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nildespirandum · 1 year

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In honor of the season, I have decided to bring back my best Christmas story.

18+ absolutely! Art by my dearest @caffiend-queen

All Loki and I want for Christmas is reblogs.

Loki and Nora normally get along beautifully but when trauma causes him to become to over-protective she decides to return to Chicago for the holidays without him.

Thor heard raised voices coming from Nora’s library almost as soon as he boarded his brother’s massive ship, despite the great distance between where the Bifrost had left him on the deck and the hold that had been lovingly made over for his sister-in-law’s comfort.

Needless to say Thor at first made the logical, experience-based assumption that Loki and his wife were making love. At the top of their lungs. As always.

For a moment he planned to seek out Charles, his brother’s excellent demon valet, for cookies and ale for him to while away the next few hours until they were finished, yet as he walked towards the galley he noticed there was something in the pitch and speed of their voices to give him pause.

Despite himself, Thor started moving towards the sounds, trying to make out their voices and what was being shouted, fully prepared to be traumatized if his new assumption was wrong and they were, in fact, making the beast with two backs.

Or, because of Loki’s ability to make clones, any number of backs.

Yet when he leaned casually toward the doors to listen, it was clearly an argument.

Then Thor stood straight up, hand covering his mouth, eyes so wide he could feel them bugging.

It was not an argument. Or a disagreement. Or a debate.

Loki and Nora were having a fight. An ugly, screaming, profanity laden, honest to Bor fight!

There was no question that Thor envied Loki and Nora’s relationship.

Not their love. Thor had been in love so many, many times - Sif certainly, Jane utterly, Amora reluctantly, Brunnhilde athletically, Lorelai occasionally - but he’d never had what might be called an enduring relationship.

Even allowing as much might be an impediment to such a relationship - the most being Thor’s having to be involved in stopping the destruction of all things time and again which was very time consuming - he still found himself sometimes brooding about his solitary life.

As time went by and he grew wiser and knew himself better he came to know the irony of it, having that painful envy over the one thing that Loki had that he had not.

Once Thor was brave and for that matter drunk enough to mention it not to his brother but to Nora.

His kind hearted sister laughed in his face. “Sorry, big guy,” she said, her head bent near to the mahogany bar top, her hand slapping it over and over, “but you know you sound like an asshole right now, right?”

“Er…” Nora was normally the one who cosseted and found ways to ease the way between himself and Loki so her response was a bit of a shock.

“No,” she lifted her head, shaking a hand towards him, “No. First off, you don’t get to EVER tell him that. I know you probably think it will make him feel better, but it won’t. It won’t. It will make him suspicious and uncomfortable and no matter how many times either of us reassure him, himself is still going to think it means you want me.

“He’ll never sleep again.”

Thor was offended for both of them, “Surely my brother will not-”

She waved her hand close in his face, making him start back. Nora seemed to ever forget he was a god. Even a few of the Avengers treated him with more deference than she.

Well, no they didn’t, but that was not the point.

“No! He WILL know better, and it WON’T make any difference. So shut it.” She put her fingers, smelling of hops and bacon, near his lips and pulled them away in a dramatic gesture.

Truly, she was Loki’s wife.

“Second, second, second!” She slapped the bar again, and the bartendress brought another round unbidden, but before she could respond Loki had returned and so whilst Nora slipped off to attend to personal business Thor turned to his brother, who was also drunk, and asked in a more general way how one might go about being in love with someone for rather a long time.

Loki leaned forward, placing his elbows on the bar, “I do not know, brother, and you know how I hate to admit such a thing. Nora is … everyone likes Nora. It is astonishing the beings we have met who find all other creatures loathsome and yet still can find it them to appreciate my wife’s decency, her wit, her kindness. I am one of those beings. She is as loveable as sleep and good food and,” he took a drink and then poured himself another, “excellent wine.

“Yet, I alone worship her, adore her, know that she is not merely a lovely, excellent human, but a goddess. Not one of our Aesir goddesses, rather a true goddess. I am priest, acolyte, and supplicant all to her at once, and all that is beneficent in my life is at her hand. As one who lived over a thousand years without truly falling in love it still shocks me to the core that I am so fortunate as to wake with a divinity in my bed.”

“Awww…. I like you, too,” Nora’s voice came from behind them. Thor watched her coil her arms about his brother, resting her cheek on the top of his head, whilst Loki smiled into his cup, “But see, that’s it. Lots of people worship this one.” She tugged on a black strand of hair. “They don’t like him but they worship or try to placate him. Worry about what he’s going to do. And I do, too. God, do I fucking worry sometimes. But the thing is that I like him. I like you,” she said, pressing a kiss to the crown of Loki’s head. “I like you more than anyone or anything ever. I wake up every morning wondering what trouble you’ve gotten into already, and also thinking that I get to spend another day with my favorite person.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, Loki then reached around and pulled Nora onto his lap, where they settled into together with an ease and perfection of position that could only come from being together for so long. Their very bones seemed to have curved towards accommodating the other.

Thor’s heart ached, with joy and pain, their comfort, and based on the look in their eyes, their ardor. At what he lacked.

So hearing them fight so was, he surmised, like a small Midgardian child discovering there was no Santa Claus.

At that moment, the massive doors of the storage bay that had been made over for Nora both burst open, slamming back on the walls with an ear-harming clang, so Thor knew before he saw him that Loki was exiting. His brother’s sense of drama was one of his scant predictable behaviors.

Loki stalked out, fury in every line of his body, a snarl pulling back his upper lip, his hands tensing and squeezing into fists, his hair a wild cloud of fury trailing behind him.

“Thor,” he said with a slight, haughty nod as he swept past.

Classic Loki. Thor had seen it thousands of times.

But not lately. Not since Nora.

Who followed, practically running, “Fine, then, I’ll see you in January!” She shouted at his brother’s retreating back, then added, “Maybe!” Also noticing Thor, she too nodded, not haughty so much as distracted, “Big guy,” and then headed in the opposite direction.

Over his shoulder, Loki called out to his wife, “I hope you enjoy the shuttle trip all of the way back to Midgard, for I am locking the doorway.”

“If you aren’t with me it will be a pleasure,” she called back, her voice deceptively breezy.

Considering his two options, Thor decided it was better to find Charles.

“While I have lived among humans and creatures like humans for countless years I am afraid that some of their emotional responses are still a bit perplexing to me, sir,” Charles said as he poured Thor a tankard of glogg and offered him a plate of freshly cut gingerbread.

It was at that moment that Thor noted that the Naglikjóll was bedecked with evergreen boughs and red ribbons, twinkling with magical lights of many colours and scenting the air like a pine forest on Midgard. Norns! Was it Yule already again? He had been on his latest adventure in Helheim for longer than he’d thought, but had that much time truly passed?

Knowing that they were close to Christmas helped Thor have some understanding about the rancor between Loki and Nora. “Ah, so they are fighting over where to spend the holiday? Nora wishes to go home and Loki prefers to pretend that it is not happening.”

Charles refilled his tankard. “That may be the inflexion point, Master Thor, but I fear this has been stewing for some time. Since Sakaar, or more precisely, those events that led to Master Loki’s transformation and slavery.”

“Ah, Nora’s more or less dying,” Thor said with a nod.

It had been some few years since Thor and his companions had accompanied Nora on her rescue mission to save his brother from the Grandmaster’s gladiatorial games, as well as to restore his memories, lost due to the trauma of thinking his beloved wife was rather horribly dead.

Whilst Loki could normally devour the type of trauma that would make most beings collapse in a pile of shuddering darkness for breakfast, the idea that Nora could come to harm under his watch had proved debilitating to him. Even though he seemed to improve for a time, clearly he was more affected than he would confess to, certainly not to his brother, and apparently not even to his wife.

Over the months since those events Loki retreated more and more, spending little time anywhere but within the safety of his ship, which he kept on the farthest edges of the Nine, rarely even allowing Nora to visit her beloved home.

In Thor’s mind he pictured Loki as the Jólakötturinn, massive, dark, and furious, crouched in a den, wrapped about Nora, lashing out with a gigantic paw with claws like scimitars whenever anyone dared approach her.

Now, Nora certainly wanted to return to Chicago for the yuletide and Loki objected, causing, predictably to even Thor, her to decide to return without him. There was some comfort in the fact that Loki was seemingly not making an effort to restrain her, as that was one area in which Nora had no tolerance for her husband’s trickster ways and regal neurosis. Should he chose not to respect her autonomy the consequences for their marriage would be dire indeed.

“Charles, when you are finished seeing to the needs of my uninvited guest, I need these items from the larder. Please bring them to my working chamber,” Loki said, his tone bored. He lounged in the doorway, a piece of parchment dangling from his fingers as he offered it to Nora’s valet.

He was trying damned hard to look casual and was failing badly. The periodic twitch of his shoulder and the shiftiness of his eyes were telling, though Loki had always been a bit shifty.

“Of course, sir.”

“Feel free to eat me out of ship and home and then leave, Thor. It is not a good time for a family reunion,” Loki said before adding, “Not all of the gingerbread, though,” and then slipping away.

Thor idly looked at the list whilst Charles went to the galley for more glogg.

Nine types of rope - from roughest twine to silken ribbons, all black.

A jar that has never been used.

Two cups of water than have never run through metal.

Wormwood, heather, and calamus.

A few other things, all of which tickled the part of Thor’s brain where his mother’s old attempts to teach him at least a little seidr or protective witchcraft were stored.

Normally a magic user of Loki’s power and skill would not need such simple ingredients, saving he should not want his signature to be on the spell he was -

Thor thought about nine kinds of string.

Damn.

Loki was the most intelligent person Thor had ever known, meaning that when he chose to be stupid it was inevitably an act of monstrous idiocy, such as the one he was clearly preparing for.

Sighing, Thor drained his mug, allowing Charles to refill it, “I would recommend delaying the gathering of my brother’s items for the nonce, good servant, if your honor allows you to do so.”

Charles nodded, “Madam Nora asked me to help her fetch her bags from storage, and Master Loki always insists her needs take precedence.”

Thor girded his loins, knowing two things. One, his conversation with Loki was going to go poorly, as was their wont.

And after all of this was over, he really wanted to find and fight the Jólakötturinn.

*****************************************************************

“And that is why you cannot bind your wife.” Thor finished.

Or Loki assumed he was finished. He had stopped listening to his brother about the time he had shown himself in Loki’s workroom with two mugs of glogg and a rather self-righteous air.

Loki had accepted the first and was so used to the second he barely noticed it any longer.

A small, shouting corner of his mind recognized that this was one of those rare, gem-like moments when Thor was correct and he should listen, but the larger portion of his brain was screaming much louder that it was the worst form of irresponsible madness to let Nora go, dancing blindly on the precipice of disaster and death out in the wild universe, and that if she were to come to hate him, well, that was as would be.

Loki was very comfortable with being hated, much more so than he was Nora being dead.

Gently placing his favorite image of Nora - she was laying naked on her stomach on one of the reading couches in her library, looking at him from over the top of her book, her ankles daintily crossed and her hair a mess - in the middle of his work table he mentally sketched out the nine knots he would use with the nine pieces of cord to bind the jar in which he would place the picture, submerged in water and herbs. Should he do it perfectly she would have no idea what he had done.

If only she were not so familiar with the tang and taste of his natural seidr it would be so much easier.

Oh, Thor was still talking.

Loki shook his head. He could ignore his brother all day.

There was the smallest shudder in his ship. He might not have even noticed, save that there he could see the glogg in his cup slosh just a bit.

“What was that?” he asked his Naglikjóll.

Her husky, Asgardian purr responded, “The Bifrost, my king….”

Loki frowned. Only Thor - sometimes accompanied by Sif and the Groupies Three - ever came to the ship from Asgard, which was why he had allowed the Bifrost access. “Who has arrived?”

“No one, Sire. Your wife has departed.”

Fury burned through him like acid, “THOR!”

His brother gave a sheepish shrug, “You weren’t listening, or you would have -”

“NOOOOORRRRAAAA!!!!!!!” Loki’s fury broke every bit of glass in his workroom.

Which meant they had to flee before the miasma of odors and the rage of O-verk, the tiny, penis shrinking dragon that lived in a terrarium on a high shelf and was very glad to be free.

******************************************************************************

The first thing Nora did was use a little safety spell that Loki had given her in case something dangerous should happen to his sanity or, remembering Thanos, mental autonomy, and sealed the 999 building against him. Not just their penthouse but the whole thing.

Then she built a fire, because it was almost Christmas.

She ordered a tree and decorations, and a lot of food.

She let her friends know she was home, though it being Christmas Eve she knew she wouldn’t be seeing any of them for a few days.

Then she sat on her couch, put on a precious, rare pressing of Dean Martin’s Christmas Blues and played it twenty times, singing along louder and louder with each play as she drank most of a bottle of gluhwein.

When her voice was hoarse, and her stomach bothering her, since after hitting fifty she couldn’t drink like she used to, she plopped onto one of the wing-backed chairs near the fire and glared at the black velvet couch that was the site of many of her favorite adventures with Loki.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” she said to no one.

********************************************************************************

When Loki had finally calmed down - after wreaking a great deal of havoc on his own belongings, after several fires and the destruction of some irreplaceable garments, their gifted creators having long since died or lost their ‘edge’, after a punching match with Thor that left them both bruised and annoyed since one of the protective spells on the ship made violence over a certain level impossible and therefore disappointed their mutual desire to pound each other into unrecognizable parts, and after finally going into Nora’s library alone and bursting into enough furious tears and bellowing to leave himself worn out - he realised he was an ass.

“Fine,” he said, snapping into a pfeffernüsse from a plate that Charles had placed on the floor and shoved into the room. “I shall simply have to be an adult about this and go and apologize.”

Which was when he found that door between his ship and Nora’s building was sealed against him.

The second round of his rage was rather shorter, but involved enough ice that even Thor had to put on a sweater.

Sulking in the library again, this time with pizelles and thumbprint cookies, he schemed. He plotted. He connived. He tapped his fingertips together and let a wide, rather sinister smile grow across his thin lips in a fashion very much like that other villainous yet misunderstood aficionado of the color green - The Grinch.

“Very well. I shall have to consult some Midgardian seasonal wisdom, for my treasure’s sake...”

****************************************************************************

On Christmas morning Nora woke up alone, except for a large fruit tree that had grown overnight in her bedroom, with a partridge teetaring at the top of its lungs.

From one limb hung an especially succulent looking pear, with a dark pink flush over its delicate flesh, she could smell it across the room.

What he wanted her to do couldn’t be more obvious.

She held out until bedtime, and then she took a perfect, juicy bite.

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#loki fanfic #loki au #twelve nights of christmas #loki christmas fic #loki holiday fic #tags on ao3 #loki and nora's infinity stone playlist #naughty and nice

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coffeeheartaddict2 · 2 years

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Safe Harbour

Book: Open Heart (between my ending of book 2 and beginning of When Egos Collide)

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x Casey Valentine

Warnings: mentions of past abuse(non physical), language, pregnancy scare

Trope: and there was a lot of comfort

Category : angst with fluff moments

Summary: Casey receives a message from her first college ex boyfriend that stirs up many not so nice emotions. This also doubles as The exes talk about Casey’s exes.

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Pixelberry.

Author’s note: Submission for CFWC Naughty and Nice Event.

Prompt/s: I won’t let anyone hurt you, you’re safe with me.

First confession

🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

Casey was on cloud nine, Edenbrook was safe, she still had a job, she finally had some clarity about where things were with her and Ethan and more importantly they did not need to hide it after getting approval from the board. It was coming up to the enforced closure of Edenbrook whilst the main part of the renovations that Leland had undertaken. Ethan had a therapy session with Louise today so Casey was at the apartment with her friends. They were enjoying a brunch together. Everyone was excited but apprehensive about the year ahead but all were relieved that they were able to complete their residencies together.

After brunch the gang split up. Casey went to her room to get ready to go to Ethan’s. She was proud of Ethan for embarking on the journey that he was undertaking with Louise. She understood his initial apprehension but as he was starting to understand Louise better he was undertaking himself better and if she was being honest, it was helping their relationship also. Despite the good place there was a part that she had not shared with Ethan yet. Her two exes, he knew they existed and that the relationships were not great but he did not know how bad they were, especially the first one. At the time she felt what Ethan knew would be enough but little did she know that her world was going to come crashing down.

She made her way to Ethan’s, picking up some Cannolis on the way for afternoon tea. She arrived at his apartment, happily greeted by Jenner. She put the Cannolis in the fridge and made her way to the balcony to enjoy the rest of the nice day. She had started to doze off when her phone went off. She thought it would be a text from Ethan telling her he was on his way home but it was not.

“Hello Casey, It has been awhile. We must catch up. Jaiden.”

Casey could feel the colour drain from her face and she started to shake. Just then Ethan arrived home. He saw her sitting on the balcony and made his way out to her. He was not prepared for what he saw, which was Casey trembling whilst holding her phone, looking pale. Just then her phone rang, before Casey could say to not answer it, Ethan picked it up and did so. The person on the other end hung up as soon as Ethan answered.

He turned to Casey.

“What is wrong sweetheart?”

Casey unlocks her phone and shows him the message.

“Who is Jaiden?”

“My ex boyfriend from undergrad…” Casey then starts to cry.

Ethan gives her a hug and rubs comforting circles on her back. He kisses the top of her head. “I won’t let anyone hurt you,you are safe with me.”

Casey nodded.

“I know, but seeing the message brought everything back…”

“You don’t need to tell me any or everything Casey” he said quietly.

“We met at NYU, he was a second year Science major and I was still contemplating if I should go pre med or stick with nursing. He was socially awkward but seemed nice enough. We started dating. Things seemed great until they weren’t. At this point I did not know my PCOS, so I was irregular but there was a maximum at that point that I never exceeded until I did. I was scared. I told him about me being really late and he says we will try and work it out, he comes with me to the appointment and I was not and the doctor runs tests to find out what is happening. He did not show much emotion during the appointment but he was angry after. I became scared as he never had been angry. Anyways I presume it was shock and I let him cool off. Later that day I go to his dorm and I bump into his friend. He takes me to coffee and tells me that Jaiden had told him that he had started to resent me as I was really thinking pre med by now and he could not bear me being more successful than him so he started to stealth me in the hopes of getting me pregnant. This friend was mortified and ceased his friendship. I went and confronted him and he of course denied it but I could not trust him so I ended the relationship…” Casey took a sip of water whilst Ethan sat there mortified at what had happened. Finally he spoke but all he said was that he was sorry that Casey had to go through that.

My other serious relationship was not much better, he was two years ahead of me at Grossman, he was top 10 but I was top of my cohort, he was looking at residency on the west coast and he got annoyed I would contemplate moving out west with him. By this point I had my heart set on Edenbrook and so I ended it too. He seemed to resent my goals and I could see it going south and being trapped.

“Your second boyfriend is a fool, I don’t think I have words to describe the first one…”

Casey grabs her phone and blocks the number and hugs Ethan.

“I am sorry for not telling you sooner but thank you for not judging me and understanding. Casey felt lighter for having told Ethan. Ethan was sad for Casey but also relieved, especially getting out of the first relationship without being a statistic. They eventually ate the cannoli in the fridge and then take Jenner for a walk. Ethan notes that Casey appears relieved and she says that he was right, she does feel safe with him. She kisses him and whispers “I love you.” He hugs her, “I love you too, rookie.” And they make their way home.

Authors note 2: Casey really did not have the best of luck with boyfriends and things could have ended up worse. For those who have read egos, Casey does get physically hurt and Ethan does feel bad as he nearly did change his mind about going to Donahue’s that night but Casey reminds him he can not be there 24/7 and asked him not to feel bad if someone hurts her in any way. Ethan will always try and not be the one causing the hurt though. She does not hear from Jaiden again and Casey has not spoken to Paul (second boyfriend) since they broke up.

Tagging: @jerzwriter @jamespotterthefirst @genevievemd @potionsprefect @liaromancewriter @ofmischiefandmedicine @binny1985 @schnitzelbutterfingers @tessa-liam @a-crepusculo @bex-la-get @crazy-loca-blog @lucy-268

@openheartfanfics @choicesficwriterscreations

#open heart #ethan ramsey #choices fanfic writers creations #casey valentine #choices #naughty and nice

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