driftfleet | the white noise is deafening silence

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the white noise is deafening silence

[In the very early hours of January 20th, as the Marsiva and her captives drift nonchalantly through the depths of the universe, there is a call. Every single personal communicator and console springs to life, spitting out a stream of indecipherable static and showing only gray snow on screen. It continues like this for a few seconds longer, going black and then going staticky, and then the signal switches to the encrypted channel generally used for speaking to the Interceptors when something big goes down.

This is a little more successful. The voice may be familiar to some, at least through the static.]

Zhade here! I trust I ███ your attention? I'm having some ██▓▓ble ██tting through. Some of the ░▓██▓█ are missing. I can't ░▓▓▓ read on their loc█████ns. [A particularly long burst of static.] ███stening. I'll s█▓▓█ more inf██▓▓▓▓▓█ I get it.

Stay sharp! [There's the sound of someone actually doing the fingerguns wink noise, and then static.

Any messages sent back won't get through, and Zhade isn't there to answer.]

[ A blip of lost time passes right after those words, before every passenger mysteriously wakes alone in their own unfamiliar room. The style of decor resembles that of the Marsiva's Hospitality Deck, if any passengers should remember what that's like. It sounds and smells the same as the host ship as well, all clean and chrome.

Welcome back to the Marsiva, dear passengers. It's time for round three of calibrations. ]

[ This mingle will cover all non-calibration room interactions. Please continue to come back to it for the duration of the plot! You are, of course, free to post any other mingles/posts/etc. that you'd like. ]

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[Thor has time enough to suck in a startled breath before he's slammed to the ground, taken aback by the scale of Loki's fury. Not surprised - deep down, not surprised in the least - but caught off guard.

The knife's edge makes itself known against his throat and for one blinding moment Thor's own rage comes boiling up, sparks crackling around his hands and eyes turning white with lightning. It would take barely anything to blast Loki backwards along with all his twisted beliefs and hateful insistence on his own guilt. How dare he. How dare he.

Thor snarls back, heedless of whether that brings the blade slightly closer. In the span of a breath the room could explode. It would be a blessed release of all the pain and grief and anger he feels, directed at the only suitable target in range.

...

my undying fidelity

...

But that isn't entirely true either.

The electricity dies out of Thor's eyes though the anger doesn't. He glares up at Loki and says, unmovable:]

No. Fuck you. You're not.

[ no. no, that's not what he wanted. loki shakes thor uselessly. his blade quivers and it cuts a little deeper. not enough for pain, but enough to make loki's eyes widen, trying to hold to this course. he blinks the wetness from his eyes. don't falter. ]

Damn you. Damn you Thor. What happened to killing me if I betrayed you? I have done that many times over! Just say it.

[ his tone has shifted, without loki realizing. he's pleading, maybe even begging. the knife is no longer steady, but he needs this, he needs this. ]

You -- absolute moron.

[The knife barely registers to Thor, used to far worse than that. How many times had Loki stabbed him in annoyance, or sport, or -- betrayal, yes. If it goes too far Thor will strike back. He knows that. They both do. But Loki's nerve is starting to crack and Thor doesn't genuinely think it will come to that point.

He almost moves to shake his head but stops when he feels the knife slip a little deeper.]

I told myself that's what I would do because I couldn't damn well stand the idea of you doing it again. I've had plenty of chances to kill you. I don't want to.

[He never had. In that awful time when Loki was imprisoned Thor had avoided him entirely out of confusion and anger. He didn't understand why and he feared the answer. In the aftermath of their mother's death the anger had won out and for a time he believed he would do it. A short time.

Now Loki looms over him wild and desperate, wanting to be that hateful creature and hear it confirmed from Thor's lips. But Thor is nothing if not stubborn.]

No.

[ loki remembers this. dimly, yet perfectly. the howl of the void. the roaring of the waterfalls. gungnir, cold in his grasp. it is a different position but it feels the same. loki, hanging by a thread and —

and it feels like nothing has changed. with a cry, loki pulls his knife back to aim for thor's new eye but it stops. of course it stops because loki can't do it. he could never do it. he lacked the bent backbone of cruelty. he lacked the perfect spine of goodness. the sobs are wordless, but loki pushes through. he tosses it aside, listening to it clatter and he pulls back a little, quiet. ]

You lied to me. You told me I could be more. How could you make me think that?

[If Loki had aimed for anywhere else, Thor wouldn't have budged. If he hadn't just relived the moment Hela slashed his eye out of his face through whatever dream ensnared both of them the night before, maybe he wouldn't have reacted. When the knife starts plunging down however and Thor realises where it's aimed he flinches, jerking one hand up to take the blow.

The blow never lands, though. Thor pants through the seconds that follow and for a moment he does hate Loki. Hates that he went for that spot above all others, that he's fighting Thor on this, that he makes this harder than it needs to be. It's gone in a flash as Loki hurls the knife away and pulls in on himself.

He moves the hand he'd flung up to protect his face then and grabs hold of Loki's wrist, right around the strap still tied there.]

It wasn't a lie. Don't you dare act like my believing in you was some great ruse.

[ loki shakes his head. he knew that, of course. thor has no reason to do that to him, but it still feels like his head is full of cotton. bowing his head, loki tries to still the weeping from his face. he's tired of crying, of being this weak. of being made up of jagged pieces that he's trying to put together badly. ]

I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry.

[They've been here before, Thor realises with a pang. Last night - whenever that time was, when Loki broke down inside his mind. It's nothing more than an extension of that awful moment, brought out into the light of reality and made real by memory. And Thor knows why. What Loki had seen, that conversation he had with Rocket while Thor felt like he was shoring up his existence with memories of life and vengeance for the dead. It had been cold and lonely.

And they were here before then too, when they woke up again in the Fleet and felt their lives falling down around them. A neverending nightmare.

Thor breathes out sharply and pulls Loki down into a hug, blinking his own tears from his face. Because this apology... this he can accept.]

[ the apology feels different than the time at svartalfheim. loki had meant it then too, of course. the words then and the words now have not changed. i'm sorry, i'm a fool, i didn't do it for him. loki knows what he did it for, what he's always done it for. he can never fully apologize for saving thor's life over his own because he'll never truly regret that. but he does regret this purgatory that thor is left in, alone.

i thought the world of you. ]

I'm sorry.

I know.

[There's a thread of resignation in it, accepting what can't be changed. What Loki's act had meant for Thor, what collateral damage it left in its wake. It cuts deeper every time, losing Loki. All the worse now when they had come so close to staring over, repairing what had been broken and forging something new and better.

Thor shuts his eyes, arms tight around his brother.]

I wish it hadn't come to this.

[Loki had deserved better. They both had.]

[ loki exhales, soft. ]

Me too.

[ for all that it was, loki didn't want to die. not then. not when he finally had a grasp on something that was his own. ]

[Opening his eyes again, Thor stares at the ceiling without really seeing it.

There's a lot that Thor does blame Loki for. Taking the Tesseract, not telling Thor about it, not mentioning that Thanos would come looking. Monumental secrets that converged on them all at once. In the end though he can't blame Loki for another person's acts, even if he had brought Thanos down upon them. He just can't do it. Thanos deserves his ire more than Loki does. But there are things that Thor deserves blame for too, and that is a fact he cannot forget even in the midst of his anger.]

I'm sorry I called you the worst.

[ loki huffs at that. it's true that it did niggle at him a little, but thor wasn't wrong. loki hoards grudges, but this one he left to the wayside. ]

You were not wrong.

[He still scowls a bit, because being wrong wasn't the point. It was the fact that it was the last thing he ever said to Loki, that damned Ebony Maw having gagged Thor afterwards and rendering him incapable of saying anything else. It's one of the cruel blessings of this place that Thor gets to apologise at all.]

Doesn't matter. I'm still sorry.

[He falls quiet for a moment.]

I don't remember much of it. The place we were in last night.

[ that doesn't surprise loki that much and quite frankly, he prefers it. though now he wonders how much thor does remember. ]

That's fine. I simply need to remember that you require space for your own grief.

[ it simply got tangled with loki's own, dealing onto him a blow he wasn't prepared for. ]

[Thor's fingers curl up against Loki's back momentarily. He never knows if he wants space or to be constantly occupied, surrounded by others. Sometimes it feels like both, or neither. What he does know is the idea of being alone for too long is just unbearable.]

You have already seen much of it.

[In his memories, which Thor does have clear recollection of even if he can't remember how they were placed or where. And in the days before the Marsiva, where that same grief kept propelling him back onto the First Breath every night.]

It does not bother me.

[ and if it does, loki will work on it. that is what he swore. that is what he died for. he has no intention of constantly repeating the past. ]

...doesn't it?

[It's a quiet prod, hinting at what Thor does remember from last night.]

[ loki sighs, finally pulling himself off thor, but sitting down, his legs crossed. ]

That — was different. And it is not something you wish to hear but — [ he closes his eyes, trying to put one foot in front of the next mentally. ] — I didn't want to die. I didn't want to leave you with the idea that I was the worst. I wanted to leave you some hope. That the sun will shine on us again.

[Thor levers himself up to sit as well, propping one arm on a knee. And Loki's right - he doesn't enjoy hearing this. The creasing of his brow speaks to that. He has to shut his eyes against it when Loki says again he didn't want to die. That's the part he remembers most clearly from the calibration, Loki's awful admission. Something Thor had subconsciously hoped was true but came at a terrible price.

"The sun will shine on us again." He has to scrub at his face once more, feeling the wrench those words inspire.]

I didn't even know what you meant by it. I didn't - have time to wonder.

[Thor had already been on his last legs at that point, beaten terribly by Thanos and addled by the Power Stone. Everything had exploded after that.]

[ loki is silent. ]

It doesn't matter anymore.

[ it's not as though it'll come true. it's not as though loki left thor with any real hope things will get better. they're just words. ]

It matters to me. It matters now.

[ loki looks down at his hands, settled in his lap. ]

No, Thor. I don't think it does.

[Taking a deep breath, Thor looks away. Silence falls between them into the abyss of their hopes and dreams.]

You don't get to decide that for me, Loki. [Quiet, but firm.] That is not how it works.

[ loki flinches. ]

No. Of course not. I simply meant it holds . . . little relevance now.

[Huffing, Thor flaps his hand. Reiterating his point. He won't bother to say it again. Only now he's thinking back to last night, and the nights before, and all the conversations he's had since being dumped back into the Fleet.]

Look, I don't - want to spend all of our time here going over it. We cannot ignore it, but... we can't go through this every day. Not when people are in our dreams every night.

[It's a matter of focus, not driving himself insane. They're trapped more than usual, with little to occupy them beyond books and movies about alien dogs being adopted by human girls. Looking back over to Loki, some of the tension leaves Thor's expression. Not enough to smile, but it's a few degrees brighter than before.]

Whatever happens, we are not done yet.

the white noise is deafening silence

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