by Raythe Reign
“What are you thinking, Mary, with such an expression of consternation on your face?” Loki asked.
But to Liam’s surprise she wasn’t thinking about him and Cameron’s relationship, but instead about something quite different. With a wry grin, she gestured around them and said, “I’m just wondering how on Earth I’m going to explain all this to the authorities without mentioning beings from another realm, Mjolnir, Aesir and Hel’s dagger..”
“Do not worry, Mary,” Thor said stoutly, looking for all the world like the Thunder God he was. “We will assist you.”
With a roll of her eyes, but a broad grin on her face, she responded almost affectionately with, “I might just let you do that, Thor. We are … family after all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: TOGETHER
Three months later ...
Cameron rooted around behind the bar until he felt the tell-tale tingle of magic. A broad smile lit his face. The tingle came from what looked like a simple roll of paper towels, but that wasn’t what it was. He pressed his fingertips against it and closed his eyes. He absorbed the small bit of magic that made the pitcher of mead look like a normal household item. He opened his eyes and grinned as he saw the pitcher of golden fluid revealed for all to see.
And for me to take!
With a satisfied smile he put the pitcher on the tray with the two glasses filled with ice. He put a single finger against the pitcher and his hand burned with blue swirls for a moment. Frost covered the pitcher’s sides. Laughing to himself, he hustled up to his and Liam’s apartment on the second floor of Fenrir.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw a sight that had him sucking in a sharp breath of desire though he’d just seen it ten minutes earlier. Liam was standing in the center of the room with only a sheet swathed around his narrow hips. The sheet hung low, showing a swath of beautiful, muscled butt cheek and a trail of golden hair around his pretty cock.
Liam was bathed in the sunlight that was pouring through the windows. He’d turned his head towards the light and had his eyes closed. His wings were outstretched behind him, glittering like ghostly crystal. They rustled slightly as if in unseen breezes.
Breezes from Asgard maybe?
The smells of oil paint and clay were heavy in the air. A canvas sat in one corner of the room on an easel. There was also a table with still wet clay. Cameron had been capturing his brother’s likeness in clay and oil all morning. These were just some of the pieces that he was working on for his portfolio. He was going to art school.
Liam was determined that he start to live again. Cameron thought that living was simply being with Liam. They had compromised that Cameron would go to the local university, still work the bar at Fenrir with Liam filling in when he was in class or studying.
Cameron had thought that they would leave town after the Gash was finished, but now that Liam was back and things were calm … well, he didn’t really want to leave. But after nearly half a decade not making art, his portfolio was thin to say the least. But Liam had volunteered to help him in any way he could. So Cameron had recruited him as a favorite model. He’d just gone downstairs to get them a drink of Loki’s secret mead cache to reward Liam for being such a good sport.
As he watched Liam bathing his face in the sun, a shadow of a bird suddenly lifting off appeared in the corner of his eye. Cameron pressed his lips together.
Odin. Again.
The All Father had been contacting Liam often, trying to get Liam to come to Asgard.
And, according to Loki, trying to convince Liam to bring him to Earth. Loki still hasn’t unlocked the Bifrost. The Aesir are still trapped in Asgard, except for Loki and Thor.
Loki was still convinced that the Aesir should not be allowed to come to Earth. It was a point of contention between himself and Thor over the past three months.
“Tell me that you are not just keeping them there in order to punish them?” Thor had demanded to know, his huge arms crossed over his chest.
“Punish them? As if I was not punishing myself by keeping us apart all this time!” the Trickster God had argued back.
Thor winced. “I did not think that you were … were hurting by us being separated.”
Loki let out a thin laugh and shook his head. “It was agony, but I knew that it was the only way to keep humanity safe. It wasn’t just keeping us apart, you know. It was risking the Gash getting out. And I knew —”
“Knew that Liam and Cameron would be born to take care of it?” Thor’s right eyebrow raised.
“Yes, I knew there would be an Earth-based solution!”
Thor put his hands on Loki’s shoulder. It was gentle, but scolding. “Tell me though, how many died while you waited for this Earth-based solution?”
Loki shrugged off those hands, his eyes glowing gold. “And how many would have died if the Aesir had returned? Humans aren’t like you remember, Thor. And … and while you would never do anything to humans who wouldn’t bow down and worship you … what about the others?”
Thor lowered his head and looked grim. He said nothing, because he, evidently, agreed, but did not like it. Yet Odin continued to speak to Liam. He’d requested the Liam bring Thor, Cameron and even Mary with him to Asgard. They could all talk. Cameron would love it there. They were family, too. But Liam had not made any promises. He kept talking to Odin though
His older brother’s eyes opened and he turned to Cameron with a fully open smile on his face. Liam saw the pitcher of mead and, though longing appeared in his eyes, he immediately looked a little alarmed.
“Loki is going to kill you for stealing his mead again, Cam,” Liam chuckled.
“Then he should hide it better,” Cameron replied unrepentantly. He put the tray down on the coffee table and sat down on the couch before he poured a large glass for Liam. He handed it to his brother, waggling it a little to encourage Liam. “Come on. You know you want it.”
“Of course I want it. Nothing tastes quite like it. Nafari is absolutely addicted to the stuff.”
Liam took the glass and sat down beside him on the couch. The sheet shifted to the side showing more of his long legs. Cameron took a long drink of mead and licked his lips even as his mind added the salt of Liam’s skin to the taste of his drink.
“Yeah, and Loki gives Nafari as much as he wants. But he hides it from me.” Cameron made a moue of disgust.
“That’s because Nafari is a Valkyrie. The mead can’t hurt him. But you are …”
“What?” Cameron raised an eyebrow. This was a question that Loki and Thor were often discussing. Was Cameron becoming an Aesir? His powers were growing and he was definitely changing, much more so than his mother who also had the blood. Cameron was becoming something new. The question was whether the mead was helping him towards that goal too quickly? His older brother refused to weigh in on it. But what about now?
“You know that the mead is safe for the Aesir and for the dead.” Liam shrugged one beautifully muscled shoulder.
“You’re not dead.” Cameron ran a hand down Liam’s nearest arm. His older brother was warm and silky. His skin was that of a live man not a dead one.
There had been a moment after the Gash was gone where Cameron had been terrified that Liam would disappear, go back to Valhalla, but that hadn’t happened. All the Valkyrie were still on Earth. There were lots of thoughts about why that was. Some thought it was because the Aesir were supposed to return to Earth any moment and the Valkyrie were to be their soldiers against any humans that tried to deny them. Others thought that there must be other dangers like the Gash that the Valkyrie would have to face. This last one was believed by Elda. Especially when Loki had admitted that something might have come out of the doorway when he had been attacked.
“When you were jostled?” Thor had asked.
“J-jostled?!” Loki had turned narrowed eyes onto him. “I was set upon by a serious attacker!”
“Yes, an old lady who was more rot than flesh.” Thor’s eyes flashed with amusement. “
I was hit by a vehicle. Many vehicles, actually. That was the only reason I wasn’t there to protect you from that one, elderly, frail lady.”
“Considering your thick head, I would think it wouldn’t have mattered if dozens of vehicles fell upon you —”
With a laugh, Thor kissed him, stroking him, too, like a cat who was hissing and spitting. Loki calmed down.
“You were teasing me?” Loki asked.
“Yes. Of course! You are the bravest, strongest, most wonderful Aesir. I swear it!” Thor added the last with a laugh.
“I see. I may forgive you then,” Loki muttered.
Thor stroked the prickly Trickster God for a moment longer. “I shouldn’t have teased you. You were magnificent, Loki! I am sure that they are talking of it with much gusto in the Halls of Asgard!”
Loki rolled his eyes. “They are, undoubtedly, speaking solely of you and Liam! He lifted Mjolnir!” The Trickster God then became mollified as he added, “But they will have to admit now that Liam, for one, is the truest son of yours that could ever be.”
As soon as Loki had said those last words in front of Cameron though, he blanched. And that was when Cameron realized that this “family” business ran more deeply than he’d understood.
“What do you mean by that?” It was Cameron’s turn to look at the Trickster God through narrowed eyes.
Loki actually scuffed a foot on the floor of Fenrir. Thor rocked back and forth on his feet. His cheeks were pink with pleasure. But though the two Aesir looked both bashful and eager, it was Liam who told him the truth of it.
Liam had framed his face. “We’re … special to the two of them.”
“Y-yeah, I got that.” Cameron frowned.
“Loki wove our ancestors’ fates and DNA together to make children that would be almost as if … well, as if Loki and Thor had babies together,” Liam explained.
It took Cameron a beat to understand what he meant. “We’re their … babies?”
Thor clasped his hands together glee and cried, “Our sons!”
Cameron’s eyebrows crawled into his hairline. “Ooookaaayyy.” He frowned then. “I guess that makes sense then why Liam and I are so much like the two of you.”
“Indeed.” Thor advanced upon them, dragging Loki behind him like the Trickster God was a kite he was attempting to fly. “You are our sons. Our boys. And I could not be prouder, nor love you more, if I’d given birth to you.”
Liam’s mouth was twitching suspiciously and Cameron found himself fighting a laugh back as well. Thor was … well, Thor. All you saw was all you got. There was nothing hidden in him at all. Thor immediately wrapped them both in a huge bear hug and squeezed them until neither of them could breathe.
“Let our children go, Thor, or they will pass out,” Loki said dryly.
Thor eased up on them, but only enough to drag Loki into the hug as well. He then squeezed them all. Only breathless begging finally got him to let them all go. Cameron drew in deep breaths as he staggered a few feet back.
“I’m really surprised that you were able to keep this a secret for so long, Thor,” Cameron said. “You’re not one for really keeping secrets.”
“He almost revealed it a million times!” Loki scoffed.
“But in the end, you were the one to give it away,” Cameron pointed out with a smirk.
Loki merely straightened his clothes from the Thor-hug-from-death and answered, “I was merely putting the Thunder God out of his misery.”
“Are you going to tell Mom about this? Somehow, I doubt it will end up in a hug,” Cameron remarked.
Thor and Loki both rubbed the backs of their necks. Neither Aesir looked truly keen on telling Mary about this.
“We will find a way to reveal it to her that makes it clear that we’re not — not impinging on her and Kurt’s parentage of you at all,” Thor finally said.
“Good plan,” Liam agreed.
Loki suddenly drew in a breath. “In all seriousness, something may have gotten through the doorway when I was … jostled.”
“I thought I saw something come out of the doorway, too,” Liam chimed in. His older brother looked deeply uneasy.
“Another creature like the Gash?” Cameron asked.
Sweat suddenly was streaming down Cameron's spine. They had taken out the Gash, but he still had nightmares about that encounter with it in the parking lot. It was inconceivable to him that there wasn’t some indelible mark of what had happened at the hospital. But their mother, along with Thor and Loki and the Valkyrie, had managed to convince everyone that the weirdness going on in town was from a viral outbreak and a freak storm. None of the outside authorities seemed to notice anything wrong.
Though not everyone had been unscathed from what had happened. All the doctors and nurses who were killed were, obviously, never coming back. Not all of the possessed children had made it through either. Loki had assured him and Liam that those that died were meant to, their bodies too weak even before the Gash took them over, to survive. Florie had been one of the lucky ones that had recovered fully. The hospital was the final casualty. It was determined to close it down permanently. No one wanted to go there after what had happened.
And then there was Deputy Juan Munoz. He had official retired from the force on full disability. His hair had turned white as snow. He had aged what looked like twenty years since the possession. He walked with a cane. And he went to church every day. He would not speak of what had happened during that time other than with a shaky voice and trembling hands. Cameron made sure to go visit him or urge him out to play pool at Fenrir as often as his strength allowed him to. But he would never be the same. Not if a million years past.
The Gash did that to him. Stole his life from him. Left him a frightened husk.
“There is only one Gash. We think,” Loki finally answered, but he didn’t sound certain.
What if something had gotten out and it was worse? Yet they hadn’t found any trace of anything having gotten loose. Yet.
“Loki is just worried about you,” Liam said, distracting Cameron from his memories of the past three months. “He wants to make sure that you … become what you should at the proper speed so there aren’t any bad effects to it.”
Like going crazy? Like hearing the voices on the wind? Fell voices … Hel’s voice, I think. Our half-sister’s voice.
Cameron’s hands almost went to the back of his shorts where he normally kept the dagger, under his shirt. But he was wearing no shirt and he forced himself to put the dagger away when it was just him and Liam in the apartment. His eyes drifted over to where it lay on the nightstand’s top. He breathed a little easier when his gaze landed upon it.
“I’m getting stronger. My powers and my control.” Cameron held up both hands which easily flush with magic: one red and the other blue. “I think Loki actually is just testing my magic skills when he hides the mead. I mean he disguised it this time as a roll of paper towels and he was complaining last night that the bar was sticky.” Cameron licked the rim of the glass, catching those extra precious drops of mead. “It’s like he wanted me to figure out where it was.”
“Maybe he does. I know that you having powers like his makes him feel less … alone,” Liam agreed.
“He has Thor now just like I have you. We’re not alone,” Cameron pointed out even though his chest was tight. There was still a feeling of alienation even with Liam by his side, this sense of being other, but he tried not to mind it. And, often, when he looked into Liam’s loving face, he didn’t think of it at all. He imagined Loki often felt the same.
“I suppose not.” Liam tilted his head towards the fire extinguisher in the corner. “And you really are getting far better at control. Haven’t set anything on fire in days.”
“I know! Pretty awesome, right? And we’ve been testing my control considering how much time we stay in bed making love.”
“Not just in bed. In the shower. On the table. In the kitchen.”
“On Loki’s precious bar.”<
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“On the pool tables,” Liam snorted.
“Against the side of the bar,” Cameron chortled.
“Under the starry sky.” Liam gave him an affectionate smile and bussed his cheek with his lips.
“Yeah. All those places. I have to admit you have nerves of steel. You never seem like you’re ready to leap up from my arms and grab the fire extinguished when the comforter’s caught fire.” Cameron propped his bare feet up on the table and wiggled his toes. Liam stroked the top of his foot with a bare one of his own.
“You’ve got paint on your toes.” Liam continued to play footsie with him.
“And I’ve got clay there, too. See?” He turned his foot to the side and pointed it out to Liam.
His older brother caught his foot and cleaned it off with his sheet, mostly dislodging the material from around him in the process.
“God, you’re beautiful,” Cameron breathed as he caught sight of Liam’s golden tanned body. His older brother was all rippling muscle and velvety skin. He wanted to touch it and realized he simply could.
Cameron downed the rest of the mead, which had his blood fizzing with power and desire. He dumped the glass onto the table before straddling his brother’s bare lap. Cameron was only wearing a pair of thin, ripped shorts and nothing else. Liam’s big, warm hands framed his waist. His older brother’s thumbs moved along his ribs. It tickled, but also felt good.
“You are an … angel.” Liam looked up at him with such love in his eyes.
“Said the man with wings.” Cameron grinned though his older brother’s wings had disappeared. His hands went to his older brother’s broad shoulders and he ran them down Liam’s arms. “So much movement skin to touch and kiss and make mine.”
“Never going to grow tired of you touching me.” Liam turned his head to the side to capture one of Cameron’s hands. He rubbed against it like a cat.
“Never going to grow tired of any of this. Wanted you so long. Thought I would never have you. But here you are.” Cameron kissed Liam’s left temple and slowly let his lips linger there.