the_variant | (no subject)

Entry tags:

loki,
pyre fest

(no subject)

Sylvie hates that they're here.

Nothing about the festival itself is interesting to her, not the music, not the camping, none of it really. But the possibility of an island having simply appeared, now that is absolutely fascinating. So she goes, she demands Loki goes with her, to see what they might be able to discover about the island, about Darrow, about the impossibility of it all. Their intentions are good, even if she doesn't know what they would have possibly used any of the answers for.

All this time, all these months, and she still doesn't know if she wants to leave or make sure they stay.

Things begin to go wrong almost immediately. The festival itself is a joke, with little food being supplied, and almost nothing Sylvie might call music, even within the loose definition Darrow uses for the subject. The tents are barely more than tarps and she's intent on getting back to Darrow properly at the first chance they have.

Except they miss the ferry. And they miss the ferry because, for longer than she'd like to admit, Sylvie had been floating following a bloody bee sting. By the time she finally figures out how to get down -- a second sting, which is really more luck than anything -- the first ferry is gone.

And the second ferry is on fire.

The first time Sylvie sees someone in a cloak, they're preparing to swing a bat toward Loki's head, and while she's certain he can protect himself, she still grabs his arm and yanks him back, shouting, "Down!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

"Oh, good Heavens, we'd never hear the end of it," Loki said, his smile soften as he thought of his friend, whom he missed more than he would've thought possible.

"He didn't remember me, last I saw him. Or, a version of him, I suppose."

That's her fault, she knows. She killed He Who Remains, she destroyed the Sacred Timeline, and wherever she sent Loki, it was to a Mobius who no longer knew him, perhaps no longer knew either of them.

She squeezes his hand and says, "I'm sorry."

Those words aren't always easy for her, but she is truly sorry. Sylvie can't often allow herself to consider what she's done, how it's possibly broken the world, and she can't begin to apologize for it all, but she can apologize for this, to him.

"Oh! I wasn't—" He began, feeling the unfamiliar urge to reassure her, even though they both knew that her actions had, at least in part, been to blame.

Instead of saying any of that, he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze in return.

"I doubt he and I would've remained strangers for long. I am quite charming, you know."

"I know," she says. "But I'm still sorry."

A smile curves her lips even as she rolls her eyes at him. "Yes, of course you are. You'd have the poor man wrapped around your finger again in no time, even though we both know I would still be his favourite."

A funny thing she would never have imagined. Being someone's favourite anything.

"Well, that goes without saying," Loki pointed out, and it seemed ludicrous that seeing her roll her eyes at him would give him so much pleasure, but they were living in absurd times.

As they continued to walk, the sky began to lighten with the coming dawn. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but danger no longer seemed imminent.

Up ahead, he could see the fractured skeleton of what was once a building. A cabana, perhaps. His eyes scanned the trees, but he saw no signs of life, apart from the birds inhabiting the canopy.

As the sky lightened, dark blue becoming purple becoming pink, and the birds called overhead, Sylvie allowed herself a moment to simply enjoy. Maybe it hadn't been the weekend she had hoped for, but in the end, something had worked out regardless.

The hope she feels is a tentative thing, tinged with fear, and yet she allows herself to feel it. She doesn't chase it away.

"How romantic," she says and for once she isn't giving him a hard time. In its way, it is romantic. A place all their own.

"It needs a bit of work," he observed dryly, though his frown immediately softened when he realized that she seemed genuinely happy to have found the place.

"Our own little place at the edge of the world?"

He gave her hand a squeeze.

"Well, I wasn't planning on living here," she replies, her smile pressed tight between her teeth as if she's trying to hold it back. As if she doesn't quite understand why it's happening in the first place.

"But for now, yes," she says. "I think so."

Now the one to lead the way, Sylvie picks her way over a few rocks and under what used to be the cabana. The ground there is clear, mostly grass and sand, and she sits down, then sighs and lies flat on her back, looking up at the sky.

"Well, I should hope not," he said, with feigned horror as he climbed over the rocks and dropped himself down onto the sand at her side.

Rolling onto his back, he crossed his ankles casually, one hand folded behind his head.

"You're right. This isn't terrible."

"Of course it isn't, we're here," she replies, then rolls onto her side and presses her palm against Loki's stomach. She still has dried blood in her hair, they're both dusty from the time on the island without shelter and the fight, but she's not sure she's ever seen him look as beautiful as he does in this light, the pink of the sunrise catching the hollows of his cheekbones.

In a quick movement, she slips onto his lap, thighs on either side of him, just so she can look down at him properly.

"I made the wrong choice before," she says, hands resting on his stomach. "When I chose vengeance over you."

She was on him, strong thighs around his hips, her small hands resting on his stomach, and he might have laughed. He might have pulled her to him, devested her of her clothes, and spent the morning rolling about with her in the sand until they were both sated. Instead, she opened her mouth, and she might as well have punched him with her full strength directly in the stomach. The air left his lungs and he was uncharacteristically dumbstruck, looking up at her with his mouth gaping like a fish.

"Yes," he said hoarsely, his mind taken back to that moment right after she'd sent him through the time door, back to the wrong TVA. Nothing in his life had ever hurt so keenly, not because he didn't understand why she'd done it, but because he knew exactly why she felt it was the only choice in front of her. He'd been there, thought the same things she'd thought, felt the same things she'd felt. Vengeance had never been his goal, but he understood being so wounded that you're willing to take the whole universe down with you to attain what's yours.

"Yes," he said again, sitting upright, a tear slipping from the corner of his eye unbidden as he lifted a hand to her cheek. "But don't worry," he said, managing a wry, if watery smile. "I won't hold it against you."

"I appreciate it," she answers, her tone dry even though she's smiling. "It'd be a bit of a difficult relationship if you were constantly holding that over me."

Her smile softens a bit and she lifts her hand, fingertips brushing away the errant tear. Then she leans in, kisses the damp trail on his face, tastes the salt on his skin.

"I love you," she says again, almost cautiously, as if she's afraid he'll take it back now, even after only a few minutes.

"I can be very magnanimous," he chuckled, his arms around her, pulling her into what could only be called an embrace.

"I love you," he murmured against her brow, his chin wobbling in such a way that would have been humiliating had he been in front of anyone else but her.

He held her, kissing her hair, her brow, the bridge of her nose, until finally, he found her mouth with his own.

He doesn't take it back, doesn't tell her he's changed his mind, and while she knows those thoughts are foolish, it doesn't change the way her entire body surges upon hearing the words from him, as if it were the first time. And she can feel the way his chin is trembling, can feel the warmth in his hands on her, and when she tilts her head up to meet his mouth with her own, it feels like her heart might thunder out of her chest.

This is what she's avoided for so long. Being loved. Being known.

And after all that, it feels rather nice.

Her lips parting for him, Sylvie slips her hands under his shirt, using a bit of magic to undo the buttons one by one all without having to stop touching him. Her fingers turn under, nails scratching lightly at his stomach as she presses closer, almost as if she's trying to crawl inside of him.

His shirt ended up gone, half by magic and half by the help of their hands. Later, it might occur to him how amusing it was, that the island seemed permissive to them using their magic for something like this. Perhaps it wanted them distracted, perhaps they were foolish, but in that moment, stopping wasn't even a possibility in his mind.

She scratched at him and he shivered, teeth catching on her bottom lip, his hands scrambling to remove her shirt.

She pulls back from the kiss long enough to hook her hands in the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head, and when the waves of her hair tumble back against her shoulders, she finds Loki's mouth once more. Both her hands go to frame his face, holding his cheeks in her palms, her tongue sliding against his before she sinks her fingers into his hair.

They're not the same. No matter what they've said to one another, no matter what anyone else has said. They're no more the same than anyone else, shaped by their worlds, and Sylvie is glad his world has turned him out like this.

She pulls back again, then kisses his top of his shoulder, then pale plane of his chest, pushing him back down to the ground again with both her hands on his skin.

Chuckling softly as his back hit the sand, Loki slid the straps of her bra from her shoulders, fingertips grazing the lines of her collarbones, his mouth dry with the desire to taste her. He cupped her breasts through the practical cotton of her bra, thumbing at the pebbles of her nipples, his eyes dancing with mischief as he made the garment vanish all together.

"How's your head?" He inquired, sounding playfully casual as he touched her. "A concussion calls for a respite from strenuous activity."

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to stop?" she asks with a tilt of her head, even as she closes her hands over Loki's, pressing her breasts into his palms, amused by the way he makes the bra simply disappear. A talent she's sure he's used more than a few times in his life.

"We could stop," she says with a slow roll of her hips, her hands still upon his, guiding his touch. "Or maybe we just have to take care not to get too strenuous."

Somehow she doubts they'll stick to that.

"Oh, of course. Think of it as a leisurely stroll," Loki suggested, with a teasing smile that was downright besotted.

He sat up abruptly, pulling one hand from her grasp and hooking an arm behind her back, his smiling mouth barely a hair's width from her own.

"Perhaps you should let me do the driving for now, madam. I'm not sure you have your best interests at heart," he quipped, knowing it was likely to goad her into pushing him around even more, but that was an equally happy outcome.

“That’s been true of most of my life,” she points out, the nips at his lower lip, teeth grazing skin. They both know what she’s spent most of her life trying to do, what she’s been looking for.

She would never call it a mistake. She still wants to destroy the TVA, but she’d meant what she’d said; the right choice, the better choice was him.

“I must really like you to let you do the driving,” she says, hands moving up his back, one palm on the back of his neck.

"Like, was it? I don't recall that being the word," Loki smirked, holding her against him as he rolled them both to bring himself over her. They would both be impossibly sandy, once this was all over, and he would probably be insufferable in his complaining, but it would be worth it.

He kissed her, lips first, then the point of her chin, the long column of her throat. Every time she allowed this— welcomed it, in fact, he felt absurdly grateful. She'd chosen this, with him, as he'd chosen her, which was a rare gift for people like them.

“Liking someone and loving them are different things,” she answers, but she lets him roll them over, allows herself to press down into the sand. “I think it’s rare to feel both at the same time.”

An admission she does, for him, even if it’s not in so many words. Every press of his mouth pulls a soft sound from her and she hooks one leg over his hip, her foot wrapping around the back of his thigh as her hands slide down his back. Her body arches, pressing toward him, his mouth, his touch, everything.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever liked someone, loved them, and wanted them,” she says as her nails drag lightly up over his shoulders.

"What can I say, I'm a very well-rounded person," he said, the urge to make light of her admission winning out, for the moment. He kissed between her breasts, kneading one in the palm of his hand while he tasted the other.

"I want you," he said, kissing the delicate curve of her ribs. "I like you," he added, dropping lower to dip his tongue into her navel. "And, in case you've forgotten in the last three minutes..." he teased, lifting his eyes to her face as he pressed another kiss just above her waistband. "I love you."

Not so long ago, she would have thought it a weakness, the way something inside her flutters and comes to life with his words. Maybe a part of her is still a little afraid it might be, but it's a quiet part, at least now, and she smiles down at Loki, a genuinely besotted smile.

"Well, who wouldn't?" she asks, sinking her fingers into his hair.

No one would, really, she's never let anyone and she had thought it might feel like giving up. Instead it feels like giving into something, something good, and Sylvie lifts her hips, pushing down the waist of her pants and underwear to help him.

"Only terrible fools," Loki murmured, stripping her of the last of her clothes, his mouth finding the inside of her knee. It seemed unfathomable that he had been given enthusiastic permission to this. She wanted him, as badly as he wanted her.

It had been enough to tear a hole in the timeline, disrupting the very fabric of the universe, but he had no intention of stopping.