Title: Wipe These Prints and Run
Author: lardencelover (passthefag@yahoo.com)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Bartleby/Loki
Summary: Bartleby indulges his masochistic tendencies at Christmas.
A/N: Betaed by fangirl_lizzie. This is my incredibly, spectacularly late entry for the Deck the Halls - Askewniverse Style Challenge. I am so sorry it's so late.
Disclaimer: Bartleby and Loki belong to Kevin Smith. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.

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Bartleby had this awkward balance of bitter and sentimental that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Not that Loki spent a shitload of time really contemplating
it - in fact, it was kind of rare that he contemplated anything that didn't have to do with that secret level in Crash Bandicoot or how the Cubs could possibly suck so much - but there were certain things that were pretty much beyond his reach. He was the calm, shallow pool to Bartleby's frantic, deep waters, and that drove
Bartleby insane on a regular basis. Loki tried to get it, but it was like trying to reach a box that was on a shelf much too high; his arms would never get any longer
and the shelf would never lower itself. Some things never change, and it seemed to dishearten Bartleby that Loki was one of them.

So, maybe that was where a little of the bitterness came from. Stuck on Earth - or whatever you wanted to call Wisconsin - with, on the good days, an unreceptive listener, and, on the bad days, an idiot. Loki felt bad, but fuck, what the hell could he do? He was a follower, something of a lackey, first for God and now for Bartleby, which was evident seeing as they were here and not Home. Laws of God, fire and brimstone, divine vengeance, drunken discussions on the morality of
doing the Lord's work. Those were his lots in life, his ways to shine.

"You're a constant fucking reminder of everything I lost," Bartleby told him during a fight once, a stupid little row that had started over Loki's penchant for eating everything in sight and cleaning up nothing, that escalated, as always, into something more about the absence of God and what a disappointment that someone as
smart as Loki could be so... simple.

"You walk around mindless, stuffing your face and watching cartoons and toying with humans like it really makes any fucking difference, and you pretend you don't
feel a fucking hole. I know it's there in you, because it's here in me, and you should be as angry as I am. Be angry, Loki, be fucking angry for once. Be something."

Which was probably true because Bartleby was always right-- except, of course, for the very beginning of all of this, and around the very end, when he just went as wrong as you can go. That was Bartleby, though - a bunch of fucking extremes, dramatic fury and endless thoughts of justice and repentence, that kind of thing.
Loki just liked killing people.

It wasn't that much of a chore to work out where Bartleby had gone when he disappeared on Christmas at two in the fucking morning. The Catholic church down
the street from their apartment was open for midnight mass, and that sort of thing was right up Bartleby's masochistic alley.

People were pouring out when Loki got there, his shoulders hunched against a cold wind that didn't really affect him anyway. He climbed the low, sloping steps
against the tide of people, catching sight of Bartleby in the little lobby between the doors and the shiny wooden pews stretched as far Loki could see.

He fell in next to him, waited patiently for the speech he knew was coming, as Bartleby watched the people talk, hug, leave.

"Hey," Loki finally said, impatient and odd standing there in the house of God, like he was cheating the rules a little even being there.

Bartleby's lips pulled into a thin frown, but he didn't look at Loki. "You forgot to cross yourself."

"Huh?"

He nodded toward the little cups attached to wall nearest the doors, filled with half-frozen water. "Holy water. You're suppose to cross yourself before you come
into a Catholic church, moron."

"Oh." Still, Loki waited for the angry rant about God on this holy day, or the sentimental spew of bullshit about how wonderful holidays are because humanity is at
its best.

But nothing came. Bartleby watched them, and Loki stood by him, half-imagining they were standing there so long that maybe he could feel the cold after all. Then
the last of the stragglers was gone and it was just them, Bartleby staring into space as though there were still people there to admire, or smite, or whatever the hell
it was he'd been doing. Loki wanted to go home; A Christmas Story was on for a full twenty-four hours and he'd already missed the first three.

"C'mon, man, let's go."

Bartleby sniffed noisily and it was only then that Loki noticed his eyes were kind of misty, his expression pained. It was embarrassing because what the fuck do you
say or do when something like that happens? You can be a man and say offhandedly that "it'll be okay," "you're fine," "brush it off," but they weren't men, and
anyway, when did that shit ever make anyone feel better? Things weren't okay, and, actually, probably never fucking would be. They were lost in a sea of humans
and the doubts they create, and looking back on it, it was a pretty clever punishment.

Loki really just sucked at this shit. He slid his fingers into Bartleby's palm, knowing it was all wrong because everything always seemed to be, and fuck, the light was just so utterly gone from Bartleby's eyes, like the faith - what little he might've had left - had just seeped right out, soaking into the cold air and snow, or maybe was just... gone. Bartleby's hand closed around his fingers, tight enough to break the fingers of someone normal, just enough to make Loki wince a tiny bit.

"When is it," Bartleby said, voice scratchy and thick, "that an angel feels displaced in a fucking church, Loki? How low do you have to sink to be divine and useless
at the same fucking time?"

It was probably a rhetorical question, but Loki really wanted his fingers back. "You're not useless. I mean, I fucking need you, right?"

And there was this bitter laugh in Bartleby's eyes, a bit of a sneer on his lips, that hurt Loki so badly that he felt his face burn. It hadn't occured to him that that didn't matter, that no matter what happened, what Loki gave up in the name of all the things fucking Bartleby believed in, he would never be enough. He wasn't even what was wanted to begin with.

Sicker yet, just the way Bartleby kind of hated God but missed Him so much, Loki hated what Bartleby had convinced him to do, hated how he was convenient
and nothing else, but he followed him because unconditional love is kind of like that. The same way Bartleby went to church and prayed not to care anymore.

Five months later, in front of another church, this one in the bright sunlight of New Jersey suburbia, Loki told Bartleby what he'd realized that night in December.

He mumbled, eyes half-lidded, feeling dizzy and sick and some weird kind of ache humans called arousal at the feel of Bartleby's fingers on his nape.

"You're weak."

Then there was a rip of pain so foreign that it took the breath right out of him.


end.