ʀɪᴄʜɪᴇ (beepbeep) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-05-26 10:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, marvel (tv/movies): loki laufeyson, ₴ inactive: richie tozier, → week 037 (little cakes) |
little cakes - day 4
Words deceived him. Writing deceived him. Communicating in any normal fashion deceived him. Everything about Loki this week—whether accidental or intentional—was a lie. And so he decided to respond in the only manner which wouldn’t result in another bickering spat like the one he’d had on the network with Baby Horns. He just wouldn’t talk. And that was challenging. Very, very, very challenging. But not impossible! He’d spent the majority of the afternoon lying in an open patch of the Green near the edge of the forest, reading one of the many books he’d picked up from the week in Florida. It wasn’t particularly noteworthy, but the prose was amusing, and he occasionally caught himself in the middle of an enthusiastic chuckle. Mobius was with him, too. Well, a version of Mobius anyway. Loki hadn’t liked the fact that Mobius had been cursed with one of the animal maladies. And a dog of all creatures. (Definitely not Loki’s first choice.) But he had to admit that he enjoyed not having to worry about saying something that would hurt his feelings. Mobius the Dog merely wanted to roll in the grass, chase after sticks, and sleep on his lap. He picked up a stick and threw it across the lawn, using a bit of magic to increase its distance so it would be more fun for Mobius. Then he rolled over onto his stomach and transformed into his female form. Lady Loki, as she was affectionately referred, often struck fear in the hearts of people. She was more intense and deceiving than Loki’s masculine guise. She carried an antagonistic confidence that very few people could match. And she knew it, which only made it worse. But today Loki was softer around the edges. She wore a Derleth Athletics Dept t-shirt, a pair of jean shorts, and simple tennis shoes. Her hair hung over her face as she turned the pages in her book, legs playfully bending at the knees, up and down opposite each other. Dogs saw in dichromatic vision - they could only discern blue and yellow, and couldn’t see red and green. Which meant the grass was an interesting shade to a canine Mobius but he didn’t much care about the color of it - he only wanted to roll around in the soft blades, which were covered in varying scents here in the Green. Dog nose was an intense nose and he picked up on a menu of aromas - plus it just felt good. Kind of soothing. And rolling around was a way to mark his territory. He’d already claimed this spot as his, to let any other dogs that would happen across it also know that it was his - the human in the grass was his too, and Dogbius came happily bounding back with a stick caught in between his teeth, floppy ears and golden fur and all. He dropped the stick by Loki and nudged her face with that cold, wet nose to show affection - and also to get her to throw the stick again, that too. Having decided that fresh air was ideal (or as fresh as one could get in the Void), Richie went for a walk to shake off some of the depressive shackles that had covered him ever since Matt disappeared - he noticed the lumbering retriever and chuckled a little, since the dog just looked so happy. Curses be damned. “I’d say this is the weirdest shit, but I think we’ve all faced weirder,” he noted as he approached and stooped to love on dog Mobius. “Goodest boy! You’re the goodest boy in the whole world! Whooooooo’s the goodest boooooooy...” He loved dogs. Sue him. The human on the grass. Loki didn’t talk to animals the way Midgardians talked to animals. She found it insulting. Just because they couldn’t communicate in a way that sounded intelligent didn’t make them dumb. And having been a number of animals over the course of her own lifetime—some of which she considered to be as much her as her Asgardian form—she knew that animals could be just as witty as people. Sometimes more so. When Mobius rubbed his nose against her, she gently pushed him away. She pretended like she didn’t like the canine affection, but it was growing on her. Not the smell, however. She didn’t like the smell of dogs. But it wasn’t only a dog. It was Mobius. That made all the difference. She picked up the stick and chucked it in another direction. She’d just barely turned the page of her book when she heard that patronizing sound of a human doing the ‘good boy’ voice. And had it been anyone else, Loki might have rolled her eyes and said something crude. But Richie didn’t deserve that. Especially not now. Loki rolled onto her side and looked over at the tall man with the weird hair and the nerdy glasses. “Don’t lie to him. You’ll give him a ‘good boy’ complex.” She smiled. “Hi Richie.” Mobius ran off to chase the stick - find the stick, must find the stick, bring back the stick - and Richie gave a little wave before pushing his glasses up on his nose. He’d seen female Loki before, a couple times, most notably in eighties New York - and he didn’t swing that way but yeah, she was hot. No shame in admitting that. Not that he was really assessing who was hot and who wasn’t - pretty much everyone on campus was good-looking, they easily fell under that umbrella, and he was too depressed to want to act on any urges anyway. It would be awhile before he felt comfortable moving on, if he ever did - maybe the sadness would just always feel like dark secrets and a dark hovering raincloud, and he’d think relationships in a place where they weren’t stable were pointless, even if he knew that wasn’t true. It was honestly the connections he made that kept him from going batshit insane week to week. “Hello yourself,” he grinned, folding long limbs to pull up a patch of grass nearby. “You guys just chilling out here? Anything interesting happening?” Oh right, Loki had the lying curse. This should be a fun answer. Were it anyone other than Richie, Loki might have shifted back into her masculine form to make the interaction more familiar and comfortable. But Loki didn’t want to be misinterpreted anymore than she already had been that week. All those angry net posts. That peculiar interaction with Steve Rogers. No, she needed to be in a position where her words and actions couldn’t be taken too far in the wrong direction. So, she remained as she was. “Something like that,” she said with a halfhearted shrug. The answer was yes. Yes, they were just chilling. But she couldn’t give a direct response, hence the wishy-washy middle ground. It was one of the subtle tricks of manipulating the curse that she’d discovered. Loki closed the book and sat up. “I guess that depends on what you find interesting. If you like dogs then maybe that one is interesting. You can keep him if you want.” But it was no surprise to anyone that Loki was a cat person. She grabbed the tip of Richie’s shoe and gently shook it back and forth. “How are you doing? You look like shit. In a good way.” She frowned, trying to reason out how that sounded in opposite terms, but shook it off quickly. Oh well. Richie would figure it out. For a second he was the human equivalent of that gif with the guy and all the question marks, but alright, Richie figured it out - he was pretty swift on the uptake. Or, well, basically what he knew was that he couldn’t really hold anything against someone with a lying curse - couldn’t hold much against any of them here on campus, really. Not when when most of them were stuck with some annoying quirk after eating a fucking cupcake that was the siren’s song of all baked goods - mostly they were just trying to make it through til whatever fresh hell would be thrown at them next week. Holy shitballs, was he exhausted. But he imagined many of them were. “I’ll dog sit him but I think he likes you best,” Richie chuckled. It was true. Dog Mobius would probably just whine at the door, waiting for Loki to come back and give him belly rubs - they bonded with their packmates, the pups did. “I’m okay though. Mostly. I don’t know - still kind of trying to figure my shit out. It’s one thing being dumped but another to have the person you love just fucking vanish.” Mobius returned with the stick which he dropped off as a slobber-covered gift, you’re welcome. Then he settled next to Richie, head placed in his lap - dogs were good at sensing when someone needed comfort, at least. And Richie, sitting criss-cross applesauce while wearing jeans and one of his loud-ass Hawaiian shirts from home and Converse sneakers, appreciated the animal affection. He scratched Mobius’s head, between his ears. Aww. “We’re all aware of the risk, even if we walk into it blindly,” Loki said in a strangely philosophical way that she hadn’t ever expressed in front of Richie before. At least, not in person. Not intentionally. She let go of Richie’s foot and picked up a long blade of grass. She raised it in front of her face and stared at it long enough to cross her eyes. Then she brushed it against the side of her nose. It tickled and she almost laughed. Almost. “And everyone likes me best.” Loki placed the blade of grass on Mobius’s head. She had to admit that there was something peaceful about the way he laid there, his muzzle nudging against Richie in an attempt to comfort him. She stretched her legs out in front of her, crossing them at the ankles. Her skin was a shade lighter in this form than the one most people at Derleth were familiar with, but she doubted anyone would notice. It was subtle. And even though she—and everyone else—saw a fleshy tone when they looked at her, she sometimes thought she caught a glimmer of Jotunn blue trying to bleed through the illusion. But that was just madness. “He might come back. I think … I think there’s just as good a chance that he’ll return as anyone.” Sometimes lies were good. Sometimes they helped. “And if you ever want to see him or if you can’t remember what he looked like…” Loki waved at her own face. “I can offer a reminder.” That doggie tail thumped, a wag and a swish as Mobius rested against Richie. But he also wiggled and maneuvered so his bulky fluff was shared in between the two humans (or, well, maybe one wasn’t human - but dogs didn’t have a lot of nuance, all this pup knew was that the person smelled like his person and dog Mobius loved them) - prime cuddle position, out here on a pleasant ‘sunny’ Void day. He’d spent most of the morning chasing squirrels and other small creatures and playing fetch with the stick - now he wanted to be lazy and rest, often content to lie at the feet of his loved ones. Or in their laps. Big, bulky golden retriever that wasn’t a lapdog according to physics - yet this big, bulky golden retriever didn’t care about that part. “I thought about it before, yeah,” Richie admitted, still continuing to pet Mobius - along his side, and all that soft fur. “That either of us could disappear. But I went into everything anyway and don’t regret it.” It was just a sobering reminder that until they figured this shit out, if they ever did, that they were all at the mercies of Derleth and its broken experiment. He glanced up at Loki. “...you’d put on his face, if I ever wanted to see it? That’s kind of sweet.” It was probably too soon but maybe someday - just for funsies. Loki shrugged her shoulders. Had it been a sincere offer made out of kindness and affection? Yes. But Loki couldn’t admit that. That would make her look like a nice person. And Loki couldn’t possibly be a nice person. Loki was Loki. She had to be devious and chaotic and full of mischief. She couldn’t be seen passing out meaningful compliments and attempts to be helpful. What kind of villain would she be then? “Maybe. I won’t make out with you looking like him though,” she said, forgetting momentarily that every direct comment she said was a lie. At least, some kind of lie. Some were more truthful lies than others. If that made sense. Not that anything this week made sense. Not that anything in Derleth ever made sense. “Can I tell you something? Since we’re both in a bit of a rut as far as life goes?” Loki licked her lower lip. Then she glanced over her shoulder to the forest part of the Green, gaze oddly serious for a split moment before she turned back to Richie. “I am not...” She paused and laughed. Then she shook her hair over her shoulders. “I’m me. This is me. Loki.” She twirled a finger in her hair. “Loki, Loki, Loki. Does it sound funny to you when I say my own name? Is it weird? Do you ever feel funny saying your name? Richie, Richie, Richie.” Richie snorted a laugh. Making out with someone wearing Matt’s face without it actually being Matt might be like, weird as hell - or no ‘like’ about that, it definitely would be. Probably erring on the side of obsession too and he didn’t want to turn into one of those people. Still, it was a kind...lie? Surprisingly, he could interpret the degree of lies pretty well depending on what it was. Maybe it helped that Loki was one of the first people he’d talked to when he’d crash-landed in Derleth - and that felt like so long ago. A lot happened - Richie had been a shit ton of different versions of himself, and most of them were connected to Matt in some way. First they were lovers in the 1950s. Then there was all that anger, a hunter chasing a werewolf while being consumed by fury. The two ‘evil’ versions of them too, broken, yet they’d still chosen each other because that felt right and real when so little actually did. “Yeah, you can tell me whatever you want to tell me,” he said. “So you’re having some kind of identity crisis?” was his guess. Lying all week must be really annoying too but that was a whole other bag of worms. “I mean, we’ve been so many people - can’t we just be ourselves for once?” Even last week. He remembered the life of a whole other Richie, again, and this one was happy - he wanted it. But he wanted it to be true for him, and not just an echo of another existence. “Identity crisis?” Loki pursed her lips thoughtfully as though she hadn’t quite considered that possibility. Could it be that simple? But she was ancient. It had been centuries since she’d gone through an identity crisis. Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. She’d had a change of heart about her identity after her mother died. And then again after her father passed on. Another change after Ragnarok. Not to mention the fact that Derleth forced her to run literal circles around other versions of herself every other week. Vampire Loki. Supreme Lokian Leader. Professor Odinson. King of Space. Unicorn. The Scourge of Empire City. How many others did he have memories of? And how many more were waiting to take up another piece of his mind? Or worse, permanent residence? “Perhaps.” She scooted closer to Richie so she could scratch Mobius behind the ears. “What you had with Matt…” She paused. She wanted to make herself clear without sounding insulting. Not as easy as it seemed. She pressed a finger to Richie’s chest and moved it around in the shape of a heart. “Some things don’t go away just because the people do.” Loki wasn’t sure how she was able to express that without lying. Maybe it was the word ‘some’. Maybe it was because it was indirect. Either way, she was glad it came out properly. She even smiled, proud of herself. Like Julia said. Be creative. Figure it out. One small win for Loki that week. The display of affection from Loki had Mobius’s tail thumping happily too, those ears twitching as he laid there wanting more - the grass felt nice and people were petting him, how much better could it get? Maybe if he had a bone to gnaw on. Or a steak. Yeah, give him a steak - now that would be perfect... He lifted big brown eyes (funny that he had a different color eyes than when he was human - day blue then, but the shade of chocolate when he was a dog) as if agreeing with what Loki said, even if it sounded like gibberish (mostly) to a dog’s ears - even if all he picked up on was inflection. The softness of the tone and the genuineness behind it - dogs were good judges of character, believe it or not. Meanwhile, Richie? He may have had to blink back tears - not in a bad way. He wasn’t upset. But the shape of the heart, his own heart still beating steadily in his chest despite the recent crack down the center and the empty cavern with Matt’s name on it, and the reassurance of the words - it all meant something to him. “Thanks,” he replied sincerely. “I...think so too. I probably would have said the same thing to other me, or...you know. Someone else in this shit situation.” And he’d be okay. He’d mourn, he’d eat his feelings, he’d get drunk about it - and he’d still love Matt, without thinking that was wrong. But he had to move on too while not forgetting their time together, and he would. Eventually. Loki had her moments. They were few and far between, but they were there. A lot of people in Derleth didn’t recognize it—or perhaps refused to acknowledge it—but she had changed a lot since her arrival. The constant frustration was proof of it. There was a time in her life when Loki wouldn’t have cared about the feelings of others. Her interlude with the King of Space was proof of that. Proof of how far into the darkness a desperate Loki could go when they didn’t try to become something more. When they didn’t try to be someone better. Loki was still annoying and mischievous and capable of destruction. But she was also kinder, more compassionate. And most importantly, she wanted to be different. But she also knew that if their positions had been reversed—if Loki had been in Richie’s spot, mourning the disappearance of a loved one—she would need someone to come to her side immediately. Maybe for nothing more than quiet company. Maybe just to listen or to lean on. That’s why she’d tried to offer him her sympathy. That’s why she paid attention to him now. “Take Mobius for the rest of the day. I’m tired of throwing sticks anyway. It’s not really my thing.” She spoke flippantly. It was meant to sound like she didn’t care. Like she wasn’t doing Richie a favor by offering him a canine companion. When, of course, it was exactly the opposite. A ploy to keep Richie from spiraling. After all, who could possibly spiral when they had a big slobbery mutt begging them to play fetch? Loki, probably. But that was beside the point. Aw, look at this face. Mobius was one sweet, adorable canine - and Richie knew that he’d experience even more healing with a stalwart ‘man’s best friend’ by his side. Maybe he could even cry into Mobius’s fur and no one would notice his breakdown. Dogs were good for breakdowns - they just let you cry. Cats would scratch your face off if you tried to sob into the comfort of their bellies. “Okay, I guess,” he laughed a bit, standing up and dusting grass off his jeans. “You ready to go walkies, Mobi?” The dopey golden retriever perked up, lifting his head excitedly. No leash required, he was a Very Good Boy and he always stayed by the side of whomever was with him, when he wasn’t lying regally at their feet and expecting many pets. Plus he would come back when he was called so he was also a Very Smart Boy. “Come on,” Richie patted his chest, seeing if the dog would jump up - sure enough he did, because Mobius gave great hugs with all four paws. “Ooof - “ It made Richie chuckle at least. “Yeah, you’re pretty awesome. Alright, let’s go.” But first Mobius had to kiss Loki goodbye - riiiiight there on the face, a lick with that large pink tongue. You’re welcome again, honey. “Gross,” Loki grumbled after Mobius licked her face. Not a lie. Loki didn’t like that. And as soon as Mobius had turned his wagging tail on her, she used a spell to clean off the slobber. She couldn’t help but smile though at the look on Richie’s face when Mobius gave him that attentive canine stare. Had she done a good thing? A kindness? Did this make her a nice person? Probably not. But for a split second Loki felt good. Then she picked up her book and laid back down in the grass, hair splayed out around her head as the eerie light of the Void and the false Asgardian sky beamed down upon her. “Don’t give him too many treats though.” She reopened the book to the last page she was on. “He’s starting to get soft around the waist.” |