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He doesn’t feel well.
He doesn’t feel well and it bothers him. Gods don’t get sick.
Well, they do – sometimes, they do – but not often and not so generically. There is nothing on Earth that could possibly sicken a god. There are curses, but he isn’t cursed. He’s been cursed and he would know. There are poisons, but those effective enough to be harmful are rare and generally debilitating, so they don’t really slide under the radar. He’d notice, and if he really needed a cure, he was fairly certain that Eir could find one and would probably even give it to him.
Probably.
This isn’t any poison that he knows. This isn’t a curse. This isn’t a disease for all that it feels like it could be a flu – by all human description – except that it comes and goes, comes and goes… He has never been so unwell as he has been since… Since…
He has never been well.
The realization hits hard: all the incidents his mind coughs up of being or feeling “right” do not belong to him. They belong to the Lokis before him. It’s not a constant thing – it comes and goes, comes and goes – and mostly he ignores it, but the only thing he’s known since – Birth? Incarnation? – has been a drifting malaise. He blamed it on conscience – something new and different in and of itself – on guilt, and on shame, but those are not precisely what’s wrong. They might be a part of it, each bleeding into the cesspool of his illness, but none of them are really enough on their own.
His head hurts, sometimes. Sometimes it’s his joints. His chest has seized and tightened, released. His eyes suddenly burn, and stop just as quickly. His throat dries, prickles, feels like sandpaper. His fingers shake and his knees get weak. It comes and goes, comes and goes… is here, and then passes.
About the only thing he doesn’t get is stomachaches. Nausea is something else entirely and tends to plague him when he’s drunk too much alcohol, regardless of whether or not he’s hungover, but nothing much comes from that and actual stomachaches never occur.
Which is good, really, because he cleaned out the local stores of their discount Hallowe’en candy and is patiently making his way through boxes of fun-sized chocolate bars while mainlining old horror programs. He’s cleared at least half a dozen and the front room is littered with empty wrappers, but there are twice that many left to go and that doesn’t include things like gummy candies and packages of holiday themed chocolate kisses. With the remote in one hand, he might control the horizontal, and the vertical, but his recent sugar addiction is something other and it’s a resistance to get up rather than any real willpower that keeps him from devouring the rest in a candy coated haze, even if he thinks it will make him feel better.
It did for a while, and he thinks it still could: the simple pleasure of sweetness on his tongue and distracting imagery cures a lot of ills, if only temporarily. But it is temporary and the malaise returns, and suddenly his apartment is too quiet, for all that the television’s still running. His chest feels too tight and his head is woolly and full of static built of whispered words and guilty secrets.
He turns off the television and collects the wrappers, folding the boxes into the recycling bin because that’s what you do when you live in New York, and doesn’t feel well. His eyes itch and he wants to check if they’re bloodshot, but he doesn’t trust the mirror. His legs feel stiff and sore, but he doesn’t want to take a walk right now. The thought of wandering around the outside world makes him feel strangely exposed. It will pass – it always passes – but until it does, he’ll take the closed-in apartment.
Video games? No. Movies? No. Books feel like too much effort. There isn’t anything he wants to do and he wanders through the empty rooms feeling both restless and tired. In the end, he pulls out his phone and calls Verity. He gets the answering service.
“Hey. Hi. I just… I wanted to say hello, which I guess I did. I thought I’d hit up the movies tonight; wanna come? I know it’s not really your thing, but I’ll spring for it and snacks too. If you want the free shit, call or text me or something so I know to wait for you. Later!”
The call didn’t go as planned and he still doesn’t feel well, but now he thinks he should check the movie listings, just in case. He can’t very well back out if Verity decides to accept the invitation. There’s nothing much of interest on and he feels he might have made a mistake, but eventually settles on a ‘family film’ with good reviews that promises adventure and comedy. That kind of production never pretends to be anything other than fictional – no “based on true events” or implications of historical import – but its sentiment is usually sincere, the music pretty good and infinitely memeable. That’s a plus.
In the meantime, he debates with himself and finally calls America. She doesn’t always answer the phone, hating to be at the beck and call of a ringtone, but this time she does and he greets her cheerfully and asks how she is.
“Not bad, chico,” she tells him, “unless you’re up to something.”
“Nothing here, why do you ask?” he said. He thinks he’s getting a headache.
“Well, you call me out of the blue, I gotta expect a problem,” she says. “I’m the only one that hears from you as it is.”
You’re the only one who doesn’t have anything to lose, he wants to tell her, but doesn’t. It would probably be rude. Or arrogant. Or self-centred. It depended on how she wanted to take it.
“That’s because you scare the fuck out of me and I want to keep tabs,” he says instead and it’s not far from the truth. “If you’re lurking, you should stop by for lunch. I’ve got angel hair, I can make primavera.”
“Sorry. Week off,” she says. “I think I sent Kate to babysit.”
Her tone is joking, but he peeks out the windows anyway, just in case. There’s no sign of Kate on the street or on the rooftops. No flash of familiar purple. No glint from her scope.
“Too bad,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re missing. I picked up some flavoured olive oil from a great new place and got fresh basil.”
“Tempting, but I got a date.”
“Oh, cool. Anyone I know?”
“No,” America says, more emphatically than necessary. “No one you know, no one anyone knows. I don’t even plan to break the news that I got powers until after dessert. If we get along all right.”
“She hot?”
“None of your business, but I like her and want to make this work, so don’t think you can call me a hundred times an hour as a prank,” she says. “I’m turning off my phone.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You would.”
“Okay, I would, but I won’t,” he says, grinning, hoping the expression can be read down the line. “You’ll have to swing by and tell me about it. The angel hair will keep.”
“Uh-huh,” America says, half-distracted by, he presumes, the thought of her date. “I might just take you up on that, but don’t think you’re getting any details.”
“Not the kiss and tell type?”
“You know I’m not,” she tells him, and then, “Stay out of trouble, chico. I don’t want to have to cut this short to run your ass down.”
“Right. Stay in the kennel for America’s date,” he says. She doesn’t laugh exactly, but she makes a little snort that might be amusement. “Have fun.”
He hangs up and walks around the apartment a few more times to stretch. To loosen up. He randomly opens cabinets, not certain what he’s looking for. His head hurts and he’s starting to think that he should recant his view on stomachaches or at least not eat six – or more – boxes of Hallowe’en candy in one sitting, but he’s a god and he’s had more and worse and what’s the point of godhood if eating truckloads of junkfood is off the roster?
It’s a good time for a nap in any case and he sprawls on his bed, phone in hand, scrolling through blogs and humour sites until the silence gets to him and he calls Thor.
It’s a bit of a surprise to get him because, like America, he doesn’t like to be ordered around by electronics and any attempts to call have to be patched through the Avengers’ systems. He could scry, he knows – speak through mirrors, and water, and monitors – but he prefers his phone and it’s not like it’s a danger with all the spells he casts and rerouting he does to hide himself. It’s still a surprise to get Thor on the line and he switches to video because that’s how Stark’s tech rolls.
“Greetings, brother. What trouble have you started now?”
“Why do you assume I’ve started trouble?” he says, grinning. “Maybe I’ve already finished it.”
“Hmm…well, started or finished, you do not often call directly,” Thor replies, somewhat mollified. It doesn’t last and his brow furrows with worry. “Are you in trouble?”
“No, Thor. Can’t a guy call his family without the third degree?”
It’s an effort to keep smiling, but he manages.
“Some may,” Thor admits, “but they are not you.” It isn’t said without affection and, indeed, the smile Thor returns is warm. “What’s wrong then? Have you need of me?”
“I just wanted to say hello,” he says. “See how you’re doing. Invite you over for a drink, if you want. I got some Dwarven ale the other day, way better than the Midgard stuff.”
“Ah,” Thor says and it sounds strangely awkward. He looks a bit uncomfortable too. “I’m afraid I must decline. I am promised to Stark and Banner, who are investigating an off-world use of banned biotech. They wish me both for my strength and my diplomatic advantages. If not for the latter, Banner might have consented to be their strongarm.”
“Don’t suppose they want a fourth? I’m a pretty shrewd negotiator,” he says.
There’s a pause, one he’s ready for, although the flinch and twitch in Thor’s expression is something he doesn’t expect.
“I’m kidding,” he adds and Thor smiles again, his relief evident. “I know I’m not exactly Stark’s favourite.”
“I do have a little time before departure,” Thor tells him. “Leaving early will afford me time to stop and talk for a spell. Will this be amenable, brother?”
“Sure. Hit up the fire escape and you’ll save on arrival and departure time. It’s a nice enough day to sit out there.”
He receives the promise of an hour and tools around a little, picking up straggling bits of things. His apartment is cleaner than his living quarters have ever been, but, then, books have always made up most of his clutter and there’s little need for them when his memory is vast and his phone’s is even better. There’s something pleasing about the clean lines of his home, but also something sterile. The decor is appealing, but it’s a magazine appeal: superficially welcoming with the feeling that setting foot in the room will somehow ruin it forever. It doesn’t look lived in – barring a little wear on the sofa – or personalized. Apart from a few posters on the wall (framed) and his gaming consoles (put away neatly), the place could belong to anyone and if not for his spells, his shields, and the familiarity of the place, he might feel an outsider in his own home.
As much as he feels an outsider in his own body, his own life.
He puts some bottles in a bucket of ice – the Dwarves have mastered bottling in Midgardian fashion, even if the laws for distribution are a challenge – and climbs out onto the fire escape where the sun is bright and warm, even if the breeze is cool. He lets the sounds and smells of the city surround him, particularly those of the building across the alley where the window is open to emit the enticing smells of homemade bread and garlic…something with tomatoes – spaghetti sauce, maybe? Chili? – and he thinks that he could just sit there for the rest of the day, enjoying it. And he thinks that he should be getting on with things, finding ways to destroy his past and everyone’s memory of it. And he thinks that he could be building a power base to fill the grooves that the past leaves on the future. And he thinks it will be nice to see Thor because they don’t get to talk nearly enough and they’re getting along well right now and they should seize every opportunity they’ve got before… Well…
He also thinks he’s terrified of his brother and his brother’s love because he isn’t what his brother loves and isn’t sure he loves his brother. Enjoys him, maybe, in a way he never could before, appreciates him even, but doesn’t love, he doesn’t think. It’s hard to tell. His memories go back a long time, but nowhere among them is there a basis for comparison. There was one who might have told him, but his memories don’t speak. He’s gone. More gone than all the rest, at least as far as the important things go.
The headache increases and he moves into a patch of shade so that the blinding brightness doesn’t aggravate it. Even so, he smiles when Thor arrives and sits down next to him, all good cheer and optimism for the job he’s headed to. He says what he can about it, sharing no important details – for security reasons, although whether such things apply to all or only to people named Loki remains unconfirmed.
It’s a small part of the conversation, however, and Thor turns to other things, asking him what he’s been up to and nodding his approval when he finds out his brother has been slacking.
“A day of rest is good sometimes,” Thor says, “and you are looking peaked. Are you ill?”
“I…”
He wants to confess and tell Thor that he doesn’t feel well, that the feeling comes and goes, comes and goes, and, while it’s nothing serious, he feels disjointed and incomplete, a poorly-made product with missing nuts and bolts. He wants to tell Thor about the hooks in the universe that latch on to his soul and try to drag him back to a familiar position, tearing off pieces of his being when they can’t. He wants to tell Thor about the ruts and grooves in the story that seek someone to fill a him-shaped hole where he used to be and how these ruts and grooves all run downhill: slick, slippery, and unforgiving. He wants to tell Thor about the one brilliant part of him that wants to change, but then he’d also have to reveal the cost that seemed so reasonable and turned out to be so high, whispering evil secrets about the horrors waiting for him at the bottom of the slope, filling the fingers of his spirit with splinters as he tries to climb the ladder that avoids them. He wants to tell Thor about the future…
“I haven’t been feeling well,” he says instead, the most he will admit. “Sometimes I get aches and pains. My head hurts today.”
It’s accurate enough, although it doesn’t cover the static and the whispers that crowd his brain and cause the pressure. Thor frowns with concern all the same.
“Does this happen often? Have you spoken with Eir?”
“Ah, they’re not that bad and I don’t… I don’t really want to be in Asgardia more than I have to be these days.” He offers a reassuring smile when Thor frowns. “They aren’t dangerous, Thor. I’d know,” he adds and it’s half a lie. They’re dangerous enough in ways that are not physical. “Probably some kind of backlash.”
“You have grown up very quickly,” Thor says and reaches out to ruffle his hair the way he once did that of a small child. “Some form of magic, I assume, as you will not tell me the trick of it. Could this not cause such distress?”
“I suppose,” he says and neglects to mention that the malaise started long before the growth of his body, back when there was a child to appreciate his big brother’s affections. “I guess I should track them or something. See if they match up to growth patterns or show some kind of magical resonance.”
“Whatever you do, promise me you will speak with Eir if the symptoms persist,” Thor says gravely. “I will check with you when I return and see whether you are feeling better.”
He suddenly regrets saying anything and spoiling Thor’s outing. However he thought of Thor in the past, he could not deny that every memory returned the knowledge that Thor would fret and fight for the sake of his family, adopted or not. To bother him now, before an important mission…
“I’ll take care of it, Thor. Don’t worry,” he says and offers a reassuring smile. “I’ll take a nap when you leave.”
“If nothing else, it will keep you out of trouble,” Thor replies. It’s an obvious joke, but not really a funny one and Thor’s smile when he makes it is only half-hearted.
He agrees anyway and Thor pats him on the shoulder, then leans in and presses their foreheads together. For a moment he feels as small as when he joined the Young Avengers, but younger – so much younger than he ever was – and he wonders what it must be like to feel the urge to do this, make simple, gentle contact, without thought or explanation. He cannot enjoy it, caught in its cold analysis, and the moment ends too soon. Thor pulls away and says his goodbyes, bids him to take better care of himself, promises again to check up with him on his return.
It’s all very warm, and lovely, and brief, and then he’s alone again with the staticky silence of his thoughts fizzling away the dense matter of his brain. The headache remains, but now his eyes also burn, dazzled by the sunlight, and he’s tired from pretending to be someone he’s not. It shouldn’t be such a physical thing, but it is and he’s sore, but in a free-floating way that has no source. He doesn’t feel right in his body, which, he supposes, is only fair.
He takes some pain medication, something greater than what’s available in Earth’s pharmacies, something he doesn’t take very often, and lies down to finish the nap he never started. He brings his phone, but doesn’t look at it. He’s asleep before he’s aware of having closed his eyes.
A knock on the door wakes him up and he feels groggy and dull. The edge of the headache is gone, but the ache itself remains, hot, heavy, and somehow bloated as though his skull were stuffed with damp cotton, packed tight. He stumbles to the door, unthinking, and pulls it open without even wondering who it might be or how they bypassed the security door.
It’s Verity, her bag slung over her shoulder, a cardboard tray with two cups of coffee in hand.
“Hey,” she says. “I followed someone in. Am I interrupting? I didn’t know what time you were going to the movie, but I figured if it was later rather than sooner, you might be about ready for a pick-me-up. I tried to call ahead, but you didn’t answer.”
He looks around, then up and down the outer hall, feeling a bit disoriented.
“I think I fell asleep,” he tells her and ushers her inside.
“You sound like you haven’t woken up yet,” Verity says, the corners of her mouth twitching upward in her not-quite-a-smile. “Are you all right? You sounded kind of… off on the phone, so I brought coffee and pastries – caffeine cures all ills – but if you aren’t feeling up to it…”
“No, I’m good. Caffeine is good,” he tells her as she stands in his apartment and puts the cardboard tray down on a table. She frowns at him – a mix of insult and anger – crosses her arms, and stares.
“No, I’m…” he tries again. “It’s just a headache. Although I thought, just once, of maybe calling you back and saying I had changed my mind. I haven’t been feeling well.”
Verity is different than America or Thor. Verity is cold. Not cruelly, not mechanically, but she’s as cold as warm can get before it loses its humanity. She looks at him and through him with analytical eyes and asks all the hard questions, demanding answers he wouldn’t give another.
“Would going out make you feel better?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know what’s wrong, really. I just feel badly put together.”
It’s a weird turn of phrase, but not inaccurate. He isn’t the Loki who went before although his head carries all of his knowledge, all of his memories, packed in nondescript boxes to which he can’t relate. He isn’t the first owner of this body that feels stretched and pulled out of shape. He’s something new, and fluid, and strange, coloured by the thoughts that seep from the boxes of his mind and the memories that live embedded in the cells of his body, seeking to fill them both and take their form as water takes the form of the container in which it finds itself, but this container is cracked and misused: fluid leaks and solids don’t fit and everything aches into the core of him.
“Sit down.”
He almost misses the command, has definitely missed the context, and he must look confused because Verity just stares at him until he’s giving her his full attention and repeats, “I’ll show you a trick. Sit down.”
He sits on the sofa and turns his back to her when she indicates that he should do so.
“I’m not a pro or anything, but a friend taught me this and it’s helped me out with headaches and general stiffness. There are a few points you can put some pressure on and rub with your thumbs that will help you loosen up a little. Pay attention, now.”
He feels her thumbs dig into the base of his skull and it hurts and it startles him and he pulls away.
She pulls him back and scolds him – “You big baby!” – but it’s not without affection. She’s colder than America, but she can warm, and as she plants her thumbs firmly a second time – still painful, but no longer unexpected – he wishes he could love her. He doesn’t know how.
She digs her thumbs into the base of his skull and it hurts at first, but soon stops, and then feels really good and he thinks he might fall asleep again, but she moves to a point at the base of his neck and the pain returns, unwinds, and is gone.
So is most of his headache.
“Marry me,” he says, unthinking. It’s a joke – a poor one, but no less a joke – yet he feels a sense of loss when she takes it as one and gives a little half-laugh, a sound he associates with her not-quite-a-smile.
“No,” she says, but gently. “Neither of us wants that.”
True, but painful for all of that. He wants to tell her so. Instead, he says, “I’m a terrible person.”
Verity pauses in her ministrations and then continues.
“I guess you are, but that’s not why,” she tells him. “ Do you want to be a terrible person?”
“No.”
“There you are, then. If you’ve been a terrible person, nothing will change that, but you can always stop being a terrible person.”
He laughs, but it isn’t really a laugh and they both know it.
“I didn’t say it would be easy,” she continues, “only that it’s possible. Are you a terrible person?”
“Yes,” he says, unsure of where she’s leading him.
“Okay, I’ll ask you that again next week. Give me the same answer. Do you want to be a terrible person?”
“No.”
“Then remember that and, one day, when I ask if you’re a terrible person, you’ll be lying to me.”
“And then I’ll learn some miraculous lesson about life, love, and happiness?” he says. He can’t help the element of sarcasm that slips into his voice.
“No,” she says. “Then I’ll slap you upside the head for being a filthy liar.”
This time he smiles, although she can’t see.
“That’s a language I can understand,” he says.
“I know,” she replies, but she sounds sad.
The massage eases and comes to a stop. It’s all he can do not to whine in frustration, but he manages and Verity finishes by combing his hair with her fingers.
“There,” she says. “Better?”
“A little,” he said. “Enough.”
“You were really stiff,” she tells him. “It’s no wonder your head hurt. Remember those points and you’ll be able to loosen yourself up some whenever you need to.”
“It’s better when you do it,” he says.
“Maybe, but I won’t always be here.”
He wonders if she meant her remark to be as portentous as it felt. She won’t always be here because she has her own life and can’t cater to him whenever he wants her. She won’t always be here because she is mortal and he – or something like him – will live nearly forever. It’s a terrifying thought and he wonders briefly how mortals can face it, this knowledge of their own end.
On the other hand, she’s Verity, and knowing her life is short means an ability to discard the past. She doesn’t have time to get bogged down by something that is built of lies. For those to whom the past has meaning, it’s painted black with dread or tinted rose through the lenses of nostalgia. For Verity, the past is facts – dry and dusty – and all but useless. The past can inform, can aid in drawing a line between the present and the future, but cannot be depended upon. Life is short, the past is done, but the future can be made. She, of all people, can believe in him without the ages long memory of the Aesir or the superstitions of human kind and her belief quells the voices and the static and the doubt, bringing hope.
And that’s an important thing.
“I’m never going to be a good person,” he admits to her, knowing he can’t love her any more than he can love his own brother, “but I hope you’ll be here to see me when I’m not a terrible one.”
She pauses, silent, as if about to argue and then brushes her lips against the nape of his neck.
“Me too, Pinocchio,” she says, little more than a whisper. “Me too. But,” she adds, her voice rising, “this is getting really heavy when I came here to go out.”
“Yeah, about that,” he says. He feels better, but still a bit off and strangely melancholic. “Would you be really upset if we stayed in? I got angel hair. I can make primavera or something.”
“Honestly? That sounds like heaven right now,” Verity says. She passes him a cup of coffee, pulls back the lid on her own, and takes a sip. “I’m a worthless cook, but I’ll help you chop vegetables or something. We can save the pastries for dessert.”
“I doubt you’re worthless,” he says, smiling as he rises and offers her his hand.
“You’re right. My boxed mac and cheese is to die for,” she says, taking it, but standing under her own power. There is something pleasing in that: they are each their own, but unafraid to connect. If she slips, he can catch her. If he falls, well…
He isn’t sure any one mortal can uphold a god, but stranger things have happened. At the very least, he won’t take her with him.
They rattle around the kitchen and spend a quiet night eating pasta and listening to music whose lyrics are often false, but whose melodies are always true. She has coffee cake for dessert and he has something dense and sticky and sweet that makes his mouth water even as his body complains that he’s had enough sugar for the day. They talk and Verity’s voice loses its edge after the second glass of wine. She is cold, but she can warm. His head still hurts a little, filled as it is with buzzing words and whispered guilt, and his chest feels tight and full, but it’s not a terrible feeling and the sense of malaise is much reduced.
He still doesn’t feel well, but, he thinks, he’s getting better.