batmansphoenix | IC Contact

[Billy and Teddy. Loki had called Billy one of the most important people in his life, and Jason had gathered enough to know Billy and Teddy were a couple. It must be harsh, to have your SO just disappear like that. He figures he'd fulfilled his incentive and they will meet back home, but still. Especially today. Not that Jason ever got the meaning of waiting for a single day to tell your loved one you do love them but. You know. Normal people probably do.

He motions at the only table. There's two chairs, at least, so that should do it. This house is clearly not meant for hosting any dinner, ever.]

I don't... have visitors. ['Ever' is left unsaid, but still hangs at the end of that sentence. But that's his excuse. And here' Loki, wearing a fucking suit. He always looks good, he's probably the god of looking good somewhere but that's just fucking unfair. He hadn't been lying when he said he wouldn't be able to stop himself from thinking about having Loki.]

And thanks. For the dinner, I mean. [Even when his friend is going through that, he's here with Jason. It might be out of spite, but Jason can still appreciate it.]

You wouldn't be thanking me for anything else.

[ He says it wryly with a tinge of self-deprecating humour. Sleeping with Dick ruined something special that he had with Jason or whatever was developing there and Loki is the sorrier for it, even if he can't bring himself to regret the events of that night; it's impossible to regret anything about Dick, in actual fact. He must have felt so guilty that he spilled the beans to Jason and outed them as if what they did was an illicit tryst, although the main focal point of wounding Jason came from Loki's deception more so than actually choosing his brother.

As he sets out the plates, Loki loosens his tie and shrugs off his jacket to seat himself. ]

For what it's worth, I regret keeping things from you. You are surprisingly easy to miss.

Surprisingly. [Jason’s reaching for some cutlery as Loki speaks. He might be low on everything else but knives and forks? The drawer is full as it can get. They make good, quick-to-grab weapons and he doesn’t have to explain to others why he has them. So he’s giving his back to Loki when he says the last part, and he allows himself a quiet, private wince.]

You know I miss you, too.

[It’s not fair. Nothing about this is fair and he wants to scream at the injustice of it all but screaming would feel a lot like losing. Losing what, exactly? To whom? He isn’t sure, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t care. The worst part of this is that he can get everything he cares about taken away over and over by things outside his control and yet he’s still surprised every time it happens.]

You didn’t know he was the personification of my inferiority complex, you freaked out. [He finally turns around to place the cutlery on the table.] I don’t understand, but I guess I get how you thought you were sparing me.

[He takes a seat, glancing at the suit he left on the armrest of the sofa. He feels weirdly under-dressed in his own apartment.]

Thing is, you didn't need to spare me. I'd have understood. You said it yourself: he's adorable. [And Jason is many things, but adorable he is not.]

[ A small curl of a smile agrees with Jason and his own phraseology: surprisingly, yes. Loki isn't in the habit of willingly letting himself grow attached to people, especially not in a dimension that curdles intimacy out of necessity and turns it into something twisted, something needy. He knows far better ... and yet.

So he understands where Jason is coming from, hearing beyond the words. That would be the reason he wants to reach for him (and doesn't). With gentle, sincere insistence, he tells Jason, ]

You are many good things that he is not.

[ And then it's time to sit down and eat and pretend he hasn't been so recklessly fond of Jason since the moment they met, so. He sits and eats, branching out a new topic so that Jason can skip the last if he feels uncomfortable because in many ways Loki knows him all too well as similarities collide. ]

Besides, it's become almost routine to have someone breaking into my house now and then.

Edited 2016-02-14 20:19 (UTC)

[This time Jason isn't giving Loki his back, he's face to face with him. So can't allow himself a wince. But his lips do twitch down in pain like the words had been a physical blade slashing at him. Praise hurts, it always does. It's probably not a normal reaction and he's aware of that, but being praised has always made something ache in his chest.]

I liked having my own entrance. [He admits between bites, because Loki's right: that first topic isn't safe. He'll never believe it, for starters.]

Who's using it?

[ Having caused Jason a significant enough degree of pain to force the other man to put space between them, literally and otherwise, that look of distaste still makes him feel worse and his attention drops to his meal, pushed around the plate with a fork. ]

You do ask stupid questions at times, though.

[ Who else? He wonders how little Jason thinks of him, trying not to be surprised or let his disappointment show. ]

Edited 2016-02-14 22:43 (UTC)

[Jason sighs, and stops pretending he gives a shit about the food to actually look at Loki.]

It shouldn't be like this. You should be happy.

[ Loki sets down his cutlery and rests his elbows on the table, rubbing his eyes. At times he feels every inch the incompetent, floundering twenty-something that he can be, and at others ...

He feels very, very old. ]

Can you take me through your thought process there? Because I can't even begin to understand anything about that statement beyond some vaguely self-deprecating nonsense on your part which I know you're better than.

I'm not. I'm not better than that.

[Jason's the opposite. Jason's a little kid who died far too young, was brought back to life in the body of an adult and has the emotional intelligence of a teenager sometimes. His maturity is as much of a mess as everything else in his life, especially where it comes to his family.]

You're a literal god, Loki. I'm not mad that you slept with Grayson because you deserve him. He's sweet and gentle and fucking adorable. He tries to please everyone like a goddamn golden retriever. He blames himself for every little thing that goes wrong around him and you can't even be mad at him when he's not around for you because when he is he's like the fucking sun, he's so bright it blinds you. He's skilled, elastic as fuck, I could go on. You've met him, you know I could.

And you're so fucking good, so fucking gentle and you try so hard, people judge you for something you didn't even do and you just take it like it's your fucking job. I fucked up in my life but at least it was me, at least I'm being judged by my own mistakes but you're having to explain himself for what somebody else did and you just keep on doing it, keep on fucking trying to do good this time. [He all but stabs his food. Fuck you, food, this is somehow your fault too.]

And I thought you deserved someone like him.

I don't deserve anyone.

[ Snapping that out is instinctive, genuinely heated in a way he keeps from ordinarily rising to the fore. Is that how Jason sees him, a sweet would-be hero rising from the ashes of a bad reputation? That isn't me. That never was. Trying is not to be confused with actually being better.

Having to rub his forehead feels less like kneading out the tension than stirring it. ]

I murdered an innocent young boy in cold blood, I didn't even send him to the afterlife. I obliterated his very existence. I'm the echo of his last scream, Jason. He never hurt anyone and I took his form because I was a body-thief, I stole it like a magpie steals cheap metal.

[ Vying for control over his turbulent emotions, he sits back to stare across the table. ]

Believe me, you have only seen my gentler side because I want you to.

[ Because he wants to be better but even that much truth feels like manipulation, even if the flipside of being kind is not wanting to harm anyone. Same difference. ]

[Jason actually feels a pang of guilt at that. He gets so pissed of when people project the little boy soldier that died on him, the kid that he isn't anymore and maybe never was. People try to see gentleness and kindness when all he does is redirect his anger to people that actually deserve it. And yet he's doing the exact same thing to Loki. That's the side of Loki he saw. Everything he said is true to Jason.

Still.]

That wasn't fair to you.

[He can't say 'sorry', but he can say this much.]

I know who you are. What you are. But I do think you deserve to be happy.

You don't know a thing about what I've done, what lies in my past. [ This will benefit Jason in the end, Loki tells himself. If they can go places they haven't before then maybe he will make his point and have it stick. ] You're sleeping with a direct copy of the soul who tricked men into corners where they were dissected alive. I brought down Asgard through driving a man insane. I play people like chess because it's fun and I get bored, what else? I've mutilated men, turned their hands to glass for daring to touch me. A girl was cast back to the beginning of time just to spare her my influence.

[ His fists are taut, balled on his lap where he sits and glares across the table of a cold half-eaten Valentine's meal, never having felt so close to vomiting since before he arrived in this Odin-forsaken dimension. Jason wants honesty, or at least he thinks he does, and Loki wants to take no responsibility for his past life's crimes but in the same breath he can't not. He is his own worst enemy, always.

Sweat forms at his temple, slowly soaking into his hair as he keeps a rigid posture. ]

I very nearly drove Billy Kaplan to a premeditated suicide while in full control of my faculties. [ A small sigh of despair weakens his resolve, fracturing his hard tone. ] I don't need you to be fair with me, Jason.

[Jason doesn't even react. He listens, he takes mental note of what Loki can actually do, but he doesn't allow himself much of a reaction. The fact that he uses present (Sleeping, not slept) doesn't escape Jason.

Eventually:]

I've stabbed a 10 year old. Left one member of my family to bleed out and nearly killed them, more than once. Tortured men, left them to starve and let their corpse to rot. Kidnapped many, many people. I've seriously lost count. I was the main drug lord in Gotham, controlling the underground and all their sales. I got hold of a girl who'd just seen her father get murdered and had been disfigured herself and convinced her I was her only friend simply so I could have my own particular Robin. And so on and so forth.

And I'd do most of it again, because I still think that someone needed to grab Gotham's villains by the balls and the job fell on my shoulders.

[He shrugs. The food is already slashed into incredibly small pieces but he keeps on going.]

So no, I don't know your past. Hard to know, since it'd involve literal centuries. You don't know my past either because I clam up like it's my job. But you made me happy. So why don't you tell me what you need?

[ Similarly, Loki takes mental notes on default as Jason reels off his crimes. He can't help it. Slotting people into boxes and cataloging useful abilities, noteworthy actions, it's all rote habit to the point of being ingrained from birth (is he scared of Jason? No). It's in his nature to stir things up once in a while with information. In a disjointed, distant way, he feels sorry for him. The pity party currently being thrown is subdued and tired on all accounts, however, and not something he wishes to turn into a Best Of Fuck Ups edition at length, so he considers what he does crave and discovers it makes him feel no better.

With his gaze fixed on the middle-distance, his palate sours. ]

I need you to trust me.

[ Not throw me away. ]

[Jason reaches to rub the bridge of his nose. His patience is usually very very short as it is, by his own standards he's been incredibly patient with Loki. But right now he just feels... really tired all of a sudden. Of all this. Like he's been fighting a battle for too long and doesn't remember why it started in the first place.]

How many people do you think are allowed inside my apartment? How many people do you think have seen me shirtless, or fucked me? How many people do you think I'm comfortable enough to turn my back at them like I just did? I came to your room, over and over, knowing it made it easy for people to pinpoint my location but I trusted you enough to set a routine.

I do trust you where it matters.

None of it matters if you're going to leave me. [ He doesn't mean to snap, or perhaps he does but he feels guilty for it and can't help it all the same. ] I've been here longer than most. Do you know how many times it took for people to vanish without warning before anyone demanded an explanation? I had to threaten the representatives with skewering by sword. People come and go like leaves in the wind, I don't need you to toss me aside if you're not even going to do me the courtesy of going back to your own universe.

[ The rant is more heartfelt and upset than logical; it's difficult for him to sort through such potent emotions, guilt and betrayal warring together while tinged by loss. Loki resettles with a carefully stony expression, arms folding and a leg crossing over so that his body language closes off entirely. ]

If you'd slept with any of my brothers, I would have felt like shit too but I wouldn't have thrown you away. Fuck you and your inferiority complex, Jason Todd. Who doesn't have one?

[He'll take that hit. He deserves it. He's fully aware of his relationship with Dick and his feelings about him. Being aware of it doesn't mean he's going to change it any time soon, but he figures it's a step in the right direction even if it's the only step he'll ever take. So he doesn't even argue the point because he has no argument against it.

But he squints when he accuses of leaving him nonetheless.]

Am I supposed to pretend you didn't leave me first? Or that you didn't lie to me, twice? Is that what's going on here? At least you knew why I needed the space. You made me feel like shit, but I forgave you when you made a mistake.

[Which is... Jason basically admitting he made one. But that's the hard thing about having a conversation with him, everything is wrapped up in code.]

I didn't leave you, I pushed you away so that I could work on helping you. I would have explained it later if you hadn't stalked me all the way to the catacombs.

[ As for the lying, well. That's just how Loki finds it best to operate, from the greyscale. He can't change that and won't apologise for lying, not again after having repeatedly reminded Jason he's probably the worst person to be around in that regard.

Green eyes flick over to him as Loki picks up on the not-confession. ]

You'll go into paroxysms of anxiety if you ever see me within twenty feet of Dick.

Edited 2016-02-16 01:35 (UTC)

[Jason bites his tongue, because they have already had that argument. Loki said he'd stay away from his family, that Jason was what mattered and not the soap opera that is his clan. And so far he's kept his word.]

I've told you to go sleep with him already so stop fucking insulting me like this. You want me to trust you but you treat me like a fucking infant who doesn't know what he wants. Do you think you staying away from Dick when you're basically vibrating with want because you're feeling sorry for poor poor Jason me makes me feel any better?

You say you get it, but you really fucking don't.

I'm here, dressed up for you, making this effort for you. It's you, Jason.

[ If he couldn't emphasise that enough already, he widens his eyes. ]

Don't tell me what or who I want.

You're the one who told me you wanted to sleep with him again. And if you hate that so much why don't you stop telling me what will give me anxiety while we're at it. [It's not a growl, but it's pretty close.]

Of course I'll be jealous. But I can take jealousy. Don't you get it? Can you stop trying to be the bigger person for a second and fucking listen? I live knowing I failed and he's better than me every single second of my life. If I had to push away every person that would rather sleep with Dick Grayson I wouldn't get laid, ever.

But I'm not going to take pity.

[ Rising from his seat, impatient and exasperated, he steps over to slide his fingers through Jason's hair and coax him to look up. It's closer than they have been in a while and the sensation of those red locks slipping through Loki's fingers brings back vivid memories that simmer with want ...

But all he does is perch his ass on the edge of the table to accommodate his height and try to find eye-contact. ]

Jason, look at me. Please?

[Jason's fingers are around his knife in a second, knuckles white from how hard he's holding it. But he doesn't move, doesn't pull away, simply lets Loki do his thing. Because he's just tired of a conversation that runs in circles, he's tired of repeating himself over and over. He knows he's being stubborn, he's fully aware. But it's like a rock rolling down the hill, he's pretty much unable to stop himself from lashing out.

It's the eyes that do it, for Jason. Having those green eyes piercing into him again, his face so close if he would just lean in. He wants to look away, look anywhere else but he maintains eye contact.]

I'm looking.

[ Noticing the way one of Jason's hands slips out of sight doesn't deter Loki in the slightest. Whether shot or stabbed, Jason would be fast enough to get it over and done with, at this range, before even a godling could pull away.

He slides in front of Jason's seat to perch on the table, legs loosely straddling the outside of the chair. ]

You are my first choice, Jason, I would have you at my back before any of your brothers. [ Green eyes crinkle with a wry smile, tired of fighting. He tweaks ginger hair. ] The same goes for having you anywhere else before them, too.

[Jason closes his eyes. It's like a hit to the chest, but he takes a deep breath through his nose instead of wincing in pain and lashing out. He's pretty sure it hurts because part of him can't ever bring himself to believe it, but he's done with that. He's just tired of pushing Loki away when there's no reason, tired of missing him, tired of the passive aggressiveness that has taken over one of the purest things he'd found in Eudio.

He still wishes Loki didn't think he was forbidden to sleep with Dick just for Jason. But that doesn't seem to be sinking in and Jason is tired of repeating it, tired of basically pushing Loki towards Dick. He doesn't understand why Loki would pick him, but he decides that it doesn't matter anymore.

Because he'll trust him, once more.]

And you are mine. [He opens his eyes again, because this is ridiculous.] Can I kiss you now?

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