Who: Lina & Loki What: Discussing possible apocalyptic scenarios over a breakfast feast. When: Beginning of the Hellmouth plot~ Where: Denny's, reigning champ of respectable breakfast shindigs Rating/Warnings: Relatively low Status: Complete!
“So, where do you think Denny’s falls on the spectrum of breakfast places? Above Waffle House, below IHop? Or above them both?” Lina’s choice in conversation was definitely a little odd, considering they’d just reunited after a nightlong patrol of various Orange County locations. Could be utter delirium talking too, but once they were seated, the first order of business was coffee. A big mug, thank you, keep ‘em coming.
Hellmouths, vampires, oh my! Their hands were full, paycheck finally well earned, though Lina didn’t mind sitting around the office and flinging all the skittles she didn’t eat at Loki’s general direction. Better than possible apocalyptic bullshit in the horizon anyway, but the lady had optimism and things would turn out fine.
Eventually. Sort of.
Loki had never been much of an eater. When he’d started to dream of being Asgardian, his metabolism had kicked up a few notches, but even then it wasn’t something terrible. Since the de-aging, he couldn’t stop shoving his face with food. Especially breakfast food.
He skipped the coffee. As he slurped down a strawberry milkshake and eyed up the menu of greasy, processed cheese covered eggs and fatty sausages, he swished his mouth to the side. “Definitely above. Like, don’t get me wrong, I like IHOP? Stuffed french toast pretty much is the nectar of the gods. But Denny’s is Denny’s. Quintessential all day, all night, classic breakfast.”
Damn, that milkshake looked good, she’d have order one with the meal. Caffeine first, though. Loads of it. Lina even made sure to saturate it with an unhealthy amount of cream and sugar, stirring it until blended well. “Valid point,” she concurred, shrugging before taking a sip of her beverage. Today, she’d choose anything and everything that would help upkeep that on-going sugar rush. A crash was in the horizon. Soon. Carbs slathered in sweetness came first. Like those peanut butter cup pancakes, fuck yes.
Anyway, to work-related business. “So we’ve got a possible mouth of hell that might open, and we don’t know where. How’d your look through go?”
“Yeah, I’m full of good points.” As promised, Loki promptly ordered an All American Slam. With extra sausages. And extra cheese. And also an extra milkshake, because, really, why not.
“It was creepy.” He raised his eyebrows, then shrugged. “Like, legit. I think even a normal person would get the heebie-jeebies, but it was pretty heavy. I didn’t see anything, but I sure as Hel felt it.” Loki slumped back in the booth, flicking at the little creamers. “So. That girl you talked to. Who made the post. What all did she tell you?”
Well, alright, Loki ate just as much as she did and Lina contemplated whether or not the size of the table could actually contain the amount of food ordered. They’d have to see when the time came, but her order was put in too - those peanut butter cup pancakes with extra sides, eggs and hash browns - and the waitress looked like she may have shat a brick or two. “Milkshake too, whatever he’s having,” she finished and sent the bewildered server off to start putting all that in. It’d be awhile.
Back to nursing her coffee - she’d need a good sip before delving into the details. “It’s a prophecy, though she doesn’t know too much yet. She’s still dreaming. But some pompous self-titled ass called The Master is supposed to kill her, her death is supposed set him free, the works.” Buffy sounded terrified, and with good reason. This wasn’t child’s play. “We had a teenager with the vision of literal hell, Zee did a reading that revealed a battle against a big bad foe - the pieces are coming together, slowly.”
“Prophecy, shmophecy.” Loki waved his hand dismissively. Carelessly, really. He thought it was sort of cute, the whole prophecy thing. Not what the prophecy entailed, exactly, but the idea of them was cute. “Look, as a guy pretty embroiled in prophecy and who, in at least one life, wrote himself out of the book of those things, I don’t think prophecies hold a whole lot of weight.”
With a good long slurp, he finished the remnants of his first milkshake. There was a moment of sadness for the whole minute or two he’d have to wait for his new one. “But since that probably won’t go off well with Carter, I guess we should pretend it means something. The Master. What a schmuck.” Loki snorted. “Right, sorry, sorry. Okay. So hell is coming to Orange County and with it … Who knows. We need to keep a close eye on this girl. She’ll be our best bet at finding where it’s gonna go down. We’ll need to focus our energy and, if I say so myself, totally awesome talents on helping contain it.”
Lina wasn’t particularly used to prophecies, but she was used to things going to shit very quickly in regards the apocalyptic types of situations. Hers was mostly ‘wrong place, wrong time, crap I should fix this,’ but a prophecy offered guidance coded with riddles. If they knew what direction events were headed, they could be there to, quite bluntly, fuck it up.
“She’s cooperative,” she pointed out, arms crossed as she leaned back against her seat. Cooperative as long as her sister was safe and sound, anyway - a concern Lina couldn’t blame her for, so she’d pull some strings to pull the teenager out of state until things blew over. “And...afraid of dying. I’ve got Zee updated and on standby with her healing magics in case. We need to make her feel safe if we want her to work with us. But she said once she dreams more, we’d be the first to know.”
“People are generally afraid of dying, it’s true.” Loki swished his lips a bit. “It looks like we’ll need to get a plan involved with all departments. Cover ups to keeping people safe and whatever good guy government types do.”
He tapped his fingers on the table. Even in the familiarity of Denny’s, Loki couldn’t shake the feeling of being unnerved. He glanced out the window for a moment before the arrival of food took his attention.
“Is anyone actually equipped to deal with hell on earth?”
Well, before she could answer, the first round of plates made the table - the main courses, sans the extra side dishes they’d ordered, though their slightly disturbed waitress let them know it’d be on their way. At least the milkshakes came, Lina tackled that first (priorities, clearly), before the server skedaddled and allowed them some privacy again.
“Considering it’s an infestation of bad things everywhere, I’d say all hands on deck,” she agreed. “If it’s going to stick to this area, the OC is still a big damn place. I’m sure anyone with super special powers is going to want to take a bite out of this too, lucky us.” Containing the situation was the best move until the girl in question revealed more little tidbits of what the holy hell was going on - sort of a waiting game, which didn’t sit too well with her, but…
Armed with a fork and knife, his somewhat ominous question didn’t stop her from slicing and dicing into the heap of pancakes. Made her pause for a second, but apocalypse be damned right now, breakfast. “Off the top of my head? Can’t think of anyone. But we’ll deal. No other choice in the matter, and I really like this place better when it’s not taken over by some supernatural underworld of monsters.”
“I mean. You know. I know there are some people around relatively equipped to deal with alien invasions, so, this isn’t too different. Right?” Loki slurped down his second milkshake with a vengeance. “Okay. Okay. So, we get the magic folk and we’ll set up a containment plan. Oooh, I’m so excited to try out some stuff from my creepy old rune book.”
Following Lina’s example, Loki dug into his own food. He didn’t even bother with a knife. He stabbed a piece of bacon and crammed it into his mouth. “I’w tock t’ Cawtah,” he said around a mouthful of greasy goodness. Ahem. “And get the other divisions on a plan. Like, you know. Set up perimeters for possible waves? Magic folk and those equipped for hell things in the middle. Then fan out. Basic security and civilian control on the outsides. Being a good guy is exhausting.”
Wow, what the hell? Was that even English? But alright, Loki, go and make Lina’s table manners actually look ladylike in comparison because that was a lovely accomplishment. “It’s a plan that makes sense. I can hit Zee up, ask her to communicate accordingly to the guild - nab any volunteers. Which, actually…”
She made a point to chew and swallow first, before continuing. “How many people are allowed in our department? Because having Zee onboard would be pretty nifty, she’s got a good array of different kinds of magic at her disposal. And with a better grasp on it lately.”
It was totally English. Get your ears checked.
Loki was listening, even if it looked like he was more involved with cramming food down his throat. But his attention was evident when he looked up at Lina’s question. “Actually -” And he swallowed down whatever he’d managed to fit in his face - “funny you should bring that up. Honestly? The whole reason I even joined that whole Magic Club thing was because it seemed like a good recruiting pool. I mean, come on. All of Orange County’s magic folk amassed together? Pfft, that’s half my job done.”
The next victim on his plate was the hashbrowns. He loved the shredded ones. Like, all hashbrowns were great, but there was something about being a shredded mass of fried potatoes that really made him happy. “Like, for real, I’m not really a club guy. Except for the magic castle but that was totally an esteemed honour so you don’t say no.” Stab stab stab, hashbrowns on the fork. “Give her a green light to help out with this. It can be her trial one. If I like what I see, she’s totally in.”
Lina snatched up a crispy piece of bacon, bit half of it off and chewed. Slowly. With an equally slow rise of her eyebrow that was a clear sign of judgment. Well, alright, yeah, she’d agree the guild thing was a handy thing - and it they had a good idea of what most of the magically inclined people were capable of. Should anyone have the nads to use some of their tricks and, oh, for example, cast a devastating sleeping curse, they at least had a go-to list of people that could be responsible. Handy shit like that.
“What is your criteria of recruiting people, by the way? All I did was throw a temper tantrum for a week and break a couple things.” Which was putting it a little lightly, but whatever, no one died. “Pretty sure she’ll step up in the moment of an apocalypse. She’s been already doing house visits on people that are prone to either dying or getting completely mutilated in their dreams. Healing stuff. I’m terrible at it, dunno about you.” She’d been practicing a resurrection spell in case of emergencies, ever since one of her roommates had the unfortunate experience of dying everywhere on her bed, but it was still kind of in the works. “But I’ll let her know she’s got to fluff her feathers extra pretty for you.”
Oh, he saw the look. Don’t think he didn’t. But Loki was very used to judging looks and much worse, it sort of came with what he was, and he thoughtfully chewed his food. “I was told to recruit you. The director at the time, he and I go way back, you know, wanted to have that power in his corner. Put a lock on it before someone else could.” Loki shrugged. He clearly had no qualms about speaking candidly when he wanted to.
“You should know that … Okay, so I look like this now.” He motioned to his current appearance, with no small amount of exasperation. “But I’m still me. I’m very peculiar about who I share things with, even if it’s work. And when it comes to a group dedicated to the occult and massively weird, I’m not gonna let in just every hack that can conjure a spell or pull a neat trick. Otherwise every magic being in Orange County would have a membership card.” Loki raised his own eyebrows. “We can’t weigh ourselves down with mediocrity.”
Another slow, contemplative chew of bacon while her nose crinkled, scarlet eyes squinting up in thought. “Fair enough,” Lina agreed - simple as that. His logic was sound, she could respect his perspective. It made sense anyway. It wasn’t their job to play kumbaya and invite everyone in. That’s what the Guild was for. “And that’s almost flattering. Remind me to slingshot more of the skittles I don’t want in your general direction.”
Loki had been someone she’d been iffy about from the beginning, and it may have been the couple warnings she’d received. Also the whole trickster god tidbit, and her dreams had taught her to be rightfully wary of anyone with ‘trickster’ in their title.
But he had good choice in breakfast digs. That was good enough for her now. They could giggle about dumb shit and troll each other, so the working relationship was sound.
“We need to have more breakfast shenanigans while we’re at the brink of the apocalypse,” she then finally decided, bringing the mug of caffeine to her mouth for a gulp. “Good team exercise. Brings up morale and other cliche work skills.”
“Is moral a skill?” Loki made a thoughtful hum, and flagged down the waitress to bring him a large glass of soda. Like, seriously large. “In any case, yes. I hereby proclaim breakfast diners the official meeting centre of the Occult Investigation Division. Naturally the location will change on a case-by-case basis as to confuse our enemies.” He gave his fork-speared sausage a majestic wave of finality before scarfing it down.