An accidental theme in Tarbell

I've been working on getting Tarbell done, and it's going really well. I've got about 40k left, and pain levels willing, will be able to have that done by about Monday.

But I've been noticing something that keeps coming back in it. It's not something I put in deliberately, or even I think consciously, but it's there all the same. There's a running thread within this fic of Darcy refusing to be the keeper of Loki's well-being. They broke up in the first fic because his behaviour and mood was beyond toxic, but she stuck around with the show because it was not only the financially smart thing to do, but also because going back to school wasn't the healthy option.

At the end of Tarbell 1, she set ground rules. She established barriers between them, to allow her to be able to take this job, but also do it in a safe way. It was all done terribly selfishly, but sometimes being terribly selfish is allowed if the alternative is damaging to one's self.

And now in Tarbell 2, she's letting some of those barriers slip. Rules are slowly being broken, and she's trying to balance her own safety with Loki's in regard to his own health. Because his story in this is very introspective. It's a story about trust, and how there are different types of trust. They don't trust each other on a personal level, but they do trust one another on a professional level. On a personal level, they stand to hurt one another. On a professional level, they stand to kill one another.

And through all of this, Loki has been being very open about needing help, both with Darcy and with Thor. And both Darcy and Thor see what's going on and take very different approaches to this. Darcy is perceptive enough to see through his grim jokes and self-defeatist attitude, and tries to balance being there as a friend with not being made responsible for his well-being and happiness. It puts her in a position she never asked to be in, but she still tries to find a middle ground between her needs and his.

Thor, meanwhile, is going in the opposite direction. He not only takes everything at face value, but doesn't know how to handle Loki. So he handles it by always assuming the worst and getting resentful. Loki only ever calls when he needs something, and Thor gets angry about that. But Thor also doesn't really make an effort to reach out first. There's a scene where he invites both Darcy and Loki to dinner, but there's this uncomfortable feeling that he only invited Loki to not be rude. The only time he seeks out Loki specifically, it's to deliver bad news. Every other time they interact through this entire fic, it's Loki who reaches out first.

And through all of this, his relationship with Darcy improves, while his relationship with Thor falls apart even more than it already had. While Darcy validates him, Thor grows increasingly fed up with him. Loki winds up feeling like a burden to both of them, but in very different ways. And a lot of it comes down to Darcy understanding that all he wants is to be heard. He's not looking for someone to solve his problems or make everything better, but that's what Thor seems to think Loki's asking of him. Loki's stuck in this space of wanting to be left alone, while not being alone.

And this whole thing is awfully big to have happened by accident, but it was never in my original outline, and barely even in my rough draft at all. But there it is, all over the pages in the draft I've been working on this week. After 20 years of writing fiction, it still surprises me when this happens.