bakerstreet | Aftercare Meme

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Aftercare Meme

THE AFTERCARE MEME

Sexual play can be intense. It can be emotional - it can be exhausting. It's essential to take time after to reaffirm, cuddle and comfort, apply any first aid, and relax.

PROMPTS:
1: ROUTINE. This is how you always do it; maybe it's complicated, maybe it's simple, but it has the comfort of ritual.
2: BROKEN. You're proud, you're confident, you're cocky, but this has cracked through the shell and left you open and needing.
3: SUB DROP. Withdrawal from the endorphins leaves you exhausted and unhappy. Someone needs to help with that.
4: DOM DROP. Dominating has really taken it out of you - maybe it's the submissive's turn to give some comfort.
5: SAFEWORD. You got interrupted in the middle: everything became too much, and someone used the safeword. Time to talk it out.
6: NONE. Your lover is cruel, and doesn't give you the aftercare you need.
7: WITH SOMEONE ELSE. You seek your comfort and your affirmation from someone besides your lover.
8: FIRST TIME. You've never done this before. The experience, the sensations - it's all new, and it leaves you all the more disoriented.
9: SECOND ROUND. Time for another go?
10: WILD CARD. For everything else!

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Cold. He feels cold. Steve has a complicated relationship with the chill, and while he knows about Loki's heritage--or at least, about the complicated heritage of the Loki of his world, and therefore he has some basis to make assumptions--it strikes him as a bad sign on more than one level. Absently, he gropes the back of the couch, where there's a small throw blanket with a logo from the last Stark Expo (guess who gave him that?). He pulls it down and tucks it clumsily against Loki while trying to watch his face and listen to his voice for nuance.

The even, heavy tones are not reassuring, but they're also very distantly removed from the vivacious theatricality of the other Loki's delivery. The words are English, perfectly clear, but Steve nevertheless feels a little like his friend is speaking a foreign language. A box? Burning? He wasn't prepared for this complexity, but he's never been one to back down from something he wasn't prepared for.

"I don't think evil needs a god," he offers mildly, as if they're just discussing a philosophical question at the moment. "Or a face, or a representative. There's a little of it in all of us no matter what."

He nudges his forehead against him gently and sighs. "You're talking about expectations, or destiny itself? If it helps at all...I prefer you unbroken, and trying to do your best."

It was… a long story. A long and complicated story, and if he were to tell the whole of it, Loki couldn’t help but fear what Steve might think of him for it. Just tucking under the offered warmth of the blanket being draped over him, keeping himself curled securely against Steve.

And if it meant that he couldn’t meet the man’s gaze, that would be just fine for now.

“Perhaps. But people are more comfortable when it does have a face. A name to attach blame to when poor choices lead to misery. Especially Asgardians, stubborn and resistant to change as they are. It was my own poor choices that led to my being stuck with the title. I’m a creature born of story and myth, when my brother decided to come to Midgard and fight alongside our Avengers, I thought nothing of following to oppose him merely to be contrary. A silly jealous impulsive choice to carry brotherly rivalry from Asgard to Earth with no thought for the archetype that would make me in the story.”

The small laugh that slipped from him at what Steve said after certainly wasn’t born of humor- it was barely discernible from a sob in tone. Would he feel the same once he’d learned the whole of what had happened to make Loki what he was? Or like Thor would he turn away?

“You… seem to be the only one, Steve.” What should have been a low, sardonic tone instead just… sounded small, fractured in a way.

Edited 2017-05-19 11:39 (UTC)

Steve might as well be snuggling with a nuclear bomb right now, as far as power and danger in potentia are concerned. He's dimly aware of this, on some level. Of course, the same could easily be said of most of the other people he knows. It's too much to think about what they might do or could do. And as far as what they have done...objectively he can see the argument that some of them should be locked away, but you can't redeem yourself from inside a cell.

Whatever Loki's done or might still do, it can't be made better, or balanced, or countered, by cruelty or self-destruction.

"Well...I have a little bit of an idea what it's like to fight people's expectations of you," he says. "They told my mother I'd never walk, or read, or finish school. I guess that's not the same thing, but it's something. I wanna see you be better than anyone ever thought you could be."

He runs his fingers through Loki's hair gently, content despite the gnawing feeling that he's in way over his head with this one. He's still going to try to help. "Do the stories people tell about you really affect who you are, or what you do? Literally?"

He wasn't sure what to say to Steven. That dark, broken, self-destructive part of him wanted to snap, to snipe about how it certainly wasn't the same. But at the same time, he was brought up short by what he said along with it. Something he... wasn't sure he believed anymore. That anyone ever wanted to see him be more than Loki, God of Evil. But somehow, coming from Steve? He wanted so badly to believe it.

And that? He wasn't sure how to feel about that. In a way it was frightening. Another person to disappoint. Another person to let down, like he'd let down Thor back home. Loki wasn't sure if he could take someone looking at him with that hurt again, that dawning realization of the idea that he might never be better, no matter how he tried.

"Literally." Said quietly, the god not moving from his spot against Steve, not with the warm reassurance of him, the soothing feel of fingers in his hair. "I'm not sure how your world's Asgardians are, but back home, we're literally created from the stories told. Gods in truth, bound to our tales. Like... oh, a bird. They still fly, they still dip and turn and soar, but gravity is still there. They always have to land. Our myths and legends are that to us. Gravity. Others have a gentler landing, but all there is for me is that same box. Evil, insane, always burning."

"It's why I worked for the Allmother. Every task completed for Asgard meant an old myth erased, both from story and memory, replaced with tales of my good deeds, such as they were at times." A small huff of noise, another not-laugh as Loki curled in a bit more, almost hiding his face against Steve. "For all the good it would do. She had other plans, meant to see me hit the ground so hard that any thought of rising past it again would be gone."

Steve is silent for a long time, turning this over in his brain. It's all a little too existential for him, maybe, but he can't let go of the thought of how horrible it would be to have so much of what and who you are dictated by what other people believe of you. Like being a snake devouring its own tail.

He's never been so glad to be human before. Even a weird, altered, misbegotten science experiment of a human. It's bound to be easier.

"Can...people make new stories, then, and change things for the better?" Even as the words come out of his mouth, he feels like it's painfully naive to ask, and hopes he hasn't just driven Loki away out of sheer annoyance. But if no one else is helping him, then goddammit, Steve has to try to figure something out.

"I'm not sure it's fair to blame you for things beyond your control..." He adds in a low voice.

Whatever Loki had expected, whatever he thought Steve would come back with, it certainly wasn't that. Shifting to look up at him, unable to help the slight confused crinkle of his brow. As if the idea of someone wanting to help him like that, to put that sort of effort into his cause was something entirely alien to him.

"I... I'm not sure." He replied slowly, weighing the idea in his mind. "I don't see why not. I just... know it's not easy. Thousands of years of stories, versus the new."

Even his own actions were like a grain of sand against a mountain. He couldn't change his stories, not against the grain of what already existed. As if it wasn't accepted if it didn't already match what was there. But someone else, someone without the gravity of Loki to weigh them down.

"I suppose every little bit helps, right?" A small, wan smile accompanying the statement. Because new stories would help. But at the same time, with so many old stories to overshadow the new, and no way to wipe them away... it might take quite a long time. And he wasn't sure how long he could keep flying like this.

"I had a choice." Not anything good, but he'd accepted this idea at least. "Instead of falling. I mean, you can't be a very effective God of Evil if you go and die on them, right?"

A small shrug as he said this, with a grimace. "By the time I realized what happened, I think it was too late for that anyways. I was too far gone. Once you start burning... you don't want to stop. It's almost addictive."

That sad, quizzical look is both endearing and heartbreaking. Steve ruffles Loki's hair gently and gives him a lopsided smile. "Well...worth a try, then."

He gives him a light kiss on the top of the head, then closes his own eyes. Gods and falling and burning. He's going to have to ask more questions later, when Loki is in a better frame of mind, and when Steve has had a chance to process some of this. "I guess most people get the choice to lie down and die, but it's not an attractive option."

"So...I'm not much of a storyteller, but I still draw, you know. And I have a new set of watercolors. I could paint a portrait of you; maybe it'd count. This is Loki, who texts me at weird hours and drags me to movies and is therefore unqualified to be the God of Evil." Truth be told, he's already done a couple sketches here and there, but not from life, and he usually doesn't admit to these things.

Loki wasn't sure what he'd done to inspire Steve to want to help him. Or to be so supportive in general. Just letting out a weak chuckle as he rested his head back against his chest again, fingers curling lightly in the fabric of his shirt. "Not to mention that'd prove everyone right. I'm far too spiteful to let something like that happen."

Here was hoping Steve really did like him, because he'd never be getting rid of him at this rate. He was... serious about wanting to help, for reasons Loki wasn't sure about just yet, but the idea just had a wash of gratitude rising in him.

"I don't know, I'm pretty sure most people would consider texting you the entire 'Bee Movie' script an act of utmost evil." The attempt at humor was a good sign, but there were hints in his tone that he wasn't all back to normal. Little things, but progress was still being made. "What sort of things do you draw anyways? When you're not trying to rehabilitate evil mythoforms, that is."

"That's the spirit," Steve tells him, half-teasing, half-sincere. If nothing else, he can sympathize with determination to prove the world wrong. He sighs as Loki relaxes again; Steve's enjoying the friendly physical contact on its own merits, enjoying being leaned on and held onto.

It's gratifying, maybe, to be able to be strong for someone.

He laughs softly. "That was...disruptive," he admits, grinning. "But I can see the humor in retrospect."

Actually, he could see the humor at the time, too. Steve has a funny relationship with pranks and games. If no one stands to get hurt, he takes them reasonably well and has been known to pay them forward. "There's a difference between being a jerk and being bad," he adds. "You're definitely a jerk when you want to be."

The way he says it, it sounds almost like a term of endearment.

"I don't know; I guess I mostly draw people. Sometimes landscapes or little details like flowers in a windowbox or someone's dog sticking its head out the car window. I'll show you some, if you want to see, only you don't seem ready to move quite yet."

It was reassuring to hear that from Steve. To hear that someone understood, even in a small way. Loki didn't budge for the moment, just staying curled against Steve, despite the stiffness he could feel starting to seep into his body, the deep ache now that he was starting to settle.

"A jerk? Me?" He huffed slightly, more carefully than he otherwise might with the fresh bloom of ache the move brought with it, pretending at offense. "And here I thought we were friends Rodgers."

But there was a bit of a pleased curl to his tone as he noted the way Steve's words sounded, something small but genuine.

"Something tells me that moving isn't going to be any sort of fun at this point if we're being fair. But I would like to get a look at your art."

"Hey, I never said I wasn't a jerk," he says. "Maybe we deserve each other."

'Punk' is what Bucky used to call him, actually. But it's a subtle distinction, and he's not sure those words mean the same thing in modern vernacular as they used to, anyway. Either way, he's happy to share the title with Loki now, especially if it amuses him.

For another moment, he rests where he is, stroking his hair, then makes a humming sound and nods. "Good. Let's go slow, then, and sit you up. Get that shirt off you, and I'll see what I can do about your bruises. You can look through my sketchbook while I work on that."

This time, he's not giving him much of a chance to demur, but he moves slow and gentle as he adjust his arms around the other man, prepared to help him sit up at his own pace.

"Well, isn't that what people say? Like draws like?" Not that he felt he had enough in common with Steve to be so alike. He wasn't nearly as good a person, at least in his own, admittedly biased opinion.

And while he didn't exactly want to move, to lose the warm reassurance of being curled up against Steve, there was something almost as comforting in the gentle way the other man was taking charge of the situation, and the gentle sort of support he offered while Loki reluctantly eased himself to sit upright with a faint noise of discomfort.

It was easy enough to unzip his sweatshirt and shrug it (carefully!) from his shoulders. The shirt underneath had to be pulled off over his head, and so it took a bit more fussing, especially drawing arms over his head. At least the fabric temporarily hid the wince the motion got from painfully stiff shoulders. He was fine. Totally and completely fine.

Of course that was a lie. An obvious one given the state of him. Raw marks on his wrists from restraints that probably weren't the most comfortable, but really that was the least of the issues tonight. From shoulder to a point that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans, the pale skin of Loki's back was a crosshatch of angry red marks, some wider, straight across like they were made with something rigid and straight, others thinner and more flexible, to the point that some of the marks curved around his side and ended at the front. And judging from just how wide those welts were, and how dark they all seemed to be, someone had been using way more force than necessary.

"Go easy on me Doc, I'm delicate." Hoping that the severity would startle Steve enough that he didn't consider the very obvious fact that like Thor, and like himself? Loki was normally very hard to hurt physically with normal human strength. Only when he offset density through his shifting, a thing he sometimes did to pass as human if he expected to be yanked around or lifted, but definitely left worrying implications of the level of self-destructive tendencies he had.

Steve isn't sure he's all that good, when it comes right down to it. He's aware he's got some kind of quality that people seem to admire, and he's not above playing it up, either to amuse or inspire, but ultimately he just feels sort of...average. Maybe a little more reckless than most, maybe a little more compassionate to the weak than some, but just a guy, in the end. A kid from Brooklyn.

Erskine called him a good man. It was flattering, and he wants to live up to that, but hell, maybe humility is the greatest good. He tries not to overanalyze himself.

It seems like it might be impossible to overanalyze Loki. He's way more complex, maybe a little out of the usual boundaries of Steve's comprehension. He'll try anyway, especially when it seems so obvious he needs to be cared about, and needs a friend.

While Loki takes off his shirt, Steve fusses with the witch hazel, pouring a little onto a gauze pad, then hesitating as he sees how gingerly the other man moves. He knew it was bad, but he wasn't sure how bad it was. The raw wrists aren't a surprise, but the rest...

He takes in a slow, hissing breath between his teeth, and looks physically pained. It's not so much the wounds themselves as the lack of caution and self-care they represent. And because his poker face is not the greatest, Steve's worry is immediately apparent. It's almost a sad-puppy expression. He moves closer again, touching Loki's shoulder to turn him a little. "You're supposed to say 'you should see the other guy'," he tells him quietly.

And Steve, for one, had better not see the other guy in this equation any time soon, because he might have to offer a piece of his mind and a punch in the jaw. Consensual this may have been, but clearly not responsible, and coupled with the clear lack of first aid and emotional care...

"This isn't someone you see regularly, right? One night stand kind of thing? Because I don't want you to--"

Pause. Okay, he has no right to dictate Loki's relationships or hookups. He starts over."Because in my opinion, you deserve someone who'll pay more attention to what they're doing. Okay? Please."

Goodness, as far as Loki saw it, wasn't about being some perfect paragon. And sure, Steve could play that role, he had that genuine sort of magnetism and charisma, but it was more... about being someone normal and still having that compassion. That humility.

He hears it's good for the soul.

He could hear the reaction from Steven, and even before he was being nudged to glance back was working to reclaim some tattered remnants of the facade of normalcy, even though he was well aware at this point that any smile wasn't going to be that confident easy thing he usually hid behind, but instead something more dull. Strained in a way. This definitely wasn't the worst he'd come off from a session, and while he didn't say those words, there was something of them in the grim, toneless chuckle that came from Steve and his advice on the right quip for the situation.

"Just a one-off guy." Replied in an off-handed way, as a way to neatly side-step the idea of what he deserved. There were so many things that Loki deserved in his opinion, and care was not among them. But, greedy thing that he was, he wanted it so badly at the same time.

"Well...that's something, I guess." Is it, though? In the long term, it's probably not that reassuring. Seems like he keeps seeking the same experience with different people. And now Steve isn't sure where his boundaries are here. If he can ask him to slow down. If he has any right to.

He sighs, needing a moment to get his own thoughts sorted out, and rises, crossing the room to fetch his sketchbook off a shelf under the window. His sketchbook, which is one of many sketchbooks he switches between with no real rhyme or reason. He doesn't show off his work much any longer; it's not his career anymore, just a hobby. Maybe he should be sad about that.

It's an older style, bound in blue canvas and black wire, and he sets it in front of Loki invitingly. "Help yourself. I'm going to go slow back here; let me know if it stings so much you want a break."

It's not reassuring at all. Because he knows that someday even a bad partner would get uncomfortable after enough sessions, and so he neatly avoided those conversations by... never settling. A different person each time, fresh anger, fresh frustration, no frame of reference for just what Loki was doing to himself in the bigger picture sense.

And while he might not say as much, there was a part of him that did want help. That did want to be encouraged to take care of himself, that he deserved to be okay. Maybe even happy. It was part of the reason that he came here finally, instead of simply hiding away in his own apartment like usual.

"Do what you need, I'll be alright." It might be more reassuring if Steve wasn't here tending him because he wasn't alright. Instead he drew the sketchbook a bit closer, so he could open it and take a look at the things that Steve liked to draw.

"Oh, no you don't," he says, firmly but quietly, and not without kindness. "You've got it written all over your back that you're no kind of judge of when you'll be all right. Not right now, at least; you're still altered from getting these stripes. You need to keep me informed where it hurts and how what I'm doing feels to you. I don't want you to tough it out right now."

He leans over his shoulder to try and meet his eyes, resting one hand on his upper arm. It's very gentle, careful not to jar any of his injuries. "We can talk about exorcising your demons later."

It's possible Steve understands this on a deeper level than he's letting on. Bucky used to accuse him of wanting to get beat up in back alleys. He wasn't really wrong. It's all an outlet, in the end; fighting, running, rough sex.

The firm tone was... not unexpected, with as flippant as Loki was trying to be. And in his current state there was an urge to push, to test the boundary the definitive words represented. But... unlike the boundaries of the others, the sudden, cold wall, the thing that was so painful to hit, Steve's words seemed to be something different. Still just as unyielding, just as intractable, but there was a comfort to the boundary they defined.

While it made him want to poke and press at them as part of his nature, it wasn't as destructively and unpleasantly insistent, and there was a part of him that also wanted to abide by them. To let Steve take care of him and just let Loki... be, for once. Without the whirling thoughts and instincts that always led to trouble.

He turned his head to look at Steve a long moment, something of that tense dark emotion roiling in him seeming to ease even a little as he nodded slowly.

"Okay. I'll... I'll try."

Edited 2017-06-01 01:45 (UTC)

Steve seems subtly relieved. If Loki had really wanted to dig his heels in, he's not sure what he would have done in response. Taking too hard a line could just drive him away, and Steve doubts being too soft with him would get results any better. Compromise works, though. He gives him a small, warm smile, and nods.

"Good. Just relax and look through the book, then." He settles behind him, sitting on the couch a few inches away, and studies the wounds a moment before he begins applying the ointment, starting at the less sensitive areas around the shoulder-blades and rib cage. The witch hazel is chilly, the alcoholic component in it evaporating fast in the air, but the scent is pleasantly herbal, and maybe the coolness will be soothing as he adjusts to it.

Inside the sketchbook, there are assorted pen and ink drawings, a few smudgy pencil sketches, and a number of miniature watercolor paintings. A lot of them seem to be portraits of the other Avengers, but there are some studies of flowers and birds (including a pair of ratty pigeons fighting over a french fry), a couple street scenes, and some caricatures of politicians and actors. Towards the middle of the sketchbook, Loki may come upon the sketches Steve has done of him. They're simple, drawn from memory, with looser, more fluid lines than some of the other drawings, as if he was thinking about motion when he was drawing, more so than just the shape of him. He's looking up at the sky in one drawing, and laughing in the other.

Steve was right. Go too soft in this case and Loki would run ramshod over everything. Go too hard? He'd had his fill of that this evening and likely would just withdraw, if not physically, then emotionally, which could in it's way be worse. But for all they weren't doing anything, for all this was just Steve tending to Loki's injuries, there was something in his approach that Loki seemed to respond to. It was something more akin to a firm embrace, rather than cold steel, and was comforting to the trickster.

Other than slowly paging through the book, Loki stayed still for Steve, letting out a quiet huff of breath at the chill that started to slowly crawl over the areas where the ointment was being applied. Nothing bad in the least, especially not with the heat of the injuries that it counteracted. Even just that sensation alone was miles better than the injuries on their own.

But for the moment he was silent, attention mostly on the sketchbook he was leafing through, pausing at the pieces that caught his eye. It wasn't the same thing each time, Steve was talented without a doubt. Small things drawing him to linger over one or another page for longer; the turn of the line of a petal. A particular pattern of highlighting. The perspective of one of the streets. The pigeons, which were just so quintessentially New York that it drew a short, soft chuckle from Loki. He was honestly a bit surprised to see that Stephen already had sketched him. He wasn't sure why, and he wasn't upset about it, but for some reason he simply... hadn't expected it.

As he works, he's gauging how deep the bruising is, imagining the kind of force it would take to create those kinds of wounds on himself. A lot. A hell of a lot. Presumably Loki has some control over that, but even if he reduced his durability down to a normal human level, this many marks with this much severity...that implies some serious commitment and energy on the part of whoever did this to him. This was not a dom, this was someone with anger issues who found a convenient focus for them.

He's not going to bring it up just yet, but he can't help but be anxious again. Someone like this might not just hang around and hope Loki calls them again. Presumably it would be very hard to stalk the consummate trickster, but since it should also be a challenge to get him to let himself be tied up and beaten, Steve thinks he's allowed to worry about this. He'll bring it up later, and he'll keep as close an eye on him as he can for a few weeks.

Meanwhile, he cranes his neck now and then to check on his progress through the book, grinning a little at his reaction to the pigeons. Truth be told, that's one of Steve's favorites, too. When he comes to the drawings of himself, Steve is working on his lower back, and he tentatively leans closer, tucking his chin against Loki's bicep for a moment.

"Those are just doodles," he says sheepishly. "Your jawline's all wrong in them. If you let me do one from life, it'll be better."

It was questionable if Loki considered that problem. He didn't think it was something to worry about if he did- the average human, without abilities or tech or spells? Wouldn't be able to do anything to him that he didn't let them that he could think of. And he could easily change where his apartment was, had done it before when he'd managed to convince some rather gullible folk that he lived with a celebrity and later tired of the attention it brought. Besides the fact that while he introduced himself as Loki, as far as any of his partners knew? He was nothing but a normal human himself. So anyone coming to cause trouble would be greatly underestimating him.

"They're still good." It wasn't often he'd consider Steve 'cute' outside of teasing him, but something about the way he was tucked in to peer at Loki with that sheepish sort of explanation? Certainly the word fit, enough that Loki offered a faint smile, reaching carefully to ruffle his hair, giving the forelock a gentle, teasing sort of tug. "I didn't know you'd already done any of me."

The others sure, but somehow the idea that Steve thought about him enough that he'd done these surprised him a little.

At this point, Steve would be more concerned about Loki letting something happen to him. He's certainly proved himself elusive when he wants to be.

Steve is clearly pleased by the compliment; he's still looking a little sheepish, or maybe just modest, but not flushed. He knows he's reasonably good at his drawing and painting, but he doesn't often show the results, and it's nice to get some appreciation.

The smile, likewise, is reassuring, but when Loki messes with his hair, he makes a small squawking sound of amusement and surprise: "Eh! Hey...!"

And yet, he butts his head into the touch rather than pulling away, grinning now. "Well, thank you? I still want another go at it, if you'll let me. Not necessarily tonight, but sometime."

And honestly, Steve was right to worry about that, with the results of just that sort of behavior sitting with him right then.

His fingers twitched faintly at the initial protest, but when he felt Steve press against his fingers instead of retreating, he relaxed again, threading his fingers lightly through his hair again in response. Something about the situation just... driving a want to touch. Nothing sexual, not really, but a bit more intimate than the more casual sort of contact he used around Steve generally. More affection there too, not that he'd say as much except to chalk it up to his current state if called on it.

"Well I don't see why not, could be fun."

And, oh, that simple touch feels better than it should. Not in a sexual way, but in a subtle, reassuring way that makes him ache for a moment. He closes his eyes briefly, but probably long enough for Loki to read wistfulness in his expression. He should probably move, finish up the treatment of those bruises. He's almost done. He's extremely disinclined to move while he's being stroked, though.

"It might be a little boring, posing," he murmurs, "but we can play music or something so you're not too restless. I don't need a long sitting; just enough to get the lines right."

"Glad you don't mind. Some people get self-conscious."

just a big floofy blond.

H*ckin' good Cap, 13/10 would pat.

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