Fic post
Title: To Ride the Lightning
Author: oneiriad
Fandom: Supernatural
A/N: piratepurple asked me in a prompt to write Gabriel and Loki's first meeting. This is a slightly modified and expanded version of what I originally wrote for her.
"Don't go near it," says Býleistr. "It might be dangerous," warns Helblindi. How could he possibly resist?
He sneaks, fox-cub-sly, through the shrubs, closer and closer, until finally he is right in front of the bright, blinding light.
It's beautiful.
Beautiful and sad.
He doesn't know how he recognizes its sadness, he simply does, and something rebels inside of him, because that's wrong, because this beautiful, beautiful bright light shouldn't be sad. It's wrong.
He darts forward, fox-cub-fast, he snaps and leaps and runs and stops and turns expectantly - and he knows that the light sees him, but it doesn't move, doesn't jump or swear or give chase. It just sits there, bright and beautiful and sad.
The next day he returns, a young falcon plummeting from the sky, dancing on the wind. He cries a challenge, an invitation to spread wings and give chase, to dance and whirl and plunge through the clouds with him, and he knows the light sees him and yet, still, it doesn't move.
He keeps coming back, day after day after day. He's a foal, rolling in the grass, neighing at the feeling. He's a lynx, shadow-made-flesh darting after elusive wingtips. He's a squirrel chattering of leaps and bounds and endless, breathless fun. He's a salmon dancing in the stream, a nightingale singing his heart out, a snake cheekily flickering his tongue.
Yet his bright light never stirs.
His brothers keep trying to tell him to stay away from it, but the games they have to offer holds no appeal anymore. His mother throws him worried glances. But he just can't help himself.
And then, one day, a butterfly gliding on the breeze, he gathers his courage around him and flies close. Close. Closer. And lands, right at the tip of a nose. Spreading his wings. Folding them. Spreading them. His heart hammering, he forces himself to hold still. Completely still.
And just for a fraction of a moment, the corner of a lip - quirks.
It will be millennia before anything does as many loops in the air for sheer joy as he does then.
Three days later, he returns to the clearing, a young fox slowly trotting into view, and his light turns to look at him, and it feels like a victory, and it feels like his heart is about to burst. He stops in front of it, breathes deep to gather his courage once more, then closes his eyes.
And changes.
He's been practicing, these past three days, practicing the arms and legs and wings of the shape, practicing to make it just right, to make it perfect. Every feather. Every hair. Perfect. Perfect for his light.
It occurs to him that his light might take it the wrong way, that it might think this mockery, but somehow, that doesn't really matter.
He opens his eyes.
Startles.
His light is right in front of him, wings spread wide, head cocked as it studies him. He spreads his own wings, cocks his head, mirroring. His light moves, circles him, wary-curious, and he turns to follow.
Then it reaches out to touch him.
Fingers slide through his feathers and he startles again, startles at the feeling, tingling-burning-electrifying, and pulls away. But only for a moment. And his light - his light smiles.
The touches are a game of sorts, he supposes, as his light shows him the shape and its ways - guides his hands and his wings and he comes willingly, eagerly to the game, recognizing it as one he’s played before - a buck among the does, an eagle plummeting towards the ground, a spider dancing on its web. He has even - once or twice - snuck across the border to tumble with the strange, fragile wood-kin folk of the guarded lands.
This is different. This is like tumbling a forest fire, a lightning storm, the very heart of far-off Muspelheim.
There are feathers sliding against his, against and between and beneath, and it sends such shivers through him that he can’t help but push back, raising his wings eagerly to meet the touch, only to have them pushed back down again.
Slowly at first, then faster, furiously faster, the wings beat, rising and falling and whirling up dust and twigs. He parts his legs and cants his hips in invitation and as he is mounted, he reaches backwards and upwards, tangling fingers through long locks, digging nails into a strong thigh.
Their pace quickens, a furious swiftness, wings racing against the thunder of his heart, and he twists in his light’s arms, sharp teeth sinking into soft, soft skin, holding on for dear life with everything he has as waves of pleasure crashes through him with every thrust and beat.
He’s riding the lightning and he never wants to get off.
Somewhere above him there is a laugh, a chuckle vibrating between his teeth, and somehow - somehow that’s all it takes.
Afterwards, as they lie, sticky, with tangled limbs, heads pillowed on each other’s wings, afterwards he dares to ask.
"Where had your laughter gone?"
"My family had taken it."
"Family shouldn't do something like that."
"No. No, they shouldn't."
He falls asleep like that, safe and warm and content. When he wakes, his light is gone, the clearing so quiet that he almost fancies he can hear the steady beat of old Ymir's heart deep within the earth. Almost.
He misses his light. Looks for it. Wants to play with it and hear its laughter once more. But years pass and life happens and games are played and he never does find it.
Until it finds him.
Sigyn's bowl clatters to the ground and he turns his head, blinking against the brightness of it, and for a moment his heart soars at the sight, dancing within his chest. But oh, his light is sad, sadder still than in those far-gone days of his youth, and it breaks his heart, because so is he, old and sad and broken and useless like this, no longer the carefree being his light once knew.
He wants to cry. His light has come back to him, and he has no laughter to give it.
It bends over him, venom sizzling against burning wings going unnoticed. It touches him, gently, and looks him in the eye.
"Where has your laughter gone?"
"My family has taken it."
"Family shouldn't do something like that."
"No. No, they shouldn't," and he laughs and he cries at the words. And then he looks up at a touch.
"Shall we go find it? Together?"
And for a moment he thinks of his life - thinks of loyal Sigyn and his children, chained and broken. Thinks of the blood-brother who was no brother at all, a nephew that held him down and friends that laughed as the needle stung. Thinks of blood and ice and fire yet to come.
He closes his eyes against it, against the life that is Loki's, that has been and is to be and always has been Loki's. He turns his back on it. On all of it.
"Yes," he tells his light. "Oh yes."
He’ll ride the lightning.