lt_safe_house | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Date: April 5, 2003
Status: Public (Loki, Loki II, Gabriel - Complete)
Setting: Loki's Room, Bar
Summary: Oh, no! Loki's medicine is gone!

Loki was pleased to notice that he had felt much better all day. It seemed that he was finally recovering. Hopefully if he continued to obey the doctor's orders exactly and always took his medicine, he'd soon be well enough to permanently return to America. Interesting as England was, he still missed his friends and family in America. This was another Loki's land.

He slipped one hand into his backpack feeling blindly for his pills. Ah, there the box was. He pulled it out, slightly surprised to find it much lighter than it was supposed to be.

His first reaction was to assume that the bottle had slipped out, but both ends of the box were closed.

Right, so he must have forgotten it in the bathroom. But no, it wasn't there either. Wherever else could he have left it?

Loki rushed back into his room, checked the bedside table, tore open all the drawers and turned over his backpack. Nothing. In a last desperate hope he tore open the cupboard doors, but of course it was completely empty.

His medicine was gone and he needed it!

Unfortunately he couldn't just go and buy another bottle. It was a prescription drug. His only option if he didn't find his pills tonight was to go to London tomorrow and get a new prescription from his doctor - who would not be pleased to find out that he'd lost a bottle he'd been meant to keep safely locked up.

And what effect would this have on his recovery? Would it slow it down? Cause a relapse?

Unwilling to sit around and worry Loki rushed out of his room, slammed the door closed behind him and went downstairs into the bar sorely tempted to bury his worries in alcohol.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Loki rolled his eyes at the other's reaction.

"Hello-o?" he said. "You're a grown cougar right now, not some cute little kitty. If I'd known your dignity sat in your tail, I would've scorched another part of your body!"

If a cougar could grin ... Loki did his best to produce a credible meow, though.

"I suggest you either switch back into human, or give that cat a human voice box so we can talk," Loki said. "Because you're not leaving this reoom before we have talked. Here - I'll even pour you a drink."

He rummaged behind the counter a bit more, until he found a bottle with some fruit juice, and poured a generous glass.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression you were not born in Asgard? And yes, I do realise that it is distinct from Midgard. My own home is not on Earth." He was sure that there was no way that Asgard could be older than Heaven, but he also knew that pursuing the issue was probably not the wisest course.

He was rather surprised by the cougar's acting like Earl Grey, and knelt to tickle it under the chin experimentally. "Why exactly are you so defensive about being ill?" he asked softly. "I doubt it was something you could help. We just want more information so that we can decide whether or not your counterpart is in danger as well."

"Sure," Loki agreed. "Would've been difficult, too. I was there when it was created out of Ymir's eyebrows. But yeah - Loki Farbauta sonr, that's me. Conceived of Fárbauti, born of Laufey. They were jǫtunn, older than the Æsir."

He perched on the edge of the countertop to take some weight off of his bitten leg, then regonsidered and swung his legs over the counter so that he was sitting on it, facing the others.

"Their names, they translate as 'lighting' and 'tree', you know. What do you get if you pair those two?"

He rolled his eyes as he saw Gabriel tickle the cougar under the chin. "Stop that," he said, much sharper than the rest, which had been said in a rather casual manner. "You're spoiling him. I'd appreciate it if you at least waited with that until I know what I'm in for here."

Gabriel noted his posture. "Are you sure you don't want me to heal that for you?"

He tilted his head, considering. "Besides you? A smoking, charred tree stump?"

Gabriel pulled his fingers back. "Well, he didn't seem to be responding very well to violence." It was in his nature; he was, after all, the Angel of Mercy.

"Wildfire, that's what you get," Loki said, then he warned: "And keep your fingers off of me. And your powers, too. I'll be fine."

He groped for the bottle of red wine the barman had left in easy reach in case the angel wanted a refill, and filled up Gabriel's glass again. "Here. Have a drink. But first, lock that door. Maybe he'll turn back if we refuse to acknowledge him while in animal shape. You can continue petting him once he's turned back."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "I won't hurt you. But fine."

He went to the bar counter and took the glass, seating himself on the bar stool again. "Thank you. And... why would I pet him in human form?"

"I didn't exactly see you lock that door," Loki stated neutrally.

"And why would it matter what skin he wears? There's the same being inside."

Loki mewed a complaint when Gabriel left him. And here he'd thought for just one moment that maybe he could risk turning back as long as he kept sitting on the floor and leaning against Gabriel until he'd regained his strength enough not to betray his weakness. Of course ...

He turned to inspect his formerly scorched tail tip. It looked as perfectly healthy as it felt. Gabriel clearly was good for more than just petting.

The cougar yawned, stretched out luxuriously on the floor and then turned into the human, now lying casually on his side head propped up on one hand.

"Alright, so what do you want other than to burn my poor fur off?" He'd offered the idiot a deal before. Had the power demonstration really been necessary?

"How about an answer?" Loki asked. "How about the truth?"

He indicated the fruit juice glass. "There, I even poured you a drink."

Loki ignored the juice. He felt better than he'd expected, but still didn't trust his body enough to stand up. It'd probably make him dizzy or even faint.

"Answer to what? Your childish argument aside, you're both old enough to know that our kind don't get sick. You are perfectly safe." Pause. "Coward."

"Was that supposed to sting?" Loki asked. "Cowards are those that run from danger. Wanting to know what one's in for has nothing to do with cowardice. It's called preparation. Not wanting an inconvenience to come up in the first place is hardly cowardice either. That's called practical thinking. Maybe you better make up some other insult."

He slid off of the countertop and walked over to his other self, slowly, deliberately and very evenly. Once there, he lowered himself to one knee in front of the other, who didn't seem to want to rise just yet.

Was he so weakened by that sickness? No state at all to initate the end of the world in.

He remembered the other hadn't semeed all that fire-proof, and let go of some of the fire inside him, decreasing the heat that radiated out from him until he was reasonably sure he wasn't going to burn even a human. He kept hold of enough to build up a defence again in case this was a ruse and the other was going to attack.

"And if our kind don't get sick, why do you have this leucaemia-thing? How would I ever be safe if it got a hold of you?"

Loki looked up at his so very different other self.

"Panicking over completely unrealistic dangers is cowardice, too," he said. "Or something very much like it at least."

He hesitated. The other's fear was pathetic, but was it more pathetic than being sick? If he admitted it, the other would despise him, but he wasn't so sure he cared what he thought anymore. They were too different. The only real risk here was that, if he told these two, others would find out and then it might somehow get back to America and his own Norse pantheon.

"Look, this is very private information. I don't want it getting out. I can tell you that it didn't actually get me, as you put it, and it definitely won't get you."

"What do you mean? You're taking those pills because they taste so good? Because you like the side effects?"

He laughed drily. "To me, the danger is rather realistic, considering how closely related the two of us are." Leaning one arm on his thigh, he bent forward until their faces almost touched. His voice lowered, he added: "And yes, I am afraid of this happening to me. I'm just beginning to enjoy life again after my sentence under the snake. I don't want to deal with my very body becoming a prison of sorts for me. If it must happen, I'd rather be prepared. If there's a way to avoid it, I'd rather go down that path. And if I'm really and truly in no danger at all, then we should see how we can get it out of you, wherever it came from."

He considered for a moment. "Nothing we say here needs leave this room. But... you know, you almost seem ashamed of it." He didn't raise his voice. The librarian would have to have bloody good ears to make out anything he was saying. "Does that mean you brought this on yourself with some silly bet?"

"Swear that it won't, both of you," Loki demanded. "Give me a proper oath and I'll tell you. And no, it wasn't even a bet."

Slowly, Loki stood and went back to the bar.

Carefully, he poured himself half a glass of mead, then turned again to face the other Loki. A proper oath, was it?

Holding his glass, he intoned: "I swear by my dead children, who were murdered to bind me, that I shall repeat no word spoken in truth until one of us leaves this room in the hearing of anyone but the three privy to this conversation."

He raised his glass slightly into the direction of the other one, then emptied it in three gulps without putting the glass down in between.

Loki nodded, satisfied. He wouldn't swear on his children, if he weren't serious and he expected no matter how different they were in other ways that this was true for the other Loki as well.

Then he looked over to Gabriel expectantly. He wasn't sure what Judeo-Christian gods valued enough to swear on, or what a formal oath among them looked like, but hopefully Gabriel wasn't aware of that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only