Eros and Loki were sitting at the bar of an uptown lounge in the theater district. The lounge was Loki’s choice. It was bright and classy with rich cherry wood and it smelled like a humidor.

“Okay, Desire,” Loki set down his glass, “what are your secret desires?”

“Well, they aren’t really secret, are they? I already told you.”

Loki waved him on with his hand.

Eros rolled his eyes and brushed back his bangs, “Okay, um… same as anyone really, to be loved and respected for who I am in a healthy way. To feel safe, secure, not like the relationship could go to hell at any moment. I want something,” he looked into Loki’s eyes, “real.”

“Hm.” Loki pondered with a cocky smirk and picked his drink back up.

Eros’s eyes zeroed in on that grin, wondering what exactly it meant. No doubt, Loki was restraining from debating the definition of the word real.

So, Eros put on a coy smile, and tilted his head just right in the light to ask, “And what are your inner desires, Chaos?”

Loki snorted mid sip, and had to cough the burning bourbon out of places it shouldn’t have been. “My desires?” He coughed, wiping the liquor off his chin.

“Yes. Your desires,” Eros prodded.

“You mean beyond kinky foreplay?”

Eros flushed, and bit his lip, “Yes, beyond that.”

“Well, you’re Desire, you tell me.”

Eros leaned in. “Not how this game works.” He didn’t break eye contact as he sipped from his glass.

“Inner desires…,” Loki pondered. “I don’t think I live in the realm of desires. I live in the world of what I have right in front of me.” He gazed at Eros, who smiled and looked away.

Loki continued, “I also think in terms of cause and effect, and I don’t necessarily do so to reach a desired outcome, but just to see what the outcome will be.”

Eros leaned in. “And what do you think the outcome of tonight will be?”

Loki chuckled, “Kinky foreplay, I hope. But I don’t think the outcome is the question.”

Eros cocked his head.

Loki continued. “The question is why?”

“Why?”

Loki repeated, “Yes, why. Why are you actually here with me? To piss off the enemy? Or because you’re actually fond of me? Because we both know the answer, and you’re avoiding it, or making excuses for it. I’m not rushing you to proclaim your undying love for me, but if you have feelings for me you should at least own it.”

“Fine. I’ll own it. Yes, I have feelings for you, and pissing off the enemy is a wonderful side-bonus,” Eros confirmed, finishing off his drink.

Loki looked away from the young god to relieve the pressure he assumed Eros was feeling, but then Eros slipped his fingertips over the giant’s knee to his inner thigh.

Loki’s attention snapped back to the question, “But why is that?”

Eros’s hand stopped. He glanced at his hand then back at Loki.

Loki said, “I mean, what is with all the fuss about us being together? First, Hypnos shows up with that damn bottle and prophecies, then Thanatos shows up to make a scene.” He was chewing on his lip again.

Eros’s shoulders slumped.

“And he told us to piss off with one hand and invited us to the gala with another. Hypnos might have given us direct prophecies, but the message Thanatos gave us was more clear. Someone put him up to this.”

Eros blinked, and said flatly, “The gala is a trap, is it?”

Loki drummed his fingers on the table. “Most definitely.”

Eros sighed, and nodded to himself, surrendering to the fact that this was what it was like to date Chaos. He patted Loki’s knee and removed his hand. “Well then, we should probably get back to work. Finish cataloging the collection-”

“And then make a catalog,” Loki added.

“And make a catalog,” Eros agreed. “Find out everything we can on that bottle, make a battle strategy, buy new suits, and really, truly get to know one another.”

Loki thought on all of this for a moment, finished his drink, and stood. “Perfect. We should start at your place.”

Eros, still sitting on the bar stool looked up at him, “My place?”

“I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Okay, well, I do still have a very expensive bottle of champagne, courtesy of Grim Enterprises, which has been begging to be opened...” Eros stood.

“Begging to be opened?” Loki raised his eyebrows. “You and the champagne share something in common, then.”

Eros side-eyed him as they exited the bar, Loki laughing under his breath all the way to the door. Once outside in the cold, Eros bumped intentionally into Loki, and Loki wrapped his arm around him until they flagged down a cab.

***

Loki was intrigued, rather than surprised at the sight of Eros’s minimalist black and white apartment.

“Well…,” was all he said upon entry, “we’ll never be moving in together.”

“No, probably not.” Eros shrugged off his coat. “Champagne?”

“Please.” Loki took off his coat and set it down on the back of the couch, while Eros headed to the bar.

Loki put his hands in his pockets as he took in the wall-to-wall window, overlooking the city lights scattered under a firmament of falling stars.

“Where were you before you were sentenced here?”

“Bouncing around in the Mortalworld.” Eros popped off the cork, and a bit of bubbly overflowed from the bottle. “This is actually the first place I’ve lived in aeons that is actually mine rather than someone else’s, so I suppose the sentence could be worse.”

“They were talking Tartarus, yes?”

The memories of his trial made him uncomfortable. “Yes. They were. But, enough of the jury decided my level of involvement wasn’t enough to warrant that sort of verdict. I was charged with border infractions, mortal coercion, second-degree abuse-of-power, and aiding and abetting Clermiel’s conspirators.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed as he took the glass of champagne Eros was offering him. “Hm. What was the difference in charges from those who were sentenced to Tartarus?”

“They were charged with more of the same, just to a higher degree, and of course the charge of actually conspiring to dismantle the natural laws.”

“Did you get off easy because of who you are, or rather, what you are?”

“It’s possible, but I’m sure it had more to do with the fact that I’m irrelevant.” Eros self-deprecated.

“No. You’re not any more irrelevant than Strife or Charon. In fact, you’re far more relevant.”

Eros let out one bitter laugh.

“It was either out of respect for the fact you are Primordial, or because they have you right where they want you. You wouldn’t do them any good if you were in Tartarus.”

“I don’t do them any good now.”

“Or so you assume.”

Eros and Loki looked at each other pointedly.

“Or so I assume,” Eros agreed.

Loki scoured Eros with his eyes, studying his energy. Only now did Loki truly understand how old Eros was. He was probably older than Death, and Dream, and the Fates. It wasn’t long after Eros’s inception that he had been degraded and removed, forced to hide everything he was, or risk eternal imprisonment- never mind that a life like that was a prison all its own. Eros was so much bigger than he appeared, bigger than he could possibly recall or admit to. It was no wonder his desire was to be loved and accepted. It was no wonder the Fates would want him where they could see him, where they could use him if they ever needed, somewhere accessible, and easily manipulated.

But Loki knew that there was a fine line between cornering a mouse and cornering a wolf. Too much pressure in the wrong places turns cowering submission into gnashing ferocity.

The Fates couldn’t see that manipulating Eros would be the equivalent of manipulating a dangerous artifact. One wrong move could set it off, and setting it next to a similar object could cause a world-melting reaction.

They were afraid of what he and Eros could do together.

Eros smiled, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Loki reached up a hand and brushed back Eros’s bangs, “Daydreaming,” he replied. “Just daydreaming.”

Eros pulled Loki’s tie from out of his vest. “Anything I can help with?” He looked up at Loki through his lashes.

Loki raised Eros’s chin, again oblivious to Eros’s flirtatious lure.

“Listen to me.” Loki’s gaze was unwavering, “No matter what happens between you and I, I will stand between you and them every time, no matter what your protests might be.”

Eros dropped the tie. “Loki, has it escaped your notice that I’ve tried multiple times tonight to seduce you?”

“No. It hasn’t. But do you understand me?”

Eros walked away with a frustrated laugh. “No! Not in the slightest.”

Loki took a breath and walked up to him. “I think you do.”

Eros glared at him. “I understand what you’re saying. What I don’t understand is why you’re saying it, and why we have to be having this conversation right now.”

Loki’s voice tensed. “Because it came to mind, and it flew out of my mouth, and I’m glad it did! You need to know where I stand, so that you know I’m not using you the same as all the rest.”

Eros sat on the arm of his sectional and brushed back his hair. “I know that.”

Loki calmed himself and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, it’s still nice to hear sometimes, even if you already know it.”

Eros shrugged. “I’m not used to hearing it. At all. And, frankly, it’s a bit much...”

“Fair enough.”

“And I don’t believe it.”

Loki nodded and took a breath. “I’ll enjoy proving you wrong.”

Eros folded his arms and Loki stood still for a moment with his hands in his pockets.

Loki rocked on his heels, and he looked at Eros whose eyes were on the floor.

Loki cleared his throat.

He rocked on his heels again.

“So,” he removed a hand from his pocket to rub the back of his neck, “where do you want to go on date number two?”

Eros dragged his eyes up to scowl at Loki.

***

A beautiful young woman was crumpled on the damp banks of the swamp. She cried ceaselessly as she watched the bugs crawl and buzz by her. The grief in her heart immobilized her, but her body trembled with the echoes of her heartache.

The young woman knew it was unwise to wish her heart’s wish aloud, but her sorrow drowned out this wisdom, and she wished with all her might, “Please, I wish this curse was taken from me.”

A shadow slipped across the swamp, and turned into a man before her. He crouched in front of her. Despite his human shape, he was hardly human. The dark creature before her was twisted in unnatural ways, and was covered with magick symbols and swamp muck. His head was nearly bald and tilted to one side, perked and curious like an animal, peering down at her with blotchy red eyes.

“I grant wishes,” he said strangely through gnarled lips.

The beautiful woman managed to pull her palms under her and push herself up from the ground to take in the strange creature before her.

Our hero leaned closer and insisted with a gravelly voice, “Wish it again.”

The woman wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. She knew not to wish her heart’s desire aloud, because you never know who is listening. But, this was her chance to remedy the past. The rules she lived by before had failed her. It was time for a new set of rules. With a raised chin she gathered her conviction. “I wish I was no longer beautiful.”

Our hero raised his hand of his own free will and clicked his fingers.

She watched as the knuckles on her hands knotted. She felt her back roll into a hump. Her mouth began to bleed as her teeth fell from her gums. Her eyelids began to twitch as one eye went lazy and bulged from her skull. She ran her boney fingers through her hair, and many coarse black strands came out in her hands.

She stood up, looking down at her new talon-like toenails and her calloused bunions, then looked up at the creature before her. With a joyful and toothless grin, she asked, “Am I still beautiful?”

Our hero lowered his bloodshot eyes to hers, and he fell deeply into the hidden depths of her soul. Tumbling, as if he had fallen blindly off a cliff. With a shake of his head he reemerged, overwhelmed, with tears in his eyes.

The bugs crescendoed around them.

“Yes,” his already unsteady voice cracked. “You are… I’m sorry.”

“Come,” she invited, and she began to shuffle through the swamp.

His own tattered, deformed body lurched after hers, taking her words instinctively as a command.

She led him through the reeds of the swamp where the worlds meet.

Glowing eyes followed them the entire way. The eyes peeped out of the Spanish moss and the mud puddles, but the moment our hero turned to look at them, they blinked and disappeared.

The short walk ended when they reached a stilted house on the edge of the water.

“This is the place my family banished me to when I became pregnant out of wedlock. The man, he… He had been one of my sister’s suitors,” she said as she climbed the stairs up to the door, “but when my spiteful sisters cursed me with beauty, he set his eyes on me instead- and took advantage of me. He was wealthy and powerful, and he told my father I had bewitched him. So, they sent me here to give birth to my girl… but they took her from me today…to be raised by my mother.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You are new to these parts aren’t you?” She opened the door to her one-room house.

He answered, “Today I crawled from the roots of a mangrove tree, and I can’t remember where I came from before that. I remember walking a really long way, but that is all.” He didn’t walk far into the house. There was a bed in the right corner, but everything off to the left was for food storage, cooking, and mending clothes.

“Well, in this place, it’s rude to say the words sorry and thank you. It will get you in a world of trouble.”

“Where is this place?”

The woman looked at the set of drawers by the bed. One of the drawers was open. Clean, pastel-pink sheets were bundled around the edges, so that a baby could lie swaddled right in the center.

“This swamp is a portal between many worlds, but the forest beyond the swamp is called The Netherworlds. It is a world ruled by Death… and it shows.”

She slid the drawer closed.

The painful memory she was reliving in her mind was written all over her face, and tears began to fall as she wrapped her arms around herself. She turned her face away and sat down on the bed as the tears and sobs came without hesitation.

He wanted to help her. He knew, but could not remember how he knew, that with the snap of his fingers, he could fix all of her problems- even reshape her reality. Then again, he also inexplicably knew that snapping reality into a new shape didn’t truly solve your problems. It just gave them a new form. Either way, she hadn’t asked for help.

Finding a chair by the fire, he pulled it up close, but not too close as to invade her space. And he sat there with her in silence, safe inside her house, while the swamp around them crawled.