ax_main | Loki and Cal

Unexpectedly, gay smut leads to an emotional breakdown slash breakthrough? Cue in some heavy duty snuggling.

Cal put the e-reader down and hesitated for a moment. He felt on edge, and like his skin didn't quite fit right. He stood, wanting to do something, but he didn't know what. Abs whined at him and poked at his leg, and he crouched down to pet her. "Sorry, girl. It's not you. You're good. I just need to. I need to get out of here, okay? Be back soon."

Instead of blinking away - the tiny island that served as Caleb's, Clint's and his getaway came to mind - he opened the window in their room and jumped out, shifting into a large raven and taking off on the wind. Flying for a bit sounded like a good idea, to try and sort through his feelings. Everything was so complicated, and he'd gone from 'complicated feelings about Clint' to 'complicated feelings about his father' some time in the second book of the series Loki had recced him. While the former had been confusing, and something he had yet to fully come to terms with, the latter made the thought of breathing difficult.

So Cal didn't think, for a good long while, just focused on flying, on the rush of the wind, on the power of his large wings. There was something freeing about flying, like nothing could hold him down. He knew that it was a lie, an illusion, but he let it lull him for a good long while, before he circled back towards the mansion.

Instead of heading for their open window, he landed on Loki's window sill, peered in to see if his friend was in, and tapped his black beak on the glass. It's me, he thought towards Loki, making sure not to let his emotions leak out with the words. He wasn't sure what he was doing here, but he felt like curling up with someone might help.

Loki paused his game and rolled back from the computer. He smiled at the sight of the raven. He went to open the window, greeting Cal with a soft, “Hello, beautiful.” Because as long as the ravens didn’t come in pairs, Loki had an affinity.

Cal shifted into his panther form as he hoped off of the sill and into the room. He immediately wound around Loki's legs, international feline talk for please pet me, no words needed.

Loki laughed and ran both hands over his sinuous form. “You are such a size queen,” he teased. “Always this big muscular cat. Never a kitten. I am constantly reminded that you can eat me.” He knelt down despite this and continued to pet Cal.

Cal stilled, and thought it over for a few beats. Despite his shields being firmly in place, it was obvious that he was thinking over Loki's words. He knew why he did it - the safety he derived from not being small and helpless. But this was Loki. He looked up at his friend, blue eyes full of hesitation, then dropped his head and shifted into your regular sized cat. Just as black as the panther, but very much a domestic cat now.

Loki’s heart hitched in his chest. “Please don’t kill me,” he whispered. “But you are so fucking cute.” He extended his fingers carefully. “Can I pick you up?”

The panic had hit Cal the moment he'd fully realized what he'd done, and how vulnerable he was in a simple cat form. The thought of being picked up only amped it up, and he shifted back into himself before it could get its claws in him for real. He was now crouched on the floor barefooted, in soft-looking jeans and a t-shirt. "Sorry," he said, frowning and feeling ashamed for how near a freakout he was. "I thought I could - sorry." He wasn't quite meeting Loki's eyes, and all he could do was keep breathing.

Loki sat back, giving Cal space. “No worries. You’re a bigger dude than I am. Definitely not used to tiny but vicious.” Reasons why Loki didn’t feel defenseless in smaller shapes. It was pretty much his life in a nutshell. “You’re good.”

Cal still couldn't look Loki in the eye, but he could come and sit beside him. Not touching, but that way it was easier to not look at him - and maybe in a moment, Cal could lean against him. Maybe. No rushing into that one. He looped his arms around his bent knees, hand curling around his opposite wrist. "I'm not," he finally replied, and his voice wavered a little on his next words. "I'm really not."

He wanted to say more, he wanted to explain - about Clint, about his dad, about the vulnerability thing, even though Loki seemed to get it already - but he couldn't get the words out. Fuck, he was so fucked up.

Cal’s expression and posture said everything his words and walled up psyche wouldn’t. Loki leaned forward and tugged the throw blanket off the edge of his bed he bunched it between them as barrier and an offering. “I know you keep your walls up for a reason, and this is a shitty offer, but if you ever want to slide them down a bit I can help you ride things out. I’m not saying take shit away. I just mean help take some weight, let steam out before the top blows. Or I’ll make you a bunch of pottery in art class and you can shatter it. Throws some paint around. Get something out.”

"Please never do that," Cal told him, looking over at him for that one, because he was no longer mired in his shame, but intent on getting Loki to understand, and agree. "Not the pottery, the - it's my weight, and my steam." He didn't want anybody else to so much as touch it.

Loki shrugged. “Figured as much, but you are not alone. You’ve got people ready to fuck the world up on your behalf. So whatever you need, buddy.”

Cal swallowed, nodded minutely, then looked away again. What did he need? Fucking the world up was well and good, but not an answer to any of the tumult inside him right this second. Why had he come here? After some long seconds, he pushed down the cover between them, then rested his hand on it, palm up, fingers extended, and looked over at Loki, a silent question in his eyes.

Loki reached over and put his hand lightly over Cal’s, fingers curling against his. “Doesn’t matter what shape you’re in. You’re still a panther. Even when you’re in a bad place, you’re one of the strongest people I know. Because you’re here."

Cal frowned at Loki's words. They sounded like what you told every survivor out there, what he had been told countless times in therapy, and that made them feel empty. But that was okay, because Cal had something else to focus on. Their fingers threaded together, and their linked hands were a source of comfort, rather than unease. Relief and gratitude washed through Cal; he'd hoped this would be his reaction, but after the aborted cat shift, he hadn't been certain.

He squeezed Loki's hand, barely even noticing the silence stretching between them as he stared at their hands. When he looked up at Loki, it was to tell him, quiet but true, "Thank you."

It might be selfish, but Loki’s ‘because you’re here’ really wasn’t a boo-yah, you survived hell. It was personal. He meant here, holding hands. Because Cal was a guy with the usual gender hangups. And a guy that rarely let people touch him. And he was holding Loki’s hand. And this was the sort of small miracle Loki gave a fuck about.

“Anytime. Seriously.”

There was something so accepting about Loki, like nothing Cal could ever do, or be, would ever really throw him. It was completely different from the way he needed Clint and Caleb in his life. It was less demanding, but it felt like a sort of safety. And that was incredibly precious to Cal.

Still, he looked away after a moment, focusing on the rhythmic swipe of his thumb over Loki's hand, for all that he was looking straight ahead. Eventually, he said, "I was reading that second Love Lessons book. Elijah's father's just tried to shoot him, and I couldn't keep reading."

Ah. Loki hadn’t seen that one coming. So no future book reccs with crazy hate group people. “Ahh. Too close to home?”

Cal resisted the urge to pull his hand back and rub at his shoulder, the way he did when he was nervous or uneasy. Instead, he left it in Loki's and drew comfort from the touch. A sense of safety that it was okay to say this. "My dad was a bio scientist. A geneticist. An obscure genius." But that wasn't where he should start. "When I manifested, my mutation was different. I could mimic skills, too. Any skills at all. But I couldn't hang on to anything. It all just bled away when I got out of range. It was fucking amazing, and it was..." His voice went a little quieter. "It was a heartbreak every time."

Cal paused. He didn't know what that said about him, that he had always tried so hard to be the best. That every time a skill deserted him, he'd felt like a failure, like less than. "My dad said he'd fix it for me. Help unlock my full potential. He wouldn't let me work on it with him, which I thought was bullshit, because I was so good at that shit, when I was around him." Finally as good as he had always wanted to be. Finally good enough for his father to be proud, he thought. "He said I should focus on teenager things. I should've known something was up, because he never said shit like that. I did know something was up. So one day, I snuck into his lab and I went through his notes. He wasn't around, so it took me a while to get it. I don't think I wanted to get it."

Now it felt like he was telling somebody else's story. His voice was even, emotionless, but he was hanging on to Loki's hand. "He wasn't working on improving my mutation. He was trying to shut it down. He was trying to cure me. He hated that I was a mutant."

Holy shit. Loki stroked his thumb against Cal’s hand, because squeezing would probably make him flinch. “I hate when intelligent people are fucking idiots,” Loki said softly. “Your mutation is beautiful.” Even if it wasn’t all it used to be. Was that Cal’s dad’s doing, or the Right? Loki had to wonder, but he hoped Cal would volunteer before he asked.

Beautiful. Cal remembered thinking so. He remembered loving it as much as he hated to feel the skills slip away from him. He frowned a little, but then carried on. "We had a fight and I took off. When I came back, the house was on fire. Something had exploded in the lab, and Dad was dead." He wanted to lean against Loki, but the blanket between them would make it awkward, so he didn't move. Just focused on the swipe of Loki's thumb over his hand. As he kept on talking, feelings gradually filtered back into his voice. "I know it's stupid, and it's just a book. And I don't have it that bad. He never raised his hand on me. He never kicked me out. But Aaron's parents, and then Elijah's..." He choked up and trailed off, rather than try to keep talking.

He had felt uneasy through the entire book, when it came to Aaron's father and his strict expectations for his son. The discomfort had gone up a notch when his father had kicked him out with the clothes on his back. But when Elijah's crazy Christian dad had tried shooting him, that had been when the panic had threatened to engulf Cal. It made no sense, and it was stupid. He hadn't had a terrible childhood. His father had been all right. Compared to what Clint or Caleb had gone through, his life had been a fucking paradise. Yet here he was, freaking out like an idiot.

“It’s not stupid.” Loki shifted a little closer. “And you lost someone. You don’t have to say it isn’t that bad. If it hurts then it hurts.”

Except Cal didn't know what he'd lost, who he'd lost. He hadn't had the chance to find out. And then everything had gone to shit even worse. Cal had been cautiously ignoring everything to do with his father, through the Right, and then in his time here, clinging to muted anger when he was forced to address the issue in therapy. But that book - it had gotten under his skin, and he couldn't shut down his feelings now. Not the anger, not the pain, not the gamut of emotions so complicated Cal couldn't even begin to make sense of them. He pulled his hand back from Loki's to fold his arms over his head, curling up into a ball, and listed sideways against his friend, as much as the blanket would let him.

Loki moved so he could wrap an arm around Cal. He rubbed soothing circles over his back and murmured a gentle, “Hey.” This was one of those situations where he was petting Cal regardless of shape. As long as he needed.

The tears came suddenly, prickling at Cal's eyes for barely a second before the first sob wrenched its way out of his lungs. He curled in even more tightly on himself, but he kept leaning against Loki as he sobbed it out. He wasn't even sure what he was crying for. His father? His mutation? His year with the Right? Sandra? What he'd done for her? What he'd done to her, the slide of one of Billy's knives into her flesh, between her ribs, just the way they'd taught him? Maybe he was crying for everything, and after some time the sobs made way to quieter tears, and Cal began to relax against Loki, arms now crossed on his own knees, face buried in the crook of his elbow.

Loki wished he was bigger so that his arms could wrap further around Cal. He wasn't Thor, a big, solid rock, but he did the best with what he was. His heart ached as Cal sobbed. Loki wasn't alarmed. Honestly, this moment was overdue. The more emotion suppressed, the bigger the backlash when it found its way out. Loki continued rubbing Cal's back. When he was all sobbed out, curled up small, Loki pressed a kiss to the back of Cal's shoulder, followed by a brush of his cheek.The gesture made more sense as a cat, but he wasn't giving his hands up right now. He didn't have the right words to say. But he was here for his friend.

Cal's breathing evened out eventually, and his tears stopped rolling. He sniffled a couple of times, then straightened up enough to wipe both hands over his face, and sighed. "Sorry, I..." Don't know what's wrong with me, he'd been about to say, but he knew a lot of what was wrong with him. "I'm sorry," he repeated instead, and wiped a hand over his mouth, then looked at Loki, eyes puffy and red. "Thank you." A beat, a sniffle, and he asked, "Do you have a tissue?"

Loki untangled and grabbed the box of tissues off his nightstand. He passed it over to Cal. "Need water?" he asked.

Cal winced as he realized that, "Yeah." He blew his nose, then aimed the tissue at Loki's waste basket. As Loki moved away to get water, he shakily got to his feet, then sat on the edge of Loki's bed, rubbing his hands over his face again. He couldn't believe he'd just broken down like that.

Loki grabbed a bottle of water. He also clicked the kettle setup next to his gaming station. He handed Cal the bottle and then went to dig some packets of hot chocolate out of his drawer.

"Thanks," Cal said, trying to sound as normal as possible. He felt like he was off the mark by about a mile, though. He cracked the bottle open and took a long drink, since it gave him something to do. He kept it in his hands, fidgeting with it as he watched Loki. He didn't know what to say. Sorry I broke down all over you? Cal still felt like he was on the edge of another breakdown, and he wanted to walk firmly away from that edge, but he wasn't sure how to do that.

"No problem." He located the cocoa and held it up. "Sugar. And dark chocolate. Good for serotonin." Loki crossed back to the bed while the kettle boiled. He reached to squeeze Cal's shoulder. "If you feel weird about crying, you should do it more often. Not to say I'm not a master of avoidance, but I'm not sure we really get past things unless we get through them. And if you need a friend or a cat to cry on, this is not weird. This is okay. I used to... well. I used to do the same with Thor. You have someone if you need someone."

Cal knew this intellectually, of course. He was a millenial; of course he knew it was actually okay for boys to cry. For men to cry. But it wasn't the way his father had brought him up, and it still felt awkward, wrong. Weak. Life was facts, not emotion, he'd been taught growing up. "Thanks," he said again, lamely to his own ears. "I'm not... used to it. To this." He cleared his throat, thought of how sad it was that Loki used to do the same with Thor. "You know it's - I know you're not as fucked up as I am," no one was, "but you can do that with me, too. If you need. When you need."

That was a good thought not just for Loki's sake, but for Cal's. He'd do it for his friend, of course. But it turned out that that knowledge made it better to accept his breakdown with Loki. Two-way streets were easier.

Loki smiled wryly. “When I face my damage, I will definitely keep that in mind.” He threaded his fingers together and stretched his arms. “It’s mostly a god complex, Odin issues, and romantic foibles.” Maybe another time he’d tell Cal about the recurring nightmares of someone cutting out his acid heart and leaving him empty. But that was very off topic.

The kettle clicked and Loki moved to stir up cocoa for them.

Cal watched him fix them hot chocolates, still a little too shell-shocked by his own reaction to think very hard about what to say. He didn't want to fill the silence, anyway. They were comfortable enough that he didn't have to, and it gave him a moment to let his brain coast along, doing nothing, while Loki worked on their drinks.

Loki handed Cal one of the mugs and then climbed up on the bed near him. He settled his back against the wall. “Would you like an honest story in trade? A piece of my history the world and their prying lens doesn’t know?”

Near him wasn't good enough, Cal realized as Loki sat on the bed. Cautiously, on account of the mug full of hot chocolate in his hand, he shifted to sit right by Loki, his back to the wall as well, so they would be touching. It was unusual for him in this form, but right then, not touching made him feel all out of whack - even more so than he did when touching, anyway. "You don't - have to," he said slowly, with a brief, small frown, after settling against Loki. He'd listen if Loki wanted to share, of course, but... "It isn't a trade."

Loki leaned against Cal, pleased that he was still open to contact. "You have no trust for dragons," Loki jested softly. "It isn't a trade. But I've told no one else, and it will eat me eventually."

"Dragons have been growing on me," Cal replied with a hint of a smile, something soft in his eyes, before he sobered up and nodded. "You can tell me anything you want."

“Alright.” After all, more than a year had passed since the discovery and Loki hadn’t told a soul. “I am not my parents child. When I started shapeshifting Odin decided to tell me why I’m different from my siblings. Frigga lost her last son, and Odin wandered as he does sometimes. He found me abandoned in the streets of Asgard. My older siblings are right to think that I don’t fit in our family. I am my mother’s grief, and Odin’s secret. By keeping this hidden so long it will be scandal if they ever decide to share it.”

Wow. Shit. That was... heavy. Identity-challenging kind of heavy. Cal studied Loki's profile for a couple of seconds, then reached out to wrap his free hand around Loki's. "How do you feel about it?"

Loki laughed, soft and bitter. “It makes sense. But it also makes me wonder if there’s a limit before Odin decides it’s not worth keeping me. In TJ’s other worlds we’re apparently gods, the Odin, Loki, Thor. And I’m basically awful. Which doesn’t surprise me. I’m worried that I’m destined to fuck things up...”

The bitterness in that laugh made Cal squeeze Loki's hand, then slide his fingers between Loki's to thread them together. If he had been a panther, he would have bumped his head against Loki and wound against him, but this served the same purpose. There was so much to unpack in all of that, but for now, Cal would address Loki's last concern. "That's bullshit," he said, quietly but firmly. "The many-worlds interpretation says that there's a different world for every face a die would land on. There's a different world for every decision you make, too. The good ones, and the bad ones. TJ's only been to shitty worlds, clearly."

Loki squeezed his hand. “I bet we’re not friends in those other worlds.”

"She sounds like the only other me she met was on that team of hers," Cal stated, after taking a sip of hot chocolate. When had he last had a hot chocolate, even? It tasted so sweet and comforting, warm and perfect. It tasted like childhood. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled his hand back, but only so he could sling his arm across Loki's shoulders, encourage him to lean against Cal. "You're not awful at all," he said, quietly, with a bit of emphasis on that first word, because this Loki was the only one Cal cared about. "And your dad isn't going to kick you out. Like you said, scandal, if nothing else." Cal had no idea; Loki tended not to talk about his family very much, at least not seriously. This was new. And precious.

Loki snuggled against Cal and sighed. "You are welcome to come sleep here anytime, even if we are not cats," he murmured.

"Thanks," Cal said, on the same quiet tone. He hesitated, then offered, "Maybe I could try staying tonight?" He was phrasing it that way on purpose. He'd thought he could handle the cat thing, earlier.

"Whatever you're up for." Loki nuzzled against his shoulder. "I have an empty bed you can flee to, and a window you can fly out of."

"I'd need to go get Abs, and walk her," he warned Loki, but he was just fine where he was for now. The truth was, he was worried that whatever spell was making him okay with this right now would be broken if he left and came back.

"An inevitable circumstance. Unless of course Clint can juggle two labs at once." Not that Loki wanted Cal to ignore his dog.

"I mean, he could," Cal answered, frowning a little as he thought about Clint. Fuck, Cal was such a mess. He forced himself to focus back on the topic of Abs. "But I like having her with me." It was entirely possible he hadn't spent a single night away from her, since he'd gotten her.

Loki raised his mug. "Luckily, Abs is good people. A delightful doggo. The most honorable of hounds."

Cal smiled a little, turning his head towards Loki to brush his nose against his hair, still very much behaving as he would in panther form. "I'm so glad I didn't listen to any of your suggestions for naming her."

“You simply can’t handle my genius.” Loki was clearly still feeling very cat as well because he nuzzled Cal’s shoulder and narrowly refrained from biting him.

Cal smiled, and let the silence stretch as he sipped his hot chocolate. "Do you think it's weird..." he started asking, after a while, then grimaced, and tried again. "I mean, everybody in those books. They all know they're gay, and it's like - like they've always known, or something."

Loki snorted. “It’s very fiction to me. First, the idea of always knowing what you are. Second, the zeroes or sixes on the Kinsey scale. I think you know my feelings on being one thing your entire life.”

Cal smiled a little, because it was funny, in retrospect, worrying about that to Loki of all people. But also because it was good to hear. It didn't completely silence his fears, but it quieted them a little. "When did you find out?" he asked, both because he was curious about his friend, and because he wanted to give himself some more time to mull things over. "That you were..." Cal looked for the right word, then tried out, "Flexible?" Loki would tell him if it wasn't the right word, but it sounded to him like it would work both for gender and for sexuality.

Another soft snort, but not at Cal’s word choice. “So maybe my always is I always felt different. Mostly I felt like wasn’t enough. Yes, I know, I’m an absolute wonder, but look at my fucking family. When did I realize I liked all genders? Girls was easy, I mean. It’s expected. The first time I saw Sif take a boy down in hand to hand combat. She was fierce and terrifying and sadly one of Thor’s best friends. Guys? I don’t know. It was all fictional appreciation at first. And then... well. A friend. The fact that he liked me at all kind of did me in. And after him I was kind of like fuck it I don’t care about the gift wrapping, decent human beings are hard enough to find I can’t limit myself based on potential dicks.”

Cal chuckled softly at the conclusion. "That makes sense." He didn't even know why he'd taken so long to - well, no, really, he knew - being straight was easy - but then there was also the nagging feeling, still, that he wasn't really into guys, that this was just him being fucked up over bullshit. How was he supposed to know either way? He sighed, annoyed with himself. "But everything still seems so complicated."

"It's very complicated," Loki said sagely. "Is there a person complicating you? Or did you start getting those dreams, cue freaking out."

Was that a thing? Cal's dreams - the ones he remembered - tended to be on the nightmare side of the spectrum. He sighed. "Nah." Did he want to say it? Saying it would make it real, though.

More real than jerking off to the thought of him in their bathroom?

Cal grimaced, and came out with it before he changed his mind. "Clint. I've been - I know it's fucked up." He couldn't bear to admit he'd also thought about kissing Caleb. Clearly his libido was on overdrive from Sandra's amazing beyond-the-grave cockblocking, right? Rationalization was his ally through all of this.

Loki raised a brow. "You're going to have to explain to me why it's fucked up. Yeah, he's your friend. But being attracted to people you already care about it a lot easier than being attracted to random people you don't know."

"He's not just my friend, though, he's my roommate," Cal said, a lump in his throat. "And there's Caleb and I can't let it risk ruining everything." He needed them in his life in a way that was seriously scary. "And I don't even know if it's real, or if it's just that I can't think about girls without having a panic attack, so I might as well start thinking about guys as attractive?" This felt a little like laying his soul bare, and his heart was beating hard in his chest from it.

Loki reached to squeeze Cal's hand. "Hey. Maybe you find guys attractive. Maybe you try it, and you don't like it. Your throuple room makes semantics complicated... But maybe don't beat yourself up too bad over it?" Loki considered for a moment. "Uhh. If you ever want to test the concept of guys in general, I volunteer as tribute and promise not to be weird after. But I'm so nothing like Clint so if you're not into me that means absolutely nothing about you plus guys like him or just him. But options!"

Cal squeezed Loki's hand back, and then squeezed him to his side a little, thanks for those calm, steady words that made Cal take a step back from his anxiety. Loki made it all sound so okay. Like it was no big deal. Like it made sense, even.

But then Loki kept talking, and Cal frowned, realized what Loki was offering, and stilled as images of what Loki was offering rushed him. His chest felt hot, and his face, and he remembered to breathe after a couple of seconds. He blinked a couple of times, and licked suddenly dry lips, now very aware of the way Loki was snuggled up to him, every point of contact. Cal had to lean back a little, to get some distance as he looked into Loki's face, but he kept his arm around his friend's shoulders. "You serious?"

Loki looked sheepish, because maybe now wasn’t the time to make things more complicated for Cal. “Yeah. I mean. Kind of my track record, kissing friends that aren’t romantically interested it’s just casual thing. Kissing is less intimate than a lot of things. Like honesty.” He smiled wryly. “If it sounds like a terrible idea, no worries. I just promise it’s not something that will make me think anything different about you.”

Cal frowned slightly. "I don't think kissing you could ever be - not intimate. Or less intimate, or whatever." It was Loki, and Cal had just told him a lot of shit he hadn't told anyone, and Loki had just told him something nobody else knew, too. And they'd been snuggling for months; Cal didn't let most people close to him. Their entire friendship was built on intimacy.

No, kissing him would be hella intimate, no question there. But Cal wasn't sure he wanted to consider it right now, with his stuffy nose, puffy eyes and dry throat. He wasn't sure he wanted to, but now it was difficult to think of anything else.

“Ah, makes sense,” Loki said. “I’m full of crazy ideas, and please feel free to reject or table them as needed. Sorry, buddy. This is a safe space. No sexual harassment here.”

This was a safe space, Cal acknowledged in a deeper way than he had before. He felt it in his bones - better yet, in his heart. "Not feeling harassed," he said, quietly, to say something before Loki thought he might actually be upset.

When had this safety sprung up on Cal? What had closed that deal? Cal remembered that edge of unease that never left him when he started hanging out with Loki. It had stuck around for a while. But now... Had his breakdown earlier done it? Or did it date back to before today, something gradual Cal was only just noticing now?

"I don't know," he added, because he still hadn't actually answered Loki's offer. He looked away when he noticed his gaze slipping down to Loki's lips. The promise of that added intimacy was so fucking tempting, even beyond the simple draw of making out with someone he liked. "I don't know," he repeated, more quietly, but he wasn't tensing at the thought, the way he would have with most of anybody.

“Table it,” Loki encouraged. “We don’t need to smash every emotional wall you have in one night.” Loki touched a hand over his heart. “Like. Ten walls in enough.”

That drew a tiny smile from Cal, who nodded. Loki was right. "Thank you," Cal said, soft and genuine, as he looked back at his friend.

“My power is fucking reality. If there’s any room where everything is possible, and you can do or say anything you want, this is the one.”

Cal's heart felt full to bursting with gratitude and affection, and for one moment, he was tempted to lean in and kiss Loki. He did lean in, but he pressed his lips to his friend's cheek instead of his lips, letting the swell of warm emotions brush against Loki along with that kiss, a voluntary crack in Cal's walls. "Thank you," he repeated in a whisper, then brushed his nose against Loki's hair, and settled his head sideways against his, letting the hot chocolate grow cool in his hand. Everything about the moment, he fixed in his mind. Expressing affection was such a gift, and he never wanted to take it for granted again.