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*
Those who come to Sakaar are known and unknown.
Lost.
Unloved.
A new celebration of the Grandmaster's long life thrives in the streets, flocking hundreds and hundreds of universal beings to drink, to dance, and to die feeling they understand the meaning of their existence in the grand scheme of… nothing.
Time works differently here, as the comic gateways linked to Sakaar widen their hold and their breach.
"Oi!" a vendor yells out, as one of his long and Hulk-green cloaks is snatched up. Curious eyes dart, and then, avoid the sudden spectacle. Nobody on the crowded and trash-littered road helps. "You need to be payin' for that, missy! Forty units!"
With a nudge of sorcery, his mind goes quiet.
Soft green light creeps into veins, manifesting, vanishing into his temple.
"No… no, you don't," the vendor announces, smiling sickly as fingertips lower. He passes Sylvie his crystalline and deep green apple, her teeth sinking hungrily into its candied exterior. Her eyes peer up to the Grandmaster's luxury suite. "Have a nice day."
*
If there's something that displeases Loki more than being subservient…
It's when he's being followed.
Loki senses it happening, going from place to place on the Grandmaster's orders, being admired by the wealthiest and most powerful of Sakaarans for his adventures. This spy, or whoever they are… is either an idiot or deliberately letting him know what they're doing.
(Either way it makes them an idiot, Loki aggressively thinks.)
He wanders out from the Grandmaster's luxury suite, heading for a more public lounge.
Loki's hand rubs inattentively over a large, bruising mouth-mark on his neck.
Most of the celebrations have dispersed.
Usually there would be a questionable event held, involving any and all available needing a pull…
But the Grandmaster specifically wanted "his friend" Loki.
Handling the Grandmaster's… desires is no mean feat, but thank gods for the eccentricity. Sometimes he only wants Loki to recite poetry while hand-feeding the Grandmaster, or sometimes wants his feet bathed, or sometimes Loki does jumping jacks.
Or… sometimes it's fucking in an hover chair.
Loki discovers the lounge emptying out from the wild nightlife, the neon-glow keyboards switched off.
Pale yellow moonlight illuminates the windows and the purple and magenta walls. One or two Scrappers huddle together on the strangely geometric lounge-chairs plastered in ultramarine blue fabric. Everything here is made of unwanted parts of the universes.
He remains in the entrance-way, eyeing his surroundings while the Golden Ladies remain flocked closely at his side. Their arms firmly wrapped around him, and their hands occasionally sliding up Loki's back. It's more annoying to him than arousing.
"Keep him company," the Grandmaster drones, kissing them giggling. "At least until he gets bored of you. Don't bore him."
They arrived right as a confused Loki stepped foot out of the Grandmaster's grand-bedchambers.
The desires of the Grandmaster's evening hours had been offering wine to Loki and chattering away triumphantly about another gruesome kill by his Champion. Loki has yet to witness the events of Grand Area, but he supposes it all reeks of old, unscrubbed blood and piss.
The Grandmaster, sipping his favorite glimmering gold wine, insisted on painting Loki's fingernails the same bright blue as the Grandmaster's, and similar to the Grandmaster's facial marking. Loki allowed the Grandmaster to do as he pleased. As usual.
Feels less like a mark of a friendship, but of property.
You are home, and there is no going back. No one leaves this place.
Home…
He's a son of Asgard's crown, misplaced and misled. Misunderstood. Set adrift, unable to gather his bearings, drowning alone.
Loki cannot think of his home world, or Thor, or his surprise sister breaking her way out of Hel.
His fingers snap loudly.
"You've bored me," he orders.
On cue, the Golden Ladies retreat from him, bowing their heads. Loki catches a glimpse of one of their sour expressions.
That's all it is.
Sexual desires are uncomplicated, and he takes no issue with stuffing himself with the Grandmaster's cock or stuffing someone else with his own cock… but romantically, Loki feels an absence being here. There's no spark of warmth under his Jotunn skin.
Loki folds his arms, broodily examining one of his hands.
Compared to how neatly the Grandmaster's fingernails were painted… the flesh around Loki's nails seem crusted and stained blue. The Grandmaster was not very interested in neatness, gulping his wine and laughing flirtatiously about bloodshed.
It's a horrendous color, really…
He would have went with…
Loki blinks, noticing a flash of green in the corner of his eye.
A woman nudges him aside roughly, as he is blocking the entrance, seating herself at the bar.
She's in a green, wool-spun cloak with the hood down. And she's seemingly alone. One of the few drinkers left at the lounge's bar joins her, sidling up, conversing with her in words Loki cannot hear. But, he notices the woman aiming an inquisitive glance or two in his direction.
Yes…
He may have found the idiot.
Scrapper #142—a brute and a booze hag—chugs down her bottle of vodka, leaning with her back against the counter. Loki watches as she comfortably lingers in the woman's personal space, as if they were old friends.
Which is impossible seeing Scrapper #142 has no friends.
(And talking to Scrapper #142 is like talking to a Froma with the temperament of an Abilisk.)
She strokes the woman's arm a little, grinning and facing her, and the woman must have accepted her advances based on Scrapper #142's grin widening. Loki steps down from the entrance, grabbing two full champagne glasses off someone else's tray.
As he approaches, Scrapper #142 notices, her expression falling.
She sneers, leaving the bar, chugging more of her vodka.
"May I?" Loki murmurs, sounding overly courteous.
"Seat's empty."
The woman tugs her green hood up, not looking to him. Her gold curls tumble into view. There's a hint of an accent in her voice, and Loki thinks he almost recognizes it. Could it be Asgardian or Vanaheim in origin? Is she a deserter?
"That it is." Loki sets down a champagne glass in front of her, easing himself into a sit. "How very fortunate for me."
She ignores the drink, her hands on the bar's counter and gathered together, her pale fingers loosely entwined.
Loki drains his own glass in no time.
"Now," he declares, staring heatedly to the Green-Hooded Woman, "you are the one following mm—"
He cuts himself off, feeling a prick of sharpened steel through cloth. Loki's eyes glance down to a kunai-style blade jammed under the seam of his trousers. "I see," Loki says nonchalantly, keeping motionless. "To what do I owe the pleasure? May I order you something else?"
"An open conversation. No lies. No tricks."
"I'm afraid it's in my nature."
"Is bleeding out from your bollocks also in your nature?"
Loki eyes her, tilting his head and smirking.
"You planned this, hadn't you?" he acknowledges. "You had been counting on me noticing you in noticing myself…"
The woman's lips nearly mimic Loki's smirk to perfection, and doing so sends a bit of his blood pounding. All throughout him. Right down to Loki's throbbing crotch at her mercy. "That's a very long-winded way to admit you're an idiot," she replies.
In moments, her blade removes itself.
Loki turns himself away from her, facing forward, ordering a drink as the bartender passes them.
He unconsciously lowers a hand against his thigh, as if to shield himself. A part of him does believe the Green-Hooded Woman is capable of cold-blooded murder, and hiding a body on this garbage-strewn planet, and then moving on. Perhaps she already has before coming here.
Despite this, and her mysteriously threatening demeanor, Loki cannot help but feel intrigued.
"Yotat cannot pour an old fashioned to save one of his forty-three lives," he says, tempted to lean in and whisper this slyly in the Green-Hooded Woman's ear. "But when you are in favor with the Grandmaster, you can do as you please."
"You mean you."
Loki straightens his shoulders, lifting his chin importantly. "Now that you mention it—"
"—you're a glorified lapdog," the Green-Hooded Woman interrupts, her face hidden in the depths of her cloak. Loki doesn't understand why. It's not as if she bothered hiding while entering the lounge. "—a collared beast submitting to your orders—"
Within those harsh words, Loki sense a clear and real disappointment.
"—I would never," she says, scoffing.
Loki slides over her champagne drink untouched to himself, mock-saluting her. "So you say," he drawls, taking a swallow.
Yotat dumps the concoction Loki can hardly call a mixed beverage, let alone an old fashioned, but he's impressed when the Green-Hooded Woman knocks it back into her throat without a single breath. The liquids smell like foul and watery hen eggs.
She wipes off her mouth with the back of her hand, grimacing and reaching for the bowl of foreign fruits.
Her hood fallen.
Under the ashy green, woolen cloak, Loki notices the worn leather chest-armor. Dark colors.
"However, being in the Grandmaster's favor means managing his affairs… therefore, I do know every face and every name on Sakaar." Loki nods sagely. "You must have come to visit recently," he points out. "Tell me, may I inquire as to your name?"
"Loki," she mumbles, her lips smeared glossy with Dakkam sweet apricot juices.
For the briefest second, it feels like Loki gets a shock from an obedience disk and she's the one holding his fob device.
"That's your name, isn't it?" the Green-Hooded Woman adds, looking him over with her pale blue eyes and completely unbothered by his flustered expression. Gods, it was almost convincing enough for him to believe her.
"It is," Loki agrees, his brow furrowing. "I was, however, inquiring as to yours, my dear. I only—"
"Uugh."
She wrinkles her nose, dropping another sweet fruit cultivated in Jhb'Btt.
"Don't call me that."
Loki blinks. "Pardon?"
"Call me…" Her sweet juice-stained lips quirk up as she muses, and Loki discovers himself fascinated over it. "Randy."
She unties her cloak.
"Ah," Loki breathes, not entirely believing that's the Green-Hooded Woman's true name. Feeling that he's missed some vital clue, or perhaps some secret joke between herself and someone else, as she chuckles under her breath, her bare fingernails peeling off fruit-skin meticulously.
Suppose it doesn't matter.
This woman is clever and savage, and full of an Eternal Flame of her own making. She carries herself with agile but practiced grace, as if a trained warrior of Asgard herself. The reminder of home sparks a new warmth under his Jotunn skin.
Loki observes as her green cloak discards on the floor. "You have quite a brilliance about you when you smile like that."
"I didn't smile," she argues softly.
"Could have fooled me."
Loki's own mouth twitches as the corners of her lips struggle against the not-smile.
So suddenly, it's like the brightness of the room intensifies. Yellowed moonlight turns to pure and bright gold before his eyes. A rotting odor of Sakaar's mushrooms disappears. Gods, what is this—why is Loki's heart racing madly? Is this an enchantment?
In Midgard terms, she would be considered the same physical age as him. Perhaps a bit older.
Faint age lines, with a noble brow and clear complexion. There's nothing exceptional about her state of peasant attire, or the way she holds herself with tensed muscles, as if waiting, but Loki finds himself staring greedily over every inch of her.
The word "beautiful" doesn't contain the eloquence or emphasis needed.
She's more… more than any preconception of beauty.
(It's not sorcery done onto him… it's worse, Loki realizes. It's so much worse. This is a humiliatingly real attraction.)
From the bar-seats, their knees gravitate to each other, pressing in.
"If it would please you," Loki murmurs, searching her face in barely concealed excitement, "I do think it best you were given a proper welcoming introduction to the Grandmaster. He is eccentric, but I believe he may see in you what I see: potential."
While prattling on, her eyes narrow.
"Perhaps he may allow you and I to work together to—"
"I'm a traveler," the Green-Hooded Woman says dully. Her knee lurches from his. "I don't need introductions. I'm not staying."
Hearing this feels like the Melt Stick—or so the Grandmaster referred it to—has prodded Loki painfully between his ribs.
Loki arranges his face neutrally.
"How disappointing," he proclaims, hesitating and then taking a sip of the emptied champagne glass. "I can see you lack ambition."
Her upper lip curls.
"It's not ambition when you are being owned by someone other than yourself."
"Careful," Loki murmurs, standing up with his height towering over her. His own pale blue eyes narrowing. "Be very… careful with how you choose your next words," he hisses. Unsurprisingly, she only scrutinizes Loki's darkened look and rolls her eyes.
Her hand slaps into his, tugging Loki's arm.
"Gods, you're so sensitive."
She tugs him from the bar, past the rows and rows of colorful alcohol bottles, and leading to a set of double doors. Loki recognizes it as an unused, titanium-made passageway. It leads out to a foyer, and from there it's unknown.
Without any prying eyes, the Green-Hooded Woman, Randy, whoever she is—backs him to a wall, one of her hands pressing on Loki's sternum.
His irritation flares.
Before he can ask what she's doing, Loki feels her lips mashing to his. A clumsy, hot kiss. Their noses flatten up together.
When she pulls away, Loki's mind races.
They're trapped in a shadowy violet-pink glow, silhouetted in the lit-up passageway and hitting their faces, and she's centimeters from Loki, studying him intensely. The forlorn yearning to her. Her fingertips drag softly on Loki's mouth.
"What are you doing…?"
"I just wanted to know if it was different…" the Green-Hooded Woman says, her voice hoarse. "If you were different…"
He hasn't the faintest on what in Hel she means, or why it's so sadly spoken.
"Is it…?" Loki mumbles, venturing a guess.
"No."
The answer seems to have taken the wind out of her.
Her eyes shut, and her small frame pressed onto Loki's chest slackens.
It's a sense of defeat. It's wallowing in misery. It's emotions that are not tied to him, and never will be, and Loki doesn't understand.
He doesn't.
He doesn't understand how a complete stranger has made him feel at ease, and knows his faults and frustrations, like they're her own…
Who is she?
When she does nothing, Loki moves in to kiss her, touching her cheek and half-expecting to be shoved. There's a hint of deep apple green on her lower lip, on her teeth and tongue. It's a sweet candied flavor mingled in her spit, when he kisses her harder.
One of her hands clasps his arm, as Loki's other hand runs over her breast. His fingernails look blue-violet-pink in the light.
"Sylvie…" she pants. "You wanted to know my name…"
Loki nods, bestowing her with a smirk.
"Sylvie," he mutters, amused, and it's like a dial cranks into place for her.
A loud, shuddery breath.
She crowds him, Sylvie's pale hand gripping to his neck, holding him to the wall, and she's strong. Perhaps as strong as Thor, if not stronger.
Oh, that would burn him, a victorious Loki thinks, imagining her battle against Thor and winning.
It would be glorious.
Sylvie's mouth returns to his, skimming, opening wide and nipping onto Loki's flesh with a little but fierce sting of pain.
Loki groans out his chuckle, muffled on Sylvie's lips. They could be equal forces like this—push and pull, high and low, shadow and ice—and it would be so simple to go into her mind with Loki's clairvoyance and find her truths. To have the answers he desires.
But, he doesn't wish to invade her. Take her. Claim her for himself.
Loki desires her more if this is to be of Sylvie's own volition.
She explores him, releasing Loki's throat, feeling over his narrow hips and muscular sides with both of her hands. Savoring what's easily within her reach. He hardens up when Sylvie's fingers cup him through his trousers, grinding the heel of her palm.
"… Where did you get that?" Sylvie whispers, tapping on the love-bite on his neck.
"Doesn't matter," Loki tells her, grasping Sylvie's hand to pull it away. He doesn't need to think of the Grandmaster, or anyone else, when they're like this. But she's persistent, fumbling her hand from his, clawing into his dark locks and pulling in earnest.
"Good."
It's more of a snarl than a word out of her.
Sylvie plants her lips over the bruise, widening them, sucking with brutal, reddening force.
Loki digs his hands into the muscles of Sylvie's back, moaning quietly. Gods, gods—what is she? What sort of devil?
She holds onto him tightly, pressing her mouth over his, licking inside him and yanking him down to her level.
There's a desperation for touch, in every movement, and Loki will gladly fulfill it. He carefully opens her belt, sliding his fingers in and groping between Sylvie's hot thighs. His forefinger and middle finger gently probe her, rubbing onto her vaginal lips.
An involuntary gasp escapes her.
Noisy.
Noisy and ferocious—Sylvie bites his upper lip, tugging it. Loki forgets about his cock growing needful and heavy, reaching further into Sylvie's trousers and angling. She's dripping in warm fluid, slicking up Loki's fingertips, clenching on them filling her.
"Tell me," Loki rasps, nudging his kiss-bitten lips to Sylvie's jaw and her ear.
"Fuck—" Sylvie's hand drops from his hair, pushing with a quiver onto his rib-cage. "Oh, fuck—Loki—"
He chuckles, smirking widely and tilting his head to gaze at her flushed face. "The pleasure will be all mine," Loki says, murmuring. Her hips roll into Loki's hand, tightening. Loki's thumb strokes over her clitoris, eliciting another noisy gasp.
By now, Loki is used to getting what he wants with a little persuasion. But he doesn't mind this.
Showing favor to another being without planning the benefit to be gained… other than satisfying them. Satisfying himself will be inevitable.
Loki would prefer his own suite's bed, however.
Not cramped up against a wall, fucking in the shadows as if ashamed of what they're doing.
"Stop…"
In the fog of thoughts and lust, Loki nearly misses it.
"Stop… stop…"
Her breathing softly shudders out. If it were anyone else, he believes they would be sobbing their heart out. Unable to go anywhere but the wall, Loki pulls his hand out of her clothes, growing concerned, as Sylvie hurriedly separates herself from him.
Within moments, she's marching down the passageway. Too fast to meet eyes.
Loki's insides go cold.
"Sylvie!"
Her name tears out of him, as he panics and darts after her into the foyer, grabbing onto Sylvie's arm. His bright blue fingernails gleam. What has he done wrong? To her? Why does Sylvie refuse to look at him and why does that pain him more than anything else?
"I don't—"
She shakes her head, twisting away. "This isn't about you—"
His heart sinks.
"Tell me," Loki whispers, bending his head down and gripping into Sylvie's nape, forcing her to look. "Tell me who it is about."
Sylvie finally peers up, devastated, her pale blue eyes moistened. It's somehow worse than having her newly sharpened weapon on his bollocks. It's worse than her running away. Loki comes to understand that he doesn't need to hear it.
There is someone else.
Someone rooted so deeply in her heart that it may kill Sylvie to have them ripped from her.
SO BE IT—
It's a dark and possessive thought, slithering into Loki's rationality. It tastes like Sylvie's candied flavor. It's tinging jealousy.
He backs from her.
"OI!"
Their heads turn simultaneously.
"YOU!"
"I don't have time for your nonsense, wretch," Loki retorts, glaring at Topaz hoisting up the large, gilded Melt Stick.
Though there's no outward menace in her sneer, he can feel it brimming.
Loki turns back to—
Nothing.
The grand foyer, brightly haloed in fluorescence, is empty save for himself and a grumpy-faced Topaz. Loki glances in confusion to an interconnecting hallway leading to a dead-end. Nothing. Absolutely nothing and no-one in sight. Nowhere to go.
"You were supposed to collect the informants by now." Topaz eyes him, pointing with the Melt Stick. "Hurry it up."
Irritation prickles him, blade-sharp.
"Admittedly, you lack the diplomacy needed to do so," Loki mutters, but follows her into the violet-pink glowing passageway.
This is not over… not for him…
He will get the answers desired…
*
Sylvie's foot slips a little, wedging itself to a ceiling tile.
She holds her breath in. Once the footsteps fade, including Loki of the once Sacred Timeline, she drops down from a height of eleven or so feet onto a crouching kneel. Sylvie's head hanging low. Perspiration trickles down the sides of Sylvie's neck.
This was a mistake…
It was clear from the moment she entered the building, hooded and stubborn in her curiosity and determination, and staring at this Loki's back in the entrance-way. But, she did it. Sylvie knows she did it, and did it to herself most of all. Multiverse be damned.
To her, this Loki was…
Different…
Different… and yet the same. This Loki still kissed like a boy, deeply shy under the cover of arrogance and pompous showmanship. He touched her like she was stainless and precious glass… and that's not… Sylvie inhales, chewing on her frowning lower lip.
She dabs off the corners of her wet eyes.
Once in the foyer, Sylvie feels a charge shifting in the air. Familiar and oscillating with invisible quasiparticles.
"Sylvie," Loki calls out.
No ragged, moaning quality, or playful lithe, in his voice.
She turns.
In the brightness of the foyer, Loki stands patiently, cradling a TemPad in his dirtied fingers. None of the blue fingernail polish in sight. His black, greasy hair clumped with Lamentis-1's ash, unperfumed and uncombed. Loki's shirt dirtied as his hands.
Tell me who it is about.
The need for warmth versus the need for recognition.
Kindness learned from experience versus hesitation in being shown kindness.
He steps forward, and Sylvie notices the opened, orange-lit Timedoor. Her rage, half-forgotten but never gone, resurfaces with a dizzying violence. Sylvie's fingers itch to go for He Who Remain's own TemPad, burrowing down in her boot-pocket.
"Did you go crawling back to the Time Variance Authority?" Sylvie asks, sneering. "Did you find your sodding glorious purpose?"
Would you betray me again?
Loki approaches her. The nearer he is, the harder Sylvie finds it to breathe. His chest heaves.
He holds out his TemPad, like it's a peace offering.
Like it'll fix anything that's happened.
"I did," Loki murmurs, eyeing her sadly.
The way he speaks it… Sylvie knows he doesn't mean the TVA.
"Don't," she whispers ruefully, Sylvie's lips flatten against the trembling. "Don't tell me to apologize for killing him—"
"He Who Remains played us against each other. I should have seen it." Loki firmly presses his TemPad into Sylvie's hand, grasping their fingers, and the sensation of his bare, warm skin on her releases the tremble. "There's no stopping what we did."
"How could you know?"
"It's already happened," Loki reminds her. "You sent me away to protect me from you, Sylvie… but I needed to find you…" He smiles, affectionately touching a strand of gold and running his fingers through it. "I needed to make sure you were okay…"
Sylvie sags her shoulders, closing her tear-filled eyes.
"What if I'm not…"
"Don't," Loki mumbles. He smiles close-lipped, thumbing over Sylvie's jaw and drawing her closer.
She shakes her head a little, but doesn't pull away.
"You shouldn't," Sylvie says, wincing and slowly reopening her eyes, but avoiding his. Her face grows hot. "I'm…"
The memory is too immediate of the other Loki—another him—working her until it felt like melting, trying to bring Sylvie off. Fucking her roughly with his hand. There's still her own cum drying on her thighs, and—gods, what did she do?
Loki doesn't say anything, his smile widening easily into a grin. He looks her over, pressing his lips onto the top of her head.
"We should go, Sylvie. Quickly."
Even though the Sacred Timeline is no longer sacred, they shouldn't disturb anything else. Sylvie knows that. She knows, and every part of her wants to kiss him, hold him against her guilt-riddled heart and touch him in long, apologetic caresses.
"Loki…"
His arm encircles her. Loki's mouth presses harder in a kiss to her golden hair. Sylvie leans in, going on instinct and wrapping her arm to Loki's back. "We're going to be alright, Sylvie. I swear it to you," Loki whispers down to her, urging, "Quickly now."
They make the first steps into Loki's Timedoor, with her hand clutching securely onto his TemPad.
They make it right.
*