Aaaand last one for this evening. It's a bit dreamy, a bit disoriented, and a lot more deeply into Loki's POV than I typically go for stories. I like you guys being able to clearly piece together what's happening, you know? However, let's just say this is a nice look at what I don't usually write, kay? Kay.

Rating is mature

Warnings: nightmares, falling, pretty terrible hangovers


Perceptions

They are stumbling down the street, Loki trying to rest his head against Steve's shoulder and irritated that they are the same height-this is much more difficult than need be. He nearly falls, stumble steps and ends up tangled against Steve.

"You're drunk," Steve says wryly.

"Hardly, I can drink much more than that! That was hardly anything." Loki protests; his mouth feels cottony so he takes extra care to enunciate, feel each sharp flick of word against his teeth before letting it trips off his tongue. "I can outdrink you."

"I'm sure you can." Steve chuckles, low deep rumble purr; Loki runs his fingers along the edge of Steve's shirt (to tug it out of his pants, wants Steve to chuckle again and drown in the sound, skin pressed to his ear). "Come on, Loki."

Loki shudders at the way Steve says his name, a sliding rise into sharpness, 'i' savoured along the roof of mouth and tongue. Still stopped, Loki presses against Steve, tries to herd him towards a wall, feels taut flesh and muscle as he finally tugs Steve's shirt out of his pants. He kisses along Steve's throat and grinds up against Steve at the surprised gust that brushes by his ear, his pulse, his chuckle, all the noises of Steve.

"Loki, no, come on."

And Steve drags his hands away, pushes Loki away. Loki scowls (pouts) at Steve, at the distance and how he can longer hear Steve. Steve wraps an arm around his waist, guides him again.

(Not close enough, Loki thinks, but it will do-he can hear Steve's breath once more, steady rhythm to guide his feet.)

Silence.

Steve's hands are tugging his shoes off and the sky is white smooth-the ceiling. He blinks and looks down to Steve, props himself on his elbows and tries not to collapse as the... bed (words are so distant right now) shifts beneath his weight. Steve glances up at him—Loki hears rhythm of his breathing change and a noise (whine) slips unbidden from his throat. Steve says something, chuckles low deep again, and Loki tilts his head back, closes his eyes (sound runs live fire crackle along his nerves, makes his hips twitch and cock harden).

Everything tilt spin drifts; Loki gasps and opens his eyes, sees Steve leaning up along him—grounds on the noise of cloth rasping and zipper teeth click (spreads his legs, some noise (his?) needy wanting whine-groan in the air, drum thud beat against his temples—closer he thinks, closer he needs to hear).

Steve chuckles again.

He fumbles with numb fingers, tangles in hair and pulls, desperate; he needs to hear pulse sigh low rumble heart

sound feel vibration heat along the underside of his cock, groans and cannot hear, hears too much: pulse rhythm, sigh low b-flat, rippling chuckle vibrato, grunt rasp cloth and pushes into the noise-feel, closes his eyes again to drown in the sound, white pressure swell pressing against bones flesh swell crescendo—

silence.

Wet damp, wet clothes and movement, sick swirl (too much sound)(door slam, streetlamp buzz, creaking wind bed rustle fabric skin on skin hiss water tip-tap-drip-tap —

A heartbeat steady

(one-two-three-four one-two-three-four one-two-three-four)

warmth and tempo.

He curls on his side, face pressed against warm tempo beat, and he sleeps.

Silence.

He wakes to fuzzy mouthfeel and sound of drum-drum-drum pounding pulse, to a spinning room and sick-bright light and he thinks he might die for the aching of bones. This hurts more in his head than traffic and cars and noisy classrooms combined.

Steve walks out of the bathroom (so that's where the slippery sickening water noise has been coming from), toweling his hair. Loki stares up at him before whining a little in the back of his throat (Steve, he finds, responds well to these undignified noises).

Steve laughs at him.

The noise makes the world spin-twist-slide and he lurches off the bed (when did he take his clothes off?). Body is treasonous—his legs fold and he's staring up at the ceiling, then his stomach letting its displeasure be very known—

Well. How dignified.

He feels marginally better at least. The room is still dizzy and Loki is not sure he could get up if he wanted to (he actually does. Want to. Mostly to get under the sick slick shower water noise and curl up until things become more stable).

Steve picks him up and helps him stagger to the bathroom.

Not silence. Something like it though.

"You can drink more than that, eh?"

Loki glares at Steve over his coffee (milk with coffee, Steve says) and hunches in further. The kitchen light buzzes maddening overhead, sound slips through the kitchen window, click of coffee pot burner turning on head-thud-thudding migraine breath too loud. Even Steve's voice is a bother this morning.

(He does not say that—Loki did just vomit in Steve's bedroom floor, which Steve has cleaned while Loki attempted to die in the shower.)

(This is as magnanimous as he is willing to be.)

It is nearly three days before they see each other again—Steve away for SHIELD, Loki in San Diego for a performance. It passes in a blur of noise and half-remembered images.

(Loki can, for example, name the particularly annoying notes of not-New York, remembers vividly the human bustle sing-song of Chinatown, the exact volume the room rustled before he began to play. San Diego was a loud city and his head still aches from the unfamiliarity even as he is embraced again by New York.)

"What was it like?" Steve asks him over take-out, a movie playing. They are sitting in the floor, half of Loki's favourite Japanese restaurant spread around them. Loki pauses, finishes chewing thoughtfully.

"Bright," he says. And it was that. "You would have liked the bridge. There were seals as well."

(They were loud; despite how obnoxious they were, Loki had found himself quite liking their off-key happy barks.)

"Is that all?" Steve asks. "Did you like it? How was the concert hall?"

"Dark. Dark woods and dark fabrics." Loki pauses to remember but it's a visual blur. It is not sight Loki cares about. "It resonated beautifully."

(Understatement of the year, as mortals say, but Loki does not have words to explain to Steve what it was truly like.)

"I should get you a camera," Steve laughs, attention going back to the animated penguins on the television.

"Perhaps," Loki allows.

(He wishes more people he deals with perceived as he does.)

It is easy for Steve, who thinks in shapes and lines. Humans are innately visual creatures (he would like to argue they aural as well, but...) and have so many words and measures for things in those terms. Even children with no training can understand those terms. Not so music, which humans have spent lifetimes attempting to verbalize.

Steve helps him clear away the food (Loki loves the sound and taste of food on his tongue, finds it innately sensual), putting leftovers in the fridge and tossing out empty boxes. They kiss goodbye (Steve has not yet unpacked) and then Loki is alone. He debates seeing if Lethe would like to do anything, but it is late (and to be honest, he desires to be alone a little while)(not that he would have told Steve that).

It is dark, greys and blues and shadows. A dog barks, cats answer, trees rustle sigh, door slams. Water drip-drips, electricity hums, an engine turns over. (There's no rhythm or meaning to these assorted sounds; his mind conjures up melody, harmony, counterpoints; weaves them all together till his head fills a symphony, this swelling throbbing noise where once magic soothed, aching temple build up—

Loki rolls over. Rustle fabric breaks up discordant cacophony and his eyes drift closed again.

Car door. Laughter. Drip-tap-splash, owl, swish of air and tires, engine stops, keys jangle drop, engine starts...

Silence.

(Blackness and falling and faint star glimmer. "No, Loki." Falling, falling blackness and silence and faint star glimmer. Falling ground rushing up, too fast, "No, Loki"—

He wakes. Streetlight slips beneath the blinds. The steady red glow of the clock reads 4:02. Three hours is not so bad, he thinks, and begins a new day.

Loki is unsure what causes Steve to suddenly realize Loki does not perceive the same way (actually realize, not just know in passing). He thinks it might be his own fault—he has been talking about an opera he has been commissioned to write and the particular sounds unique to opera (which he does not like, too Wagner. Or rather, too Asgard (he does not like Wagner either)).

"How do you perceive things?"

Loki blinks, tries to get his mind to change pace. It is not a question he has ever heard or ever expected to hear.

(They are playing poker in Steve's living room floor.)

"Not like you," Loki supplies with an easy smile. Both true and allows Loki to dodge the question (he is not afraid Steve will find it alien and like him less for it.)

"Can you tell me how?"

Loki looks at his hand. Steve will win this round, he suspects—his own is terrible.

"Possibly," Loki allows. "I do not have many words for it."

Steve hums thoughtfully—Loki's favourite hum, which seems to rumble through the room, wired straight to Loki's brain and nerves and always arousing. He might not have words but he thinks he can... 'show' Steve.

"Here." Loki tosses his cards aside and closes the distance between them. Steve obligingly sets his own cards down (and Loki was right, he would have lost this round) and adjusts how he is sitting. Loki places his hands over Steve's eyes, so close now Steve's breath is brushing against his skin, Steve's pulse almost audible.

"Loki, you aren't bli—"

"Hush. Listen."

Loki watches Steve as silence-or-something-like-it settles once more. He is so very close to Steve, each's breath brushing against the other's lips. Steady in, steady out. Steve's eyelashes flutter against the palms of his hands but his eyes stay shut.

A muffled door slam. Heat hisses on. Loki closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Steve's. Soft rustle of thin cotton as Steve shifts, rougher and stiffer sound of his jeans moving, and there, finally, just beneath the surface, a delicate, mortal-thin pulse.

(He is not sure if it is Steve's or his own.)

The soft intake of air right before Steve speaks; Loki kisses him before he can interrupt this... peace.

They don't need to talk—he tries to show that as he explore the particular cold-hot taste of Steve's mouth, the particular wet sound; not sloppy, but... primal, yes. The light gasp of air and feel of teeth biting down in the soft flesh of bottom lip. Accidental percussion of teeth against teeth.

He pulls back, heart stut-stuttering, face hot and pulse loud. Steve's hands are resting at his waist, fingertips digging in slightly at the motion; Loki fumbles and grabs his scarf one-handed off the floor, then ties it about Steve's eyes.

Steve waits, patient, face flush, eyes closed.

Scarf now make-shift blindfold and tied, Loki kisses Steve again, trails along Steve's oh-so-strong jaw, down his neck to his collarbone. Steve's pulse is faster than Loki's own and it occurs to Loki that this, then, this trusting blindness, is entirely new for Steve. He grazes his teeth along the tense muscle (and oh how Loki loves that noise) and Steve's hips grind up against Loki, instinct and rasp of jean against slacks.

A certain hard-soft snap sound as Loki undoes the front of Steve's shirt, leaning down and continuing to kiss slowly revealed planes of flesh. He grinds back against Steve, sets tempo (larghissimo), and for a little while closes his eyes, revels in sound of lips against skin, tense breath rustling his hair, creak of muscle as Steve fumbles and slides hands hesitantly, blindly, along the curve of Loki's neck and to his hair.

He opens his eyes and moves, pushes Steve down onto the carpet. Undoes Steve's pants and tugs slightly; Steve takes the unspoken command—oh clever Steve—and Loki leaves him to strip. Once he finds the lube he returns, footsteps loud rustle of sock against carpet pile. For a long moment, he appreciates how visual Steve is, watches muscles tense and ripple beneath faded tan as Steve hears (but cannot see) him return.

Beautiful.

Loki tries to be silent as he draws closer, kneels down between Steve's legs and drinks in the sound of choked gasp as Loki presses butterfly soft kisses along the inside of his thighs, one hand sliding up and grasping Steve's erection as he slips an already slicked finger inside. He waits hardly a moment before adding a second, impatient (he wants Steve now, wants his noise and feel and warmth all around, wants Steve to hear and feel as well).

(Loki knows he should be more patient, pace himself, but this is, he thinks, not about Steve so much as perhaps Steve understanding a little. Besides, Loki so rarely sees Steve like this, so deliciously vulnerable(and to think someone would rely so solely on sight)).

Loki does not undress—fabric on skin noise is too attractive, sexual the way the slick wet spread of Steve is; combined his head is dizzy and spinning drunk. He leans up, presses kisses to Steve's chest. Steve's groan is deep d-flat as Loki nips hardened nipple, flicks his tongue as his fingers press and search for that oh so human key.

Steve arches up soundless as Loki finds it. Loki keeps pressing, increasing tempo (andante) and count (three), sucks and licks and leaves wet sounds trailing the air as he feasts.

More.

His hands betray his dizziness as he gets his cock free of all these clothes, slicks himself and nearly falls on top of Steve when Steve blind fumbles and grips him with one hand, pleased murmur escaping his lips (and words are so distant right now). He digs his hands into Steve's hips, crescent shaped marks and bruises blooming, he does not care, Steve is making this oh so maddening noise, low and coaching and needy, hand guiding Loki against-in and Loki growls and bites his bottom lip. Presses in hard and fast and stops, buried deep in warmth and pulse and sound:

Steve's breath, hard and fast against his shoulder, ragged, thud-brush of flesh on carpet, pulse wild and pounding dark against his own slightly off-step pulsebeat, drag of skin on cloth as Steve hooks his legs tight around Loki and groans deeper more press down drown

fumbles, grasps Steve's hair, kisses him insensate, wet on wet on flesh on fabric on carpet on carpet, stuttering drunken waltz hip stutter-snap ragged breath groaning blindness and sound and heat white noise pressure building, building, crescendo pressure yes

a single glorious pause (rest), silence and safe darkness

He collapses shaking on top of Steve, disoriented, wet and hot, sweat soaking his clothing and more besides, damp slicking his lip and chin, lays there listening to that heartbeat

(one-two-three-four one-two-three-four one-two-three-four)

and sighs, pushes the scarf turned blindfold off Steve's face.

Steve blinks at sudden sight, looks at him. Frowns a little and thumbs Loki's lip—it comes away crimson and stings. Blood then. Loki finds he does not care. Only cares for uneven breath and heartbeat pulse against broad chest, for the darkness behind his eyelids.

Eventually, they move, shower hiss wet on skin, then curl up in warmth: blankets on flannel on skin and bone weight. Sleep comes—

silence

heart

(one-two-three-four one-two-three-four one-two-three...