bakerstreet | Dance with me.

[ Caught up to 1x04, please let me know if you'd like to avoid spoilers ]

[ There is... screaming, yes, because why wouldn't there be? It's the end of the world, after all, for all the good (and otherwise) people of Lamentis-1. However, there's also music being floating almost unheard beyond that.

Loki tilts his head a bit to the side. ]

Do you hear that? The music, not the screaming, obviously.

[ As much as she'd like to claim that she's able to tune him out because he vexes her, the truth is that in their brief time together, Sylvie's learned to listen carefully. So she already raises her head and turns her face towards him with a quizzical pull of her brows before she's registered what he means, lost as she was in the contemplation of her own existence at the ends of so many worlds, now doomed to die in one.

Sylvie frowns in a moment of not getting it, but the tilt of his head stops her from reprimanding him - out of habit more so than out of heat. She listens, and when the music registers, something softens at the corners of her eyes. Not a smile though, but it does make her younger, more open in expression, blue eyes sharpening with a hint of mirth that breaks the melancholy. ]

Are you going to sing again?

Edited 2021-07-01 04:55 (UTC)

Is that a request?

[ There's a little gleam in his eye (when isn't there?) as he rises to his feet and smirks at Sylvie. He can barely catch the tune of it with all the other noise happening around them, but he hums along anyway, extending one finger and moving it in time. ]

No, I don't think I will. [ Sing, that is. He closes his eyes and taps his foot along with orchestrating with his finger for a few more bars before he nods and opens them again, offering Sylvie a smile, and a hand. ] Would you grant me the honor of a dance?

[ Loki expects that she'll reject him out of hand, at least at first. It seems so frivolous when they could be doing... what else, exactly? Sitting here, bemoaning their bad luck and unfortunate lack of a future?

No, dancing is more fitting.

How many times has he danced? Countless, surely. How many times has it mattered?

Perhaps this will be one of the very few. ]

[ Her lips twitch halfway to a sneer, shoulders stiffening reflexively, but the derision never quite comes. Sylvie freezes, caught in a moment between hiding behind her own prickly defenses, and the question of why attempting to cling to ill-conceived pride would matter in the face of their all too near destruction.

For nearly all of her existence, she's been running. At the very least, for all that she remembers with clarity. Adopted, not meant to rise to the throne of Asgard, she'd not been a princess in the brief few years of childhood she'd had. And since...

Sylvie presses her lips together briefly, shoulders slumping. She glances at the offered hand. Her own twitches, lifting a few inches out of her lap before she curls her fingers inwards. ]

Careful what you wish upon your feet. [ She tries for humour, but it does not conceal the honesty of something vulnerable in her eyes, and an edge of apology in the curve of her small smile. ] I never had occasion.

[ How many times has she danced? ]

I never learned.

[ Not once. ]

[ Loki blinks at that admission, just the once, before he gives her a smile. It's small but warm. Genuine. If there is anger somewhere beyond that, in the back of his eyes, well. He can be angry at the unknown and known reasons why a child of Asgard, a princess at that, never received the proper opportunities owed her like learning to dance.

The TVA gets to shoulder a good eighty-nine to ninety-seven percent of the blame there, by his calculations. The rest? Probably rests on the shoulders of the Asgardian royalty that didn't manage to protect her from them.

Note to self, he thinks: be angry at Sylvie's parents also, but later. If there's a later to be managed. ]

I'll gladly take the risk, [ he tells her, and beckons with his outstretched hand. Come on, now, Sylvie. Don't leave him hanging. ] And I'd relish the opportunity to teach, for once.

[ Her mouth twitches, corners lifting. There's something hardened in his gaze she doesn't care to pick apart, for once unwilling to let years of paranoia steer her into trying to find the edges and angles she's come to assume everyone is working with her.

It's a kindness, she can tell that much, for any given measure of how kind a Loki can be. So she slides her hand into his and lets him pull her to her feet, fingers twitching a little against his skin. It's different than yanking each other around a battle field. And perhaps there's an understand here that wasn't there before.

Do we trust each other?
We do. And you can.

And... she's not quite surprised to find that she does. ]

If you laugh at me, I will find a puddle to drown you in.

[ There's only the pretense of heat behind the idle threat, and it shows more in the way she briefly squeezes his hand and looks at him with an attempt to remain passive that doesn't quite hide the hesitant curiosity bleeding through. For all she boasted about being more hedonistic than him, it's been a long time since she's indulged in anything.

The years have been lonely, and it's... nice not to be alone at this end of the world. Nice to relinquish the iron grip on her mission... if only to learn how to dance towards the end of it all. ]

I wouldn't dream of it.

[ Cross his heart, hope to die, and all that. In another situation? Sure. He might tease her lightly about trodding on his shoes, does she know how much that hurts, etcetera, etcetera.

These are different times. This is a changing man, though he's only vaguely aware of that particular fact. Loki's smile remains even as he relaxes his shoulders, laces their fingers together, and moves his free hand to rest at her side, where it taps against her clothes to keep time as he says: ]

We'll start with a waltz. Easily done and eternally popular, I've found. It's only three steps.

Back with your left. [ One. ] To the side with your right. [ Two. ] Close, right to left. [ Three. ] Now the opposite. Forward with your right. To the side with the left. Close. See?

[ Not too difficult.

He does expend a little energy and magic to make the music of these poor damned souls slightly louder as they go, and shows her how to rise and fall in time with the steps. If she does step on his toes at any point, well. He has the grace not to grimace, and the sense not to laugh, lest she put her threat to the test. ]

Feel free to lead, once you've got the hang of it.

[ Nose slightly scrunched up, Sylvie's initially solely focused on getting it right. And she doesn't - not immediately. Concentration on her face borders on annoyance when she keeps fumbling the timing, and a few times she glances at him as if suspicious and waiting for a snide comment. But it never comes, and she seems to gradually relax into the movement. If she squeezes Loki's hand here or there, it doesn't seem to be a concious choice. If the small looks she flicks up into his eyes start getting more confident, pleased and just a little cocky and smug, well that's to be expected. She's not noticed yet that her fingertips on his chest have started mimicking the way his tap against her side. ]

I will admit it once, and then never again - you may just have been right.

[ It is easily done. And perhaps popular for a reason. There's something light about moving like this. Would she go so far as to say she's having fun?

Well... perhaps.

And if she pushes against him, signals without words a change in pattern, if she challenges him for the lead... well his reward for granting it is going to be a genuine flicker of delight in her smile.

Perhaps the end of everything is not so bad in good company, doing something frivolous and pointless just because they can. Her feet have carried her through time and space on the run, and now they carry her through the steps of a dance for no other reason than because he offered and she said yes. ]

[ As much as her cockiness has been a thorn in his side over the handfuls of hours he's known Sylvie, there's something about seeing it bloom from her gaze in slow motion, in feeling her learn a new skill, in knowing he had a hand in metamorphosis. Something intoxicating. Something... pleasant. It's its own sort of magic, isn't it? A little heady, a little dangerous, a little beautiful. He smiles at her, sharp and content in the same moment. ]

I'll take those words to my grave.

[ He's noticed the tap tap tap of her fingers against his chest to the beat, and sees no reason to draw attention to it, or stop his hand's similar gestures. She pushes for the lead so he grants it easily, wanting to see where she'll take them.

The delight in her expression is reward enough for being not in control for once. How often has he been, to the detriment of all else? How few times has she, really?

There's the nearby impact of a falling heavenly body that has his shoulders tightening but he refuses to turn his head to look at it. He wants to kiss her; yet that seems... foolish, in this moment. Possibly ever. A risk, and not one he can properly weigh the value or drawbacks thereof. ]

Very good, [ he says instead, because words are so much easier. ]

Edited 2021-07-02 17:51 (UTC)

I could always help you there.

[ It's mumbled softly, almost distractedly, following another impact nearby. Sylvie, like Loki himself, doesn't turn her head. There's no heat behind her words either. Almost like a quip or a tease that she forgot to put anything behind.

Sylvie's more used to that, to barbed wire on her tongue, pulling people in for brief, bright flares of pleasure that give her the foolish notion of connection and companionship for brief moments in time before it all fades away. For all her life on the run and in hiding, she has never been with someone like this - just existed.

The realization that this is a good moment, a happy memory in the making despite the impending doom, clenches in her chest, flutters like nerves and sinks like dread.

He lets her lead like it's nothing, like there's a sincerity here she just doesn't quite know how to handle. So she looks up at him, searches his eyes when he tells her 'very good'.

And instead of trying to hide herself behind banter and barbed wire and quips, she smiles. ]

Yes. We are.

I have no doubt of your abilities in that realm.

[ It's... a little bit of flattery, but not much. She could kill him, even if she can't enchant him, and he's fairly certain of it. She could but probably won't, because they're cursed to die on this rock along with everyone else once the errant moon makes its final impact with the planet.

Which is probably about half his fault, though he feels like he should be able to be forgiven, considering he did it blindly and without a plan. Maybe that's part of the problem: no plan.

Not that he has one at this moment beyond... what? Be nice to Sylvie? Attempt to make up for the fact that they're going to meet their end here?

(Is that so bad, really?)

She says 'Yes. We are.' and he grins in a way that crinkles the skin at the corners of his eyes. Uncommon. Real.

Sylvie is a Loki after all. ]

What is something you've always wanted to do but didn't have the chance?

[ There's a strangeness in watching him fight, Sylvie realized on the train - when he didn't fight her but alongside her, and she had small glimpses in between fending off guards. She fights like a brawler, an animal cornered. He fights like a dancer, truly a prince. It tugs at something in her chest that she doesn't know what to do with, same as everything else about him.

That smile, too, tugs on her, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners and something lights up in his gaze. Sylvie learned there was no one she could trust ever since the TVA took her - and she regrets it a little, now, that she cannot just speak her mind free and unperturbed here, that she still feels like she needs to protect herself.

She wants to... but she can't. Or could she?

His question makes her eyes slide away for a moment, contemplative. Too many answers are painful to contemplate - go home, see her brother again, see her mother once more. But those versions of them are long gone. Pruned and erased from existence.

The other option is no less painful: ]

I wanted to be a Valkyrie.

[ Sylvie shakes her head, trying to tamper her own moment of vulnerability. ]

The fancies of a child. Now I just want to end the TVA. There's been nothing else I've had room to want.

[ Loki's nostrils flare a little with a sharp intake of breath. ]

Valkyries are amazing, [ he says, a little off-handedly as if she'd mentioned wanting to be a ballerina or an astronaut or whatever it is Midgardian children dream up. Partly this is because he's realized, suddenly, the folly of his question; partly this is because her answer causes his chest to physically hurt. She'd looked away before she'd answered and he thinks he knows why now, caught between wanting to play it off the small show of vulnerability as unimportant and wanting to hold her and tell her it's alright.

He's not sure she'd trust either of those or appreciate them as gestures of solidarity, of wanting to understand, so he opts for a third choice: just being honest. In the form of a story, but. It would cost her little to dismiss it, he figures, and perhaps it'll hurt him if she does but.

He's willing to take that risk.

He might deserve it anyway. ]

I wanted to be one. [ It's his turn to look away. ] Rather badly, though I never said that to anyone. I had a plan, you see. I would just become a girl and join.

Thor wanted to also, actually. He was more vocal about it. [ A small scoff. ] He sulked forever when he learned he couldn't.

[ They're still dancing. He's going to let her decide when that ends. ]

[ Sylvie does not put a stop to their dancing. She's falling into the pattern of movement now, and now actively thinking about the steps helps her maintain them. It also helps, oddly, with the vulnerability of their conversation. Her eyes snap back to his, sharp with interest rather than judgment.

The truth Sylvie can't admit is that she's starved for so many things - for connection, for affection, for glimpses of what life could be - should be. She's not sure she could admit to how much any of this means, because if she puts words to it that makes the emotions real, and that means they're just something that someone else can take from her, too.

So she swallows, heavy, but her gaze softens for Loki. ]

You would have made a fine one. Woman and Valkyrie both.

[ She fumbles the delivery, it's slightly akward, but the compliment is genuine. He would have been great as either, Sylvie does believe that. ]

Why did you never tell anyone?

[ For all her statement's awkwardness, it strikes Loki that Sylvie is being very honest with him in return; it is more than he hoped for in this moment, and yet it does nothing to lessen the tightening in his chest. Everything he had, every flight of fancy or whimsy, every chance to make Thor out to be a fool, was taken from her so early that she has none of that to look back on. No foundation of love to have ever crumbled beneath her feet. She fights like an animal cornered into a cage, full of beautifully vindictive rage, because when hasn't she been?

For a brief moment, when she was a child who wanted to be a Valkyrie.

Now, apparently, as they dance. Which should be beautiful; he wants to offer her more of it, more of anything she might want and cannot put words to, because he understands what has been stolen from her. A capacity to imagine a different life.

He smiles and looks down, away, before returning his eyes where they should be: locked into hers. ]

I thought they would laugh, [ he admits quietly. ] Not Frigga; I think she would have helped me do it, honestly. But Thor and Odin would see wanting to be feminine as some strange kind of a weakness, and I couldn't tolerate the thought of something I wanted so badly reduced to a joke amongst the two of them.

[ And then other things went wrong, and he abandoned his dream. He wonders how different things would have been if they'd both tried for that instead; he wonders, too, if her desire to become a protector of Asgard was the trigger that fired the gun of the TVA in her direction. ]

[ It should be stranger than it is to look at him, and see herself reflected back. They're the same, except they're not. Permutations of the same role, the same function in the universe. Not identical though. Loki was a prince. And she wonders at that life. At growing up to think a throne waits for you, a purpose in your blood rather than in your own choices.

The glory of it.

The burden of it.

It makes you a man who fights like a dancer, who sings and drinks and conjures fireworks, who knows joy in a way that makes it easy to easier to mask pain behind a smile rather than rage.

Sylvie shifts the hand on his shoulder up a little. Fingertips brushing his jaw, a hesitant gesture. She falters in her dance step, frowns and has to take a moment to correct - this is the one good thing she's had in such a long time, she won't let it crumble before its time - before they both die in smoke and ash, like fireworks that briefly bloomed and then faded into nothing. So when she's swayed them back into the dance, she holds his gaze, reaches up and slides her small hand over his jaw, and up to cup his cheek, thumb tracing along his cheekbone, sweetly reverent. ]

It can be our secret, then.

[ It can be theirs and no one else's. ]

[ The touch surprises him, like every touch he doesn't initiate with anyone, more so because this is Sylvie and she does nothing by accident. His eyes widen a bit as their steps falter, and for a moment Loki thinks perhaps she wishes to stop dancing, but then they continue on.

He wishes he had a solution for getting off this planet, but he doesn't wish they hadn't ended up here, in this moment. It's important. Even if it dies with them, it existed, and it mattered. She matters.

There's an apology on his lips but it ends up swallowed back, Loki feeling hesitant to ruin the moment by saying something he never does (I'm sorry) and thus having her think it's an unbelievable statement. There's nothing good to say. He wants to take them back down the what-if path.

Instead he decides that when they do stop dancing, when the falling asteroids grows too close to continue (which will be soon, and he hates that too, thanks) he'll summon the TemPad and give it back to her.

Even if she leaves him here, he has to trust her a little, or this will all be for nothing. The sharp feeling in his chest is fear, and something else, and if he can't trust her he can't figure out just what that feeling is. ]

I'd like that, [ he says, but it's been too long a moment to pass it off as a casual response. ]

[ Honestly, Sylvie is a little surprise with herself. It's just... she hates seeing him like that. Like something aches somewhere in his chest, like the things that he imagined would hurt him were mere jests. She doesn't understand it, never will - if memories of her mother are distance, wispy dream fragments, then memories of her father are fleeting outside a dim understanding that he existed, looming larger than life and distant.

She hates the thought of Odin laughing at Loki. Hates the thought of Thor joining in even more. Let him be whatever he wishes to be - isn't that the whole point of her quest for revenge? To make that possible for herself - and in the same stride, for the rest of the universe.

It doesn't explain the fierceness in her chest at his worry, at his missed chances. Clown though he may be... He's also...

Sylvie holds his gaze, narrowing her eyes. It's not hostile, not calculated. Just her trying to figure something out, but she can't quite put her finger on it.

His cheek is warm against her palm. Soft, too. Sylvie wants to pull her hand back, but doesn't. Forces herself to stay, for once, instead of running away. ]

Shame we don't get to keep it longer.

[ It won't be long now. Minutes, rather than hours. ]

I know.

[ He should give her the TemPad now, he thinks; he should look away, and say he's sorry, and summon it forth. Hand it off and brace for the worst, for her to leave him on this planet like he deserves.

But they're dancing, still, and he's loathe to stop it, to not take this small indulgence, like the warmth of her hand on his face, and keep it for as long as he can.

As long as she'll allow.

No one has touched him with gentleness in so long that it almost aches for her to do so; does ache in his chest, the feeling of a small vise on a smaller heart. Love is a dagger and sometimes you bleed out.

He opens his mouth to say something, fails at it. Shuts his eyes and turns his face into the palm of her hand, pressing his lips to the edge there. ]

[ Sylvie's mouth falls open in a soft 'oh', her eyes fixed to the way Loki turns his face into her palm, lips soft and warm against the sensitive skin.

And perhaps it's not so bad, after all. To be fated to die here, at just another end of the world. As if they never existed at all. It should be depressing. Her revenge ended before it even truly began. It should infuriate her. But for the moment, in this one specific moment, it does not.

She got to dance with a prince, didn't she? And he was... is, gentle with her, as if she's something delicate and precious. She's not let herself be that for anyone, and nobody in turn bothered to be that for her, either.

Now, when the impacts draw too close and she has to halt them both in their slow movements, it doesn't feel so bad. At least she will die having one good memory. There are, she knows, worse ways to perish.

At least for the first time in ages, she will not be alone.

Sylvie parts her lips as if to speak, but nothing feels appropriate. So instead she just shifts the hand he's still cradling in his, pushes her fingers between his and holds on. Not tight, and certainly not sure, but gently, and with a soft squeeze, as the end draws dangerously close, and for the first time in so long, she knows time is running out, while they stand here, each other's question and answer alike. ]

[ A meteor falls close enough for the debris from its impact to bounce off of Loki's shoulder, but he isn't paying attention to that. He's too caught up in a series of feelings that are too mired and tied into one another for him to easily separate out, like knotted string inside his heart, but they're all about her. Wanting and caring and needing her to survive above all else, infused with an internal exhaustion that borders on passively suicidal. They've stopped dancing; he squeezes her fingers between his own and brings their connected hands down from his face, settling them against his chest so that he can lean in towards Sylvie and press his lips to hers.

It's a simple thing. Soft but longing. Loki pulls away before he can think better (or worse) of it, taking a half step back. His hand drops from hers, and in its place is the TemPad.

The timing is terrible for both of these things and he knows it, looking from her face to her hands and back again. He has never been good at timing, after all.

If she leaves him on this planet to die in its destruction it would be well-deserved. ]

[ It's a simple thing, this kiss, but nothing in their existence is ever quite that simple, isn't it. Soft and chaste, something tentative and sweet, over before it ever really begun.

And isn't that just saying something, when she blinks and the TemPad is right there in his palm, not broken and scattered by the fall from the train.

Sylvie just stands there for a moment. Still, and caught on the backfoot. She doesn't like the feeling - likes it less in the face of the revalation he's just dropped into her lap. Slowly, her slender fingers curl around the TemPad. The world is crumbling around them.

Just a trick. All of it, just a trick. Well not all of it, and she knows that, except right now, while Lamentis is shattering around them, a rage descends upon her. Loki tricked her, and it seethed, twists and aches, when she's opened some of herself up to him, when she let herself be fooled by him and his fireworks and his dance and his charm. And for a moment, she considers it, her fingers moving on the TemPad of their own accord, gaze dropping down briefly.

When she looks up, there's no longer a trace of that stunned, wounded softness on her features. Instead, there is a hard set to her features, something tight around her lips even as her eyes glitter with fury. And it's obvious, the moment when she considers leaving him as a door opens beside them.

Instead she grabs him, shoves him through one step ahead of her. They emerge somewhere on Midgard in the middle of the dead on a lone, deserted dirt road. Sylvie neither knows nor cares, hands shaking with rage and some hurt she doesn't care to examine. Anger is easier. It's a familiar barbed wire, the taste of smoke at the back of her throat, venom on her tongue as she snaps: ]

You lied to me.

[ He hates that he did this to her, hates that he made her look at him like that, and he knows, in the brief seconds while she considers leaving him behind, that he has no one to blame for this but himself. Loki doesn't even have what approaches a good excuse for his behavior; he lied because he lies because he's a liar, because he wanted...

Something. Something from her, maybe, or something for her. Some moment where he was important as more than just a hitch in her well-crafted plans and... Well.

It doesn't really matter now, does it?

Except she shoves him through the door instead of leaving him behind on Lamentis and it's night, on Midgard, and no one is around, so it takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light.

Gods, but he's tired. ]

I am a liar, Sylvie, it is one of the few things I'm rather good at. [ Still. She's angry, furious even, and he can't even muster the proper energy to be defensive. Because he knows he was wrong. Because he kind of wants to die for betraying her, even in this possible small, possibly large way.

He shakes his head a little. ] You should have left me there. [ Why she didn't, he doesn't understand. ]

Oh, you'd have liked that, wouldn't you? Take the easy way.

[ She pushes in on him then and shoves against his chest, hard, blue eyes blazing with rage. Because rage is easier than heartbreak, then asking why, why, why and knowing it doesn't matter. He betrayed her. Played her like a fiddle. ]

All this just to... to what?

[ Another shove. She spits her words. ]

Were you planning to leave me there, but you took pity? Don't bother. I don't need your pity. I don't need your lies. I don't need your twisted games and fake affections. I don't need you, or anyone.

[ Trusting people, very obviously, only leads to betrayals. It was foolish to ever do it, even for just a moment. And Sylvie swears, right then and there, never to be that foolish again. ]

Dance with me.

Sylvie | MCU / Loki | OTA

also caught up, spoilers are a-ok with me

no subject

'being floating', I swear I can English better than that

your shame is immortalized and shall be framed upon my wall ;)

hopefully it's a nice frame at least! :D

positively princely :D

perfection

just like them, muahaha

they are great and this thread is so wonderful

sorry this took me a bit <3

that's quite alright! ❤

I'm so sorry for how late this is. I kinda vaished for a bit there...

that's ok! life happens; I hope everything is alright!

<3 yeah, just not much brain for good tags. did text spam to help get back into it.

I'm glad everything is ok ❤

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literally ages later

if you know anything about me it is that I will wait literally forever for these two

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Sylvie | MCU / Loki | OTA

also caught up, spoilers are a-ok with me

no subject

'being floating', I swear I can English better than that

your shame is immortalized and shall be framed upon my wall ;)

hopefully it's a nice frame at least! :D

positively princely :D

*perfection*

just like them, muahaha

they are great and this thread is so wonderful

sorry this took me a bit <3

that's quite alright! ❤

I'm so sorry for how late this is. I kinda vaished for a bit there...

that's ok! life happens; I hope everything is alright!

<3 yeah, just not much brain for good tags. did text spam to help get back into it.

I'm glad everything is ok ❤

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

literally ages later

if you know anything about me it is that I will wait literally forever for these two

no subject

perfection