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[thirtythird]

@ wlawford
room 023; bunk 025 (with loki odinson)
text ✰ voice ✰ holovid

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[thirtythird]

I don't know that there's a proper logic to affection.

What... hurts, Loki, isn't-- you. It's... more the ache of wishing you had more joy of your own.

[dothelokimotion]

[ if you love me, if you love William, the only way you'll be able to make any of it right is to learn to love yourself. you cannot accept love or give it when you hate yourself. that is how to make it right. ]

. . . You are my joy.

[thirtythird]

Am I enough?

[dothelokimotion]

[ oh, his heart stutters at the thought that he's passed along the same pain to william. ]

Yes. Yes. Of course you are. You always will be.

[thirtythird]

[A quiet moment of weigh; a proper consideration.]

I believe you.

[An unvarnished truth.]

Where are you?

[dothelokimotion]

I'm in my room.

[ after his talk with thor, he's been going over everything. spinning in circles. ]

[thirtythird]

[Not awful. Probably.]

Will you let me know when you're receiving visitors?

[Calling rather than showing up had to be respected, no matter the discomfort.]

[dothelokimotion]

You can come by if you like.

[thirtythird]

[A pause with the soft sounds of preparations--tugging at boots, settling a jacket.]

Do you see your own qualities, my pulse?

[dothelokimotion]

My qualities? I'm not sure I follow.

[thirtythird]

That make it easy for others to love you.

[Not quite what Loki had said, but the slant he understands.]

[dothelokimotion]

I . . . am not sure what those are.

[ a pause. ]

Thor said I was better at demonstrative actions. I suppose that would be a quality.

[thirtythird]

You are. And you're incredibly clever, you know. And--

[The faintest pause, because there are so many wrong ways to say this.]

--ferocious.

[Almost the right word. Something to mull as he finishes his buttons and begins to slide down the hall.]

[dothelokimotion]

Ferocious?

[ under that voice is a note of desperate, of longing to hear more, like thirst. ]

[thirtythird]

Terribly. [Another brief pause, picking carefully through his own thoughts.] Do you know tigers, darling?

[dothelokimotion]

I have heard of them, yes.

[thirtythird]

I met a man, once, who kept them. Brutal, vicious creatures, but they minded him. Killed for him. It must have made him feel-- properly invulnerable. No one in their right mind would try to battle through tigers to get to him.

[A soft laugh.] And then someone did. [He's mentioned Richard Sharpe before, he's certain, but it isn't important now.] And... for a long time, I thought it wasn't possible for anyone to be more... utterly vicious than a man who would throw himself against a tiger to survive.

Do you follow me, darling?

[dothelokimotion]

[ there is a long moment of silence that seems to drag before loki speaks, his voice choked. ]

Can — Can someone like that really be loved? Is it possible?

[thirtythird]

I'm absolutely certain of it.

[And absolutely tapping at the door now.]

[dothelokimotion]

[ there's very little movement. as if loki was already waiting by the door. his palms are pressed against it and for a minute, he feels his stomach drop queasily. but he opens the door. ]

[thirtythird]

[It's a little better, being face to face. It's a little easier (if a little more painful) to speak directly, to see what lands and what flits away without finding its mark.

William sways, almost entering the space but not yet able to.]

I loved the man who fought tigers. Deeply, properly. Like a brother--like something more than blood. But... all his ferocity was-- selfish. Was to keep himself alive, moving forward.

[A brief pang; another uncomfortable thought that he was only alive for someone else's ambition. It's soothed by taking another breath focused on the god before him.]

Yours... isn't. If-- If Thor stood before a tiger, if-- I were under its claws, I... I know you would be ferocious on our behalves.

[dothelokimotion]

[ loki makes a pained sound, as if the floodgates have been released before he swoops down to kiss william soundly, his hands reaching to cradle his face as if loki is holding the most precious thing in the world. and he was. he was.

he wasn't all selfish. he wasn't all terrible. and william was here. and loki was still loved. ]

[thirtythird]

[There's a wave of relief. There's a wave of the familiar sensation of safety while being held this way by these hands. Then everything settles into the comforting wash of adoring and feeling adored, warm and easy and entirely natural.

His own fingers catch tight hold at the back of his husband's shoulders, clinging to the kiss.]

[dothelokimotion]

[ loki deepens the kiss with a whine, fervent, needy. like a crescendo in his heart. he had to make sure william knew, that he felt every beat of loki's heart against his own. ]

[thirtythird]

[It isn't words, but the sensation is absolutely deafening. This is palpable; this is reality, as best as he's ever felt he understood it.

It's impossible to break from the kiss, but somewhere in the breathlessness of it all, a soft murmur of] I'm certain of you [manages to escape into the lack of space between them.]