"James," Loki said from behind Thor, and Jim frowned at the way his partner so easily ignored the way Thor lit up like a fucking puppy. There was an expression on Loki's face he'd never seen before; something about it that just screamed 'get the fuck away from me' despite the smile curving his lips.
"Hey Loki," Jim said, grinned and waved, "I was just talking to your brother--"
"We are not brothers." The venom dripping from his tongue was practically palpable and Jim couldn't help but wince at the way that bright smile dropped off Thor's face.
"Loki," and that low voice suddenly seemed so much more dangerous, not a cheerful bellow at all, "Don't you dare--"
Loki, for his part, talked over Thor as if he could not hear or see him at all. "There is training to had," he said, with that same flat smile that made Jim want to shake him until it slipped. No wonder he was so careful whenever they were linked up.
Looking uncertainly between Thor and Loki, Jim shrugged, "Uh, right," he said as he walked across the hallway. "Are you sure--"
"And I'm sure Mr. Spock had said something about a chess game he expected you to be present for," Loki went on. Jim was getting really tired of no-one but Loki getting able to finish a sentence. And he knew something was really wrong, clearly, as Loki never chose to speak about Spock without what he considered a damn good reason, which a nonexistent chess game was not.
"Right!" Jim said, clapping his hands to diffuse what tension he could. "Training! I'll see you around, Thor, yeah?" And he slung an arm around Loki's shoulders, herding him down the hallway. "We don't have a training session scheduled," he said lightly, once they were a decent distance away, "And Spock doesn't tell you about our games."
The room is utterly silent when Jim walks in and, for a moment, he wonders if he's in the right place at all. And then he looks to his right and sees them.
Spock and Loki on either side of a chess board, straight-backed and blank-faced, dark-hair and pale-skinned and looking like they could be brothers except for how Loki has this bizarre love-hate relationship with his brother and Spock's relationship with his brother is strained at best, which really does have nothing to do with anything whatsoever.
He wanders over and looks at the board just in time to see Loki perform a move Spock used during their last game to beat him and goddammit, when he said try to be friends to them, he didn't mean learn ways to beat me at chess from each other, but at least they're not fighting.
"Check," Loki says, soft voice loud in the silence.
Spock examines the board and makes a move. Three more moves, this time, it's Spock who speaks: "Checkmate."
Jim watches Loki's lips thin as he tips his king over, and fluidly rises to his feet. The other man slides his eyes over, meets Jim's eyes for a moment, before he leaves the room.
The mornings always start the same, Loki and Jim meeting at the mats and beating each other up until one or the other of them taps out, panting and gasping for breath. They shower and then, when Loki would much prefer to take a tray to the corner and eat quickly so that he can return to his room and read, Jim always drags him over to the table he shares with his friends.
Jim's friends, not his. It reminds Loki of his childhood when Thor still attempted to include him in his games.
Inevitably, he looses his patience, the jealousy and irritation building unreasonably quickly, and he leaves--whether or not he'd finished eating. Returning back to his room gives him the much-needed chance to calm down, somewhat, though the annoyance simmers still, until he hears a single, short knock on his door.
Nearly every day, this happens, and Loki, for all that they've shared their minds, cannot understand why Jim always seeks him out. Thor had given up quickly, he remembers, but Jim comes day after day, without fail. And often, Loki is still angry, hurt and upset despite being fully aware of how unreasonable he's being, and thus resolves to ignore Jim, to leave him outside.
But he can hear other people greeting him, and Jim's always-cheerful responses. He can hear the others' cajoling, trying to convince Jim to leave, to join them, to stop waiting--and he can hear Jim refuse. Always, always, he refuses, sometimes with a laugh, a joke, and sometimes more seriously, irritated.
Eventually, the guilt is too much, and Loki unlocks his door. He doesn't open it, doesn't say anything, but he knows Jim can hear the latch sliding open. And he knows Jim will take it for the invitation it is.
Spock Loki rarely, if ever, speaks to Spock, though it was through no fault of Jim's old friend. Spock doesn't talk about it, but the initial confusion has long faded to easy acceptance of Loki's hostility. They play chess on occasion, especially the days after Jim is annoyed and frustrated by having to figure out how to split his time between his best friend and his partner and says, in tones of great exasperation "why can't you two just be friends?" It isn't that he actually wants them to be, he doesn't think that'd end well for anyone, but he does sometimes wish he could figure out what the problem is.
Jim thinks he might know why, but Loki locks his thoughts so carefully away, has so many walls that even when they share a mind, share memories, Jim cannot quite confirm his guesses. And he'd never violate Loki's privacy by deliberately attempting to find the answer.
( he guesses it's jealousy, but he isn't sure if that's his ego talking or not. )
Bones As far as Jim knows, the first time Loki met Bones was that time he dragged Jim kicking and screaming into Medical after Loki accidentally dislocated his shoulder while they were sparring. He remembers how pale Loki was as he watched Bones set his shoulder with a sickening crack. As per his usual, Bones gave him a verbal dressing down while dealing with the injury, and Loki's eyebrow climbed until he looked quite funny indeed.
Though how much of that is the morphine talking, Jim's still not sure.
When they left that day, Loki had an amused smirk quirking his lips. Ever since then, Loki would always deposit Jim at Bones's feet whenever Jim gets injured beyond Loki's rudimentary first-aid abilities.
Getting scolded by one of them was so much easier than being double-teamed by both. Christ.
( he learned one afternoon he spent lazing around with Bones that they actually first met when a fight with Thor left Loki with three fractured ribs and Thor with a hole in his gut the exact width of one of the dining hall knives. jim doesn't quite know what to do with that information. )
Uhura She's easily the one of his friends Loki likes the most and the one that likes him the least. Uhura's one of the very rare other people besides Loki that can regularly give Jim a serious fight on the mats, and Jim can see the respect Loki has for her. Unlike the cold way Loki tends to ignore Spock, he treats Uhura rather like the way he treats everyone else--with an apathetic indifference. He doesn't go out of his way to avoid her, but he rarely speaks more than five words a day to her, often in the range of "pass the salt" during mealtimes or "excuse me" as he walks by.
From what he hears Uhura says, she prefers it that way. She's friends with Sif, after all.
( once, early on, jim sees a memory of loki as a child; sees him cut off Sif's long hair, sees the blame laid on him and the guilt he never admitted to feeling. )
THIS IS GETTING TOO LONG you can do Sulu, Scotty, and Chekov
Sulu The way he finds out that Loki and Sulu are sort-of-friends is when he walks in on them sparring on the mats one afternoon. While everyone's trained in the basic ways of fighting, everyone has their own skill-set and preferences. Sulu's a fucking genius with a sword and Loki is brilliant with a spear. Jim knew that.
He didn't know (okay, he sort of knew but didn't really fully understand) how good Loki was with knives though, which makes sense since they're not really the most useful when you're fighting giant monsters taller than most buildings. It's always either distance, like canons, or right up-close-and-personal, at which point hand-to-hand or swords, whips, that kind of thing are better choices. Knives don't quite have the range to make them practical at that scale, and making throwing knives that would fit in a Jaegar's hand is just...kind of a dumb idea.
But holy crap, seeing them go at it is something else. It's not the sort of match he usually sees--they're fast and efficient and can take each other down in a matter of seconds. It'd look incredibly uneven if their scores weren't almost tied.
It kind of turns him on.
( if it wasn't him partnered with loki, he thinks that maybe sulu wouldn't be a bad candidate. )
Scotty The only time Loki and Scotty crosses paths outside of the daily mealtimes is when Scotty's performing some sort of maintenance on Starstruck Wolf, and Loki has some sort of issue to bring up or demand to make. Scotty always complains about how rude Loki is about it, the way he phrases his requests like commands and insults rather than questions.
Still, for Jim's sake, Scotty always says, he does his best to implement the changes Loki asks for. Their Jaeger is always one of the smoothest performing.
( watching them interact is kind of like watching two hedgehogs try to hug. or something. )
Chekov Jim doesn't think Loki and Chekov have ever spoken. He prefers it that way.
( not that he thinks the kid is weak, but he's seen loki make grown men cry with a look and a few cutting words. cry--or try to beat loki up. it's pretty up in the air each time loki opens his mouth. )
"Fenrir," Loki says, and for fucks sake, just because he and his brother are named for Norse gods doesn't mean everything around them has to be. It's ridiculous enough that all of Thor's friends have names that could be found in various sagas.
"Enterprise," Jim argues, because he's always been fond of the word, the idea, the whole concept of achieving a goal through hard work and taking initiative. It's fitting, he thinks, to name their Jaegar something like that, since they'd be piloting the first of this new Generation.
They argue for a week until they have to decide, the painters are waiting for a final decision to properly christian the Jaegar.
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oh I guess Loki and Jim's first Drift.
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I'll poke at the one you asked a while ago though
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-- turn away from you, turn the page over your scores, turn away with wide shoulders, their eyes are sad, wary, judging, judging, they always judge --
-- the marks on your neck, the bruises on your face, adrenaline pumping through your veins, they can't stand your face --
-- but you found someone who can.
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"Hey Loki," Jim said, grinned and waved, "I was just talking to your brother--"
"We are not brothers." The venom dripping from his tongue was practically palpable and Jim couldn't help but wince at the way that bright smile dropped off Thor's face.
"Loki," and that low voice suddenly seemed so much more dangerous, not a cheerful bellow at all, "Don't you dare--"
Loki, for his part, talked over Thor as if he could not hear or see him at all. "There is training to had," he said, with that same flat smile that made Jim want to shake him until it slipped. No wonder he was so careful whenever they were linked up.
Looking uncertainly between Thor and Loki, Jim shrugged, "Uh, right," he said as he walked across the hallway. "Are you sure--"
"And I'm sure Mr. Spock had said something about a chess game he expected you to be present for," Loki went on. Jim was getting really tired of no-one but Loki getting able to finish a sentence. And he knew something was really wrong, clearly, as Loki never chose to speak about Spock without what he considered a damn good reason, which a nonexistent chess game was not.
"Loki," Thor tried again, stepping closer; Loki slid backwards casually.
"Right!" Jim said, clapping his hands to diffuse what tension he could. "Training! I'll see you around, Thor, yeah?" And he slung an arm around Loki's shoulders, herding him down the hallway. "We don't have a training session scheduled," he said lightly, once they were a decent distance away, "And Spock doesn't tell you about our games."
Loki didn't reply.
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Spock and Loki on either side of a chess board, straight-backed and blank-faced, dark-hair and pale-skinned and looking like they could be brothers except for how Loki has this bizarre love-hate relationship with his brother and Spock's relationship with his brother is strained at best, which really does have nothing to do with anything whatsoever.
He wanders over and looks at the board just in time to see Loki perform a move Spock used during their last game to beat him and goddammit, when he said try to be friends to them, he didn't mean learn ways to beat me at chess from each other, but at least they're not fighting.
"Check," Loki says, soft voice loud in the silence.
Spock examines the board and makes a move. Three more moves, this time, it's Spock who speaks: "Checkmate."
Jim watches Loki's lips thin as he tips his king over, and fluidly rises to his feet. The other man slides his eyes over, meets Jim's eyes for a moment, before he leaves the room.
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Loki's take on their daily routine or general JIM thoughts.
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Jim's friends, not his. It reminds Loki of his childhood when Thor still attempted to include him in his games.
Inevitably, he looses his patience, the jealousy and irritation building unreasonably quickly, and he leaves--whether or not he'd finished eating. Returning back to his room gives him the much-needed chance to calm down, somewhat, though the annoyance simmers still, until he hears a single, short knock on his door.
Nearly every day, this happens, and Loki, for all that they've shared their minds, cannot understand why Jim always seeks him out. Thor had given up quickly, he remembers, but Jim comes day after day, without fail. And often, Loki is still angry, hurt and upset despite being fully aware of how unreasonable he's being, and thus resolves to ignore Jim, to leave him outside.
But he can hear other people greeting him, and Jim's always-cheerful responses. He can hear the others' cajoling, trying to convince Jim to leave, to join them, to stop waiting--and he can hear Jim refuse. Always, always, he refuses, sometimes with a laugh, a joke, and sometimes more seriously, irritated.
Eventually, the guilt is too much, and Loki unlocks his door. He doesn't open it, doesn't say anything, but he knows Jim can hear the latch sliding open. And he knows Jim will take it for the invitation it is.
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err hmm. loki talking to jim's friends.
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Loki rarely, if ever, speaks to Spock, though it was through no fault of Jim's old friend. Spock doesn't talk about it, but the initial confusion has long faded to easy acceptance of Loki's hostility. They play chess on occasion, especially the days after Jim is annoyed and frustrated by having to figure out how to split his time between his best friend and his partner and says, in tones of great exasperation "why can't you two just be friends?" It isn't that he actually wants them to be, he doesn't think that'd end well for anyone, but he does sometimes wish he could figure out what the problem is.
Jim thinks he might know why, but Loki locks his thoughts so carefully away, has so many walls that even when they share a mind, share memories, Jim cannot quite confirm his guesses. And he'd never violate Loki's privacy by deliberately attempting to find the answer.
( he guesses it's jealousy, but he isn't sure if that's his ego talking or not. )
Bones
As far as Jim knows, the first time Loki met Bones was that time he dragged Jim kicking and screaming into Medical after Loki accidentally dislocated his shoulder while they were sparring. He remembers how pale Loki was as he watched Bones set his shoulder with a sickening crack. As per his usual, Bones gave him a verbal dressing down while dealing with the injury, and Loki's eyebrow climbed until he looked quite funny indeed.
Though how much of that is the morphine talking, Jim's still not sure.
When they left that day, Loki had an amused smirk quirking his lips. Ever since then, Loki would always deposit Jim at Bones's feet whenever Jim gets injured beyond Loki's rudimentary first-aid abilities.
Getting scolded by one of them was so much easier than being double-teamed by both. Christ.
( he learned one afternoon he spent lazing around with Bones that they actually first met when a fight with Thor left Loki with three fractured ribs and Thor with a hole in his gut the exact width of one of the dining hall knives. jim doesn't quite know what to do with that information. )
Uhura
She's easily the one of his friends Loki likes the most and the one that likes him the least. Uhura's one of the very rare other people besides Loki that can regularly give Jim a serious fight on the mats, and Jim can see the respect Loki has for her. Unlike the cold way Loki tends to ignore Spock, he treats Uhura rather like the way he treats everyone else--with an apathetic indifference. He doesn't go out of his way to avoid her, but he rarely speaks more than five words a day to her, often in the range of "pass the salt" during mealtimes or "excuse me" as he walks by.
From what he hears Uhura says, she prefers it that way. She's friends with Sif, after all.
( once, early on, jim sees a memory of loki as a child; sees him cut off Sif's long hair, sees the blame laid on him and the guilt he never admitted to feeling. )
THIS IS GETTING TOO LONG you can do Sulu, Scotty, and Chekov
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The way he finds out that Loki and Sulu are sort-of-friends is when he walks in on them sparring on the mats one afternoon. While everyone's trained in the basic ways of fighting, everyone has their own skill-set and preferences. Sulu's a fucking genius with a sword and Loki is brilliant with a spear. Jim knew that.
He didn't know (okay, he sort of knew but didn't really fully understand) how good Loki was with knives though, which makes sense since they're not really the most useful when you're fighting giant monsters taller than most buildings. It's always either distance, like canons, or right up-close-and-personal, at which point hand-to-hand or swords, whips, that kind of thing are better choices. Knives don't quite have the range to make them practical at that scale, and making throwing knives that would fit in a Jaegar's hand is just...kind of a dumb idea.
But holy crap, seeing them go at it is something else. It's not the sort of match he usually sees--they're fast and efficient and can take each other down in a matter of seconds. It'd look incredibly uneven if their scores weren't almost tied.
It kind of turns him on.
( if it wasn't him partnered with loki, he thinks that maybe sulu wouldn't be a bad candidate. )
Scotty
The only time Loki and Scotty crosses paths outside of the daily mealtimes is when Scotty's performing some sort of maintenance on Starstruck Wolf, and Loki has some sort of issue to bring up or demand to make. Scotty always complains about how rude Loki is about it, the way he phrases his requests like commands and insults rather than questions.
Still, for Jim's sake, Scotty always says, he does his best to implement the changes Loki asks for. Their Jaeger is always one of the smoothest performing.
( watching them interact is kind of like watching two hedgehogs try to hug. or something. )
Chekov
Jim doesn't think Loki and Chekov have ever spoken. He prefers it that way.
( not that he thinks the kid is weak, but he's seen loki make grown men cry with a look and a few cutting words. cry--or try to beat loki up. it's pretty up in the air each time loki opens his mouth. )
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"Enterprise," Jim argues, because he's always been fond of the word, the idea, the whole concept of achieving a goal through hard work and taking initiative. It's fitting, he thinks, to name their Jaegar something like that, since they'd be piloting the first of this new Generation.
They argue for a week until they have to decide, the painters are waiting for a final decision to properly christian the Jaegar.
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IT'S SMARTER TO NAME IT FOR A PREDATOR
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