We could be heroes.
1.
It was late, it was cold, it was dark and it was wet, the tour was not going well and Thor Odinson was beyond pissed off. They had lost two drummers now since the start, back in London three months ago, and god that seemed like a far off dream now, playing some crappy bar in the north of England, getting rained on all the way back to the hotel.
Thor wasn't even sure which point he wanted to rage about more vitally – crappy bar, north of England or mother-fucking rain. Again. They were supposed to be playing stadiums. They had been playing fucking stadiums before Flight Rising bailed on them. Fuck it, Fandral had said, they didn't need Flight Rising, they should be headlining as it was, not playing runner up for some shitty old school metal band.
Headlining my ass, Thor thought, wondering how quickly he could get a new agent if he fired Fandral's useless, pansy, satin clad behind. The only places they were getting to headline were sad act pubs where some creepy old local man with facial hair in all the wrong places glared at them and left when they started playing.
Fuck this, Thor thought for the hundredth time that day. There was water in his boots as he pulled them off and the bottoms of his jeans slapped his legs like angry wet fish. Fuck the rain, it seemed to follow him everywhere; as though it knew when he was pissy and wanted to wind him up. Fuck the shitty pubs, fuck Fandral, fuck Carlisle for all it was worth and right now especially, fuck useless-ass drummers who kept succumbing to deadly bouts of spinal tap disease.
He stomped across the room, such as it was, and when he planted a foot right in the centre of a wet pile of clothes he roared inside and wondered if the day could get any worse. At which point he spotted the flyer beside the shit-as-fuck bed. He was on the phone in seconds, bellowing Fandral to get to his room this fucking second. He was still bellowing when Fandral walked in the door.
"Thor?" he asked, with that ingratiating politeness that made Thor want to hit him.
"Don't Thor me you obsequious ass! The fuck is this?"
"The fuck is what?"
"This you buffoon, this! Terminal Deafness and Illusion's Destiny – who the fuck are Illusion's Destiny?"
"Thor, it's good news, I was going to tell you – they're our new supporting act."
"Well I've never fucking heard of them."
"They're Scandinavian, but they've been touring the states. Apparently they're enormous in Denmark."
"Denmark?" Thor's voice was dangerously calm and Fandral missed the warning, smiling and nodding- to Thor's mind like a cataleptic monkey.
"Fandral, I don't give a fuck about fucking Denmark. I've never heard of them, their name is whack and – is this them?" Thor picked up a solo flyer from under the first – "They look fucking gay."
"Thor. You're gay. I hardly think that's relevant."
"I hardly think you're relevant and yet I still pay you – to do what exactly? Pitch us together with some faggy Danish goth band? We'll be the laughing stock of whatever one man and his goat you can get to come and watch us."
"Seriously Thor, at least give them a chance, they're on their way here as we speak, nobody else would agree to step in at the last minute and frankly, anything has to be better than tonight right? Also what is it with you and goats?"
"I wanna go home."
"It's raining just as hard in London."
Thor groaned, threw himself heavily onto the bed, which protested epically at this treatment, and scrubbed his face with the palm of his hand.
"They'll be here tomorrow in time for a proper gig in three days time at The Sand's Centre, we've sold seats and everything."
It was hardly the arena Thor felt sure he had been promised, but a theatre was at least a step up from a pub. Thor sighed so heavily he thought he might blow down the crappy hotel walls. Outside the wind was helping in the same endeavour.
"Fine," he groaned.
"Yeah?"
"Fine. I'll meet your lame-ass pile of wank band. But don't go making too many plans. And don't expect me to dress like them, they look like a pile of poofs with too much eye make up."
-x-
"Thor, no."
"Please Sif."
"Thor, I'm a bassist not a drummer."
"But you know drums. I got a guy can replace you on the bass, I can't get a new drummer for shit."
"Yeah, you know why? Cause the life expectancy of a drummer in a rock band is like a lemming with itchy feet on a cliff top. Thor don't make me be drummer."
Thor pleaded, Sif groaned. Thor begged, Sif was just stomping off saying that she'd do it but they'd all regret it when there was a crash and a high, supercilious voice drawling –
"No not there you imbeciles – there. Ugh, how does anyone work in this mess."
Thor glared at the newcomers, who were hauling their instruments right into and all but on
top of theirs, located the speaker, a figure of indeterminate gender in a shiny sweeping lavender coat and unceremoniously crossed the room in several loud stomps;
"Hey – this is our rehearsal space – who the hell are you?"
"Thor Odinson?" The speaker finally turned, smiling with utmost insincerity, the most dazzling, nastiest smile Thor had ever seen – "Illusion's Destiny – such a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm Loki."
A slight sneer crept into the young man's face, his eyes doing a quick once over of Thor as he said this, a once over that left it perfectly clear he had been measured and found wanting in the space of a few seconds. Thor did not take the hand that, to his mind, was pretentiously offered, taking the stranger in instead with eyes that could not have been half as scathing for all the world.
Loki Laufeyson of Illusion's Destiny was everything Thor had feared he would be; and worse, he was undeniably beautiful for all of that. Silver lips, violet swirls around the eyes and that faux fur lined coat that swept and circled just shy of brushing the ground. His smile dazzled and lied without his even needing to speak and his eyes seemed to reflect every colour they landed on, silver and violet with a watery wash of green underneath. He balanced like a dancer in knee-high heeled boots and the silver nails dripped with tiny rhinestones.
All in all, he was the most horrendous and affected person Thor had ever seen. He hated him on sight. He suspected in fact, in those moments, that they were both basking in a deep mutual loathing, so intense he was almost enjoying it.
"Of course you are," he sighed – "And I thought my day could get no worse."
This was not going to go well.
_x_
Happy new year people, I seem to be back with a shiny new AU, this one's dedicated to prettypearlnecklace, happy birthday my dear! :-)