(no subject)

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

Date: April 11, 2003
Status: Private? (Loki, War)
Setting: Corridor outside War's room
Summary: Loki wants to talk to a friend

There was too much bothering Loki lately, his nightmares, Gabriel's warnings about dreams, his illness becoming common knowledge - well, knowledge of two people he wasn't sure he could trust to keep his secret - and the presence of that other who clearly wasn't himself. Sometimes he felt like just grabbing his backpack and leaving it all behind, but he didn't think it would really solve anything. Dreams found you wherever you were, Gabriel and the other would still know, still be able to tell, if he wasn't around and the other would still exist even if Loki weren't here to see him. Besides he had a free room close enough to London that he could see his doctor whenever he needed to. It was practical to stay.

He missed having someone to talk to, though. Maybe talking would help to sort it all out. If only Odin were here!

But he couldn't let Odin know about the cancer anyway. That was the whole point of keeping it secret. No, the only person he could really talk to about all of this was ... actually just a few steps down the corridor from him, but somehow he hadn't been able to catch her alone since her return from her latest business trip. It was time to do something about that, Loki decided and instead of going on down to the bar as he'd planned stopped outside War's door and knocked. Hopefully she was home.

Comments

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

War was lounging on her bed, polishing a bardiche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardiche). She heard the knock and yelled, "Come in!"

If it was a friend, they were welcome. If it was a stranger... well, she was hardly unarmed.

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

Ah good, she was home. Loki immediately felt better and entered smiling happily.

"Hi," he said. "I was just a bit bored and thought that maybe you'd like to talk a bit, if you aren't busy, catch up? I never got a chance to ask you about your trip to Iraq."

He eyed the bardiche appreciatively. It wasn't a weapon he'd choose to use himself, but he remembered some of the others being quite interested once.

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

War grinned. "Sure, she said, and gestured at a chair. "Grab a seat."

It had been a while since she'd talked properly to Loki - the last time was when they went out in the tank (http://community.livejournal.com/lt_safe_house/6733.html#cutid1) and she'd been dragged out to Iraq. They used to talk a lot, though, back on the longships.

"Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

Loki sat down happily. Yes, this was just what he needed.

"Well, you know Gabriel? He's ... Well, he has nice cats, but that's not important. He has been warning me that somebody might be spying on our dreams and might be trying to kill us through nightmares." He paused and looked at War worriedly.

"And I have been having nightmares, though I didn't tell him of course. He might even have actually seen one of them. I'm not really worried about being killed by a dream, of course," he lied. "That's rather riddiculous. Nightmares, though ... well, they tend to focus on our weaknesses and if an enemy were to see them ..."

He didn't finish the thought. Espionage and the exploitation of weaknesses weren't concepts one needed to explain to the embodiment of war.

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

War arched an eyebrow. "Someone spying on our dreams?" Her initial thought was that Adam was keeping an eye on them, but if he wanted to kill them that was a roundabout way to do it.

"Did they feel any different to normal dreams?" she asked. Not that she was an expert, and particularly not in nightmares - most peoples' nightmares sounded pretty good to her, or at worst indifferent.

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

Loki hesitated. Did they feel different?

"Well, except for Gabriel showing up in one of them and the first part of that dream being really weird, they aren't really different from the nightmares I had when I was sick ... You know, of ... well, being sick and weak and helpless," he explained.

"But I thought that was over. I'm pretty much cured now and almost back to my old strength. I have no reason to worry about it anymore. I thought, the nightmares had stopped, but then they came back and now I have them every time I sleep again."

Should he tell War about Odin's part in those dreams? It was the only thing that still made sense, but also the most embarrassing.

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

"Maybe you're just having flashbacks?" War suggested. "Sometimes old things crop back up even when there's no reason for them to. It's still part of your past, even if it's not part of you right now."

War wasn't in favour of rewriting history. Humans had a bad habit of trying to rewrite the best, bloodiest bits, and gloss over the treachery and duplicity.

"Has anything else from your past been in the dreams?"

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"Well, Asgard," Loki admitted. "And the Aesir. But that's not really surprising. It's the possibility of someone spying on the being sick dreams that worries me, not dreaming of home or the family. I don't want it to get back to Odin that ... well, you know."

He meant to stop there, but after a moment sighed and added: "And too many people know too much of it already."