lucetilogs | Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

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Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

Who: All Draftees
What: This is your death. Followed by your time-traveling life and desperate bomb hunting.
When: From May 22 to May 20 to early May 23 (days 1-4)
Where: Zompania
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post is for the draftee-only portion of the Zompania draft--the day 3 death, time travel to day 1, and then the events until the arrival of the reinforcements. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Please note that there is a specific top-level comment thread for:

The day 3 arrival of the draftees and the 6 hours that follow until the bomb is dropped
Death--This thread can be treated as REFERENCE ONLY. Responding to it isn't necessary.
Threads prior to departing for Zompania--post resurrection freak outs, arguments over how to proceed, etc.

All other threading, from day 1 until the reinforcements arrive, should be conducted as normal.

Be sure to tag this post appropriately: [canon] character name

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"Well? No," she was beginning to recognize this now, beginning to find her way. This was Loki on his best behavior, trying not to rock the boat and keep her where she was, as he had back when he was - well, he'd call it 'courting' her, and she couldn't think of any other term. "But he's all in one piece, at least."

She took a shuddering breath and reached for the hand she half hadn't seen, half had ignored. She took his hand in both of hers, smoothed her thumbs over the sides. It was time to operate on instinct, now. She didn't want either of them distracted by this when they got out there. They couldn't afford that. She needed him to know... needed him to know that she was with him.

Rogue took his hand and put it over her heart. She held it there. "You still want me to ask you if you want me any less?"

It did something to hear to say the words out loud. It was like a ringing in her ear, similar to the same internal response she'd had when Loki had told her she was enough before the depth of her concern had begun to form. It was something that needed saying and felt better expressed than weighing her down.

"That is all one can hope, in a time like this." At least for someone like Kurt. He'd already seen how thin the boy had worn on the second day.

His lips moved into a tired, almost sad smile. "It is your choice, if you would like to know the answer." Should he try to heal her now? He wasn't certain at all, any more.

Rogue searched his face before she responded. She could see echoes of pain and fear in his expression, and part of her vaguely wondered if he hurt like she hurt or if it was another thing entirely.

Would she like to know the answer?

What do you want, Rogue?

He hadn't cheated on her. He'd told her about what he was struggling with, and even if it was the worst timing ever, he'd told her and risked losing her because he wanted things to be right between them. He'd told her because he was upset and struggling and he trusted her.

What did she want?

Still holding his hand over her heart, Rogue leaned forward and brushed a kiss against his temple, moved to place light kisses over his eyes, on his cheekbones, his nose, his forehead, his chin, and she spoke quietly between kisses. "Maybe I should guess first. An' you can tell me if I'm right."

She wanted to believe in him. She wanted to hold onto him. Loki had done nothing but earn her trust, and it was time that she trusted him.

Loki closed his eyes, letting his head bow slowly. Each kiss was a single point of relief, letting his shoulders unclench, allowing him to swallow down some of the anger and upset. He huffed a laugh. "Then speak your guess aloud. At this point I shall not hazard myself to make assumptions."

"Probably a good idea," she murmured, coming finally to kiss his other temple before she pulled back and looked at him again. She gave him her smallest smile, the one filled with hope and a certain amount of tentative confidence. "I'm guessin' that you still want me. I'm guessin' you're still mine."

He gave his head a little nod. "Yes, you are right," he said. "On both counts." He stayed as he was, head bowed, feeling curiously defeated, of all things. Well, how else was a man to feel, when he'd committed some great wrong--but it wasn't his fault he wanted to wait, yet it was--and been given reprieve only with grace.

Life had been so much simpler when he hadn't cared about such things at all. It really had. Though for the most part the trade had felt like a good one.

What was wrong with him, that this was an issue to begin with? That he felt as if he loved these other people, but did not love Rogue at all less?

Not something he could ask her about, obviously. Maybe there would be some helpful books in the library. It was better than no resource at all.

...well. That was good to hear. But Rogue couldn't help feel that things were somehow still not all right, because he wasn't even looking at her. She'd taken the risk, she'd jumped off the cliff - and now she felt like she was just hanging there. She wasn't flying, she hadn't fallen, and it didn't seem like there was anyone there to catch her.

Maybe he felt like he'd fallen himself?

Rogue's hand trembled slightly as she lifted it to her cheek and her thumb traced his cheekbone before she spoke. "What's wrong?"

Loki sighed and looked at her. There were no answers to these questions, or at least none that he liked. He'd really begun to feel... well not good exactly, he wasn't a good sort of person. But stable. As if he'd once again established who he was and what he was doing, and now he felt himself teetering again, reminded firmly that he could not exercise even the most basic control over himself.

And she asked what was wrong. What was even right at this point. He snorted, lips twisting into a sardonic smile. "I think we already covered that. It wasn't such a fun part of the conversation that I wish to repeat it."

Her eyes widened and Rogue's hands to her lap. She would have taken the hand she'd pressed to her heart and flung it off herself, if she didn't think it was already too late and maybe Loki felt the way her heart lurched. So. So. What was wrong was that he still wanted someone else, that he wanted to be with someone else so much that he was sitting her with her straddling his lap, moping about it? That was what was wrong?

But he said he wanted to be here...

"I think, maybe," Rogue said slowly, "I don't understand just what you mean by that. At least, I hope so."

Angry and hurting, Rogue leaned away from him, sliding back up to his knees. As she continued to talk, however, she slowly, subconsciously, began to lean back towards Loki. "But if you're talkin' about wanting to be with someone else, I think maybe we've already talked this bit around as much as we can. An' unless you're tellin' me flat out that you're breakin' up with me, I don't want to do that now. I want to know that when we get out of this, I can curl up in our bed with you an' we can hold each other through the night. I want to know that when I wake up screamin' that you're gonna be there, because if not it's gonna feel real hard to wake up at all. An' I don't wanna die here, and I don't want you to either, because I still love you."

She took a ragged breath. "So maybe we've talked about this enough for now."

Edited 2014-05-29 22:36 (UTC)

Really, dying here was starting to sound really nice. Perhaps he could go back in time and just push himself in front of a cultist before he ever had that conversation with Eugene. That sounded like a most excellent plan indeed.

Loki rubbed his forehead in one hand, feeling half exasperated and half heart-sore. Rogue's words felt cruel indeed, considering it wasn't as if he'd said anything of that sort. "You asked me what was wrong," he said, exasperation winning out as the emotion to be expressed. And he had promised to be honest with her, so he had tried. "I am angry with myself, and I am miserable, and I am wishing this entire bloody day could be set on fire so I might be rid of it. And I wish... I wish you wouldn't speak of me breaking up with you or 'wanting to be with other people' as if those were possibilities I had spoken of or considered, because they aren't."

It was funny he said that, because Rogue was pretty sure she remembered him just up and offering to walk away because he had broken faith, according to him. Although he had technically not spoken of wanting to be with other people, he'd neatly avoided it by pulling her onto his lap and telling her to ask him if he still wanted, which Rogue knew was as good as a yes.

But she really, really didn't want to talk about this anymore.

Frowning slightly, Rogue reached out and poked his chest lightly. "I guess I was hopin' I'd made you feel a little less miserable, what with decidin' you should stick around. So I thought maybe there was somethin' else..."

She gave him a slow smile then. "But if that's all, then maybe we can just be angry an' miserable together?"

She wanted, so badly, just to feel like they were okay.

"Until I have excised this new defect that has taken root within me, I am not going to be well pleased," he said. Everything that had gone wrong within him was still in place and still inescapable. While it was a relief she would not cast him aside for such traitorous feelings, he still wasn't happy with his inner situation.

He managed a crooked smile. "Always."

"...I don't know if I'd call it a defect," she said carefully. "It's not as though there's somethin' wrong with you."

No. It's me. It's me, it's my fault for--

For what? Not being all things to all people? She could only be who she was and screw it if that wasn't enough. He should have known better. He did know better. He knew what he was getting into.

She shifted on his lap, bringing her legs all to one side, and then moved forward to lean against his chest.

"It would seem there is something very wrong with me," he said. "If I am such a faithless creature." He would have to find some way to rid himself of these pernicious feelings.

Loki sighed and wrapped his arms around her. He couldn't help but recall what Eugene has said. Maybe it was just men like him and Eugene who had this particular defect of the spirit. And how was he to think himself anything other than twisted in some way, to be so weak and to cause Rogue so much misery through no conscious desire of his own?

No, he'd need to find a way around this.

She brought up one hand and curled it in his jacket. She didn't want to talk about this. She didn't want to think about this anymore. But still... she couldn't let him just keep thinking that.

"There's a difference between thinkin' about other people an' being with other people," she said and shut her eyes, resting her head on his shoulder. "Please don't say you're 'faithless' unless somethin' worse has happened than wanting."

Was there anything more fundamentally faithless than harboring such thoughts? He knew what lies felt like, to hold a thought or feeling in secret and pretend that all else was well. He was the master of that.

And really, after all she had said before, to him it sounded like a thin comfort for them both. But if that was what she wanted when it came to use of words, he could agree to that readily enough. "As you wish," he said.

Rogue smiled faintly at those words.

What he was really saying was...

"Thank you."

She kept her eyes shut and tried to quiet her heart and convince herself that her heart was as safe with him as it ever was. Her mind would not rest easy, and she kept going over the past month for clues, thoughts that he had been thinking about others when he was with her, some way she could have noticed or known... but she hadn't. And he'd been struggling so horribly and she hadn't even known...

It was a little terrifying.

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Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

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