Tony is coaxed from a sleep by the feeling of soft familiar fingers tracing invisible lines down his cheeks.

Before thought can intervene he turns his face and presses his lips to them and the fingers cease in their movements, as if kissing him back.

"You've been crying." Says Loki and Tony feels as if his heart might burst. "Did you miss me?"

Before Tony can stop himself he's nodding and Loki's small gasp hits him like a hailstorm.

"Budge over."

Tony does and he's wrapped in warm arms and tucked against a strong chest and suddenly feels both like himself and utterly unlike anything he thought he would ever be.

"How did you even get in here?"

"I am infinitely resourceful."

It doesn't take Tony long to feel that Loki's wearing a set of simple cotton scrubs, like a surgeon would wear. Even as he wonders what kind of maniac he's dealing with, he can't help but smile.

"I thought you were in Texas."

"And I once thought the universe revolved solely around a far-flung star. Sometimes we all need to reevaluate our perceptions."

Tony doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all. Instead he begins to kiss those beautiful long-fingered hands from wrist to finger-tip.

Loki lets out a contented sigh.

"Is that what that man told you? Mr. Paparazzi?"

"Hmm?" Tony intones between kisses.

"He told you that I'd gone and left you on your own, so that all you really had left was to sell your story, cut your losses, and run?"

Tony takes one of Loki's fingers between his lips and sucks it down to the knuckle.

Loki slaps him lightly on the thigh with his unoccupied hand.

"Don't think for a moment that you can distract me, Anthony."

Tony worries at the paper thin stretch of skin between Loki's thumb and finger and feels his cock twitch against him.

"You're just making me suspicious."

"That's not all I'm making you."

"Anthony-"

"Loki-"

"Your blatant attempts at obfuscation-"

"You wound me."

"You will tell me-"

"I thought you were gone."

Loki says nothing.

"I thought that this was it."

Loki holds him a fraction of an inch tighter and every ounce of tension in Tony's limbs uncurls even as his stomach roils and clenches with feeling.

"I thought that you got what you wanted and booked it, Loki. I thought I'd never fucking see you again. So if I want to touch now and talk later you better fucking shut up and put your hands out because everyone and their mother fucking knows that it's only a matter of time before you got whatever esoteric fucking thing you wanted from me and the first place and disappear-"

"No." Says Loki. His eyes are burning and Tony is terrified.

"No." He growls and Tony wants to run.

Loki is unreasonable. Loki is unstable. Loki is violent. Loki is dangerous.

And he is kissing Tony like he can coax whatever esoteric fucking thing he wants and desires and needs out into the open and snatch it away with his clever tongue.

"If I stay, you stay." He finally says. He's cradling Tony's face in his hands and speaking against his lips and the boy shivers. "If I go, you go." He digs his nails into Tony's scalp and Tony groans. "And if I disappear it will only be because you are by my side."

In the dark and the silence they breathe together and warm brown eyes meet unearthly grey.

"Do you understand?"

The word yes forms a ball in Tony's throat that he cannot force past his lips. He nods. and Loki places his long fingers around his neck, stroking his jaw and cheekbones and ears before moving down again.

"That is not good enough, Anthony."

When Tony whispers 'yes' it sounds like he's been chain smoking for fifty years and tears start to fall before he can stop them.

Loki catches his tears on his fingertips and presses them between their lips as they kiss.

When they break apart Tony registers that he's being held in Loki's arms like a bride, high off of the ground, and that the IV that had been in his arm is steadily squirting whatever had been being pumped into him onto the floor.

"Loki, I don't think-"

"Shut up-"

"Loki, how did you even-"

"Shut up-"

"Loki, how many impossible things do you expect me to witness without any explanation before I go completely insane-"

"Just three more."

"That's oddly specif-"

Tony falls silent as Loki hums and an icy cold spreads throughout his entire body. He gasps as it comes and goes, leaving him feeling better than he's felt in weeks.

"Loki, what-"

"Two more."

"God fucking d-"

"Close your eyes." Demands Loki. Of course Tony defies him.

The sight which greets him takes his breath away.

T3LL: Thanks! And to be honest, I keep trying to end it and it keeps not ending. There are at least three points over the course of this where I thought it was over and then at wasn't. Currently I believe that, at 237 pages in pages, this story is over. However, I might wake up tomorrow and realize that it isn't at all.

Stormy: I became a writer because I hurt inside, and writing is the only way that I can inflict that pain on others without being arrested.

Loki88: Thanks for keeping up with this madness.

hulky: Yeah. Pretty much. Shipping isn't shipping unless it gives you scurvy.

stil: In the words of the delicious Robert Downey Jr, 'They don't'. I realize that you probably won't see this response until the end of time, but welcome to my summer palace man, pull up a tapestry and a moat.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

DO YOU LIKE MY WRITING? WOULD YOU LIKE OT TAKE PART IN A COLLABORATIVE WRITING EXPERIMENT WITH ME? Check out fuckyoustephaniemeyer . tumblr . com to see what I'm doing and how we can do it together.

Good night and good pineapple.