By the time your lips finally parted, both your lips and his were blue, as were your arms, his neck, anywhere your bare skin had been in contact with his. It had to have been at least a good twenty minutes that you'd been kissing him for you both to start turning blue. Even your control was better enough to keep you both from turning blue otherwise.

You both laughed as you breathed frost.

It only took a minute for your skin to start turning back to normal color, which was definitely a good thing. You didn't need to advertise your activities to everyone.

"I missed you so much," you told him, laying your head on his chest, your arms around his waist, refusing to let him go yet, but making sure your bare skin wasn't in contact with his for a little while so you could both turn back all the way Asgardian. "I thought I'd never see you again," you added softly.

"I'd tell you how much I missed you too, but I was a little busy not remembering you existed..." he said bitterly and grumpily. "Instead, I'll tell you that these last 900 years were unbelievably lonely without you,"

"You amused yourself by trying to take over Midgard," you teased him as you finally took a step back, out of his arms, but just barely.

"Mind control. Doesn't count," he grumbled, but you saw the laughter in his eyes, the joy at your gentle familiar teasing. He had missed this and really was sorry he'd lost even a month of your reunion.

"I would have beaten some sense into you had I not been in the middle of nowhere Alaska at the time." You had moved to New York right after the alien invasion. Just in case.

"Much appreciated," he said dryly, knowing perfectly well that you would have literally beaten some sense into him. It would have been for his own good. As you'd justified beating sense into him and Thor over the years. Totally your duty to beat sense into them for their own good. You giggled at him in reply. He grinned. "There's my little Valkyrie," his voice was warm, his smile real. He was obviously pleased to see a proper smile and hear a proper giggle from you as well. "Speaking of, before you decide to take care of me by distracting me into forgetting my other crime against you," his hand snaked out and clamped firmly around your wrist.

"Loki!" you protested, trying to pull your wrist from his grip without actually hurting him, but his hand was a vice on your arm. He was right and your instinct was still to protect him, even from the consequences of his own actions. He didn't reply to your protest, just gave you an icy glare for protesting. You glared right back and made a note that you would have to beat that particular expression out of him before he tried to use it on you again. He flipped your wrist over to look at your Valkyrie tattoo and, more importantly, the nearly erased sigil below it.

"The moronic oaf was right," Loki's voice was sad, hurt. "Protocol be damned, you should have told me what I was doing to you," he growled, hurt and pain in his voice.

"You know I couldn't," you replied softly and tried again to tug your wrist from his grip. He knew damn well what honor and duty had dictated, especially since he was being an ass. "If I weren't so glad you're finally speaking to me again, you know you'd be on your ass for not letting me go, right?" you demanded grumpily.

He sighed heavily, but gave you a smirk at that last comment. "I'm well aware, on both counts," he replied gently. "Now kindly stop fighting me and let me fix it," he ordered, though his voice was gentle and there was warmth returning to it. This was just like old times too. You were both stubborn as hell when you felt like it.

"We need Thor for that. And I'd much rather spend time with you in here than go play with him," you reminded him, tugging your wrist yet again.

He rolled his eyes and bopped your nose with the index finger of his free hand. "Stop that," he scolded lightly. "I'm aware we need my idiot brother to fix this properly, but this should at least help until we can get him involved." He lifted your arm and placed his cold lips against the sigil mark on your skin. It flashed and what was left of the mark re-solidified, darkening from the nearly faded gray it had turned. Loki finally let go of your wrist and stood again. "That should hold until we get the oaf to witness it properly," Loki said with a warm smile.

You leaned up and kissed his cheek with a shy 'thanks' as you walked around him to get the pitcher of mead off of the desk, effectively getting you off of this line of conversation. "Lohk, not everyone who isn't us is a moron," you reminded him with a smile.

He nodded as he collected the glasses and met you at the couch. "Mother is not a moron either," he agreed pleasantly, just like he'd done nearly every time you'd had this conversation. Occasionally he said your mother instead. There was one terrible year where you'd had to put up with his crush on one of the court ladies and her name kept getting inserted there instead. You were grateful when that crush ended.

You poured the mead and took a glass for yourself, floating the other to Loki automatically. "How did you do all of this? It's not simple illusions," you asked as you curled up on the couch, appreciating how the cushions sank in the exact correct manner. Even the mead was perfect. There was nothing else in all of the nine realms that tasted remotely similar to Asgardian mead. You had tried and failed for centuries to find an alternative. "This is impressive," you praised, gesturing to the room.

He preened and glowed under the praise. As per usual. "I'm glad my lady is pleased. It's illusion, mixed with some shapeshifting, a memory charm, and a few other things. I'll show you how the next time we need an escape," he offered. You smiled at that, glad he was including you in his future.

"So, trying to take over Midgard was mind control and doesn't count. Thunderhead said you also took over Asgard?" you asked as you sipped on your mead. You were sitting with your back against the arm of the couch, facing him.

He looked sheepish. "Yeah... that one's on me. So is attempting to kill Thor so he couldn't take the throne back," you gave him a look. "I'm not proud of it," he added quickly. "Though the throne was technically mine. Odin was in the Odinsleep, Thor was banished, Mother was distraught and wouldn't leave Odin's side. It was only logical that I assume the throne... and try to destroy Jotunheim..."

"Loki!" you scolded, but you were laughing at his ridiculous idea of destroying Jotunheim.

He chuckled. "Mother should have remembered that you were 90% of my impulse control," he teased.

"If she had, she might have succeeded in convincing the Allfather to let me stay," you added.

"Mayhaps," he agreed softly. He had a mischievous look when he asked. "Surely you must have some embarrassing stories of things you've done over the last 900 years...?"

You laughed. "Well, I did get burned at the stake once..." you started. He just stared at you incredulously. You set your glass of mead down and rolled up the leg of your leggings so he could see the scar. You were susceptible to fire damage due to your heritage. Loki was the same way.

"How did they manage to catch you?" he demanded after you'd explained the witch hunts, still incredulous as you rolled your pant leg back down. He believed you at least.

"I was dumb and healed a village full of children of the pox. Instead of thanking me when I was caught doing it, the woman I was living with at the time turned me in instead of risking being accused herself. I had already been there too long, and she was noticing that I don't age. Unfortunately, I couldn't escape since they wouldn't let go of me," you growled that. He nodded, knowing that you couldn't have teleported away while they were holding onto you, and you wouldn't have wanted to give them evidence of real witches. "I made an illusion of the pyre going up quickly and teleported away then, but unfortunately, they had already set me on fire... I haven't been back to Salem since," you explained sheepishly. It wasn't one of your proudest moments.

You spent the rest of the evening trading stories of your time apart. The pitcher of mead kept refilling itself, dinner appeared while you were talking and you sat on the floor on either side of the coffee table eating while you talked, the fire in the fireplace warm at your back, you curled back up on the couch and soon you were laying on your back, using Loki's lap as a pillow, casually tossing a dagger in the air and catching it as you spoke, his fingers running gently through your hair.

You stayed up all night talking, catching up, telling stories, reminiscing about things he remembered, reminding him of things he hadn't yet, including that awful ill-fated crush. He laid down with you on the couch when the hour got too late, neither of you seemed to notice as you curled yourself comfortably between the back of the couch and his body, nestled in the perfect, comfortable, safe spot there. It was so perfectly ordinary when you summoned the blanket to cover the two of you with. Neither of you thought it strange to when you laid your head on his chest, listening to the rumble as he spoke, when he took his turn to tell a story.

Neither of you remembered falling asleep that way.

Just like old times.

Some things really never changed after all.