Loki (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fiorvalr) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} noexits,@ 2021-06-25 12:32:00 |
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Loki has mostly healed from the battle with Not-Ted thanks to Yennefer's help. But Julia hasn't been as fortunate with her injuries. She asks him to help her in the bath. They both share a sentimental wish with each other.WARNINGS Mentions Nudity and Physical Injury
It wasn’t the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but it did weigh on him. Not in the way things of great importance weighed on him, like his mother’s death or his decision to sacrifice himself for his brother, but the way small seemingly insignificant choices built up over time and held a person down.
Fandral.
Loki sighed. It wasn’t the tryst that bothered him. That didn’t matter to Loki. Nights of passion were not things he grieved over or regretted. They were normal. And, for the most part, they left little impression. And Loki usually moved on without trouble because no one wanted more from him than a good time. But even though he didn’t regret his actions — actions that occurred while he didn’t have his memories and as such were not entirely his own fault — he felt guilty for them. And there were two reasons for that guilt. The first was because he recognized his role in Fandral’s death. Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun. And so many more of their people. If he hadn’t been so obsessed with himself, he might not have unleashed those forces on Asgard. Ragnarok may never have happened. He wouldn’t have been on the Statesman. They would all be safe. Free. And alive.
But Loki was selfish. And people died. Time and time again.
He’d been on his way to the fifth floor to apologize to Fandral when he stopped halfway in the stairwell. He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t ready to face him. Not on these terms. And not because he was embarrassed. But because if he saw him now he’d tell him the truth. And then Fandral might never speak to him again. And he needed Fandral’s friendship. That man was Loki’s only tie to home.
He skipped back down the stairs to the fourth floor and wandered down the corridor. For no reason other than to take a different path back to his own room on the first floor. But when he passed by Julia’s room, which he didn’t actually know was Julia’s room until he heard the sound of her voice, he stopped. Another person that gave him a twinge of shame. Although in the hedgewitch’s case it was different. She’d proved herself a worthy trickster. And as such it seemed only fair that he obtain her shade. Not that he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it. But it was always good to have the upper hand, regardless of whether the person was a friend, enemy, lover, or all of the above.
He didn’t have anything to say to her. Not even an apology for starting an almost literal witch hunt on her earlier in the week. But still he paused. And without thinking, he knocked on her door.
Julia used her good arm to open the door. The bullet had struck her left shoulder and that arm was immobilized in a sling. It hurt. Options on the college campus for painkillers were limited. Thanks to the doctors that had appeared and disappeared over the past few months, she was lucky that the clinic was well stocked enough to tend to the wound as it was.
But until next week, things would suck.
Maybe she had deserved it.
It could have been so much worse. Without the circumstances and memories that made her try and struggle not to be a monster, she was capable of so much terror and pain and death. Perhaps if she’d learned more about the ritual, whatever the Impostor was planning, she might have tried to claim that power for herself.
Julia didn’t go to the freezer or try to examine the bodies again. She wasn’t sure if she trusted herself even now.
When she saw Loki her expression softened and then winced. What Julia should have done was run to Quentin, her best friend. Maybe Quentin would come to her. Or maybe Quentin would avoid her the way Eliot had quietly avoided her, knowing what she was. Julia wasn’t quite ready to find out.
“Hey,” she said.
If he expected her to demand an apology, she was too preoccupied trying to retrace the things she’d done and said, not quite able to calculate if she owed apologies this week and to who.
“Don’t suppose I can get some help?”
Loki hadn’t escaped the week unscathed either. He’d suffered quite heavily under the Impostor’s attacks in that final battle. It had been bad. Really bad. Very touch-and-go. Even Loki had been convinced that he was on death’s doorstep. But magic was magic and he was a god. He also, apparently, had more friends in Derleth than he realized or was willing to acknowledge. And so while he did spend a good deal of that day and night following Not-Ted’s takedown in a state of comatose bliss, his body healing itself with the aid of a few others’ welcomed assistance, he didn’t look too worse for wear when he stood opposite Julia.
It also helped that he had the magic of illusions on his side to hide his bruises.
Of course, the emotional trauma of being on the brink of death would never leave him. It left a shining glimmer in his eye. The kind of shimmer only someone who’d seen beyond the veil and feared that glimpse more than anything else in the vast multitude of universes could have. Unconsciously displaying an unwanted fragility. Vulnerability. For all Loki’s jests and quips and mockeries of the futility of a Derleth death — of the meaninglessness of dying in a place that continued to bring you back time and time again — he desperately did not want to die. Not again. And it took lying on the ground, blood spilling from his lips, memory quickly returned as Not-Ted roared to his own destruction at the hands of the others who fought him off, and seeing that look in Fandral’s eyes, to remind Loki that death was no longer an option for him.
He wanted to live. Forever. He never wanted to experience that horror and pain again. Let alone the emptiness which he now knew was on the other side.
There was no Valhalla. That was just a pipe dream. Or perhaps it was simply something that he was not destined for.
He blinked out of his thoughts when Julia spoke. His gaze had drifted to her arm, tied up in a makeshift sling, and the shoulder which dipped lower than the other. Then he raised a scruffy brow. He didn’t know why he was there. Surely, he was the last person she’d want to see. And far be it for Loki, God of Mischief, to express concern for somebody else.
But there was that flicker of blame in his eyes. Exposing a small measure of truth about him. Loki lied. Especially to himself. “What do you want me to do?”
Julia was mildly surprised.
Both in her willingness to ask him for help and the way he didn’t turn her down or demand something of her immediately. Was it growth? Or was it the fact that Julia asked someone she didn’t fully trust thinking it was what she deserved. She asked someone who didn’t particularly strike her as someone who wanted to help.
Because there had been offers, everyone who had reached out to her to make sure she was okay. Their empathy was starting to feel alien to her. Julia preferred the treatment she understood.
John, Tony, Quentin, Margo, even Peter Parker. ...Purple Guy. She really needed to learn what his real name was at a minimum.
“I need someone to help me out of my clothes so I can clean up.”
The calculation was this: Loki had seen her naked before and the two of them tried their hardest to pretend they didn’t care. It was safe, familiar in a backwards, fucked up way. She didn’t want to see a concerned face staring at her and not know how to stare back.
She needed a minute, a day, the rest of the week, maybe.
Having one good arm, Julia not only needed him to help her undress, but also carry her toiletries. So without waiting for him to accept, she shoved a plastic basket of her toiletries into his hands and picked up a towel for herself, and then nudged him back out into the hall to follow her into the bathrooms.
Loki was surprised as well, but he hid that surprise behind a mask of indifference. He still hadn’t decided what he felt about Julia. She intrigued him on an intangible level. He liked her bluntness and her subtle craftiness. Most people might have been annoyed, perhaps even livid, at being manipulated into the situation Loki had found himself in with her on Fillory. But he wasn’t. He was impressed. Very impressed. Also amused. And it was that amusement which encouraged him to go after her shade.
It wasn’t until he realized who he had to take it from that he began to question his actions. His choices. His motives. How would he have felt if the circumstances had been reversed? If someone had taken another Loki’s soul for him?
Well, truthfully, he probably wouldn’t have cared. But he wasn’t like most people. And maybe that’s why he felt a little guilty about Julia. Because he sensed that she wasn’t like most people either.
Then again, he could have been wrong. It wouldn’t have been the first time. He had the notoriously bad habit of misreading the room.
But Loki wasn’t cruel. He understood pain and loneliness. And he understood how difficult it could be to ask for help. That was one kingdom he could rule without trouble. King of Refusing Help. That was Loki from top to bottom. That’s also what he needed to change if he wanted to be a different Loki. Well, one thing among a laundry list of others.
“Alright,” he agreed without complaint. He didn’t even say anything when she shoved the plastic basket in his hands. He merely tucked it under one arm, leaving the other open to her should she need it. Although he doubted she’d accept it. Then he followed along beside her to the bathroom. “Who shot you again? I heard about it, but I was a little distracted.”
“It’s not important,” Julia said. She had been very careful not to say who shot her on the network. It was one of the new arrivals, who lacked his own memories, confronting a shadeless version of herself who had no real reason or motivation to blend in, to try to get along. It was not the kind of first impression he deserved and… she hadn’t learned his name anyway.
Each floor had one bathtub for those who were brave enough to test their cleanliness. The tub was in a larger stall with a curtain for a door and a metal bench where Julia set down her towel. She went through her basket and took out a small vial, and pouring the contents of the vial into the tub, Julia lowered her good hand to the level of her injured one and attempted to cast something.
It didn’t work.
The alternate position of her hands made it more difficult. She exhaled and tried again. Again, she failed. The spell wasn’t terribly complicated. A small cleansing ritual because she did not, under any sane circumstances, trust using a bathtub in a dormitory shower.
She didn’t even use the showers barefoot.
Loki followed Julia into the bathroom, careful to keep a certain distance between, but not too distant. Once he set her basket down on the bench, he stood off to the side and watched as she tried to cast a spell over the tub. He didn’t interrupt at first because he knew that would come off as demeaning. There was nothing worse than not being able to cast a spell and then having someone else walk in and do it with little to no difficulty. Being an insufferable narcissist he knew how quickly he could jump to anger at something so insignificant. He didn’t know if Julia was the same way, but he gave her the opportunity to try.
When it was clear she wasn’t going to be able to complete her spell without the use of her other arm’s mobility, Loki stepped forward and waved his hand over the tub. A bright green light flashed from his palm. As he waved his hand from one end of the tub to the other, the tub cleaned itself up. It went from its bland grimy state to glistening and white. It even had the faint scent of lavender. Because Loki loved the tiny details of magic. That’s what made it magic, after all. The care to consider the minutiae.
And then, for good measure, he did the same to the floor. Because he, too, was a stickler for a clean space.
He turned on the water.
“Why haven’t you asked one of the other witches or magicians to help you heal?” Loki asked, making his way around the tub to stand at her side. He raised both hands slowly, a quiet warning that he was going to touch her, and carefully began maneuvering her top off of her arm. He was attentive to her shoulder and made certain not to accidentally bump or touch it. His movements slow, almost intimate. Once he’d removed her shirt he set it on the bench by her towel, neatly folded. “Surely there’s someone who could remove your pain for a few days.”
He reached behind her and unlatched her bra. Then he set to helping undress the rest of her. He didn’t stare and he didn’t judge. Which, in one sense was very un-Loki of him and in another was precisely Loki. A gentleman and a trickster.
His spell was better, but then he was also a god. She had watched him cast but knew she didn’t have the power to do so much for so little. At least, not without a significant power boost. Still, Julia didn’t make a move on the trickster, despite being undressed by him. It was clinical. He was helping her.
“Healing magic is a specific discipline,” Julia said. When it came to removing her clothing below the waist, Julia use her good hand to hold Loki’s shoulder and give herself additional balance as she stepped out of the rest of her clothing.
Her answer was laughable. Lie by omission. Tony had offered her personal reserves of a healing potion he used to minimize the palladium poisoning of his arc reactor.
Loki was right there. She could have asked for his assistance and given herself the power to heal herself. She had multiple options for magically taking care of the pain and speeding her recovery before the end of the week.
“It’s fine,” she said. Holding Loki again to help her with balance she stepped into the bathtub and sat. Once settled she reached forward to adjust the water and wait for it to come to temperature.
She hadn’t asked for more help than this because ultimately, she didn’t believe she deserved it. Her actions required penance.
Loki could have mocked her for not trying harder, but in this case he knew it wasn’t his place. Because he was no different. Granted, he’d been near the point of death so he hadn’t been in the position to ask for help. But if he had, he probably wouldn’t have. Just like he still hadn’t asked for real help in so many other aspects of his life. Like dealing with his death or the myriad of terrible things he’d done in his life. Or even just that weighty sensation of not liking oneself. All things he should have sought help for, but he refused to even acknowledge.
“Healing magic is tricky.”
He sat on the edge of the tub. He was more casual than normal. Still those too-tight fitting leather pants, which to be quite honest hurt some of the bruises he still had on his hips and legs from his battle with Not-Ted, but on top he wore a zip-up Derleth hoodie. His hair hung down loose over his shoulders. Not very impressive. Not very god-like. But it was a look that worked for him in a surprisingly casual way.
Loki, emo god of hooded sweatshirts.
This was probably that moment when he ought to apologize to her. Instead he picked up her bath basket and set it in his lap, trifling through the various bottles and products. He opened a small bottle of shampoo and sniffed it. The scent was more pleasant than he anticipated. So, he set that one on the edge of the tub for her.
“Sometimes a little pain is a good reminder anyway.” He uncapped the bottle of conditioner, closed his eyes, and tried to place the scent to something from his memory. But all it elicited was the thought of Julia in the clover. He held up the bottle with a grin. “Can I borrow this sometime?”
“Nope,” Julia said. She hadn’t even turned her head to see which bottle he was referring to. Once the temperature wasn’t too cold or too hot, she released the stopper in the tub. She didn’t fill the tub, leaving only a few inches at the bottom. Enough to get herself clean without risking the injury.
She finally looked at the shampoo he laid out for her and put it back in the basket. Today wasn’t a hair washing day. Instead she picked out bodywash and a loofa.
He was right about pain. Julia had slipped in Fillory and then without her memories. She needed the reminder. This is why you don’t resort to deadly violence first. Injuries hurt. Can’t let the shadeless hedgewitch off too easy!
Right?
Loki pouted, but it was more in jest than anything else. In truth, her quick negative response amused him. Again one of those weird things about Julia that caught his attention. Although he did think about pocketing the conditioner since she wasn’t planning on using it.
He set the basket down on the floor beside the tub and tilted his weight on the edge. He leaned over and dipped his fingers in the water near her knee. It was warm, but his body’s natural coldness felt the temperature even warmer than it actually was. It was nice. And he idly thought that maybe he would take a bath himself later. Much later. When everyone else was asleep and he didn’t have to keep up an illusion to cover the dark bruises on his body left behind after his stupid battle against the monster.
“We should come up with a code sign or password. Something you can say when you want enough power to help yourself but don’t want to ask for it,” Loki said. Normally there might have been a sarcastic edge to his tone, but not today. Perhaps he’d also been through too much over the last few weeks to hold up his humorous facade in front of someone who could see through bullshit.
He took his hand out of the water and it dried immediately.
“I’m not afraid to ask for what I want,” Julia said. She had, after all, asked him to help her now. Ambition was never Julia’s problem. Reigning it in was. Stubbornness definitely was. Right now it was the stubbornness that was winning out.
It occurred to Julia she wasn’t against sleeping with Loki again. She was, however, against speeding up her recovery. She played through the encounter that led up to her being shot. Her seemingly unarmed and attempting to walk away. But Peter and the new arrival had every reason to suspect she was still dangerous. Julia had known she was dangerous.
No, maybe what she really wanted was for someone to witness her struggling. To appreciate her penance. To appreciate the fact that she was trying to remember what it was like to have a soul that didn’t have a hole blown through it.
“No, I suppose you’re not.” Loki could have said the same of himself, although there would always be a part of that which was a lie. He wasn’t afraid to tell people what he wanted. But to ask for what he wanted? That was something else entirely. And then, of course, there was the concept of the ‘want’ itself. Because often what he said he wanted wasn’t actually what he wanted.
Certainly not what he needed.
Loki looked at her then, watching as she scrubbed the loofa over her body. It wasn’t a lascivious stare, but a thoughtful one. He watched the foam of the body wash slide down her skin. He tried to pinpoint his thoughts, but they didn’t have a tangible focus. They were everywhere. An image of Julia’s shade, glow hidden in the confines of his satchel, flashed across his mind. Followed by the horrified grimace on Fandral’s face while Loki lay bleeding on the ground. Natasha telling him she didn’t judge him. Thor yelling. Frigga smiling. Death. Death. Death. Nothing.
The soap was washed away with water and it drew him back into the moment.
Loki brushed his hair back over his shoulder. “If you could ask for anything without consequence, what would you ask for?”
“To kill Reynard,” she said. There was zero hesitation. Of course, Julia didn’t know the consequences for killing a god. Not on her world, not on a cosmic level.
And it wasn’t as if there weren’t thousands of other things she could have asked for: more power, magical knowledge, money, the end of World Hunger.
But she was ruled mostly by an unleashed id with a thin veneer of logic. Reynard was the mistake she had unleashed, and if she could kill him without anyone else getting hurt or dying herself, then that was what she would pick.
It was only afterward Julia realized she might not have told Loki about her history with trickster gods. She steeled her expression afterward and finished up in the bath as if her heart’s strongest desire were nothing at all.
“You?”
Just a perfectly casual conversation.
Was it a test to ease his conscience? Loki wasn’t certain, but he was surprised by her answer. He’d expected the obvious. Because who wouldn’t want their soul back? Then again, the longer he had one the more he wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off without his. It certainly would have made some things easier.
But Loki didn’t say anything in response to her answer. He merely raised a single brow. Just the slightest tinge of curiosity on his part. Reynard. He would remember that name. Sweeney had said something about that, as well, hadn’t he? Although Loki assumed he meant another god. Not that he trusted anything that came out of that red-headed giant’s mouth. That leprechaun was always complaining about something. Still, it was information he would pocket for later when it might be more useful. Then his posture relaxed, shoulders drooping from their previous position. Less tense. Because her answer spared him the guilt of knowing he had something of hers. Something he had no right to. Well, except that another version of her gave it to him. And it wasn’t really Julia’s shade, was it?
There was a philosophical quandary in there for another time.
But since they were both being so honest.
“My mother, alive and well.” That answer was easy. And, like Julia’s response, perhaps a tad too personal.
He stood up from the lip of the tub and picked up her towel.
Julia had finished and stood up carefully, stepping into Loki’s arms and allowing him to wrap the towel around her. It was a trust exercise without trust, affection without affection, comforting without being comforted.
And yet, somehow it was exactly what Julia needed in that moment.
She should have offered him her condolences, but instead she made a mental note to research mythology in the library to learn more about Loki’s history and lineage. Naturally, she wanted the leverage. She didn’t have any plans to hurt him. Not yet.
“Thank you,” Julia said.
The strange thing was, a part of her meant it, as sincerely as she was capable of being.