A/N: So this is the end. Thank you for your comments so far, and special thanks to wbss21 because your comments light my week. Bless you for them3

v. …and spring

One night Thor dreams of being a young boy again, and there is a storm outside. In his dream, he finds that old high hat trapped in the bush behind their house.

When he wakes he recalls the old saying: no man ever steps in the same river twice. He wonders whether it is the same with the Northern winds or they could bring the same thing twice. Whether he is still the same as he was before or he could now use the chance more wisely.

If there really is such thing as second chance.

If he should take it, to begin with.

. .

The strange city is buzzing with life around him, and it feels like he is sticking out of it like a lone birch in the middle of a meadow. It's something he's gotten used to over the years, something he has learnt to know all too well. The nagging feeling that has been pushing him to move on for months now screams in his muscles, a never sleeping, never sated screech, and this is the first time Loki stops to actually listen to it. To question it.

But where to?

He has seen far too many cobblestones and Greek bearded deities pouring water into fountains, ridged mountains and plain lowlands, and endless miles of rail tracks. They don't form anything in his head apart from a hand drawn map of someone who has always been lost.

What do you seek?

And it's a cruel question for it feels like he is seeking something he once has given up willingly.

. .

Thor knows his friends think he has made some progress over the past few months. They resumed the biweekly football sessions, the night outs on Saturdays, drawing up adventurous plans for climbing to the closest summit. His life got back into the old groove.

Only his heart forgot to.

. .

There are two little boys playing across from him while Loki chews through his meal. They look to be brothers, not so far in age from each other. There is an effortless, lazy familiarity in every movement they make, coordinated and intimate in a childish way. With a wicked, sick turn of his mind Loki thinks of all those times Thor has tried to tell him something through his own touches, maybe to show him the difference between having sex and making love. Loki has always regarded those attempts as failure but maybe he was simply too scared to follow the thread such understanding would lead to.

He doesn't know if he would comprehend it now. He isn't sure Thor would still be willing to try to show him.

. .

Thor considers renovating the apartment. It's spring after all, the best time for a change, for renewal. There is an underlying notion that he wants it with the unsaid hope that it would renew him, too, it would change his life where he has failed to change it.

He thinks of repainting the walls. Loki has always hated the white wallpaper that has turned slightly grey over the time. Thor doesn't like to think this is what motivates him now, and for a stubborn moment he almost rejects the whole idea and leaves everything as it is.

It's no easy feat, and he isn't even sure he is cut out for such things. His tastes have always been in the need of improvement. In the store, there are millions of colors of paint with ridiculous names like Tarragon Glory and Natural Saffron and Fragrant Cloud, and frankly, they are just greens and violets to him. He opts for Spring Breeze because it fits the occasion, and also because he believes Loki would like this particular shade of yellow.

It's disheartening in a way how he considers Loki still part of his life, crosschecking every decision to a standard he thinks Loki would follow. But there is no denying the fact that Loki is part of his life – it's only that Loki himself isn't aware of it.

He buys new bed linen too, but he finds himself unable to change the old ones. He hasn't even washed the pillowcase Loki used, fancying he can still catch the scent of him if he concentrates enough but maybe what he feels is the ever lingering smell of lost things. Those sheets have seen too many things and he clings onto them desperately.

He sits heavily on the edge of the bed, with the new, still wrapped covers in his hands, with the can of Spring Breeze at his feet, and he realizes he cannot even deceive himself that all of this isn't just a mirage.

. .

It's drizzling, and he doesn't have an umbrella. The raindrops are balancing on the tip of his nose before trickling off it. It's not the best way to make an entrance but it matters little now.

The air is heavy with the humid scent of rain, thick and heady under the blanket of clouds. The street is coated in grey but the lights reflected in the wet surface of the pavement and in the puddles swell Loki's heart with homesickness. He plays with the thought of sitting down one day and painting this scene. He hasn't had a brush in his hand for months, and he misses the sensation of freedom it gives him.

The building is silent, he doesn't meet anyone as he climbs the stairs.

He remembers every crack and scratch on the surface of the door, and he finds it beautiful. The wood brushes his knuckles with a welcoming familiarity. Everything is quiet, and he doesn't want to think what would happen if someone else answered his knocking. Or if nobody answered it at all.

He starts to count his heartbeats, one, two, three, but the numbers jumble in his head. Nine. It's not like his life depends on this, but it feels like. Eleven.

He is at eighteen (though he is sure he has skipped a few numbers) when Thor opens the door. His hair is a golden wash in the light filtering from the kitchen, and Loki's hand twitches, his skin remembering the softness of the locks, silken snakes twined around his fingers. He is itching to touch but he knows he has probably lost the right to it.

"I've written a few postcards for you," he holds the stack of wet and crumpled cards, and they feel heavy with the distance he has put between the two of them. His smile is crooked on his face. "Thought I should finally deliver them."

Thor stays silent. Something in his gaze shifts like he is weighing whether he should make the same mistake of letting him in again. It hurts.

Say something, Loki urges him desperately. He doesn't want to leave without hearing Thor's voice just once, however sentimental it sounds even in his own head.

Maybe he should have provoked some thug into beating him up again but he never resorts to the same trick. It's cheap. And this time he didn't want to goad Thor into anything. He likes to think he is fair that much.

"Come in," Thor says finally, opening the door just a little more. His voice is half-caught in his throat, a low rumble of jagged syllables, and a shiver runs down Loki's spine.

He steps in. The apartment smells of Thor and something else his mind labels as home. Suddenly he can't remember why he left in the first place but he is certain he would do it again at some point – it is bound to happen, as it has always been like that.

Thor closes the door behind him wordlessly, and takes the stack of postcards from him, sparing only a short glance at them before setting them down on the coffee table. Loki hates this distance between them, the cautiousness, but he knows it's partly his fault that it's there.

He feels heavy with too many layers of sweat of strangers coating his skin, with too many miles of road that led not to somewhere but away from it.

The first time Thor moaned his name in his completion melt some intricate wires in Loki's mind, and ever since then something hasn't been working properly anymore. He has tried to mend it, tried to replace it, to ignore it, he has tried to live without it but he cannot forget the fact that it has worked one way: with Thor. The sentiment would be too over the top for him if he said there was no other way it could ever work, but so far it looked so.

It's not like he hasn't been able to find a good fuck. He's tried and succeeded, and still, each time he has come out wanting. There is only a spark that pushes great towards magnificent, but he hasn't been able to find that spark anywhere else. It casts a different glow on everything else, that spark does, and he likes to think they have built more than just a loose series of magnificent fucks with Thor, though what exactly, he is unsure about.

Thor disappears in the bathroom. Loki watches his back as he retreats, the muscles he knows so well are so tense that he can see it even through the shirt Thor wears. He feels a pang of regret that it's there, that Thor moves around like he is preparing for a fight.

When he returns, he holds a towel in his hand. "Dry your hair before you catch a cold."

There is only a hint of invitation in his gesture. Loki hesitates. The idea of putting down his leather bag awakens a feeling in him he cannot shake off: that he would be intruding on something with this simple act, that he would be claiming a spot that hasn't been offered to him yet.

As though reading his thoughts, Thor steps to him with measured movements. His large hands spread the towel over Loki's head, rubbing his hair gently, and suddenly they are taken back to a moment from almost a year ago, when all of this started with dripping skins and glaring wounds and weeks of unbearable tension culminating in that event. With their mouths claiming each other.

They still have them all, the wounds, the tension. Loki wonders if they could have the same continuation. If they would have the same ending. They have tried to build something upon lies and it didn't work out. He doesn't know why it would succeed for a second time but he wants to give it a try.

Thor's fingers skim down the shell of his ear, and Loki knows what runs through his mind. He has removed most of his earrings, but he couldn't part with one particular piece: the small metal Mjölnir. It is a sentiment he has allowed himself to stick to. Thor is looking at him with a loaded gaze that would have driven him to run away just a few months ago, but all it does now is fill him with clawing, desperate want. At times like this he doesn't understand how he could ever think it would drain from Thor's eyes, this feeling, this affection. Why he forced himself to believe it so desperately.

"Your hair is longer," Thor murmurs.

"So is yours," Loki smiles, and before he can stop his fingers they wrap around the end of a lock.

Thor hears his blood drum in his ears. He wants to say so many things. I missed you. You broke my heart. I tried to learn to move on, and I could but I don't like it. But they sound ridiculous, and Loki maybe knows them already.

You will destroy me, he thinks. But what he says is this: "I still have the couch if you need it."

The question scrapes against Loki's heart for a reason he cannot fathom. He wonders if they will go down the same route again, with him starting on the couch and ending up somewhere on a bus towards a city he doesn't care to check on the map.

He ponders if he can be greedy and selfish, and do it to Thor all over again.

Let Thor do it to him all over again.

He drops the bag to the floor. The smirk he tries should be cheeky and light but it's wavering around the corners. "What if I want the bed instead?"

Thor holds his breath for a minute. He thinks of the wrapped bed linen in his closet, of the can of painting in the corner. He thinks of new beginnings. Maybe they have done it the wrong way. Maybe they can learn from their mistakes and use the second chance given to build something that stands against the storm. Maybe what they need now is a little honesty. Over the last few months all he has been doing was list the things he should have done differently, and all along he thought it was a futile self-torment. He doesn't know what made Loki to come back but it doesn't really matter at the moment. What he is grateful for is that he did.

"I will always be here, Loki. I will not leave," he says, because suddenly it feels important that Loki understood.

"I know," Loki says but it sounds like an afterthought. Thor reaches out and curls around him like a home-scented blanket, and Loki buries his face in the crook of his neck.

There is a yearnful, desperate wish that tries to silence the forever screeching voice in his head as he wraps his arms around Thor's torso. Hold me close so I would never want to leave again.

But the truth is something else, and he cannot hold it any longer. "And I will always return."

Thor's hold tightens around him for a second before it relaxes. It's clear this is not exactly what he hoped to hear but as his lips glide down Loki's neck, tender and promising and hungry, they know it will do for now.

fin

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this little trip with my dear hipsters. I already miss writing this story so much, omg:(