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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 4:36:51 GMT -5
"Wake up to what, a dead son? Did you truly think you would only be loved when everyone else was gone? You know, if it wasn't about power, Loki, if it was about family at all, certainly you barely seem to have valued it."
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Mar 25, 2014 4:39:40 GMT -5
"He threw Thor away! I never asked for him to exile him- I tried to stop it, even! You saw that, didn't you? I would have gladly been exiled in his place-"
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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 4:42:40 GMT -5
"Is that what this is?" asked Fandral in exasperation. "You pretend to be dead in ignorance of your family's grief simply to take a path you wished you could have taken?"
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Mar 25, 2014 5:19:57 GMT -5
Loki's jaw tightened very suddenly. His throat felt like it was closing; one hand instinctively rose to clutch at it before he lowered it abruptly to the arm of his chair again.
It was all a lie, wasn't it. One he'd come up with himself this time, yes, but still another damned lie all the same.
It was suddenly all so terribly obvious, the pattern repeating itself but wrongly, like a woodcut that had degraded from overuse. No wonder the stations of being Loki his otherself had shown him had become fewer and fewer; he had tried, by some process he had not even consciously realized, to realign his life after his initial failure at securing some semblance of control over the city into a dutiful approximation of Thor's penance in the same realm.
The desperate, pathetically unsuccessful attempts at finding friends among mortals, the resignation to anonymity-
Teja.
Small, bright-eyed, fiercely intellectual Teja, with her own social limitations-
Please not Teja, he thought to himself, like a praying child. Please- I swear that I truly do love her-
He was beginning to breathe very shallowly.
I don't know what happened on Earth that made you so soft?
Don't tell me it was that woman.
Loki looked up and stared accusingly at Fandral.
Oh. It was.
He felt like he was going to vomit.
Well maybe, when we're done here, I'll pay her a visit myself!
Loki stood up and rushed toward the window, clawing the blinds to the side and dragging the pane open. For a moment, he leaned outside. breathing raggedly, trying to force enough air into his lungs that his head would stop spinning. He wondered, vaguely, if the drop would kill him, and then felt his face contort itself into another mad grin when he remembered that he'd fallen through universes, and here he still was.
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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 5:28:40 GMT -5
Fandral was prepared for Loki to possibly keep shouting, for a back and forth that went nowhere until he went out into the strange urban landscape to seek out Thor and the others and go to the motion-picture without them. He had only made the observation in anger and incredulity at Loki's denials and frankly insulting dismissiveness. But he'd known Loki for half of his life now, possibly longer, and it was clear that there was much more to it than that.
But even realizing he'd knocked the breath out of him, he was unprepared for Loki's bolting to the window. Fandral stood immediately, concerned for an instant Loki would throw himself out of it - he had not been there, but he had heard Thor and Odin speak of the moment at which Loki had either in defiance or in disorientation released the scepter and fallen into the black abyss below the Bifrost. When he didn't move to do so, Fandral strode quickly toward him, reaching out for his shoulder.
"Loki," he said.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Mar 25, 2014 5:34:09 GMT -5
"...it should have been me," he said. "It should have been me from the very start- I was the traitor, I was the false son-"
He swallowed hard and tried to stop his teeth from chattering.
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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 5:36:11 GMT -5
Fandral's point of argument had been, so far, to tell Loki that he hadn't had to do what he'd done.
He realized now that on some level, Loki obviously knew that, or he wouldn't have tried to blithely pretend otherwise.
This left Fandral with no point of argument whatsoever. He tried furiously returning to gentler behavior, urging him with his hand still on his shoulder.
"Come inside, Loki, come inside-"
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Mar 25, 2014 5:39:02 GMT -5
"That's the thing," he said, making a small gesture at the pavement below. "Even if I willed it the whole way down, it wouldn't kill me. It's no good testing it."
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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 5:40:42 GMT -5
Fandral groaned, yanked him in, and pulled him into an embrace.
He wished Thor was here - they were closer, and he and Loki had never been but for one disastrously failed attempt long ago - but he realized, just as he had at the house Thor was staying in, that it would probably have more meaning coming from one who wasn't Thor.
For no small reason, either, given how much his love was mingled with resentment.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Mar 25, 2014 5:43:58 GMT -5
"[i}Fuck,[/i]" Loki gasped against his shoulder. "I- I can't live like this-"
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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 5:45:11 GMT -5
"Like what?" asked Fandral in a murmer, extremely perplexed. If he meant like a Midgardian, he supposed Loki was going to be thrust back into Asgard very quickly.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Mar 25, 2014 5:47:26 GMT -5
"I can't go home, I can't face Odin- I can't stay here, I look like this-"
He pushed off of him and stumbled a few feet back, unglamored and staring.
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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 5:49:53 GMT -5
Fandral's expression barely changed as the glamour dropped, not only because he was trying not to alter it but because it was less horrible than he had expected. He had heard, and been told, that Loki was truly the son of Laufey - a jotun. He hadn't been told Loki's mother was clearly an Asgardian.
Fandral moved toward him hesitantly, feeling a bit like he was trying to calm a spooked horse.
"And what is wrong with that?" he asked in the same low tone of voice. "We've both been to Vanaheim, Loki."
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Mar 25, 2014 5:52:43 GMT -5
Somehow, this topic was steadying, horrible as it still was. It gave Loki something else to focus on. He took a few deep breaths and pushed his hair back from his face, trying to calm himself.
"Yes, well," he said, with a brittle laugh. "I doubt any of them were rejected by the monsters themselves as an accident of birth."
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Post by Fandral on Mar 25, 2014 5:55:44 GMT -5
"You had a family. You still have, if you want them. You don't even remember that rejection-"
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