brandingproblem | au shenanigans for icasm

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."

"I guess it must be nice to have your own space, anyway." Seeing as he can't imagine not sharing space with someone for most of his life. He's really not sure what it's like on a more permanent basis. "Can't see you with strangers, though, no. Get on your nerves, and you'd be too intense for them."

"It is nice, yes." Lonely and strange at its worst times, but it remains the least stressful living arrangement he's had in quite a while. "I'm too intense for most, whether or not I'm already annoyed.

"Will you become the sort of people who host parties in order to fil the house with noise? I imagine not." But it does beg the question, what will the Bartons do with an empty house?

"I don't know. Maybe. For some of the people that are left, and some of the new kids, maybe. Probably not. We haven't really made any decisions and probably won't until Nate's about ready to graduate."

And then it really will be too quiet. What are they going to do with themselves?

"I imagine he'll be like his siblings and make sure to keep in touch with Uncle Loki all the time."

That seems like a late point to make decisions, but he supposes something should be said for avoidance tendencies.

"I'm not concerned about that, really." Mostly because he and Nate already have a shared language of memes and strange references to build off of, and he already texts Loki more often than his siblings do. "I am concerned about you, in the future, in a quiet house. What happens when you're bored more often than not?"

"Maybe we'll go back in the field."

Laura's been out of it long enough that she probably would only be logistical support. For whatever group she might fall in with. SWORD maybe.

"There's still plenty of trouble I can help right in the world. Or get into and get myself half killed. Could always try and take on new building projects, though. Keep my hands busy."

He squints out into the night. "Or maybe that's when you'll swoop in and really harp on the whole being your chosen weapon thing. Maybe you've got some chores for me to do."

"Hm."

Another sip of tea. He's not sure how he feels about either of those particular options, honestly. Clint and Laura going back into the field make him feel like his own actions towards making Clint stronger and longer lived than the typical earthbound human would probably hit the light nearly immediately.

"I would prefer you about as close to death as you are today."

A soft scoff. "You know the offer stands to see other worlds, at the very least. I am not going to force it on you." Once again, skirting too close to things they don't talk about. "Not this decade."

"I dunno, if you were going to, I'd hurry if I were you. God knows the next time I go somewhere and trouble lands right in my lap, I've lived on borrowed time for half my life."

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