So actually Poetry Loki's birthday today.
Naturally I can't just let that pass by!
Warnings: food porn, non-explicit bathtub sex
Again, thank you all for sticking and being so patient on this~~
Living together is a dance he doesn't know the steps to, blind stumble in the dark over what seems polished marble but is in truth more like granite sunk beneath the sea, littered with holes and surface gone uneven with the weathering of time and the waves.
To think he had thought this would hardly be a change.
The rhythms he has grown familiar with are irrevocably altered by Steve's presence and (if he is fair, which does not often feel like he should be), Steve's rhythms are no doubt altered by Loki's.
(Amusing, that he turns to music to find a way to describe this confusion when he speaks with Lethe, but unsurprising.)
"He moves things. Eternally moving things it feels like," he explains to her irritably over ice cream, the weather turgidly torrid and the sound of insects a high-pitched whine. Grating. It feels as if something will happen, everything stepping with quickened pace that slows without warning, sound of traffic and people and distant unending buzzing insect drone twisting together into a war beat that makes him itch to tear things apart.
(That may simply be stress.)
(Perhaps both.)
"Have you told him?" Lethe asks. A beat-pause-rest. "It's hot."
"God awfully," he agrees, because the sweltered air makes everything feel like syrup and the obvious become revelation. "No."
"You should tell him," Lethe says, and then sighs relief as she takes another spoonful of ice cream from the carton they are sharing in the park, a pleased hum that carries on the thick air and away.
"Probably," Loki says only when the hum no longer echoes in his head, allowing her sounds to finish. "Probably." He blinks lazily at the heat shimmer. "Why did we come out again?"
"No idea. Ice cream."
Loki studies the slowly melting carton and decides he doesn't feel so unlike it right now.
"We should go swimming," Lethe says. "Can you swim?"
"No idea," Loki says. The idea of water is pleasing, a soothing spill of cool against the earth's fever. "Let's."
Later, later, he comes back to find things moved and instead of snapping, he calmly moves them back as he wanders to the studio, because as much as he wishes he could simply lay upon the cool tile in the kitchen and laze, there is work yet to be done.
XXXXXX
Steve's pulse is, at the least, steady (and this must be part of what drives him insane, because his own feels like a tide, cyclical but never the same twice, moving from manic to crashing without the benefit of a time frame or even warning, sometimes spanning days and sometimes barely minutes).
(So much for medication fixing this, but then, he supposes, Janelle never said that, only said it another way to cope-perhaps it is not semantics after all.)
He could very nearly set a clock to Steve, and he is surprised how much this infuriates him, how much he is used to and has depended upon not having a dedicated time sense, only the drift of one thing to another. It is difficult to lose himself in work when he can tell, by sound of Steve's existing alone, the time.
(Unfair of him. He knows Steve is just as disoriented by the introduction to Loki's own scarcely strung schedule-black spills of ink spilled upon a paper windingly joined by a child's unsteady line.)
Not to mention that Steve's pulse is movement, kinetic and raw and endless activity; Loki had not realized how still and... not idle, no, but how inward his own world had become-the physics of his life is bound more to journey and performance, but on the whole he is quite still, nearly placid (if one only considers the physical and not the mental) and the sound of Steve continues to startle him perpetually. It has not (yet) become the idle background noise of the city he can (mostly) tune out.
XXXXXX
"Have you told him yet?" Lethe asks.
(Obnoxious.)
(He is being unkind, only irate and tense and today summer sound sounds a shriek; he wants to tear down everything, rend the ties that bind and leave it all to fall to ruin in the suffocating blaze.)
"No," Loki says.
"Mmm," and Loki knows all the words that are meant to be in that hum, couched in its mellifluous melodies.
Loki does not deign to respond.
(Truth: he does not want to respond, and there are excuses enough not to-Lethe is drawing him because Loki could not stand to be in his studio a moment longer and she will rarely turn down a chance at life drawing if it fits within her schedule. Talking is hardly conducive to art-making; that at least transfers between their crafts.)
He feels a little calmer as he closes his eyes, basking in the coolness of her apartment's air on his skin, required not to talk or explain or anything, only to be still and quiet and steady.
(He can do that, for periods of time, short as they may be-be steady.)
"If you don't tell him," Lethe begins, minutes or hours later (Loki has no idea and finds that he does not care, very near contentment).
"Then he won't know," Loki finishes, and heaves a sigh as he sits up. "Yes, yes, I am aware."
Lethe nods, rubbing with a cloth at some of the ink that has stained her fingertips as she worked.
"Do you want ice cream?"
"Only if we don't have to go outside. I don't know if you've stepped out today, but it's simply beastly," Loki says, sliding into the pajama pants he has long since decided to simply leave here-easier than trying to remember them.
"Orange sherbert or salted caramel?"
Loki stretches as he stands considers.
(A choice. An easy choice, with no repercussions, nothing riding on it-not like the choice to speak or not to Steve.)
"Salted caramel," Loki says, because he loves the strange melding of brine and snow, meeting of summer and winter in a spoon (such an interesting flavour, and one he never tasted on Asgard, or anywhere else in truth. It is as if the shortness of their lives means being human is finding a way to encounter everything in every kaleidoscopic combination imaginable as rapidly as possible, relentless dizzying experience after dizzying experience.)
(It is what he likes best, and least, about what he is now.)
XXXXXX
Talking to Steve is not difficult.
(Correction, not as difficult as it once was.)
Because as much as he might like to accuse Steve not actually taking his thoughts and opinions into consideration, the simple matter is Steve does at the very least try (which is more than he can say of most the people he knew (prior) before even mentioning that he feels he can tell Steve these things).
Of course, the establishment of some simple guidelines has helped and while they do still argue on occasion (and viciously enough it leaves him shaking and sick and hateful), it is less, and he has yet to entirely forget spans of time and find himself shaking and freezing on a mountain side again.
(Granted it is so miserably hot that he suspects he would simply curl into a puddle and melt if he tried. Frostbite would be a welcome reprieve to this.)
He is in the midst of fingering through a rather complicated passage he has yet to commit to memory (four weeks, what is he doing? Incompetent, clearly, and what was he thinking that he could do this for a living, constantly?)-not playing, simply running through the motions, when Steve knocks at the still parted door (Loki's fault, he usually keeps it closed if he does not wish to be interrupted) and Loki strangles a scream as his mind is ripped from memorization and scattered notes in the unpleasant din of his head.
(Steve, Steve who loves to share meal, Steve who likes to see if Loki wants anything, always pleasant, always sweet, his Steve, and as much as Loki (attempts to) appreciates it, the regular, dependable (interruption) invitation is maddening.)
"No," Loki says before Steve can ask. "No, I don't want lunch or dinner or whatever time or meal it is, I want to work."
(Yet he still feels disoriented, music muscle memory has yet to learn forsaken in the notes knocked out of order by Steve's approach. Cracked clean from side to side, ruined.)
"Loki, it's dinner-when's the last time you ate?" Steve asks; cautious, not quite stepping in.
"This won't learn itself," Loki says instead of (leave me alone, stop bothering me, I can care for myself, I am not some project you need tend, why did we do this) anything else.
"I'm sorry to bother you," Steve says.
Loki looks away and sets the violin down; each movement precise, quick, and just beneath the surface hums break-tear-destroy, enough his fingers clench as he stands.
"I want you," Loki says, voice even (and yet he can feel loathing tremble beneath, shimmering like heat off pavement and so near the surface he does not yet know how to hide it), "to leave me alone."
"Alright," Steve says.
"I'm going out for a walk since I can't even think here."
He waits for Steve to say something, to plead, but Steve only nods, jaw tensing; there is something infuriating in this, that even now Steve is good, better, that Steve can interrupt and still Loki feels as if he is the one who has wronged Steve, not the other way around. That Steve's solidity is more, overpowering Loki's rhythms with his own marching cadence.
"Okay," Steve says, and Loki cannot help the strangled, irritated noise that catches in the back of his throat
(wants Steve to lash back)
and pushes past him, grabbing his keys before heading down and out to the street.
It is late; he did not realize how-the sun is already swung low, the streets a little emptier. The heat is a little less stifling than it was the day before, but he would not call it cool. Low pitched whine aches in his head, grating along his nerves as soon as he steps outside and hardly better than Steve's interruption. It is yet hot enough that he has barely managed a block and he feels slowed, muggy, his energy sapped-it is too much effort to lash out now, near too hot to move or think or even sleep.
(He cannot keep doing this, he thinks, cannot keep circling and pushing down and back, another exhaustion to add to his list.)
It is not long before he returns through the endless twilight of summer sunset, taking a deep lungful of air in the coolness of their apartment building once more.
(A nice building, far nicer than he would like, but Steve is so very visual; of course he would need lines and light to match.)
He pauses as he comes in, listening. The light in the kitchen is off; food out, covered, and it occurs to him he hasn't eaten since this morning. It sounds as if Steve is in the bedroom-reading, perhaps, or sketching, something with paper, soft sounds-and so he browses through what is out on the peninsula separating kitchen and living area while he (stalls) debates what to say to Steve.
Between the air conditioning and the food, he feels very nearly well. Fried mushrooms, some sort of creamy sauce (Steve would tell him if he asked, but he doesn't want to). There's some spice he can't place (not surprising) in it and it teases the palate, a tiny bite to sharpen the rest. He savours the taste on his tongue, relishes the crisp crunch next to the pleasant resistance of the mushroom and its juices flooding his mouth, licking the remnants off his fingers as he looks through the rest of the food.
He didn't even realize he was so hungry, nearly ravenous, and he should simply get a plate and sit and eat properly, but the tile is cool on his bare feet and there is something deliciously delectable in standing at the counter, eating with his fingers and flexing toes against the tile, eyes half-closed and basking in the chill.
(The first time he has found this place to sound like home.)
"I am sorry," he says without looking over as Steve comes into the room.
Steve pauses, then rests his forearms on the other side of the peninsula. Loki looks at him, and for a moment catches a glimpse of... adoration on Steve's face, pleasure taken in seeing Loki at ease. It makes Loki disoriented, fills him with affection and confusion (to have someone look at him that way), and an high flush stain his cheeks before he can strangle it (but at least he can blame it on the heat).
"It's okay," Steve says.
"I love you," Loki says, the first words that straggle back to his tongue.
"I love you," Steve replies with a smile, eyes lighting up and stunning as a crystal clear sky.
(He wants, more than anything at all, to hold this moment, to not touch on the... less than good, to simply encapsulate these precious seconds, keep them as timeless and endless as the heat in the sultry nights, as blazing as the sunlight that makes him feel he might never know chill again. To stay breathless, lungs as emptied of air by this moment as they are when stepping from inside cold to outside scorch-this, this is what summer should be, here and now, and it makes sense, all those dull summer romances he has read and seen and not understood because none of them have ever managed to convey this.)
Loki exhales, allowing the moment to go.
"We should talk," he says.
Steve nods and sits at one of the bar stools, reaching over to tug the bowl of sugar snaps closer to himself, taking one.
"We should," Steve agrees. He offers one of the blanched pea pods to Loki, and Loki leans forward unthinking, eating it from his hand, licking the sweet butter from his lips as he appreciates the succulent and refreshing green on his tongue.
"I cannot have you interrupting me always," Loki admits. "For meals, or... what have you. It ruins my focus."
Steve nods, and takes a mushroom Loki offers him in turn, licking juice from Loki's fingers.
(Simple simple acts, and Loki marvels how... normal they make all this seem. As if there is nothing at all to these requests, this sorting out of boundaries.)
"I can change that," Steve says. "But I want you to eat, too, and I do like eating with you."
Loki nods.
"Is there anything that I do...?" Loki asks.
"You leave the lights on," Steve says, looking amused. "All the time."
Loki blinks; he hasn't noticed.
"I can try not."
Steve nods.
"How about," Steve says, feeding him another sugar snap pod, Loki carefully grazing his teeth against Steve's thumb as he takes the offering, "I don't bother you at lunch, but I do at dinner? And you have to eat breakfast."
"You knock at dinner," Loki says, "so I can finish."
"Thirty minute warning."
"Lightly."
"Deal," Steve says, smiling. "Hold still a minute, you've got something on your face," and then he kisses Loki, sensual slick slide; Loki leans into it, eyes closing, hand instinctively reaching for Steve at the tease of Steve's teeth on his lower lip.
"Now?" Loki says breathless when they part.
"Should probably make sure nothing anywhere else," Steve says.
"Absolutely." Loki pauses, calculating. "Have we investigated the bathroom properly?"
"Nope."
"We should change that."
Steve grins.
For all the other space, the bathtub is not nearly so big as the light of the apartment would like them to think, and Loki knows he will have a few bruises beyond the temporary history drawn by Steve's hands and mouth.
All the same, he would not trade laying against Steve in the rapidly cooling water for all the realms, languidly satisfied and caught between semi-arousal and doze, hands laced together and Steve trailing kisses on the side of his neck.
"We should probably clean up," Steve says minutes or hours later (and who is there to keep track), amused and disappointed at once.
"Mmm."
"Come on, get up."
"No," Loki says.
"I don't want to hear you complain come morning," Steve warns, leaning his head back against the wall.
"Oh, fine," Loki says, hauling himself up and purposefully splashing water over the side of the tub (even if it will bother him more than Steve, it is the principle of the thing).
Steve laughs, following him up, and if Loki collects a few more bruises, shower water slick and slippery and adding an oh so delightful friction as they press against each other, well, Loki won't complain (and even less so when Steve pushes him onto the edge of the bed and sinks between his thighs).
XXXXXX
"I take it you talked to Steve?"
"Hmm?"
"I haven't heard you complain about him moving things," Lethe says with a laugh.
"Oh," Loki says, realizing that he hasn't.
In truth, he cannot pinpoint the moment he started to simply take things being moved slightly out place in stride, or how now the sound of home is so inextricably tied to what he has taken to fondly calling Steve's kinaesthesia-so much so that Steve's absence feels (almost) as dysphoric as staring in the mirror when his mood runs foul and seeing what he is not.
(How home is Steve, and Steve is home, slid beneath his skin and into the endless rhythms of his life, altering the pulse-beat of the music in his head so carefully he had not noticed until now.)
"I suppose," Loki says, "I simply adjusted."