Legal Disclaimer: My work is my own creative intelligence and property, but I do not own the original source material it stems from (I wouldn't be writing fanfiction if it was, or would I?). The opinions and interpretations of characters and events reflected in my stories may not follow what is portrayed from the source material. Please don't sue me, I'm a stay at home mom.
Summary: Sylvie wanted nothing more to complete her mission and would stop at nothing to achieve it. But this time, she realized that Option 3 would give even better results.
Rated: M
Genre: Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Romance
Word Count: 1,717
Warnings: Mentions of Blood; Violent Sparring; Dubious Consensual Non-Graphical Sex; Unconscious Person Present
Competition/Challenge Block
Written for/Stacked with: Monthly Challenges for All (Year 5); Kinktober 2022
MC4A: Games [Harvest (Actions/Behavior (Grabbing; Throwing); AU (Turned Left Instead); Item (Desk); Trope (Enemies to Lovers); Hangman [E]; Soup [V-Violent]; Hunt [Fa Item (Knife/Dagger)]; Sp Bingo [4B (Yelling/Shouting)] Su Bingo [1E (Anger/Rage)]; Fa Bingo [5A (Change)]; Tr Bingo [1C (Mugging the Monster)]; Citrus Bingo [2B (Biting/Nipping)]; Setting Bingo [2D (Wreck)]; Ship Bingo [3B (Battle Couple)]; AU Bingo [1A (Law Enforcement)]
Other Challenges: Tumblr [Kinktober 2022 [ TPP] (Day 2: Floor Sex); Kinktober 2022 [ absurdthurst] (Day 30: Dub Con); Whumptober 2022 [ whumptober] (Day 3: Impaled)]
Author's Note: Have a Turn Left Instead with some Smut. I don't make the rules, but it made sense to me that, if Sylvie took the moment to think about it like Loki asked, she would find that Option 3 loophole and want a reward for it, too. :p
Yes, I am working off two kink lists. Sorrynotsorry.
I also recommend listening to the song the epigraph is pulled from. It's a banger song!
(I have not given a final proofread this fic yet because I was in a hurry in wanting to submit it for a challenge. I will go back and proof later because I know when I write on my phone there's bound to be some really dorky mistakes!)
Love & War
Lover, Hunter, Friend, and Enemy
You will always be
Every one of these
— Love & War by Fleurie
.oOo.
The moment she felt Loki's hand pull her back by the shoulder when she lunged for He Who Remains she felt her heart shatter. His betrayal cut her to the core, but she should have anticipated this, shouldn't she? They were all the same, weren't they? Scheming, self-serving, narcissistic, deceptive, and more than capable of betrayal, even to each other…
'No…'
Sylvie stepped away from that role, that path to glorious purpose that only ended in failure and death. She was different, she was her own self, she was Sylvie. What hurt the most was she thought Loki saw her for herself, her own person, her own identity. He used her name the moment he learned it with no hesitation, he stopped comparing her to him, he connected with her in a way she had never been able to with another. It felt good, natural, right.
But no, he had to stop her from her mission, after all he had put her through already and his miraculous plan to salvage it with her led to this moment, and he stopped her.
Sylvie was furious. So she did the next best thing and turned on him.
"What are you doing!"
It wasn't a question, it was a demand. Loki rattled off his reasoning, his petty attempt to play hero and see the situation from the other side of the battlefield. She had gotten this far already, the one responsible for her entire life falling into complete ruin was sitting behind that desk watching them intently like some sort of enticing play. The entire thing was disgusting.
If Sylvie knew Loki, he did in fact seek something out of this after all. The hologram clock said so herself, tempting him with a promise of ruling Midgard as he once desired to so long ago. She shouldn't have been so trusting with him… so vulnerable with him.
"Fine! Do it! Kill me! Take your throne!"
The words dripped with malice, scorn, hatred. She wanted him to hurt her, wanted him to match her physical pain to dull the emotional turmoil that wrecked through her person. Being cruel was always an easy way to mask the hurt.
"No…"
His voice wavered, matching the emotion that clearly etched his face… it wasn't pity… it was something else she couldn't quite understand.
Empathy?
"Sylvie, wait!"
She energy blasted Loki into the bookshelf, opening a clear shot of He Who Remains now. It only took a heartbeat for her to conjure a dagger—something that felt so natural to her despite the lack of handling such an inferior weapon for so long—and expertly threw it across the room at the man who ruined her very existence. Who forced her to mold into an entirely different person in order to survive.
Loki suddenly appeared, taking the dagger straight to the shoulder. Due to the speed, the blue blade went deep, and she quickly approached him as he fell onto his knees, holding up a hand while cradling his injured arm against himself.
"Sylvie, please listen…" he begged between gasps, flinching as he spoke.
She stood over him, glaring down in turn, hand firmly gripping her sword as she yielded. Seeing Loki physically put himself in the line of fire was worth giving pause to. It wasn't something that was intentionally done, who willingly puts themselves in harm's way, after all?
"Why should I? He's got in your head!" Sylvie snarled.
She would not stand down.
"No, Sylvie. Please. I want you to get what you want but…" Loki stammered, stuttered, and winced when he moved the shoulder with a dagger embedded into it. "Please consider the possible consequences…"
"You just want to get what he has," she spat, taking a step forward. "All that power, control, dictatorship. Isn't that what you always craved?"
He shook his head, his very being begged without words as he looked up at her. Eyes were etched with pain, agony… sympathy.
"You will never understand. How can you? Even after everything we have been through, you refuse to understand!" Sylvie shouted, pacing in front of Loki. "He ruined my life! My very existence was destroyed by him, and for what?"
She could easily get to her target if she wanted to, but her attention was drawn away from He Who Remains who watched idly in the background. Sylvie's mind was cluttered on Loki, on the why and the what. He was after something, right?
"Yet I do…" Loki half-whispered, stopping Sylvie in her tracks. "He stripped you of your life, identity, your very being. I experienced a similar thing in my life on the timeline where it was etched into my destiny… But unlike me, here you stand, reborn from tragedy as someone new you yourself forged among the ashes of the past. You are Sylvie, a survivor. Someone who deserves everything they seek and is determined enough to get it."
Loki made a wide gesture with his uninjured arm. "Look how close you are to accomplishing your mission. It will always be closer than anyone else who stakes claim to our identity will ever get. But understand… What he says isn't a lie. You should know that. God of Lies, aren't we? Weren't you?"
He paused, but she remained stoic. "We can detect being lied to. It is part of our gift… I just ask you to think about it for a moment. Consider the option of achieving a self-fulfilling mission or setting it aside for the rest of the cosmos. Be better than that higher power… be better than what we were destined for."
Sylvie's eyes grew to slits; processing, contemplating, considering the outcome. He Who Remains still remained seated, watching with great intrigue of what was unfolding in front of him. Why was he not trying to defend himself? Protect himself from harm? He was an open target, taunting for his own demise. He seemed so helpless, useless. How could someone like that possess so much power and not wish to fight and keep it? It was suspicious, but she wasn't going to allow doubt to seep into her. Not now, not when she was so close.
"There is always another way."
Loki raised a brow at the comment and Sylvie met his gaze.
"We both can get what we want out of this."
Her reasoning seemed solid. Even if one of him was more dangerous than the other it wouldn't matter, they were cut from the same cloth, just given different tools to master. It was the same with her and Loki. If she kept He Who Remains alive, they could assess the threat he predicts from his alternative selves and deal with them accordingly. She and Loki could use him as a guide to manage the timeline and the TVA, learn more about his alternative selves and how they think in order to counter them, and when he was no longer needed, she could end him for good.
"I don't understand…" Loki muttered and Sylvie half-rolled her eyes.
"It will not work out the way you think, Sylvie," He Who Remains said, drawing her attention to him.
His smile taunted her. "You kill me, another version of me will simply find my way back here. It will never stop unless you agree to take over now and I walk free."
She snapped, pulling out the dagger from Loki's shoulder in an instant and threw it again right for He Who Remains. Loki's gruntled scream of agony and shrieking, "No!" was drowned out from the white noise that rang in her ears. Sylvie watched as the dagger found its way directly into He Who Remains side. A non lethal hit. She marched forward, blasting the desk out of her way until she was standing directly over the injured man. He looked scared for a change—good. Sylvie grabbed him by the collar and jerked him forward.
"Not if we can help it…" she hissed, taking the butt of her sword and knocking him out cold.
The rush of adrenaline flooded her senses. Her sword slipped from her hand, landing beside Loki's while He Who Remains slumped unconscious in his ornate chair. Sylvie quickly made her way back to Loki, her movement like an animal stalking prey, and she threw herself at him, pinning him abruptly to the floor with a flinch and a gasp. Her hand was pressed against his injured shoulder, and after a slow exhale, a soft green glow emitted under her palm. Sylvie kept her piercing green eyes locked on Loki's as she healed his wound. Loki was too stunned to question the situation or attempt to struggle from her grasp.
"Told you…"
Before he could say anything, Sylvie pressed her lips against his, her hands already scaling down the sides of his body, finger curling in at the waist of those gaudy slacks in order to pull them off. Loki only hesitated briefly before melting into her advancements. His eyes slid closed as he savoured her heated kiss, allowing his hands to wander over her hips and thighs, and letting out a quiet gasp as she bit at his lip before nipping along his jawline to the crook of his shoulder. Sylvie's impatience caused her to tear off the button and ruin the zipper of Loki's slacks, but she didn't care, nor did he. He barely had her stripped down enough before she initiated the connection between them with no protest given.
The sudden intrusion and the thrill had Sylvie moan against his throat. Loki captured her voice with his lips, tasting her eagerly while he sank ever deeper into her. It was rough, quick, heated, messy, but Sylvie loved every second of it. She collapsed on Loki in the aftermath with no care of where they were or who was watching. The cool marbled floor cooled their heated bodies as they laid there together, half clothed and panting from the wake of ecstasy and the thrill of the win.
It was only then did she explain to Loki her new plan. And much to her delight, he agreed to the idea very readily. Their fight, his injury, their discrepancy between one another was long forgotten.