually when the trees still stood naked in the cold
air, meant that spring was finally coming, but tonight it reminded him only of
all that had ended: the summer, most of high school, and whatever they lost
tonight.  He felt stupid for wondering if it would hurt.
Some of Thor’s cronies from one of his teams had one of the precious booths. 
Thor spent a few minutes talking to them, turning on the charm, and they got up
and relinquished their table to Thor and his date.  Loki could tell what they
were thinking from their faces, that they knew what Thor had planned, and even
though they didn’t say anything they bumped his brother and snickered and
leered, and Loki hated them all afresh.
“Would you rather come with me, fair one?” the handsome one asked.  Loki didn’t
bother to remember his name, much less tell it to his date, but he knew he was
older, had a nice car, and had probably touched a girl before, which made him a
threat.  He looked a little like Thor, though of course no one could compare to
his brother, and he offered Sigyn his hand.  She smiled back at him, but she
shook her head and moved closer to Loki in a surprising show of loyalty.  
“Well, perhaps another time.  Some night when you aren’t babysitting,” he
quipped, and before Loki could come up with anything devastating enough to say
back, they had walked off, laughing, toward the parking lot.
“Ignore him,” Thor said.  “He’s just jealous.  Why don’t you ladies sit down
and we’ll go order?”  Sif and Sigyn slid into the booth on opposite sides, and
Loki began to trail after his brother.  Thor caught his eye and mouthed “ask he
what she wants, dumb ass” and stopped so he could.
“Um…Sigyn?” She turned those big grey eyes on him, ageless and full of
laughter, and waited for him to continue.  “What do you want?” he blurted out. 
“To eat, I mean.  Do you want a menu?”
“I’d like chicken kebabs,” she said as though he had asked as smoothly as any
boy she’d seen.  “And the largest cherry Icee they have.  We can split it,” she
grinned.  He retreated with Thor and they got in line, and when he turned to
look the girls were talking.
“Smooth, Loki, really smooth,” Thor said.  “But I don’t blame you.  I never
dreamed she’d be THAT hot.”
“What do you think they are talking about?” Loki asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Thor said.  “Whatever girls talk about when we aren’t
around, we are better off not knowing.”  They stood together in companionable
silence, and away from the distraction of Sigyn he once again found he wished
he could slide an arm around Thor’s waist as easily as his brother did around
Sif.  They made slow progress to the front of the line, made even slower by the
number of people who stopped to talk to Thor.  He seemed to know everyone; all
the teenagers who went to their school, all of their parents, several
teachers…it seemed the whole town was at the Pit tonight, and they all wanted
one of his minutes with Thor.  Loki kept what he liked to think was a cool,
disaffected smile on his face, one that indicated that he was beyond being
pleased or annoyed by this, and most of Thor’s acquaintances seemed happy to
pretend he was invisible.  Thor kept making a point of involving him, though,
hating to see him left out.  An eternity passed, so long that Loki had almost
forgotten why he was at the Pit at all, but they at last reached the scarred,
worn wooden counter.  The order taker smiled at Thor, as well, and he asked for
an order of cheeseburger sliders without onions (with this he turned a quick,
conspiratorial look to Loki) and a large strawberry milkshake.  His charming
grin faltered a little as he counted crumpled one dollar bills onto the
counter, all three of them coming to the conclusion that there were not enough
of them at about the same time.  The girl behind the counter looked embarrassed
for him.
“Um…” he started, with a half-glance back toward his waiting girlfriend and the
long line of customers.  Loki rolled his eyes and slapped a neat twenty down
next to Thor’s inadequate stack.
“I’ll pay for both of us,” he said with impatience.  He kept the irritation
plain on his face but he got his reward when Thor turned a dazzling smile of
relief his way.  He wouldn’t admit it under torture, but he’d pay almost
anything to have Thor look at him like that.  He had to turn back and order
Sigyn’s kebabs and the ridiculous Icee.  He still didn’t want to eat anything,
but he’d look weird if he didn’t, so he got some cheese fries for himself and
paid.  
“Thanks, Loki,” Thor said low in his ear as they walked back to the table, food
in careful balance.  “I’ll pay you back.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Loki snapped.  “Let’s just…get this over with.”
“Are you nervous?  Don’t be.  Girls like confidence.  And Sif thought she might
actually go for you.”
“Thanks so much.  That makes me feel loads better.”
“No, I mean, I think she likes you.  And she’s a ten, Loki.”
“Would you shut up?”
“Ok.  Let me know if you need me to hold your hand or anything.”
“I mean it, Thor…”
“Do you know where it goes?”  Thor chuckled, pleased with himself as though
he’d made a girl just for his little brother.
“I…” but they had reached the table, and the girls were watching them.  They
had gotten comfortable while they waited for their food, and they reminded Loki
uneasily of cats, or of fully grown women, as they slid in to join them.  Thor
and Sif came together like puzzle pieces, but Loki stopped with his butt barely
on the seat because Sigyn’s purse was between them like a wall.  He set her
kebabs in front of her and looked down at the table.  He had planned to handle
this like trying for a new romance option in Mass Effect, but of course no
window came up to outline his dialogue options.  She retrieved her bag and
moved it to her other side, but he caught a glimpse of some of the contents, a
pink tube of Baby Lips, a sleek mobile phone with a Wonder Woman case, half a
dozen foil wrapped condoms, and…
“Is that a Literati?” he asked.  He’d seen the padded case, and he knew the
shape.
“Ugh, as if,” Sigyn scoffed with a toss of her braid that showed off her neck. 
“Only pretentious douchebags have those.”  Thor swallowed a laugh and Loki felt
heat rising to his face, since his own Stark Industries Literati ereader was
among his most treasured possessions.  Thor had given it to him; Tony had gone
to college early, but his dad still let Thor do the yard work at their lake
house and he and his brother had worked out some sort of deal for it.  Thor
wasn’t even allowed to touch it.
“Um…yeah, I mean, who has one of those?” Loki tried to regain his cool, but her
grey eyes were full of laughter when he looked back at her face.
“I do,” she said.  “But your face was priceless.”
“I have one too,” he said. “And for that, I think I should get to snoop on your
bookshelves.”  Sif and Thor rolled their eyes dramatically at each other but
Sigyn handed him the device, swaddled in its stylish tartan cover.  She picked
up a kebab and took an exaggerated, porn star bite off the end, and they both
started laughing.  Everyone started eating as Loki scrolled through the list of
books she had loaded.
“You only got us one straw,” she said with a mock pout.  “Now we can’t do the
smarmy milkshake thing.”  Across the table, Thor and Sif were drinking the
milkshake he’d paid for with two straws, noses almost touching.  Loki hated the
too-sweet, chemical taste of Icees, but Sigyn was offering to share it with
him.  He looked to Thor for advice but his brother wasn’t paying attention at
all.  He realized that the pause was stretching to awkward length and tried to
think what Thor would tell him.  Fortune favors the bold, most likely, so Loki
took a tentative sip of the drink.  He tried not to grimace as the freezing,
cherry-poison slush hit his tongue.  He got another false, waxy fruit flavor,
just a hint of Sigyn’s pale pink lipgloss from the straw.  She scooted closer
to him so he had to put his arm over her shoulders, so close he could feel the
heat of her thigh through his jeans, and she continued to hold the cup for
him.  She leaned her head over to take the straw back in her mouth and Loki
could smell her hair and feel the warm, vague outline of her breast even
through three shirts.  Instead of taking the straw, she turned and kissed him. 
Her lips pressed cold against his and in his shock, he didn’t move at all.  She
let the touch linger for a few long moments and he felt the frigid tip of her
tongue flick against his teeth as they both started to warm back up.  When she
pulled back, he felt relief and disappointment, and a longing that lingered
like the taste of fake cherry and girl.  He had never been kissed before, and
from her expression, it was obvious.  She sized him up like a cat trying to
play, like she’d been testing him, and he thought he probably hadn’t done well.
“I’m sorry,” Loki, who never apologized, said.  “I’ve never…”
“It’s OK,” she said.  “I thought not.  It’s sweet.  You’re sweet.  Plus, more
Icee for me.”  She smiled at him again and moved away so she could eat, but not
as far away as she’d been before.  He wasn’t sure “sweet” was the impression
he’d hoped to make, but it wasn’t the worst thing a girl had ever said about
him by far.  An awful thought occurred to him and he looked across the table in
dread.  If Thor had seen him botch that, he’d never…but Thor and Sif were too
wrapped up in each other to notice what he and Sigyn were doing, and for the
first time that he could remember, he was glad to see them acting all schmoopy
together.  He could feel the heat of a blush in his cheeks again, so he ate a
congealing cheese fry and went back to looking through Sigyn’s books.  She had
a lot of familiar names in there: Tolkien, of course, even the Silmarillion,
Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft, Terry Pratchett, George R. R. Martin…
“You’ve read House of Leaves?” he asked her, his tone somewhere between
incredulity and joy.
“Yeah,” she said.  “It’s brilliant.”
“It’s completely brilliant,” he said.
“It’s not so good as an ebook,” she admitted.  “But it’s better than nothing. 
I like to keep my books safe at home.”
“I told you he wasn’t stupid,” Sif said to Sigyn.
“Yeah, you did,” she laughed.  “I didn’t believe Sif when she said you were
cute and you liked to read.”  Loki knew he was grinning like an idiot so he
went back to looking down the screen.  The Last Unicorn went by, one he’d never
gotten to himself, and The Song of Achilles, which had reminded him so much of
Thor he’d had to read it only when he knew he was alone.  Harry Potter, of
course, books so ubiquitous he thought everyone ended up with them whether they
remembered buying them or not.  They were on his Literati also, and he would
have sworn in court that they’d come preloaded on the thing.  She had Stardust
and Neverwhere, but he didn’t see Good Omens.
“Wait, The Fault in Our Stars?” he scoffed.  “Guilty pleasure?’
“Have you read it?”
“No, but…”
“Then don’t knock it.”
“Oh, we are never going to get them back now,” Thor teased.
“Because you’ve both been such riveting conversational partners,” Sigyn shot
back.  She did a fair impression of Thor and Sif making kissy faces at each
other, with realistic if exaggerated sound effects.  She and Loki went back to
talking about books, and Thor and Sif went back to picking nervously at their
food and being awkward.  Loki kept a favorite quote in mind, though: just
because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul
mate.  Soon she produced a little notepad from her purse and they began making
lists as they talked.  They hardly noticed when Thor and Sif excused
themselves, though Loki thought he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen
uneaten food in his brother’s vicinity.  When they returned from their stroll
through the deepening dark, Sigyn and Loki were debating who should end up on
the Iron Throne and Sif wore both his brother’s jacket and the topaz pendant. 
Loki carefully schooled his facial expression as he met Thor’s beaming grin. 
Thor gave him a meaningful look, from himself to Sigyn, and he realized that
although he was comfortable, he could see goosebumps on her forearms.
“Would you…um…would you like my sweatshirt?” he asked, and she nodded
gratefully.  Thor smiled approval at him as he draped his shirt around her. 
She zipped it up at the bottom but it didn’t fit around her chest.
“That’s pretty,” she said to Sif, snuggling into the sweatshirt like a shell. 
Sif dipped her blushing face and fingered the pendant.  Loki saw something in
her grey eyes, some emotion he couldn’t read, as she studied Sif.
“It doesn’t go with your dress,” he snapped, and then wondered why he had.  He
couldn’t remember the last time he’d made eye contact with Sif, but their gazes
met for a moment and he saw the depth of her anger with him, and the naked hurt
and betrayal bored into him and made him wish he’d stayed home.  She quickly
covered it with a dismissive laugh, and Thor just shot him a look that said “I
can’t take you anywhere”.  “I mean, clearly he should get you a dress that
matches,” Loki amended.  Somewhere inside, he remembered what it had been like
not to hate her.
“Are you guys ready to go?” Thor asked.  The crowd had thinned out and the Pit
staff were closing up.  He and Sigyn slid out and walked a few steps behind
them back to the car, Thor with his arm around Sif’s waist and her head resting
on his shoulder.  The sight made him feel less guilty.
They still didn’t talk much as the Volvo cut through the night, but Sigyn
handed him her phone open to a new contact and he added his number and email. 
He couldn’t imagine her calling his house and getting his mother and resolved
to put a cell phone of his own at the top of his birthday list.  His parents
might go for it if he put off getting his license, and he didn’t really want to
drive anyway.  He realized where Thor was taking them about thirty seconds
before Sigyn’s hand stroked lightly up his thigh, distracting him so thoroughly
he didn’t bother to protest.  Thor soon left the winding back road and turned
onto an immaculate gravel drive.  After a rattling quarter mile, they came to a
locked gate and Thor took a key ring out of the glove box with a heavy,
gunmetal Stark Industries tag.  He locked the gate after them and pulled the
rest of the way up to the dark hulk of the house.
When Thor got out again, he motioned for them to wait in the car, but Loki
followed him up the wooden stairs of the deck.
“What are we doing here?” he asked Thor.  “We’re going to get in trouble.”
“No we won’t.  Howard said I could come up here.”  Loki’s eyes adjusted to the
moonlight enough to see Thor slide the cover off the enormous hot tub, only to
have it blind him when Thor turned on the cold blue lights below the water
level.  He adjusted a few dials and replaced the cover.
“Who the fuck is Howard?  You mean Mr. Stark?”
“Yeah.  He told me when I started working for him to call him Howard.  Isn’t it
great?  We can go…down by the lake, maybe go for a swim, then come back here
and warm up.”
“Tony’s dad said you could have sex in his hot tub?” Loki said, laying the
sarcasm on thick.  He hadn’t been near the thing since that awful winter night
freshman year, and he had never planned to see it again.  When Tony left for
school, the legendary parent-free lakeside parties went with him, and Loki
alone had been glad.  He’d only ever gone to keep an eye on his brother.
“Pretty much,” Thor said.  “I’d take her up to the master, but I don’t have a
key to the main house, just the gate.  And the boathouse,” he added, “But
there’s spiders and shit in there.”  Loki wanted to argue some more.  He felt
something like panic rising in him, shrill and insistent, but Thor was already
halfway down the stairs.  
He got back in the car and looked at his date, swallowing hard, but she was
looking off into the distance.  Thor drove them all down to the end of the long
drive and parked in the gravel turnaround, only about ten feet from the moonlit
water of the lake.  Thor and Sif got out and Thor gave Loki a last encouraging
smile, half excitement and half nervous dread.  Sigyn opened her door as well
and got out of the car, but he didn’t see where she went. The car rocked as
Thor and Sif climbed into the converted back and Loki realized that the dark,
secluded night would give some privacy, but nothing was going to cover the
noise.  He was tempted to beg his brother for the key to the boathouse. 
Spiders be damned, he and Sigyn could lay under the dry-docked yacht and talk
about unreliable narrators in horror fiction some more.  He’d wait and lose his
virginity to a blonde stranger in a nightclub bathroom or something like he’d
always planned.  He heard whispering and the rustle of clothing from the other
side of the seat and his anxiety seemed about to strangle him, but then Sigyn
was there.  She’d removed everything except her shirt and panties, and she
gleamed white in the dark.
“You’re still dressed,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. 
Giggling came from the trunk, and his brother’s husky and unintelligible
whispers.  Loki nodded.  She was gorgeous, but he didn’t feel anything except
dread as she came closer.  “Let me help,” she said.  Her fingers found the
buttons of his shirt and his heart beat faster as she worked them loose.  He
wanted to clutch it closed, but he let her tug it down his shoulders and off.
“That’s a nice shirt,” she said when she saw his NIN tee, and for a moment she
sounded more like the girl he’d talked with over dinner and less like the
seductress she’d become on the ride over.  She untucked it and her warm hands
roamed over his stomach and toyed with the fly of his pants.  At last Loki
realized he ought to help her, at least a little, but he wasn’t sure what he
would do if she took his last shirt.  He pulled his legs up so he was lying on
the wide bench of the seat.  “That’s better,” she said, and she straddled his
legs.  She leaned over him and he could feel her warmth all down his body.  Her
lips came to his, and he got to try the kissing again.  She kissed with her
eyes closed, but Loki’s were wide and vigilant.  He got a glimpse of Sif’s bare
shoulders above the screen of the seat, her hair loose and dark against her
pale skin, and then she disappeared from view again.
Sigyn got his shirt up to his chest, but she didn’t try to get him to take it
off.  Loki tried to kiss back, but he felt the threat of failure sour and
withering in his throat and knew his attempts were rather feeble.  She sat up
as far as she could and guided his hands to her blouse.  He fumbled with the
dainty buttons and the slippery fabric, but her fingers were confident as she
unzipped his pants and guided both jeans and underwear over his narrow hips. 
She shrugged out of her shirt and revealed a modest but pretty cream colored
bra patterned with pink roses.
“I’m not even going to make you try this,” she said.  Loki was glad, because
the bra had a confusing number of hooks when she slipped it off as well.  She
took his hands and gently placed them on her breasts.  They were warm and
heavy, not how he had imagined on the rare occasions when he thought about
girls, and tiger striped with pink, barely faded stretch marks that he could
feel like ripples in silk.  He stroked and squeezed experimentally and she
leaned over in encouragement.  His thumbs brushed over her small, rosy nipples
and they both gasped as they went hard, she in pleasure and he in surprise. 
“Don’t stop,” she sighed.  Her lips came back to his and they kissed for a
moment while he kneaded her chest.  She moved down his neck, nipping and
sucking, and although none of this was unpleasant exactly he felt nothing.  The
heat of her crotch was so close to his that he could feel the lace of her
panties brushing him, yet he remained cold and soft.  With mounting dread he
knew this had been a bad idea.  Everyone would know there was something wrong
with him now, and even he didn’t know exactly what it was.
“You’re thinking too hard,” she murmured in his ear.  “Just let go.  Do what
you want, and I’ll tell you if I don’t like it.”  Good advice, he thought, but
what did he want?  Those same perverse gods he’d been thinking of the night
he’d agreed to this provided him an answer just then.  A few feet away, Thor
choked back a moan and Loki turned his head enough to look at him.  Sif was in
his lap, running her hands down his body, but she was in darkness and Loki
could ignore her.  Thor’s face lay in a pool of moonlight, his eyes closed in
bliss, and at last Loki’s traitorous body began to respond.  He almost laughed
at himself, because the solution was so simple.  Though it filled him with
self-loathing, be closed his eyes and listened to his brother.
Sigyn’s body was a poor fit for his fantasy, but the scenario went through his
mind with well-rehearsed precision.  She made a small sound of complaint when
he took his hands away, but he at last did something decisive with them.  He
pulled the elastic off the end of her thick braid of hair, and with confident
fingers shook it loose in a coppery spill.  He’d always wanted to bury himself
in Thor’s thick hair, to pull it as he cried out.
“Much better,” she chuckled into his neck.  She guided one of his hands down
her body, over the slight swell of her belly to the heat between her legs. 
“They unsnap,” she said.  It was true; a single firm tug at the waist of her
panties split them down the seams, and they fell away.  Loki broke out his
carefully hoarded images of Thor, choosing the way he would grab the back of
his shirt and pull it over his head in one fluid motion to start and cycling
through everything he’d collected, always by some happy accident.  Sigyn leaned
over the side and retrieved her purse from the floor, but Loki paid little
attention.  He gave himself permission to do what he wanted, as she’d said, and
listened to the sounds his brother made, pretending he made them for Loki. 
With his acceptance came a dizzy rush of heat that banished his fear.  
Sigyn’s hand closed cold and slick over his cock and she began to stroke it
slowly.
“Oh, that feels…really good,” he gasped out.  His fingers spasmed tighter in
her hair. “What…what is that smell?”
“Pearberry Cuddles,” she said, matter of fact. “It’s lotion.”  Well, that was a
new detail for his lonely nights to include.  He’d read that scent was closely
linked to memory, and he nearly laughed thinking how he’d have to get some of
his own to recreate the mood.
“Are you going to help me out?” she asked.  She took his free hand and guided
it again.  She let it brush over the damp, warm fur and gave him a moment to
pet and appreciate it.  She slid his fingers to the lips of her vulva and
gasped as she guided them between the folds, the palm of his hand coming to
rest on the warm mound of her pubis.  He nearly pulled away in shock and
something very close to disgust; he had never expected so much heat
and…moisture.  But somewhere in him he knew that would be unforgivable, and he
persevered.  He explored her, trying not to think of slime, and as he got
accustomed to it he found he liked the sensation more.  Her hips rocked against
him and her full thighs shook with spasms as he learned what she wanted, at
last settling on the swollen bud of her clit.  
“You have nice hands,” she said.  Her pace quickened and he could barely think
over the sensation.
“Thor,” Sif said, and the panic in her voice cut through to get everyone’s
attention.  “Thor, stop.  I’m…I’m not ready,” she whispered the last, fear and
embarrassment making her sound so young it was hard to believe it was her voice
at all.  Sigyn froze against him, as if he no longer existed in that moment. 
Thor fumbled, almost comical in his confusion, and anger flashed through Loki
like lightning.  He hadn’t been ready either, but here he was up to his
knuckles in a girl he’d just met so his brother would be happy and Sif was
ruining it for him.  Thor’s thoughts caught up to him and his features
softened.  If he was hurt or disappointed, Loki couldn’t see it in his face as
he smoothed her hair.
“Hey, it’s OK, babe.  It’s OK,” Thor fought his words out through his eager
panting, but he cradled her sweetly against his chest.  He whispered something
in her ear that startled a laugh out of her, and she relaxed.  Sigyn only
seemed to remember what she was doing when Sif began to smile again.  She
returned her attention to Loki, building the mood back up, but Loki watched his
brother a little longer, long enough to see Sif put her head between his legs. 
Sigyn coaxed his middle and index fingers into the innermost slit, allowing
Loki to explore an unimagined geography.  He had thought it would be smooth
inside, but he found a complex of ridges and hollows, like an alien
architecture, strong muscles holding him and pulling him in.  She looked down
on him, heavy lidded and distant, and he wondered what she thought about to get
through this.
Thor began to moan as Sigyn fucked herself on his fingers, and everything
smelled like sex and Pearberry and Sigyn’s beautiful hair.  Loki focused on
Thor, on what little he could see of his face and the sound of his voice, and
soon he went from being unsure he could get off at all to wondering how long he
could make it last.
Not long, it turned out.  His hand cramped and the tips of his fingers got
pruny, but Sigyn’s breath came fast and whimpering, hot on his collarbone. 
Thor finished with a wordless shout and Loki saw his face.  It burned into his
mind like sunspots, and everything went fuzzy and red.  He came on the creamy
skin of Sigyn’s stomach with no more sound than a soft gasp and lay back
against the car door.
“Don’t you dare stop,” Sigyn whispered, and although he felt the spread of
heavy, dreamy lethargy through his limbs, he kept going.  Her orgasm was
violent and shuddering, her thighs clenching him in time with the strong inner
muscles of her vagina, and as she lay spent against him she relaxed.  He pulled
his dripping fingers free of her and she made a little sound of protest.  
“Thor!  You got it in my hair,” Sif yelled, punctuating her protest with a
meaty thwack.  “Ugh, that is so gross.”
“Sorry, babe,” Thor slurred.  Loki cracked his eyelids again so he could have
the image that should have been his, Thor lying momentarily sated against an
ugly pillow, his face flushed and his shirt soaked in semen.  Loki shut his
eyes again and felt like he was floating away, no longer aware of the door
handle digging into his back or the awkward bend of his knees, just the warm,
satisfied tangle of his body with…
“Thor,” he sighed.  Sigyn went tense against him and pulled away.  Even in the
dark he could see the surprise in her eyes, and just like that all the peace
went out of him.  He knew she’d heard him, and he’d hesitated too long to play
it off.  With as much dignity as she could muster, she slid backward off his
legs and out of the car.  Loki sat in the dark with his rising panic.  How
could he have been so stupid?  He hauled his pants up and tucked his shirt in,
heedless of the tacky half-dried cum and lotion, just the need to feel less
exposed.  His mind clicked along in full disaster mode, running various plans
and discarding them.  He could only hope she wouldn’t tell anyone, or that
anyone she told wouldn’t believe it.  He barely heard Thor and Sif get out of
the car, giggling and groping each other; they might as well have been on
another planet.
At last Loki realized he couldn’t hide in the car all night.  He had to talk to
Sigyn while the others were distracted.  He got out slowly and started looking
for her, but she wasn’t hard to find.  She was sitting at the end of the dock,
her legs trailing in the water.
He sat next to her, but found he didn’t know what to say.  Sigyn surprised him,
then, by scooting closer to him, until their thighs were touching.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” she said, and he believed her.
“Thank you,” he said.  “I didn’t mean…”
“It’s fine, people say all kinds of weird stuff during sex.  There’s a word for
it, but I forget what it is.  Our psychology book had a thing about a guy who,
every time he came, yelled ‘Victory for the forces of democratic freedom’, but
he never remembered it after.”
“That is weird,” Loki agreed, as though it were on par with whispering your own
brother’s name in the afterglow.
“You know what’s really weird?  I still like you.”
“I…me too.”
“I went out with you for Sif,” she admitted, “But I wouldn’t have done, you
know, that, if I didn’t want to.”
“It was nice,” Loki said.  “I didn’t think I would like it, to be honest.”
“I know.  You’re pretty raw, but I think you could learn to be really
something.”  She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and they sat in the dark
for a long moment and listened to the frogs and the water lapping at the wood.
Thor and Sif sprinted by them, nude, and clattered down the short dock.  They
dove off at nearly the same time and came up swimming, so close together it was
hard to tell whose legs were whose.  They raced to the sandbar twenty yards out
where they could stand, and Sif wrapped her long legs around Thor’s waist and
kissed him deeply.  The reflection of the moon hung full and golden in the
gentle ripples of the water, and its light lent Thor’s hair a silvery glint
while Sif’s hung as inky dark as the water.  Loki looked away when Thor’s arms
went around her, but Sigyn continued to stare out across the lake at them.  She
had on her skirt again, and Loki’s sweatshirt, but nothing under either of
them.    He could still smell her sex on his fingers.
“You were the one who started the rumors, weren’t you?” she asked at last.  He
didn’t bother to deny it, which was as good as an assent.
“I didn’t mean for it to go as far as it did,” he said, staring past his
brother to the deepest part of the lake.  It was as close as he’d ever gotten
to apologizing.
“Sif has no idea why,” she said.
“She was taking him away from me,” he said, and he was surprised at the
vehemence in his voice.
“I guess I wouldn’t have met her if you hadn’t,” she said.  Her smile was sad,
and maybe a little bitter.  She didn’t bother to point out that life would take
Thor eventually, no matter what he did.  He couldn’t run off every girl who
looked his brother’s way.  “How long have you been keeping it a secret?”  Loki
knew she didn’t mean the Facebook rumors. 
“Oh, years,” he said.  “I can’t even remember how it started,” he lied.  He
could, but he didn’t want to talk about it.  His voice sounded hollow and
tired, but somehow it was easier to have one person who knew.  “Is it…are you
interested in Thor yourself?  Is that why you came out here tonight?”  Sigyn
snorted.  They both watched as Thor and Sif melded into one form in the water,
his fingers in her dripping hair and her hands standing out on his back.
“No,” she said.  “I’m not interested in Thor.  You’re safe on that front.  He’s
a nice guy, nicer than I expected, but he’s…well, he’s taking something from
me. ”  Her arm went around his waist to find his hand and her head rested on
his shoulder, but her eyes were still on the lovers.  The fall of her hair hung
cool as the evening air against his skin.  “Sugar,” she said, “I don’t think
either of us is going to get what we want.”
 
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