The inaugural meeting of the Goth Boys with Mean Dads club, wherein Vax and Loki find they have some things
in common.
⚠
Mentions of parental neglect/abuse
As Loki turned a page, he paused to look upward at the gray expanse of the Void. Sure, beggars couldn’t be choosers, but some level ambient atmosphere felt like a small ask. A cloud. One cloud.
Of course, he did have the power to create one such cloud, but that wasn’t the point. And so his mind veered from the book in his hands for a brief moment of internal grousing at how being precariously balanced between using his magic freely and risking using it so freely that he reverted to old (bad) habits meant that he always ended up in this stalemate. Like a bird with wings clipped. One cloud didn’t feel worth it.
One day he’d figure out how to push past the block. Maybe.
For now, he shoved himself to his feet and sauntered to the edge of the Peaslee’s roof. Loki Loft, as he’d named the smattering of cushions and loosely-tied-together collection of Loki-chosen embellishments, served well to be a place away from most of Derleth while also providing a good vantage point of the same. The book was wedged under his arm as Loki took survey of the goings-on below.
There were a few fellow captives out and about, but one caught his attention in particular. It was timely, really, given that the book in his possession seemed to be an errant piece of that person’s life story. Which meant he should hand it out. He should.
It would be the right thing to do. Tch, morals were finicky.
Loki activated the shadow thread of his coat to fade entirely from sight, then slipped over the side of the roof with the aid of his Seven League boots. It was an unheard, unseen descent followed by an equally undetectable path towards Vax. Call it a trickster’s habit to want to sneak up on someone who was known to be sneaky for the challenge, but Loki’s invisible grin would have given away that it wasn’t purely a challenge. Sometimes it was merely trolling.
He caught up with Vax, fell in step beside him, and then leaned over just enough to whisper. “Don’t look behind you.”
Vax had never been a fan of the wilderness like his sister, but he also wasn’t particularly keen on being cooped up in a room all the time. Especially one as small as the room he shared with Ben, in a building as strange as Butler had become. So while the void wasn’t the most appealing sky view possible, it still beat feeling trapped inside a box. Not having much to do made for some aimless wandering, but some of the trees were nice enough to nap under.
His path was circuitous at best - from Butler to the cafeteria for a snack, and then a winding route back toward the theater that took him well away from the ruins of the monolith that he very stoically never looked in the direction of more than he absolutely had to.
The monolith was another case of precariously balanced scales in Vax’s mind. Good that the beholder hadn’t reset, probably bad that the monolith itself hadn’t. Like most of what happened at Derleth, Vax couldn’t pretend to understand it. So he decided not to think about it instead.
He was so intent on not thinking about it that he didn’t hear Loki coming up behind him until his voice sounded in his ear, making Vax startle enough that the stack of graham crackers in his hand snapped in his sudden grip and fell to the ground for an opportunistic squirrel to dart out and help itself to. With a muttered curse, Vax turned to look at Loki behind him - the only place he could be, sneaking up like that.
Only there was nothing. Which turned the muttered curse into a groan and a much louder curse this time.
“Really? Really? So you can be invisible too? How is this even fair!” He toed at the now useless - to him, the squirrel was back for seconds - graham crackers and kicked one of the bigger pieces in the direction he thought Loki’s voice had come from once the squirrel had beaten another hasty retreat. “Don’t make me start slapping until I find you.”
The curse felt like a well-won trophy. A shiny little medal to pin on his lapel. But Loki also recognized that after the initial jump scare, pushing onward was more an annoyance than anything. He stepped back -- partly also because the threat of Vax boxing the air existed -- and dropped the charm of the shadowthread.
“It’s fair if you’re me,” Loki replied with a mild shrug, although one arm was still clamping down on the book and cast the motion off-kilter. “It took some trying to liberate the fabric for this coat from the original owner. What’s the use in having it if I can’t use it? Rhetorical question. I digress.”
Loki looked down at the crackers, then, and frowned an incremental amount. “Punishing yourself with those? Eugh, let the squirrels have it. You might as well try eating bark.” There wasn’t an invitation, not that Loki heard, but he took it upon himself to step back towards Vax and invert the frown to a grin.
“So, where to?”
Adding insult to injury, Loki very much wasn’t in the direction Vax expected when he was visible again. He gave his ruined snack one last look and breathed a sigh, then turned to better face Loki in the direction he actually needed to be looking in order to do that. The annoyance on his face gave way to curiosity as he eyed up the coat, an eyebrow arching upward. “So it’s the coat that does it?” He smirked faintly and offered a lopsided shrug of his own, filing the information away for later. “Good to know, I suppose.”
He dusted his crumb-coated palm off on his hip and wrinkled his nose at the poor assessment of his snack. “I’ve eaten worse, and I figured they weren’t going to get everywhere if I found myself somewhere to lounge against a tree. Ah, well.” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction the squirrel scampered off to and called, “You owe me one now, remember that!”
It took a moment for him to realize that Loki was inviting himself along to… wherever, but once he did he narrowed his eyes just slightly to peer at Loki before resigning himself to the company. Not like he’d been planning on doing anything specific; maybe nap, lacking anything better. This was better. Probably.
“Oh, there’s a tree somewhere calling my name. Decent roots to lean against, enough leaves that staring up at the void doesn’t necessarily mean it’s staring back… “ He chuckled wryly and shrugged again, then tipped his chin in that direction in the name of invitation. “Decent place to read as well, if that’s what you’re doing and you don’t care to do it alone. What’ve you got?”
With his free arm, Loki raised his hand and flicked his thumb underneath the lapel of his coat. “It’s the coat. You would have to convince me to take it off if you had any wayward thoughts, but I’m sure there may be a time and a place,” he answered, with all the ease of a jovial tone. The grin remained lit on his mouth as he took a quick survey of a man who was realizing it might be easier to permit company than try to fend it off. To be fair, he wasn’t wrong. Loki wasn’t planning to peel off until he’d, at minimum, gifted the book that Derleth placed in his path.
Of course, that might come sooner than later based on Vax’s keen eye.
“This?” The book was picked from under Loki’s arm, and he gave the cover a thoughtful tap. His hand obscured the artwork printed across the front -- artwork of two half elves, one of which was standing beside him. “I was going to work my way into this, but I suppose my segway wasn’t workshopped enough to pull it off. Straight into it, then…! Derleth saw fit to deposit it somewhere I tend to haunt, and then you saw fit to pull my notice just as I was deliberating what to do with it.”
There was a brief moment, Loki’s gaze fixed on his hand atop the cover of the book, then he wordlessly held it out to Vax.
“Sorry,” Vax began, sounding not very sorry at all, “Just happened to notice it while I was eyeing up the coat.” No sense pretending he wasn’t, not when his designs had probably been obvious from the start of the conversation about the garment. He needlessly dusted his palms off against each other to rid himself of any remaining graham cracker crumbs, then reached out to take the book with unrestrained curiosity written all over his face. He hadn’t left a book anywhere - he didn’t have any books to call his own here in the first place - so the fact that Loki thought it belonged to him was odd in and of itself. As he reached for it and caught his first sight of the cover, however, things suddenly got even more strange.
“What…?” He felt his stomach twist as he studied the cover, half born of cold confusion and half at the first glimpse of his sister he’s had in any form since arriving at Derleth. For a few quiet moments he divided his attention between the book and Loki, his expression a mixture of emotion. That confusion, at first. A burst of anger that this might be some kind of terribly cruel joke. More than a small bit of despair, though he managed to shove that down nearly as soon as he felt it bubbling up.
“I don’t know what this is,” he finally murmured, voice slow and uncertain as he finally turned the book in his hands to allow him to thumb through it. “There’s no one… “ He trailed off in favor of reading a few passages here and there at random, flipping through pages until one stuck, reading, and then forcing the pages forward again. Once he’d gone through a few paragraphs, he snapped the book closed and curled a hand around it protectively before bringing it to his chest.
“I don’t know who’d know any of this to write it all. I don’t even know what all happened with my sister in Jorenn. Where - I mean, did… have you read it?”
It wasn’t entirely a Loki quality to stand silently by, but given the nature of the week so far, he knew that there was a high chance that whatever was contained within the front and back cover of that book was personal. For the progression of Vax’s expressions, it seemed like the odds crept ever higher. A book like that could contain a wealth of information, and, from what Loki had seen in leafing through, it could well be the sensitive type of information.
What a sharp descent this was from the initial ribbing. It was hard to know what the right response was. Maybe that was Kate’s best quality, not his. She seemed to understand more about how to console -- if needed -- or distract. He knew smarmy replies, tricks, quips, and the condition of being a guilt-stricken mess. None of those things felt like they had a place as Vax just about hugged the book to his chest.
Loki exhaled, and turned his gaze towards the grayness of the Void. “Well.” Solid start, but he needed to start putting together more words. Vax had asked a question. He did deserve an answer. Largely speaking, they were friendly. Possibly friends, if it came to it. Or was allowed to.
“No one has any answer for the authors or the source of these things. Derleth keeps everyone light on their toes by never explaining.” He looked at Vax, expression fairly neutral save for a small quirk at the edge of his mouth. The suggestion of uncertainty lingered. “I flipped through. Gleaned a passage here and there. Caught that the name you called Kate the other week seems to be your actual sister’s name…” That could be unfair. It was a leading statement, but once a Loki, always a Loki.
Vax pulled the book away from his chest just enough to let him duck his chin and scowl down at the cover. The initial rush of emotion over seeing Vex’s face had soured into resentment faster than he thought it could - resentment that he was here and she wasn’t, that this book existed at all, that Loki had been the one to find it. The last one felt unfair as far as accusations went, though; it wasn’t as though Loki had asked to be the one to find it. It was just another one of those Derleth things where nothing was ever easy or quite right.
There was only so long he could avoid looking at Loki, though, so he closed his eyes briefly to calm his thoughts and sighed inwardly before pressing the book back to his chest and looking up again. Leading or not, Loki’s observation wasn’t wrong. And he had brought the book to him. For some reason, Vax believed that he hadn’t given it a thorough read. Yet.
“Vex’ahlia. That’s my sister’s name, and I don’t… “ He frowned and tapped his fingertips against the spine of the book where he still had it clutched to him, then felt his shoulders drop. As much as he wanted to be angry, there wasn’t anything to specifically be angry at. Without fuel, there couldn’t be much fire. “I don’t remember calling Kate by her name, but she said I did too. Everything from that day after I got hit is a little murky.”
He turned, thinking it was probably easier to keep talking if he wasn’t directly facing Loki. He’d mentioned finding the tree to sit against, and if this was going to end up being a conversation then it’d probably be more comfortable to sit down for it. “The dark hair, the arrows.” He shrugged, trying to make it look careless even though his discomfort was lingering. “The delirium too, you know how it goes. Easy enough mistake to make when I’ve had a sister my whole life, don’t you think?”
“You were fairly well rattled,” Loki agreed, his voice hovering slightly below his usual volume as he recalled Vax being so entirely out of it that he’d muttered the name before falling unconscious. The assessment was kinder than the memory playing across Loki’s mind, but he wasn’t actually here to take the wind out of the half elf’s sails.
Besides, on a very deeply-nestled level, every Loki had some experience with sibling bonds. Some more than others. Being without Thor was generally fine provided the ability to meet back up was within reach. It hadn’t been. And Derleth has produced a Thor whose memories were whole and apart from ever having a brother. That probably paled against growing up a twin and then finding yourself without your other half, but it likely had similar roots.
Or so Loki could guess. Perhaps asking would be smarter.
“I figured it followed from knowing Kate for mere minutes before declaring her a stand-in,” Loki continued, then pivoted his tone for a moment. “Veer left here. There’s a good root-y tree in the Green. I don’t typically lurk about on the ground level, but I can tell you need a sit-down.” He was already turning for the destination, more or less giving Vax’s shoulder a small nudge to redirect him.
“And I…” Loki paused, his hand dropping from Vax’s shoulder. He furrowed his brow. “I may understand some of missing a sibling. Have you ever been apart from her?”
Vax found himself mercifully distracted from having to answer for how quickly he’d latched on to Kate as a substitute sister by the nudge to his shoulder to redirect him. On a more normal day he might’ve prickled at being guided by gentle pressure like he was a horse, but Derleth had struck again in a way only Derleth could, and it didn’t occur to him to put up a fight about it before he was moving in the direction Loki was taking them.
He’d just found some traction for changing the subject in opening his mouth to draw breath about where Loki did lurk about if not on ground level, but the follow-up observation and the question that accompanied it pushed the breath right out of his lungs as effectively as a punch. Vax curled his fingers tighter around the spine of the book and frowned at the ground in front of his feet as he kept walking on auto-pilot.
Of all the people to be talking to about this. Not that he didn’t like Loki. He just also wasn’t sure he trusted Loki yet. But still, if he’d already been this transparent, then there wasn’t anything he could do.
“No.” For a moment it seemed like Vax intended to leave the statement there to call the question answered. After that hesitation, however, he brought the book away from his body and studied the cover, then paused just a second longer before offering it in Loki’s direction without so much as a sidelong glance. “If this is what I think it is, then that’s the longest I’ve ever been apart from her. A week at most, and we swore we’d never let it happen again.” Vax finally shifted his gaze toward Loki without turning his head, smiling a faint, wry smile. “And it hadn’t, until I found myself here.”
The book appearing in front of Loki without warning drew his gaze, and he accepted it back, but not without giving Vax a skeptical glance. For all the hugging it near and dear, as if it would replace something or someone who wasn’t present, it seemed like parting with it was some sort of admission of defeat. That wasn’t the tone of preference. Hearing someone’s story if they were largely dragging themselves through begrudged confessions sapped all the fun out of it.
“Here, for weeks on end, with no way to bridge the distance even for a quick chat.” Loki sighed as he cast his focus down on the book’s cover. It was an artist’s rendering, but the likeness of book Vax to Vax to Vex was striking. He’d read the back of the book and leafed through some of the early chapters out of pure detached curiosity, and for all the urge to start needling… Loki knew the impulse lacked kindness. This required some give if there was to be any taking.
“Difficult father, then?” There. The unifying front. “I can’t do much for the absence of a sister, but -- well, I think Derleth is near full to top with daddy issues, really.” Again, it was a leading statement. Loki pulled a mild frown, then put his offering forth: “I had one, as well. He’s very dead. Plausibly, anyway. Where I come from, death is a fickle thing. Sometimes it sticks, but for the people you wish it didn’t. The rest keep turning over whenever you look away for a few moments.”
Vax was quiet until they came upon a tree that seemed like enough to what Loki had suggested - it was what he might’ve chosen himself to rest against, so whether it was the intended tree or not, it was going to be the choice right now. The silence on his end wasn’t necessarily an uncomfortable one, except inside his head; there were quite a few threads he could pull on to follow in what Loki had said, and he was having trouble deciding just which one to start with in order to start unraveling the tapestry of… whatever it was they were doing. Not the best sign, he realized, when his own metaphors were falling apart in his head.
“Difficult father.” He waited to say more until he’d arranged himself at the base of the tree, sprawled on his back with his head propped up on a root knobby enough to find a comfortable way for him to rest. With his hands folded over his stomach and his eyes closed, a cursory glance would make it seem like Vax was good and relaxed. Up close, to someone more astute, the tension in his shoulders and jaw was probably obvious. “We lived with our mother for ten years before our father showed up and decided he could and would do better for us. I’m still not sure why he bothered, because he didn’t.”
There was his give, and now it was time to capitalize on the take he’d been offered. “I think death is complicated no matter where you’re from, just in different ways.” He cracked one eye open just enough to get a look at Loki, his smile back and still complete with that wry twist. “I could go on about that for longer than you’d probably care to listen. What did your father do, then? Assuming he’s one of the sort you don’t expect the whole being dead thing to stick for.”
As it went, it wasn’t the tree Loki meant, but it was a tree of roughly the description provided. Good enough. Loki bent his knees and scooted into the hollow between some roots, not quite as sprawled, but tidily positioned with his legs kicked out. It gave Vax some space in the way that they weren’t actually facing each other now -- not without some genuine trying to catch the other’s eyes. Loki smoothed out the bottom of his coat habitually as he listened.
“So, absentee, then present… but not. That feels familiar. Did he give you a look after some further consideration and go, ‘For some reason, I thought you could be something different’?” Loki shoved his hands into his pockets. Their magical depth gave him space to feel around the spoils he kept in them. He found his phone and began to fidget with it, spinning it around between his fingers. He considered Vax’s question with a far-off look at some distant trees. “By which I mean a host of things. Taller, for one. Frost Giants. The worst thing you could possibly do as a Frost Giant is have the nerve to be too small.”
Loki caught the look from Vax and raised one brow in return. His tone was smooth, easy. It didn’t seem to match his words, but that came from distance and time. Laufey wasn’t a threat here or now. “What did he do? He pretended I didn’t exist until a time came to take out his frustrations. King of Jotunheim. Cold as they came. And, ugh, all the jewelry was always fangs and teeth. For what reason, I ask? Why teeth?”
Vax’s answering laugh, more a forcibly huffed breath with just the slightest note of sound behind it, was probably enough for Loki to glean that his observation had hit a little too close to home, but being that on the nose about it deserved a verbal confirmation too. “Something like that, yeah. I think he thought he could use us for clout of some sort - like he’d be seen as some altruistic paragon of elven society for pulling his illegitimate mongrels out of a home they’d been perfectly happy in and bringing them somewhere they were despised - but it backfired and he resented us. Two children he didn’t even want and nothing to show for it.” It was at least easier to say it all conversationally with his eyes closed, but Vax still brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose like it was starting to give him a headache just thinking about it.
With that hand still raised, his eyebrows arched so suddenly at Loki’s response to his question that his eyes popped open. If someone had asked him to describe what he guessed Loki’s parents looked like just from looking at Loki, ‘giant’ would’ve been hundreds of words down his list and ‘frost’ never would’ve entered his mind. Vax tried to hide his surprise by lifting his arm to hide his eyes in the crook of his elbow like he was shielding himself from the non-existent sun - even if the damage of his surprise was already done, at least he could afford Loki the same kindness he’d been given in not being stared at while he spoke.
The bare bones of the story were all too familiar, which elicited a tug of sympathy in Vax’s chest that he hadn’t expected. And even knowing that Loki’s joke was probably an evasion tactic for keeping the conversation more surface level, Vax couldn’t help but laugh. “Is the distinction between fangs and teeth here an important one? Fangs as trophies I suppose I can understand in a way. I’m not one for much jewelry myself, honestly. Too jangly, so I’m not the one to ask.”
He hesitated, then dropped his arm down and opened his eyes to actually look up in Loki’s direction directly for the first time since he’d settled himself. “Did you stay? Until he - “ Realizing now, probably too late, that casually talking about Loki’s father being dead was probably callously rude in a way Vax rarely was, he stopped himself short of saying it out loud again. “We ran, my sister and I. We knew Syldor would only put up an act about being upset and wouldn’t ever look for us.”
“Fangs are teeth for a Frost Giant. And every so often I remember to be grateful that I do not have any.” There was a short pause, and Loki huffed out a small sigh. He didn’t have to look hard to note the bemusement that played across Vax’s fine features. The surprise had to be towards how very human Loki looked on the exterior, which was a fair thing to be surprised at. “Anymore. Magic stuff. Isn’t it always? I digress. Jewelry only serves if it has function, anyway. It’s like capes. Yes, ornamentally they’re fine, but all they really do is pose a risk in key moments. Caught on this, caught on that…”
They were both treading this in the same way. It was consoling, Loki thought. Like minds on how to speak on difficult pasts meant no one was offended by a laugh or a joke. The book was resting on the grass beside Loki, but it was largely dismissed for now. Vax’s actual account could be verified, but some gut instinct (and a bit of recall from what Loki had picked up in a quick perusal) suggested he was speaking truth.
“I arranged my own escape. The thing about kings…” There was a derisive snort. At the time neither Laufey nor Odin acted as more than brutes. “Is that they think so broadly, so grandly that they don’t ever consider that a child could push them into place to ensure an outcome. My father got repayment, and I was claimed for Asgard. I suppose that’s running, in a manner. I wouldn’t go back. I owe Jotunheim nothing. It sounds as if you owed Syldor an equal amount of nothing.”
Loki let his head droop back to rest against the bark of the tree. He gestured loosely at the air in front of him after extracting one hand from a pocket. “Parents are hard, anyway. Siblings are better.”
For the first time since Loki surprised him, Vax’s smile seemed genuine. Faint, definitely, but not the same sort that he had to force at recalling the past with as much light-heartedness as he could muster. “I’m not sure that’s only a king thing so much as it’s adults in general. Probably helps if they’re so used to having things their way that they can’t imagine a child defying it, though.” What story Vax knew only triggered more questions - what had happened to Loki’s father, was being ‘claimed’ for Asgard a good or bad thing - but he forced himself to bite his tongue before asking them. Something offered freely was vastly different than something you felt pushed to share; leading as some of Loki’s questions had been, he’d still given Vax the chance to say nothing at all. Vax figured he ought to do the same.
“I’ve never once felt sorry we left, only that we didn’t leave sooner. So no, I don’t think we owe him any more than you do your own father.” Vax sighed, feeling the exhale loosen some of the tension in his shoulder blades so he was much more comfortable than he had been at first. Well. More comfortable once he fished a broken twig out from under his back - that little bit of extra relaxation seemed to have been just enough to let it jab between his ribs. He flicked it in Loki’s direction with a smirk, then resettled himself a little.
“Siblings are better.” Now that he didn’t feel the need to keep his eyes closed to make talking about his past easier, Vax focused on the sky, such as it was, past the leaves of the trees. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost pretend it was just an oddly overcast day and not a creepy endless void. “We’ve been inseparable for so long that I hardly know how to - “ Speaking without thinking was a curse, Vax suddenly realized; when he became conscious mid-sentence about what he was about to say, he stopped himself abruptly enough that his teeth clicked together and cleared his throat quietly. “So that means you’ve got some? One? I don’t know that I would’ve guessed, you’ve got a… “ Vax paused to gesture in a vague circle in Loki’s direction with a low chuckle. “Very only child feel going on. No offense meant, of course. Just, you know. Observation.”
The twig ricocheted off Loki’s sleeve and made him look down to see where it landed, which was right atop the golden embellishment of his boots. He tipped his boot and let it fall to the ground, at the same time casting a humored glance at Vax that wordlessly asked, ‘so it’s like that?’ Since turnabout felt like fairplay, he let one knee bobble outward to nudge Vax in the side. A quick contact just because they were doing so well at volleying the conversation that Loki felt obligated to volley the physical needling, as well.
That didn’t preclude listening, however. Loki tilted his head as Vax began to speak once more on his sister, only to cut himself short. The words were predictable, even if they weren’t spoken aloud. Maybe they were even more apparent in the way Vax throttled the sentence.
And maybe mercy was allowing the focus to be taken off something Vax didn’t appear to want to delve into.
Maybe.
If nothing else, Loki knew he could speak to more shallow things in the meanwhile.
“No, I follow. I’ve been told I have a certain demeanor.” A smartphone -- not the device that every Derlethian came to possess, but one branded with the name Stark -- was flipped up from a pocket into Loki’s grip. His fingers were quick to unlock the screen and pull up the gallery. “Adoptive brother. Older. There’s another world’s version of him here, but it’s hard to ask him to be someone he isn’t. Here, see?” The phone was tossed to Vax, leaving him to react or be smacked squarely in the face. On the illuminated screen was a picture of a large blond man in silver armor. He was asleep. He was also being given bunny ears by the person taking the picture.
One thing having a twin had taught Vax at a very young age was the talent for carrying on a conversation while antagonizing someone, so the pair of them slipping into it wasn’t nearly enough to distract him from speaking even as he reached across his chest and swatted half-heartedly at Loki’s knee. Needling acknowledged, accepted, and rewarded - inasmuch as getting any reaction at all felt like a reward. It was all a comfortable enough moment that Vax might’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so busy telling on himself out loud. The teasing unfortunately didn’t have much of a chance of tipping the scales in its favor when the issue on the other side was Vax trying to avoid his inability to completely feel whole without his sister near.
The laugh that didn’t make its appearance moments before found its way to the surface when Loki didn’t disagree with his observation. “At least I’m not the first to say.” Quick motion out of the corner of his eye had Vax glancing at Loki again, and not a moment too soon; before he knew it something was being tossed in his direction and it was only thanks to quick reflexes that he got a hand up in time to catch it. Not the most graceful catch, but snatching the phone out of the air a couple of inches from his face without knocking it back into the tree? Vax was willing to count that as a win.
“If you had broken my nose, I swear… “ A threat so empty that Vax didn’t even bother finishing it to any effect before he let himself be distracted by the picture. Recognition sparked in his mind if only because he’d spoken to Derleth’s version for the first time not long ago. “Thor, yeah?” But not Loki’s version. He studied the screen another few seconds, one corner of his mouth ticking up in a smile, before he pulled himself to sit more upright and handed the phone back. “It’s a good picture.” Not at all unlike one he knew he’d take of himself and Vex if they found themselves with the ability.
Vax frowned faintly at the ground between his feet, ruffling a hand through his hair to shake loose any leaves that might’ve found themselves tangled there. “That can’t be easy,” he ventured, sounding as if he was choosing his words carefully. “Having someone here that looks like your brother but isn’t. I’m not sure what’s worse.” He glanced in Loki’s direction again, then turned his attention to scuffing the toe of his boot into the ground. “Not having them at all or having someone that isn’t the one you know.” He shrugged one shoulder and tipped his head back to rest against the tree trunk, eyes closed again. “Equally bad, maybe.”
“If your nose broke, it would be mended in a few days’ time,” Loki leveled with Vax, and despite the other man being engaged with the phone, a smirk was offered up. “I’ve seen your reflexes before. That was faith in your skill. Look! It wasn’t unfounded.”
The smirk held on, right up to the point when the phone was handed back across. Loki’s eyes came to rest upon the image for a few seconds before the screen timed out and went dark again. There were videos, other pictures -- of Thor, friends, foes. Funnily enough, documenting it all hadn’t been something born of the mindset that it would be a comfort one day, but it had ended up as such. There was a small piece of Loki that was aware that Vax didn’t have anything like that. Just the book, plausibly, for whatever value it held.
“I don’t know if that makes for two things that are equally bad.” The phone was placed back in Loki’s pocket. For safety. He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes down to his visible hand and distractedly taking in the black nail polish that was starting to chip. “But being alone is worse. Anyway, that’s enough soul-bearing for the day, isn’t it? That feels like a good stopping point. And you should take the book. Really.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m alone.” Vax let his head loll to one side so that when he opened one eye, he was looking right at Loki. “Percival’s here, so there’s someone I knew from before. And I’ve made enough friends that it isn’t lonely most of the time.” Both eyes open now, he smirked and nudged Loki repeatedly with an elbow, leaning in a little as he did so to extract as much annoyance out of it as possible. “We’re never alone when we’ve got each other, isn’t that right? Huh? Huh?”
Teasing turned out to be an even better path to walk than he’d expected, because when the subject of the book came up again, Vax was too lost in making a pain of himself to sink too quickly back into the melancholy of being reminded of home and his sister. “More than enough soul-bearing if it’s making me this punchy,” he agreed with a laugh. Slightly strained - he wasn’t immune to all thoughts about the book, just most - but still a laugh. As it faded, he dropped a hand to press his palm over the cover, then shook his head.
“I don’t know if I want it. Why don’t… “ He trailed off as an idea occurred to him, hesitating just a moment before he picked the book up and dusted it off, then held it out to Loki. “Since you were kind enough to bring it to me in the first place, would you hold onto it for me? Read it or don’t, that’s up to you. If it survives the reset, then give it to me after if you like.” As upbeat as he tried to make himself seem, the look on his face was far more subdued than it had been mid-flurry of elbows. “I’d rather not have it and then lose it too, is all. So I’d appreciate it.”
“Aye, you’re very present. You’re very persistently here,” Loki replied, as an elbow nudged him over and over. “How could I ever think I’m alone at a time like this?” He waited for Vax to finish, his expression carried by a straight mouth and faintly pinched brows. It wasn’t true annoyance, even if Vax was aiming for it, but that was because for all the playful inserts between sullen topics… the company was preferred. And that would be a thought kept from being spoken aloud. He had to keep some of his cards hidden, after all.
As the book was held out again, Loki allowed himself a moment to reflect on the gesture. Yes, it was very much as simple as being given a book for safekeeping, but there was something a little more profound at work. Vax possibly wouldn’t guess at it because he hailed from a world without a Loki, but it struck Loki immediately. It was judgment -- perhaps fast and untested -- that he was trustworthy. Furrowed brows lifted in genuine surprise.
He realized it was weird to keep looking while Vax was holding the novel out for him to take. Finally, Loki turned up a hand and accepted it.
“If that’s what you want,” Loki told him, his tone shrouded with some uncertainty. “I’ll keep it safe. Safe as anything in Derleth, anyway.”
A moment of hesitation to take the book, Vax would understand. Given how he’d reacted to its presence in the first place, giving it back was probably one of the more unexpected outcomes of Loki’s gesture of goodwill. But Vax knew he’d drive himself crazy over it beyond just the reading, especially if it all read the same way he remembered it happening - who could know that much about his life, after all? Who could have that much knowledge about both he and Vex’ahlia, from Byroden to Jorenn Village? Even allowing the beginnings of those questions to creep into his mind was enough to make him feel like he had a headache on the horizon.
Loki’s registered surprise was met with an answering lift of Vax’s eyebrows, though it was less surprise on his end and more expectation the longer he held the book out. Just before Loki finally reached to take it from him, he lifted it an inch or so and pushed it forward like he was offering it all over again to give Loki the chance to take it properly this time. The uncertainty in Loki’s acceptance had Vax narrowing his eyes just slightly as he tried to puzzle out the why of it.
“Sure it’s what I want, I wouldn’t be asking you to keep hold of it for me if it wasn’t.” Just having it out of his possession was a relief, actually. He offered another smile, hoping it was as encouraging as it was meant to be, and finally shifted to start unfolding himself up from the ground. “I know it’ll be safe with you. And on the bright side, if it isn't? You can just tell me it didn’t reset and I’ll never know the difference.” The smile became more of an easy grin as he dusted himself off and turned to offer Loki a hand up.
“But I’m properly hungry now and I’m sure I’ve kept you long enough. Besides, I think we’ll both melt if we share any more feelings with each other this week.” He clapped Loki on the shoulder briefly, fingers squeezing in a solid grip before he dropped his hand away. “Thank you, by the way. I don’t think I said in the shock of it, but.” He rolled his shoulders in a shrug to keep the full weight of sincerity off of them. “I do appreciate you letting me know you found it.” The next shrug was more of a full body shudder paired with a laugh. “All right, I’m definitely feeling gooey now so I’d best stop. Talk to you soon though, yeah?”
In all ways this went in Loki’s mind, the book left with Vax. It felt like an entire misunderstanding of how someone worked to assume they would horde the things that belonged to them just to keep tabs on everything. He would have done that. The question of allowing someone else to hold onto even a piece of his story was resolutely answered with a ‘no’.
A chuckle bubbled up the moment Vax’s hands dropped and the book was left solely in Loki’s grip. “Well, I suppose your secrets -- ” He tapped the cover. “And whatever ever else the hundred of other pages contain are safe with me.”
And before Vax even began to gather himself up, Loki already knew the natural end of their conversation had shored up. It was obvious in the quiet second when neither of them volunteered anything else. Enough had been said. There was no reason to get drunk on some information given in confidence, or to risk saying one thing too much… asking one thing beyond what was willing to be imparted.
“Later, then. I would say you know where to find me, but…” The grin across Loki’s features was brimming over. “Perhaps you’ll get the hang of that one day.”