Part II of III, for I lied through my teeth - silver tongue? - when I said this was a two-shot. To every single person who favorited this, who alerted and reviewed, you have my sheer gratitude. Thank you for making me smile and for joining me on the wave of American Thunder and using the Thunder Shield to its fullest potential. :)
Romance, mature-themes, angst-ridden, comfort and with luck, a truthful continuation of two men who sought therapy and gained hope, along with much more.
The courtship will be prevalent in part three, for the story would have been far too squished had I continued on this way.
Also, thank you to those who enjoy this sadder version - if not infinitely darker part - of Steve. I really like taking apart certain characters, saying things like, "ooh, what have we here?" and rolling with it. The same goes for the Mighty God of Thunder as well. :)
Ownership has been rightly given to Jarvis.
Part II: With the Right Words
What made these midnight illusions so painfully difficult was the detail, the way the visions engulfed his mind, his common sense, all else canceled out with the pain of what he was forced to focus on. Had it been a normal nightmare, a hastily thrown together assembly of shapes and sounds, colors and the physical, he would have dismissed it as nothing more than a bad movie, a projection of something that his brain needed to do at night.
It wasn't. Every single night he had experienced imaginings that reduced him to nothing more than a quivering heap in his bed, sheets scattered or sometimes clung to as if his very place in the universe depended on the white of his knuckles, the clenching of his fingers to the warm fabric. The dark was a cowl, shrouding the thought of a dawn, the thought that a golden shaft of light would become a sunrise, bringing with it a new day, the clicking of the numbers on his alarm clock to his left, the thought of hope entire gone with the horrors he experienced. In those moments, he was nothing but his fear, consumed and swathed by the parasite of his own doubt, tears stinging his eyes when he considered what a weakling he had become.
When one had lost control of what their mind was capable of, he considered with exhausted wariness, that was when sanity began teetering.
This night was no different, despite the cheerful camaraderie of his own personal Norse God. Thor smiled at him, a smile so filled with cheer and warmth that he almost believed for a few hours that tonight would be the night, that tonight would be the time when he would sleep peacefully, past 4 in the morning, or 6 if he considered the optimism of wishful thinking.
It was simply that, pixie dust, a fairy-tale of a thought, slipping through his fingers with elusive fragments of his will. He closed his eyes, only to open them to the sensation of falling, spiraling to an uncertain fate, a doom marked in the chill of the wind, the frantic breath that escaped his lungs. He fought the rising urge to scream, not to give in, for somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood that he was in un-restful slumber, and that control was very much his own.
The snow, the wrath of an ice storm felt so real, the crisp knives that sliced his skin to ribbons with the frost, his breath nothing more than puffs in the dark, the oblivion that swallowed not only his hope, but the thought of ever being warm again. Skin became freckled with goose-flesh, trembles escaped his skin, and despite his efforts at squeezing his mouth shut, of clamping his teeth, he screamed. He screamed and the sound echoed in his mind, reminding him that for this terrible moment, this was his slice of hell, a hell that was not fire and brimstone, but never-ending ice and hail and wind.
A forceful shove to the right of him jarred his body, his dream-self twirling to the left, flipping under and over into a darkness that was without reasonable end, his body sinking as quickly as a burdened leaf in an active body of water. Was there something after him then, in this black world, in the place where he was stripped of powers and titles, left only with petrified remains to do battle with?
Another kick to his calf sent him careening to the edge of the dream, fumbling with clawing hands out of the canvas that had been his reality, his escape evident in concerned blue eyes, the eyes of the god that perched at the side of his bed.
"Steve, please awaken. It was only a dream." He started, alert and trickling with sweat, his body trembling with imaginary frigidity. His heart couldn't seem to calm, and breathing was difficult, panic enveloping him for a few more moments. He was safe. He was here, pressed to his mattress, his bed sheets tangled in a wrinkled heap of taupe. And there was Thor, perched over him, protection tumbling from his body, sheathing him in golden heat, the warmth of the sun that hadn't existed in the past terror.
"Would you like to speak of it?" Thor had gotten into the habit of asking that every single night, just in case he had felt especially chatty. Always, Steve had been worried of being judged for weakness, for being looked down upon for what troubled his mind. It was one childish fear after another, linked in a looping mess of knots and chains, carrying on until he chose to open his mouth, to express what was wrong.
So Steve did just that, every single night: he divulged in everything that he had kept within, the words that needed to be spoken. Thor listened and once he was done - Thor had even asked, every single time without fail if he was finished "regaling his night visions" - he gave his two cents. Not only his two cents, but a fortune of advice. The Norse God always had a way of comforting him, of stating that yes, he was real and here with him, that there was no helping what one feared, and above all, that this was not his fault.
"I was falling and it was cold. It was so cold and I was scared. I thought to myself that the sun hadn't existed it was so cold. Hell is cold then." He never could form eloquent ways to describe his dreams, the words tasting funny in his mouth whenever he confessed what was bothering him. It was bittersweet: by revealing this, he was unveiling the weakness of his own soul and altering it in some sense.
He shivered, his arms pimpled with the remnants of what his mind experienced. He wasn't crazy, was he? If he could function well enough, keeping what happened at night aside, he was just as sane as the rest of the world. Getting scared made him human, didn't it?
And then the words came. He told Thor how he didn't think he would know hope, that the sun hadn't ever given him warmth, the winter shredding him to pieces. It was just the elements after all, the fear of being lost in a storm or trapped in the rain; that might have been what it was.
Steve knew he was only seeking logic, for no matter the promise of the day that would follow, he was too scared to hold on to anything less than such a truth. He asked himself why this was still happening if he was talking to someone, if he was letting a member of his team sleep with his feet on the bed, if he was telling another being that he was scared of what his mind came up with. Was he even getting better?
Despite the initial snap judgment of the Norse God somehow being unintelligent, all brawn and no brain, Thor was incredibly perceptive, which de-bunked the archetype of muscles canceling out well-placed thoughts. Somehow, Thor managed to read people's faces, their eyes and subtle shifts of expression speaking volumes full of emotion to him, as if they had opened their mouth and told him first hand. He was intuitive, and always seeking to help those who needed it. Steve had no doubt that Thor could - and once more, would - comfort anything if he was given the chance.
Meaning, that even in the dark of 1:46 a.m, Thor was able to detect the traces of woe on his face and reassure him further.
"Steve, you are not mad. You are not mad, and you are not damned." The god's brow wrinkled in thought, realization spilling into a saddened down-turning of his lips. "This might not be working, these methods. If you still do not feel safe in your own room, in a place that is protected by one such as I, then I must be erring in some way."
Steve knew three things from that statement, facts that he wouldn't have thought twice about. Rather, the truthful tabulation that he hadn't known how to consider until right then. One, that Thor was not turning this around to make this about him. The god was many things and had been many things before he became a thriving part of the Avengers' Assemble, but he was not so vain as to make someone else's anguish about him. Two, that Thor was chastising himself out loud, similar to someone pacing as they thought or spoke aloud to an empty room. It was just the way that Thor organized his thoughts, which was easy enough to dismiss for the middle-ground of apathy and self-doubts of his own. And three, the most painful of the little-known list that made the god who he was, was his need to be tactical.
This trailed, like a drop that became a steady-flowing rivulet of blood to the wickedness that was and ever would be Loki. Steve knew it wasn't his business, but it was apparent to him where this led. After all, if he had been in Thor's position, he would be feverishly seeking a way to fill his spirit with something that wouldn't remind him of his brother, a reality in which he had no need to rely on a creature of mischief that had not only betrayed Midgard but sibling bonds in full. Thor didn't want to have to ask someone for advice, for Steve figured that he had usually turned to Loki for an inquiry he had on whatever situation he was in, be it in jest or austerity. If Steve analyzed the revelation further, he would say that it physically pained Thor that he didn't know the answers, that he couldn't rely on the one person he thought he had the eternal trust of.
Steve sat up, rubbing his hands over his forearms to ignite partial warmth through his limbs. "No, don't think like that. It's alright, really. I'm glad you're here with me. This was much harder to deal with when I was alone." That was the truth of the matter, and he hoped that Thor would understand that, that he would never be dishonest with him. How could he, when he had taken the time to help him like this?
The god smiled, and the darkness didn't seem quite so black. Thor saw the truth clearly, be it with past experience behind him or his natural perception.
"I am still honored that you trust me with this." Steve understood that statement as well, a meaning that went far beyond an echo of a reply of gratitude. That was what Thor needed: trust. Who knew that Steve's pains would equate to the god's ability to be healed? And in return, Steve was given someone to talk to, a companion when everyone else was asleep or out of the realm of understanding that was a chasm too vast to breach at this point. He and Thor were alike, both in their sorrows and their current state: two outsiders from two completely different points in time, joined by happenstance.
It was Steve's turn to smile. "Of course. I don't think I could talk about this with anyone else. I mean, I could. It just wouldn't be the same."
Thor nodded his assent, pleasure seeming to be etched permanently into his features, his eyes aglow. "Are you certain you do not wish to be moved, to have a different room, or someone else to engage in conversation about this with? Albeit, my pledge still rings true to my past word." Steve wouldn't have heard it before, but in that small oration, vulnerability dripped from every syllable. Thor was concerned that his efforts would all be for naught, that Steve would continue falling into nightmares and that everything he had done proved as a stalemate to his sanity, if not an addition to the terrors. He was desperate, Steve figured, to prove that he could do something right, help a member of his team do battle with something that went far beyond anyone else's aid.
Steve reached forward, clapping the god's shoulder. "I'm sure. I'll stay in my room, and if something doesn't change, I'll let the Director know." He licked his lips, forming his next words carefully. "You've done nothing but help me, and I'm glad it's you here, that you're helping me with this."
Beside himself, he felt a shiver scuttle over his skin. The thought of being plunged into that winter abyss had given him a case of the shakes that had yet to subside. His hand was still on Thor's shoulder, and the god felt his body tremor with a chill that no amount of blankets or warm showers could fix.
"You are shaking." Thor sat up from the chair that had become a makeshift bed for him out of his own volition, stretched his back with a small pop, then settled on the mattress without hesitance. He scooted Steve over as if he weighed nothing more than a blanket full of feathers and though Steve wanted to protest, to say that he really didn't need for Thor to go to such lengths for he had already done so much for him this night, he couldn't bring his mouth to work properly. These words wouldn't come.
"If you are comfortable with the thought of me offering my warmth, I will." The thought served as temptation, not only because of the personal warmth about him, a heat emitting from the god like an ever-radiating sun, the sun that was non-existent in the terror, but because of the protective element, the thought of being held. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been held, much less offered in such a polite way.
He tucked himself against Thor's chest, his right cheek pressing against the flannel of Thor's night-shirt. Despite his half-dressed state on the first night when their "arrangement" had been born, Thor insisted on being fully-dressed for modesty, a shirt covering his chest for Steve's sake. For, he was the prudent one, the old-fashioned one that had once believed it was just down-right odd that someone would go to bed nude. Propriety really had nothing to do with healing a super-soldier and an afflicted Norse God, but Thor insisted.
This was for him, this embrace, the heat, the way he meshed so neatly against Thor's collarbone. The words he was asked to speak were for his sake and his sake alone, even though Thor deserved the same opportunity to confess his sadness, what troubled him. Arms circled his shoulders, a large but gentle hand settling against his shoulder blade, Thor's body becoming a cage that guarded him of his own insecurity, what haunted him in the witching hour.
Or, he considered with a half-formed thought, perhaps Thor was cold as well.
Thor's voice was the tenor of a lion's growl to sleeping cubs, a deep octave that would have protected with the timbre alone. "Is this permissible to you, Steven?"
The heat that snaked up his spine, jolting his nerves and blood cells with electricity had everything to do with what had been said. Even still, after Steve had given him a thumbs-up that it was alright to embrace him like this, to sleep with him for comfort's sake, Thor was still asking permission. In the day, they were men with shared burdens. But in the night, they were vulnerable creatures, two beings that were just trying to make sense of the fate delivered to them.
In that way, the way that stated they were very much alike, alike and comforted by one another's presence, Steve nodded. He murmured against a pectoral, a muscle that emanated physical and spiritual warmth, that yes, this was more than okay.
"Sleep, Rogers. I am here." Yes, yes he was. And that truth was what made flames spike in his gut, warping his insides into a conflagration, something he'd always felt when watching a pretty girl dance, or the white-toothed smile of a friendly waitress directed at him and him alone.
Attraction. Attraction was here, and he was ensconced in it fully.
Too tired to protest, to try and dissuade himself from feeling anything but gratitude and friendship for the lion that guarded his dream world, Steve fell asleep.
And with the clock that read 8 a.m, the sunlight that threw gilded shapes around the room, he deemed Thor's method a success. That resulted in a tight, five-second squeeze, his breath fleeing for longer than what the situation expected of him. The god smiled at him, declaring that he would do this as often as he needed if it meant he was granted sleep, and Steve felt his skin growing hot.
"Thank you." 'I think I love you.'
ststststst
It was a thought that was enough to make him forsake his bearings, everything he had currently been involved in going up in smoke, concentration obliterated for the sake of fear. The fear that he had tapped into a vein that was meant to remain undiscovered, a nuance of this "arrangement" that wasn't meant to be felt, end of story, period, the bystanders could go home now.
Attraction. It wasn't so far-fetched to believe that he could develop some semblance of feeling towards the one offering him what was never given before. Security, warmth, protection. But that wasn't how it should have been, what his life was meant to become. Feelings, nobility and keeping the world safe from any of the shortcomings that came of it, yes. But the stirring of heat in his insides, the pooling warmth in his gut that fled to every angle and crevice of his being? No. It wasn't borne from anything other than what the Norse God was bestowing so selflessly to him. After all, he had always been a sucker for those who admitted their feelings and were genuine people. There was no need for it to be a bigger deal than he had made it out to be, painting a masterpiece out of something that needed to remain a simple ink and charcoal rorschach, if not a blank canvas.
It was a fleeting fancy, a moment of weakness that was amplified by crippling loneliness, by his feelings of understanding that he was an outsider, a lost creature that was expected to lead a team to victory, to a point on the unknown horizon that he didn't think he believed in anymore. It was a fever of the blood-stream, a contagion that repulsed and gravitated towards him all at once, at the very same moment that a thought was created, when he was in Thor's company.
Nothing that couldn't be sweated out.
Which was why he found himself here, hour after hour, drilling himself on his training. Weights were lifted, muscles burning with the effort, the steady sounds of bars and metal clicking soothing to his thoughts. It was mindless, deliberate and precise; logic was what he needed, not puppy love for someone who saved him in a moment of weakness. That wasn't fair to Thor, to someone who was in as much, if not infinitely more torment than he was.
He ran laps until numbers blurred, his calf muscles bulging with the strain, heart thudding in his head, a steady reminder of his mortality. This blood, this body made him human, no matter how long he would live, what his serum would give him for an undetermined period of time. Humanity was here, threading through his veins with red and white cells, with this shortness of breath, with the patina of sweat over his skin. This was living, something he could control, a constant rationale that had composed his life hitherto.
What he couldn't control terrified him. He couldn't control the way Tony made jabs about what had made him so special, though the comment had been made in the heat of a moment of rage in the early stages of the team's disharmony with one another. He couldn't find a way to come to terms with what had happened to him so many years ago, actions that built the man - not a monster, not a lab rat, not a first-rate experiment - but a man of fault and power alike.
Foolishly, he thought he could control the organ that danced beneath his skin for far more than exercise. And that was enough to send him running another ten laps, sprinting until his legs gave out, his world spinning and careening in on itself, imploding and rebuilding.
He was running, running from possibility and chance. After all of that, after everything he had been through, was he still just the scared little boy from Brooklyn, the boy who would have done nearly anything to prove that he was worthy to fight for his country, to be recognized, to be worthy of respect?
Change was possible, for enough of it had happened in his lifetime for him to believe any different. If the world could turn, the earth spinning beneath his feet even though he couldn't physically feel it, if the stars could die, only to be reborn, if people could make better laws and if men could strive to be so much better than they had once built themselves to be, then why was he incapable of such feats?
He wasn't. He couldn't have been without the element of change, without the desire for something more than the bewildering world, the poisoned hand of fate he had been handed.
'If Thor could do it, why not me?' He looked up to the god now more than he would have liked to admit to himself, especially in these moments of weakness that mired his sight, throwing mist across his usual cheerful demeanor. The thought was spoken in his mind, and the words might as well have ingrained themselves on his lips, tasting with a flavor that, if he hadn't sampled before, he would have been ignorant of how much he needed it, needed the influence of a savior.
This went far beyond protection, desperately seeking a face in a crowd of millions that he had even an iota of a similarity with. It was about so much more than that, for he never went into anything half-assed, without his full heart into something.
These nightmares twisted his raw emotions into something he could barely recognize. Weakness, fear, the terror he had experienced made him believe, he understood now as he remained on the textured floor of the track, that he was supposed to suffer, that he was supposed to be alone in this.
If he felt something, why was he denying it so passionately? Why wasn't he acting on it, like a man should be? He was still incredibly shy, yes, but that didn't mean that he couldn't at least try and do something about this, to see where such a thought went. Why not? There was the chance of denial, of unrequited feelings and the inability to reciprocate, of course. All actions had their consequences.
But by consequence, he would add to Thor's wounds, to the scars of the god who had taken it upon himself to talk him out of one of the darkest periods in his life. An admission to feelings, to "love" - for, he didn't know if it was love yet - might very well be a segment that the god didn't need to cope with at this point in time. Every single creature had their breaking points.
And that thought was the scalpel that sliced through his cloud nine, sending him free-falling back to earth once more, disoriented and to his anguish, embittered. His vision clouded throughout the rest of the day, sorrow and self-hate gnawing at his insides, twisting into a fire-frenzy of sensation whenever he so much as glanced at Thor.
'The heart wants what it can't have. Isn't that the truth.'
The angle of elbows and hands was as much an opium as it was a confinement, the heat of Thor's embrace; for this time alone, he cherished the warmth, gobbling it up with the ferocity of a vulture picking at fresh carrion. His eyes squeezed shut, imagining and re-imagining different scenarios that equated to a different future between him and Thor. One in which the two of them made love, were romantically together, without powers, vices and sin trailing behind them with the fitted grace of a cloak.
Human emotion pulsed through him, resonating in a dream that was unlike any he had created before. In this dream, he was taking a walk, expecting horror and villains to come around the corner, tearing his friends apart, horrifying illustrations that would allow him to awake in Thor's arms, only to have to talk about what happened. He didn't want that, to have to lean on someone.
And yet he was doing just that. With every step he took, the sidewalk splintered, civilians falling through the gaps in the street to their deaths. His mouth opened wide, screaming pleas for everyone to just listen to him, for them to stop and run, but even his voice gave way to new horrors. The buildings exploded into flames, trees and glass shattering, littering and impaling innocent bystanders into nothing more than bloody ribbons. His tears were sulfur to the air, humans choking on oxygen that was tainted by the act of him inhaling and exhaling, every act destroying the very world that he was engineered to save.
The serum was rejecting him then, turning in on itself, the underbelly of the coin revealing its intent now, now as he had just begun to settle into a new existence.
He registered movement, someone shaking him but he screamed at them to stop, because everything he did ruined another, every movement created tragedy. Hands shook him, the city becoming ash, mingled with the flames of his tears, the wailing a lament to a facet of his sadness he didn't know he was capable of feeling, much less emitting.
And then, as soon as he thought of it, the vision ended. Thor's hands were on him, but they weren't rousing him into full consciousness, in the way that he knew blue eyes to narrow, all color and pigments of unabashed concern for him. No, Thor was still asleep, and he had just rolled closer to him in the night, and in return the hands that were around him tightened. Everything was magnified in his mind after all.
Meaning, it would be possible to fall back to sleep, or just lay awake and imagine how it would feel to be cherished by the one embracing him.
"Captain, I am not so easily fooled." Despite his attempts to pretend he hadn't heard the voice of a rather bemused thunder god, his hearing was exceptional.
"I just can't fool you, can I?" Steve tried to sit up, but Thor only gripped him tighter, his hand rubbing a place in-between his shoulder blades. The sensation soothed him, so much so that a pleasured sigh slipped from his mouth. He shouldn't have created such sounds, revealed this, for that was the very thing that he wasn't supposed to be doing.
"I would be rather hurt if you tried to, Steven." The hand that was on his back traced thoughtful patterns, warm fingers pressing against his skin, as if attempting to touch the muscles deep within, the places where Steve was afraid to acknowledge, much less examine. "That is why I ask what you dreamt of. And," he added with a hint of austerity in his tone "why you appeared so downcast this evening." He couldn't hide from him. He couldn't hide one damn thing from the person who he had allowed inside.
Steve's words refused to come. His tongue was useless in his mouth, stilling and tensing whenever a thought crossed his mind, his throat rejecting the creation of sounds, the timbre and octaves that he knew to be his voice. There was nothing but silence, blessed silence from him, for he couldn't speak. If he spoke, if he so much as opened his mouth, grief and his doubt would apex, roaring into a beast of his own devisings that he didn't think he had the strength to face. Words led to trouble, led to having someone be this concerned for him that he would hold him in his sleep to fight off night visions.
Had he always been this insecure? Maybe somewhere deep beneath the surface, but it was a part he had never accepted. If he accepted it, he might have ceased to try somewhere along the way, began running and found himself in surroundings that he would have hated: cowardice. He was right back to square one once again, the realization of him earnestly believing that he was nothing more than a liability in tights, a red white and blue campaign of all show and no truth behind the words.
He wanted to change? He wanted more? Then he was going to have to open up his damn mouth and say something.
"Everything I did destroyed life. I took a few steps and the sidewalk would crumble, I'd shout or say something, and glass would break, killing the people around me. Hell, if I so much as took a breath, I'd hurt someone." All the while, in the moments where quiet was his vice, restricting the flow of necessary words, Thor never ceased the back massage. It was as much a comfort as it was a luxury, for with the applied pressure to his back, it was an act of reassurance, a silent plea for him to continue at his own pace. It was acceptance, in its most intimate form.
Intimate. Yes, they were two guys lying in bed, and he happened to be in - love? - some degree of feeling for the man, but he wasn't sure about that.
"I feel as if I'm nothing but a burden sometimes. I don't know anything about this time, and the more I push, the more the world shoves me back. I learn a few things, and ten-thousand more spring up, like weeds." The quiet pressed against his chest, stretching out until he could physically feel Thor's empathy threatening to escape, wishing to envelop him in words of comfort, words he needed to hear. Steve knew this, and he killed off any notion of being self-centered for wanting them, much less needing them. "I don't think I belong here; I'm just too different to adjust."
Thor sat up, and instead of keeping Steve on the bed, he gently tugged his body, releasing his hold just enough so that they could get in a more comfortable position. Steve registered the effort of sitting up, after four hours of lying down and complied with stretching, turning his neck to the right, and then the left, shoulders and neck popping with the effort.
He had closed his eyes as he stretched, and when they opened, he noted the intensity of Thor's gaze. He was staring at him, as if analyzing or watching him for any sudden movement, for some reason. No...that wasn't quite it. He was looking at him with something akin to admiration, if not burning sentiment. Regardless of how Thor was completely open with his emotions, there were certain facets even he kept guarded, under heavy chain and key.
"If you would allow me...?" Thor's hand squeezed his shoulder, his skin heating up within moments of the touch. He managed a small nod, and something like "uh huh" knowing that whatever he would tell him would heal him tonight, heal the parts that needed mending deep within him. Words could do that he knew, be razors or butterfly stitches. He just hoped that he'd be able to do the same for him someday, if he was given the chance.
"Listen to me if you will: you are the furthest thing from a burden. You encumber not me, or the ones around you. Your talents are without end, your fortitude is inspiring, and you are accepted in my eyes. You will never be anything less." The voice was clear and unwavering, the epitome of what comfort could emulate and become, a father inspiring confidence in a son, a mother reassuring her daughter.
"You, Steven, are far more noble than I. Those with your attributes on Asgard would have a special place in Vallhalla, if you had passed in battle. There would be rooms dedicated to your glory, your face chiseled in gold and diamond, offerings left in your name and title with the hopes of inspiring such feats of the soul that you have, as a natural boon." This was spoken in a gentle tone, a notch down from the first part of the speech. These words knit into his skin, embedding themselves in his neurons, firing synapses and energy where there had once been lifeless cells, bobbing anchors seeking forward movement.
In fact, it was as if Thor was praising him on his outward appearance, on how his character could be modeled into what his people found to be worthy in a person.
"Steve, believe me when I say that you are to be admired for your abilities, praised for the obstacles you overcome." The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently, blue eyes filled with nothing but truth, veracity electrifying the sapphire hues into a stream of color, a heated gaze settling upon his own. This was either to solidify his claims, or it was...it was...
The god's head tilted, mirroring Steve's gesture of both confusion and embarrassment. "If one takes the time to see you, to see you with what eyes could so easily miss, they would find themselves besotted."
Besotted...drunk, intoxicated, something like that... he had gone to art school not wanted to be a teacher...
Out of old habit, his teeth clenched the inside of his mouth, his lower lip twitching with the effort, a gesture that didn't go without recognition. Thor's gaze shifted its sights, eyelids slanting, as if he found the shape of his lips fascinating, a wonder to behold for the rest of his lengthy life. Thor found quite a lot of things interesting about this time, every device in the kitchen, every restaurant, every difference in language. But the conduct of his focus was now completely directed on, to Steve's complete disbelief, on his mouth.
He figured it wise to say something, to see if words could dissuade what he figured to be delirium from lack of sleep. Why else would Thor be looking at him like he wanted to...well, he looked as if...
"I...err...you...thank you. Yes, thank you, how rude of me. You've been painting me up as this great guy, and if you really feel that way, then I can honestly say I'm thankful." All-seeing eyes lifted their attention from his lips, catching his gaze instead.
It was dark, but the both of them could see without any form of difficulty. Meaning, Thor would certainly be able to tell that the dusting of heat across his neck and face was due to more than him fumbling over his words, and that yes, there was a determined element in sapphire hues, brought on by a source that was not as unknown with the progression of their conversation as naivete would claim.
"You are the furthest thing from rude, Steven. If anything, it is I who disgrace you with my silence."
Silence. Silence about what exactly? He had something to tell him, something he was keeping from him? In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't the worst that could happen, for they were still strangers...
Fingers slid under his chin, tilting his head up, trapping him in place for a full moment before the hold lessened. He was given the option of escape, of pulling away, of yelling at the top of his lungs that he wanted Thor out of his bed and never to come in and tell him about silence and pretty words and compliments ever again.
But Steve would never do that.
"If it is permissable...if I would be inflicting no harm upon what we are now...have I your acquiescence?" A fancy term for permission, something to that effect...
Blue eyes narrowed, lips pursing in inquiry, expecting an answer. For the moment, Thor, Thor the Norse God, he who commanded storms and Mjolnir was at the mercy of his words.
Steve managed a nod, drunk on the thought of what would happen next. "Are you sure? I thought I was doing that whole unrequited thing pretty well on my own."
Steve never knew it was possible to taste laughter, but that's what happened not an instant after. Words escaped him, fear fleeing to the shadowed rooms and corridors where it belonged, shrinking against the golden-fire of the mouth on his, the lips that tasted his own as if they were sacred, a holy union without sound, frantically seeking for a way to make it last for as long as possible. His lips trembled once, though he was doing a good job of holding them in place, giving way to the effect he didn't want: Thor pulling away.
The room spun, a haze settling over his eyes, a sort of lover's tizzy that he didn't know he was capable of feeling anymore. He figured his mouth was set in a goofy twist of his lips, the sort of smile that felt like all the good things in the world had wrapped up in one neat ribbon, delivered and sealed with such a kiss.
"Was that inappropriate in any way? If I have wronged you, please say so, Steven." God, the way Thor said his name, every syllable and octave of his name, peppered in full over a thick accent was enough to reduce him to little more than this dazed being he had become. Was it possible to transition through different modes of human emotion, the fear, the terror of his dream, the heartache and self-loathing he had battled for months now, changed in full by this giddiness, a feeling he wished would elongate and stay, stay in his mind for the less unsightly moments?
If not, then maybe he was crazy.
And with the way the god was staring at him, a gaze that was guileless, so open and raw, he didn't think being crazy was so bad. Thor liked him enough to kiss him, now didn't he?
"God no, you didn't do anything wrong. If anything, I've felt this way for maybe a week." A smile split Thor's features, a broad grin so full of unadulterated joy that Steve wondered how he could ever manage to be unhappy in this man's company. "I was never going to say speak up and say something, for I thought I was confusing the way you were helping me with something else." Thor's head tilted, eyes narrowing in thought, realization blooming across his features with the speed of sunlight against a steady body of water.
"That something else being the way I have been protecting you from your nightly terrors?" A small smile became a full grin, a happiness that refused to be bound by the limitation of lips. "Steven, I considered it wrong to believe that I could act on how I felt, for I did not want to dissuade or discomfort you." The god laughed, a laugh that boomed for Steve's ears alone, a tenor slithering into his rib-cage, settling against the muscle of his heart. He had done that, he had created that beautiful sound, the smile that he had denied himself of for far too long. "It appears we both have erred in our intentions."
Intentions. Something would come of this, something more than this. There was more than this, a piece, no, a masterpiece of color and life to be held...
"I...yeah, I was pretty stupid." A breath escaped his lips, the breath becoming a throaty moan when his back was touched once more, muscles and pores reacting to Thor's touch alone.
He was not crazy, foolish or beyond the reach of adaptation. He was not some love-lorn fool, nor doomed to a fate of unfulfilled longing for a touch he would be granted with only in his dreams, chaotic though they might have been.
"You are a wise man, Steven."
He never really liked being called Steven until right now, he managed to murmur, his mind clouded with fatigue. For a singular moment, he almost didn't want to close his eyes, close his eyes and leave a reality that was far better than snatches of rest, than the bliss of a heated embrace.
"This is real, right?"
A reassurance that yes, the god was very real instigated a firmer hold on his back, fingers pressing against the planes of his shoulders, the hollow dip of his lower back threading with warmth.
They'd talk about this tomorrow, whatever this was. For now, he had some sleep to catch up on.
...I've taken too much, given up.
I am twisted, burning, breaking up.
I need to find a way of letting it go...
End of Part II
