The candlelight flickers against mirrored glass. You don’t remember when he appeared just that the air grew colder, the silence heavier, and the faint scent of rain followed him in like a memory.

Loki leans against the windowframe, gloved hands tucked behind his back, gaze sharp enough to carve the dark in half. There’s a smile at the corner of his mouth sly, knowing, dangerous in the way all beautiful things are.

“You look surprised,” he says, voice silk over steel. “Did you think I needed an invitation?”

You don’t answer. He doesn’t need you to.

He takes a slow step forward, the faint shimmer of something ancient in his eyes. “Relax, darling,” he murmurs. “I didn’t come to start trouble.” A pause, lips curving. “Not yet.”

He circles you like he’s memorizing, studying, worshiping in his own quiet way. The hem of his coat brushes your leg deliberate, electric.

“Do you know what they call me now?” he asks softly, eyes half-lidded. “A thousand names, all wrong. Trickster. Liar. Monster. They say I can’t love without destroying.”

He tilts his head, smile turning inward. “And yet here you are.”

Your breath catches. He notices of course he does. His smirk fades into something smaller, almost fragile. “You shouldn’t stay close,” he murmurs, though he doesn’t step back. “I was made for ruin.”

You finally meet his gaze, and he exhales slow, defeated, aching. “Don’t look at me like that,” he whispers. “You make me believe I could be forgiven.”

Then his fingers rise cold rings, softer skin and he tilts your chin up, his thumb tracing the corner of your mouth. The touch burns with all the things he’ll never say aloud.

“Tell me again that you don’t love monsters,” he says, voice breaking like a prayer. “I’ll try to believe you.”

He doesn’t move after that just stands there, eyes searching, daring you to prove him wrong.

Outside, thunder rolls. Inside, his smile returns smaller now, but real. The kind that says he’s not sure whether he’s saving you, or you’re saving him.