8.
It occurred to Thor that he had come, albeit unknowingly, into this haunted house business with a surprising amount of preformed ideas as to how it was all supposed to go. First and foremost, he knew, was that he was supposed to feel a lot more unnerved by the whole business than he was actually feeling. He would, when he thought about it, have expected this of himself. Not that there were not ghosts in the city, but certainly you never heard about them. They were connected to old buildings, places with history, and there were none of those. In the city even the graveyards had all the headstones moved against a wall after an allotted twenty year span to make way for the newer dead. Any building over fifty years old was deemed a ruin and razed to make way for something shinier, higher, more efficient.
None of which was to say that ghosts had not existed in that world, just that they, like the living in those places, had nowhere much to go.
He supposed too that he did not really know what ghosts were. He had never given it much thought. Most people said they were energy, left over from a person who had lived in the place they then haunted. But did this have to be true? Thor knew that the basic laws of physics meant energy could not be destroyed, only changed – but did that mean that what was left behind had any real connection to the person who left it? Was energy like a thought, something not so much belonging to the person as a part of them? Or was it just like another item leftover, something of only random consequence on a shelf that somebody once liked enough to put there? Was a ghost just a book gathering dust until somebody read it? A door swinging open in the early afternoon, just waiting to be closed or not closed – did you go on past the thing or pick the thing up? Were the calls that the dead made ones that should be picked up or were they best left ringing into the void? Was there a void after all? He wondered these all vaguely as he headed up to bed.
It could only ever be a vague sort of wonder, Thor knew. Because he knew what his course was. He had never been in any doubt. He had never felt uneasy with the presence in this house, not from the start, nor as it seemed to get stronger. The worst he had felt was when it seemed to fade away. He felt nothing of any suggestion that the house wanted rid of him or that the spirit inside was hostile to him, indeed as he lay down in bed he could almost feel the place breathing out a warm goodnight.
What he did know was that he was being spoken to; he just wished he could hear the message properly. He had to do something, to help in some way- he just wished he knew what it was that he could do. Bed was comfortable and he fell asleep on a goodnight kiss. A kiss that felt – he was not sure – not so much familiar than potentially familiar – as though he was supposed to fall asleep on a kiss like that every night of his life. But how could his future life partner be someone who was dead? He had to be wrong.
"Yes I must admit, you usually are," Loki was saying. Thor blinked and rubbed at his eyes; surprisingly unsurprised by the illusion sat on his bed.
"Loki," he said.
"Yes" Loki turned his head, though his body did not move – "Just like you pictured? You did picture me didn't you, Thor?"
"No – I – yes but – what's happening?" Thor sat up slowly in bed.
"You're dreaming, you idiot – what, did you think I'd come back to life?" Loki smiled and Thor realised, that much as he had struggled to know what he looked like, that part at least he had pictured perfectly. Loki's smile crept across his face like that first night's pale shadow had crept across his bed, a secretive silvery thing that he ached with a frightening need to kiss.
As though Loki could read his thoughts he shifted up the bed, turning himself to kneel over Thor, leaning in towards him. Thor could not look away; he realised that even looking Loki straight in the eye he could not have said what colour they were, they shifted and sparkled like the sea, the planes of his face cutting apart his sky like the wings of the birds outside.
"Shhh –" Loki whispered, coming in close – "You can't just ask me. That's not the way we play this." He looked down as though sorry and Thor thought for a moment – regretful. When he looked up again his forehead came to rest lightly against Thor's and there was a small pale hand on his shoulder. Then Loki kissed him.
Thor would always remember, forever after, how that first tentative dream kiss was at once the most amazing, most sensational kiss he had ever experienced. Loki's lips were softness riding a wicked curve, his insistence and the intent press of him made it impossible for Thor to think of anything else, but when he reached to hold him closer Loki was never quite at the angle he thought that he was. And yet he was everywhere; squirming and soft, fierce and hard, in all places at once and Thor was arching up desperately into those hands, towards that body. He had never been so painfully aware of having an erection in a dream. Loki smiled against his lips when he felt it, continuing his kiss still smiling.
"I can't just tell you –" he looked almost sad, but his hands were sliding down Thor's chest, pushing down the covers – "Something might –" nothing had ever felt so incredible as those ephemeral fingers on his cock, like a warm breeze with form – "explode – go out of control – blow a fuse somewhere – I don't know how I'm half way here either you know – I just know –" Loki spoke his words as though they were seduction, as though dripping rhyme and romance and Thor wanted to look for clues in all that he said but his head was groggy with dream and his cock was shuddering, aching and tingling in Loki's hands and he could not think –
"And if you could –" Loki whispered like a secret in his ear – "If you could think at all I'm not sure I'd be able to say half as much but I'm trying – I can't keep dropping clues in the condensation you know. Exhausting –" he shook his head, squeezing wickedly whilst Thor's hands balled into fists in the bedsheets.
"I go somewhere – I don't know. I liked having a body – it's a good body – I don't know where I go, how I'm here – I go –" It was Loki who gasped first, in a kind of innocent joy that he could have the effect on Thor he was having and Thor woke himself up, staining the sheets on account of a ghost. He blinked in the dark and the shadows around him shivered; he half had a mind he could hear them tsk in irritation. He yawned, content and sleepy and fell back asleep quickly. To his utter relief Loki was still there, sat once again at the foot of the bed, cross legged against the footboard this time.
"Did I bloody say you could wake up?"
"Sorry," Thor mumbled, then smiled at himself for apologising to a ghost.
"Yes," Loki went on, answering the unspoken part more than the spoken – "But a ghost who just gave you the best orgasm you ever had, don't forget."
"How did you know that was –" Thor stopped, realising he had just given himself away – "Damn". Loki laughed.
"Thor," he said then, softly, and his forehead was crumpled. Just for a moment Thor felt his heart would break, he looked so very young – "I think I might love you. You have to work this out."
"I know – I think –"
"Check the electric," Loki blurted out obscurely and in a rush and then his image was gone, as though someone had flipped a switch and with that Thor was awake again and it was morning and –
"I think I might love you too," he was saying to the empty air. But he was alone in the house once more.
_x_
Ooosh, I've dropped clues like bombs in this chapter! Isn't Loki just the little ghost you always wanted? Next chapter: plot again! woot woot! I know I said this'd come sooner but I got horrible ill over Halloween and I'm only just on the mend, hopefully they'll come sooner now! :-)