WHO: Ben Reilly, Loki, and Forest WHEN: February 22-ish WHERE: their room on the ship WHAT: Ben and Loki talk about why Ben's been a bit anxious lately WARNINGS: implied partial nudity, talk of disappearing, and cuteness
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Ben had been trying to keep his cool. Really, he had been. The fact that all of Middle Earth was stretched out to explore and the other Loki was spiralling down a whirlpool of elven wine provided at least some distraction. Some. But that didn’t stop the familiar circumstances from simmering on that back burner of his brain, always on that verge of boiling over and his nerves very much aware off that. There was no moving that pot though, even if he knew he was overthinking and being ridiculous. History didn’t repeat itself like this. There was no rhyme or reason to the portal.
But that was just his sort of luck, wasn’t it? A surprise cruise that no one asked for, but got dragged onto anyways. Stuck on a ship for days on end even if it was an ocean keeping them there instead of the vacuum of space. New worlds to explore. Battles to be fought. And then… Valentine’s Day… That’s when the anxious feeling had taken roost along his nerves, actually… He’d been able to brush off the similar circumstances until then, but that date put everything more solidly in focus. An easy day to line up events to.
And then the countdown started. That anxious ticking. Each day passing being a weird mix of relief and more anxiety. Because Loki was still here, but would that last? How long would it last?
He just had to get out of February. Once they were out of February with both of them still here, he could breathe. For now, he tried his best to ease his worries without crowding the god, which was easier thought than done when you had, well, all of Middle Earth plus a cruise ship as options to be. Not to mention, Forest seemed to be picking up on it. Or maybe Forest remembered something… He hadn’t been on the space cruise, had been back in Tumbleweed, and he had to wonder how things had gone down there when Loki had disappeared. What Forest had experienced and witnessed…
Considering that even though Ben did his best to just wait where he was and only shoot occasional glances at the bathroom door, Forest practiced his dance steps (that for once had nothing to do with needing to visit a park) back and forth in front of the offending door as he whimpered pitifully.
The faucet was twisted shut and Loki slipped from the shower easily. Sure, it wasn’t really a shower made for a six-foot-four hybrid Asgardian, but Loki would be the first to insist that tight spaces were rarely a problem for someone as slippery as himself. He grabbed his towel, slicked his dark hair back, and opened the door to the suite.
It was hard to miss the dual set of eyes that were seemingly keeping vigil on the bathroom door. There was a pause at the door, then a stoop to scritch the reddish fur behind Forest’s ears. “Have you both found any secrets hidden in the false wood veneer of the door, or should I worry that there’s something behind me?”
Ben at least had the good graces to avert his eyes to something else he could have been paying attention to instead of being caught looking at the door. Like the view. Yes. The view was lovely and very much worthy of staring out. The view outside that was.
Forest however… Well, Forest was ruining any attempts at being nonchalant with his leaning into scritches and bounces to get more and licks of appreciation for Loki surviving the horrible, dangerous bathroom. And the happy whimpers…
Rolling his eyes at the dog’s complete lack of chill, he puffed out a breath as he glanced over at the pair. “Are steam monsters a thing? If steam monsters are thing, then yes. We might have some trouble on our hands.”
Loki’s eyes narrowed, with just a glint of the bright green irises visible. He knew Ben well enough by now to know that there was something going on. It must be a trait of the spiders: mouths that loved to talk, or immediately betraying a secret or lie meant to be kept by little tells. Or, really, acting suspicious. Forest’s reaction was just an amplifier when it came to those things, as well.
“They could well be. You know that,” Loki replied, matter-of-factly. The small dog -- or at least small against a fully-grown god -- was plucked up around the middle so that Loki could perch on his and Ben’s bed. Forest, ever the attention-lover, wriggled his way right into the towel that covered his master’s lap, tongue lolling outward and teeth bared in a doggish grin.
Loki turned to Ben, giving him a short nod to join in. “Stop fretting. Come over here.”
Ben’s lower lip stuck out in a dramatic pout and he stayed where he sat, determined to keep up the whole ‘no big deal’ act. For all of fifteen seconds. Huffing out a sigh, he rose fluidly from his seat, took the few steps, and then plopped down on the edge of the bed beside Loki. “I’m not fretting,” he countered before continuing his downward momentum and flopping back onto the bed. “I’m not.”
Even though he was laid back on the bed, he still hooked his foot around the god’s ankle and reached a hand out to scritch Forest’s chin because who could resist that face even when he was a traitorous little snitch with his overenthusiasm. This was a pointless battle. He knew that. Considering that even if he wasn’t in fact fretting, trying to convince anyone that a Spider wasn’t worrying about something was rather ridiculous. They were always worrying about something. Always. Whether it was at the front of the brain or the back, there was something always there.
And yet… he bumped his knee against Loki’s. “I’m not fretting.”
Ben’s small resignation earned a grin, which followed Ben, even on his downward descent. Loki peered over at the blond, neck slightly craned. “No, of course not.” Forest, for his part, slapped them both with an excited tail that couldn’t quite seem to care what was in its path.
“You’re clearly just focusing on your breathing and meditating on the fact that you were able to meet Hobbits. Obviously, there’s nothing to be said.” Loki bumped Ben’s knee back with his own. “The proof lies in all the selfies, anyway. If anyone calls a bluff, you have proof.”
There was a short, brief pause. “Well, if you aren’t fretting, then Forest is getting some misleading cues.”
“And elves,” Ben pointed out, emphasising it with a finger poke against Loki’s back. “And the dwarves.” He frowned as he wrinkled his nose. “Ok, maybe not the dwarves so much. I’ve run into plenty of those back home. Sort of. This is what happens when you hang out with the Fantastic Four Just… you go over for a nice birthday prank and next thing you know you’re saving Grimm from a fantasy dwarf world on the other side of a mysterious portal…” And he’d moved onto rambling… Super...
Breathing out a sigh, he flattened his hand over the small of Loki’s back and strummed his thumb lightly over the god’s pale skin. Yeah, it was part joke, but Ben couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty because he knew he might’ve been taking a few more pictures than usual lately. Middle Earth was a good excuse for it, but that didn’t change the fact that most of his pictures involved the person next to him instead of the scenery. “Forest needs better lessons in playing it cool,” he mumbled before blowing out another sigh. “It’s dumb. I know it’s dumb. Like so dumb that even I feel dumb talking about it.”
Loki’s smile persisted. It was those little moments when it was crystal clear why, of all people, Ben Reilly had been the one he’d taken interest in. The man was a born mischief-maker. Almost all the spiders seemed to be.
Just as the spiders seemed to also have a knack for cramming their doubts and thoughts down to the bottom of the back of their mind. Unlike the small, floppy dog in Loki’s lap, Ben’s silence and fidgeting stood out. Loki had noticed that Ben rarely let him stray far without running to catch up.
“Well, you aren’t really talking about It, are you? You’re circling It, yes. Perhaps even jumping over It. It, however, has not entered the conversation,” Loki replied. “So, what is It?”
“Ok, first off, what is the point of the whole spider powers thing if you can’t just pull out all the evasion for any topic imaginable?” Ben pointed out. “It’s like tried and true spider spideriness with the circling and the jumping. And second, if I start talking about it then I’m full on in that part of feeling dumb as opposed to this version of feeling dumb which is familiar and comfortable like a nice fluffy blanket. So, there’s that.”
Which was just more evasion of the verbal variety. Just fill the silence with enough words and either people won’t realize what isn’t being said or just get too tired they stop listening. For all that everyone complained about chatterbox Spider-Men, they really didn’t realize how good a distraction method it was. Or, well, most didn’t realize it. The man sitting next to him however…
He shrugged as his head flopped to the side on the bed, watching where his fingers traced over Loki’s back. “It’s dumb,” he murmured, softly. “I know how life is and that it’s better to just focus on the now and enjoy it, but…” He pressed his lips together a moment, wondering whether to just leave it unsaid or not, because there really wasn’t a solution. Nothing that either of them could do. At least, that he could think of… Loki however could be full of surprises… “Sometimes… there’ll just be that knee jerk, heart skip, loss of breath flit of thought that if I blink…” He pushed himself up enough so that his arm could wrap a bit more around Loki and his forehead rested against the god’s back. “...there’ll just be empty space again…”
Ah. There it was. After roughly a few dozen words, there was the crux of Ben’s recent twitchiness: the portal -- or whatever it was that pulled and pushed people here and back -- never gave warning. It could be cruel. It could separate couples…
This was an anniversary that Loki hadn’t considered. Mainly because it was Ben who recalled the missing space beside him in bed. Loki, for all his wits and knowledge, held no such memory of ever leaving. And that much softened the god’s expression. It was a gradual shift from male features to the softer lines and longer hair of a woman’s. Ben preferred this form for intimacy, anyway, and it was rarely a conscious decision to align to what felt right in the moment.
“It’s not an empty space right now. Don’t get all mournful on me, Ben…” She leaned over, a slimmer hand laid on Ben’s cheek. Forest, unwilling to be forgotten, popped up onto the bed and wedged himself squarely between his owners. For the dog, Loki offered her other hand until he was satisfied that equality was restored.
Ben let out a soft murmur of approval as he felt that familiar shiver shift whatever of magic. He’d grown and adapted over their time together, when the relationship had moved from just some physical fun to more. Loki’s previous form still didn’t quite do it in revving his engine, but Loki was Loki. He loved the god no matter what form and he wasn’t the sort to let some societal mumbo jumbo get in the way of having a little cuddle. Even so, he appreciated the considerate thought. Especially considering how raw the admission left him feeling.
“I know, I know,” he breathed out as he leaned into Loki’s hand. “Remember that whole feeling dumb thing?” He breathed out a sigh as he brushed his lips against Loki’s shoulder. “I try to focus on that. I do. Even without portals, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I know… I just…” Another heavy sigh. He’d tried to skirt around the thoughts because, well, it hadn’t been Loki’s fault, right? None of them had control over when they came and went. It was just how it was. He didn’t want the god to feel guilty. “I missed you, Loki. For months it felt like a piece of me was missing…”
That was the thing about getting attached, wasn’t it? When someone left… when you were pulled apart, it hurt that much more. You knew what you’d had. Whether it was friendship, or more than that, you knew there was something that had been there and assumed. The void, for all its emptiness, did profoundly well at occupying a mind and stifling out everything else. Loki couldn’t say what would have happened if this had been reversed.
Loki stroked her thumb across Ben’s temple. The blond hair was slightly unkempt, but that just meant it was easier to slide her fingers through it. “But I came back. I remembered you.” She leaned in to press a kiss to his lips. “I remembered this. Should it happen again, then we find our way back. Yes?”
And there it was. Simple facts that eased the worries that had plagued Ben for all those months. He had tried not to consider this ever being a possibility for him again. To convince himself that the possibility of this version of Loki coming back was slim. Slimmer still if you factored in him remembering their time together. Or timelines matching up for a happy reunion as the months dragged on. Would he still be around? Would too much time pass that Loki would come, but land in the middle of an awkward situation? Or would he wait only to be met by someone like the other Loki from young Peter’s universe? Or worse, would Loki look like this one with different memories?
Except none of those had happened. Instead he got his Loki who remembered as if he’d never left in the first place. Who now offered reassurances, but not empty promises. Sure, finding a way back was vague and who knew how feasible considering the amount of control they had, but that was a situation they were used to, right? Fighting against all odds. Action. Striving towards something instead of trying to avoid the inevitable.
A soft smile quirked his lips as he ran a hand through Loki’s hair tenderly. Yup. Always full of surprises. Always helping him see past where his mind got snagged into a downward spiral. “Yeah, we’ll find our way back,” he murmured, a bit of steel in his voice as he pressed his forehead against Loki’s. “I’ll do everything in my power to find you again.” He snorted before planting a quick peck on the tip of Loki’s nose. “Even if it means coming up with some high tech tracer that spans all universes.”