Re: Fill: Strange Bedfellows 10/?
anonymous
July 17 2013, 02:52:31 UTC
((Happy to oblige!))
By the eighth day, two things had become apparent: that Dr. Doom's patient was strong enough to be moved to more normal residential quarters (he also seemed utterly terrified of medical equipment), and that his mental state was such that to get any information at all out of him would require an oblique, strategic approach.
It was also becoming rapidly apparent that the creature-who-was-once-Loki craved physical contact, with made Victor von Doom profoundly uncomfortable.
The morning had been an exercise in frustration. Doom had more or less locked Loki in his new quarters - guest room, a normal bedroom, or at least what passed for normal within a supervillain's castle.
Loki seemed to have largely the same series of reactions to any apparent positive development.
First came resistance. This response was borne, Victor guessed, of fear. The trickster's tormentors must have dangled all manner of relief before his eyes and snatched it away to sharpen the resulting suffering. Now, Loki reacted to everything from his new, soft four-poster bed to the protein-rich feast he was offered for breakfast as though it were surely a poison in disguise.
When resistance failed, the trickster would feign indifference for a while. He was most definitely not interested in his new blankets, or in any food at all, and would sit pretending not to be watching the things out of the corner of his eye.
Only when the blessings still failed to disappear would he indulge, and then with a sort of resignation that made Doom angrier than anything else. The Loki he had known was never able to relax under the watchful eye of another; he never let his guard down, for it would never do for a god to indulge in either pain or pleasure before a mortal.
The new Loki didn't care.
And so Doom - was he actually aching as he watched the shell of the former god devour sausage, eggs, bacon and hashbrowns like an animal? Dressed in a minion's uniform, to boot - Doom's own clothes would not have fit the trickster before, much less in his present emaciated state, and servants' garb was the only other kind he had around.
Victor had it funny for about five seconds, until he realized that the trickster was not mentally intact enough to be indignant about his state of dress, and possibly (probably?) never would be again.
If Loki did not someday return to at least favor Doom with a white-hot, scathing rant over the treatment he'd received at Doom's hands...
If Loki did not return, what could Victor do except burn the vacant body?
Re: Fill: Strange Bedfellows 11/?
anonymous
July 17 2013, 05:42:01 UTC
((Is this thread becoming too compressed by my constant replying to replies instead of to the original prompt? I can see it just fine but I'm new to this format. Lemme know if I should start replying to the original.))
Damn him if it wasn't obvious that trickster god wanted to cuddle.
An entire day of attempting to wheedle information out of Loki had proven fruitless; asking about his tormentors proved fruitless because Loki was convinced that he was still under their influence, that Doom was one of them or one of their conjurations.
For all that, he didn't seem to fear his caretaker - or he feared him less than he feared anything else in the world, and Victor von Doom was more than a little curious as to why that was.
The creature that had been Loki clearly expected his savior to turn on him at any moment. What he expected that betrayal to constitute, Doom could only shudder to imagine when he looked at the injuries Loki's torturers had previously inflicted.
And yet for all that he clearly lived in constant expectation of betrayal by the only other living creature he'd encountered, he followed Doom rather than avoiding him.
Followed him into the study when Doom worked, when he strategized; Victor thought he'd found an in to his old ally's true mind when he caught Loki showing a spark of interest in the world map he was pouring over. The thing had various important locations marked with colored pins, a color-coding system obvious only to Doom himself, a world domination puzzle to unravel.
But the instant Doom's eyes fell on Loki, the former god's face slackened back into something dead-looking, and Doom knew with a horrible certainty that the deadness was not an act.
Re: Fill: Strange Bedfellows 12/?
anonymous
July 17 2013, 05:43:30 UTC
In time, Victor began to make sense of this behavior.
Loki believed that he was still inside whatever special hell his tormentors had concocted for him. Apparently, they had made liberal use of illusion (and perhaps they still did; Doom remembered with sudden, great unease, the strong dreaming patterns he'd observed in the god's unconscious mind). And apparently, there'd been an intellectual arms race between the two parties; the tormentors would lull him into a false sense of security again and again and again, and the instant Loki bought it they would turn on him with--
Doom shuddered to imagine.
Loki's solution: to never buy into the illusion. To never believe - including now, apparently - that he was truly free, or safe (and Victor was increasingly begin to wonder if he actually was safe, even in this fortress).
To answer any of Doom's questions would have meant assuming that Doom did not already know the answers; that he was not in truth a torturer, waiting to strike. To show an active interest in anything, to show any flicker of who Loki had been, may have brought untold horrors upon said self until it was utterly spent and broken. Again.
So he accepted Doom's physical accommodations grudgingly, only because they would not go away. But he would not give any indication that he believed Doom was anything other than one of the enemies who Loki refused to name.
Did Loki's personality still survive, somewhere under these Pavlovian defense mechanisms? Or had the trickster's mind genuinely been trampled to dust?
The Loki Doom had known would never have behaved in so undignified a manner; not for anything.
But perhaps (Doom could hope), someone had managed to scare the god into humility without actually destroying him.
Re: Fill: Strange Bedfellows 13/?
anonymous
July 17 2013, 05:44:16 UTC
The briefest spark of mischief when Loki looked at Doom's world map, even before the mortifying incident where he had kissed him, was enough to keep Victor's hope alive.
Of course, none of this did anything to help him figure out who it was that was so dangerous and felt the need to deliver the near-corpse of von Doom's ally to his doorstep.
And so there was only one thing to do.
It was apparent that the thing that had been Loki was desperately lonely. In the way he followed the man he fully expected to turn on him with untold horrors, in the way the god stole shy glances at his sole companion (Doom dared not allow anyone but himself near the trickster; with all of this going on, he suddenly felt that his background checks for servants were not nearly thorough enough).
In the way he tended to inch closer, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes pitifully, when the two of them were seated in the same room.
For some absurd reason or another, this broken version of Loki craved affection. And if Doom hoped to speed the god's recovery, to gain his trust and then finally the information - he had to give it to him.
And so it was that, with the most bizarre possible mixture of feelings, Doom beckoned Loki to his bed on the eighth night of the god's recovery from near-death.
Anticipating the typical violent reaction this Loki had to any gifts, Doom had lured the unsuspecting trickster into his own room under the guise of retrieving supplies for a war game simulation. Then he'd locked the door.
And Loki had not spat and hissed and backed into a corner, had not threatened any sort of violence or demanded release or even disavowed his desire for such a thing.
He had simply paled, and sat down on the bed.
No. No no no no no. No. This horror could not be the Loki he knew.
For it was apparent in the trickster's pallor, the emptiness of his face, the practiced-mechanical way in which he sat, that the former god was expecting to be raped.
NO.
Had they used this precise scenario against him? Had Loki experienced the most horrific kind of undoing at the hands of Doom himself, a hallucination drawn from his own memory by whoever-the-hell had tortured him?
No.
Rage and horror almost strong enough to make Victor von Doom vomit passed, and when they had passed the trickster was still looking at him with that horrible emotionless expectation.
Very, very cautiously, Victor stood up. He did not remember sliding down against the wall.
There would be no point in saying 'I won't hurt you'; what else would a horrific hallucination say? No point in all at making a show of gentleness, of trying to convince Loki of his at-least-harmless intent - the entire prior week had been an exercise in futility in that department.
So Victor stood up, unbarred the door, and opened it.
The creature that had been Loki blinked at him, momentarily confused.
And then there was the faintest shadow of the Loki he had known in the surprise that surfaced, in the slight unconscious of posture as the god rose to his feet, and left through the open door.
Re: Fill: Strange Bedfellows 10/?futakuchi_onnaJuly 17 2013, 05:42:55 UTC
Awesome!
I love Doom's clinical approach to everything and the reaction it causes, only to have irritating feelings and wishes for things he doesn't want to admit aloud.
By the eighth day, two things had become apparent: that Dr. Doom's patient was strong enough to be moved to more normal residential quarters (he also seemed utterly terrified of medical equipment), and that his mental state was such that to get any information at all out of him would require an oblique, strategic approach.
It was also becoming rapidly apparent that the creature-who-was-once-Loki craved physical contact, with made Victor von Doom profoundly uncomfortable.
The morning had been an exercise in frustration. Doom had more or less locked Loki in his new quarters - guest room, a normal bedroom, or at least what passed for normal within a supervillain's castle.
Loki seemed to have largely the same series of reactions to any apparent positive development.
First came resistance. This response was borne, Victor guessed, of fear. The trickster's tormentors must have dangled all manner of relief before his eyes and snatched it away to sharpen the resulting suffering. Now, Loki reacted to everything from his new, soft four-poster bed to the protein-rich feast he was offered for breakfast as though it were surely a poison in disguise.
When resistance failed, the trickster would feign indifference for a while. He was most definitely not interested in his new blankets, or in any food at all, and would sit pretending not to be watching the things out of the corner of his eye.
Only when the blessings still failed to disappear would he indulge, and then with a sort of resignation that made Doom angrier than anything else. The Loki he had known was never able to relax under the watchful eye of another; he never let his guard down, for it would never do for a god to indulge in either pain or pleasure before a mortal.
The new Loki didn't care.
And so Doom - was he actually aching as he watched the shell of the former god devour sausage, eggs, bacon and hashbrowns like an animal? Dressed in a minion's uniform, to boot - Doom's own clothes would not have fit the trickster before, much less in his present emaciated state, and servants' garb was the only other kind he had around.
Victor had it funny for about five seconds, until he realized that the trickster was not mentally intact enough to be indignant about his state of dress, and possibly (probably?) never would be again.
If Loki did not someday return to at least favor Doom with a white-hot, scathing rant over the treatment he'd received at Doom's hands...
If Loki did not return, what could Victor do except burn the vacant body?
Reply
Reply
Damn him if it wasn't obvious that trickster god wanted to cuddle.
An entire day of attempting to wheedle information out of Loki had proven fruitless; asking about his tormentors proved fruitless because Loki was convinced that he was still under their influence, that Doom was one of them or one of their conjurations.
For all that, he didn't seem to fear his caretaker - or he feared him less than he feared anything else in the world, and Victor von Doom was more than a little curious as to why that was.
The creature that had been Loki clearly expected his savior to turn on him at any moment. What he expected that betrayal to constitute, Doom could only shudder to imagine when he looked at the injuries Loki's torturers had previously inflicted.
And yet for all that he clearly lived in constant expectation of betrayal by the only other living creature he'd encountered, he followed Doom rather than avoiding him.
Followed him into the study when Doom worked, when he strategized; Victor thought he'd found an in to his old ally's true mind when he caught Loki showing a spark of interest in the world map he was pouring over. The thing had various important locations marked with colored pins, a color-coding system obvious only to Doom himself, a world domination puzzle to unravel.
But the instant Doom's eyes fell on Loki, the former god's face slackened back into something dead-looking, and Doom knew with a horrible certainty that the deadness was not an act.
Reply
Loki believed that he was still inside whatever special hell his tormentors had concocted for him. Apparently, they had made liberal use of illusion (and perhaps they still did; Doom remembered with sudden, great unease, the strong dreaming patterns he'd observed in the god's unconscious mind). And apparently, there'd been an intellectual arms race between the two parties; the tormentors would lull him into a false sense of security again and again and again, and the instant Loki bought it they would turn on him with--
Doom shuddered to imagine.
Loki's solution: to never buy into the illusion. To never believe - including now, apparently - that he was truly free, or safe (and Victor was increasingly begin to wonder if he actually was safe, even in this fortress).
To answer any of Doom's questions would have meant assuming that Doom did not already know the answers; that he was not in truth a torturer, waiting to strike. To show an active interest in anything, to show any flicker of who Loki had been, may have brought untold horrors upon said self until it was utterly spent and broken. Again.
So he accepted Doom's physical accommodations grudgingly, only because they would not go away. But he would not give any indication that he believed Doom was anything other than one of the enemies who Loki refused to name.
Did Loki's personality still survive, somewhere under these Pavlovian defense mechanisms? Or had the trickster's mind genuinely been trampled to dust?
The Loki Doom had known would never have behaved in so undignified a manner; not for anything.
But perhaps (Doom could hope), someone had managed to scare the god into humility without actually destroying him.
Reply
Of course, none of this did anything to help him figure out who it was that was so dangerous and felt the need to deliver the near-corpse of von Doom's ally to his doorstep.
And so there was only one thing to do.
It was apparent that the thing that had been Loki was desperately lonely. In the way he followed the man he fully expected to turn on him with untold horrors, in the way the god stole shy glances at his sole companion (Doom dared not allow anyone but himself near the trickster; with all of this going on, he suddenly felt that his background checks for servants were not nearly thorough enough).
In the way he tended to inch closer, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes pitifully, when the two of them were seated in the same room.
For some absurd reason or another, this broken version of Loki craved affection. And if Doom hoped to speed the god's recovery, to gain his trust and then finally the information - he had to give it to him.
And so it was that, with the most bizarre possible mixture of feelings, Doom beckoned Loki to his bed on the eighth night of the god's recovery from near-death.
Anticipating the typical violent reaction this Loki had to any gifts, Doom had lured the unsuspecting trickster into his own room under the guise of retrieving supplies for a war game simulation. Then he'd locked the door.
And Loki had not spat and hissed and backed into a corner, had not threatened any sort of violence or demanded release or even disavowed his desire for such a thing.
He had simply paled, and sat down on the bed.
No. No no no no no. No. This horror could not be the Loki he knew.
For it was apparent in the trickster's pallor, the emptiness of his face, the practiced-mechanical way in which he sat, that the former god was expecting to be raped.
NO.
Had they used this precise scenario against him? Had Loki experienced the most horrific kind of undoing at the hands of Doom himself, a hallucination drawn from his own memory by whoever-the-hell had tortured him?
No.
Rage and horror almost strong enough to make Victor von Doom vomit passed, and when they had passed the trickster was still looking at him with that horrible emotionless expectation.
Very, very cautiously, Victor stood up. He did not remember sliding down against the wall.
There would be no point in saying 'I won't hurt you'; what else would a horrific hallucination say? No point in all at making a show of gentleness, of trying to convince Loki of his at-least-harmless intent - the entire prior week had been an exercise in futility in that department.
So Victor stood up, unbarred the door, and opened it.
The creature that had been Loki blinked at him, momentarily confused.
And then there was the faintest shadow of the Loki he had known in the surprise that surfaced, in the slight unconscious of posture as the god rose to his feet, and left through the open door.
Reply
Reply
Ah, it's still alright, but if you want to make sure, you can always reply to the prompt-post with new chapters.
Reply
I love Doom's clinical approach to everything and the reaction it causes, only to have irritating feelings and wishes for things he doesn't want to admit aloud.
Please, more? *hopeful puppy-eyes*
Reply
So no more tonight. Maybe tomorrow...
Reply
Oh, wow, you write fast.
A nice developement. It's great that he didn't force the issue, for various reasons. And the slower build-up is nice too.
*sets up camp*
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment