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Chapter Text

Loki had no idea how long he had been falling, or even whether he was still alive. The palace library at Asgard contained books about all nine realms, and Loki knew beliefs about the afterlife differed. On some mortal realms there was a belief not only in reward or punishment after death, but also in places of atonement. Loki could not really believe that rather hopeful doctrine applied to him, but there was another, about a place for those who were forever excluded from the rest of their kind. That sounded... familiar. Perhaps he had fallen into such a place.

Although in the book, that fate had sounded rather peaceful. Loki would not have expected a howling void, or for it to hurt so much. Though really, he was long past the point of being able to tell whether the pain was in his body or his soul. As he fell farther from the rejection of his father, the heartbreak of his mother and brother, and the hatred of everyone who had known him all his life, he felt as though he was being scoured with sand and brushes, like the stone floors of the palace, until he was... Not clean. Empty.

The blackness around him suddenly gave way to a soft gray light and he was aware of a sensation of speed that had been absent during most of his fall through the void. Loki had enough sense left to realize that meant he was now somewhere, rather than nowhere, and also that he was about to definitively arrive.

He also had enough controllable magic left to be able to break his own fall before his fall broke him.

He still hit the sloped roof of the little dwelling with enough force to have killed a mortal, and to cause serious discomfort to an immortal. He tumbled toward the edge, unable to make any real effort to catch hold anywhere, and then he was falling again.

It was a short fall this time, ending in a tangle of limbs among what appeared to be receptacles for refuse. Loki had just enough awareness left to find this grimly amusing. God of Mischief he might be, but recently the jokes had been almost entirely on him.

He was still trying to catch his breath, and persuade his arms and legs to obey simple commands, when he became aware of sounds--the door of the dwelling slamming open, running feet--and sensation--a strangely comforting coldness touching his shoulder.

He realized he had closed his eyes again. He opened them.

And found himself looking into a pair of concerned dark brown eyes. Disoriented as he was, he thought he recognized them.

"I didn't mean it," he blurted, in case Heimdall could still see and hear him. His threat toward his brother's mortal love had been empty, purely calculated to provoke Thor into fighting him. He had no intention of actually harming such a helpless little creature. It wouldn't be... sporting.

"Are you all right?" asked the voice that belonged to the eyes. It was young and female, but not familiar. Neither was the face, framed by a tangle of black curls as soft as the eyes. Not Thor's mortal. Not someone he recognized. Not, perhaps, someone who hated him already. "Where did you come from? You must be hurt. Let me help you--no, don't move, you'll hurt yourself. Where did you come from?"

There seemed to be a great deal more of this, a kind of circular swirl of words that left no room for response even if Loki had been able to produce one. Ordinarily, Loki had very little patience with babble, but impatience seemed to be among the things scrubbed away from him in the fall.

And besides, the voice sounded so concerned. About him. Not dismissive, or contemptuous, or disappointed. Concerned. As if all that mattered was whether he was injured. Loki felt very strongly tempted to close his eyes again and let the voice wash over him for a while longer.

Instead, he sucked in a breath that confirmed his chest was sore but not shattered, and tried to sit up. The cold feeling had moved from his shoulder to his forehead--that was nice, it was calming, it helped him think--but as he pushed himself more or less upright it moved to his upper arm. Loki wondered briefly what was causing the sensation, but he was still too disoriented to make any effort to find out.

"Are you sure you should be moving? I can call an ambulance. Oh no, actually, I don't think I can, but you shouldn't move--although I suppose you can't just stay here in the dustbins--"

Loki made an effort and produced a question. "Where am I?"

"Totterdown," replied the voice. Loki cast his mind over the names of the nine realms and did not find Totterdown. Clearly it was the name of a specific corner of one of them, and the fact this young woman didn't seem to realize he needed more details told him which one. Midgard--Earth--had long since closed itself off to knowledge of other worlds and the beings on them.

"Mid--Earth, correct? I'm on Earth?" he asked.

"Yes?" It was a question rather than a statement. Loki realized the young woman thought his brains had been jarred loose by his fall. That was close enough to the truth to let stand.

The cold sensation touched his cheek, and Loki finally realized what was causing it: it was coming from her hand. She was touching his face in what appeared to be a gesture of consolation, but all he could feel was this strange coldness.

Up to this point he had been entirely preoccupied with his own concerns, but this was strange enough to give him pause. Loki was no expert on mortals, but he knew they, like the Aesir, were supposed to be warm.

Apparently his confusion showed in his face, because the young woman snatched her hand away and looked self-conscious.

"I'm sorry, I'm babbling," she murmured--accurately, but her apparent perception that he found it annoying was not. She started to rise to her feet. "I should--"

"Don't go," Loki said rapidly. There was an insubstantial coldness in his hands and he found he was holding hers. If he concentrated, he could feel the shape of them. The young woman looked down at their joined hands as if that was more startling than having a stranger fall from the sky onto the roof of her house. Loki spoke again. "Please."

He wasn't quite sure what he meant, but he felt he had done something to upset her. She had been kind to him, and he was suddenly desperate not to be left alone in this strange place. Which was unusual enough, considering he was quite used to being alone, but he didn't try to understand it.

She smiled at him, the smile of someone placating an invalid, which should have infuriated him. It didn't, possibly because it felt entirely appropriate.

"I'm not leaving," she said soothingly. "Can you get up? You should come inside." She didn't seem afraid that he would do anything to hurt her, and it crossed Loki's mind that, perhaps, it wasn't so much what he would do as what he could do.

There was something very strange about all this, but it was so mixed up in everything else strange that he decided not to try to figure it out right now.

"My name is Annie, by the way," the young woman said suddenly. Loki nodded, realized she was waiting for him to reciprocate, and then felt a glow of relief when it became evident his name meant absolutely nothing to her. "Pleased to meet you, Loki. Come on, let's get you inside."

It turned out his legs would, in fact, just about hold him, although he needed help. It also turned out that if he concentrated as hard as he could, he could feel Annie's arm around his ribcage, steadying him. Loki conceded that it made very little sense for him to be able to lean on someone he wasn't entirely sure was really there, but he was beginning to realize Earth was a great deal more complicated than he had always believed, not to mention more interesting.

"Here, sit down and I'll make you a cup of tea," Annie said, helping him into a hard wooden chair at a small wooden table. "Tea" turned out to be a hot sweetened liquid, apparently administered for purposes of steadying the nerves. It worked admirably. Annie sat down across from Loki and watched him drink.

It took him a moment to realize that was odd, too. Ordinarily, when one offered hospitality, one shared food or drink with the guest. Annie simply watched him.

Loki put the cup down and carefully pushed it away, suddenly fearful he had blundered into a trap of some sort. He had no idea why Annie would wish him harm, since she didn't appear to know who he was. He also didn't think mortal poisons would normally have any effect on him, but the circumstances were far from normal--for all he knew, the majority of his powers had been taken away from him in the fall. And, he realized, he had no idea what effect such poisons might have on a Jotun, since he knew nothing whatsoever about the creatures except for the stories that had frightened him as a child.

Trying to keep his voice steady, he asked, "Will you not join me?"

"What--? Oh, no," Annie replied brightly. "I can't."

"Can't" was unexpected. Loki stared at her for a moment, and then--perhaps it was the tea--his brain began to put things together. The coldness, the way he had to concentrate to touch her, this definitive "I can't"--

"You're not mortal, are you?" he asked softly.

Annie stood abruptly. "You can't go around in those clothes, you look like you've fallen off the Starship Enterprise. Tell you what, the woman two doors down just chucked out her boyfriend--long overdue, if you ask me, useless tit--and I think she's pitched all his clothes into a bin. He was about your size. I'll go see what I can find for you." Loki nodded, unsure what reaction he should offer and a little scared again that she would simply go off and leave him. Annie paused at the door and spoke, her tone kind. "It's all right. I'll be back in a second. Drink your tea."

And, because there seemed to be nothing else for him to do, Loki did.

Chapter Text

"Loki? His name is Loki?" The mortal named George sounded incredulous.

"That's what I said," Annie replied impatiently. "What's the matter?"

"You don't know who Loki is, do you?" George demanded.

"Should I?" Annie said defensively.

"George, perhaps you should just tell her," came the third voice, which belonged to the one named Mitchell. He had a peculiarly lilting accent which sounded quite soothing, unlike the querulous tones of George. George, it seemed, was not to be soothed.

"He landed in the back garden dressed like an extra from Star Wars, his name is Loki, and you still brought him into the house?" George apparently had an irritating habit of talking around a subject without actually saying what he meant. Annie seemed to be used to it.

"Yes, that's why he's in here. What are you going on about?" she asked.

Mitchell had apparently had enough. "Annie, if he's really Loki, he's a Scandinavian trickster god."

"He's a what?"

George pitched in again. "We've been trying to fit into the neighbourhood, and you've got the Norse God of Mischief sitting in the front room eating a ham sandwich!"

Ah. So that was what this was. Loki cast an appreciative look at the foodstuff he was holding. Some of the yellow fluid Annie had smeared on the bread had leaked onto his fingers, and Loki thoughtfully licked it off, savouring the sharp taste. He would give George one more chance to moderate his tone with Annie, and then he was going to find out whether he had enough magic left to transfigure him into something. Perhaps a nice cup of tea.

The argument between Annie and her two housemates was taking place in the kitchen, in whispers. Loki had no trouble hearing them, but he rather appreciated the fact they had withdrawn like this to argue about him. He was used to people shouting at each other past him as though he wasn't there.

Loki finished his sandwich and considered the plate it had sat on. Tableware in this realm seemed as fragile as everything else, including the creatures who lived here. On Asgard, cups and plates were made of metal so it didn't matter if you dropped them on the floor and left them for a servant to deal with. This plate appeared to be made of some sort of glass that would shatter if you weren't careful. Besides, there didn't seem to be any servants. The appropriate place for it appeared to be the kitchen, where there was a kind of basin intended for washing such utensils. Loki decided the polite thing to do was to transport it there himself.

Besides, he felt the argument in the kitchen had gone on long enough without him.

He had just gotten to his feet, holding the plate with exaggerated caution, when Annie and the two young men appeared in the doorway. Mitchell spoke first.

"I imagine you heard all that," he said, his tone so certain it seemed a waste of time to lie to him.

"I did," Loki admitted.

Mitchell sighed. "I'm sorry about that. Sit down, would you? We need to talk."

Loki sat back down on the long padded seat he'd spent most of the afternoon asleep on, returning the plate to the low table in front of it. Annie came around to sit beside him, which gave Loki a carefully-concealed little glow of pleasure. Mitchell sat on the floor with his back to the wall directly in front of them, and George hung about disapprovingly in the doorway to the kitchen.

"I'm sorry we haven't seemed very welcoming," Mitchell began. "It's just… an unusual sort of a situation."

George snorted, and Annie cast a fierce look at him. Deciding this didn't count as sufficient provocation for him to do anything, Loki replied formally,

"I very much appreciate your kindness. I have... been in need of it."

"Yes, well, we know how that is," Mitchell murmured. "I don't like to pry, but--how did you get here?"

"I fell," Loki replied briefly, quite sure that would not be sufficient.

Nor was it.

"What, from an aeroplane?" George muttered.

"No, from a bridge," Loki replied courteously. George looked directly at him and blurted,

"You mean the Rainbow Bridge?"

Loki took his turn to be startled. "Yes."

"How did you fall?" Mitchell asked, practically. Conscious of Annie's eyes on him, Loki suddenly found himself, for once, willing to be honest.

"I was fighting with my brother. No, I had provoked my brother into fighting with me. By committing treason, usurping the throne of Asgard, and attempting to destroy a neighbouring realm." It was remarkable, really, how much one could condense such a story and still have it sound absolutely unforgivable.

Mitchell raised an eyebrow. "Was there a reason you went on this rampage?" he asked mildly.

Loki shrugged. "I'm naturally bad?" he offered. All three sets of eyes were fixed on him and Loki had the unsettling feeling he was transparent to them. He heard his own voice saying, "I didn't mean for it to go that far. I didn't originally mean any harm." He considered that statement and admitted, "Although I should have realized those two guards were going to be killed." He hadn't previously given much thought to the guards who'd died when the Frost Giants broke into the weapons vault. Of course, his father and brother hadn't either, which thought made him feel not so much better about himself as worse about his entire family.

Mitchell nodded. "Irish, were they?" he asked. Before Loki could ask him what that meant, he went on, "What, so you were trying to play a trick on someone? And it got out of hand? All quite innocent?"

"Not quite innocent, no," Loki admitted. "I wanted to get my brother into trouble--not a lot of trouble, originally. It seemed... funny, at least at first. The problem was, we were supposed to be stopped before it went very far, and that didn't work out. We ended up in a situation I hadn't counted on, and I found out..." He stopped, wondering how to explain himself so his hosts would understand. "My home, Asgard, once went to war with the realm of Jotunheim. Jotunheim is the home of creatures we call Frost Giants. When I was a child, we were told that if we weren't good, the Frost Giants would come for us. I used to lie awake at night, afraid of what might be lurking in the cupboard or underneath the bed." He didn't look at the others but he was conscious of their eyes on him, and he had the strangest feeling they knew what he was going to tell them, and that they already understood. That didn't make any sense, but it gave him courage. "I found out that my father, Odin, had actually stolen me from Jotunheim when I was a baby, planning to use me as part of a... political scheme. I am a Frost Giant myself. The monster I feared all my life turned out to be me." He didn't look up. "I… I think I went a little mad."

"A little mad" was, he now realized, a foolhardy understatement. He could feel himself groping for a memory of the rage and confusion that had taken over his mind and his soul, and couldn't even remember what it had felt like, let alone the insanity that had made him think up his elaborate plan to prove himself to his father.

He'd proved himself, all right. Proved he was every bit the monster he thought he was.

"You don't look like a monster." The voice, surprisingly, belonged to George. Annie glared at him over Loki's head and George amended hastily, "I mean, you don't look like a giant. Are you small for your species?"

Mitchell buried his face theatrically in his hands, but Loki answered the question.

"I have certain gifts--magical gifts. When I was small I couldn't control them, they'd just take over when I was angry or frightened. Usually frightened. I think, when he picked me up, I may have instinctively taken on a shape that appealed to my father, so he wouldn't... so he wouldn't kill me." Odin had known whose son he was, had admitted that was his reason for sparing him, but the baby would not have known that. Loki didn't like to think about being a helpless little being desperately trying to find a form that would protect him. The Jotun had abandoned him to the invader, his magical gifts hadn't really served to protect him at all, and he was only alive now because Odin had thought he might be useful someday.

He had to admit, as tired and empty as he was, that knowledge still hurt. He didn't have the energy to be angry anymore, but it definitely hurt.

"You were probably still cute as a baby, though," Annie said suddenly. Loki looked at her, and she rattled on, "Babies are. Last year there was a baby rhino born at one of the zoos, and there's nothing uglier than a rhino, I mean really, hideous creatures, but that baby was adorable. I saw it on television. He would have taken you home anyway, your dad. You don't kill babies, not unless you're some sort of war criminal."

"Annie," Mitchell said quietly.

"Well, really, Mitchell. Surely Loki's dad wouldn't go around murdering babies."

"What do you plan to do?" Mitchell asked the reasonable, unanswerable, question.

"I can't go back," Loki murmured. He just couldn't. Even if it was possible, it was impossible.

"Why not? Because of what you did, or because of what you are?" That was George, from the doorway. He sounded aggressive again, but now the aggression seemed not to be directed at anyone in particular. There was something… familiar… in his tone. As Loki turned his attention to the bespectacled mortal, George went on, "Because if it's what you are, if it's because you think you're some kind of monster, I have to tell you, Frost Giants don't sound that bad. I mean, sure, large and ugly and from a frozen planet, I'd be angry, too, although honestly it doesn't sound any worse than Canada, and the Canadians I've met seem to like it. But it sounds to me that the only real problem with these Frost Giants is, they were on the wrong side. History is written by the winners, and all that.

"Now, if you want monsters--you don't happen to ever have involuntarily turned into a ravening beast who'd kill his own best friends if they didn't happen to be dead already, have you?"

Loki was taken aback by the intensity in George's voice, and also by the realization his words were not rhetorical. He looked at Annie, who shrugged self-consciously.

"Unquiet spirit, me," she chirped, with an embarrassed little smile.

"You're dead?" he asked, stupidly. It wasn't like he hadn't been given plenty of chances to figure it out for himself. Annie nodded. "Why are you--?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I can't remember the… circumstances, so I don't really know why I'm still here or for how long."

Loki said nothing, because he knew exactly how selfish it would be to tell her he was grateful that her fate had coincided with his. He turned back to George.

"So Annie is a spirit, and you are a--?"

"Werewolf," George said briefly. "I'm not sure that's part of your mythology, so the short version is--change shape at the full moon, no memory of having been human, absolute killing machine."

"You kill people?" Loki asked. Not that this should bother him, but there was a difference between querulousness and evil, and George just… didn't feel evil.

"So far, no. It's mostly a matter of planning ahead," George shrugged. "Fortunately, of course, we always know when it's going to happen. Hurray for the full moon."

"That is indeed fortunate," Loki agreed, mostly because George seemed to need for him to say something. That was when he remembered that George had referred to his best friends, not friend. He looked at Mitchell. "Does this mean you are--?"

Mitchell smiled, and there was something definitely unsettling about that smile, about what was behind the young man's kindly, sympathetic exterior.

"Does it mean I'm a monster, too? Yes. I've killed people, I've created creatures like myself, I'm an agent of darkness and destruction in this little world, and I am very hard to kill. I don't know whether I'm part of your mythology either. Do you know the word vampire?"

"I have read of such creatures," Loki replied, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. Which was ridiculous, since he was quite sure Mitchell had no power over him. Even so--

"I've committed evil," Mitchell said softly, "and I'm determined not to do it again, and to stop others like me if I can. But it takes every scrap of self-control I have, every minute God sends, and I've got to tell you--I don't know whether you're vulnerable to something like me, or whether you even have blood that would do me any good, but… half the time while you've been talking, I've found myself looking at that little pulse beating in the side of your throat, and it's all I can do not to--"

There was something else in the room with them. Loki could definitely sense the presence of evil. It wasn't Mitchell, but it was… associated with him.

"Mitchell," George said warningly. Mitchell blinked, seemed to remember himself, and the evil presence was gone.

"So that's us, then," Annie said, in her bravely chirpy little voice. "The things that go bump in the night. Not the most ideal friends, I'll admit, but--"

--But she was wrong, and all four of them knew it. Mitchell spoke again.

"If you feel like you want to stay for a while, there's a box room we can clear out for you. Bit small, I'm afraid, but it'll do until you figure out what you want to do next."

Loki glanced at George, and was surprised to find him nodding. "Sure," said the werewolf--said George. "You might even be able to help us, if you want to."

"I would like that," said Loki, without even asking himself what kind of help they might need or why he suddenly felt willing to provide it.

Whether he was dead or alive, he was in an afterlife of a sort, and it seemed the books were right.

Chapter Text

The box room was indeed very small--tucked under the eaves at the back of the house, its ceilings sloped so that Loki could only stand upright at the very threshold of the doorway. He'd learned that the hard way, having cracked his head several times the first day he moved in, and he was now wary of sitting up suddenly in bed. The bed was also a problem: owing to the size of the room, the only one that would fit was narrow and several inches too short to be comfortable. Loki was becoming accustomed to sleeping either curled up into a ball or with one or more of his extremities dangling over the side. He supposed this proved he had finally conquered his childhood fear that something under the bed would grab an exposed hand or foot.

Actually, of course, in his childhood experience something had frequently done exactly that, but his brother had long since outgrown such behavior and was, in any event, far away. Not to mention much too large to fit under this particular bed.

Mitchell and Annie were apologetic about the room but, surprisingly even to himself, Loki had no complaints. It had a small window that faced the sunrise, which was an encouraging way to wake. It was private--all the housemates were scrupulous about respecting closed doors. And although he remained overtly aloof, George had provided, for the single flat wall by the door, a large piece of parchment bearing a colourful image of four young mortals walking purposefully, single-file, across a street. Loki had no idea who they were or where they might be going, but he liked to wonder about it.

Loki had always been skilled at fitting into new situations, at fading into the background until he understood what was expected of him. This ability had never been especially valued on Asgard, where life tended to be predictable, but it stood him in good stead here. Earth was a complex and confusing place, and for that reason he rather liked it. You never knew when something completely illogical was going to happen.

In terms of fitting in, the housemates had explained to him that mortals generally spent long periods of their time at something called a "job," which seemed to involve performing menial tasks for very little remuneration. Apparently this was necessary in order to pay for the privilege of continuing to live in the house and also for food and other necessities. Loki had no idea how one went about acquiring a job, but fortunately Mitchell and George were friendly with an older female mortal who had previously worked as a cleaner at the hospital where they were porters. She had left the hospital some time previously and was now employed at a local school, where she found herself in need of an assistant.

It turned out that Mitchell and George's recommendation was sufficient for her to take Loki on, though she apparently suffered misgivings about what Mitchell referred to as his "accent," on the grounds that people with such an "accent" tended not to find employment mopping floors. Mitchell had smoothed this over with an explanation about "a breakdown," which was certainly true, although Loki could only assume he had made the story sound substantially less deranged than the reality. Surely, if she knew what had actually happened, she would have been reluctant to let him accompany her into a building filled with small mortal children.

He was glad she was willing to trust him, however. For one thing, it was a novelty. For another, he found the children amusing. He also found it mildly entertaining to see how much their antics exasperated those responsible for them. If he'd had the energy, Loki might have had fun giving the adults something to really be exasperated about.

He wondered a little whether he should be worried about that, about the fact he couldn't summon the interest to play the most harmless little joke on the earnest educators who took the children's behaviour so seriously. Even an innocent trick to liven up the school day was beyond him: it seemed too much effort to, for instance, animate the soft toy animals that lived in the nursery class, and send them to climb in the children's laps during story time. The notion amused him because it would, as Annie might say, "freak out" the teachers, while he suspected the children, who at that age were convinced the animals were secretly alive anyway, would take it in their tiny stride.

Still, Loki felt wasn't sure he retained enough magic to pull it off, and he suspected there was something strange about him coming up with such a benign idea in the first place.

He suspected he was still feeling the aftereffects of the cataclysm and the fall--in short, he was mentally, physically, and emotionally drained, as though he had been very ill, and had the impression he was watching the world around him through a panel of glass. His reactions to everything around him felt curiously muted.

Loki had no idea how long he would be content to live this way, but for the moment it was rather peaceful: one attended to one's job, was courteous to the housemates, and did one's share of the allotted chores. If he didn't know how to do something, the others were patient about demonstrating. Cooking, for instance.

"Now you add the tomatoes to the onions and oil," Annie was saying, leaning around him to peer into the saucepan. Loki edged aside just enough to let her do so, but not quite enough to avoid contact with her shoulder. Unlike the residents of Asgard, Annie didn't seem to mind touching him. Possibly this was because she was dead, but it was still pleasurable. "We'll add the basil in a minute--my mum always used to put garlic in marinara sauce, but Mitchell really doesn't like garlic, so now we make it without. He and George say it's good, but I do miss the smell. You don't mind leaving it out, do you?"

"Not at all," Loki assured her. "Truly."

"I don't suppose you eat marinara sauce where you come from, do you?" Annie asked, and then giggled nervously. "Not a lot of tomato sauce in Norse mythology, I should think." Loki was about to agree with her on that point when she suddenly stepped back so she could really look at him and performed one of her sharp conversational turns. "Do you miss it? Home, I mean? I mean, of course you do, that was stupid of me, but--is there anything we can do? Are you okay?"

"I am okay," Loki assured her. "You and Mitchell and George are very kind. I hope I express my appreciation--?"

"It's not that, I was just thinking, you know, it's so hard when you can't… when there're things you should talk about with someone you love and then you don't ever..." Loki nodded, unsure where to look and fully aware that Annie was talking about herself as much as about him. She blinked, focused on Loki, and went on, "I mean, you said you didn't really get a chance to talk to your dad before that, that coma thing, and maybe if you did you'd know why he, you know, did the things he did."

"He told me why," Loki said stiffly, staring into the saucepan with all his concentration.

"Only it didn't sound like it," Annie said. "I mean, the way you tell it, it sounded like he was doing a bad job of explaining and you were too upset to really listen."

"I don't wish to argue with you, Annie," Loki murmured. There was a time when he could have made that statement sound very threatening, even to someone who was already dead. At the moment it sounded more like a plea.

"I just think it's possible that he didn't tell you about his plan because he decided not to do it after all," Annie insisted.

Loki felt his whole body stiffen. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if he was going to go through with it, you'd think he would have said something. What was he waiting for, you know?" Annie wiggled her shoulders and waved her hands, which Loki had noticed she did when she was trying to say something she felt had to be said and still not offend you. It was a silly posture, and also remarkably disarming even when you knew what she was doing.

"What possible reason would he have for keeping me, if he had decided not to put his plan into action?" Loki demanded. Really, he wanted to hear this.

Annie looked at him with an expression of surprise and compassion, as if she couldn't believe his mind didn’t work the same way hers did.

"Well, he was probably fond of you," she said gently. Loki turned away, his eyes stinging, and reached for the stovetop control dial. He turned it the wrong way and a gas flame shot upward. Annie shrieked and he turned the control back the right way to lower the heat, muttering an apology. A breath of cold that he knew was Annie's hand brushed against his back. He pretended not to notice it.

And someone knocked on the front door.

Loki was too grateful for the interruption to wonder who was knocking this late in the evening, but he regretted his lack of caution the moment he opened the door.

"Is Mitchell in?" The speaker was male and… medium: height, build, age, all seemed to be in the absolute middle of mortal norms.

There was nothing normal, however, about his eyes.

He--it--smiled at Loki, an expression clearly intended to frighten, and moved insinuatingly closer. Loki stepped over the threshold, using his body to prevent the creature--for this was definitely no mortal--from entering the house. He wasn't frightened, he was offended by the very idea of such a being in the same space as Annie.

"No, I'm afraid he has not yet returned from work," Loki said, with deliberately offensive exaggerated courtesy. Recalling the Midgardian custom, he added, "If you would care to leave a message, I will ensure he receives it."

"I have a message for him, all right, but I'll have to come inside to deliver it," the creature responded. It edged forward and seemed slightly perplexed when Loki didn't back away. "This is not a conversation we should have where your neighbours can see," the creature remarked, in a voice that oozed. Loki, seeing the sense in that, glanced over his shoulder and saw Annie in the front room. She looked terrified, but she nodded. He gestured toward the door and addressed the creature.

"Be my guest."

The moment the door closed, the creature's demeanour changed--if trading suppressed aggression for naked aggression could rightly be termed so.

"Mitchell thinks he doesn't need us, does he? That he can stand with the humans and get away with it? Now he's even brought a human into his little collection of freaks. Here's the message--I hope you're paying attention, sweetheart," the thing addressed Annie, "because you're going to have to pass it on."

Moving so swiftly even Loki could not follow the motion, the creature grabbed Loki by the back of the head, jerking him downward as though intent on a kiss. Fangs erupted in its mouth as it sought Loki's throat.

Loki turned his head just enough to see the creature's eyes. In his more despairing, and admittedly grandiose, moments, he had thought he was the vilest being on the Nine Realms, a wretched accumulation of envy and loneliness and bitterly thwarted affection. But looking into the creature's eyes he saw a howling abyss that swallowed everything, all compassion or remorse or pity or love. The creature wanted to kill him simply because he was alive. It sought power simply because it was there to seek. It wanted nothing more than to be able to kill for the sake of killing.

It wanted Mitchell to be like itself, and to hurt him through his friends if he refused.

The rage that bloomed in Loki's chest was the first strong emotion he had felt in weeks. It was hot and powerful and unfamiliar, a completely different anger from that which he'd felt before his fall. Something inside him reached out for magic, and as the creatures fangs made contact, Loki shifted into a form he had never before voluntarily, or completely, assumed.

The fangs scraped off frozen flesh as the creature was flung aside by a full-sized Frost Giant. As the great blue creature turned, red eyes glaring, the smaller being scrambled to its feet. With impressive composure, it nodded to the giant.

"Not human after all. I'll mention that to Herrick."

And then he was gone.

A moment later Loki had returned to his… natural… shape, head ringing either from the flush of magic or from bumping it on the ceiling. Annie was clutching his arm and, apparently realizing he was wobbly, steered him toward the couch and then went over to lock the front door. She came back to sit beside him, apparently too upset by other matters to be concerned about his transformation.

"That was Seth," she said simply.

"And he is also a vampire?" Loki asked. He seemed to be breathing hard. Annie took his arm again.

"Yes. The others are like him as well. I don't know how Mitchell fights it off. Being like that, I mean. I can't imagine it. I mean, I'm dead and Seth frightens me."

Even dead, of course, Annie was more alive than practically anyone Loki had ever met, but he didn't say so.

"Apparently the other vampires are angry at Mitchell?" Loki stated the obvious.

"Yes. There's something coming, something big, and they want all the vampires to stand together. Nobody, I mean nobody human, knows they exist, so nobody's fighting them yet. Except Mitchell. And I guess us."

Loki felt included in the "us." The giddiness and the scrape on his throat were a small price to pay.

"He's probably got the worse ice-cream headache ever," Annie giggled, on a note of hysteria. Loki had no idea what she was talking about but he smiled at her anyway.

And then he thought of something.

"This Seth--he intended to kill me as a warning to Mitchell," he said slowly. Annie nodded, alarmed by his tone. "He found me… difficult. And you are of course invulnerable to him."

"Yes," said Annie.

"So… who does that leave?"

The two of them stared at each other for a heartbeat, and then Loki said, "George," and Annie said, "We have to call--"

They had just scrambled to their feet when there was a scuffling noise at the front door, of a key in the lock. A moment later, Mitchell walked in. Annie flew to him with a squeak of relief, but the relief died when she and Loki realized he was alone.

"Where is George?" Loki demanded.

"He went by Tesco to pick up some milk," Mitchell replied, picking up on their alarm. "What's wrong?" Annie filled him in and Mitchell went pale.

"He is vulnerable to this Seth?" Loki asked rhetorically.

"Yes. When he's in his wolf form he can't be killed except by a silver bullet, but the rest of the time he's not much stronger than a human, and the moon is almost full dark. Loki, we have to find him. Annie, you stay here in case he comes back." Annie was incapable of going far from the house anyway, but it was kind of Mitchell to try and make her feel that by staying she was playing a part. It was difficult to imagine that Mitchell had anything at all in common with Seth.

As they went out the front door, Loki was struck with a terrible thought.

"Seth was… angry when he left the house. I--I made him very angry."

Mitchell didn't even look at him. "Loki, whatever you did back on Asgard, that's your responsibility. I don't say you weren't badly provoked, but it's your responsibility. What Seth or anything like him does down here? Not your fault. Now let's concentrate on George."

They split up to search alternate routes to the grocery store. Loki was three streets away when Mitchell found George, but he heard the vampire's reaction clearly. He arrived in the alley at a dead run, to find Mitchell sitting on the ground, weeping, with the bloodied werewolf in his arms. For a moment Loki thought George was already dead, but when he got closer he realized the werewolf was gasping and trying to focus on Mitchell's face while the vampire crooned to him, one hand pressed to the rent in George's throat as though trying to hold his friend's life in him. Loki fell to his knees beside them. Unable to think of anything else to do, he took George's hand.

Mitchell looked up, eyes unfocused. "We have to… get him out of here. Home. We'll take him home--can you get the car?" Loki shook his head--he'd had enough trouble learning the use of the local bus, he had never attempted to learn to control the car. Mitchell glanced down at George again and then said, "We can't leave him here and we can't take him to a hospital--I think it's too late anyway. We can't carry him far without hurting him worse. You hold him, I'll get the car." As he spoke, Mitchell was awkwardly shifting George's weight from his own lap to Loki's, gently disentangling his friend's clinging hands. "I'll be right back," he said softly, and ran off into the night.

Loki cradled the dying werewolf, trying to make comforting noises past the awful ache in his throat. "Am I cursed?" he had asked his father, and the reply had been just another lie, because cursed he must be: no matter what or who he loved or wanted to love, he destroyed them.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, tears welling in his eyes. He pressed his right hand against George's throat as he had seen Mitchell do and held the werewolf close.

At the top of his vision, not quite in focus, he became aware of a tiny light. It was like a cooling ember getting ready to flicker out. Not quite knowing why, Loki concentrated on it--he couldn't seem to look directly at it so he kept his eyes on George, but he felt his mind reach toward the light, willing it to become stronger and brighter.

As it did, he felt or imagined that George's breathing was slightly less laboured. He didn't trust his own perception because he knew perfectly well how madness distorted such things, but he felt that either George was sliding peacefully from this life, or something was changing.

And the light at the edge of his vision was glowing a little more brightly.

It had never before occurred to Loki to perform a healing spell--he'd never learned any, nor had any need to try. But he had been the outsider, the youngest, and for a while the smallest of a group of children who played very rough, and before his adolescence he had made innumerable visits to the healers. It had been years but he suddenly remembered.

George's ragged throat throbbed under Loki's hand and, very carefully and specifically, he pictured the vessels under the skin. He could see how they were torn and gushing. As deliberately as possible, with all the concentration his mind could command, he began to envision them knitting back together. He could actually see, as though on the back of his eyes, the flesh growing back together and the delicate tracery of vessels healing itself. He lost track of the alley around him and the sounds of traffic on the nearby streets, all his attention focused on George, whose eyes were now closed but whose grip on Loki's left wrist was suddenly firmer.

"What are you doing?"

Mitchell's words sounded like an accusation, even though his tone didn't. Loki jerked his head up and as he did the mysterious light danced like someone blowing on a flame. George moaned. Loki tightened his arms around the werewolf and looked down at him again.

"I don't know, but I can't stop," he replied. Mitchell sat down beside them, a hand on George's shoulder, and remained silent until the flesh and veins in Loki's mind were whole again. George was breathing normally, although he appeared to be unconscious. Mitchell turned one disbelieving look on Loki and then said quietly,

"The car's on the street. I'll carry him." He gathered his friend awkwardly into his arms and stood--Mitchell was at least as strong as Seth had seemed--and moved toward the mouth of the alley.

Loki tried to rise and follow, but had to sit back down as sparks and black spots flared across his vision and his head swam. Apparently his earlier giddiness was indeed the result of using magic--either his powers were weaker on this world or he still didn't have his strength back after the fall, and he'd certainly done more today that he'd expected to. He reached out to brace himself against the wall behind him and staggered to his feet, wondering if he would be able to call to Mitchell to go home without him and he'd follow on foot. He'd be all right if he rested for a minute--

There was an arm around him and Mitchell's voice saying quietly, "Come on, you're about all in. Let me help you." As the two staggered toward the car, Loki hoped Mitchell couldn't tell he was crying again.

Back at the house, Mitchell and Annie took over getting George cleaned up and into bed while Loki washed the blood off himself at the kitchen sink and changed into clothes Annie had brought from upstairs. The clothes he'd worn earlier were beyond salvation, even if they could be washed the smell of blood would linger, and he could only imagine how they would inflame poor George when the next full moon arose--

As the thought occurred to him, Loki suddenly found he had to hold onto the edge of the sink with both hands, because the wave of emotion that broke over him almost knocked him down. Gratitude. That was what it was.

It took a while for him to feel competent to navigate the stairs. He stopped to peek into George's room. The bedside lamp was on the floor next to the bed and Mitchell, also clean and in fresh clothes, was sitting beside it, holding one of George's hands in both of his. George looked peaceful, as though he was sleeping normally. Mitchell looked up and saw Loki in the doorway.

"How is he?" Loki asked, uncharacteristically timid. Without speaking, Mitchell rose to his feet and stepped forward. Before Loki had any idea what his housemate intended, the vampire had wrapped both arms around him and was embracing him tightly.

There had for years been a misconception on Asgard that Loki didn't like to be touched. The truth was, the circle of people at liberty to touch the princes was limited to begin with. At a certain point the greetings and caresses of his brother and his brother's boisterous friends had begun to leave bruises--Thor and Volstagg probably didn't mean it, but Sif had always felt deliberate--and Loki had not unnaturally started to flinch from them. His mother, for reasons that had only recently become clear, apparently thought Loki was expressing a preference, which she respected by kindly withdrawing from him, and… well, he couldn't remember the last time his father had touched, let alone hugged, him.

He could actually recall very clearly the last time anyone had: his mother, in the approximately thirty seconds during which he had thought his insane plan was actually going to succeed. Despite the immediate onset of disaster, he had held onto the memory of that embrace, fully believing it was the last time such an event would ever happen.

So when Mitchell suddenly hugged him, it took Loki a second to even understand what he was doing, and another to get his arms in position to hug back. On Asgard that would have meant a missed opportunity, but Mitchell was apparently not easily discouraged.

"Thank you," he said finally, patted Loki on the back, and went back to George.

Considerably later that evening, the door of the box room eased open. Despite being tired and still feeling a little sick, Loki wasn't asleep. He raised his head as Annie, uninvited, tiptoed into the room as though trying to be quieter than a ghost.

"Hi," she whispered.

"Is he all right?"

"Yes, Mitchell's still with him. I'm going to take over in a few minutes." She approached him and Loki suddenly realized she intended to sit on the edge of his bed. He shuffled backwards to make room, not that she needed very much.

"Are you not tired?" Loki asked, which he conceded was a stupid thing to say. Annie reached out as though to ruffle his hair.

"Mitchell and me, we don't sleep much. But you should. I just wanted to say goodnight and thank you."

"I--I was glad--" Loki stammered. Annie patted him one more time and rose.

At the doorway, however, she turned. Across the quiet room she whispered,

"He had to have been fond of you."

And she was gone.

Chapter Text

"Not the tea spoons, the soup spoons," George instructed from the front room. Loki pulled open the cutlery drawer and considered his options.

"There are very large spoons for stirring things, and also smaller but still quite large spoons, in addition to small ones--which kind do we require?" he called back.

"The smaller but still quite large ones are fine. And the ice cream," George replied. Loki opened the compartment at the top of the refrigerator and located the container marked "Chocolate ice cream."

"Found it."

"You need bowls, too," Annie sang out from the front room.

"No, we don't," George said.

"Yes, we do," Mitchell insisted, which settled the matter. Loki got four bowls out of the cupboard, remembered and put one back, then carried everything into the front room. Transporting so many items without dropping anything required the use of both hands, his chin, and a small amount of magic. Mitchell grabbed the bowls before Loki lost his grip, and shook his head. "George, I don't understand why you're so keen to get him to experience an ice cream headache."

"Because he's never had one," George explained.

"Can you even have an ice cream headache?" Annie asked Loki.

"I don't know. I have never eaten ice cream." Annie looked like she wasn't sure he was joking, and Loki relented. "My Aesir form is not a… coat I wear over a Jotun one. I am not actually made of ice. Therefore, it follows that I too am susceptible to ice cream."

Annie went back to her magazine, mouthing something that looked like, "Don't say I didn't warn you." Mitchell, spooning ice cream into bowls, was grinning to himself.

All three housemates were quite aware the point of this exercise was not to give Loki a headache, but to cheer up George, who was still recovering from the vampire attack. Loki's spell had stopped the bleeding in time to prevent death or permanent injury, but George was weak from loss of blood and the only solution to that was to wait for his body to recover naturally. If he'd been an ordinary mortal the attack would have killed him, and even though he was recovering well, it still took time.

So George had reported himself "sick" to his job and had stayed home these last three days, pale and uncomfortable. Loki, with assistance from Mitchell, had created a rather artistic doctor's note for him, complete with a harmless little glamour on the physician whose name he'd borrowed, to make her recall seeing George and prescribing bed rest. Mitchell delivered the said note to the hospital where he and George worked, and returned bearing greetings from coworkers concerned for George's health. The house now smelled rather strongly of two large bunches of flowers sent by the other porters and a group of nurses. Annie had seemed far more pleased by these tributes than had George. Loki noted that for future reference.

George himself had been uncharacteristically quiet, almost sullen, which could be attributed both to weakness and to the aftereffects of his brush with death. Understanding this, and they all certainly did, the housemates were trying to gently shake him out of his state of mind.

By Saturday afternoon they were all getting worried enough this show of interest was a relief. If George thought it would be amusing to afflict Loki with what was apparently a short-lived human ailment common in childhood, Loki was perfectly willing to play along.

Nothing happened at his first cautious taste of the ice cream, except to explain why Annie retained such fond recollections of this thing called "chocolate."

"Not like that," George said, dug his spoon into his bowl, and pushed an enormous scoop of the ice cream into his mouth. A moment later he let out a muffled painful shriek that nearly made Loki drop his bowl, then pressed a hand to his forehead, giggling. "Yes, there we go. Owwww."

"Happy now?" Annie asked patiently.

"Yes," George said at length, taking his hand away and looking at Loki. "Your turn." Loki glanced at Annie, who shrugged, and Mitchell, who grinned. Then he took a deep breath and stuffed a large spoonful of the ice cream into his mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened. Loki had just started to shrug apologetically at George when he had the sudden sensation he was being stabbed between the eyes. Despite the warnings he was taken aback by the intensity of the pain, nearly choked, and was dimly aware of losing his grip on both the spoon and the bowl as he clutched his head. He was also aware of Annie patting him on the back, the cold that flared away from her hand doing absolutely nothing to help the situation, especially since Loki could actually feel "I told you so" radiating from her touch.

What was curious about the whole situation was the fact that, after an endless thirty seconds of blinding pain, Loki found himself laughing as hard as George had as he wiped his streaming eyes. He only stopped when he realized he was imagining how much fun his brother would have had with this game when they were children.

"And there you are," George said, with a diabolical grin, as he handed back Loki's bowl and spoon.

"If that was an ice cream headache, I certainly hope Seth had one after he bit me," Loki remarked, eying the rest of his ice cream with suspicion.

"It's perfectly safe to eat the rest of it, as long as you don't do anything else silly," Annie assured him. She gestured for him and George to make space for her between them on the couch as Mitchell turned on the television and prepared to start the DVD they intended to watch. The news was on, a report about a sudden severe electrical storm north of the city ending as Mitchell switched over to DVD mode and slotted the disc into the machine.

Instead of the expected selection menu, there was a burst of static and then grainy video of what appeared to be someone lying on a floor.

"What--?" Annie asked, at the same moment Mitchell sat up and said, "Oh no, not another one--" and George squeaked, "Is that Carol?" Loki had actually gotten up from the couch and approached the television, as though that would enable him to see inside the room more clearly.

George was correct: the person lying on the floor was the mortal woman with whom Loki worked at the school, and who was also a friend of Mitchell and George. In fact, Loki realized, she was actually in the school, lying on the greenish tile floor of one of the classrooms. He was unable to tell whether Carol was alive or dead, but there was no blood visible.

The camera focused in on Carol, close enough they could see her breathing and see that she was in a heavy, possibly drugged, slumber. The camera then moved back to focus on the chalkboard. A piece of white chalk floated up from the ledge. Knowing the chalk was actually held by a vampire whose image the camera could not record didn’t make the sight any less disconcerting.

In block capitals, the chalk wrote:

SINCE YOU LOVE THE HUMANS SO MUCH, WE'LL GIVE YOU ONE CHANCE TO SAVE THIS ONE.

COME BACK TO US, MITCHELL. WE MISS YOU.

"What does that mean?" Annie asked, in a frightened little voice.

"I don't know," Mitchell said. You didn't have to be the god of mischief to know he was lying.

"It means they've been following us, and Loki, too," George said. "How else would they grab someone who's friends with all of us?"

"What shall we do?" Loki asked Mitchell. It occurred to him that, although Mitchell didn't make any effort to run things, they all deferred to his judgment, including Loki. Perhaps that was part of the reason the other vampires were so set on getting him back: because he might be useful to them.

That alone was reason enough for Loki to want to frustrate their intentions.

Mitchell ran a hand through his hair. "They'll be in contact. There's nothing we can do in the meantime."

Loki considered that statement. "Actually--there might be. I think I will go look around."

George stared at him. "Are you mental? Among other things, if they've been following you they know what you look like."

"In this form, certainly," Loki shrugged. Before George could argue with him further, Loki changed shape.

As George would certainly agree, shapeshifting while clothed was never ideal, but Loki was in a hurry. And besides, the small curly-haired yellow dog he turned into found it easy to crawl out of the discarded human clothing. He trotted to the kitchen door, scratched at it, and barked sharply.

"This is a very bad idea," George mumbled as he approached the door.

"Don't let him out, George," Annie argued. Loki tilted his head and yapped impatiently. George opened the door.

****

The trick about shapeshifting into an animal was to choose one capable of remembering why you had changed shape in the first place. Mammals tended to be the most suitable for such a purpose, particularly dogs. Dogs were earnest, reliable creatures--so much so that Loki didn't normally enjoy their company, because they always made him feel vaguely guilty. However, he needed a sharp nose for this job, and the shape he had borrowed was that of a local dog who sometimes sneaked onto the school grounds to play with the children. He felt in this guise he should be able to escape much notice.

As he had hoped, the dog-shape attracted no attention as he crossed the deserted school grounds. As he approached the building, the smell hit him: a charnel-house stink of stale blood and decay that appalled Loki even in dog-form. He hesitated, ears flat to his head, then reluctantly opened his mouth to get a better perspective on the scent.

On consideration, the odor was probably not strong enough to be obvious to humans, but as a dog Loki was able to identify four separate scent vectors entering the school in a cluster through the side entrance, the one that could not be seen from the street. So: four vampires, and not vampires "on the wagon" as Mitchell was, because Mitchell did not smell like this. Loki was unable to tell whether Seth was with them--Frost Giants were apparently not notable for their sense of smell.

The heavy glass-and-steel door was beyond his capabilities as a dog, so Loki had to open it with magic. This should have been childishly simple, but casting magic was still strenuous, and Loki found he had to cling firmly to the dog-shape in order to keep from shifting back into his own form while he worked the lock and pulled open the door just enough for a small dog to slip inside.

The school hallway offered no places of concealment and Loki briefly considered becoming a mouse. He decided against it, for fear of overtaxing himself and losing control of the animal form altogether. This would not be the only magic he had to work today.

The vampire scent proceeded along the hallway and up the stairs to the science classrooms, where it intersected with a human scent laced with disinfectant, chalk, and lavender. Carol.

The scents pooled together and seemed to continue behind the closed door of one of the classrooms. No fresher scent trail emerged, and Loki could hear voices murmuring behind it.

"He'll be here," one of the voices said. "Herrick knows how to talk to him."

"And then we can kill her?" asked another. Loki's lips writhed back from his tiny fangs, and once again he briefly considered the possibility of taking on a new shape. Fire-breathing dragons had much to recommend them.

"No, idiot. He's to be beholden to us. If we kill her, he won't owe us her life," the first vampire said patiently.

"That's stupid," the second vampire muttered.

"Yeah, granted, but that's how he thinks."

Loki considered the dragon option one final time, and then decided the prudent course was to retreat home and discuss the matter with the others. He was beginning to feel light-headed, and he wasn't confident any decision he made in this form would really be the wisest one. Right at this moment, for instance, he just wanted to bite someone.

****

Loki had to scratch at the kitchen door for a good two minutes before Annie opened it.

Shrieked in relief.

Picked him up and hugged him. If it hadn't been for the fact he was getting the breath squeezed out of him, Loki would have quite enjoyed that. Even the inability to breathe did not entirely ruin the experience of being kissed on top of the head.

"He's back?" Mitchell said, running into the kitchen with George on his heels. "Oh thank God. Loki, I hope you can understand me because we really need you to change back fast. We've got to figure out what to do." Annie, suddenly realizing what she was doing, put Loki on the floor. "George, can you fill him in while he changes back?"

"Sure," George replied. "Come on, Loki, I took your clothes up to your room." George, for obvious reasons, was the least likely to be thrown by the sight of his housemate changing shape, and apparently they had little time to lose. So little that, instead of leaving Loki alone to shift back in peace, George followed him right into the boxroom. "Herrick called shortly after you left, he wants Mitchell to trade someone for Carol. Not one of us, some human, someone innocent, he wants Mitchell to be just like oh my God, Loki, stop!"

"What?" Loki demanded, freezing in the act of attempting to pull his shirt over his head while still transforming, and stopping the all-but-complete transformation process at the same time. Magic hummed in the front of his brain like the beginnings of a headache.

"Your hair," George said softly. There was a look in his eyes that could have been insanity, or possibly a sign he was having a brilliant idea.

"What?" Loki pulled the shirt all the way on and gingerly patted his own head. The texture of his hair felt unfamiliar, and it took him a moment to realize what George was seeing. "It's nothing, George. For some reason, hair is the last thing to shift back in these transformations. I think it's because it's dead matter, it seems to--"

"That's not it," George interrupted. "Have you seen yourself? Of course you haven't. Come on--" George grabbed Loki by the arm and unceremoniously hustled him out of the boxroom and down to the bathroom. "Look!"

Loki looked at himself in the mirror. At least, he assumed it was himself. The face was distinctly familiar, but the blond eyebrows and curly blond hair made him look like some other person entirely. Loki had never paid much attention to the interim stages of a transformation before, and now he leaned closer to the mirror, staring at himself in fascination.

"That's remarkable," he said finally. "I look--"

"-- really harmless," George completed the thought.

"Yes," Loki agreed, still distracted by the sight. He blinked and focused on George's reflection in the mirror. "I could easily be mistaken for some helpless innocent mortal, couldn't I?"

George looked guilty. "Loki, it's not that I want you to put yourself in danger, but the thing is, Seth thought you were human. Vampires can tell what Annie is and what I am, but for some reason you confused him, and Seth doesn't normally confuse. He doesn't have enough imagination. I really feel terrible asking you to do this, but--"

"No, no," Loki assured him, looking back at the unfamiliar image in the mirror. "It's a brilliant idea." It was better than brilliant--the person in the mirror looked like he would not have a hope against vampires. Loki actually felt sorry for him, even though he was him.

George looked relieved. "I wouldn't suggest it if I could think of anything else to do. You know that, right?"

"Of course," Loki told him, touched by George's concern. "It's a very good idea. I am considerably less helpless than I look. Let's go explain things to Mitchell and Annie."

****

Mitchell seized on the idea like a lifeline, which reassured both George and Loki that it wasn't completely stupid--if Mitchell thought it would fool vampires, it probably would. Annie was considerably less impressed with the idea. This, though he concealed it, afforded Loki a certain amount of satisfaction as well.

"Mitchell, Loki is not bait," she argued.

"Of course he's not," Mitchell agreed. "We won't let anything happen to him. But Herrick was very clear: to get Carol back, I have to give them another human in return."

"That makes no sense," Annie grumbled.

"Of course it makes no sense," Mitchell snapped. Annie didn't take offense, and Mitchell explained more quietly, "The point is to make me do something unforgivable. I'm supposed to be on the wagon, I'm not supposed to be harming humans. Herrick thinks if he can push me into doing wrong, I mean enough wrong, I'll eventually stop trying to fight my nature and join his side."

Loki, slouched on the couch pretending he didn't have to rest up before casting magic again, watched Mitchell out of the corners of his eyes. He didn't know how long Mitchell had been a vampire, or how long he had resisted the urge to kill, but it was clear he was under the kind of dreadful pressure that might eventually lead… someone… to go mad and do something really terrible. The fact he hadn't, the fact he was still fighting back with such fortitude, made Loki feel very small, but also determined to help him.

"Are you sure you're all right with this?" Mitchell asked Loki suddenly. Loki jumped, then pulled himself upright on the couch.

"Certainly," he assured his housemate.

"And you don't feel like we're--? We're not just using you, honestly. If I could think of anything else then I'd never ask you to do this, but we all know you can… handle yourself. Are you sure--?"

"Yes. Really, Mitchell. I helped come up with the idea, I know all the reasons and the risks--well, most of the risks, but we can't control everything--and I've already told you I want to do it. Carol is my… friend… too. You're not treating me like a tool, and you're not using me." Loki paused, and then admitted, "I am very moved by the fact this concerns you."

"All right, so you take Carol and leave Loki," Annie spoke up. "Then what does he do?"

Loki hesitated. "I could probably produce a reasonable fireball," he suggested diffidently. He could do better than that, he could incinerate the vampires without even leaving marks on the floor that he and Carol would have to clean up later.

Mitchell winced. "I don't want to kill them, whoever they are."

Loki tried not to sigh. Despite what they were probably saying about him on Asgard, Loki had truly never been particularly bloodthirsty--certainly not compared to Thor and Sif. He didn't kill for no reason, at least not until he went mad, and even then he'd thought he was justified in attacking Jotunheim. So it wasn't that he didn't respect Mitchell's efforts to find a peaceful solution to the problem, more that he didn't quite see one.

Loki held his tongue, but George didn't. "I understand that you don't want to be as bad as they are, Mitchell, but there is such a thing as being too soft." Loki tried not to wince at George's choice of word.

Mitchell said patiently, "It's not so much that I'm all full of sympathy, although I admit I really don't want to kill creatures just like me--"

"--They're not just like you," Annie objected, while Loki studied the floor.

Mitchell raised his voice slightly and went on, "--It's more that I don't want to start open warfare. We're considerably outnumbered, remember?"

"Ah," George murmured. Loki nodded, and Annie looked appalled.

Loki tapped his fingers against his upper lip, thinking hard. Then he gathered his energy and pushed it toward George and Mitchell.

They wrapped their arms around each other and began to sing a bawdy Asgardian drinking song. Mitchell's voice sounded like Volstagg's, George's like Hogun.

Annie's eyes widened and she let out a terrified little giggle. Loki smiled reassuringly at her and let the other two go.

George and Mitchell slumped and looked bewildered.

"What just happened there?" George asked. Loki turned the smile on the two men.

"I wanted to see whether I could do it," he explained.

****

It was after dark when Mitchell and Loki left the house to make their rendezvous with the vampires. Loki had rinsed his mouth with a form of alcohol called "rum" and spilled a few drops on his clothing--the blue shirt he wore belonged to George, because George insisted everyone looked particularly harmless in blue, and in fact in this case Loki thought he was right--so that he would smell authentically befuddled. Actually, for the moment his only source of discomfort was the constant awareness of the tug of magic on his mind as he held his partial transformation in place.

Mitchell was quiet and tense, and of course there was not much in the way of small talk suitable for such a situation. However, as they walked along, Loki said hesitantly,

"Mitchell, I know it must be hard for you to stand up to all this. I couldn't. I didn't. I, um, all of us--we admire you for it."

Mitchell sighed. "I've been a vampire for nearly a hundred years, Loki. I've been on the wagon for less than a quarter of that, and I haven't stayed clean the whole time. I don't really deserve your admiration."

"Still," Loki insisted, "your restraint is commendable. In your place I might want to--well, I did--commit a great deal more violence. I wasn't able to retain perspective as you do."

"Well," Mitchell murmured, "I'm probably older than you are."

Loki considered. "I don't think so. Time passes differently on Asgard than on this world, but I believe I am close to a thousand of your years old. By your standards I should probably have known better."

Mitchell stopped walking and turned to stare at Loki.

"You're how old?" he asked.

"On which realm?" Loki hedged.

Mitchell rubbed his jaw. "So you're telling me that you put up with your dad playing favourites, and that twat of a brother of yours throwing his weight around, for a thousand years, and you've only snapped now? Anyone else would have gone mad eight hundred years ago. I'm not saying what you did is entirely forgivable but I think you could make an argument for extenuating circumstances." He patted Loki on the arm. "And you're trying to make up for it, right? That should count for something."

"Perhaps," Loki said uncertainly, wanting to believe this theory so much that he just couldn't. Mitchell gave him an understanding smile and squared his shoulders.

"Okay, Loki. Showtime."

The approached the side entrance of the school, Mitchell in the lead, Loki following him a bit unsteadily. In case anyone was watching, Loki kept up a flow of inconsequential chatter appropriate to a good-natured, slightly inebriated human. At the sight of the forbidding figure of the vampire waiting just inside the door, Loki turned with artistic uncertainty to Mitchell.

"Where did you say we were going, again?"

Either Mitchell was an unexpectedly good actor or Loki was, because Mitchell looked convincingly nauseated as he propelled Loki through the door. Since of course his character didn't know these were vampires, and because he felt like the sort of human who would try to make friends with the hostile-looking stranger, Loki smiled tentatively at the guardian of the door. Apparently having been taught never to play with his food, the vampire ignored him. Loki turned back to Mitchell as though for an explanation, and the look of self-disgust on his friend's face made Loki wonder whether he should tone down his characterization a touch. He decided against it and permitted himself to express carefully-calibrated rising apprehension as they went down the hall and up the stairs to the science classrooms.

There was always the chance of a double-cross, so Loki found it easy to get into character as a human experiencing gradually escalating fear while trying to believe that if he pretended everything was fine, it would be. Mitchell seemed genuinely troubled by the act, particularly when Loki, or rather his character, began making desperately polite efforts to excuse himself and go home. Loki couldn't blame Mitchell--he even found himself feeling rather sorry for this poor imaginary human as the vampire gripped his upper arm and pushed him forward.

Loki's theatrics might have been upsetting to Mitchell, but they had a completely different effect on the other vampire: the creature's pupils flared, and if he'd been able to lay back his ears they would have been flat to his head. It made sense, of course: this was the reaction of a predator confronted with a particularly defenseless prey. The interesting thing was, as the vampire's prey drive became more pronounced, it was evident his critical faculties were diminished proportionally. Loki was pretty sure he could handle the vampires anyway, but he certainly didn't object to taking any advantage he could find.

They arrived at the top of the stairs, to be confronted by the other three vampires Loki had sensed in the classroom. It was not at all difficult to come to a convincingly terrified halt.

One of the three, who had a jovial face and utterly soulless eyes, stepped forward, his teeth bared in what was probably intended as a smile.

"Ah, Mitchell. I see you've decided to take Herrick up on his offer. That's very… reasonable of you."

"If we're making a trade, let's trade," Mitchell said gruffly, carefully not looking at Loki, who repeated, "Trade?" in a wobbly little voice and began to look tearful. The vampire who had spoken cast a hungry look at Loki, and the other two moved forward. Mitchell spoke up sharply. "Where's the woman? I'm taking her out of here before you lot start anything."

The jovial vampire gestured toward the classroom door. "Be my guest."

Loki permitted his character to utter a frightened little sob as Mitchell emerged from the classroom with Carol in his arms and walked right past him down the stairs. As the vampires closed in, Loki turned in a circle, whimpering slightly, like a panicky victim making a fruitless effort to find an escape route. As he had hoped, the act inflamed the vampires to the point they were clearly thinking of nothing but blood. Loki completed the circle and fixed the vampires' positions in his mind. He heard the downstairs door close as Mitchell escaped with Carol.

The jovial vampire grabbed Loki by the arm, spun him around, and lunged.

Loki reached into his own mind and hit the four with all the magic he possessed.

The spell he used was similar to the glamour he'd placed on the doctor to get her to confirm George's tale of illness. He'd been careful with the doctor because, unlike most glamours, this one was intended to remain with the recipient, permanently altering their memories. The last thing Loki had wanted to do was harm some well-intentioned healer.

Despite Mitchell's protests, Loki had no personal objections to injuring the vampires--raised in a warrior culture as he had been, Loki felt there was a time and a place for striking as hard as you could. However, he stuck to the plan they had decided on back at the house. Instead of trying to kill the vampires, he simply reached as far into their minds as he could go, and grabbed hold. With their guard lowered by bloodlust, it was surprisingly easy to do.

That was just as well, because Loki still found it demanding to use large amounts of magic, and he was going to have to get himself out of here afterward.

No time to worry about that. Holding tightly to the vampires' minds with his own, Loki gave them a memory of their prey escaping. No point in getting into details: the best lies were often very simple ones, and you could count on the brain papering over the cracks by itself.

So: the scared blond human made a break for it and somehow managed to get away--Loki quelled a feeling of gratification at that, he had become rather fond of his hapless creation, but it wouldn't do to infuse that into the vampires' minds--and the vampires were going to have to explain things to Herrick. Loki had not yet met Herrick, but he could feel their minds writhing in his grasp at the idea of facing him. It seemed like a very good idea to get out of here before he risked encountering Herrick himself, especially in his weakened state.

Loki left the vampires standing blankly in the classroom. They would wake in ten or fifteen minutes, unaware that any time had passed, and run after their prey.

A prey who, if his legs held up, would be long gone, in addition to looking like someone else entirely. Loki had let go of the transformation as soon as he got hold of the minds of the vampires but he was still wearing the blue shirt, which was a bit of a giveaway. Also, in spite of the effects of adrenaline, he was so dizzy he had to keep bracing himself on the wall with one hand to keep from falling over, and he nearly did go headfirst down the stairs.

When he got outside, the cool night air helped a bit. Loki stepped out of the circle of light cast by the bulb over the door and, keeping close to the school wall in case he needed to prop himself up again, made his way to the front of the building, where he could get to the street.

He was crossing the yard when a car started up and flashed its lights at him.

For one heart-stopping moment, Loki thought it must be this Herrick the vampires were so afraid of. And then George leaned toward the open passenger window and hissed,

"Loki! Over here!"

He nearly fell into the front seat of the car and had to grab the dashboard to keep from tumbling out again as George pulled out of the parking space before Loki got his door closed. George reached over and caught hold of Loki's shirt as if he'd noticed the potential for trouble. Loki got himself organized in his seat and smiled shakily at George.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you."

"Thought you might be. Mitchell texted me a few minutes ago, said he was going to watch Carol's place tonight and asked me to come pick you up. He said you might not be feeling too well?" It came out as a question.

"I'm fine," Loki assured George, who didn't look convinced. "It's… a bit strenuous, that's all. Nothing very serious."

"Did you feel this bad after you--" George indicated his throat. Loki shook his head and then wished he hadn't, because the interior of the car continued to spin for a rather long time.

The denial was in fact the truth, because this spell hadn't been anywhere nearly as intense as the one he'd used to save George. He'd actually felt much, much worse after that one. In fact, considering the other magic he'd performed over the course of the day, the fact he hadn't fainted or vomited by now was probably a sign he was getting stronger.

Which was just as well, because for the life of him he could not figure out what they had just accomplished.

"Does Mitchell really think we've done anything to stop the vampires' plans?" Loki asked. George shrugged uneasily, not the wisest act while controlling a motorized vehicle.

"No," George admitted. "Not really. But he always says Herrick never tries the same thing twice, so he probably won't bother Carol again. So there's that. And the fact his… minions… failed to kill the human Mitchell brought them--that lessens Herrick's victory over Mitchell, because everyone--other vampires--will suspect Mitchell somehow engineered it. Stuff like that, it chips away. Herrick wants the other vampires to think he's an infallible leader. The idea that Mitchell somehow made a fool of him? It diminishes him."

"I suspect it makes him more dangerous to us, however," Loki couldn't prevent himself from saying.

"Well, yes. But there's not much we can do about that. All we can do is the little things--try not to provoke him to the point that he just goes ahead and kills us, but block him as much as we can. And at some point maybe we can find a way to stop him, and the others, for good."

"Well, that sounds perfectly simple," Loki sighed. It was too much trouble to sit up straight, so he leaned forward, folded his arms on the dashboard, and rested his forehead on them. George reached over and awkwardly patted him on the back. It crossed Loki's mind that this would never have happened on Asgard, because on Asgard, surrounded by people who had known him all his life, Loki would never have dreamed of putting his head down and leaving himself vulnerable like this.

However, being in a car with a werewolf, on a strange realm filled with supernatural creatures who apparently wished to commit generalized mayhem--apparently, that felt secure. Loki would have considered the possibility he had gone mad again or perhaps had never recovered his sanity, but he was too tired and felt too safe to spoil things.

"You know what would probably make you feel better?" George said suddenly. Loki turned his head just enough to peer at George out of one eye. The werewolf smiled. "Ice cream."

Loki was still giggling when they arrived back at the house.

And the ice cream did make him feel better.

Chapter Text

"So this hat--it can read your soul?" Loki asked, clutching his glass and leaning in to stare at the scrying machine--the computer--in George's lap.

"Something like at," George replied. "And it tells you which house you belong in. The Online Sorting Hat is a game that does kind of the same thing. You answer some questions and it sorts you into your house."

"Oh," Loki murmured, gazing at the screen. "And what are the characteristics of the houses?"

"Gryffindor is for the ones who are brave and noble," George explained, turning to make eye contact with Loki and almost bumping noses.

"Ah," Loki murmured, leaning backwards and taking an unwisely large sip from his glass of rum. "That's the one for my brother. And probably all his friends."

"I always think the rest of the students must hate Gryffindor," Annie remarked, walking through the front room on her way to the kitchen. "You know they're all secretly thinking, 'oh yes, Gryffindor, all brave and noble and pleased with yourselves.' It's dead annoying, watching someone be righteous all over the place."

That was so true Loki didn't even feel the need to voice his agreement. He could just imagine Sif. He gulped from his glass again, then placed it on the floor and returned his attention to the screen. George continued,

"And Slytherin is for the power-mad and sneaky."

"I don't think I would wish to be in Slytherin," Loki decided. A thought occurred to him and he added mournfully, "Though I suspect the hat would put me there anyway."

"Not necessarily," George said.

"But you said the hat can read the soul. I would not be able to deceive the hat."

"No, but you can tell the hat you don't want to be in Slytherin. That's what Harry Potter did."

"But if I belonged there, it would not matter what I preferred," Loki argued.

"But if you don't want to be in Slytherin, then you don't belong there," George explained. "That's what Dumbledore told Harry."

"You can come be in Hufflepuff with me," Annie called from the kitchen.

"Annie always gets sorted into Hufflepuff," George explained.

"And Hufflepuff's qualities are--?" Loki prompted.

"Kindness and loyalty, mainly," George said.

"Ah." That made sense. Possibly the hat would also consider Hufflepuff a suitable house for Volstagg.

"Anyway, I don't think you belong in Slytherin. The hat would probably put you in Ravenclaw. They're the brainy ones. You'd probably like it there." George drained his glass. "Have another?" he offered, starting to rise and nearly dropping the computer. Loki grabbed for it and kicked over his glass, which was empty anyway and rolled harmlessly across the floor. Loki gestured at the glass and it rolled obediently back to him. Before he could pick it up, however, Mitchell appeared from somewhere and did it for him.

"You've both had plenty, especially considering one of you lost half his blood two weeks ago and the other has been casting enough magic to float a battleship ever since. The last thing either of you needs is a hangover. You're both cut off."

Loki narrowed his eyes at his housemate. "I believe the hat would put you in Gryffindor," he announced.

"I know better than to take that as a compliment," Mitchell said, "but you'll thank me tomorrow. I'm going to call for a takeaway, do either of you have a preference for Chinese or Indian right now?"

Loki shook his head--he was still confused about which one burned his mouth, but he didn't entirely mind the sensation. George voted for Chinese and got up rather carefully to go upstairs for his wallet, sharing the price of the takeaway being an inviolable point of housemate etiquette.

Loki's wallet was in the pocket of his jacket, which hung on a hook next to the front door. He went to retrieve it and was therefore at the front door when someone knocked on it.

"That's probably Sue from number eleven, she borrowed a cake pan yesterday afternoon, said she'd return it today," Mitchell called from the front room. Loki opened the door.

The next thing he knew he'd been struck a tremendous blow in the chest that knocked him backwards across the entryway. He felt a jolt of pain up his arms as his elbows connected with the tile, almost immediately followed by the back of his head.

It took a moment for his vision to clear. He started to sit up--and froze when he registered the razor-sharp blade aimed directly between his eyes, in a position to make his ice cream headache feel like a tickle.

Loki's breath caught in his throat for an instant, then he stopped focusing on the blade and let his eyes travel up the spear it was connected to and thence to the person holding it. He offered what he hoped was a fair approximation of his old sarcastic smile as he said, in a voice that only trembled slightly,

"Sif. How delightful to see you again." Propped up on his sore elbows, Loki spread his hands to demonstrate that he was unarmed. "May I sit up?" Sif's response was to jab lightly at him, forcing him to pull his head back. The point of the blade was now so close to his throat he could almost feel the metal.

And then, not entirely to Loki's surprise, a familiar deep voice was saying, "Let him up." Sif stepped back, with an expression that suggested she would deal with him later. It was a look Loki remembered well from childhood, and he was surprised and a little disconcerted to find himself filled with an apprehension he thought he'd outgrown years ago. It occurred to him that perhaps this was not the most opportune night he could have chosen to drink a lot of alcohol.

He covered it as well as he could, hoping she didn't see him swallow hard, and pushed himself into a sitting position on the floor.

"Far enough," Sif said flatly. Loki, making the best of a bad situation, crossed his legs in an elaborately casual attitude and leaned his painful elbows gently on his knees. He turned his head to look at the second figure in the doorway.

"Hello, brother."

Before Thor could reply, Mitchell came unstuck in the front room and made a rush toward the entry. Annie dashed in from the kitchen, and George appeared at the top of the stairs. Sif reacted to the nearest threat by making a feint past Loki's head toward Mitchell, and Annie behind him. Loki instinctively grabbed the spear. Sif turned on him but didn't offer to strike. Loki let go and held his hands up again.

"Your quarrel is not with them," he reminded her, then looked past her to Thor. "Is it?"

"What the hell is this about?" Mitchell demanded. Mitchell wasn't stupid, so it was highly unlikely he needed someone to, as the mortals would say, draw him a picture. But he sounded convincingly like an outraged householder. "Loki, are you all right?"

"Fine, for the moment," Loki replied soothingly, dividing his attention between the enemy who clearly wanted permission to kill him and the brother who might be in a position to give it. "Thor? To what do we owe this pleasure?"

Thor looked uncomfortable, which was new: Loki was accustomed to his brother being completely oblivious to sarcasm. The surprising thing was, Loki wasn't being entirely sarcastic: he was genuinely, inexplicably glad to see his thickheaded noble well-intentioned brother, even though he assumed this interview was going to end with him in chains on his way back to Asgard, or worse.

Even stranger was his impression Thor was glad to see him, too. Which probably explained the poisonous look on Sif's face: moreso than any of Thor's other friends, she had always been jealous of the claim, slight as it was, Loki laid on Thor's affections by the simple and apparently unalterable fact of being his brother. Again, Thor had been oblivious: he'd always taken his tagalong younger brother for granted, but he'd also seemed to assume his own friends were friends of Loki's as well. Loki was interested to notice that Thor suddenly seemed aware of the undercurrents in the room. Sif's attempts to discourage Loki's desire to be included with the others, and Loki's persistent though fruitless efforts to be recognized as his brother's most valued companion, had long since ripened from rivalry to genuine hatred, but this was the first time Thor had ever given any sign of realizing it.

Thor made a decision and stepped forward, extending a hand as though to help Loki to his feet. Sif uttered a sound in her throat that was almost a growl and, apparently involuntarily, feinted at Loki again. Thor frowned, but before he could speak a book came flying through the air and struck Sif squarely in the chest. It was rapidly followed by another, then one of the glasses Loki and George had been drinking from, and the half-empty rum bottle.

"Loki, stop this!" Thor shouted, more in annoyance than pain as he slapped at another paperback novel flying at his head. Loki made a gesture he knew would be infuriating but actually represented perfectly sincere innocence. He looked around and realized Annie had vanished.

She did that sometimes, when she was really upset, but until this moment Loki hadn't realized she possessed the power to throw things while invisible. She was apparently too angry to stop and think about who was going to get the blame. Loki found himself in the grip of yet another childhood emotion: the mixture of terror and mad exhilaration that used to possess him when the older children had him cornered and he knew he was going to do something desperate, and he knew they would retaliate and it would end in him getting hurt, and he knew he was going to do it anyway.

Of course, back in the old days Sif had known she could only go so far, no matter how much she hated him. Now that he was a known traitor who had attempted both genocide and fratricide, she was probably counting on Odin's lenience if she killed him in defense of Thor. In fact, Loki suddenly realized, there was every chance she and Thor were under instructions from the Allfather to do exactly that anyway, at least if he tried to fight.

"It's not me, brother," Loki insisted, knowing as he spoke exactly how likely it was that he would be believed. "Annie, stop." Of the housemates, Loki seemed to have the most finely calibrated ability to tell when Annie was merely invisible as opposed to elsewhere--this might have been because of his general command of magic, or there might have been... some other reason. He cast his mind out for a sense of her, then reached out and hooked his arm around what he thought were her legs, yanking her toward him.

Annie lost her balance, became visible, and landed in Loki's lap with a shriek. Loki wrapped his arms around her, although of course there was no reason why he should be able to hold onto her. Annie, still furious, struggled for a moment, jabbing him in the ribs with a flailing elbow and bumping him quite hard in the nose with her head. If he lived until morning, Loki was going to be a mass of bruises. As it was, the safest thing to do seemed to be to hook his chin over her shoulder so at least their heads were too close together for her to stun him, and hold on tight.

Again, there was no good reason why Annie couldn't have gotten away from him--she was, after all, a ghost--but either she'd forgotten that or... something. Loki had a moment to register the faint floral scent that seemed to accompany Annie, as though her last living act had been to wash her hair, and then he forced his mind back to the situation at hand.

"Get that slag out of my house!" Annie demanded, sounding really quite dangerous. In a minute she was going to remember that Loki shouldn't be able to hold her, and there was no telling what would happen then. If she took a swing at Sif, Loki only hoped Annie would then have the sense to vanish immediately. That spear Sif was holding, to say nothing of Mjolnir, had ended the existence of more supernatural beings than Loki cared to think about right now. He certainly hoped the meaning of "slag" was unknown to Sif.

"Annie, calm down before someone gets hurt," Loki said quietly into her ear, and fortunately for him Annie seemed to realize who the likeliest candidate to get hurt first was. She stopped fighting. Loki let her go and she scrambled to her feet, outrage still radiating from her like the light from the sun.

Thor had an arm in front of Sif in case she forgot herself again, and he faced Annie with a mixture of deference and apology that was really rather disarming. Thor had always been careful of small creatures, with the occasional exception of younger brothers, and besides, it was clear that even as angry as she was, Annie was no real threat.

"I apologize," Thor began.

"I should think so, bursting into someone's house and scaring them to death and beating up their friends--who do you think you are?" Annie demanded.

"Annie, my brother Thor and the Lady Sif. Thor, Sif, my housemates Annie, Mitchell, and George," Loki said wearily. "May I get up?" The hard tile floor was uncomfortable, and besides, Loki didn't relish the vulnerability of his position. It was bad enough reflecting on how insignificant he must appear to Sif in his mortal clothing. Jeans and a t-shirt were comfortable, but they did nothing to make you appear formidable to an enemy. At the moment he was particularly conscious of his exposed throat.

"We already know who your friends are," Sif announced, with a note of triumph that chilled Loki to the soul. He knew he shouldn't give her the satisfaction of asking what she meant, but he was suddenly too frightened to care about letting her score a point.

"Indeed?" he said, trying to sound distant and uninvolved and failing miserably. Just the fact he had flown to his feet betrayed him. Sif's eyes blazed as she said deliberately,

"Yes. Heimdall has been watching you for some time. It is well known what manner of monsters you are allied with. And so, here we are."

Loki had, quite naturally, assumed his brother was here to take him back to Asgard for punishment. That seemed… reasonable. Fair, even. He had no intention of resisting if that was their aim. But the expression in Sif's eyes terrified him. If she and Thor saw Annie, George, and Mitchell as dangerous beings with no right to live among humans, the solution to the problem was obvious. As Loki had reflected only a moment ago, Asgardian weapons were more than a match for supernatural creatures, and Thor and Sif were the most formidable of Asgard's mighty warriors.

Loki found it difficult to breathe as he stepped in front of Annie and Mitchell. For less than a second he contemplated throwing himself at Sif and Thor, and giving the others a chance to escape. Surely Sif, at least, would be distracted by the opportunity to kill him with impunity.

Two things stopped him--first: the knowledge that, despite being stronger than he was when he arrived here, he was still in no condition to prove a challenge to Sif. It wasn't that he thought she would have any compunction about hurting a weaker opponent--she had never displayed any before, at least not where Loki was involved--simply that he knew she'd dispatch him too quickly to give the housemates much of a head start.

The second thing that prevented him from trying this tactic was the knowledge his friends wouldn't leave him, so he'd just end up getting them all killed more quickly.

He turned to his brother. "Thor, they do no--they harm no one." This was not strictly true in Mitchell's case, at least not in the past it wasn't. Loki resolutely pushed the knowledge out of his mind as he extended his hands in the see-I'm-unarmed gesture and spoke again. "They are no threat to mortals. I promise you. There is no reason to--" He couldn't even say it. "Please, brother."

He hated the entreaty in his voice--it had been years since he had asked anyone for anything. Asking was dangerous, asking was making yourself vulnerable. Loki found it safer to manipulate others into doing what he wanted, because if they didn't know they were doing something for you, you hadn't given them power they would use against you later.

It had been years since he'd asked for a favour, even longer since he'd been hostage to anyone or anything that was really his own--playthings, perhaps, which were inevitably broken. After that, it had always seemed safer to love only what Thor loved, too.

Of course, the problem with this strategy was: those loved by Thor tended to love only him in return. It was a cold and lonely business, being the satellite to Thor's glorious sun, which blinded everyone so they could only see him and had no thought for the little black speck that followed along. It was as if they resented being asked to notice Loki at all, even to acknowledge his affection for them.

There had been a period, when he was very young, when Loki had hoped it might be possible to find a way to gain that love too, to make Thor... share. And when he'd realized that would never happen, he'd tried to believe he could get by on crumbs, but of course you starved that way, your soul turned into a little shriveled thing, hardly able to keep you alive and constantly, obsessively yearning after what it longed for and couldn't have.

And the worst thing, the ironic and really quite laughable thing, if you looked at it the right way it was actually terribly amusing, was the fact that he loved Thor, too, just as deeply and just as hopelessly as he loved their father and mother and the Warriors and... Sif. All of them, who scarcely noticed he was there except when they were pushing him out of their way.

The one thing Thor and Loki had in common was pride, and Loki's pride had attempted to form a hard shell around everything vulnerable in him. He'd pretended not to care, to be content with what was left over, to not notice how his own offerings were spurned. It had saved face, but maintaining such armor took a great deal of energy.

And now, after finally being driven mad, and driven out, he had arrived in this place where his defenses had seemed unnecessary, and he had been so tired, and so he forgot to keep them in good repair. He had forgotten himself, forgotten to be careful, and see where it led: he was reduced once again to imploring his brother to please, please not break everything.

It occurred to Loki that he'd been wrong a moment ago, he actually could remember the last time he'd asked for anything: he'd begged Thor to fight him, that day of his fall. Loki still wasn't sure whether he'd wanted to kill Thor so there would be an incontrovertible reason for everyone to hate him, or whether he'd wanted Thor to kill him and release him from the chaotic wretchedness of his own head and his own heart.

And Thor had refused, until, of course, Loki had found the right lever: threatening yet another person Thor loved more than he loved Loki.

Loki was conscious of tears welling in his eyes. He didn't know whether he hated the weakness most, or the bitter knowledge that his brother had absolutely no reason to trust his sincerity. He was conscious of having nothing to bargain with, of having tipped his hand like a rank amateur who hadn't spent his whole life guarding against being hurt. His affection was a poison that destroyed those it touched. Why had he not simply died in his fall?

He glanced at Sif and was startled to realize that she believed him, she could tell his distress was real. She was looking at him with a strange expression--he would have expected her to enjoy this, but the look on her face was one he couldn't interpret, at least not in his current state. On Annie's face, he might have called it pity.

Casting about for anything that might make Thor relent, Loki blurted, "Heimdall would know. You said he's been watching. He, he would know--you can ask him--" Heimdall hated Loki almost more than anyone, but he was incapable of dishonesty. On the other hand, he could also be devious if provoked, and Loki had certainly done that.

Heart pounding so hard he could hear nothing past the blood roaring in his ears, aware of the cold pressure of Annie holding onto the back of his shirt either for support or maybe in alarm, Loki tried one more time to save his friends.

"Whatever you want of me, Thor, do it. I won't resist. Just please, please don't--"

"Loki." His name had to be repeated before he heard it. The voice was Sif's. "Loki, stop." Loki turned his head in her direction, unable to even see her clearly anymore past the panic and the tears.

A pair of large, strong hands landed on his shoulders, held tightly, shook him very gently.

"Loki. Brother. We mean your friends no harm." Loki looked up, green eyes wild, into Thor's worried blue ones. His older brother was looking at him with the expression Loki remembered from the healing room, when things had gone too far and Thor had gotten scared enough to remember that he really didn't want any harm to come to his little satellite. Loki had lived for those moments, when Thor looked at him like he really saw him, like he cared about him. The way he was looking right now.

Just for a moment, Loki thought Thor might hug him.

Just for a moment, Loki wanted that more than anything in the Nine Realms.

Thor let go of Loki's shoulders and turned to Sif with an unexpectedly grim look. She spoke immediately and ungrudgingly.

"I'm sorry, Loki. I was being cruel. I apologize."

This was so unheard-of that Loki could only nod in acknowledgment. Thor spoke again, his words this time running together as though under the pressure of strong emotions.

"I didn't understand what had happened, why you hated me so much, and then you fell and I thought you were dead and Father told me... what you had learned, and when Heimdall found you I knew I had to speak to you, to understand. We were able to find another path, and Father agreed to let me come, and Sif--"

--was here as a bodyguard. Of course. The Allfather would take no chances on what Loki might do. At the moment, the god of mischief was simply trying to compose himself.

Mitchell spoke up, gently. "It might be a good idea for us all to sit down."

Annie tugged gently at the back of Loki's shirt. "Come on," she said quietly. Still instinctively trying to stay between her and the Asgardians, Loki allowed her to guide him into the front room.

Chapter Text

In another mood, Loki might have been amused at the sight of his brother and Sif sitting upright and awkward on wooden kitchen chairs that creaked under the weight of their armor. Ordinarily, Loki had observed, good manners would indicate Mitchell offer the guests the use of the more comfortable couch. Apparently he was in no mood to play the convivial host. Besides, all four housemates could fit on the couch if they squeezed, which under normal circumstances they never did, but they seemed to have a wish to now. Loki, tucked in between Annie on one side and Mitchell on the other, was too grateful for the contact to complain about the elbow room.

Thor didn't seem to know how to begin, so Loki took the opportunity to speak first.

"It was my fault you were banished. I'm sorry, Thor. I didn't intend things to go that far."

Sif's mouth tightened. Thor frowned, more in puzzlement than anger.

"You did, brother? How did you manage that? I seem to recall leading the attack on Jotunheim of my own free will."

Loki tried not to squirm. "I was the one who brought the Frost Giants into Asgard in the first place. I knew the Destroyer would stop them before they did much damage--I didn't think about the guards in the weapons vault. I knew you'd react rashly and Fa--the Allfather--would see you weren't ready to be King yet. And then I provoked you further, in the banquet hall."

Thor nodded. "Yes, I recall. By telling me not to defy Father. That was clever of you, brother." Loki blinked. If anyone but Thor had spoken those words, Loki would have called them sarcastic. "You might have known how I would react to your words, Loki, but I'm the one who acted. I was angry, and I behaved stupidly. I could have gotten all of us killed, and I did start a new war with Jotunheim. I proved definitively that I was not ready to rule."

Loki stared at his hands. "I didn't intend for all that to happen. I didn't even mean for you to go to Jotunheim in the first place. I just wanted you and Fa--the Allfather to be angry at each other for a while."

"Why did you want that?" Thor sounded genuinely interested, a little hurt, but not angry. Yet.

Loki examined the way his fingers twined around one another and tried to find words. This was a subject he'd thought about late at night in the boxroom, staring at the image of the four young humans walking across the street. He'd pretended he was explaining himself to Thor, and to Odin and Frigga, trying to make them understand what he had been feeling when he did all those mad things. Loki had always been credited with considerable intelligence, but now he realized his decisions were almost always driven by his emotions, and he had barely learned to even name those, let alone govern them.

"You and Fath--you and he were together in everything, always. I thought--I thought if I could make space between you, there might be room for me." And wasn't that a pitiful thing to acknowledge. Loki didn't want to look up and see the contempt on his brother's face. "When you decided to actually go to Jotunheim, I told a guard to tell the Allfather, and then I intended to stall at the Bifrost until he arrived to stop us. He would have been angry, but no real harm would have been done. I didn't count on Heimdall refusing to talk to me at all."

"And then I, of course, pushed you out of the way," Thor said quietly. Loki froze at his brother's tone. There was indeed disdain there, but it wasn't aimed at Loki. Glancing up, Loki recognized the expression on Thor's face: it was the expression of someone looking inside himself and not liking what he saw. Loki knew what that expression felt like from the inside, but he'd never seen it on his brother's face before. Sif looked at Thor with concern, but for once she didn't try to make excuses for him. "So I led us to Jotunheim, including you, even though you knew it would end in disaster."

"And despite not being asked along," Sif said quietly. Annie's head snapped up and Loki grabbed her hand, as if that would prevent her throwing another book at the warrior. Once again, Sif's expression confused Loki. She turned to Thor. "You persuaded the rest of us to come with you, but you never said a word to Loki."

Thor looked puzzled. "Of course Loki came with us. He's my brother. He always--"

"I thought you didn't want him and he came along anyway, just as he always did," Sif said, as though Thor was not speaking. Thor opened his mouth but before he could answer, Loki spoke up.

"I thought the same thing." His tone reflected his astonishment at finding himself in agreement with Sif. He couldn't remember the last time that had happened, and he was quite sure Sif couldn't, either.

Thor looked genuinely distressed. "Loki, surely I didn't need to tell you--" He faltered in the face of everyone looking at him, and fell silent.

This time, Sif did rescue Thor, by addressing a question to Loki. "How did you discover you are--" She actually stumbled over the question, as though unwilling to be offensive. It was amusing and strangely touching, and for some reason made Loki want to help her.

"Right after Volstagg was burned by contact with a Frost Giant, one of them grabbed my arm. Instead of burning, my skin--I had a sympathetic reaction of some sort. It made no sense unless--" There was no point in, as the housemates might say, spelling it out. "So we returned to Asgard, and Fa--the Allfather... well, you know what happened. I truly did try to speak for you, Thor, but--"

In spite of everything that had happened since, Loki still didn't like to remember that moment. Odin had barely spared him a look, let alone a word--just made a contemptuous noise of dismissal that had silenced Loki utterly. From childhood he had noticed that, no matter how angry the Allfather was at Thor, he would always at least look at him. The same had not been true of Loki, and it had frightened him to know he was so easy to discount.

Thor said slowly, "I do understand that it must have been a terrible shock, brother. But I don't understand why you--why you did everything you did."

Loki squirmed. If his actions made little sense to Thor, they didn't make much more to Loki. But if anyone was owed an explanation, it was his brother. While he was trying to think of a way to do so, George spoke up.

"I don't think you understand just exactly how terrible a shock it must have been. You've been raised to believe in a monster, you had nightmares about it when you were little, everyone you care about fears and hates this creature--and one day you wake up and realize the monster they're all terrified of and want to destroy is you? You've always felt like an outsider, like nobody loves you as much as you need them to, and you don't understand why--and then you find out you're the very monster you've been so carefully raised to fear and hate? And that the people who taught you that, they knew all along what you were, and taught it to you anyway? How exactly would you expect him to react?"

The werewolf sounded genuinely interested in Thor and Sif's answer to his question. He waited, but they had none. George went on,

"If you ask me, a great deal more honesty about Loki's origins and a whole lot less talk about 'evil monstrous Frost Giants' might have avoided a lot of this. I frankly do not understand what your father was thinking."

Thor looked at Loki with an expression of genuine distress. "You were never meant to know. If it hadn't been for my recklessness, you never would have, and everything would have been all right--" Thor faltered into silence, and the expression on his face made Loki wonder what his own looked like.

In a voice that sounded alarmingly like one he faintly remembered battering around inside his head, Loki replied, "I should have known about this from the beginning. He and Mo--your mother--should have told me."

Thor was giving every sign of being more aware of the fact other people had... thoughts... but he still didn't seem to be able to grasp this. "Why? What would it have helped?"

Loki suddenly felt anger rush through him, as though the blood in his veins was on fire. At the same time he realized his eyes were filling with tears. He hoped he wasn't going mad again--he felt quite sane, but the last time it happened he'd believed he was making reasonable decisions, too. At least now he wasn't making plans of action, he just shouted at his brother,

"It would have made every difference. I would have known. I would have known why... I never understood... all my life, I wanted them to love me as much as they loved you. I couldn't understand why they didn't, I didn't know what I was doing wrong, I kept thinking if I just tried harder... If I had known that I wasn't a real son, that I was just on sufferance, if I'd known it was impossible, I might have stopped... wishing. I might have been grateful to him for saving me at all, instead of hoping somehow..."

Now he was definitely sounding mad. Loki couldn't look at his brother, remembering now his lunatic delusion that he could fix everything--if Thor wasn't there to be compared to, if he proved conclusively to his parents that he was a true son of Asgard, if he eliminated the threat from Jotunheim and ensured the safety of the realm...

Nothing had gone the way he'd planned, which even he now realized was a mercy, but he suddenly remembered the feeling of desperation, of his mind whirling, of constructing those ridiculous castles in the air--

No. Not again. He knew the truth and he had to live with it, and when his brother took him back to Asgard he would answer for what he'd done. He just wished someone would say something.

And someone did.

"No, Loki." There was no way Annie could know how those particular words struck at his heart, but when he turned his head to look at her, she had to see the betrayal in his eyes. Annie squeezed his hand and repeated, "No. It wouldn't have worked." Loki tried half-heartedly to pull away from her and she held tighter. "The problem wasn't that you didn't know why they didn't love you, it was the fact you believed they didn't. Knowing why wouldn't have changed anything. If you hadn't been afraid of the Frost Giants, if you had known where you came from, you'd have broken your heart wanting to go back. You'd have hoped someone there missed you and wanted you to come home."

Loki stared at Annie, at a loss for words. For some reason all he could think about was the baby rhino. Before George had started playing with the Sorting Hat game on the computer, Annie had for some reason made him use the device to show Loki the rhinoceros calf she had talked about the first day he'd arrived.

The newborn animal had been, as Annie insisted, "cute"--a lumpy little being with a strangely innocent face. Its mother was a huge uncouth creature, like a pile of stone, with a great horned head. The images of the animals showed the baby leaning against its mother, while the mother gazed at it out of tiny, sunken, tender eyes.

Everything had happened so fast after Loki learned the truth about his parentage that he hadn't had time to really think about what it meant. He'd never stopped to ask himself whether any of his feelings of love and longing might have been recognizable to Jotun as well as Aesir. He'd never wondered whether his Frost Giant mother still lived, or thought about him, or had gone back to look for his body. Now, for the first time, he wondered.

He suddenly wondered whether he had killed her.

And then he saw the expression on Thor's face, an expression of guilt and grief that seemed... specific.

"What, brother?" Loki asked sharply, dashing the tears from his eyes with his free hand.

Thor looked guiltier. "I said nothing."

"You didn't have to. What is it?" Loki insisted. "What do you know?"

Thor looked at Sif for support. She glanced at Loki and turned back to Thor. "You have to tell him."

"Tell me what?" Loki shouted. Mitchell put a hand on his knee and patted, not to restrain him but to remind him he wasn't alone. Even in his rising agitation, Loki was grateful for that.

Thor glared at Sif as though this was all her fault, then turned reluctantly to his brother. "The new ruler of Jotunheim paid a visit to Asgard, shortly after you… left us." This really should not have surprised Loki, since if the Jotun hadn't had their own means of travelling between realms, they wouldn't have been able to invade Earth or threaten Asgard.

"What did he want?" Loki asked.

"To sue for peace," Thor replied. "He and a small group of advisors presented themselves to Heimdall and requested an audience with Father. In the interest of ending the hostilities, Father agreed."

"How bad was the damage? How much destruction did I cause?" Loki suddenly needed to know, and not because he was proud of it.

Thor shrugged. "The Bifrost landing site was, of course, an unpopulated area. As the power of the bridge built, it did destroy part of the nearby city and there were fatalities, but... it could have been worse."

Indeed. Unless, of course, individual Frost Giants were capable of affection, in which case, for them, it was as bad as could be imagined.

Sif prodded Thor. "Tell him about the advisors."

Thor nodded. "The new king--apparently he was chosen by the old council, which advised Laufey's predecessor. Laufey himself preferred to make decisions without consultation. But the new ruler is very young, and he values the counsel of these older Jotun." Loki nodded to indicate he was following, although he had no idea where this story was going. "They remained in Asgard for three days. On the last day, Father held a banquet, as a sign of goodwill. I found myself seated next to the oldest member of the council. Volstagg was his other partner, and, well, you know Volstagg." Loki smiled tensely, imagining it. "It appears ale has a loosening effect on Jotun tongues as well as Asgardian, and our… guest became expansive, telling us Jotun legends and stories as though we were his grandchildren." Thor looked astonished again as he remembered. "After a while, it was difficult not to see him simply as a kindly old man."

Loki clenched his teeth and waited. He had no desire to think about Jotun grandfathers. "Yes?" he prompted, as gently as he could.

"I... I asked him why the council chose the king they did, whether Laufey left no heir." Thor swallowed and went on quickly, "I thought perhaps he would choose to be discreet, but Volstagg gave him more ale, and he told us that many Jotun believed Laufey's reign was cursed because, during the war with Asgard, he left his own infant son as a sacrifice to the war gods. That, from the Jotun point of view, was shocking enough, but those closest to the king knew the sacrifice would fail because he had already planned to expose the child, to let him die anyway, because he was small and weak. The sacrifice was not only contrary to Jotun instinct and custom, it was insincere." Thor cast a glance at Loki's face, flinched, and went on rapidly, "It seems these small babies are uncommon but not unheard-of among the Frost Giants, and although they often die, it is certainly not the custom to kill them. They are mostly born to mothers in their last days of fertility, as was Laufey's queen, Gunnlod.

"Gunnlod had been the wife of Laufey's predecessor, and when Laufey laid claim to the throne he persuaded her to marry him, to help legitimize his rule. At the time, Laufey was eliminating all possible focuses of rebellion by killing the family of the previous king, and he apparently agreed to spare hers as long as she supported him. According to this old man, Gunnlod had been a beloved queen--she had a talent for sorcery, which is uncommon on Jotunheim and which she used for the benefit of her people, and also 'a great coldness in her heart, which was a comfort to all who appealed to her'--so her cooperation helped Laufey establish his claim to the throne.

"Gunnlod had no children with her first husband, and only one with Laufey--this tiny infant."

"Did I have a name?" Loki asked suddenly. He had no idea why he wanted to know. Why would it matter?

"No. At least, there had been no naming ceremony, which was one of the things that made those close to the queen fear Laufey planned to have you killed. Nobody approved, but everyone was too afraid of Laufey to stand up to him.

"Except, apparently, Gunnlod. When Laufey came to take you, the queen not only objected, she apparently defended you with her own life. Laufey killed her and placed her body in the temple, near you. It was supposed to look like the Asgardians killed both of you, except that Father's army was victorious, and the Asgardian troops never went into that part of the temple until after Father investigated it himself. Father must have recognized Gunnlod's badges of rank, and that was how he knew whose baby you were. The old Jotun told us that Father had the body of the dead queen buried honourably, and that he--and everyone--assumed the baby was buried with his mother. He had no idea Laufey's son survived. After the war, Laufey was embittered and had no interest in trying to found a dynasty. The new king is actually related to Gunnlod, and the old advisor expressed gratitude that Laufey's line ended with him." Wincing, Thor waited for Loki's reaction.

After a long pause, Loki said evenly, "And to think, I have been wondering whether I should feel guilt for killing Laufey. Now I wish I had told him I was his son before I did it." He drew a long, careful breath through his nostrils and exhaled the same way. To the obvious bewilderment of Thor and Sif, he then added, "So, George. It appears you were right--the Frost Giants are not so monstrous after all. Except, of course, for the one who sired me."

"Good thing you take after your mother, then," George replied. Loki gave him a startled look. "What? That's obviously where you get your magic. And you'd certainly never murder a baby."

Loki glanced at Thor, to try and determine whether his brother thought George was giving him too much credit. Thor was looking at him, his expression concerned.

"Does knowing this make you feel any better, Loki? Does it comfort you?" Comfort was not the point. Even Thor should realize that. Loki wished he could summon the energy to snarl at his brother.

"The Allfather must have guessed at some of this," Loki said finally. "If he recognized the queen, if he guessed I was Laufey's son, he must have had some idea how I had gotten there alone. It makes no sense for him to have kept it all secret, if he planned to send me back to rule for him. Everyone there thinks that baby died, and I've lived in this form for so long I can't imagine taking on another, not permanently. How was I supposed to govern a realm I had never even visited, or convince the inhabitants I should? And how was he going to engineer that--he can't have intended to overthrow Laufey, or he would have done so by now. When was he going to put things in motion? There is no way this plan could have worked. I don't understand what he was thinking."

Thor spoke carefully. "Father was... unable to explain it to you before the Odinsleep took him, but he has since told me that he and Mother discarded the whole idea at quite an early stage. They decided the risks to you were too great."

"To me?" Loki repeated blankly. Before he had time to do more than reflect that of course his father--of course Odin--thought he would prove incompetent, Thor went on,

"Yes. He felt the palace was unsafe. There had just been a war and feelings were running high. Even under the protection of the Allfather, they couldn't be sure you wouldn't have… an accident… if it was known what you were." Thor paused, and then went on reluctantly, "As we got older, I believe he was also concerned about me."

"What, you mean what I might do to you?" Loki asked, completely confused. Surely even the fondest parental eye could always tell which of them would get the better in a fight.

"No, brother--what I might do to you." Annie sat up straighter, her hand tightened on Loki's until it almost hurt, and Thor addressed her directly. "Not on purpose! But we played rough, and Loki was always the quarry, and if we had known the child pretending to be the Frost Giants really was a Frost Giant, sooner or later he would have gotten badly hurt."

"He did get badly hurt, more than once," Sif remarked, as though to herself.

"All right," Thor said heavily, "sooner or later, we probably would have killed him. It would have been an accident, and we would have felt terrible about it--"

"I'm not so sure of that," Sif persisted. She didn't seem to feel everyone's eyes on her as she looked directly at Loki, unprovoked, for the first time in years. "We all--the Warriors and I--knew you were jealous of Thor, both of his position and for his regard. We didn't admit to ourselves that we were just as jealous of you. I was jealous of you. If you had had a horrible accident I would have expressed regret as was proper, but I honestly can't think of a time in our lives when I would have felt any grief over it."

Thor looked sincerely appalled. "Sif, what are you saying?"

Sif ignored him and continued to address Loki. "You sent the Destroyer. Thor confronted it and offered his life in exchange for everyone else--not just the mortals, the Warriors and me as well. And you accepted. You let Thor bargain with you, and you held to the bargain. When you thought Thor was dead, you sent the Destroyer away. Why didn't you kill us too?"

Loki made himself hold her eyes, but he couldn't answer her question. "I didn't want to," he said at last.

Sif tilted her head slightly. "It's a curious thing--since we arrived here, I have been thinking that you are different. That you've changed. Now I wonder whether you have really changed so much. Perhaps I am just seeing you clearly now."

Loki had no idea how to respond to that remark. Sif's eyes shifted away from him and she continued to gaze thoughtfully into space, or possibly the past.

Annie stood abruptly. "I think what we need right now is a cup of tea," she announced. Glancing down at her housemates, she added, "Boys, you can come help me carry things."

The three stood, Mitchell dragging Loki, George mumbling, "Excuse us… kitchen… one moment…"

As soon as Annie had the kettle plugged in, she ushered the housemates to the corner of the kitchen and whispered,

"Loki, what is going on here? What does your brother want?"

Loki shook his head. "I wish I could tell you. I have no idea." At the expressions on his friends' faces, he insisted, "I don't. Truly."

Mitchell asked, "Do you think they've come to take you… back?"

Loki bit his lip, aware that, despite the whispers, Thor and Sif could probably hear the conversation. He turned his hands and shoulders upward in a shrug. Mitchell gave him a stern look, and Loki admitted, "Perhaps. The way Sif burst in, this is hardly a friendly visit."

George glanced toward the doorway, and then asked quietly, "What will they do to you, if they take you?"

Loki noticed how none of them referred to Asgard as "home"-- himself included. Again, he repeated, "I don't know."

Mitchell looked sideways at Annie and whispered, "There's no chance they'll--that you'll be--"

It took Loki a moment to understand what Mitchell was trying to ask. "That I will be executed? If that's the intention, Thor doesn't know about it. There is no way he would sit here calmly discussing our childhood if he knew he would shortly be taking me to my death. And I don't think the Allfather would make him do it, for Thor's sake. He would have sent someone else." He did his best to smile reassuringly, although there were alternatives to death that sounded considerably worse to him.

"So what might they do--?" Mitchell persisted.

Loki shrugged again. "There are spells to bind or banish a sorcerer's magic--I think I could count on that." He tried not to give away just how much the idea frightened him. "There are prisons… I don't think the Allfather would send me to Jotunheim, because I don't believe he would relinquish control over what happens to me. It depends on the Allfather. I have no idea how angry he is, or how much retribution he thinks is owed the Jotun."

Mitchell took a deep breath. "What if you escaped?"

Loki stared at him. "Mitchell, no."

"We could slow them down for you," Mitchell offered. "Give you a head start." Loki glanced around and realized Annie and George were nodding. Horrified, he leaned forward.

"That's madness. They would--the three of you put together couldn't last a minute against Thor and Sif."

"What can they do to me?" Annie retorted. "I'm already dead."

"You could be deader," Loki assured her grimly. "And it would not be a pleasant way to--No. I have no words to tell you how grateful I am, but you can't."

"Loki, we can't let you end up in a dungeon or--" Mitchell persisted. To his own astonishment, Loki found himself taking hold of the vampire's arms and leaning forward until their faces were inches apart.

"Yes, you can. And you must, for two very good reasons. The first of them is, I deserve it. The things I am accused of are things I did. I plotted against my brother, I betrayed my home and... family, I tried to kill my brother's closest companions. And I also tried to destroy an entire race. That Jotun grandfather, who told my brother stories of a woman dying to save her child? I tried to kill him. And if the woman had been alive I would have killed her too, mother or no mother. I tried to wipe them all out. I believed them to be monsters--no one ever told me the Jotun tell stories to their grandchildren. George, you said a moment ago that I wouldn't murder a baby, and so I would not, at least not a baby I had seen, but I had no compunction about slaughtering every child on Jotunheim. I should die for that. I wasn't sane, and I would not do it again, but I did it and it cannot be undone, no matter how much I wish it."

Loki suddenly felt like weeping again. Ugly and frightening as the Jotun might be to him, they surely did not look that way to one another, any more than a mother rhinoceros looked frightening to her infant. Here, far from Asgard, with the madness and bitterness and anger scoured out of him in his fall through the void, Loki found himself with room for a great well of remorse. He had imagined he could make amends for what he'd done. How absurd.

Mitchell, at least, looked like he understood. Of course he did--he was the only other killer in the household. Annie and George were innocents who thought Loki was worth sacrificing themselves for. As if he didn't have enough blood on his hands.

Loki let go of Mitchell. "The other reason you have to let me go, and do nothing to harm yourselves, is this: with the possible exception of my brother, you are the only beings in the Nine Realms who will miss me. And you're the only ones who will tell stories about me that aren't entirely malicious. You're the only ones who won't end every tale with, 'he should have been flogged for that,' or 'someone should have sewn his mouth shut.'" Loki knew he didn't deserve to have affectionate stories told about him, but perhaps he could be forgiven the wish.

All three housemates looked like they would prolong the argument. If they didn't return to Thor and Sif soon, the warriors were going to come to investigate, and then anything could happen. Loki tried to think of a spell that would stun without hurting them, just until Thor and Sif did whatever they had come to do. He couldn't think of one.

In desperation or… something, he wrapped one arm around Annie and the other around Mitchell, reached past Mitchell to put his hand on the back of George's neck, and pulled all three of his friends toward him.

On Asgard, nobody touched Loki--this seemed to be partly distaste, and partly a genuine belief that he didn't like it. As a result, Loki never touched anyone else either, if he could help it. He was too proud to make the first move, and too afraid of being rebuffed if he did. He might, on occasion, allow a hand to brush his mother's--Frigga's--arm, or Thor's shoulder, but he took pains not to linger long enough to force them to react. He had held Odin's hand, very briefly, when the Allfather sank into the Odinsleep, and even in his distress at the time there had been consolation in physical contact with someone he loved, despite knowing his feelings were not returned.

He had certainly never wrapped his arms around anyone and clutched them desperately to his heart, even though a wistful part of him always thought, when he saw others do so, that it must be very comforting.

As it turned out, Loki had vastly underestimated the solace such an action afforded. Vastly. It didn't matter at all that two of the participants in the embrace were technically dead, not with six arms around him and three bodies in such a tight cluster he couldn't even really tell who was who. Loki was tall and his arms were long, so he was able to make quite satisfactory contact with all of them. It was wonderful.

And the housemates didn't push him away, either, they waited until Loki relaxed his hold and stepped back voluntarily, which he did when the electric kettle began to whistle to let them know the water was ready for tea.

Annie wiped her eyes on the cuff of her grey sweater, and by the time she had the tea in the pot and the others had gathered up mugs and milk and sugar, everyone was reasonably composed.

They returned to the front room to find Thor and Sif looking as uneasy as eavesdroppers always did, which confirmed Loki's conviction they had heard the entire conversation. He handed a clean, empty mug to each Asgardian--he hoped letting them see that everyone was sharing common foodstuffs would reassure them they would not be poisoned--and addressed his brother directly.

"You may have heard us speaking in the kitchen. May I ask you again, what is the purpose of this visit?"

Thor looked deeply uneasy. His expression caused the housemates to go tense, at least until they realized Loki was reassured by it. Had Thor been here under orders from the Allfather, he might have looked sorrowful or defensive or even righteous. But the uncertainty of his brother's expression told Loki that Thor was here on a personal mission, one he was not sure of.

Perhaps that, rather than the need for a bodyguard, was the explanation for Sif's presence as well: perhaps Thor simply wanted the support of a friend. That was certainly not the brother Loki had grown up with, but even raving mad Loki had recognized a change in Thor after his time on Earth. Perhaps whatever he was up to now reflected that.

When everyone had their tea, Loki sat back down on the couch--between Annie and George this time--and waited for Thor to speak. After fortifying himself with the tea, he did.

"I told you before, brother, that I didn't understand why you behaved as you did, why you were so angry with me. That was why I came here--I wanted to ask you... I needed to know."

Loki suddenly realized his brother was speaking in the past tense. "And do you no longer need to ask, or to know?"

Thor made a helpless gesture. "You have made it very clear. I... When Sif and the Warriors told me you had lied about Father's death and my continued banishment, when it became clear the Destroyer was sent for me and no other, I could not believe it. And then, on the Bifrost... that was not you, brother. You told me you had changed, and that was obvious, because the brother I knew would never... You were never evil, Loki." Loki bit his lip and looked at the floor.

Thor sighed. "I have been listening to you. And I find myself remembering my approach to the Destroyer. I told you that I was sorry for whatever I had done to make you so angry. I behaved as though it was a complete mystery to me, as though I was innocent of all wrongdoing where you were concerned." Pausing, Thor took a deep breath. "You speak of feeling like an outsider in Asgard, of believing our parents loved me much more than you, of feeling alone and unwanted. I told myself I didn't know, I didn't realize... That wasn't true."

Loki could feel the entire couch come to attention, as though not only the occupants but the actual piece of furniture were intensely interested in what Thor was about to say. Sif turned slightly in her chair as though she, too, did not want to miss a word. Thor looked extremely uncomfortable--before his exile, Loki reflected, he probably would have dealt with that feeling by breaking something. Or possibly someone.

Now, Thor turned his mug delicately in his enormous hands. "I pretended to be innocent, unaware of how you felt, but... the truth is, I liked being the favourite, being the centre of attention. I knew you felt pushed aside, but I told myself you were so used to it that it didn't matter. I took you for granted and told myself you knew that, deep down, I loved you, and that was enough. It... fed my pride, that you followed me so faithfully, even though I ignored you most of the time, dismissed your counsel, treated you with disrespect." Thor's mouth twisted. "If Father and Mother had suddenly begun to show you more open affection, more regard, I would not have liked it at all." Sif glanced at Loki and his friends out of the corner of her eyes and shifted uncomfortably. Thor looked at her. "It's true, Sif, and you of all my friends must know that. This disaster began long ago, and we all share the blame. Even when we were children--"

Sif looked grim. "I know. I am actually trying to remember exactly how it was decided that whenever we played a hunting game, Loki always had to be the prey."

Loki remembered, perfectly clearly. He said nothing. The old Thor would have refused to be drawn. This one seemed compelled to speak.

"That was my doing. It was the price for being allowed to play with us. And later, of course, it became the custom." Thor addressed the housemates. "He was cleverer than the rest of us, so he gave a more exciting run. Sometimes he even got away."

"He got hurt more often," Sif remarked.

"Yes. The prey generally did," Thor agreed.

"We all knew that," Sif said. "I know why the Warriors and I let it happen: we thought of him as the tagalong, thought that eventually he would become discouraged and leave us alone." She looked at Loki. "You probably hoped, if you showed us you could... take it... if you showed us you were as brave as any of us, that we would accept you and begin to like you." Loki gazed back, hoping she couldn't see him shrink, the way he used to as a child, before his shell was built and it became impossible for anyone to see what was in his mind or his heart. The shell had fallen into disrepair and he thought Sif could see everything. "It might have made a difference if we had taken turns. If we had, sometimes, been made to think of Loki as one of us, instead of the one who was always on the outside. We always took our lead from you, Thor. Why did you never change our roles?"

"Because," Thor said tiredly, "the quarry got hurt. If that had happened to you or the Warriors, you might have decided it wasn't fun anymore. You might have decided not to be my friends. I thought that, whatever happened, Loki would always be my brother." He looked up, his eyes meeting Loki's before the other could look away. Loki froze, remembering the long-ago times when these games had started, when Thor had consoled him, or congratulated him for being tricky, for nearly winning. Even after custom had set in and Thor had apparently believed such encouragement was unnecessary, Loki had continued for a surprisingly long time to hope it would once again be forthcoming. "I resented any attention our parents paid to you, any acclaim you might receive from any other quarter, I felt it should all be mine, but I still wanted you to be my brother." Thor's tone was a confession.

"He still is," Sif pointed out. "Have you not noticed, he no longer calls the Allfather and Frigga 'Father' or 'Mother,' but he still calls you 'brother.'"

Loki's mouth opened, but he said nothing. He had taught himself to speak, and almost to think, of Odin and Frigga as though he was no more to them than any of their subjects, but it had apparently never crossed his mind to do the same of Thor.

Thor put his empty mug gently on the floor, to one side of the chair, where he couldn't accidentally kick it over. "Loki, I know I cannot change your feelings about us, but you should know that we all miss you very much, Father and Mother as well as me. They are your parents, Loki. Even if they can never see you again--" Thor fell suddenly silent, as though someone had cast a spell on him. It was abundantly clear what he meant.

Loki sighed. "I'm banished, I take it."

Thor nodded, and then, apparently remembering the conversation he and Loki had had, the rainy night Thor discovered his powers were gone, he added, "I speak the truth. I promise."

Loki felt the corner of his mouth quirk upward. "I can always tell when you speak the truth, brother. Your lips move." He felt an unaccountable warmth in his chest at the puzzled expression on his brother's face, and also at the way the others--including Sif--broke into giggles.

Thor apparently decided to ignore whatever joke the others were laughing at. Loki sobered, too, at his brother's next words: "I did not come on purpose to tell you this, but yes, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Jotun, Father has decreed that you are banished." Loki nodded, unsurprised--he deserved, and had expected, much more severe punishment. He couldn't decide whether he was relieved at the clemency or sorry he wasn't made to pay more.

Thor looked far more upset than Loki felt. "Surely he will eventually relent, Loki--I did nearly as much damage with Mjolnir as you did with the Bifrost, it is not fair that you--"

"You learned to behave differently, though," Loki was compelled by fairness to point out. The fact it was fairness that compelled him was of momentary surprise to Loki.

"So have you," Thor retorted, and that was surprising as well, not least because it was true, too. The brothers stared at each other. "Is this now the only way princes of Asgard can learn any wisdom at all?" Thor asked. "By being banished to Midgard?"

"Perhaps," Loki said. Perhaps it was the difference in the passage of time: life for mortals here was beautiful, and fragile, and so short. He understood the impulse that had made Thor protect the humans from the Destroyer. It was the same feeling that made Mitchell, and all of them, try to defend them from the vampires. "Thor, I don't want to go back. I love you--I love all of you, and I miss you, but I would not return if I could." He tried to imagine walking the corridors of Asgard, where the very air was poisoned against him. He thought perhaps Sif would now take his part--he thought they might almost become friends--but it would not be enough to insulate him from the whispers of everyone else. And he didn't trust himself not to fall into the old patterns of thought and emotion that had undone him once before. Loki had always recognized the weaknesses of others. He now knew a little about his own.

"You prefer to stay here?" Thor asked, looking around the little front room, and for all his newfound understanding, it was clear this was beyond him. Of course it was: Thor was beloved in Asgard, and therefore to him it was not only a place of grandeur, it was safety and warmth and home. It was beyond his comprehension that anyone else might think it oppressive, might find the very thought of returning produced an ache of apprehension in the chest and a knot in the throat.

Loki waited a beat for exasperation, for impatience at his brother's lack of understanding, for envy that he could so easily return from his banishment and be greeted everywhere with open arms... and found nothing. He and Thor were very different, their minds and hearts and circumstances were very different, and so of course they saw and reacted to the world differently and wanted different things from it. There was no harm in that.

"Yes, I prefer to stay," Loki said. And then a sudden cold needle of anxiety, a memory of uncertainty, pricked him. He added hesitantly, "If I am still welcome--?"

"Don't be mental," George muttered, bumping him with a shoulder from one side as Annie did the same from the other, and Mitchell reached over George to pat the back of Loki's head. The coldness vanished. Loki smiled at his brother, and suddenly it was a genuine smile at a welcome guest.

"I am very glad to see you, though. It would be good to hear... how everyone fares."

Annie reached out and picked up Loki's empty mug, placed it on the tea tray, and stood. "I'm going to do the washing up. You," she addressed Sif in a tone of command, "can come help me." To Loki's utter astonishment and no small amusement, the woman warrior obediently rose to her feet, even though Loki was almost certain Sif had no idea what the words "washing up" meant. Mitchell glanced at Annie and poked George. Both of them rose as well.

"We're going to pick up that takeaway," Mitchell announced. He looked at Thor and Sif for a second, then added, "We'll get extra egg rolls."

"Might be an idea to call the Indian place as well," George remarked. "We can go there after we pick up the Chinese." The werewolf and the vampire hurried off in one direction while the ghost and the warrior went in the other. Loki and his brother faced each other alone across the room. Awkwardness set in for another moment, and Loki heard himself asking,

"Will this be your only stop here on Midgard? Or have you already been to see--?"

"Jane?" Thor replied, blushing. "No, I have not yet--I was planning--"

"She will be pleased to see you," Loki said, amused and rather touched at his brother's reaction to the woman's very name. He suddenly remembered a voice, thin and strained with anguish and insanity, uttering a threat. He leaned forward urgently. "What I said--on the Bifrost. That was madness speaking, and a wish to provoke you. I never had any intention--"

"I know," Thor said. He smiled suddenly, his old familiar smile like the sun, the one that had made Loki feel simultaneously dazzled and invisible. Now it made Loki feel unaccountably like smiling back. Thor went on, "The mortal girl Darcy said something once about 'picking on someone your own size.' You, brother, have a tendency to pick mostly on those of a much greater size. I never believed you a threat to Jane. Never."

Loki sat back, warmed by his brother's ability to believe the best of him, despite so much evidence to the contrary. When he was sure his throat was clear enough to speak normally, he heard himself asking after Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun.

The others returned soon enough, Mitchell and George carrying a ridiculous number of parcels from two different restaurants. Loki confirmed the mouth-burning properties of Indian food, and was not surprised to discover Sif and Thor enjoyed it tremendously, although they had to eat a dish of ice cream each afterward to recover. It turned out there was another bottle of rum, which saved the trouble of making more tea. Everyone ended up sitting on the floor, and Thor and Sif regaled the housemates with a story about an expedition to another realm--not Jotunheim--which went drastically wrong and would have ended in disaster if Loki had not sweet-talked a series of guardians into letting them go. Loki remembered having been absolutely terrified at the time, but the story sounded very funny in the retelling. Mitchell countered with a hair-raising account of the night they rescued Carol from the vampires, with particular emphasis on Loki's theatrical talents ("I wanted to rescue him myself!") while Loki's version of his final escape involved him acting out being bodily dragged, flailing, into the car in the very nick of time by George. Sif laughed so hard at his pantomime that she nearly choked on her butter chicken, and then told Annie to be careful of her hair around Loki and related, entirely without malice, the story of Loki cutting her hair and turning it black. That had happened long after Loki and Sif knew they hated each other--he couldn't even remember why he had done it except that he was angry at her--but as she told the story Sif actually touched his arm more than once to emphasize a point, just as if all was long forgiven and they were friends. The two women ended up in tears of laughter, and total agreement that Sif looked far more badass with black hair anyway. (Sif had certainly never heard the term "badass" before but she clearly grasped its meaning.) And then Annie related the story of Seth the vampire meeting Loki the Frost Giant ("he turned into a polar ice cap") managing to convey the impression the vampire had found himself dangling by his fangs from the neck of the larger monster. Thor laughed so hard that Loki was briefly concerned a neighbour might call the police to complain about the noise.

George turned things in a much more serious direction when he told Thor and Sif about the vampire attack on him and the healing spell. There was no reason for him not to tell this particular story, but the expressions on the faces of Thor and Sif made Loki feel so awkward that he immediately distracted them by explaining the ice cream headache game. Thor found this just as entertaining as Loki had imagined, giving himself three consecutive headaches while Sif and Annie giggled behind his back. Loki was almost as pleased by their reaction as Thor's.

Loki was weak and dizzy with laughter by the time Thor and Sif rose reluctantly to their feet to take their leave. He accompanied them to the door with a faintly wistful feeling that astonished him, and certainly erased any lingering memories of stumbling backward across the entryway several hours before. He was uttering some awkward words of farewell when Thor turned to him.

"I must not forget--Mother asked me to give you something." And before Loki could do more than register the words, Thor had pulled him into a crushing embrace. Loki had by now learned how to react to such events, which were somehow no longer unheard-of in his world. He wrapped his arms around his brother, ignoring the new collection of bruises he was probably amassing from being squashed into Asgardian armor while wearing only jeans and a t-shirt. It was worth it.

After a moment Thor reached up with one hand, cradled the back of Loki's head, kissed him on the temple, and released him.

"Be well, brother," he said gruffly, and went out into the night. Sif clasped Loki's hand briefly and followed.

Loki closed the door gently and turned back toward the others, who were still sitting on the floor amid a wreckage of cartons and dishes and cutlery. George reached out and began unfolding cartons and stuffing them into the paper sacks they'd come from the restaurants in. Mitchell and Annie started stacking dishes, and Loki came over without comment to help them.

Nobody spoke for a few moments. Finally, Mitchell said quietly, "Your brother. Not as big a twat as I was picturing." Annie and George both looked at him sharply and Mitchell shrugged. "What?"

Loki let out a startled chuckle but continued looking at the cutlery he was collecting. "No, he's not."

"That's good, because I was a little worried about you," Mitchell said. "Not just whether he'd do anything to you, how you would be." Loki looked up and met his friend's kind dark eyes.

"I am fine. Thank you for asking."

"I'm glad we met him," George said. "And his friend. She was quite nice, once she calmed down a little."

"It was nice to hear the stories," Annie remarked. Loki looked at her and she gave him a smile of dazzling innocence. "They were good stories."

"Yes," Loki agreed, and felt the lingering wistful feeling turn into a glow of warmth. "They were indeed good stories."

Annie smiled again, picked up the stack of plates, and took them into the kitchen. Loki followed her with his handful of cutlery.

Chapter Text

Loki was reading a library book and eating a tomato sandwich when the children arrived in the doorway. Loki was conscious of them standing there fidgeting. However, he felt they should learn to announce themselves properly, and therefore he did not look up from his page.

Before his fall, Loki had believed there was very little about Midgard that could surprise or delight him. He had spent his time here discovering his mistake on a daily basis, and one of the elements that gave him the most pleasure was his discovery of fiction.

The libraries of Asgard contained books about all nine realms, but only the scholarly works. The scribes of Asgard dealt strictly with fact--at least with fact as it was known at any time in history--rather than fantasy. It therefore came as a surprise to Loki to learn that, on Midgard, the inhabitants were addicted to made-up stories. Perhaps this was compensation for the lack of more tangible magic on their realm, or perhaps the lack of fictional works on Asgard told something about the people there. Perhaps Asgard was the only realm in which scribes did not rely on their imaginations to create stories. Perhaps Frost Giants were addicted to tales of beautiful blue maidens finding true love.

At any rate, when Loki had first ventured into the school library on a cleaning assignment, he had been fascinated with the variety of books available to the children. The librarian was most generous about allowing him to borrow--his cover story included being raised by "hippies" who eschewed all television and books, which served to explain not only his name, but also why so many cultural references were unknown to him. The librarian seemed happy to help him fill in the gaps in his knowledge.

Fortunately, the Fiction and Non-Fiction sections were clearly labeled, which prevented Loki developing some serious misconceptions--he might easily have found himself convinced that, for instance, small riverbank-dwelling creatures were conscientious spring cleaners and fascinated by motorcars, or that rabbits possessed a highly-organized and rather frighteningly militaristic society.

He'd been alarmed enough at the depiction of the fate of parentless children on Midgard, to the point of concluding that abduction to another realm under a false identity was far from the worst thing that could happen to one. However, the stories generally ended happily, except for the one in which the kindly old man who looked after the youthful pickpockets was hanged. Loki had not been expecting tragedy at the end of such a story and had been considerably shaken by it.

His current book had begun badly, with the old people refusing to take in the orphaned girl-child on the grounds a boy would be more use to them. Loki had been so incensed that he took the book straight back to the library, where the librarian persuaded him to give it another chance. He was glad she had done so: the old people improved considerably upon further acquaintance, particularly the woman, and the child turned out to be some sort of innocent changeling agent of benign chaos. Loki could hardly wait to find out what she would get up to next.

"Um... Mr. Loki?" came a small voice from the doorway, and Loki finally looked up. The gap-toothed seven-year-olds were well known to him, and he arched an interrogatory eyebrow at them. "Trevor's lost his Superman action figure," the spokeschild, whose name was Patrick, explained, tilting his head toward his fidgeting companion. "Please, have you found it?"

Loki carefully placed a marker in the pages of his book and set his sandwich down on its waxed paper wrapping. He then rose and walked over to the shelf above the cleaning fluids, where he and Carol placed, for security, the toys and other effects lost by the children in the run of the day. Loki was perfectly aware that such losses now occurred with greater frequency among the smaller children than they had when he first took up his post. The adults and even the older children had already lost the ability to see what was in front of their eyes, but the little ones had not, nor the primitive instinct to keep a secret from those who might ruin it. Loki therefore had few qualms about engaging in small acts of magic for this audience, confident that they would either maintain confidentiality or appear to be exercising their imaginations if they told anyone anyway.

Loki had long since learned that an "action figure" was a small representative of a human, generally caped and in some sort of costume. He generally had several of them in his care and today was no exception. He surmised that "Superman" was the one with the large S on his chest and held it aloft for inspection.

"That's it," Trevor said in a small voice. Loki arched his eyebrow again and the child muttered, "Thank you."

"You are most welcome," Loki replied, and made a tossing motion toward the child. As he opened his hand, the tiny man in his palm took off and flew toward Trevor, his cape fluttering gently behind him. He landed accurately in the child's hand and turned back into a figure of plastic. Trevor stared at his hand, open-mouthed, and then up at Loki, who smiled pleasantly and returned to his chair. The children didn't move.

Apparently emboldened by the smile, Trevor now asked, "Is Carol really going to poison the ants?"

Loki turned back to face Trevor, viewing the child with interest. Part of the mission of the school was to impose a civilizing influence upon the younger children, whose natural inclinations were varied to say the least. Loki did not need to be told that a desire to view the death of the ants was to be discouraged. Trevor, however, seemed concerned for their wellbeing, a sentiment to be encouraged. This was hypocritical of adults who intended to kill the insects anyway, but Loki was familiar with the convention.

At the moment, since it was only themselves, Loki asked, "And what ants would these be?"

Patrick explained, "There's an anthill by the side door, near the fence. Trevor heard Carol saying that she was going to put down poison."

"And this concerns you?" Loki asked Trevor directly. The child nodded.

"They can't help being ants," Trevor offered, by way of explanation. Loki nodded, rose to his feet, and said,

"Let us pay them a visit." The two children led him to the ant-nest. Loki, hands clasped behind his back, considered it seriously, head on one side. It crossed his mind that it might to some seem a considerable come-down for him to now be so concerned with the fate of insects rather than of realms, but this mattered considerably to Trevor and Patrick--and, of course, the ants.

Loki cleared his throat, then crouched next to the anthill and addressed its occupants. "We come to speak to you, ants, in a spirit of concern for your wellbeing. We applaud your industry and your devotion to both duty and family. However, sadly, the current position of your home places you in considerable peril, as the custodians of this place view you as pests and vermin. We feel sadness for this and therefore ask you, ants, to withdraw to the safety of a more distant abode, and there live in peace."

The two children waited attentively as Loki placed a hand flat on the anthill. Several of the insects ran across his fingers, one pausing to wave the feelers on its tiny head at him. Loki could feel a tingle through the palm of his hand, as thousands of tiny intelligences responded to the message he was repeating inaudibly.

It actually would have been a simple matter, were he the kind of adult who told lies to children, to use magic to exterminate the anthill and then tell Patrick and Trevor the ants had gone away. Using magic to persuade the creatures to decamp for their own safety took more effort, but he could feel the message being received. After a moment there was a boil of activity as the ants scurried into their burrows and blocked the tunnel entries behind them. Loki could feel the message spreading through the anthill, and he added a silent postscript, suggesting that the far side of the fence, where there was a vacant lot, would be a potential haven. He waited until he was sure the ants had all heard the news, and then for the unmistakable sensation of tunnels being dug in the new direction and larval infants being collected for removal to safety.

Loki stood, brushing dirt from his hands. "I believe our message has been received. It is best if we speak of this to no one. Please return to your classrooms. I will tell Carol I have dealt with the ant nest." This message would involve misleading Carol as to the insects' fate. Fortunately, Loki had no qualms whatsoever about telling lies to adults.

The two little boys looked at the suddenly-deserted anthill, then up at Loki, nodded, and fled. Loki considered that if he ate quickly he would be able to finish his sandwich before his allotted lunch time was over, but he would have to leave any further reading until tonight. This was regrettable, but he felt he had done a good afternoon's work here.

Loki had turned down the hallway toward the custodians' room when he became conscious of a... presence... within. Loki paused as a prickle of apprehension crawled up his spine.

Through the open door stepped a short blond... man... in a policeman's uniform. He smiled in a mock-friendly fashion and the look in his eyes made the hair stand up on the back of Loki's neck. Loki returned the smile, and the frozen eyes.

"Mr. Herrick, I presume?"

The blond creature smiled more widely, and it took no imagination at all to envision fangs erupting from his mouth.

"Yes, indeed. I'm a very old friend of Mitchell's. I've been hearing about his... new friend. I thought I would come pay you a little visit."

Loki inclined his head and spread his hands in a gesture of regret. "That is very kind of you. However, as you observe, at the moment my time is not my own. Perhaps we could conduct our conversation at a later date. In another location."

Herrick smiled again. "Perhaps. But you'll be seeing me around here, too. We must let the children know the police are their friends."

Heart pounding, Loki watched the vampire walk down the hall toward the exit, his gait jaunty. Then he threw away the remainder of his sandwich and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to keep himself busy while he decided what to do.

OoO

"Mitchell, you've got to talk to Loki," Annie said urgently as Mitchell and George came into the house.

"Why? What's the matter?" Mitchell asked.

"I don't know. He came home from work upset about something, and he's been up in his room ever since. He's got a box of woodworking tools with him."

"Woodworking tools?" Mitchell repeated. Loki could hear him coming up the stairs. There was a knock at the boxroom door. "Loki? Can I have a word?"

"Certainly," Loki called back. "Enter."

Mitchell stepped into the room and surveyed the situation. Loki sat cross-legged on the floor, new woodworking tools spread around him, rendering a rather large block of hardwood into narrow strips. At the moment he was engaged in polishing one of the strips into a state of glassy smoothness. He had already carved both ends into sharp points.

"What," Mitchell asked carefully, "are you doing?"

Loki paused in his activity to let the wooden strip rest across his index finger, testing its balance point. Then he gestured for Mitchell to stand to one side and threw his creation at the door frame. It flipped end-for-end and ceased its flight embedded in the soft wood of the frame. Mitchell stared, wide-eyed, as Loki got to his feet, retrieved the dart, and then, with a gesture, healed the door frame.

That done, Loki turned to Mitchell.

"Herrick paid me a visit this afternoon. At the school."

"At the school," Mitchell repeated helplessly. Loki returned to his seat on the floor, set the completed dart aside, picked up another, and began to sharpen its end. Mitchell took a step toward him and, without looking up, Loki swept his belongings out of the way. Mitchell sat down beside him. After a moment, Loki said, "Mitchell, I understand that you feel kinship with the rest of the vampires, that you feel responsible for them. You are my friend, and I would not seek to harm anyone you care about."

"But," Mitchell prompted.

"But," Loki agreed. "He came to the school. The school, and all connected to it, are mine. The children, the staff, the little fishes in the science-classroom tanks--mine." Loki couldn't say exactly when this feeling had come upon him, its progress had been gradual, but Herrick's arrival today had brought it sharply into focus: under circumstances in which supernatural beings posed an ongoing threat to mortals, protection of the school was his responsibility.

He looked up and met Mitchell's eyes as he said evenly, "Should Herrick, or any other of the vampires, begin to entertain... ideas... about that which is mine, they should know that I would consider any action to be a direct affront to myself. They should also know that I am, unfortunately, not renowned for my merciful qualities." He looked down again before Mitchell could misinterpret the gaze as aggressive toward himself. "I have no desire to damage or complicate your relationships with others of your kind, but I ask your assistance in passing this message along, so there should be no misunderstanding." Loki hesitated, then added quietly, "If my continued presence here under these circumstances creates a problem for you, I will be happy to go elsewhere."

Loki was not in the habit of lying to his housemates, and there was nothing he wanted less than to have to leave, but this last falsehood seemed necessary. Although, since Mitchell manifestly did not believe it, Loki wondered whether the lie really counted as such.

Mitchell sighed. "Loki, you don't have to go anywhere. It's not like my relationships with the other vampires aren't already complicated."

"Perhaps, but it is different when someone else complicates the situation on your behalf," Loki said. Mitchell grimaced, accepting the truth of Loki's remark. Loki went on, "As I said, I understand that you feel kinship with the vampires, so I fear if trouble begins between me and them, it would put you in an untenable position." Loki scraped carefully at his wooden dart and then said, "I am not like you, Mitchell. I don't feel bonds with anyone on the basis of common ancestry or kind. I am quite... specific... about the ties I form. I know that is a flaw in me, but I don't know how to correct it. As a result, it is entirely possible that I might become carried away if I felt I had to... take action... in defense of the occupants of the school."

Patrick and Trevor's concerned little faces floated up behind Loki's eyes and he stopped his activity with the knife for a moment. Oh, yes. Becoming carried away was a distinct possibility.

Mitchell stretched his legs out in front of him and, studying his feet, remarked, "That's one thing I've never understood about you, Loki. You're so determined to see worthwhile qualities in other people and deny them in yourself. Okay, so you find it easiest to care about... people... you've met. I admit, it would be nice if we could all feel equally concerned about those we don't know and never will, but don't fool yourself about me and the vampires. I care about some of them because they're my friends, but I also feel tied to them because we all share the same guilt."

Loki looked at Mitchell, but the vampire didn't turn his head and Loki was left studying his profile. Mitchell's lilting voice went on,

"Let me tell you about vampires and the humans we actually know, Loki. We're predators. Part of the fun is in the hunt. And I don't mean hunting in the sense of chasing a creature you don't know and have never met. Vampires have a lot of time on our hands, and one of the things we do to pass the time is cultivate victims. We don't always bother, obviously, but I don't think you'll find a single one of us, at least not over a certain age, who hasn't befriended a human specifically for the purpose of enjoying their reaction when we finally do kill them."

Loki put the wooden dart and the knife down. His hands were suddenly so cold they felt numb. Mitchell smiled at nothing, a gesture of contempt directed entirely inward.

"That's the thing about giving up blood, you know. It makes you clear. You remember things. I remember the people I've killed--their names, whether they cried or begged or tried to fight. I remember their last words: 'Mitchell, don't.' 'Mitchell, please.' "Mitchell, why--?'" Mitchell turned on Loki so suddenly it was all Loki could do not to flinch. "There are worse things than caring about people just because you happen to know them. And if you feel you have to draw a line to protect little kids and the people who look after them, I'm not going to side against you. We all make our own choices, including the other vampires."

Loki nodded, relief sending warmth back into his limbs as Mitchell's expression returned to something approaching normal. He picked up his tools and went back to work. Mitchell watched him for a moment.

"You know, it does say something, that I'm sitting here, next to someone sharpening a stake, and feeling perfectly safe. That is a stake, isn't it?"

"It serves the same purpose," Loki admitted.

"Why are you making stakes?"

"Under normal circumstances I choose magic as my weapon," Loki explained. "However, casting magic involves concentration. There are times which call for reaction rather than thought."

"Like being surrounded by a big crowd of angry vampires," Mitchell suggested.

"They would have equal efficacy against a variety of threats," Loki replied. "But yes, I do have 'a big crowd of angry vampires' in mind at the moment."

Mitchell looked thoughtful. "It's probably best if I pass your message along for you. Coming directly from you, it might be taken as a challenge."

Loki nodded. "That was also my thought. Mitchell, I appreciate your help. Should action on my part become necessary, I promise I will do my best to warn rather than harm."

Mitchell rose, brushing wood shavings off his trousers. "Do what you have to, Loki. I trust you to make the right decision."

OoO

"Why would Herrick be interested in the school in the first place?" George demanded as they ate dinner later. "He can't want to recruit children as vampires. They'd be impossible to control."

"George," Annie said warningly, as Loki put his fork down. George immediately looked apologetic, but he hadn't said anything Loki wasn't already thinking: mortal children were highly entertaining mostly because they were so unpredictable and impulsive. These were endearing qualities in a five-year-old, but over the course of an immortal lifespan it was terrifying to imagine how much havoc they could wreak. Trevors were a rare species: most of the small children Loki knew had not yet realized that other creatures were also real, with feelings and thoughts of their own. This was something they apparently grew into over the course of a human lifespan--certainly much faster than Thor and Loki, for instance, who were each a thousand Asgardian years old before they really got the message--but if that process was short-circuited by being turned into powerful immortals, it seemed likely to Loki that they would never learn not to view other creatures, other humans, as extensions of themselves and their appetites. The consequences for anyone who was not a vampire would be disastrous.

"Herrick knows that," Mitchell spoke up. "We've always survived by hiding. He wouldn't risk everything--"

"You told us that he wants to change the rules," George pointed out.

"Maybe he thinks the humans wouldn't kill vampires who look like children," Annie contributed, with an apologetic glance at Loki.

"Even so, he's not an anarchist," Mitchell insisted. "Herrick believes in hierarchies, especially hierarchies with Herrick at the top of them. He's not going to unleash chaos unless he's pretty sure he can get a handle on it again."

"It also does not make sense for him to want the children as sources of blood," Loki made himself contribute to the discussion. "They're too small. True, over a period of years they could probably be trained to accept being fed from as normal, which would be useful to the vampires, but--"

"But vampires don't have enough self-control not to kill them almost immediately," Mitchell completed the thought. Annie put her hands over her mouth and looked grateful she was not attempting to eat. Loki himself was grateful there was no marinara sauce involved in this meal.

"And since the vampires aren't out in the open yet, he's not threatening the kids to keep their parents in line. Yet," George mused. "So the obvious target of the threat is us, or at least Loki and Mitchell. That might be a good thing, you know."

"I'd love to know how," Annie muttered.

"A threat is mostly useful before you actually carry it out," George pointed out. "You know: 'do this thing I want you to do or I'll kill your kitten,' that only works as long as the kitten is still alive."

"However, if the person being threatened had several of them, the threat would continue to be effective until one ran out of kittens," Loki countered. He played with his fork for a moment, thinking. "Obviously I cannot strike first, that would ensure Herrick's retaliation. It might, however, be possible to ward off vampire activity without harming anyone..."

It was not that Loki had become sentimental about the vampires. If he was honest with himself, what he wanted to do was take his newly-created supply of stakes and hunt down every vampire in Bristol who was not Mitchell. The only thing that stopped him was the one who was Mitchell. Mitchell who, in spite of his protests, still cared about the other vampires.

Besides, even Loki could not be everywhere at once, which rendered problematic the notion of dispatching all the vampires before any of them figured out what was going on.

George sighed. "Well, whatever is going to happen, it probably won't happen tonight. I'm finished here, does anyone want to watch a video? Loki, how far have we gotten with the Harry Potter films?"

"I believe we have seen the first two," Loki replied, gamely trying to feign interest.

"Great. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban it is, then. And chocolate ice cream, that'll help us think."

And in fact, about halfway through the film, Loki was indeed visited with an idea.

OoO

"Hello, George--Mitchell," Carol greeted the housemates as they appeared in the doorway of the custodians' room. "What are you up to today?"

"Just dropped in on Loki for a minute," Mitchell replied, smiling convincingly. He held up a book with a picture of a red-haired girl on the cover. "This is what you've been reading at lunchtime, right? You forgot it on the kitchen table this morning."

Carol smiled and went past the three housemates through the door as Loki exclaimed about how forgetful he had indeed become. As soon as Carol had taken her dry mop down the hall, George and Mitchell turned to Loki.

"Any sign of Herrick?" Mitchell asked tensely. Loki shook his head, but even as he did so, a prickle of apprehension went up his spine. Something was out there.

"Apparently, I spoke too soon," Loki murmured. "Come, let's see what happens."

Mitchell looked around with an expression of apprehension. Loki realized he was looking for the stakes. Loki didn't bother to tell him they were in a backpack on the shelf above the lost toys. Instead, he led the way along the hall and up the back staircase, then onto the roof.

"What are we doing up here?" George asked. Loki walked over to peer over the edge.

"There," he reported, indicating a figure standing near the playground entrance, watching the children as they ran around on their lunch break. Mitchell let out a hiss of anxiety as he recognized the jovial vampire--Loki had never asked his name--who had tried to tear out the throat of Loki's human character the night they rescued Carol.

"Loki, what are you going to do?" George asked, dread rising in his voice as the vampire took a step forward.

"It is already done," Loki replied. "At least, I hope it is."

"What, a garlic landmine?" Mitchell demanded. Loki smiled. The vampire took another step forward, which bought him to within a pace of the gate.

And a rhinoceros materialized out of the air and trotted purposefully toward him.

"What the hell--" George said feebly. Mitchell said nothing at all, just stared open-mouthed as the enormous creature, outlined faintly in glowing silver, came to a halt before the vampire, lowering its head.

Lowering her head: the baby rhinoceros that suddenly frisked into sight made it quite clear the creature was female. Loki glanced at his housemates and grinned to himself at their expressions, which were nearly as amusing as that of the no-longer jovial vampire.

The vampire attempted to feint left and slip past the mother rhino to the right, but she was far too quick for him. Driven back a few steps, the vampire hesitated, and that was when the mother rhino shook her head and began to paw the ground in a suggestive manner. Loki hoped his housemates noticed as a particular detail about the rhinoceros's appearance changed--the vampire certainly did. He backed away, turned and ran, and the longer, wickedly-curved horn on the rhino's nose faded from the rich brown of teak wood, back to dark grey.

No one on the playground gave any sign of noticing the activity, or the animals. One of the children on the swings looked up and waved at Loki, who waved back. The mother rhino looked around for her calf, who ambled over and butted against her side, then began snuffling the ground as though checking for anything edible. As she did so, the faint silver outline that surrounded her glowed more strongly, and she and her baby faded from sight.

Mitchell and George turned to Loki, open-mouthed, and watched as he rubbed his hands together in a parody of fiendish glee.

"That went rather well," he crowed softly.

"There was a rhinoceros in the schoolyard," George announced, as though it might have escaped Loki's notice.

"There was indeed," Loki agreed happily.

"Why was there a rhinoceros in the schoolyard?" Mitchell asked, cautiously, as if unsure he really wanted to know. Loki beamed at him.

"I got the idea from your Harry Potter," he explained. "Think of it as a Patronus Charm." He had been most taken with the idea of a magical creature that could protect others from evil, and it had not been terribly difficult for Loki to come up with his own version of the spell.

"Your Patronus is a rhinoceros?" George asked weakly.

"A mother rhinoceros," Loki clarified.

"With a baby tagging along," George said, as if to himself.

"Well, of course there was, George. If there was no baby, how would people know she is a mother rhinoceros?" Loki pointed out reasonably.

Apparently unable to process what he had just seen, George said feebly, "Are you sure it's safe to have a rhinoceros in a schoolyard, with all the children?"

"Of course. She is a mother rhinoceros. She will not harm the children."

"I'm... I'm not sure that's how rhinos' minds work."

Loki sighed, and said patiently, "George, she is an enchanted mother rhinoceros. I am the enchanter. She is hidden from the sight of the children, even that of the little ones, and she cannot harm them. Supernatural beings, on the other hand--those, she can harm." Loki's mouth hardened. "But only if they refuse to accept a warning."

Mitchell looked down at the playground again. "What if there's more than one vampire?"

"Then there will be more than one rhinoceros," Loki explained.

"Doesn't a spell like this take a lot of energy to maintain?" Mitchell asked, clearly remembering how much strength some spells took out of Loki.

"Less than you would imagine. Once set up, the spell only engages in the presence of evil, which is why you two were not challenged. And because it is strictly defensive in nature, there is little for Herrick to complain about. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Mitchell murmured.

"Genius," George murmured.

Loki smiled. "And besides--I am rather fond of rhinoceroses."

OoO

Loki escorted Mitchell and George out the front door of the building, then returned to the custodians' room to collect the supplies he needed to clean the boys' lavatory. Carol was in the room when he entered.

"Loki, there was someone here to see you a little while ago," she reported.

Loki's heart dropped. Had the spell missed a threat entirely?

"Oh?" he asked, trying to appear casual. "Who?"

Carol reached into the pocket of her trousers and retrieved a folded piece of paper. "A young woman. She left this for you."

Loki accepted the paper and unfolded it. It turned out to be a sheet of stationery from a local hotel. Written on it, in black ink and in a strong yet feminine-looking hand, was a telephone number and a note explaining that she would be reachable at that number, and the hotel, for the next three days.

The note was signed, "Dr. Jane Foster."

Chapter Text

Loki was hoovering the front room when he heard Annie scream upstairs. By the time George and Mitchell ran in from the kitchen, dripping soapsuds from the dishpan, Loki was already halfway up the staircase. George paused to pull the hoover's cord out of the electrical socket and followed the other two.

"What is it? What is wrong?" Loki demanded as he skidded to a halt outside Mitchell's bedroom. Annie, who had been distributing folded laundry, stood in the doorway. She clutched several black t-shirts to her chest and appeared to be trying to decide whether to scream again. Loki put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and said gently, "Tell me."

"S-spider!" Annie replied, pointing into the room.

"Spider?" said Mitchell, looking partly amused and partly sympathetic.

"Spider?" echoed George, looking entirely disgusted.

"Giant gray hairy spider," Annie defended herself. Mitchell suppressed a giggle. George threw his hands in the air.

"I'll go get a newspaper," he announced.

"No, no," Loki said. "Nononono. Let me--I will take her outside."

 "Her?" Mitchell repeated, in a tone that suggested this was getting better every second.

"Me?" Annie asked, looking totally confused.

"The spider," Loki clarified, voice dropping into an embarrassed little mumble as he realized what he had said. "I will take the spider outside."

Mitchell tilted his head on one side and smiled the smile that showed all his beautiful teeth and made it impossible to imagine him with fangs, ever.

"Are you still reading books from the school library?" he prodded gently. Loki nodded shamefacedly. "You wouldn't happen to have taken a peek at Charlotte's Web, would you?" Loki nodded again. "Ah."

"I loved that book when I was eleven," Annie said reminiscently. "I cried so hard. Still hate spiders, though."

"I was eight," George said. He reluctantly added, "Buckets."

"Seventy-four," Mitchell chipped in. "And I wept."

"I was most grateful that Carol warned me not to read it at school," Loki admitted. He had assumed his coworker was exaggerating, until found himself in bed reading the last few pages and wiping his streaming eyes with the sheet as he tried to sniffle quietly. As Carol had suggested, the book about the pirates and their island of treasure was a far safer choice to be read in public. Loki spared himself a moment to hope Heimdall had not picked that exact instant to look in on him, because apparently his external guards were not the only ones that had suffered during his time in the little house.

Carol was very kind about Loki's reading material: the only comment she ever offered was that it was good for him to be introduced to such books at some point before he had children of his own to read them to. Loki had offered no comment and was grateful Carol chose not to exercise her self-described "old lady prerogative" to press him with questions about what she referred to as his "love life." She'd asked him once before and he had muttered something about things being complicated, which prompted Carol to offer the wisdom that "it's always complicated, pet." Loki bowed to her no doubt superior knowledge in this area, Carol being a long-married woman with children and grandchildren, but the complications of which he spoke included being very much attracted to a housemate who probably did not return his feelings and was, in any case, dead. Loki was fairly sure Carol's knowledge and experience did not extend that far.

This being an entirely unproductive train of thought, Loki abandoned it, sidled past Annie, and went looking for the spider. He found the creature hanging from the ceiling above Mitchell's dresser. George's belated comment to Annie that "the poor thing is probably more scared of you than you are of it!" seemed inaccurate: the spider sized Loki up with her eight eyes and appeared to be entirely mistress of the situation.

"Salutations," Loki murmured, and carefully closed his hand around the little animal. The spider refrained from biting him, which Loki appreciated, and settled into his fingers as he started down the stairs. He was, however, not yet free of love lives, because Annie handed Mitchell his t-shirts and followed Loki, asking,

"Have you spoken to your brother's girlfriend yet?"

"I have. Or rather, I placed a telephone call to her hotel. She was not in her room, but I left a message explaining that it was impossible for us to meet."

Annie grabbed Loki's arm, the one not connected to the hand holding the spider, and asked, "And why is that?"

"Because, in the first place, I cannot think of any way such a meeting could be productive or pleasant for either of us. She was present when I sent the Destroyer. She could have been slain herself, her town was devastated, and Thor was killed."

"Killed?" Annie repeated. "But he's--"

"Alive. Yes." Loki recollected a film Annie was especially fond of and offered, "He turned out to be only mostly dead."

Annie frowned. "Not funny, Loki. So you think she's angry at you?"

"I think that is what your people call 'a safe bet,'" Loki replied.

"But what if she just wants to talk to you about it?" Annie persisted. "Maybe she just wants to understand."

"If all that worried me was her anger, I would meet with her," Loki admitted. "However, it seems certain Herrick and the other vampires are watching us. I would very much like to avoid drawing her to their attention."

Annie pressed a hand to her mouth. "Yes, that makes sense," she admitted.

Loki descended the stairs, opened the front door, and very nearly tossed the spider directly into the face of the small young woman who stood on the step in the act of reaching for the doorbell. He recoiled, clutching the spider defensively to his chest in cupped hands, and for an uncharacteristic moment stared at her in near-panic. The young woman's grim expression softened, and with stiff courtesy she said,

"My name is Dr. Jane Foster. May I come in?"

"Indeed. Of course. I beg your--" Loki decided not to finish that sentence, stepped out of the doorway to allow Jane Foster to enter, then ducked outside to place the spider in a bush to the left of the steps. As he straightened, he glanced up and down the quiet street. There was no sign of anyone, living or undead. That did not necessarily mean there was nobody out there, and Loki cursed himself for not thinking to place a protective charm on the house as well as the school.

When he stepped back into the house, Jane Foster was standing in the entryway, somehow looking much larger than was physically possible. Indeed, George had stopped halfway down the stairs and seemed disinclined to descend any further. Annie was not visible to mortals so Jane could not see the ghost backing away from her. It was an impressive display.

Loki was not exactly intimidated by the small mortal, but he had a guilty conscience where she was concerned, and it was apparent she had not come to tell him there were no hard feelings about his previous activities on this realm. Loki considered her attitude perfectly understandable, indeed as a result of his guilty conscience in this area he found himself strangely relieved to encounter someone who shared his own poor opinion of his conduct. He was, however, uncertain how to open the conversation.

Fortunately, Mitchell appeared at that moment, having apparently put away his t-shirts and checked his room for further spider activity. He eased past George and descended the stairs to the entryway.

"Hello," he said, in his friendliest talking-to-humans voice. "I'm Mitchell. What can we do for you?"

"I've come to speak to Loki," Jane replied, in a tone of frozen severity that did not sound natural to her. Now that Loki considered her more closely, he could see she was nearly vibrating with nervous energy and anger. It was obvious she had come for a confrontation, and he realized it had cost her dearly to gather the courage to do so.

"I am Loki," he told her, and gestured toward the front room. "Will you please sit?"

Jane turned to look at Loki, obviously startled. She had to have spoken to Thor, that was the only way she could have known where to find him. Therefore, Jane certainly knew about the housemates, that they were friendly and well-meaning. Loki suddenly realized she had taken him for one of the good housemates, and had been waiting for the evil one to appear. Did she expect him to have horns?

The thought reminded him of his old helmet. He quickly banished the memory. Loki had definitely felt more intimidating when he'd worn that helmet, and certainly it made him harder to ignore, but it had been terribly uncomfortable, being both heavy and very hot. In addition, he now suspected the way it seemed to trap the voices inside his head, isolating him from everyone around him, had contributed to the mess he'd eventually made of everything. Not that this was an excuse, since he was the one who'd chosen to wear the helmet in the first place.

So yes, Jane was quite right to expect him to wear horns. She seemed confused by the jeans and red Bristol City Football Club t-shirt Annie had scavenged the day Loki fell into the back garden.

When Jane didn't seem to know what to do next, Loki moved a little closer and gestured again toward the couch. Jane hastily backed away from him, then visibly gathered her nerve. Her posture stiffened and she walked toward the couch with a sort of rigid dignity. Loki had a sinking feeling this interview was going to go even worse than he had feared.

"Would you prefer to speak privately?" he asked, crossing the room to lean against the wall opposite. Suddenly conscious of his own much greater height, he slid down the wall to sit cross-legged on the floor. His awkward and rather vulnerable posture seemed to reassure Jane a little, but it also appeared to confuse her. She didn't soften again, though.

"No," she replied to his question. "I think your friends should know exactly who you are."

Loki blinked. He had made the suggestion thinking that Jane would find it intimidating to speak to him in the presence of his friends. It had not occurred to him that she might be interested in playing to a gallery.

Mitchell and George exchanged a look, and Mitchell said firmly,

"We're good, actually. In fact, we'll be in the kitchen if you need us, Loki." The vampire and the werewolf left the room, George trying to unobtrusively gesture to Annie to follow them. She made a stubborn face at him and remained seated at the opposite end of the couch from Jane, arms folded, glaring at the mortal. Loki reminded himself that Jane could not see her.

He also reminded himself that, although Thor appeared to have forgiven him, there was no reason why Jane should, and braced himself for whatever she felt the need to say.

Jane appeared to have trouble getting started. Apparently, as badly as she wanted to confront Loki, she was unused to doing anything of the sort, and perhaps did not know how to begin. Loki of the silver tongue had always found words came to him easily, except about anything really important. Those matters were buried deep in his heart, to sting and fester. Despite the fact that Jane, if she really got started, might begin by screaming and end by throwing things, he felt compelled to help her.

"Did Thor tell you how to find me?" he ventured. Jane may have been relieved to be able to turn a look of scorn upon him.

"He told me the city you live in, and that you work as a custodian at a school. It didn't exactly take a lot of detective work to find you."

"And you came specifically to speak to me?" Loki had the impression that wherever Jane Foster dwelt, it was at an inconvenient distance for mortal travel.

The look of scorn intensified. Loki suddenly felt like he was back in Asgard. "As it happens, I'm presenting a paper at one of the universities. I thought it was a good opportunity." Launched, Jane continued, "I really just wanted to see the kind of… of monster who would attack innocent people, and his own brother." There seemed no useful response Loki could make to that remark. "We hadn't done you any harm. Thor hadn't done you any harm. If it hadn't been for him, and for the Warriors, that thing you sent could have destroyed the whole town. It could have killed everyone."

"I know," Loki replied quietly. This was inadequate. Jane did not let it pass.

"That's all you have to say? 'I know'? Not even 'I'm sorry'?" she snapped.

Loki made a complicated gesture that was more wriggle than shrug. "Would it help you if I said I was?"

That stopped Jane. For a moment she looked at him as if trying to see what was actually there, rather than what she expected to see. The effort was too much: she was too angry.

"It might if I believed you, but I wouldn't," Jane said with finality.

"Then there is little point to my saying anything," Loki replied.

"It might help if she listened to you for five seconds," Annie remarked from the end of the couch. With an effort, Loki resisted looking at her, but the corners of his mouth quirked in gratitude at her defense. Jane, unfortunately, saw the expression. Understandably, since she could not see or hear Annie, she misinterpreted it.

"I should have known you'd find this funny. God of Mischief, hell. God of Spite and Malice is more like it." She was near tears as she stood. Loki scrambled to his feet, extending a hand in apology. Jane stepped back as though his fingers were serpents. "That's why you did it, isn't it? It was a joke to you--destroying the town, trying to kill people. You're like those kids who set fire to ant hills just to see them scurry. Nobody matters to you except yourself. I can't believe you and Thor are even related, let alone that he forgave you for what you did."

"Matters between my brother and myself are a little more complicated than you are aware," Loki found himself saying. Not helpful. Quickly, he added, "However, there is indeed no excuse for what I did, and though you do not believe me, I am very sorry for doing it. Unfortunately, I cannot change what I have done. I am also sorry for the fright and sorrow you experienced--I did not do that deliberately to you. I was not… I was not thinking clearly at the time. This is no excuse, merely a fact. And it is inaccurate to say I did any of those things because I enjoyed them. I did them because, at the time, I could not seem to stop myself."

"Thor stopped you," Jane replied.

Loki inclined his head. "He did indeed. And though I was not grateful to him at the time, I am glad of it now."

The two of them looked at each other for a moment. For the space of a second or two Loki thought perhaps Jane might relent enough to actually talk to him. Instead, she spat,

"More lies," and started for the door.

Annie sat up in sudden alarm. "Don't let her go out alone!"

That was when Loki remembered there might be vampires lurking outside.

"Jane, wait," he said, stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. Jane turned, trying to shake him off. Her expression of rage changed into surprise.

"Where did you come from?" she demanded of Annie.

"Me?" Annie faltered, looking at Loki in astonishment. "You can see me?"

"Of course I can see you. Were you in the kitchen?"

Loki looked at his hand on Jane's shoulder, and removed it. Jane started violently and looked around in confusion, though Annie had not moved. Loki took hold of Jane's arm and watched her expression as Annie reappeared to her.

Jane's reaction was enough to make Loki very sorry he could not be her friend. A normal mortal would have been frightened. Jane Foster, the scientist, was too interested for fear. She turned her head and looked at Loki as if, for a moment, he was merely registering as part of an experiment. She took hold of his hand, looked directly at Annie, and pushed the hand from her arm. A frown of concentration formed on her face and she took a firm hold of Loki's arm again.

"Hi?" Annie offered.

"Hi," Jane replied. "Who are you?"

"I'm Annie, the other housemate," Annie explained.

"You mean the others know you're here?" Jane asked. Loki and Annie looked at each other.

"Jane," Loki said carefully, "how much did Thor tell you about our household?"

"Just that you were living here with a group of people who sounded much too nice for the likes of you," Jane replied, anger flaring again. Annie's mouth compressed into the nearest approach to a thin line it could manage. Loki gave her a pleading look and called toward the kitchen,

"George? Mitchell? Could you please come join us?"
 
-OoOoO-
 
Much later, it occurred to Loki that Jane Foster was a fine object lesson in the elasticity of the mortal brain: she accepted the fact of other planes of existence, and the beings who dwelt on them. She accepted near-immortal demi-gods falling into the path of her vehicle and metal creatures breathing fire. She even accepted the idea of a young woman who was invisible to her unless she was in physical contact with a sorcerer (that being the best explanation any of them could come up with for the phenomenon.)

However, she seemed much less able to believe in the existence of vampires and werewolves on her own realm. It was as though her mind, having stretched credulity a considerable distance, was simply unable to go any farther without snapping.

"It's perfectly understandable," George said as he offered Jane a cup of tea. "I certainly didn't believe in werewolves until I became one."

"You could have knocked me over with a feather when I woke up dead," Annie added, with a nervous giggle.

"But you seem so--"

"--Normal?" Mitchell asked hopefully.

"I was going to say kind," Jane replied.

"Thank you," Mitchell said, with one of his nicest smiles. "There's a certain amount of... deciding how we want to be... involved."

"So you don't attack humans?" Jane asked.

"Not anymore," Mitchell said, without elaboration. Jane nodded, still showing no sign of fear. It hit Loki that Jane was not afraid of Mitchell because they were sitting here having a conversation. She did not believe a creature who sat and drank tea and chatted with her could possibly wish her ill. He remembered what Mitchell had told him about vampires befriending humans, to play with them before the kill. Mitchell himself was no threat to Jane, but with any other vampire that trustfulness would be a very dangerous trait. Loki had always known mortals were weak little creatures. At some point in the course of his current stay on Midgard, he seemed to have replaced the descriptor "weak" with "vulnerable," with the shift in attitude, from contemptuous to protective, it implied.

Jane, naturally, had her own ideas about what went on in Loki's head.

"Doesn't having him in the house make that more difficult for you?" she asked, tilting her head in Loki's direction. She maintained physical contact with him because that was the only way she could speak to Annie, but he could feel her revulsion. "Something that malevolent?"

Mitchell blew out an impatient breath, and George seemed about to speak. Annie, however, got there first.

"Jane. I understand that you're angry at him for what he did to Thor, but before you make any more judgments you really ought to ask Thor about what he did to Loki."

"Thor did nothing to Loki," Jane replied, anger crackling through her touch. "That, that thing just appeared out of nowhere and tried to kill him."

"So you think Loki woke up one morning and thought, 'What shall I do today? I think I'll have an egg for breakfast, read for an hour, and then murder my brother for the fun of it'?" Annie countered. Before Jane could speak, Annie went on, "Nobody is saying what he did was right. But not even Thor thinks he did it for no reason. And you are in our house, speaking that way about our friend. It's... rude."

In spite of himself, Loki had to bite his lip to suppress a huff of startled laughter. "Rude." What an utterly, hilariously, touchingly human concern.

Jane's reaction was just as human.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude to you. But--you've met Thor. You could see what he's like. How could you possibly believe what Loki did was justified?"

"I don't. Honestly. None of us do, least of all Loki. But we all make mistakes, and unfortunately when you have the kind of power Loki and Thor do, the mistakes they make are on a much larger scale than ours. Ask Thor about what happened on Jotunheim, when he was banished. Ask him about how he and his friends treated Loki from the time they were children. I think you'll find he's done things he's not proud of and wishes he could take back, too."

Jane hesitated, and Loki felt uncertainty in her. Annie smiled and pressed her advantage.

"It's okay that you're angry, really. It's natural. When Thor and Sif arrived, Sif charged in and I thought she was going to really hurt Loki. I was so angry at her. I mean, I knew I was no match for her, but I felt like, if she touched him again I was going to try to kill her. It's natural to feel protective about someone you're fond of. But you only know part of the story."

Jane seemed to be thinking that over. After a moment, though, she shook her head.

"He's a talented liar, and you're all kind, and so he's tricked you. I'm sorry, I know it hurts to hear this, but it's the truth. You should make him leave before he does something to hurt all of you."

The four housemates traded looks of frustration and disappointment.  Mitchell finally said,

"I don't think there's anything more to be said here. You had better go. Our relationships with the local vampires are... complicated... so George and I will take you back to your hotel. I'm sorry you aren't able to make peace with Loki. I hope someday you can."

Jane smiled at Mitchell. "You really are very kind." She said goodnight to George and Annie, pointedly ignored Loki, and followed Mitchell and George out the door.

Loki remained on the couch, staring at nothing. After a moment he buried his head in his hands and closed his eyes.

"Loki?" Annie said gently. Loki could not bring himself to reply. A moment later he felt her sit on the couch beside him and take his arm. Loki vaguely thought it was interesting, how when he arrived he had to concentrate so hard to sense Annie as a physical presence, and now she felt as solid to him as George or Mitchell. At the moment she was leaning against him with her chin resting on his shoulder. His left arm felt cold from shoulder to elbow and his leg was chilled where she pressed against it. Loki had never felt less like moving in his life.

"I'm sorry that went so badly," she said finally.

"I did not expect anything else," Loki pointed out.

"I know, but that didn't make it any easier for me to listen to, and it must have been much worse for you. The problem is, she only knows part of the story, and she loves Thor, so of course she's going to believe the best of him."

"There is little else to believe," Loki muttered.

"Really? That attack he led on Jotunheim--were any Frost Giants killed then?"

"Yes, but not only by Thor," Loki pointed out.

"Sure, but why were you there? I know, I know, it was partly your fault, but you didn't force him, and he talked everyone else into joining in. And I imagine he could do a lot of damage with that hammer."

For a moment, Loki remembered himself looking up and seeing the angry Jotun closing in around his brother, his own feeling of helpless horror, and then the lightning strike that had to have killed hundreds, that split open the very ground they stood on...

"Yes," Loki said. "He could do a lot of damage with the hammer."

"So, maybe he lies awake at night and regrets that. Because it definitely sounds like the Frost Giants were just minding their own business when he showed up and picked a fight."

Loki recalled the terror of being surrounded by Jotun, of trying to calm Thor down, to ease them out of the situation without all of them being killed, recalled being near tears from fear and the knowledge he was a party to creating this terrible mess. Up close, the Frost Giants were even worse than his worst childhood nightmares. 

He recalled Laufey agreeing to let them go, to avoid further suffering by his people.

"That is accurate," Loki admitted. "I do not think Jane Foster knows anything about Jotunheim, though. What I did to Thor is bad enough."

"I think you need to let that go," Annie said. "Because, really, you did Thor a lot of favours." Loki raised his head and looked at her in disbelief. "Think about it: because of you, he wasn't crowned when he wasn't ready, he went someplace he could learn to be a proper king, and he met Jane. He and all of Asgard should be grateful to you."

"They will surely create a holiday in my honour," Loki muttered. Annie squeezed his arm.

"I mean, yes, I know, you didn't mean to help Thor, but that's how it worked out. Why can't you just call yourself lucky and let it go at that?"

"Because I did not only do these things to Thor. Jane probably sees the Destroyer in her nightmares. I did not even think about who else would be hurt. Or rather, I didn't care. There is no reason for Jane to forgive me for that, and she probably should not."

Annie sighed. "I imagine there are people on Jotunheim who feel the same way about Thor. And yes, you too, but not just you. I wish you could stop comparing yourself to Thor. It wasn't good for you when you were jealous of him, and it still isn't now that you're telling yourself he's a good guy and you're not. Your actions are more alike than you'll admit. It's not fair that he's been forgiven and you're banished, not when you've both learned your lesson and you're both trying to be better."

"Jane would say you only believe that because you are my friend," Loki pointed out.

Annie shrugged. "What are friends for?"

Loki laughed a little at that. Then, awkwardly, he said, "You spoke earlier about... about how you reacted when Sif attacked me. I do not believe I ever thanked you for defending me. You were very brave."

"I wasn't so much brave as furious," Annie admitted. "Like I told Jane, I do understand why she's so angry. If the situations were reversed I don't think I'd ever forgive Thor, either."

Loki had the sudden feeling the conversation had taken a sharp turn into completely uncharted, at least by him, territory. He found himself staring at Annie, unable to think of a single thing to say.

Annie didn't speak, either. She just leaned forward and kissed him. The sensation was a little like snowflakes melting on his lips.

Loki was so surprised that for a moment he didn't know how to respond. When he did, he was tentative at first. Part of him expected Annie to pull back and tell him she didn't mean it, had perhaps mistaken him for someone else entirely.

The other part of him wrapped his left arm around her and brought his right hand up to cradle her cheek. Annie's hands rested on his shoulders for a moment and then her arms slipped around his neck.

From somewhere Loki could hear a mechanical chirping sound, which he vaguely thought was an entirely inappropriate soundtrack to a moment like this.

And then he realized it was his mobile phone, the phone he had acquired in case Carol or one of the housemates needed to get in touch with him. The particular chirping sound he heard at the moment meant he was receiving a call from Mitchell's mobile.

Annie pulled back and Loki uttered a quiet, heartfelt, "Damn." Then he reached over to the end table where the device lay. Given the fact Mitchell and George had expected to go directly to the hotel and back, there was no reason for Mitchell to call Loki simply to chat. Something must be wrong. Annie's expression as she recognized the chirps told him she was having the same thought.

"Hello?" Loki said into the device.

"Loki?" The tearful voice on the other end made him sit up straight in alarm.

"Yes. Jane? Is that you? What is wrong?"

Jane made a noise like she was about to speak, then she squeaked in fright and another voice came on the line.

"Hello, Loki," said Herrick's voice. "The other day you suggested we postpone our conversation to another time and place. The place is the funeral parlour, I'm sure Mitchell has told you about it, and the time is now. Don't be late."

"Wait," Loki began desperately. "Mitchell and George. Are they-?"

A droning mechanical noise told him no one was there to hear him.

Loki pressed the button that ended the call and met Annie's frightened eyes. He tried to think of something reassuring to say, and once again came up with absolutely nothing.

Chapter Text

The funeral parlour was an old building in the industrial part of the city. Annie looked it up in a telephone directory and was able to determine how to travel there. There was no question of her allowing Loki to go alone, and he did not argue. Mitchell and George had been her friends long before any of them met Loki. Of course she had to help them.

As they rode the city bus toward their destination, Loki considered their options. They were limited. He had once told Mitchell that he preferred to fight using magic, but in fact to use it as more than a hand-to-hand defensive weapon, one needed both a large amount of ambient magic, such as was found on Asgard or Jotunheim, as well as a means of channeling it, like Mjolnir or Odin's staff, Gungnir. Loki had never, except for that brief time it was better not to think about right now, been entrusted with such a weapon, which was part of the reason he resorted to throwing knives. In this case, wooden darts that would, he hoped, function as stakes.

The ability to throw the darts was an important one. He and Annie would certainly be outnumbered and it seemed wise not to come to grips with a vampire if he could avoid it. He had spent so long in his Aesir form that he could only shift into a Jotun one temporarily, either by contact with the creatures or by a draining effort of magic. However, Aesir or Jotun, either was subject to injury if attacked, especially by a supernatural creature. Time spent on this realm had convinced him he was indeed vulnerable to vampires. It would take him longer to bleed to death than a human, but his throat would tear the same as anyone else's.

Loki had no idea what he would do if and when--no, just when--they recovered George, Jane, and Mitchell. He briefly considered trying to transport all of them somewhere else by magic, then discarded the idea. He might have the strength to travel by himself--assuming he was not considered a fugitive on all nine realms, which was indeed a possibility. But he had never attempted to take another with him on his travels across the worlds--who would have gone with him?--and he was positive a group of five would be beyond him on his best day in Asgard, let alone Midgard, where there was almost no local magic to aid him. Trying to carry them somewhere else upon Midgard was even riskier, given the fact he only knew this little corner of the realm well. He was apt to drop them all on the top of a mountain, or into the middle of one of Midgard's many oceans. They were simply going to have to get to safety via Midgardian methods, assuming they could find a place where safety lay.

There was no point dwelling on what to do after the rescue when the rescue itself was a matter of considerable doubt. They would simply have to improvise. Annie indicated to Loki that it was time to ring for the bus to stop, and together they walked the last two blocks toward the funeral parlour.

Stealth was of no value when the vampires were expecting him and, though he did not see anyone hanging around in the street, he assumed the building's entrance was being watched. Even if he and Annie could slip into the building undetected, it was difficult to use magic to pinpoint the location of any vampire inside: the living, warm and vital, were easy, but vampires just gave off a small whiff of magic that could only be detected with a concentration Loki could not spare. He therefore opted for bravado.

As he approached the front entrance of the funeral parlour, Loki could feel himself walking differently. He hadn't been aware of it but, even under the near-constant threat of vampire attack, Loki was considerably less tense and defensive here on Midgard than he had ever been in his former life. It affected the way he carried himself. After all, he had no need to intimidate the staff at the school, nor desire to alarm the children, and in the absence of vampires few creatures here wished him harm. His normal posture would still never be described as meek, but now his head came up and his shoulders stiffened until he felt like the imperious, watchful Loki of old.

This would not normally be cause for celebration, frankly, but under the circumstances it was necessary to get into character. Crossing the street toward the funeral parlour's doors, Loki experienced an unexpected moment of regret for his cape and armor. The rather battered black leather jacket he was wearing just did not create the same effect, nor did the backpack slung over one shoulder.

On the other hand, his Midgardian clothes were easy to move in and did not draw undue attention, and he had to carry his stakes somewhere, so the trade-off was acceptable.

Just before he opened the door, Loki glanced apologetically at Annie.

"I once told Mitchell that mercy is not among my virtues."

"Good," Annie replied grimly. "I'm feeling pretty merciless myself."

Loki opened the door and Annie followed him inside.

There were four, no, five vampires hanging around the entryway. Without turning his head, Loki made note of their positions as he strode toward the door marked "Staff." A vampire came to intercept him. Loki recognized his old adversary, the one who had attempted to kill him in his human disguise, and whose effort to gain entrance to the school had been thwarted by the rhinoceros charm.

Loki smiled with his teeth but not his eyes. "I have come to speak with Herrick."

"Not here yet," the vampire replied. Of course not: the arrogant undead bastard wanted Loki to hang around like a supplicant, waiting for him. Presumably the unseen watchers of the entrance had dispatched someone to let the vampire captain know his… guests… had arrived.

"Indeed? How unfortunate. No matter, Annie and I will simply collect our friends and return home. Please tell Herrick I regretted missing him." Loki took a half-step forward.

The vampire blocked him. "Go to hell."

Loki's smiled widened. "You first," he replied, extended his right arm downward so the stake concealed in his sleeve dropped into his hand, and stabbed the vampire through the heart. As he crumbled into dust, the creature's face mirrored the looks of astonishment on those of the survivors.

Loki's own expression became a parody of pained surprise. "Oh," he said. "You were expecting a warning." He bent to retrieve the stake from the vampire's clothing and, as he straightened, still without turning to look, threw it sidearm through the chest of one of the others, who had been standing against the wall with an irritatingly stupid look on his face.

Before the vampires recovered from the surprise, two more were dust and Loki had the fifth, who resembled a spotty teenage boy, pinned against the wall. "There was your warning," he announced, in a tone of calm reason underlaid with madness. "You will now lead me to Mitchell and the others. Do exactly as I say and there is a chance I may yet spare you."

Loki had figured the element of surprise was on his side, and this at least had played out as he hoped. The vampires knew he was a magical creature, but they did not know about his extensive experience in battle. Mitchell's occasional comments about his own murderous past made it very clear vampires were accustomed to dealing with prey, mewling defenseless creatures paralyzed by disbelief and terror. Loki had many faults, but his worst enemy would not have described him as prey. Loki recalled Thor's offhand comment about "picking on someone one's own size." There was satisfaction in reflecting the vampires had just done so, and come off the worst in the encounter.

His captive showed no inclination to test Loki's forbearance, which was fairly intelligent of him.

"They're being held in the refrigeration room until Herrick gets here," the vampire told him.

"Wanted to make an entrance, did he?" Loki commented. "When are you expecting him?"

"Any minute now."

"Are there other vampires on the premises?"

"No, just the five of us," replied the vampire. He was trembling and, in spite of his warning to Annie, Loki experienced a twinge of pity.

"Take me to Mitchell and the others--what is your name?"

"Geoff," muttered the vampire. This was not the most fearsome appellation Loki had ever heard, but at least it was not "Nigel."

"Geoff," Loki acknowledged. "Don't make me kill you, Geoff. I really would prefer not to."

Not looking terribly reassured, Geoff led the way through the staff door and into the maze of corridors and rooms beyond. Annie carried the backpack and held a stake at the ready. Loki kept a firm grip on Geoff's collar, the point of a stake pressed to the vampire's neck. Geoff seemed entirely disinclined to heroics.

There was no lock on the door of the refrigeration room, simply a heavy latch on the outside. Annie unfastened the latch and, under Loki's direction, shielded herself with the door as she pulled it open. Loki shielded himself with Geoff, but nothing inside the room attempted to attack them.

"Mitchell? George?" Loki called.

"Is that you, Loki?" Jane called back. She sounded as though she had been crying for a considerable time. Loki's flicker of compassion for Geoff evaporated.

"Yes. Are George and Mitchell with you?" he asked.

"Yes, but they're--"

Loki swung Geoff sideways so he and Annie could both peer into the room, which was slightly larger than his box room at home and appeared to be for the purpose of keeping unembalmed corpses fresh until they could be dealt with. It made a fine dungeon, especially if you were not concerned about whether the prisoners eventually ran out of oxygen.

Jane was sitting on the floor, supporting George's head in her lap. Mitchell was propped against the wall. Mitchell looked stunned and had apparently been handled quite roughly, but George had clearly received a savage beating and was barely conscious.

Loki bent his glance on Geoff. "Who did this?" he demanded. The vampire whimpered. Loki shook him. "Were you a party to it?"

"I'm sorry," the vampire blubbered. Loki was quite sure he was, or at least sorry he had fallen into the hands of someone who cared.

"Can either of them walk?" he called to Jane.

"George, sweetie?" he heard Jane say, her tone kind and encouraging. Loki decided Jane was welcome to hate him for as long as she lived, if that made her feel better. "Come on, George, we're going home."

Annie put her stake back in the backpack and entered the chamber as George staggered to his feet, leaning heavily on Jane. She went to Mitchell, who cast a dazed look upon her but silently complied as she urged him to stand. The four stumbled through the door. The closer George got the worse he looked: it was evident he would need to be supported by someone stronger than little Jane, which meant Loki was going to need his hands free. Geoff cringed at the sight of the battered, bleeding werewolf, turned his head to look pleadingly at Loki.

Loki raised his right hand, knuckles white around the stake he held.

Then he propelled Geoff violently into the refrigeration chamber, slammed the door, and locked him in. If the vampire had any sense, he would remain there quietly until Herrick forgot his role in this situation. At least there was no issue with him running out of air.

Herrick being expected at any time, it seemed likely he would enter the building through the main doors. Once again, Loki assumed the front, at the very least, was being watched. A back exit might also be guarded, but perhaps less heavily if the vampires assumed Loki did not know how to find it. Turning to Annie, he asked,

"Would there be another way outside?"

"Businesses usually have a fire exit. It's probably further along one of these corridors."

Loki nodded and held out his hand for the backpack, which he passed on to Jane. Annie led Mitchell, who still behaved as though he was either drugged or enchanted. Loki gestured for Jane to follow them, got George's right arm around his own shoulders, wrapped his left arm around the werewolf, and brought up the rear, still holding a stake in his free hand.

They quickly found the fire escape, which consisted of a heavy steel door, chained and padlocked shut. This seemed unwise in the event of an actual fire, but that was none of Loki's business. He started to hand his stake to Annie, noticed that Mitchell, though still dull-eyed, shied from it, and gave it to Jane to hold instead. He then gripped the padlock and sent a jolt of magic through it. The lock popped open. Loki unwrapped the chain from the brackets and pushed on the handle.

It would have been helpful if there had been some indication the door was connected to an alarm. The mechanical bell ringing above their heads was surely loud enough to wake Asgard, let alone alert any guards to their attempted escape. Loki heard himself snarl in frustration as he followed Annie and the others into the alley. To their left, the alley dead-ended.

To their right, three figures blocked their path.

Loki sensed magic but not life in the creatures, raised his right hand, and cast a fireball that sent them sprawling out of the way. He had no idea whether that would kill them. The only thing he was sure of was the efficacy of staking, but he didn't have time for that. So he and his group ran past, leaving the stunned or dead vampires to whatever fate decreed, turning away from the funeral home as they reached the street.

Shouting far too close behind them heralded the arrival of vampire reinforcements. Still supporting George, Loki turned as the others ran on. He gestured with his right hand and, between himself and the vampires, there unfurled a spider the size of a city bus. The vampires stopped in confusion and fear as the creature glared with her eight vast eyes and clashed her mandibles at them.

"Salutations," Loki murmured under his breath as he turned to follow the others. Hoping it would take a moment for their pursuers to discover Charlotte was an illusion with no physical mass, Loki dashed down the street, nearly carrying George by now. They ducked into another alley, one that opened into a street on the other side of the block. Loki did not yet hear sounds of pursuit, but the group did not slow until Mitchell stumbled and fell. Jane tripped over him and Loki, who could not reach her in time, had to use magic again to prevent her falling on Mitchell with the stake in her hand. Jane lurched back to her feet as though he had yanked her, and Loki extended his free hand in apology, steadying her elbow. This time, instead of recoiling, she gripped his hand.

"Now what do we do?" she whispered breathlessly, looking at Annie to include her in the conversation.

"I don't know," Loki confessed. "I'm afraid to go home--vampires cannot go where they have not been invited, so most of them would be unable to enter, but they could set fire to the house and kill any neighbours who came outdoors. Where is your hotel?"

"On the other side of the city," Jane replied. "It took me half an hour by taxi."

Too far. There was little point in looking for the car, even if Jane could drive it, since that would surely necessitate going back toward the funeral parlour. There was no telling how many vampires were out looking for them, but the answer was definitely some variation on "a lot." Loki also felt the beginnings of dizziness that reminded him casting magic was not effortless in this realm.

"We will go to the school," Loki decided. It would be empty by this hour, so there was little chance of some innocent person being harmed. And, though the rhinoceros charm was really intended as a deterrent to a small number of vampires at times when the children were present, it would probably hold long enough to give them a chance to come up with a plan.

It would have to. Taking stock of the situation, Loki decided he was going to have to carry George. Mitchell was capable of ambulation, though not much speed. Loki had no idea what was wrong with Mitchell, and found himself apprehensive about what sort of condition his friend would be in when he recovered full consciousness. If this was a spell or a drug, it might well have some effect on Mitchell's personality or self-control--not a minor concern when dealing with a vampire. He made a mental note to try and keep himself between Mitchell and Jane, just in case.

That was impossible for the moment, since there was no way Loki was sending Annie or Jane out of the alley first.

What happened next was, therefore, entirely Loki's own fault.

He hoisted George over his left shoulder, the werewolf's body a worrisome deadweight, and led the way out of the alley into the street beyond. He should have taken an extra few seconds to try and sense the presence of that whiff of magic that gave away vampires, but he was anxious and hurried and frankly reeking of magic himself, and he didn't think of it.

He stepped cautiously into the street and the vampire hit him from the left, causing him to lose his grip on George. For a crucial fraction of a second Loki instinctively tried to break George's fall instead of defending himself, and the vampire was upon him. He stumbled backward under the weight of the creature--fully as tall as he was and half again as broad--the vampire bending Loki's head back until his neck nearly broke, tearing at the exposed flesh of his throat.

There was screaming somewhere nearby. Loki knew it wasn't him, because one needed to breathe to be able to scream. Jane. It was Jane. He clawed at the vampire, trying to get out from under the creature. If Jane was also being attacked--

Abruptly, the vampire stiffened, clenching his fangs on Loki's throat, the flesh giving way still further--then rapidly crumbled to dust. As it did so, Loki was able to see Annie, white-faced, still clutching the stake with which she had killed the creature. Had Loki been able to speak, he would have thanked her. Instead, he steadied himself on the wall with one hand and pressed the other to his ragged, wetly-pulsing throat.

Annie stared at him, eyes huge. "Can you… can you heal that?"

"It is… not serious," Loki replied, as casually as he could manage considering the blood in his mouth and the whistling noise he made when he tried to speak. The healing spell he'd used on George required both time, which he did not have, and concentration, which was difficult when one's blood pressure was falling and there were so many other things to worry about. Loki breathed deeply and carefully through his nose and ordered his pounding heart to slow down, which would at least slow the blood loss. The sense of wetness gushing against his fingers lessened. It would do for the moment.

And a moment was all they had, since someone had to have heard Jane screaming and the rest of the vampires would come to look for their scout. Loki hoisted George back over his shoulder and the little group made their way, as quickly as caution and injuries permitted, toward the school.

There was a shining rhinoceros standing in the yard, head up, facing the main gate with her calf peering from behind her. Loki felt like swearing, something he rarely did--not because it was vulgar, but because it implied the person swearing could not think of anything more useful to do than vent his frustration. He reached out and stopped Jane before she could move forward. As he touched her, her gasp indicated she saw the rhinoceros. As they watched, a second mother -child pair of the creatures appeared and joined the first.

George chose that moment to apparently recover consciousness: he uttered a pitiful little groan and squirmed on Loki's shoulder, nearly causing Loki to lose his balance again. Annie stepped forward, placed a hand on George's cheek, and he quieted down. The group crept around the fence to the back of the school, where Loki and Jane wrestled with a weak spot in the fence and finally made an opening they could fit through. Jane crawled under first and helped Loki as they half-dragged, half-pushed George after her. Annie followed with Mitchell, who took some time to persuade.

Loki was about to follow when the third rhinoceros appeared between him and his friends.

For a confused moment he thought his own spell had turned against him, then he glanced back and spotted the vampires approaching from behind. Heart thumping hard enough to start blood spurting again, he slithered awkwardly under the fence. The animal turned her head to watch Loki pass by, then calmly returned her attention to the creature outside the fence.

Loki joined the others in the middle of the schoolyard. He supposed there had been little point in their running for the school when he was the one who possessed the key to the door, but he still felt gratitude that they had waited for him. George was sitting up, looking around as well as he could through one swollen eye and without his glasses. Mitchell, still dazed, had recovered enough to have a consoling hand on the werewolf's shoulder. This was the first encouraging thing that had happened since the alarm had sounded on the fire escape.

"Come," Loki ordered, taking Jane's hand and leading the way to the school doors. In his peripheral vision he could see more rhinoceroses appear, indicating the school was surrounded by ill-disposed vampires. This was cause for worry in more ways than one: Loki, as the source of magical power for the spell, could feel his reserves draining as his own strength ebbed. Mitchell had expressed concern about this when Loki set the spell in the first place, but under normal circumstances it would not have become a problem: the charm was created under the assumption the vampires would continue to behave in a clandestine manner, and that only the occasional stray would need to be dissuaded from attempting to harm the children or staff. The protective charm had never been intended to stop a full-scale assault by the entire vampire population of the United Kingdom, but it was at least buying them a little time.

Unfortunately, even when they were inside the school with the door locked behind them, Loki was unable to think of a single thing to do next. It was apparent that Annie and Jane were likewise out of ideas. Loki looked around at the group, met Jane's eyes, and said simply,

"I am... truly sorry." Given Mitchell's relationship with the local vampires and the animosity between him and Herrick, Loki supposed matters would have come to a head eventually even without his own participation. But it was his fault Jane was involved, and he regretted that intensely.

Jane laid a hand on his shoulder, disregarding the gory mess that was his jacket, squeezed in an almost friendly way.

"I know. I'm sorry, too." Taking her hand away, she looked incuriously at Annie. "I can see you, Annie. Do you suppose that's because of all the magic floating around?"

"Must be," Annie agreed, glancing at Loki. He smiled his thanks that she did not point out the obvious explanation: Jane could see Annie, and the magical animals, when she was in contact with Loki. Apparently his blood on her hand and wrist counted as contact. Although he supposed he might also be leaking magic, along with his vital fluids. Having never suffered a mortal injury before, Loki wasn't sure how it worked.

A wave of dizziness overcame him and he sat down abruptly next to George. Annie looked out the heavy glass door and went quietly pale. Loki did not need to ask what that meant. Jane followed Annie's glance and said,

"The rhinos are disappearing. Does that... does that mean the vampires are leaving?"

"No," Loki replied quietly. "It means I no longer have the strength to sustain the charm."

"No," Jane said, just as quietly. "That can't be--" Loki did not argue with her: taking refuge in denial might cushion her mind until nearly the end.

Annie looked compassionately at Jane, then sat down next to Loki and took his arm. "This wasn't your fight, Loki. I wish you had landed somewhere... safer."

Loki turned his head, pressed his lips to her hair. "I do not." He had been doomed on the shattered Bifrost, when he let go of Odin's staff. That he had been granted this... interlude... of friendship and acceptance was far more than he deserved. He simply wished it could have ended differently. At least Annie could not be killed by these creatures, though he knew the deaths of her friends would leave her alone and desolate.

It crossed Loki's mind to wonder, since he would die on Midgard, whose afterlife he would find himself in, or whether some Jotun belief he had never heard of awaited him. The thought inspired surprisingly little anxiety.

Perhaps, he thought fancifully, it would be decided that he left unfinished business upon this realm. Perhaps his spirit would stay here... with Annie... He nearly laughed at the idea, but his thoughts were interrupted.

"Loki," called a voice, reasonable and assured. For a confused fraction of a second, Loki thought it was his father. Then his senses returned and Loki recognized Herrick. "Loki, there's no need of this. It doesn't have to end this way. I can help you. Join us."

"What--?" Jane said aloud. Loki exchanged a glance with Annie, then used too much of his remaining strength to push himself to his feet and go to the door. He opened it just enough to call,

"And why would you make such an offer?" Loki was genuinely curious. Herrick was standing at the edge of the yard, too far away for Loki to even attempt throwing a stake. With perfect self-assurance and an unctuous smile, the vampire captain replied,

"Think of the things we could do together. We could rule this miserable little world."

"Loki, no," Jane whispered behind him. Loki hardly heard her. He was too busy trying to think.

Herrick's offer made sense, at least from Herrick's perspective: power like Loki's (assuming he could be turned into a vampire in the first place, and assuming his magic survived his death--neither of which was a certainty) would be greatly useful to vampires bent on domination of the realm. It was therefore likely the offer was being made in earnest.

The question was, why in the name of all Nine Realms did Herrick think there was any chance at all of Loki taking him up on it? Did Herrick think Loki had lost his sanity along with most of his blood?

Clutching the door handle, vaguely regretting the bloody marks he was leaving to dismay Carol in the morning, Loki had a sudden realization: Herrick's fear of death was irrationally deep, and he assumed Loki shared it. Such fear was the only explanation for any creature voluntarily agreeing to the sort of half-life the vampire condition offered: a constant prey to hunger and the basest urges, gradually losing the ability to feel any of the emotions and instincts that made life enjoyable, or eventually even bearable. Mitchell was unusual among vampires not merely because he chose not to harm humans, but because he retained the capacity for affection, for friendship. Every other vampire Loki had encountered thus far was an empty shell, desperately trying to fill itself with hunger and the lust for power, making up the difference with an undirected rage. They reminded him of himself in his final days on Asgard, although even at that, if someone--no, not someone, if his father--had embraced him and made him believe he was loved and accepted, Loki knew that up to the very end he would have willingly surrendered. There was nothing to save most of these vampires.

And they agreed to that fate, had to have, because there was a reciprocal process involved in creating a vampire. Granted, many of them would have been in extremis at the time and hardly able to make a rational choice, but Herrick clearly thought Loki was capable of choosing. And Herrick thought Loki would prefer vampirism over death, because Herrick thought Loki was just as fearful of death as he, and the other vampires, were.

Reviewing his own current emotional state, Loki found: grief at being unable to rescue his friends, guilt for involving Jane, anger at losing to these despicable creatures. He did not find fear. It was true the Aesir, and the Jotun as well, aged incredibly slowly compared to the humans of Midgard, to the point they referred to the little beings as "mortals" as though they themselves were not. And neither Aesir nor Jotun were prey to illness. However, they could be killed. And, eventually, they grew old and died. Under other circumstances Loki might have had centuries left to him, but one day, no matter what, he would die. He had no more desire to die today than any other living being, but the fact he was apparently going to do so in the comforting presence of someone who loved him was more than he had, for many years, been able to hope. And whatever awaited him afterward, good or bad, he had earned. That being the case, there was little cause for fear. Death was infinitely preferable to being a vampire.

Being chained to a rock, while acidic venom dripped into his face for all eternity, was infinitely preferable to being the pawn of Herrick.

The response that rose to Loki's bloody lips was a vulgar one he had picked up during his time on Midgard--but a sudden second thought restrained him:

Creating a vampire was a reciprocal process, one that involved each participant feeding from the other.

Herrick would want to ensure he controlled his new protégé.

Therefore, Herrick would surely insist on "converting" Loki personally.

And close enough to feed was close enough to fight.

Loki glanced at Annie and saw realization dawn on her face: if Loki came to grips with Herrick and was able to take him by surprise, Herrick and his leadership could be removed from the equation. This would make no difference to Loki's own fate or that of his friends, but it might, perhaps, throw the Bristol vampires into enough confusion to disrupt their plans. Indeed, if Herrick was as much the despotic leader as Loki suspected, it might even create a power vacuum no one was prepared to step into. It might give the humans, when things broke open, a chance.

Loki pushed the door open again and called, "Are you prepared to spare my friends?" Herrick's response could, of course, not be trusted: Loki knew a liar when he saw one. One could not, as the older humans put it, kid a kidder.

However, the vampire captain seemed to think Loki was stupid as well as dying, because he smiled that same loathsome smile and replied, "Of course. Naturally. Between us we can bring Mitchell back to the fold, and of course the others will be yours."

"The human woman as well," Loki insisted. Most of his body was concealed from Herrick and he gestured to Annie, who swiftly removed a stake from the backpack and slipped it up the sleeve of his leather jacket. Loki caught her hand and pressed it gratefully, without taking his eyes from Herrick. Herrick hesitated, whether in earnest or to make Loki think he was genuinely considering the idea. Loki knew he was running out of both blood and time, but he needed to make this convincing. "She is mine. Her life is very dear to my brother, and I... owe my brother a turn."

This was not even a lie, although naturally a creature like Herrick would not realize Loki's words were absolutely true at face value. Jane whispered, "You bastard," and Loki realized she had apparently closed her eyes in disbelief or something and missed his interchange with Annie. She made a belated effort to flee and Loki grabbed her wrist. He was still strong enough to hold her. There was no time to explain himself and he regretted the return of her hatred and distrust. Oh well, they were all going to die in a few minutes anyway. If they arrived in the same afterlife, he would make his apologies and explanations there.

"Of course," Herrick oozed. It was possible he really meant it, Loki thought, since he obviously believed in Loki's desire for revenge on someone he was supposed to love. That was probably the only emotion Herrick could understand anymore. "Now, come out, all of you. If anyone hangs back," he added, in the matter-of-fact way that was so threatening, "the children will find your heads on the gateposts when they arrive tomorrow morning."

"Fine, fine, do not do anything rash," Loki replied, gestured to Annie to lead Mitchell and George, and dragged the struggling Jane with him as he walked through the door. For many years the only qualities that had sustained Loki in the face of loneliness and perceived rejection were his pride and his will. These two qualities now kept him upright as he crossed the schoolyard. As he had hoped, Herrick came to meet him. The other vampires formed a loose ring around them. By now Jane was crying, as much in rage as terror. Loki released her, there being little difference she could make now by trying to run.

Herrick stopped a few paces from Loki and smiled. "Perhaps you would be so good as to remove that jacket. Wouldn't want to find you have anything up your sleeve."

Damn. Loki smiled back as he started to shrug the coat from his shoulders, and Annie was there, taking the jacket like the second in a duel. Herrick clearly thought her of no consequence and paid no attention as she carefully folded the garment over her arm and stepped back. Annie could, in fact, move with incredible speed when she needed to. With some relief, Loki trusted to her and turned his own attention to acting as the decoy.

"Best if we act quickly, old son," Herrick remarked, in a gruesome parody of sympathy. "You don't look like you have a lot of blood left."

Loki stood his ground as Herrick moved toward him, angling toward the uninjured right side of Loki's throat. Every fibre in his body revolted from what was about to happen: Loki was not afraid to die, but his throat already hurt terribly and, on a purely animal level, he did fear the further pain that was coming. Pride and will held him in place as Herrick's stride changed to the horrible smoothness of a predator's final attack. There being nothing he could do except wait for Annie to make her move, at the last second Loki bit his lip and closed his eyes.

The pain that struck him was completely unexpected: a horrific blow to his back that ended in lacerating agony through his left lung. He tried to scream and blood filled his mouth. Loki's hands flew to his chest and found a sharp point distorting the front of his shirt. It felt like a broken rib. It was not. As Herrick's fangs met in his throat, Loki turned his head to see Jane stepping back from him with an expression of mingled horror and triumph as she let go of the stake he had not realized she still held.

Of all the stupid ways to die...

Herrick actually let go of Loki's torn throat and was laughing, enjoying the joke, when Annie materialized at his side and staked him through the heart. His final expression of disbelief and thwarted rage was nearly enough to make up for everything.

The ring of vampires wavered for a moment but held. Annie clutched the stake that had killed Herrick, and Loki tried to angle his body to keep Jane, and the still-helpless George and Mitchell, protectively between himself and Annie. He forced himself to twist his right arm so he could grasp the stake protruding from his back. The pain as he pulled it out was beyond anything he had ever imagined. Fully aware it was the last sensation he would ever feel, Loki coughed shallowly and tried to keep his balance as he faced the vampires, the bloody stake clutched in his hand. As if on a signal, the vampires began to close the ring.

Above the group, clouds suddenly boiled into the previously-clear sky. Loki took his eyes from the vampires for a split second to look up. He had leisure to do so: the vampires were doing the same.

The sky suddenly filled with light. Loki experienced a sensation of weightlessness.

And then there was nothing.

And so Being Human canon departs the station without us. I tried to stick to it, truly I did.

Chapter Text

The sensation of weightlessness ended abruptly as Loki crumpled to the stone floor of a large, dimly-lit chamber. He had a nagging feeling he should know where he was, but it was hard to grasp a thought for more than a few seconds. His neck and chest hurt dreadfully, and he felt cold and so tired. Loki closed his eyes. Around him, there seemed to be a great deal of confusion: voices raised, feet hurrying, a sensation of being lifted, carried. He opened his eyes briefly and looked up into Thor's, which bewildered him--Why was Thor here?--but he lost the thought almost immediately. He had just closed his eyes again when he remembered--someone was in danger, he was supposed to be doing something --and jerked back to momentary full consciousness.

"Annie?" His own voice sounded small and very far away.

"She is safe," Thor's voice promised. Thor never lied.

Reassured, Loki let go.

~ oOoOoOo ~

Loki opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. Instead of the low, slanted ceiling of the box room and his picture of the four young men walking across a street, he saw high stone walls and a great arched window that looked out on a pale sky. He should probably know where he was, but once again, nothing immediately came to mind.

He didn't realize anyone else was there until someone took his hand. The hand in his was too warm to be Annie, and too small to be Mitchell or George. Logically, then, it must be Jane, which meant Jane was no longer angry at him. Annie must have explained everything. He felt a warm rush of gratitude toward her. He tried to turn toward Jane, to apologize for frightening her and ensure she was well. It hurt to move. Someone cradled his head and helped him.

Instead of Jane's brown eyes, he found himself looking into a pair of blue ones he'd thought he would never see again.

"Mother," he whispered, without thinking, then winced at the word he'd thrown away the right to use, and also at the tears it called up in her eyes. It hurt to speak, and besides, for once he had no idea what to say.

Frigga blinked rapidly and then said, in a tremulous voice, "You gave us quite a fright, son." Her use of that word made Loki's eyes fill in turn. "The healers tell me you had less blood inside you than out. A few more minutes' delay might have..." She took his other hand and Loki did not resist the urge to cling to hers. He suddenly remembered something and spoke urgently.

"I put you in danger. When I, when I brought Laufey here. I did not--I did not mean to--" There were so many things he had done that he had not meant to, not really, but this was the worst. It had not even occurred to him that if he sent Frost Giants into his father's chamber, they would also encounter his mother. She could have been killed. Frigga had defended herself capably, it was true, but that in no way absolved him.

"It's all right," she said kindly, but she was trying to free her hands from his. Loki realized this and let her go, hot with shame. However, instead of pulling away, Frigga let him hold one of her hands as she laid the other on his forehead, as though checking for fever. As though examining the state of his mind. Loki was reminded of yet another book from the school library, one containing a passage describing how every "good" mother tidies her children's minds as they sleep, so their pleasantest thoughts are set out ready for them when they wake. Loki had found himself wondering whether allowances would be made for a mother whose child's every thought was bitter and resentful.

"It is not all right," Loki argued, tears welling shamefully, too weak and sore to stop them or the words that spilled after. "I would not, not for anything, wish harm on you." That much was true: no matter how irrational he had been, and by the end that was irrational indeed, his mother was one person he had never hated, not even for a moment.

"I know," she soothed, stroking his hair as though reassuring both of them he was still there. "I know." Leaning forward, she kissed his brow as if he was a child again, and said softly, "Rest now. We will talk again later." And, as he involuntarily tightened his grip on her hand, "I will be here, my son. Rest."

~ oOoOoOo ~

When he woke again, the sky outside the great window was dark. Most of the pain and weariness were gone, and Loki was able to think clearly enough to recognize his surroundings as the healing rooms of Asgard. For a moment this did not strike him as unusual, but then he remembered: he had been banished. He was not supposed to be here. There was going to be trouble over this.

He tried to sit up and that brought some of the pain back, although not anything like the blinding agony he dimly remembered. As he moved he was aware of a stir in the air beside him, and Annie appeared in the chair by the bed.

"You're awake!" she exclaimed, looking overjoyed about it. Without waiting for him to reply, not that there was any intelligent response he could make to such a remark, she helped him shift position and arranged the pillows behind him.

Loki was delighted to see her, truly he was. He was particularly relieved to see her in such apparent good spirits, since that indicated both George and Mitchell were also in good health.

But he could not quite stop himself from glancing around the room in search of someone who was not there. Perhaps--perhaps he had dreamed--

Annie caught his eye and smiled in understanding. "Your mum was here for hours. The healer--"

"Eir," Loki supplied the name, trying not to laugh at the queen of Asgard being referred to as anyone's "mum."

"Yes, Eir, convinced her to go have something to eat, but she promised to send word if you woke up in the meantime. Someone's probably on their way to get her right now," Annie added, looking around the room at Eir's assistants.

"Oh," Loki murmured, overcome at the idea his mother still cared so much. To cover up, he cleared his throat and said quickly, "George and Mitchell--are they--?"

"Yes, they're fine. Mitchell came around really quickly, and they let George go hours ago. They've already been in to check on you twice, Thor and Sif brought them."

Thinking about Thor reminded Loki-- "And Jane?"

Annie's expression darkened. "Yes. Jane. I've had a word with her." Loki gave her a questioning look. "Apparently there's so much magic here that she can see me all the time. Anyway, we spoke. She definitely wants to talk to you." Loki was just about to say he hoped Annie had not been too hard on the other woman when Annie suddenly looked serious. "And a man came and looked in on you, right after your mother left. He had an eyepatch and white hair, and the healers all kind of cleared out when he came in. Was… was that your father?"

Loki, his mouth suddenly dry, nodded. "What did he do?"

"He just stood right here and looked at you."

"Did he speak?" Loki asked painfully, although since Annie had not volunteered the information he knew the answer already.

"I don't think so. I went to the other side of the room--" Annie gestured, and Loki understood she had transported herself there, too quickly perhaps for Odin to feel the need to acknowledge her presence. "I wouldn't have been able to hear him, but I could see his face and I don't think he spoke. He didn't touch you or anything, he just… stood there."

"I see," Loki murmured. He tried not to imagine what Odin had been thinking, or what he intended to do, but his sense of foreboding increased. Still, Annie's description of George and Mitchell's activities indicated they were free to move about. She had mentioned Thor and Sif escorting them, but surely that indicated they were being treated as guests, since neither Thor nor Sif would be given an assignment normally carried out by regular guards. Either they were seen as a significant threat, in which case they would not be visiting an associate in the healing rooms, or, far likelier, Thor and Sif had claimed them as friends.

If Loki's conclusions were correct, the housemates were in no danger, which was a comforting thought. Odin was severe but not, under normal circumstances, ruthless, and it did not appear the innocent would be made to suffer. The fact Loki was left in the healing room rather than transported to some more secure place might indicate even he was not entirely unwelcome, although the idea of Odin standing over him, thinking unreadable thoughts, was unnerving.

Of course, given the condition he had been in when he arrived, Loki had to consider the possibility Odin simply realized he was no threat to anyone, at least not then. What might happen next was another matter entirely.

Uneasily, Loki now considered the question of how they had arrived. He asked Annie, "Has anyone spoken to you about our arrival? Were you asked what happened?"

Annie shook her head. "No." By her expression it was apparent this was the first time she had stopped to think how strange that was. The only explanation Loki could think of was that the Allfather wanted to question them personally, when Loki was able to answer for himself.

Loki pushed a hand through his hair and made to get up. "I think I had better--"

Annie put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him firmly back. "Not until the healers have taken another look at you. And you speak to your mother. And we find you some clothes. I'm sure you'd look fine in a toga, but you're not going to wander the halls in nothing but a sheet."

Loki had opened his mouth to argue about everything except the sheet when a guard walked in. Looking intensely uncomfortable and apparently unsure how to address the disgraced former prince, he announced baldly,

"The Allfather commands your presence in the throne room."

Loki took a deep breath.

~ oOoOoOo ~

Loki strode down a corridor toward the throne room, the guard to his left and slightly behind him, Annie holding his right hand. The positioning was deliberate: Annie was on the wall side with Loki between her and anyone they might encounter, and the fact she held his dominant hand indicated he was not planning to cast magic at anyone.

This did not appear to reassure the guard, who was obviously uncomfortable at being alone in his task and seemed to think Loki might turn on him at any moment. Loki felt a certain amount of sympathy for the man, but was more concerned with ensuring he looked less weak and vulnerable than he still felt. His posture, head high and shoulders squared, indicated he was going to fight vampires rather than have an interview with the man he had always considered his father, and he was uncomfortable in the now-unfamiliar Asgardian garb he wore.

He had asked for his own clothes to be returned to him, but the shirt was beyond salvation and the healer apparently thought appearing before the Allfather in such foreign garb would be a provocation anyway. Loki was rather touched that Eir, who had been very kind to him when he was a child, seemed concerned about him still. However, the soft gray tunic and black trousers he wore were neither one thing nor the other: not Midgardian, not armor, and they magnified his own sense of being out of place.

The fact he was escorted by a palace guard, but only one, also confused the matter. It seemed to indicate he was not a guest, yet not considered a grave threat to the safety of the palace. No wonder those he encountered pretended not to see him: until the Allfather made his position clear it was unsafe to spit at him, and they certainly did not want to pretend to welcome him until they had to.

His mother had not reappeared, which Loki assumed meant she had been intercepted and sent to the throne room ahead of him. Loki took the dimmest possible view of his reception in Asgard, but he found himself unable to believe her expressions of affection had been insincere. His mother and Eir made two people who seemed genuinely glad to see him alive, and that was two people more than he had any right to hope for. Loki held onto the warmth that knowledge offered.

Loki was paying very little attention to where he walked--he could find the throne room in his sleep, after all--and so was startled when, suddenly, Thor was standing before him. The guard stopped in confusion, and Thor, with the crown prince's confident smile, announced,

"I will escort Loki the rest of the way."

The guard, perhaps aware Thor's attitude toward Loki was not as unyielding as it probably should be, looked doubtful.

"My orders are--" he began, and then stopped when Thor's expression darkened. Loki felt a painful twist of pity for the guard, since the man had no option here that did not involve angering someone far more powerful than he. Before he could speak up, Thor's face softened as he made the same realization.

"I understand that you have orders. But I would walk with my brother, into the company of our father. I will ensure there is no misunderstanding about your performance of your duty. You may go." Thor's voice was calm, but there was no doubt of its authority. The guard bowed his head and retreated. Thor turned to Loki with a smile. "You look much better, brother."

" 'I am well in body, though considerably rumpled up in spirit,' " Loki replied, which at least made Annie smile at him. Thor raised a hand and Loki instinctively tensed, not because he thought Thor was going to attack him, but simply because his brother's expressions of affection tended to hurt. Thor registered Loki's expression and, instead of a brotherly punch in the shoulder that in his current condition would probably knock him down, merely patted him.

"Come," Thor said simply. "It would not do to keep Father waiting."

In fact it appeared Loki was the one to be kept waiting, for when they arrived at the throne room, Sif and the Warriors were standing outside with Mitchell and George. Loki was so glad to see them he wanted to cry: George's injuries were entirely healed and Mitchell's expression was one of watchful interest instead of that horrible blank stare. Loki and Annie exchanged embraces with both of them, and then Sif stepped forward. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, she wrapped one arm around Loki's neck and the other around his ribcage, squeezed affectionately, and let him go. Loki was visited with the fleeting and ridiculous thought that perhaps it would have been a nice thing to have a sister.

"You worried us," she said simply, and then, without looking around, added, "Fandral, do not gape like a fish." Fandral closed his mouth, but he and Volstagg continued to look at Loki with the same expression the guard had worn. Loki could not blame them. Hogun looked as grim and indifferent as ever, and Loki found himself grateful for that.

"Thor," he said quietly, "may I have a moment, privately, with my friends?" As the words left his mouth Loki realized they were tactless, but Sif simply walked away, gesturing to the Warriors to follow. Looking even more puzzled, since Sif and Loki were not exactly comrades of old, the Warriors obeyed. Loki hoped he would be able to thank her later.

Thor gave Loki a glance of misgiving, to which Loki responded with an innocent smile. The smile, for obvious reasons, did little to reassure Thor, but he followed Sif down the corridor. As soon as the others were out of whispered earshot, Loki said urgently,

"It is possible the Allfather will ask us how we came to be here. You know nothing, is that understood?"

"That's exactly what I do know," George replied, "nothing." Mitchell nodded, and George went on, "The last thing I remember clearly is being dragged out of the car."

Loki fought down the desire to find his stakes and kill Herrick again, and turned to Annie, who shrugged.

"I saw the sky get bright and I closed my eyes," she admitted.

"Good," Loki said. "That is all any of you need say."

"What's the matter?" Mitchell asked.

"The matter is, I do not know how we got here, but someone may get into terrible trouble over it." The others looked puzzled. "I've been banished, remember?"

Annie looked troubled. "But you'd have died--surely you don't mean your father would just leave you to be killed?"

"That is what banishment means. I was left to make my own way on your realm, and what happens to me now is of no concern to Asgard. Actually, it is more stringent than 'of no concern.' By bringing me here, someone has defied the express orders of the Allfather."

"But it wasn't you," George protested. "You just said you don't know how we got here. Can't you just tell him--?"

"You want to protect whoever rescued us--you," Mitchell interrupted, looking with understanding at Loki.

Loki nodded. "It's very likely someone, Heimdall for instance, simply wanted to rescue Jane, and perhaps you three as well. We were all so close together he could not have avoided picking me up as well, not with the Bifrost anyway. I don't know if the Bifrost has been repaired, although I would have thought it would take much longer, or if some other method was used. The point is, if the Allfather is in a severe mood he may not let my presence stand as an acceptable consequence of a desirable rescue. I think it best not to bring anyone else into this if I can avoid it."

Mitchell looked worried. "What do you think he'll do, if he thinks it was you?"

Loki shrugged, trying for nonchalance. "Perhaps nothing." The looks on the faces of his housemates told him they did not believe him any more than he did, but they allowed the conversation to end.

And just in time, too: moments after the housemates rejoined Thor and his companions, the doors to the throne room opened. Thor looked at Loki with a smile that was meant to be confident and encouraging. Loki hoped his own expression of calm was more convincing than his brother's.

As they entered the throne room, Loki was conscious of his friends looking around in astonishment. Well they might: the chamber was larger than the school where Loki worked. It could accommodate the entire population of the palace, and it appeared all were present.

Loki had expected that: the king would want the entire court to be witness to this. He had thought all those hateful eyes on him would be intimidating, but in fact he did not even notice them. His attention was riveted on the focal point of the room: the golden throne where sat the figure who had dominated his entire life, whose approval or mere attention he had always sought, the focus of all his mixed emotions of love and respect and longing and anger.

And fear.

Always, fear.

Odin Allfather.

As Thor led the way Odin rose, in a command to approach the throne. Sif and the Warriors had disappeared into the crowd but Loki did not notice. Heart pounding, he followed a step behind his brother, and as he drew closer to the steps leading up to the dais his eyes were cast down. He could not help but think of the last time he had looked into Odin's face, his own alight with madness and desperation and hope. He knew, he knew, that what he had done was wrong, that Odin had no choice but to reject his actions, to reject him. There was no defiance in him, nor wish to justify himself. He was indeed reaping what he had sown. But his heart still broke at the outcome.

Thor stopped at the appropriate respectful distance from the dais and lowered himself to one knee, right fist pressed over his heart in a gesture of fealty, looking up at his father-king with respect and confidence.

Loki came to a halt a pace behind his brother, swayed slightly on his feet, and then let himself fall to both knees, eyes fixed on the floor. His posture indicated pure submission, which he was quite sure the court would not believe. However, despite the fact that, in his own disturbed mind, he had been loyal to Odin right up to the end, Loki could not bring himself to echo Thor's posture. It would appear the vilest hypocrisy. Loki no longer cared how the court viewed him, but he did not wish the Allfather to make any mistake about his state of mind, to believe him insolent. It was not that he thought a show of meekness would save him, if Odin had finally lost patience. He simply did not want, if it was still within his power to hurt the king at all, to do so.

He was vaguely aware of whispers among the onlookers, a feeling of astonishment rippling through the crowd, and knew they had expected something else, some show of defiance. In fact, a show was exactly what most of them had expected, one that ended with Loki dragged cursing from the throne room. This, he thought bitterly, must be a grave disappointment to the court. They had dreamed for years of a humbled Loki, but now they had him they obviously did not know what to do with him.

The whisperers fell silent as Odin struck the floor with his staff. Loki tried not to flinch at the sound, resisted the urge to close his eyes.

"Loki," the king began, and the lack of any patronymic at all was nearly worse than if he had been called "Laufeyson" before the entire court. "How do you explain your presence here, in Asgard, when you know yourself to be unwelcome?"

Well. As the humans would say, there was to be no beating about the bush. Loki could see a tremor run through Thor as his brother restrained the instinct to speak. Loki loved him for the impulse as he raised his eyes just enough to view the hem of Odin's robe and replied, in the steadiest voice he could manage,

"I apologize, my king. It was… unintentional."

"Explain yourself," Odin commanded, in a terrible voice.

Once again, Loki resisted the urge to close his eyes. "We--my companions and I--were in grave danger. I tried to remove us to safety and, in error, brought us to Asgard instead of Vanaheim." He chose a realm at random, since he honestly did not know whether he was banned from travel to any of the other worlds and could plead ignorance of any crime there.

He was fully aware of the irony of his current quandary: if he told the truth and, crucially, was believed, it would be difficult for Odin to hold him responsible for his presence here. But the truth was the last thing he could speak at the moment. Of course, the truth was unlikely to be believed anyway, at least not from his mouth.

"'In error'?" Odin repeated. Loki tried not to flinch at the skepticism in his tone. Plainly, the Allfather believed Loki had returned on purpose and was hoping to somehow regain favour. Plainly, the Allfather believed his disowned son to be stupid as well as vicious. Loki realized his best course, if he wanted to shield whoever had rescued him, was to play along with that belief, but he could not bring himself to do so. If Odin chose to believe Loki had no regard for him at all, that was out of Loki's hands, but he could not encourage the idea.

"I was frightened," Loki said, which was not true: the little he could remember of his emotional state at the time included a sort of crazy amusement at being finished off by little Jane, and a savage determination to kill as many vampires as possible before he died. He actually didn't remember much fear. This being of no possible interest to the Allfather or the court, Loki stuck to what he considered believable. More honestly, he added, "I was not thinking very clearly." This was as close as he could bring himself to pleading injury before the court.

"'Frightened,'" Odin said, musingly. Loki felt himself begin to tremble: Odin thundering in rage was terrifying enough, but Odin quiet and unreadable was infinitely worse. Loki knew this would end badly, but waiting for the blow to fall was still agonizing.

"Frightened, and bleeding to death," another voice spoke up, and now Loki did close his eyes for a second. When he opened them and turned his head, Mitchell, also kneeling, was looking directly at the Allfather with no sign of fear. It occurred to Loki that perhaps his friend did not quite understand they were no longer in a nominal kingdom reigned over by a gracious old lady whose powers were hemmed in by custom and constitution. There was no "prime minister" who was compelled to stand in Parliament and explain himself to rowdy members of the opposition, nor a mechanism for replacing these rulers should the people become disenchanted. This means of government had struck Loki as inefficient yet vastly entertaining, and it bore no resemblance to how things were done in Asgard. He mentally begged Mitchell to stop before he said something that really angered the Allfather.

At the moment, Odin betrayed no sign of annoyance as he looked down at Mitchell. "Explain yourself," he repeated, but his voice was calm.

As was Mitchell's. "I have a certain... expertise... in matters of this nature," Mitchell said quietly. "I spoke to the healers about Loki's injury. They agree he was so near death when he arrived that he could not possibly have thought clearly enough to form a plan. He might have wanted to take us to this Vanawhatever, but in practice he would certainly have followed the path most familiar to him, without even realizing it. The dying often want to go home."

Odin, thankfully, did not ask how Mitchell had become such an expert on the mental state of the dying. Mitchell held the king's gaze for just long enough to emphasize his own lack of fear, and then respectfully lowered his eyes. Loki could not help but admire the gesture, which implied honour freely given rather than coerced.

"And how do you come to be acquainted with this man?" Odin asked, without looking in Loki's direction. "Do you work sorcery together?"

"No, your majesty," Mitchell replied, using the Midgardian honorific, which served to emphasize the impression of respect given on his own terms. The honours were all to Mitchell so far. "Loki lives with us, in our home in Bris-- on Midgard."

"He compelled you to shelter him?" Odin prompted, apparently unable to conceive of anyone taking Loki in for any other reason. "Did he threaten you?"

This accusation proved too much for George and Annie, who replied, "No!" and "Of course not!" in chorus. Odin turned his attention to them, and Annie explained,

"He fell into the garden behind our house. I found him there. I thought he might be injured, but he seemed to be mostly... frightened and disoriented, the way I was right after I died. He needed help, so I brought him into the house."

It occurred to Loki that, not very long ago, he would have been angered--insulted, even--by Annie's words. Denied the friendship of others, he would have violently resented their pity. More recently, however, he had come to understand the difference between pity and compassion.

"And you permitted him to remain? Why?" Odin asked. The housemates looked at each other as if they had never really thought about it. Finally, George answered:

"Because... because he needed us, in the same way the three of us need each other. He belongs. He's... ours." Mitchell and Annie nodded their agreement. Loki thought he could be imprisoned for the rest of his life, if the Allfather wished it, and the memory of that little speech would sustain him.

"I see," the Allfather said quietly. He still did not look at Loki, which might mean nothing since he so seldom did. In the same natural tone, Odin went on, "And how did you come to be here?"

If the housemates had been planning to lie, the natural rhythm of the question probably would have caught them out. In fact, Loki realized, it might have been better if he had not prompted the others, since they genuinely knew nothing. Of course, he had not known that until he asked. Mitchell remained unruffled but both George and Annie looked uneasy.

"I'm sorry, your majesty," Mitchell said calmly, "but I don't remember anything."

"Me neither," George agreed.

"I just remember a vampire lunging at me and then--whoosh," Annie contributed. "I think I closed my eyes."

"Understandable," Odin said, still gently, and now alarm bells began to ring in Loki's mind. "Such an experience must have been overwhelming. Perhaps Heimdall can shed some light on what occurred."

Heimdall almost never left his observatory, and there was a stir among the onlookers as the golden figure strode forward. Loki tried not to let his expression show that he knew he had lost: his makeshift plan to protect whoever transported him--probably Heimdall himself--had hinged on Heimdall not becoming involved. The Guardian of Asgard would never lie to his king.

Heimdall came to a halt slightly ahead of Loki and to his right, made his courtesy to Odin, and waited for a question.

To Loki's surprise, Odin did not begin with the question of the group's actual arrival. Instead, he asked,

"Did you see, Heimdall, what occurred on Midgard, to Loki and his companions?"

Something in his tone made Loki suddenly realize that Odin knew, had known all along. The questioning was a charade and a test, and he had failed, again, and made a fool of himself, again. The entire purpose of this gathering was to allow the court to see his humiliation. He struggled to give no sign as Heimdall spoke.

"I did, my king. Your son Thor had asked me to watch over Jane Foster, and I have also observed Loki's activities on Midgard." Heimdall paused, until a nod from Odin bade him continue. "Jane Foster visited Loki at his abode, and left in the company of his two friends. They were accosted by a group of supernatural creatures, and taken prisoner."

"You did not intervene?" Thor spoke for the first time. He was understandably outraged, even though plainly Heimdall had saved Jane after all.

"It is not my place to intervene," Heimdall replied tranquilly. Loki remembered Jotunheim, the sound of Fandral, over Volstagg's shoulder, trying to breathe despite the holes in his chest, the shouts of approaching Jotun, and the sky above them resolutely gray and dark as the Bifrost stayed closed. Heimdall had to be called upon, and he did not always answer.

Now, however, he answered at least the question implied by the Allfather's silence:

"She was not in immediate danger, and I wished to see how Loki would respond." After a pause, he clarified, "I confess I was curious to see how long it would take him to decide to save himself."

Up until that moment, Loki had actually thought there was no aspersion that could be cast upon him he would consider unjust. Usurper, traitor, homicide--all these were true. But he had never, not once in his long career of accompanying his brother in one battle after another, in one folly after another, abandoned his companions. Never. He had turned, it was true, but not in mid-battle, not when Thor or anyone else depended upon him. Even that last battle on Jotunheim, with Fandral badly injured and Thor so blinded by his desire to kill as many Frost Giants as possible that he hardly even bothered to cover his friends' retreat--his blow with Mjolnir, cracking open the ground under their feet, had very nearly killed them... Even then, when he had begun to know the worst and his mind was troubled, Loki had killed the Jotun attacking Fandral. He had joined Sif and Hogun's efforts to cover Volstagg's retreat carrying the injured Warrior. Even knowing what utter disaster this would lead to, and despite his own share in the blame, he had not abandoned Thor or his companions.

And after this, after doing the best he could to show loyalty to companions who disregarded or actively disliked him, Heimdall expected him to forsake his friends?

Expected, and confidently awaited, Loki realized. And now the entire court was assembled to hear the story of his final treachery. Well, let them wait. For once, they would hear nothing to entertain them.

With difficulty, Loki swallowed his resentment, remained silent and impassive as Odin bade Heimdall continue.

"You expected him to do so?" Odin inquired.

"There seemed little alternative," was Heimdall's surprising reply. "He had no time to formulate a plan, no companion save for that harmless little ghost, very little magic at his command, and a large force of supernatural creatures to fight. I have seen men face similar odds. None of them lived to tell about it."

"And yet you stayed," Odin suddenly addressed Loki, who was so startled he looked up. "Why, when the situation was hopeless?"

Loki was prepared to be taken to task for his crimes, to be punished for them, to be held responsible for his return to Asgard though it was not of his doing. But to be mocked before a roomful of enemies was too much. Loki was aware that in his precarious position he could not afford to lose his temper. He did so anyway.

"What would you have had me do?" he demanded, a note in his voice that would be familiar to many at court, but one he had never, ever used before when addressing the Allfather. Aware he could do little but make things worse for himself, he still heard his own voice snarling, "They would have killed George, who is my friend, and Jane, for whom I was responsible, and either enslaved or killed Mitchell--also my friend. Was I supposed to fold my hands, and say it was a shame, and do nothing?"

"And what did you accomplish?" Odin asked, and Loki heard the tone of a father used to being disappointed by his child. The tone would once have driven Loki to silence.

Now he shrugged, a gesture of scorn aimed mostly at himself. "Very little, I suppose. They will need to find a new leader, and perhaps they are no longer convinced of the ease of their own victory, should they decide to try their hands at ruling over the humans. In terms of my own efforts at rescue, of course I failed. There was little chance of any other outcome. That was no reason not to make the effort."

"Despite being outnumbered, and mortally wounded?" Odin persisted.

"There is no need to point out what folly it was," Loki snapped, goaded by the hopelessness of his situation. "I knew it was folly. That was no reason not to make the effort."

Heimdall looked down at Loki, kneeling beside him, and back up at the king.

"I do not normally intervene, Allfather, but you can see why, under such circumstances, it was impossible that I should simply leave him to die."

For a moment, Loki did not understand what he had just heard. His own expression was probably foolishly blank as he looked disbelievingly up at Heimdall. The Guardian continued to look at Odin.

"I ask pardon for my disobedience, Allfather, but to do other than what I did seemed to me unjust." He paused, then added judiciously, "I assumed there was no harm in gathering these others at the same time I rescued Loki, but if it caused offense I ask pardon for that as well."

"Pardon is granted, Heimdall. You may return to your duties," Odin said quietly. Heimdall inclined his head and withdrew. As Loki, still unbalanced by surprise, watched him go, he realized his was not the only stunned expression in the room. Apparently he had been wrong about the purpose of this audience before the court.

He was recalled to the present by the sound of Odin's voice.

"Since there is nothing that can be said against your conduct in this matter, the only question left, Loki, is why you lied about how you came here. You must have suspected Heimdall's responsibility, and you knew you did nothing to defy me. What was the meaning of these falsehoods?"

Now that the truth had become inconvenient, Loki realized he had no alternative but to resort to it.

"I knew myself to be banished," he faltered. "I have no right to be here. I thought... I thought Heimdall, or someone, was trying to save the others and had brought me too. I was afraid he would be... I felt I owed him…" He found himself unable to continue.

Odin, for the first time in more years than Loki could remember, seemed to know what was in his mind.

"You were afraid I would punish whoever saved you, and so you lied to take the responsibility on yourself," Odin said wearily. Loki's only response was a stiff little nod. Since it was apparent Odin had known everything from the beginning, there was little he could say.

Odin looked at him, his expression strangely wistful.

"You told better lies when you were a child, Loki. When I asked how you came to be in the healing rooms once again, and you did not want to tell me you had been hurt by your brother, your stories could really be quite creative. I used to look forward to hearing them. I always got the truth out of Thor afterward, he was never a liar. I used to praise him for his honesty, and for his remorse, since he was always very sorry he had hurt you. It occurs to me now that it might have shown more genuine remorse if he had actually stopped doing so, but I did not think of that at the time. And so Thor learned he could do almost anything and get away with it, and you... you have progressed from lying to shield those who hurt you, to lying to protect those who help you. I wish I could honestly ask why you would believe that is necessary."

"I'm... sorry," Loki said helplessly. He wasn't quite sure what he was apologizing for, but the feeling of being at fault had not gone away.

For the space of a heartbeat, he thought Odin winced. The Allfather sounded wearier than ever as he said,

"I was so proud of your loyalty to Thor. Proud of him for commanding your loyalty, I should say. That is how we refer to it on Asgard," Odin addressed the housemates, or perhaps just Mitchell, in an aside. "We speak with approval of those who 'command' loyalty, as though it is not freely given. And when that which is freely given is abused, and then retracted--that, we call 'treason.'"

"It's much the same on Midgard," Mitchell remarked.

"I have been far from wise, but it is some comfort to know I have not been alone," Odin told Mitchell, his tone strangely confiding. Loki was unable to look at the Allfather anymore and cast his eyes back down to the marble floor, where the pattern of colours and veins in the stone began to shimmer and twist before him. Odin's voice went on, "I tried once to tell you, Loki, of your origins and my intentions toward you. I was unable to express myself clearly, and you were unable to listen. I am myself again, and you will listen without interruption. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Allfather," Loki whispered. Apparently he was still to be spared nothing. The knowledge was tempered at least by awareness the king was not sparing himself, either.

Odin sighed, and began again to speak.

Chapter Text

Loki kept his eyes on the floor as Odin began to speak.

"I have told you already that you were not born to me or to my Queen. I was at fault for concealing that from you, and I am sorry for it. The rest of the truth would not have been easy to reveal without risking harm to you, and I still do not know whether another decision would have been wiser. There is little point in concealment now, especially with rumours rampant since your... departure. So I will tell the court what I have already admitted to you: I found you on Jotunheim, an undersized, abandoned baby, and I brought you back to Asgard with me." A buzz of shocked, and probably titillated, whispering broke out among the onlookers. Odin glared around the throne room and silence returned. The Allfather resumed his story. "Sentiment has no place in the judgment of a king, and so I told myself that I would formulate a plan whereby you would help ensure lasting peace between the two realms. I told myself that I was making a measured, considered decision. You, Loki, are not the only liar in our family.

"The truth of the matter is, I was weary and sickened with battle, and you were tiny and helpless and alone, lying beside the body of your dead mother, the Jotun queen. The truth of the matter is, I could not bear to leave you to die, and so I told myself a lie to justify what I was about to do. I knew you were Laufey's son, that there was no one else you could be, and that you had certainly been left as a sacrifice. Had your dead mother been some Jotun woman of no rank, I would have done exactly the same thing, although I would have had to make up some other story to tell myself, to preserve my belief that I was a wise and impartial king, instead of simply a man giving in to his softer feelings.

"The truth of the matter, and what I was unable to explain to you that day in the weapons vault when you asked me, was that you were one Jotun death too many, and so I decided to save you. And when I did, when I held you, you changed. I realize now, and I probably knew at the time, that your innate magic was trying to save you, changing your appearance, finding a shape that would beguile me to spare you. You were far too young and too distressed to recognize me as an enemy, but your magic instinctively mirrored me back to myself, changing your blue skin and your Jotun markings to the appearance of an Aesir baby.

"I had intended to save you anyway, but in my own weary state, it appeared to be a message, a sign that you were supposed to become my son. A soldier's superstition, perhaps, but your Aesir shape never faltered, not when you were tired or angry or when you began to become a man. Even now it takes direct contact with a Jotun or their artifacts to affect you.

"It was as though the Jotun shape had been the disguise in the first place, and your true form is what we see before us. There were years at a time when I simply forgot you were not born to your mother and me, and when I remembered I told myself it was not the right time to tell you, or that it would not be safe. In truth, I believe to this day that you would have been in danger if your origins had become known, no matter whose child you had become. I accept that I should have enforced moderation in talk of Frost Giants, but this is a large court, and many have strong feelings.

"And what else was I to do? Expose you to danger at court, from those who could not forgive the war or admit to fault on both sides? Give you back, perhaps? When you had been taken practically from the arms of the dead Jotun queen, and only Laufey could have been responsible? Hand you over, so he could murder you, too? When your brother came to find you every morning, offering you his playthings to make you smile? When your mother and I loved you as our own? Give you back? To a father who did not deserve you?"

Loki kept his eyes resolutely cast down, though he could no longer see the pattern on the floor past the tears in his eyes. To have known any of this. To have had any idea--not of the details, but of his father's feelings... Thor had always been so favoured, so much the centre of attention, so much the beloved, that Loki had assumed himself to be an afterthought, desirable to ensure the dynasty but very much an extra.

The idea had such a grip on him by adulthood that, when he learned the truth, it never occurred to him that he might have been kept because he was wanted. Instead, he reached the conclusion that fit the facts as he understood them: his father tolerated rather than loved him, and had no obligation of blood to keep him after all. Therefore, he must have been kept for some practical purpose. This seemed so clear to him that he had been unable to listen to Odin's protests, particularly since, even then, the king had not said a word about love.

Loki remembered how his misgivings had turned into certainty, how anxiety and confusion had become conviction. Of course. This was the explanation, and he had been made a fool of all these years, trying to win the affection and pride of... not parents, but keepers. He was a monster, the creature of his own nightmares, and how they must have wanted to recoil from the thing they had brought to live among them, must have looked forward to the day they could send him away and never have to look upon him again. Of course they avoided his eyes, refused to touch him. And what distaste, what contempt--and worse, amusement--they must have felt, watching the infant monster, watching him, trying to behave like an Aesir.

Loki remembered the moment his sense of shock and grief had turned to horror, then humiliation, and finally flared gratefully into rage. The anger had propped him up as his life collapsed around him, and he had shouted at his father, not noticing how weakness was overtaking him, until Odin collapsed. Loki remembered his momentary, horrified certainty that he had, on top of everything else, killed his father.

He wondered now whether anything would have changed, had the king not fallen into the Odinsleep at that of all moments. He was briefly tantalized by the vision of raging himself into exhausted silence, and then Odin putting his arms around him and saying... all this. If only...

His always-shaky footing in the royal family, in Asgard itself, had been torn from underneath him. And so he had fallen, into a spiral of desperation and finally madness, where one terrible decision led to the next until there was no possibility of stopping himself, or ever being forgiven.

Odin had been silent for a moment, perhaps reviewing lost chances himself. Now he spoke again:

"It was easier when you were a little toddling thing, running after your brother. Even then, though, your mother and I had a sense of you needing something from us that we did not understand, were unable to give. I wonder now whether you would have been better off in some humble family, where so much of your care would not have been given over to servants who favoured the elder, where your parents would not have felt the need to teach you reserve, instead of displaying affection. Where all the attention would not have gone to the heir.

"I assumed you did not remember being abandoned and afraid, just as I assumed you knew your mother and I loved you. We did not always understand you, but I assumed you knew that a lack of understanding was not the same as a lack of love. Thor was easier, because Thor took certain things for granted. I allowed myself to believe you were the same, even though in every other way the two of you were so different. You never believed anything without seeking proof, but I told myself that love was different, that you did not need to be reassured, did not need to be told, told until you believed us. Even as your gestures of affection became less frequent, as though you had given up hoping they would be returned, as you became distant and so unhappy, even as your relationship with your brother suffered, and your mother warned me that we were losing you, that you were slipping away... even then, I did not put aside my dignity as king and simply behave as your father. I did not know how to be the kind of father you needed. I never realized the reason you were always so watchful and seemed to be waiting for something bad to happen to you was because something bad had happened to you, and you were never convinced it would not happen again. Perhaps... perhaps the Jotun are simply more affectionate parents. "

Loki had, in recent days, wondered about that himself. For most of his life he had accepted the general assumption among the court that the Jotun were monsters with no family feeling, but since Thor's story about the kindly old Jotun counsellor--since meeting spirits and werewolves and vampires who were monsters, but kind and affectionate ones--he had begun to think differently. Of late he had been troubled by thoughts of Jotun orphans and bereaved parents, created by him and entirely his fault. Perhaps he had inherited a streak of cruelty from Laufey, but perhaps that cruelty was unusual among the Jotun.

Or perhaps what he had done had nothing to do with Laufey at all. Perhaps it was only himself, a weak and insecure creature, abandoned once and never reassured, lashing out at victims who could not defend themselves. Had he wanted to impress Odin with his loyalty to Asgard, or had he simply been too afraid of the king to turn on him? Look at the way he had attacked Thor. That did not speak highly of his loyalty.

No. There were no excuses to be made, not even that of madness. Madness did not return the Jotun dead to their families.

Loki wiped at his eyes with the heel of one hand, and absently wondered how long he had been weeping. He was beyond being ashamed of this weakness, just as he was beyond mercy for his actions. He had, perhaps, not been born a monster after all, but he had become one through his own efforts. The fact his father was trying to take some of the blame made him feel slightly less lonely, but did not change anything.

No. It changed one thing, and that was, for the first time in his life Loki felt he understood Odin, felt he knew just how painfully the king was being lacerated by a sense of regret and waste and of having tried to do what was right and choosing the wrong path every single time. It was worse for his father: Loki was only responsible for becoming a monster himself, but Odin felt he had created one out of someone he loved. Surely that was unfair. Surely... surely he had acted in good faith, had done his best--?

"It wasn't your fault, Father," Loki spoke up suddenly. He hadn't intended to, but the pressure of these new emotions made it impossible for him to remain silent. He looked up, wiped his eyes again, and saw the entire court staring at him. Let them stare. "You did your best. I'm sorrier than I can express, sorry for everything, but it was my doing, not yours."

As the words left his mouth, Loki suddenly realized what he had done: he, the prisoner in the dock, had forgiven the king. No wonder the court was stunned. The arrogance.

And then Loki looked at the expression on his father's face, and would not have taken back a single word. In fact, for good measure he looked around for his mother and brother and added, "I should also have realized you love me and wish me well. That I did not is my own failing. I am no longer a child."

And that much was true: his sense of hurt and injustice was just that, childish. Unexamined all these years, his sense of grievance out of all proportion to the injury, Loki had behaved like the youngest and least aware of the children at his school, if the children had access to powerful magical weapons.

One way or another, Loki thought this would be his last chance to address the court, so he added,

"I did try, for many years, to be a good son to my parents and a good servant of the realm. And in spite of the folly and evil I eventually succumbed to, I also wished for a long time to be a friend to this court. I apologize for the abuses I committed upon it instead." Carefully not looking at anyone, Loki returned his gaze to the floor. He had no right to expect forgiveness anywhere, and so he did not look for it. He had no desire to see skepticism, either, in the eyes of the court.

And then, of course, he heard the voice of Thor, trying to set things right for him. Dear well-meaning foolish Thor, who said urgently to the Allfather,

"Surely you can see his madness has passed. Can you not offer pardon, knowing he has, has recovered?"

"His madness was beginning to pass when he clung to Guignir, in the wreckage of the first Bifrost," Odin replied. "But that does not change what has been done."

Involuntarily, Loki nodded in agreement. There was no malice in the king's tone, only truth. What was done could not be undone. The river flowed on.

Thor had to understand that as well, but he still glanced at Loki, his eyes filled with grief and longing. "He has been so lost to us. Could you not have spoken some word of comfort to him then, before he let go?"

"I could have," Odin said heavily. "I wished to. But to what result? To encourage him to let me drag him back, so he could be punished for his crimes, imprisoned? Before he had time to reflect, or anyone to learn from? Would you prefer your brother to be sitting in a cell, nursing a new set of grievances rather than repenting his acts and trying to do better?

"I could have retrieved him. Even after he let go, I could have dragged him back by magic, and destroyed any chance he had of redemption.

"Instead, what I tried to do for him was to wind back time."

Loki and Thor automatically looked at one another, both equally uncomprehending. Thor spoke:

"Father, what do you mean?"

Odin glanced kindly at Thor, then turned back to Loki. "I could not control where you landed, but I could ensure you arrived in the same frame of mind you were in when all this began."

"'When all this began'?" Loki repeated tentatively.

"When you went to the weapons vault to look for answers," Odin clarified. Loki stared at his father, feeling himself go still.

"But I might... I might have..." He thought of the anger, the hurt-- the urge to lash out. "I might have done anything." He might have gone rampaging among the helpless little humans in a way that made Herrick and his allies look like soft toy animals. He fought down a rising wave of indignation. He'd been utterly mad and extremely dangerous, and Odin had simply unleashed him.

"I might have killed someone--someone else," Loki corrected himself. "How could you --?"

"Loki," Odin said gently. "Think. Not about how you felt when you left the vault. When you walked into the weapons vault--what did you need?"

For a moment, Loki did not understand the question. Then he began to think, to grope for the memory. Before he knew the truth, before things got out of hand, before he began the spiral that so nearly finished him... what had he been thinking?

What had he needed?

Odin looked steadily at Loki, obviously waiting for him to speak. For some reason, his father's gaze on him gave him courage. He forgot the other people in the room.

"What did I need?" he said slowly. "I needed... to be reassured. To believe I belonged somewhere. To know I was not... fated to be evil." Loki bit his lip. So much for that.

"Yes," Odin said quietly. "That was what you hoped to find when you went looking for answers. That is what I was unable to give you. And that was the state to which I returned you."

"You cast a spell on me?" Loki asked.

"Not exactly. It was more like... a cleansing. So that wherever you landed, you would arrive needing once again to find those same things. The spell was, that the first creatures you encountered would be able to help you, if you were able to let them."

Loki suddenly remembered his mother saying, "Everything your father does is for a reason."

He remembered the feeling, as he fell, of being scoured.

Of landing among the refuse bins behind the little house, empty and frightened and lonely.

And of Annie finding him, and George and Mitchell agreeing to let him stay, and wanting desperately to believe their words about being monsters, and yet not monstrous.

What he had needed was Annie, George, and Mitchell. And his father had known... had believed, at least, that he would be able to accept their help, would not squander a second chance.

"Oh," Loki said, his voice childlike.

"It was all I could do for you," Odin explained gently.

It was more than enough.

Odin stepped forward, off the dais, and gestured to his sons and their friends to rise. As Loki did so, Odin laid a hand on his shoulder. It was the gesture of affection he used with Thor, and it should have been sufficient, but even now Loki wished...

And he looked into Odin's face and realized that Odin still felt he was not giving Loki quite what he needed, and regretted not knowing exactly what to do, and also wished--

Loki began moving before his brain caught up, and the thought flashed through his mind that he might regret what he was about to do, but left undone he would regret it more. And then his arms were around Odin's neck, and he was embracing him as he had when he was too young to believe anything except that his father loved him.

Odin stood very still for a few heartbeats, but somehow Loki knew it was surprise, not rejection, somehow he could tell the difference, and so he didn't let go. Odin laid one hand on Loki's ribcage, as though... as though checking the state of his heart. And then his father's arms were around him and Loki was not the only one whose face was wet.

~ oOoOoOo ~

It was, of course, impossible he should stay very long: his banishment had been a gesture to Jotunheim in the first place, and there had been no reconciliation there. Perhaps, one day, he might be able to do something about that.

That was not, for the moment, on Loki's mind. He was too busy adjusting to the feeling of having no corner of his heart that pained him, nothing that hurt. He could not remember ever having that feeling before.

He had scarcely noticed the onlookers silently leaving the throne room, abashed or confused or skeptical as their nature decreed. They did not matter. What had mattered was his mother coming to embrace him, and Thor's arm around him, and Odin cradling his head in both hands, looking into his eyes as though assuring himself that, finally, whatever he had always known was there could be seen by everyone.

And then Jane had come forward, with Sif beside her, because Sif would support a friend who had to do something difficult, Jane who was too ashamed of herself to even be reluctant.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "For everything: for being so hard on you, for not believing you, for, for hurting you like that. I was frightened and angry and I just sort of lashed out. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

Loki was silent for a moment, not because he refused to forgive her, but because he was not yet very experienced in accepting an apology and he was trying to find the right thing to say. In the pause that resulted, Thor spoke.

"Jane, I told you he had changed, that his remorse was real. And he tried so hard to protect you. I don't understand how you could have thought he would betray you, when it was so obvious he was deceiving the vampire."

Jane nodded, shamefaced, as though Thor's argument was reasonable. It was not. Not when she had never faced anything like this before, was not a warrior, could not be expected to remain cool-headed at a moment when terrifying creatures threatened to tear her apart and the only one who could protect her had previously tried to kill her. Jane was not Sif, and Thor was not being fair. He was defending his brother, but he was not being fair.

That made Loki realize something: he had once goaded Thor into fighting him by threatening Jane. The threat was empty, but Thor had not known that and had responded as Loki expected. Later, Loki had used the memory of that incident to torment himself with the conviction that Jane was one more in a long line of people Thor loved more than his brother.

He now realized the truth was far less painful: Thor had reacted to the threat toward Jane because... because Jane had been threatened. Of course Thor would defend one he believed to be in peril. Of course he loved Jane. That did not mean he loved Loki less, but if Loki was intent on harming someone, Thor would stop him. If Thor had been present in the schoolyard, he would have prevented Jane from harming Loki--not because he loved her less, but because Thor would protect whoever needed it most at the time.

Forgiveness was much the same: the important thing seemed to be how badly someone needed to be forgiven. Or, conversely, how much someone needed to forgive. Loki had a great deal to make up in that regard, and so he touched Thor's shoulder, made a face at Annie, who still looked as severe as was possible for Annie, and addressed Jane.

"I do not blame you, and I am not angry. You had every reason to distrust me, and you were very frightened. We do not think clearly when we are frightened." Jane met his eyes, and he thought she understood his use of the word "we" was deliberate. Loki did not doubt his own courage, but that did not mean he had not been frightened for most of his life as well. "No lasting harm was done. We are lucky, are we not?"

"Yes," Jane whispered, her voice thick, and when Loki put an arm around her she hugged him back hard and pressed her face into his chest as if that would tell him more than any words she could utter. It did.

The family accompanied them to the observatory, where Heimdall stood watch over the newly repaired Bifrost. This was the first time Loki had seen it--he had not noticed much, upon his arrival--and it was almost unnerving, how much the same it looked. As if not much had changed, when everything had.

"I would not have thought this could be repaired at all, let alone so quickly," he remarked. Of course, he had thought that at a time when he had been wrong about everything else, so it was no surprise he had been in error about that as well.

"Thor says magic from most of the other realms was put together to fix it," Jane explained. Loki glanced quizzically at her, and Jane flushed. "He told me about it, when he came to see me."

"And you did not relate this to me?" Loki asked. As angry as she had been, he was surprised she had not used this news as a weapon.

Jane blushed more deeply. "I didn't like to. Not when he explained why he hadn't told you about it, that you would never be able to go home anyway. I thought it would... hurt you."

"Ah." She had hated him, believed him capable of anything, had actually tried to kill him... but in this matter, she had shown him mercy. He would probably never understand humans, but that did not mean he didn't like them.

Heimdall greeted Odin with his usual detached dignity, nodded when Loki thanked him as though nothing of import had passed between them.

Jane traveled first, returning directly home to New Mexico--she had already delivered her paper, and other explanations and apologies could be made later, as well as arrangements to retrieve anything she had left in the hotel. She had had sufficient experience of Bristol to last her a lifetime. Thor's promise to return soon to see her made her smile, and then she was gone.

And then there was another flurry of embraces, Frigga hugging each of the housemates in turn and assuring them of their continuing welcome in Asgard, Thor remembering again, just in time, that his brother might not be up to a bone-crushing embrace, Odin pressing a kiss to Loki's temple that made tears start up in his eyes again...

And then Loki, Annie, George and Mitchell were standing together facing Heimdall. George glanced at the others.

"Any idea what we're going back to?" he asked.

Mitchell grinned at him. "None."

George sighed. "That's what I thought."

Annie, who was holding Loki's arm, reached out and touched George's. "Whatever it is, we'll be all right."

We already are, Loki thought, and then they were on their way home.

END