brandingproblem | au shenanigans for icasm

Through the power of it being his own damned dream, Loki is aware of it. Aware of what it might mean. Perhaps this is a Clint before Loki met him, or just as. One without the shared baggage of what he'd done, been driven to do, between them.

He's not drawing attention to it. He's not asking questions. He's just matching the intensity of the kisses long enough to up the ante, to graduate to deeper kisses and biting teeth and pressing the palms of his hands against Clint's chest beneath his shirt.

There is, in his mind, a sense of impending doom. But it's not at a level of anxiety, yet, and so Loki ignores it, or at least notes it and moves on. The impending doom could be anything, and there are no guarantees he'll get this opportunity again.

He can bite. They know he can bite. And Clint's been thinking of the length of Loki's neck every time he's been dipped back toward the floor. So the kissing and biting moves, from mouth to the sharp line of his jaw to his neck. There is none of that animal-hunter-predator-prey sensation now, no bloody urge to sink his teeth into throat and rip and tear. Just being in the moment as he tugs Loki's hair to encourage baring of neck a little more.

There's the first real wonder he acknowledges of if he should be doing this. Encouraging Loki, dipping into the obvious wants and desires, even in the wake of what happened in dreams before. This won't help them. This will only complicate matters.

(Will it? Are they not complicated enough that, perhaps, this will actually simplify things? Is chasing an impulsive high in a dreamscape comparable to needs met in reality? He doesn't know anymore.)

But to his credit, he tries to push the doubt aside. Not shove away, not cause violence. Stay right here, indulging them both.

Loki should ask if Clint is certain about this (he won't) or if they should stop (he doesn't) long before he considers the possibility of dropping to his knees in front of his man, whose consciousness is present in Loki's own dreams, where things have an effect on the real-world.

Surely.

Well. Does any of that sound like Loki?

He does drop to his knees and here he hesitates, mostly to look up at Clint's face and see what kind of an effect this is having on the other man. If there's hesitation or revulsion in Clint's expression, he'll pivot, but otherwise?

Despite the now constant chiming of warning bells in the back of his mind, he will get this man's cock in his mouth.

Maybe it was in one of them, or maybe both, but the warning feels like it bounces back and forth between them, felt deeply and with certainty.

But just as deeply, or deeper, is the desperate want. Ignoring all the flashing warning signs and ringing bells of alarm, when Loki sinks, Clint exhales a shivery breath out, head leaned back on the shelf. Hooded eyes focused on Loki, on his eager mouth. If there's revulsion in this moment, it isn't present on his face. It might simply be a background feeling set aside along with every warning, something that mingles with everything else the archer feels, all the conflict and confusion.

But he's here. In this moment. Opens up his pants with one hand, keeps the other fisted in Loki's hair.

He is aware, distantly, of the shifting shelves, coming closer, closing rank. Not trapping them, but certainly decreasing the space now that they're not using it for dancing. And while the orgy had been great in a way that was only distantly satisfying but not so much on his real level, Loki's full attention and heat and desire and need and eager slickness feels much more solid, much more satisfying already. Like it could actually be happening.

It isn't. Probably. Not really. But really enough that maybe he'll feel it on waking. He doesn't know how it works just yet. But it's not important in this moment, not now, not as he's enjoying himself with a pleased noise.

Which is when several books from a shelf above them come clattering down on them.

This perhaps might only be an annoyance rather than a problem, except for the very thick, solid tome that smacks Clint right in the head, making him see stars, woozy for a weird few moments--

--and starts to fall--

--and vanishes from the dream entirely. Wakes with a start and a hiss in bed. Headachy and ragingly hard.

When Clint pitches forward Loki panics, centering his emotions on the need for the other man to wake up without head trauma; whatever he does works, either in spite of or in combination with the blow to the head (it's a book about Clint, he realizes, one that focuses on all the physical aspects of him, of fucking course). Clint vanishes and the bookcase continues to tilt forward, raining other Clint Barton-related texts onto Loki's head as he laughs.

He wakes up laughing (also with a sore head), and while it takes him a few moments to pull himself together, Loki does decide to go against his better instincts and texts Clint instead of waiting for a text to be headed his way. Or an impromptu visit. However the man might decide to reach out anywhere between an hour and a month from now.

I hope your head doesn't hurt too much.

He does not respond right away. Because he is not in the mood for it. He's in the mood for something different entirely, but he feels like he has to sort himself out again first, and that's just a weird feeling all around.

(He doesn't tell Laura about it, about the specifics of the dreams that he has. Just that he has weird dreams, that they're connected to Loki, that it's probably magic. She doesn't have to know that some very thoroughly enjoyed morning sex is because Loki was going to dream-blow him.)

Does his head also hurt, yes, but he isn't concussed. He's had plenty of those in his life. It's just a general 'whacked in the head with something heavy' kind of pain to take something with breakfast and go about his day and ignore the text.

He does realize that the longer he goes without answering, the more worried Loki might become. But their open window, open door, open everything at this point connection might have enough leeway to feel that he's fine, honestly, without ever having to say anything.

It takes a week. A full week. Before he finally replies to the damn text that's been sitting on his phone like some kind of guilty specter sitting on his chest: I think your library hates us.

Loki would become worried if not for the window and the lack of cryptic or less than cryptic texts from the Barton's children. So he's not worried.

Annoyed. Pressed. Frustrated. All of the above, but not worried.

Clint is left on read for several hours. Just three, or four. Until dinner, or maybe a little after that.

Perhaps a little.

The kids are traitors all whether they text updates to Loki or not.

Being left on read doesn't bother him, given the treatment he just offered up. Especially for something that seems so minor in comparison. Let Loki be frustrated. What did he expect in the waking world, immediate open honest conversation?

He debates even bothering to reply. Is there much point?

No hanky panky around the books, got it. Might as well say something.

Somehow I honestly doubt it is on the table as it stands, books or no.

He sighs, sets the phone down. That was unfairly handled, but. What did he expect?

What did Loki expect?

Something else, something different, something that matched how he'd felt inside after learning how Clint might taste, without violence, in more than one sense of the word.

I suppose there's a chance I'm wrong.

Ugh. Ok he should really. Get a drink, or something

Clint was expecting more from Loki. A conversation? Something regarding feelings? Something needling and pointed and jabbing? Instead of this whatever this is. Because he's not sure what this is. Is this passive aggression or...

He frowns at his phone. They don't talk well in text, in verbal communication, not even in dreams when that shit should probably be easiest. Is that always going to be a barrier between them?

Do we need to talk?

This answer is timely, at least. And Loki is... Trying. He's just also still annoyed.

Only if you want to.

You know me. I can always talk.

About the shit we aren't talking about.

Now it's Clint who's annoyed, because once again Loki damn well knows what he means, and Loki never thinks he's specific enough. So, fine, whatever. If Loki actually wants/needs to talk things out, it'll happen one stupid way or another, and if not, then they just won't.

I'm well aware of what we'd need to talk about. But if you don't feel that it is necessary for your own well-being I'm hesitant to bother with it for the sake of only my own.

We aren't good at it besides.

Edited (Words. Phone tagging) 2022-11-15 04:46 (UTC)

Do you need it?

Keep it short and simple and difficult to misinterpret. Maybe that will help.

I hope not because I do not want to talk about it.

A slow exhale. Okay. That he can understand. He lets it sit on read for another hour, finishing cleaning up from dinner, doing some things around the house. It's quieter without all of the kids running around or blasting music loudly, only Nate doing his homework and being frankly one of the quieter and more thoughtful of the trio.

Sometimes he thinks about how much quieter it'll be when the youngest, too, finally leaves.

The house is big enough that he could sequester himself away in a room without being interrupted or overheard, but he heads out to the barn instead, climbs up into the loft, settles in. Gives Loki a call.

It rings once. It rings twice.

On pickup: "We don't have to talk about it. But maybe we could talk."

Loki considered letting Clint's call go to voicemail, which he checks once a month at the most frequent interval. He does tend to save messages he receives from Clint's children, though, no matter when they were left or how long they are. Sentiment, or something. However, after the ringtone beings to repeat he picks up, sighing loudly into the receiver.

What Clint says surprises him, somehow. He'd thought that perhaps they were back to square negative five thousand, or something.

"What would you have us talk about instead? Other dreams we've had?"

"No, god, maybe we shouldn't talk about dreams. Unless you really want to hear some of the ones I can barely remember." He really can't imagine that being interesting, but then again, Loki is a very lucid dreamer and probably finds the human idea of just dreaming shit up and not having any control to be fascinating.

"I don't actually...know what about. But we fucking suck at talking, so, maybe practicing...talking, maybe that'll work better for us in the long run."

"...alright." Loki sighs again, though a great deal quieter this time around, and settles himself into the couch, summoning his tea from the kitchen and allowing his cat to curl up at his hip while he sets the phone down and puts Clint on speaker. What? Tea takes two hands if one's doing it right.

"We could start with a simple exchange of information. One of us says something that is true, and the other responds, so on and so forth, until we need a new topic.

I can begin, even," and before Clint has much leeway to interrupt one way or another, "by saying that I thought perhaps you were angry with me, but now I am unsure that is true." Was true? Maybe. He doesn't care if Clint was angry with him but does care if Clint remains angry with him.

That there's an extended silence at the other end is always hard to interpret. Loki does love to talk, though, and Clint is fine with letting himself do most of the talking. He just has to think about how to reply to it.

"I don't think I was angry with you. I might have been angry at myself." But this is already skirting really fucking close to Talking About It, which they both have mutually agreed they don't want to do. "I'm not angry right now. Not with you."

"Good. Because it is a difficult thing to tolerate, you being angry with me. And now I feel like a depiction of a human teenager, ugh." Loki takes a sip of tea. "Tell me something you're concerned about that has little or nothing to do with me?" Isn't that what friends do? Discuss their lives in common, and otherwise?

He does want to be Clint's friend. He wants more, certainly, but none of this will work if they're constantly at odds. Even he, chaos incarnate, is aware of that much.

"Nothing to do with you?" A wild request from Loki, and he actually has to lean back and think about the things that--aren't Loki, when talking to Loki.

"I...was actually thinking about what to do with the house once Nate's gone." He and Laura have had short little discussions, but nothing concrete planned. "I mean, we're not gonna get rid of it; it's a good place, really is home now, and I'm not about to turn it into a rental or an airbnb or anything like that and compromise the location. But it'll be really quiet. It already feels like too much space." A short laugh: "Until the holidays come around, then it'll feel like just the right size again."

"It's my understanding that friends know things about one another's lives, concerns, whathaveyou." Offhand. Like he hadn't thought about it, or read books on the subject, or read articles, or countless internet forums and memes and short videos by humans struggling to emotionally connect with other humans.

Like he hasn't done research on the topic.

"The quiet is one of the hardest parts of living alone. Or alone-ish, in your case. Sometimes a benefit but often it's just... empty." Smaller spaces are easier to manage, in that way, but Clint isn't looking for solutions or suggestions so Loki doesn't mention it.

"Do you like the quiet?" Without mentioning the whole friend thing. Whatever. But he's curious now. "I mean, you grew up in a palace full of people, presumably. Is being on your own too quiet, or do you like it better that way now?"

"I like quiet in the sense of not having other people around in certain situations. Reading, painting, studying, that sort of thing." The audio equivalent of a shrug at the end of that sentence. "When I was a child I thought that I preferred quiet, but what I actually preferred was knowing when and how I was going to be interrupted from the quiet.

I'm used to it, I suppose? I don't know that I would say that I like it better now. I wouldn't live with strangers, however, at this rate, ever again if it could at all be avoided."

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