Your friendly neighbourhood librarian at your service

[cattygabriel]

Date: April 5, 2003
Status: Private (Gabriel, Loki II) - Complete
Setting: Library
Summary: Loki has questions. Gabriel helps him find answers.

  Gabriel sneezed lightly, before suppressing a smile at the strange feeling. Some of the books there were much older than he'd thought, and he turned the crackly pages cautiously, carefully holding the cracked leather spine. He ran his fingers over an old drawing of herbs used in medieval medicine, amused at the portrayal of the mandrake root as a human baby. Medicine had once been a complicated thing, involving arcane herbology and old spells and bitter potions and poultices; now anyone could pop a few tiny pills to get rid of illnesses that had once been deadly.

  "Amazing," he murmured. They really had come far; not that all the pills and such were good, but medicine certainly had progressed in leaps and bounds. Humans were nothing if not survivalists. 

Comments

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

The bottle he had filched from his other self's room tucked into the pocket of his open jacket, Loki entered the library. Gabriel had mentioned that he could drop by if he needed to read up on something, so here he was. He just had no idea of how to find what he was looking for.

Looking around a bit more, he spied Gabriel seemingly in intense conversation with a book. Some people really had a strange taste where converation partners were concerned! He even seemed to stroke that old tome he held.

It would have burned rather prettily, that much was sure.

"You, librarian," Loki said in a voice as if he was trying to covertly call someone away from a meeting with a lover, "Gabriel. Am I interrupting something?" He grinned mischievously.

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel looked up, a little bemused by the tone. "Loki," he smiled. "Good morning. Why would you be interrupting anything?"

He slid a bookmark into place and carefully set the book down.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"I'm looking for a piece of information," Loki said, and the quality of his grin changed. "Some guy with big wings told me this was the place to look for it."

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel couldn't help but laugh. "Some guy was correct, then. Information on what?"

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Assume I found something," Loki said, "and I wanted to know what it is. How would I go about it?"

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel tilted his head, curious. "Well, its appearance and the location in which you found it might be a clue. Or perhaps I might know what it is."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki racehd into his pocket and drew out the bottle. He set it down in front of the angel. "I found this in my bag." He told him. "But I didn't put it in there."

It wasn't even a lie...

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel frowned, picking up the bottle. "It looks like medicine." He unscrewed the cap and peered inside, before shaking some pills out onto his palm. "Definitely medicine. Or... I suppose it could be drugs." Ishtar, after all, was around, though he doubted she would leave drugs in people's bags.

There was a multisyllabic pharmaceutical name on the label, though; it was evidently some sort of medicine, and he said so. "Why would someone put medicine in your bag, though?"

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki ignored that last sentence, because he didn't want to explain just yet that it hadn't technically been his bag, but that of the other Loki. Well, they had already gotten into the habit of referring to each other almost as if they were one person after all.

"I'd rule out the drugs," Loki said. "I tried one, and it didn't have any noticable effect."

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel blinked. "You found some unidentifiable substance and you ate it? That's... not very cautious, to put it mildly."

He studied the label again. "If you'd like, I can check the medical books to see if any of them mention this."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Well, it might have been some drug. I didn't even eat a whole one. And besides, I have an extremely strong antidote in my room."

The Apples in his holdall, of course. They would counter anything, he thought. But really - he hadn't been in his room when he had tried the 'drug', so the angel was probably right. He didn't need to know, though.

"Yes, let's check." That might satisfy his curiosity and also give Gabriel something else to think about.

[cattygabriel]

"An antidote to any drug?" Gabriel was a little sceptical. He stood and walked around the desk, pointing down a row of shelves.

"We don't have many medical texts, but they're down there." He picked up the bottle and led Loki towards the medical shelf; having organised this library himself, he knew where everything was.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki followed the angel, scanning the book titles as he went. Most of them seemed rather dull. He had his doubts that these tomes would provide any kind of useful information, but one could never be quite certain...

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel paused at one of his new additions to the library, pulling out a book with a white cover. It was large and heavy; he slipped the bottle into the pocket of his robes so that he could support the book properly.

"There. Let's hope the index includes pharmaceutical names." He opened it and flipped to the end, running a finger down the list of words in the index. "Aha. There it is, with page numbers."

He carefully flipped to the correct page and raised an eyebrow. "Apparently it's used to treat cancer. Leukamia, to be precise."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki frowned in turns at the angel and the book.

"Is that catching?" he asked. If so, and if his other self had it, he might be susceptible to it, as well, after all!

[cattygabriel]

"No," Gabriel answered. "Leukaemia is cancer of the blood, or bone marrow. And I'm not the Healer, but I do know that while cancer is very serious and often deadly, it's not contagious. Some people might have a genetic predisposition, but I rather doubt that that's a problem for you."

He took out the bottle and looked at it again: 6-mercaptopurine, and a dosage. "This particular type of medicine is for the later stages of treatment, according to the book. Considering the dosage, this is for someone who is seriously ill and at high risk. Where were you when you found it? Perhaps it got into your bag by mistake. That person might be in serious need of this right now."

OOC: Going by Loki's symptoms, I assume he has acute lymphocytic leukaemia and is undergoing consolidation therapy; therefore I gave him the proper medicine for that stage. If I was wrong, please tell me and I'll edit it to change the medicine.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"You have no idea!" Loki said when Gabriel expressed his doubt about it being a problem for him. The person that bottle belonged to was, after all, just another version of himself.

Then he thought a bit.

"He said he was going to go out. If he didn't take the bottle along, he wouldn't need it before he came back, right?"

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel frowned. "You said you found it in your bag but you didn't put it there. So you know who did?" He paused, thinking. "Somehow I doubt that he meant to put it in your bag. Whoever he is, he doesn't know you've taken his medicine, does he? What if he needs it on his return? Is he staying in the Manor?"

Why would Loki steal medicine anyway? Especially since he didn't even know what it was.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Yes," Loki said through ground teeth. "I'm staying at the manor. Twice."

If his other self had this ailment, did that mean that he would get it, too? "What symptoms does this thing have?"

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel blinked. "Twice? What - oh."

Loki. The American Loki. This Loki must have gone through his things. Surely a god couldn't have cancer...

He shook himself, looking down at the book again, and began to read out some of the symptoms.

"People with leukaemia bruise easily, bleed excessively, or develop pinprick bleeds... some patients experience frequent infection, ranging from infected tonsils, sores in the mouth, or diarrhoea to life-threatening pneumonia or opportunistic infections... some patients experience frequent infection, ranging from infected tonsils, sores in the mouth, or diarrhea to life-threatening pneumonia or opportunistic infections."

He glanced up at Loki. "The red blood cell deficiency can also cause anaemia, which may cause dyspnea and pallor. You might also feel fatigued or develop flu-like symptoms." He didn't read on; instead, he looked at the god. "Is it possible for gods to fall ill?"

Gabriel remembered the strange dream he had had, the one featuring Loki. He'd never confronted Loki; instead he had tried to forget it, or at least forget the part with Lucifer, but now he tried to remember all the details he could of the events following Loki's sudden appearance. He remembered the hospital wing, and the mention of... chemotherapy.

Loki has cancer? It was an absurd notion, but it seemed like the only possible explanation.

Information adapted from Wikipedia.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki shook his head. "I didn't understand half of what you just said. He strongly disliked opportunistic people, and he had an idea that he wouldn't feel much more inclined towards opportunistic infections.

The whole affair sounded highly unpleasant.

"Does it say anything about drinking? Alcohol, I mean?" Loki asked, remembering his other self's abstinence.

"And to answer that other question... We once misplaced Idun's apples. That lead to everyone growing old and short-sighted and hard of hearing and whatever else is associated with old age. So I guess, without the apples, we could also fall ill."

[cattygabriel]

"Well, from what I can recall of anaemia... do you feel giddy when you stand up too fast, or after strenuous exercise?"

Gabriel scanned the page. "Not that I can see, but a lot of doctors don't recommend taking alcohol while on a certain course of medicine. It certainly won't aid recovery, anyway." Raphael wouldn't have encouraged it, either.

"Hmm. Interesting. So... your other self has cancer?"

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"So it would seem," Loki said, feeling still half-perplexed, half numbed by the idea that the same thing might affect him, too, sooner or later.

"I think I need a drink. A strong one."

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel replaced the book and touched Loki's shoulder, squeezing lightly. "Perhaps you should talk to your other self about it."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"He's out doing something by himself." Loki said. "So I think I'll go down to the bar and have that drink. Care to join me?"

He didn't mind drinking on his own, but taking a person for a drink tended to be a good way to sound out his views of certain things. One thing he would not let this situation distract him from was his ultimate goal. He hadn't come too far with that one yet.

[cattygabriel]

"I would. Thank you."

Gabriel bit his lip thoughtfully as he turned to leave the library with Loki, wondering about the other Loki. He'd always thought that gods could not fall ill; they were, after all, immortal, and powerful in their own right.

But then, some pantheons did need certain foods, like amirtham or the golden apples Loki had mentioned, to confer that immortality on them. Still, even without them, surely cancer wasn't the norm.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Let's go down to the bar," Loki said, turning towards the door.

He thought that possibly, mead didn't begin to cover his needs right now. Hopefully, they had something stronger there.

[cattygabriel]

"Alright."

Gabriel generally didn't drink anything stronger than red wine, and didn't plan to. He was, however, rather curious about both Lokis now.