angelpiratebaby | (no subject)

[Ah. That requires a few quiet moments of turning over.]

Are you all right?

[ He sighs, trying to figure out how to answer that. ]

Loki and I know how to hurt each other. Our relationship is always under repair. The problem is we have a cycle. The cycle goes that Loki gets insecure about my love for him, I remain oblivious, he then backstabs me so he can be proven right, I get angry, he feels sorry, I forgive him, and then it happens again. I think we're both getting tired of it.

Even once sounds exhausting.

How do I help?

Oh yes, the first really bad one he actually killed me. So it was VERY exhausting.

Loki fundamentally doesn't believe he's worthy of love. The root cause is from our father, but it is a message he got from our people, our warriors, my friends, everyone he sought approval for outside of our mother and myself. We can tell him a million times that we love him and he is worthy of love, but we cannot make him believe it.

[Just

breezing past that to revisit later when he's not already jittering out of his own skull with worry.]

Is there not something more than telling? Showing? Breathing?

Telling, showing, breathing all help. Be there for him, share your life with him, show him what a loving relationship is like.

But I'm going to tell you something you don't want to hear, and I know that because I've been trying for over a thousand years, but we can't fix everything for Loki. Some of this work is on him.

Well, we're all only guessing at that last bit, aren't we?

I know. I don't care for it, but I know. It's just his wheels already seem to be spinning as hard as they can manage.

I was blessed with a good healthy relationship with my Jane. But they are rare when it comes to people from very different worlds coming together.

It is difficult not to try and fix everything, it is all I know how to do with him, but we've proven to each other that it's not long-term good for us. You two don't have our baggage, you can start from a better place. Comfort him, listen to him. Don't agree with everything he says, though. If I let him get away with everything he wants, his coup on Sarano would have gone through.

Blessed with? Or worked for?

[And, after a few moments of carefully phrasing and rephrasing and considering--and finally settling on the certainty that this is Thor, who must have felt exactly these rough pangs for centuries now.]

How do you say no to him?

Both. Jane and I are very compatible so some of it is natural luck, but we did work at it on top of that. Eventually the long-distance and different priorities split us apart. I could not ask her to become Queen of Asgard and leave her life on Earth, she could not ask me to leave Asgard and the throne. But we have agreed that a future is possible for us, if I make it to Earth and restart a life there. We never lost our love for one another. So it is more work than luck, mutual respect and ongoing affection at the top. She is a special woman and here on this ship now.

My time on Earth changed me. Loki and I were raised privileged and spoiled. We wanted for nothing. We were told we were better than others, more powerful than others, born to rule. I lost everything when I was exiled to Earth; my powers, my throne, my family, and was but an ordinary man. That is when I met Jane. She and my other friends taught me the difference between doing good for good's sake, and doing it for selfish or shallow reasons. That is not an experience Loki has had, he doesn't understand it.

[ Such a good question. Thor chuckles wearily on his end. ]

In my case I just got very tired and very angry. I think Loki needs boundaries. He wants to do right by the people he loves, the how is the hard part. If we do not curb him when he's gone too far, he will keep going thinking he is within the boundaries. He cares deeply for you, he wants you to be happy. If you change yourself or your reactions to things to cater to him, it isn't you being authentically yourself.

[Work, respect, and affection. That can be managed. Most of that comes naturally, even. There will be fine points to work out, but this is a fairly reassuring base to be building on.]

Do you think he needs quite the same sort of deprivation? Second sons are quite a different sort of spoiled.

[And, much more uncomfortably,]

Do you think we can only love and be loved as our authentic selves?

I thought before a humbling was what he needed, he was so certain he was better than everyone else once, but if anything it went too far in the other direction, with him now thinking very little of himself. I have to think there is a medium place for all of us between arrogance and self-hatred.

This fight started because I wanted to talk about my other relationships here. He got jealous and lashed out. I had been holding back on purpose since I know how he gets, but I tried anyway. He's afraid of being replaced or losing love, and I understand that, but I don't think someone's life should revolve entirely around one or two other people. I want him to live a full life with or without me. Or you, even. He could lose us both overnight. I want him to have the tools to keep going if that happens.

As for the authentic part ... I think it's healthier if you do, so you never have to pretend to be someone else to suit another person. But love isn't something you can control. You can only feel it.

Likely, but he seems quite inclined to extremes. Pendulums can take quite some time to stop swinging.

Replaced seems quite a different problem from losing. Does he not need a bit of certainty if he's to begin feeling sufficient in himself?

Do you think that would help him? Working on something of my own?

He feels that my friends and companions have always disliked him so he sees no reason to try. Although in fairness to them, he did try to throw coups and kill me/them. But it's never changed how I felt about him, but he fears someday they will take me away from him. It is a lot to ask him to apologize to my friends that he wronged when he doesn't care about them, though, so I have not asked.

It depends on what you mean by help. I think he might get jealous and want most of your attention on him and feel unimportant if you have something else in your life. But I personally do not think that is healthy and still does not ultimately make him happy. I do think Loki wants you to be happy and if you can communicate what makes you happy, including and excluding him, it will be helpful. Your life isn't all about him, is it? You have other friends?

Edited 2021-07-11 20:03 (UTC)

[...right, just briefly before he continues mulling how to support his husband]

Many coups, is it?

A few of them. Three, four if you count Sarano. I don't want this to come off as me talking poorly of Loki, he has made mistakes but we all have. I truly believe he is hoping to forge a better path. But he has some things holding him back.

Well, Sarano was barely a coup, at any rate.

[No one had ended up murdered in a ditch, as far as Lawford could tell. Shy of that, does it even count?]

It's odd, you know. It's actually quite hard to imagine he'd ever shy from a path you'd set him on.

Because I forced him to stop before it became more serious. For my part, I should not have lost my temper and caused that storm, I overreacted.

[ Thor knows he has a temper problem. They both do. His just gets more explosive. ]

We both started our paths by trying to gain the love and respect of our father. Our mother only wanted happiness for us, and I think she had the right of it, it is what I want for Loki. Odin was never going to give him what he needed.

Is this part of it, then? The two of you always minding one another?

Do you not think it's a difficult thing to put on our loved ones? That we wish them happiness?

He doesn't want me to be his keeper or take responsibility for his actions. But it's difficult not to. So much of our lives revolve around each other and has all this time. We were raised as twins, to mask Loki being adopted.

What else is there to wish for someone you love than happiness?

Quite a hill the two of you are climbing, then.

All manner of things. Success can be measured in endless fashion. I suppose it isn't so much I disagree that happiness is the best hope for those we love; it's only a wonder if it doesn't feel like quite a difficult thing for some to accept and keep. Does that make sense?

We've been through a lot. Especially the past few years. It's difficult for both of us to break our habits.

I suppose. Contentment ... that might be a good one. Not the high of happiness, but a calmer feeling, a settled one? I don't know what Loki wants for himself. He used to want the throne but no more.

Who helps you?

Perhaps he'll give contentment a try, then.

What helps is the knowledge that if we don't break our habits, we'll keep hurting each other and never be able to heal this divide. And I won't accept that as our future.

Perhaps. It's difficult for me to believe he has never known happiness enough to remember how to find it now. We used to have fun as children, although that may be why he kept stabbing me and turning me into things.

[It's all something to chew on. He'll come back to this, work through the new flavours, feel the weight of the patterns properly to set about disrupting them.

Time, then, to ease back.]

Has he not had sufficient opportunity to stab you lately?