There was no respite. A week passed, and more soft spots opened, more became portals, bound but not closed. There were reports of strange things happening—stranger things, was maybe a better way of putting it—that sounded to Loki very much like what he'd seen in the marsh in Minneapolis. Things that shouldn't be there suddenly appearing, then disappearing. It sounded, to Loki, like another dimension, almost exactly like theirs, overlaying their own and pushing its way in.

Or perhaps it was the other way around, and their dimension was pushing its way into another.

Other things were going wrong. Blackouts for no reason. Harrowing stories of planes hitting pockets of space where everything stopped functioning—phones, computers, tablets. The plane's onboard electrics and the engine. There was a story of a column of water in the Gulf of Mexico, and when a Coast Guard boat was sent to investigate it, the boat and everyone on board was sucked into the column and carried into the atmosphere. Except it wasn't like they were being sucked up by the water, eyewitnesses said. It was more like they were falling. As though gravity was working backwards only in that spot.

Loki, Strange, and Wong were run ragged. They slept in shifts, watching the Rotunda of Gateways, listening for requests for help from the other Sanctums. Loki supposed he was eating, but he usually couldn't remember when the last time that he'd done so was. Usually Strange or Wong would have to remind him.

He didn't mind being too busy to think. His dreams were bleeding into his waking moments, and he would find himself so tired that he couldn't stop memories from crowding him, memories that he wasn't prepared to relive.

One night—was it eight days after Mordo and the Frost Beast? Nine?—he was pacing the Rotunda of Gateways, watching this world's myriad environments flashing past silently. Desert to rainforest to mountain peak to prairie to city to suburb to hardwood forest to tundra. A thought snuck into his mind that he might be coming to love this planet. And that just made him roll his eyes.

"You can get some sleep if you want," a voice said from the doorway.

Loki turned around. Strange was standing there, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the side of the door. With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Loki replied, "My shift isn't over until six."

Shrugging, Strange said, "Yeah, but I can't sleep. And you don't sleep, so I was thinking maybe you should try." He smiled a little. "That's my prescription for you. Doctor's orders."

With a snort of laughter, Loki said, "I'm afraid I was never very good at following orders, regardless of how well-intentioned they are."

"Hmph." Strange pushed off from the wall with a shoulder, then came into the Rotunda. For a moment, he watched the gateways, then he turned to Loki. "Seriously. Are you okay? You don't sleep, you barely eat."

Raising an eyebrow, Loki said, "Why do you ask?" His heart had jumped at the concern.

Strange glanced at him. "Oh, you know. Wong's worried."

"Ah. Of course. Wong."

A smile flashed across Strange's face, a smile which made it hard for Loki to swallow. He was a beautiful man and it was a bit criminal that it had taken Loki so long to notice. He reached out, touching Stephen on the shoulder, wishing he could let his hand linger, imagining what it would feel like to trace his fingers along Strange's shoulder, up his neck, and into his hair. To run them in the other direction, down his body, inside his clothes, over his bare skin. He still hadn't forgotten the way Strange had looked mostly naked.

In the long list of all his bad ideas, pursuing Strange wasn't his worst. But it was still ill-advised. This wasn't the time for a romantic dalliance, and besides, Strange was mortal. Thor falling in love with Jane Foster had been one of his more stupid choices, and Loki had always been disdainful of it.

Then again, perhaps it wasn't really a choice.

Anyway, Loki wasn't in love with Strange. Obviously. He was…attracted to him. And yes, he woke up thinking about him, looking forward to seeing him. Talking to him was never boring. He was intelligent, he was well-read (for a human, obviously, but that wasn't his fault), and he was witty. He appreciated Loki's sense of humor and he made Loki laugh, which was something he desperately needed to do. He understood magic, the thing that had always defined Loki, and which only his mother had ever appreciated.

This wasn't love, though. Loki would be an idiot to allow himself to fall in love with Stephen Strange, human wizard, who had Loki's name on a list of possible threats to Earth. They weren't, to put it lightly, a match made in heaven. Or in hel, for that matter. They'd be a match made on Midgard, and the thought made Loki cringe. Besides, he didn't even know if Strange liked men. Doctor Palmer was an ex-girlfriend, but there had never been any mention of ex-boyfriends.

But Strange stood close to him, and held his gaze, and told him to get some sleep. He made him eat. He let him be silent, or he let him talk. He let him be. And Strange touched him, little, casual, glancing touches, but sometimes, Loki caught something in his eyes that looked very much like the longing Loki felt.

It was stupid. It was such a stupid idea. What could he possibly hope for? Here, between them? Loki was the alien who had invaded New York City and Strange was keeping him here unbeknownst to his entire order. Strange's sworn duty was to protect this planet and Loki had once tried to conquer it. Strange was mortal, human, and Loki was a god. There was no future for them.

Of course there wasn't a future. He didn't want a future. He just wanted…

Oh, what? He just wanted to fuck?

Please.

You're such a liar.

He couldn't be in love with Stephen Strange.

Loki glanced at him. Norns, he wanted to kiss him. He'd imagined kissing him. He'd imagined more than that.

But he cut that thought off. No future. No point. Anyway, Loki didn't do relationships. And he felt far too much affection for Strange to simply take the physical pleasure he wanted from him, were Strange to even offer that.

Affection? For heaven's sake.

Finally, Loki said, "I won't sleep. To be honest, Stephen…" He hesitated, always loathe to admit to vulnerability. But Strange had always made him feel like his vulnerabilities weren't something to be ashamed of. With a sigh that was only a little bitter, he said, "To be honest, sleeping brings me no rest. It certainly brings me no peace."

Strange looked at him, looking pained about this, but not pressing the issue. He never did. He never had. That was something to wonder about, but of course, that would require Loki to face certain truths that he didn't want to. "Okay," Strange said quietly. One of his hands came up, shaking as always, almost as though he meant to touch Loki's face.

That was wishful thinking. But he put his hand on Loki's shoulder, and even that amount of contact knotted Loki's stomach. "Keep me company, then?" Strange asked, his tone sardonic, his smile dry. Loki surprised himself by being able to see through it to the fact that Stephen meant it.

Loki shrugged, but didn't move. "I suppose."


Loki almost considers using the Tesseract and going back to Asgard, if only to have access to the library. Of course, that makes a lot of assumptions. One, that any part of Asgard is still standing. Two, that every book in the library hasn't been burned. Three, that Asgard isn't completely overrun by Ultimus's creatures. Four, that Loki isn't too much of a coward to return to Asgard.

That last one is just wishful thinking. He's definitely too much of a coward to return home. Not because he thinks he can't fight his way through Ultimus's hoards, but simply because he can't face his ghosts.

Fine, then. He'll just have to make do with his patchy knowledge of the creature. The Old One. Ghaszaszh Nyirh. He read about the Old Ones centuries ago on Asgard. They'd given him nightmares, actually, and his mother had tutted and told him that the subject could wait until he was older.

He figures, though, that something that gave him nightmares is an appropriate thing to set against Ultimus.

(a bit of lucid dreaming, here. He doesn't yet understand, or doesn't want to understand, what his worst nightmare is)

"You look very thoughtful, brother," Thor says.

Loki interlaces his fingers and pushes his palms back towards himself, cracking his knuckles. "Oh?" he says.

There's a concert in Central Park that Loki's insisted they attend. He misses music. He misses art. He's slid past ticket kiosks at museums before, glamored to be unnoticeable, but not lately. When he saw a flyer for this concert, he took it and told Thor they were going. Thor, to his credit, indulges this without too much moaning.

Loki has glamored both of them, and it's dark, but they're still sitting at the back of the Great Lawn. The sound isn't good, of course—they're too far from the orchestra, and besides, they're outside, but it makes him feel civilized. After years of what boils down to homelessness, it's a nice reprieve.

It's the intermission now, otherwise Loki would have shushed Thor. He doesn't know the music that the orchestra is playing, but it's nice. For human music, obviously.

Thor leans closer to him. "You're thinking about that thing again, aren't you?"

Loki scowls. For someone who professes to have no interest or talent in magic, Thor certainly seems to be able to read minds at times. "No," Loki lies. When Thor gives him an exasperated look, Loki says, "Maybe, but what do you care? You made it clear you're not interested in my plan."

"I'm not interested in your plan because it will only result in something terrible happening," Thor says. "You, though, are clearly still fixated on it." He lowers his voice further. "Loki, I know you think me an unlearned boor, but I'm not entirely ignorant."

"Shh," Loki hisses. "Don't say my name."

Thor rolls his eyes. "No one's listening."

This is true, but it doesn't mean Loki has to admit it. He crosses his arms over his chest and says, "You've knocked a few points from your boorishness quotient by coming here with me tonight."

With a snort, Thor says, "Thanks."

"Of course, brother," Loki smirks.

Sobering again, Thor says, "I know what that thing is. The thing you want to set on—" He lowers his voice. "—Ultimus." Loki glares at him, but Thor presses on. "You have to stop. We can't do what you want to do. It's an Old One, L—brother. It's madness."

Loki uncrosses his arms and leans back, his palms on the ground, fingers digging into the grass, and doesn't answer. The grass is cool on his palms, but the earth is warm. Looking up at the sky, a dome of washed-out, inky blue with one or two stars outshining the light pollution, Loki says, "Madness may be the only way we defeat him."

With a sigh, Thor says, "We can't." When Loki still doesn't look at him, Thor says, "Loki." This gets him the response he wants, which is eye contact, even if it comes in the form of a glare. "Promise me you'll stop thinking about it. Promise me you won't put this plan of yours into action."

Loki purses his lips and flexes his fingers.

"Brother." Thor gives him a beseeching look. "Please."

Finally, Loki sighs. "Fine," he says. The orchestra begins to tune their instruments again. He looks away."I promise."

Of course, he had to sleep. And that was what he got for it.

Loki rolled out of bed and rubbed at his eyes. There were other things to dream about, namely the doctor-turned-wizard inhabiting this house, but his slumbering mind didn't seem to want to take his waking mind up on that. Pity, really. His waking mind had a lot of good ideas.

It was mid-afternoon, judging by the angle of the sun coming through the window. Loki looked outside, feeling jumpy, feeling like he was going to crawl out of his skin. Feeling like he was at war with himself, the person he'd been and the person he was becoming. Was he becoming someone different? Had it already happened? Was he even capable of that?

He shook himself. Suddenly, he wanted to go out. He'd drunk the last can of Grapefruit LaCroix last night, sitting in the Rotunda of Gateways, and he supposed it would be nice of him to go get more. It wasn't as though the Sanctum was a prison, but there was a part of him, an old part of him that he'd tried to stop being, that whispered that others would always try to force him into a box, and it would never be of his own making.

Going out to pick up some more sparkling water from the bodega wasn't exactly world-shattering, but it suddenly seemed like something he needed to do. It was as uneventful as could be—until someone recognized him because he'd completely forgotten to cast a glamor. Sloppy.

Strange was in the kitchen reading a newspaper when Loki came back in. His hair was messy and he was still in his pajamas. As Loki slid the sparkling water across the counter, he said, "Just so you know, I did my best to stop it."

Looking up at him, Strange furrowed his brow and said, "Stop what?"

Loki shrugged, trying to shove down the need to run his fingers through Stephen's messy hair. It was sticking up in the front. "I may have forgotten to wear a glamor when I went out." Strange made a noise, but Loki just ran a thumb along the edge of the counter and avoided eye contact. "I cast a spell to make her forget she'd seen me, but she was already on her phone, so she may have sent something—" He waved a hand vaguely. "—out."

Strange was staring at him.

Clearing his throat, Loki added, "I was going to go through her mind to find her passcode so I could delete whatever she sent, but I didn't think you'd like it if I'd done that. So." He shrugged again.

There was a silence. When Loki glanced up at Strange, there was simply a resigned look on his face. Sighing, he said, "Someone was bound to spot you at some point. It's fine. No one saw you come back here, I assume?"

"Of course not." He had no right to say it like that, considering he'd walked two blocks without a glamor and only realized he'd forgotten it because someone had gasped and muttered his name. It was a good thing she hadn't screamed.

There was a silence. Then, Strange said, "Really? You thought I wouldn't like something…so you didn't do it?"

Loki kept his gaze lowered, still running his thumb along the counter, but then he raised an eyebrow and glanced up at Strange.

There was a funny look on Stephen's face, but he didn't pursue this. Instead, he folded the paper and put it down. Gesturing towards it, he said, "There's more of that gravitational stuff happening. Jersey City. A high-rise under construction just shot into the sky."

"Fell into the sky," Loki corrected him.

Strange rubbed a hand over his face. "I had a feeling this was going to happen, but I thought…" He laughed darkly. "I don't know what I thought. That I could stop it? I guess I was arrogant. Big surprise. Stephen Strange thinks he can save the world. He can't even save himself."

"Nonsense," Loki said. "You acquit yourself quite well in battle, Strange." A smile twitched at his mouth, and Stephen relented and returned it. Truthfully, seeing Strange admit this fear, this weakness, was terrifying. He knew what he was doing, when Loki never had. He was strong, and Loki most definitely wasn't.

There was a silence. Comfortable. Loki loved that about Stephen. In their silences, he felt accepted.

But he could tell Strange was worried and that he was keeping it to himself because—well, because that was what he did. Which Loki understood, as he was the same way. "You're afraid this is all futile," Loki said.

Strange let out a hard sigh. "I—yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I've been thinking…" He blew another huff of air out. "It's easier if I try to show you. Hold out your hand." Confused, Loki extended a hand, but Stephen shook his head and held his own hand up, palm out, facing Loki. Obediently, Loki echoed this gesture, and Stephen said, "Now, imagine that's the universe." He moved closer, bringing his hand within inches of Loki's. "And this is another one. They sit next to each other, but they never touch or interact in anyway. There are an infinite number of them, stacked alongside each other."

"The multiverse," Loki said. "I know."

Nodding, Strange said, "Okay. So now imagine—" Without warning, he slid his other hand into the space in front of Loki's hand, so their palms were touching. Loki felt his stomach drop out of his body.

Idiotic.

But Stephen's palm was warm, and braced against Loki's, some of the trembling was gone. Loki let his fingers fall forward, just a tiny bit, so they started to interlace with Stephen's. Not enough that he didn't have plausible deniability if Strange recoiled. But enough for longing to gape open in his chest.

Stephen's eyes flicked down to their hands, lingering there, before he looked back up. "Imagine another universe comes into being, branching off from an already existing one. This one—" He wiggled the fingers of the hand pressing against Loki's. "—owes its existence to its parent universe. And it shouldn't be there. It's unstable. Things don't work quite right. Over time, it deteriorates more."

Loki met Strange's eyes. The fact that this description sounded unnervingly like the universe he currently inhabited—his universe, which he'd still blissfully think of as the universe if it weren't for the Tesseract—was not encouraging. "How would that happen?"

There was no reason for their hands to remain where they were, but neither of them moved. Stephen looked like he was about to say something that he'd been avoiding verbalizing for some time, but which he knew had to be said. It was a look that Loki was deeply familiar with, since he'd seen it often enough on Odin's face as the time had neared to choose an heir between Thor and him.

Don't think about them.

"There's another part to this," Strange said reluctantly, not answering Loki's question. "Eventually, the problems in our universe won't just be limited to our universe. We're too intertwined with the one we came from." He interlaced his fingers with Loki's and Loki couldn't help but wish dryly that they could have held hands for the first time not as part of a demonstration about the crumbling of their reality. "Remember that evening in the marsh? I'm positive we were looking into our parent universe."

Loki tightened his fingers and repeated, "How would that happen?" When his question was met with more silence, he added, "Strange."

Strange ran a hand through his hair, then braced his palm on the counter and looked down at it. His fingers seemed to be trembling more than usual. "Probably a lot of things."

"Stephen."

At this, Strange looked up and met his eyes. "An altered timeline. Time travel that resulted in something being changed."

Loki's mouth went dry, and suddenly, he remembered what Mordo had said. You don't even realize—your problem is right in front of you.

The bill comes due.

He had time traveled. He'd time traveled a lot. Was it possible that he'd caused this? Without knowing it? Had he changed something, somewhere, in human history, to result in everything going wrong now? Had he brought Ultimus here?

When his mouth opened to articulate—some of this, any of this, he found he couldn't speak. Stephen was still holding his hand, though, and that was worth something. "There's no way to know," Strange said. "And it doesn't matter. We can't change it."

Loki licked his lips and nodded. Finally, Strange let go of his hand. The silence, this time, felt less comfortable and more oppressive. So much rode on this Sanctum, on all the Sanctums; so much rode on the people who lived in them, who protected them. Half the time—more than that, probably—they didn't even know what they were fighting. And yet now, with the Avengers gone, with Thor—

His fist clenched.

Now, the Masters of the Mystic Arts were Earth's last hope. The universe's last hope.

The two of them met each other's eyes and Strange smiled without much humor. "One of these days, we should do something fun. I bet you've never been to Coney Island." Loki ducked his head and laughed, a genuine laugh, surprised out of him, and Strange's smile grew less bitter. "You look ten years younger when you do that," Stephen said, his tone surprisingly soft.

Loki felt himself flush faintly. "More like two hundred years younger."

"Sorry, I still haven't figured out the conversion rate." Strange smiled at him again and his hand moved forward, brushing Loki's hip. It might have been an accident. But he didn't think it was. "Anyway, time to keep watch. Wong's taking care of a soft spot in Kentucky. It's a small one, luckily."

The two of them walked up the stairs together, but when they got to the second floor landing, Strange stopped, looking so uncharacteristically drawn that Loki didn't even have to think about stopping with him. He just did it. There was a word for when someone else's pain became yours, for when you felt so tied to them that you wanted to smooth the lines from their face and make them smile.

The two of them stood there in silence, light filtering down the staircase from the third floor but not quite erasing the shadows from Stephen's face. Eventually Strange put a hand on the railing and said, "I don't know if it can be fixed."

Loki rested his hand on the railing as well, his fingertips barely touching Strange's. Stephen didn't move his hand. "So we're all doomed?" Loki asked, smiling crookedly. It wasn't funny, but what could you do but laugh?

"Maybe." Rubbing at his eyes with his other hand, Strange said, "Since this started, I've been all over the multiverse. I've read every book I can find on the subject, and then all the ones that I thought might have something to do with it. It's harder than you might think to find information on how this ends, let along how you fix it."

Loki watched him. "Maybe that's because it's never ended well. Hard to write a book about something when there's no one around to write it."

Stephen snorted. "You really look on the bright side, don't you?"

"I grew up with Thor. One of us had to be a pessimist." Was it getting easier to say Thor's name, or was he just getting better at lying to himself about the truth of Thor's absence?

At this, Strange laughed a little. "I guess every family needs one." He studied Loki's face, as though he was considering something, and then a look of decisiveness settled in his eyes. "You know, I have a sister. Had a sister, I should say. She died when we were kids. Drowned. It was an accident, but you know how it is. I felt responsible. Never stopped feeling responsible, really."

"So you became a doctor," Loki said.

"Predictable story, I guess."

"A bit." Loki hesitated. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Strange shrugged, a sadness on his face that he quickly wiped away. "The point is, I know what it's like. Feeling like it's your fault."

Loki made a noise deep in his throat but didn't respond to this. He couldn't. He physically couldn't. Just because something was true, just because it was reality, didn't mean he needed to talk about it. How could he talk about something when he couldn't even bring himself to think about it?

On the railing, Stephen's fingers twitched. His tremor was almost unnoticeable when he had something to brace his hand against. Without warning, he covered Loki's hand with his, then withdrew it. Clearly, he had something to say, and Loki's silence, this time, wasn't going to deter him. "I just want to say—sometimes it's hard to know who's at fault for something terrible when you don't have any distance from it."

Something stuck in Loki's throat. If Stephen was telling him to stop blaming himself for—well, for everything, he should probably be made aware that there wasn't enough time in the entire multiverse for that. After a second, he met Strange's eyes. They seemed to be standing closer now than they'd been before, close enough that Loki could feel Stephen's body heat. It would have been an intoxicating moment if Loki hadn't been thinking about Thor. As usual, his brother was ruining everything.

"I also wanted to say," Stephen said, his voice quieter, "that you should let yourself feel."

The lump in his throat grew. "Feel what?" Loki managed to ask.

"Whatever you need to. Grief. Love. Loss. You know, all that Shakespearean stuff."

Two or three inches of forward movement and a little bit down. That was all it would take. That was all the space between their mouths right now. But the ache of desolation in Loki's chest kept him still. Even if he'd been sure that Stephen would kiss him back, he couldn't do it.

With a bitter smile, he said, "I'm Loki. I don't feel. Not any of that."

Strange looked at him, his expression unreadable. Then, with a wry look in his eyes, he said, "You know, no offense, God of Mischief, but you're one of the most human people I've ever met." With a smile that gave away nothing, he started up the stairs to the third floor. But halfway up, he stopped, turned around, and met Loki's gaze. "I mean that in a good way."

All Loki could do was raise his eyebrows. A tiny smile flickered across Strange's face. As he turned to continue up the stairs, he waved a hand over himself, and his pajamas changed to his blue robes as the Cloak of Levitation streaked through the air, then settled on his shoulders.

Loki leaned against the railing and crossed his arms over his chest.

You're such a liar.