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It was a bad idea. He knew it from the start.
Braving Hell to fetch an amulet of carved demon bone on the off-chance that he would need resistance to Hellfire was pretty stupid, given that he was unlikely to run into it if he didn’t go looking for it and was, in any case, a god and wouldn’t suffer unduly if he did, not compared to humans, but magical artifacts were always useful and, even if he decided he would never need it himself, it could be a valuable bargaining tool.
Besides which, he had been to Hell numerous time and knew his way around fairly well. It had its hidden passages just like any other place and he was certain he could avoid anyone he didn’t particularly want to see – like Mephisto – and talk his way around any of the lesser demons who might want to carry the information that he was wandering around back to a more senior boss – like Mephisto. He was entirely correct in all of this. He had not seen hide nor hair of Mephisto or any other supposed lord of Hell, nor had he had any difficulty with the local riffraff.
Magical traps, on the other hand, there had been in plenty.
It’s not that he wasn’t prepared for them. Fuck all of that. The day he wasn’t prepared for magical traps was the day he died and he was quite alive, at least for the moment. The trouble was that he had never really seen complex magic laced with infernal torment before. It tended to blend into the background of the place and, well… The first one had been somewhat surprising.
Not especially devastating though and, really, once you’ve seen a trap work, you’ve seen them all, so he’d completed his objective and returned home before the first hints of the torment portion of the spell hit him full force.
In retrospect, he probably should have called Daimon Hellstrom and asked for assistance on this venture, but he didn’t really like doing that, partly because Hellstrom mostly knew his younger self, partly because Hellstrom was a decent guy, if a bit shirtless, and he had had his fill of manipulating those he might conceivably see as friends, but mostly because the last time he’d called Hellstrom it was just to shoot the shit and the guy had been in the middle of a pretty delicate exorcism. Ugly things had happened and Daimon had told him quite summarily to fuck the fuck off before he bleeped the fuck out of his bleep.
His phone’s random censorship app was really the best.
That said, it wasn’t his fault Hellstrom couldn’t be bothered to turn off his phone.
Suffice to say he had not wanted to bother Hellstrom for a few weeks at least, except now he was collapsed on his bed, his body an agony of fire, and his ability to even contemplate using a phone due primarily to his complete inability to let it out of his sight.
He had tried the amulet, which was really only good for external protection, and every magical counter-spell he could think of until the pain was so bad he couldn’t concentrate. Now he was staring at Daimon’s name like it was a heavenly beacon.
“It’s just the backlighting,” he told himself weakly, knowing the joke was as poor as it sounded. But if anyone could figure this thing out, it was Daimon Hellstrom.
He took a deep breath, jabbed the contact number when the natural ebb and flow of infernal torment gave him leeway to move, and then waited with bated breath for Hellstrom to answer.
“The subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try your call again later.”
Well, fuck.
Okay. Okay, well… There was Thor, right? The Avengers probably knew someone with mystic leanings who wouldn’t hang up on him if he called or, better yet, if Thor called. Maybe they’d know where to find Hellstrom. Even if they didn’t… Even if they didn’t…
Well, even if they didn’t, maybe Thor would come by and get him a glass of ice water or something because he sure as hell couldn’t.
Jarvis took the call. This was unsurprising.
“Hey. Hey, Jarvis. Is Thor around?” he said, trying to keep the strain out of his voice.
“I’m afraid Master Thor is not available at the moment.”
Of course he wasn’t.
He hated to admit it, but he wanted to cry. There was no description for the pain that coursed through him although, if he were to try, he might suggest electrified lava, if lava could burn white-hot. He had felt it in his blood, but now it was moving outward, into bone and muscle and soft tissue.
“Okay, look,” he said. “Is that ‘not available’ as in not there or ‘not available’ as in not taking any calls? ‘Cause if it’s the latter and you tell him it’s his brother…”
There was a palpable pause on the other end. He wondered if Jarvis had heard the hitch in his voice.
“Master Loki?” Jarvis said.
“Yes?”
“Your brother and the other Avengers are out of contact and will be so for the better part of a week. Is this an emergency?”
He bit his lip. It wasn’t an emergency, it was an immediacy. And yet, he didn’t even know if contacting Thor would do him any good. What could Thor do, apart from suggest some names that he could go to for help and maybe vouch for him if they gave him a hard time?
Thor could be here, came the whispery child-voice that he never quite managed to be rid of. Thor could be here. His big brother could be here and give him hell for being such a stupid shit, and then put him to bed properly where the sheets were probably cooler than his skin, and talk to him or something so he didn’t have to listen to the sound of his blood boiling.
“No. No… Not an emergency,” he said. “Thanks for…”
“Master Loki, is there someone else I can call for you?” Jarvis asked.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” he said before catching himself. It didn’t do to give too much away. “No. It’s okay.”
“I will try to get a message to your brother,” Jarvis said. “Take care of yourself, Master Loki. It would sadden him if anything were to happen to you.”
Fuck fuck fuck.
“Thanks, Jarvis. I will. No worries here. If you do hear from Thor though, get him to call me. ‘Bye.”
He hung up quickly before he could let anything else slip down the line.
There were other ways of contacting people besides cell phones – he could rattle half-a-dozen off the top of his head – but these all depended on his being able to stand up and do something about it or, at the very least, think clearly enough to cast a spell.
He could contact the All-Mother, he supposed. He’d need something to scry with, of course. A mirror or some water…
But if he could get up and get some water, he’d have done so by now.
He could feel his muscles tensing, drawing in on themselves against the infernal heat and sting that flowed into them. Involuntarily, he curled up, panting heavily. He willed his fingers not to clench and shatter his only lifeline. Stark made some heavy-duty products, but a phone screen could only take so much.
A thought occurred to him then and he shut off the phone. The blank, glassy screen reflected back a shadow of his face, too poorly lit to show his twisted grimace of pain.
Good enough, he decided. He called home.
“Loki?” Freyja’s voice was murky. Though the sound on his phone was crystal clear, scrying played by its own rules and a dim projection allowed only dim conversation.
“Hey, mom,” he said, trying to seem cheerful. He wondered how much he could get away with not sharing. It would be hard to come up with a legitimate reason for being Hell-cursed, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to admit to stealing at this point in the game.
“Is everything all right? Have you found Lorelei?”
“Yeah. No. Since the first attempt blew, she’s been hard to track down,” he said. It was a lie, but only as it pertained to himself. “I tried a few places, but the thing is… The thing is this…”
He knew he was stretching the silence out too long, but he couldn’t bring himself to just up and say it.
“Go on,” Freyja said at last.
“Okay, well,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady as another wash of fierce pain swept through him. “Some intel said she might have tried to hide on the outskirts of Hell – you know, of the two-el variety – and me, being the good little do-bee, snuck in there to have a look around. She wasn’t there, but it turns out Hell had some fancy new toys such as traps that dispense infernal torment like blood poisoning. Would anyone in Asgard know of a magical cure for that?”
The second silence stretched out even longer than the first.
“Oh, Loki,” Freyja sighed and he couldn’t tell if it was a sound of pity or disappointment. “Are you badly hurt?”
“I… I, ah…” he began, and then clenched his jaw against the burning-crackling sensation flooding his throat and his face. After a moment, he continued. “I may – may – be slowly burning to death from the inside out, but it’s really hard to tell.”
“Loki, we cannot know what we are dealing with until we see it,” Freyja said. “Come home. Eir will look after you.”
“I… I can’t,” he admitted.
“Cannot or will not?”
“Can’t,” he repeated. “Can’t is can’t. I can’t cast a spell to get home. I can’t… I can’t arrange for transportation. If I could, I’d be there al-already.”
The wave of lava heat and searing electrical pain ripped through him with such intensity that it cramped every muscle in his body, causing him to cry out as he curled into a ball. It was all he could do to remember to drop the phone on the bed. If he broke it, he was done for.
“Loki?” Freyja prompted.
“Can’t,” he whimpered. “Barely move…”
“Loki, can you call Thor?”
“Tried. He’s gone,” he said, forcing himself to bear up.
“Loki, listen to me. Are you listening?”
“Y-yes?”
“We will try to find Thor. In the meantime, we will try to find alternate transportation for you. Even with the Bifrost, there is no one who can travel as swiftly as you. This might take until morning. Will you be all right until then?”
“I-I think so. Sure,” he said, forcing himself to remain calm. It was late afternoon. Morning was centuries away. And that assumed the All-mother could find someone willing to fetch him without murdering him.
“Do you have a friend who can stay with you tonight?”
His breath stuck in his throat.
“Yeah. Sure. No problem. Lots of friends,” he said at last. He was aware that his voice was hitching now as pain cramped his stomach and squeezed the air from his lungs.
“Call them, please,” Freyja said. “We will have someone to you as soon as we are able. Hold fast, my son.”
Her shadowed image winked out of the black depths of the phone. He didn’t know if her words were meant to comfort him, but he felt suddenly, desperately, alone. He couldn’t remember being mothered before. Not even his younger self had seemed mothered in any way. The closest thing he had had to a mother had blackmailed him and sent him out into a war zone for fuck sake. It was the same woman who had spoken so softly to him just now.
She thought he was the same one too.
He didn’t have time for this. This nagging guilt that still plagued him from time to time in spite of his acceptance that there had been little he could do to change his course until it was too late. He had vowed to make that crime the last of his great sins. He didn’t have time for it when his own life hung by a thread.
Dramatic, perhaps, but also true.
He rocked in place a while, curled up on the bed. Acid coursed through every vein and capillary, his flesh burned with molten heat, his nerves sang and fizzled and sparked. It took everything just to pull his thoughts together and rather more than that to reach out with trembling fingers and pick up the phone again. He switched it on and scrolled through his contacts.
So many people whose numbers he’d found and stored for future use. Most only knew his old face. Of those who knew him now, few could be called friends. Those that could…
Those that could, he had vowed he would never call. They had too much going on in their lives and he had shit on them enough already.
Thor was out. Hellstrom was out. He wasn’t about to call Lorelei and let her know he was incapacitated, quite possibly for good. Same for anyone else of a remotely villainous persuasion. They were great if you wanted to go out for a drink, but not people you wanted around while making like a baby gazelle on the Serengeti. Heroes were mostly out as well. Apart from Thor, they were untrustworthy, largely because they thought he was untrustworthy, which he was, which meant that no matter how discrete he asked them to be, they would make a production out of things to the point where he might as well put a sign in the window saying he was dying and would every shit-forsaken vulture like to come and have a taste?
Fuck, he thought. I am dying, aren’t I?
He didn’t want to die. Not again. Not when it had cost so much to live.
Then again, maybe he wouldn’t die. Maybe he would just burn in Hellfire for the rest of eternity. That’s what infernal torment was, in the end, right?
No, the All-Mother would send help. Eventually. When she could find it. He just had to make it until morning. Or so. If he could find someone to help him make it until morning, that would be great.
He dropped the phone as another wave of pain crashed over him, more intense than the last, and he cried out again, startled by how strong it was. When it ebbed enough for him to pick the phone back up, his eyes lit on only one name.
She didn’t know he had her number. She hadn’t given it to him. He had found it. It was a combination of curiosity and practicality on his part. Some types of people you wanted to keep an eye on in case they became useful or a threat. Still, they’d talked a while. She’d seemed nice. Exactly the reason why he shouldn’t call. She’d seemed nice and didn’t deserve to have him inflicted upon her.
But, then, she wouldn’t bullshit him either.
The call went about as well as expected.
“Where did you get this number?”
“I find stuff out,” he said as pleasantly as possible. His voice wavered in spite of his best efforts. “It’s what I do.”
“You sound like hell,” she said, evidently accepting of the fact that he would just look her up.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Look… Verity… I need you.”
The silence on the other end was very long.
“Not like that,” he said, swallowing a hiss as his belly twisted into knots. “I… I’m kinda hurt. Like, bad. I need you to help me.”
“I hardly know you. Can’t you get a friend?”
“I… I don’t have friends. Not like that.” He swallowed hard and schooled his voice to keep from sounding horribly pathetic. “You’re about the closest thing I’ve got.”
The second silence was long, but not as long as the first.
“Fuck. That’s the truth, isn’t it?” She sighed. “Where are you?”
He told her.
“Nice digs. Is there a guard or something I have to get by?”
“No. Not one who cares. Just a controlled entrance. Look, I can’t get up to let you in, okay?” He could hear the strain in his own voice. “Just play it cool outside until you see someone leaving or going in and walk through the door while it’s open like you own the place.”
“Fine. How do I get into your place? Is the door locked?”
“I have no idea. I’ll worry about that next,” he said. He hadn’t even thought about the door. Had he locked it? Possibly. Or not. He had enough deterrent spells set up around the place that locks would be unnecessary.
“All right,” she said, her voice warm, soothing. “All right. Just keep it together until I get there, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” he said and the connection dropped.
He let the phone fall on the bed and rallied his strength. He needed to check the door. He needed to either get the hell up and walk through the apartment and check the door or clear his head enough to sense whether or not the lock was engaged and maybe convince it to un-engage. Right now he wasn’t sure which option was worse.
He tried to send his thoughts out first, casting magical feelers about the place, and it was hard – really hard – but he managed to determine that, yes, the door was locked. Any attempt to move the tumblers, however, resulted in flaming icepicks in his skull.
His only other option was to stand.
Waiting for a low point in his torment, he took a deep breath and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. This alone lit every nerve ending on fire and he uttered a strangled cry as his vision washed white. He collapsed back onto the bed, groaning.
In the end, he just called the super, told him to be on the look-out for a red-head with glasses and tattoos, and that he should let her into the apartment. He didn’t normally like other people having a key to his place, but, well, it was sometimes useful and the key came with a compulsion to never, ever use it without express permission. He gave it now.
All he had left to do was wait and try not to die.
When Verity arrived, he was close to biting through his fingers just to feel a different type of pain.
“Hello?” she called from the hallway.
“Bedroom,” he called back, not bothering to move.
He heard her walking hesitantly through the place, looking for the doorway. When she poked her head through, he tried to lift his head a little and grin at her.
“Hey. Thanks for coming. Sorry if I don’t take your coat.”
“You look like shit,” Verity said, walking over to the side of the bed. She pressed the back of her hand against his cheek, then ran her fingers up to pull the diadem from his brow and press her wrist against his forehead. “No fever though.”
The pressure was agony and he groaned as her touch drove white-hot spikes into his brain.
“Okay. Okay,” she said pulling back her hand. “How about we start with loosening your clothing and making you more comfortable?”
“You don’t need to,” he said, but she had already begun to tug off his boots.
“You said you needed help. I’m helping. This will help,” Verity assured him. “Now, what the hell happened to you?”
“Uh...triggered a trap made of magic and Hellfire,” he said, not sure how much he should share. Besides not wanting to get her too deeply involved, it was no one’s business but his own what he was up to. More importantly, it was getting really hard to talk.
“Huh,” Verity said after a moment’s thought. “I’m not sure what to make of that. You’re not actually lying, but it doesn’t feel like truth either. Probably the magic. Not something I really believe in.”
“No?” he said, although he wasn’t really surprised. “It’s real. It’s… It’s basically…”
The next wave ripped up and down his spine, causing him to thrash and arch his back, which only made things worse. He curled in on himself, panting, and tried to convince himself that the stinging in his eyes was sweat.
“All right. All right. Relax,” Verity said, running her fingers lightly through his hair and down over his side. “I’m going to take off your…whatever this is. Fashion was never my thing.” She tugged at the fastenings of his scale mail. “Tell me about magic. I know it’s rough, but keep talking. It will give you something to focus on.”
“Magic is… It’s basically a story so perfect that even reality believes it,” he said, gasping his way through the sentence while Verity removed his armour as gently as she could. He helped where he was able, but had to pause when pain cramped his muscles. “I guess… I guess that’s why you don’t believe in it. It’s real and true, but also a lie. So’s physics, but because its empirical, everyone believes it until it’s proven otherwise.”
Verity cast the armour aside and began to pick at the buckles on his cuffs. “Never thought of it that way,” she said. “So why not lie to yourself and tell yourself it doesn’t exist?”
“Because it hurts,” he whined, “so I know it exists. And I don’t know anything abut Hellfire spells. Except, I guess, that they can kill me.” He paused and waited for the flow and ebb of the next wave of pain. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, it’s going to kill me. I’m going to die.”
“You’re not going to die,” Verity said. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t believe in Hell either.”
“Well, I’ve actually been there,” he argued. “Think of it…”
He trailed off as Verity removed the first of his cuffs. He hadn’t seen it before, as only his fingertips were exposed, but the skin of his arm was threaded with angry red lines, fire coursing through his veins. In some areas, the skin had started to blister.
It was worse than he’d thought. He wondered how the rest of his body looked.
“Think of it as what?” Verity prompted, working on the other cuff. She remained remarkably undisturbed.
“Don’t you see it?” he said, raising his hand to her.
“The black nails? Sure,” she said, “but bad fashion isn’t a crime, even when it should be.”
“No, the…the…”
A fresh wave of stinging fire swept through him and he convulsed, watching in horror as new blisters formed on his arm and older ones ruptured, leaking pus and fluid.
And then Verity grabbed his hand to examine it and the heat cooled somewhat.
“Stop staring at it like it’s gained sentience,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“You don’t… You don’t see the blisters?” he said, trying to keep his voice steady as the pain intensified.
Verity hesitated, looked his arm over thoroughly.
“No,” she said.
“Or…or the veins?”
“Through your skin? A bit. You need to get some sun.”
“No… No, I mean…”
His words came in hitching gasps; his chest felt tight, crushed, compressed. He couldn’t tell if it was part of the spell or if he was entering a state of panic. A dull white noise filled his head, broken only by the sound of his and Verity’s voice.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s all right,” Verity said with a kind of fretful gentleness. Only then did he realize that his gasps had turned to quiet sobs. It hurt that much. “Look, I’m just going to get the rest of this…this armour off, and then we can get you into a more comfortable position. I might have to take off your belt too. Why don’t you tell me about Hell? Just… Take your time. Don’t worry if you have to stop.”
“Hell…in the books…is kind of a lie,” he began, his voice halting and weak. He tried to concentrate on the words, just the words, and not think of the screaming, sizzling, burning of his body. “It’s a place shaped by people the way gods are shaped by people. Kind of. It’s… It’s easier to think of it as a different dimension. You see it as a lie because it isn’t here, but you have to believe in the possibility of Hell.”
“Not really,” Verity said, working on the last of his scale mail. “Sure, the existence of multiple dimensions is an actual theory, but it hasn’t been tested positively to my satisfaction, so I don’t have to believe in it. Acknowledge the possibility, maybe, but not believe. Can you roll over a little?” she said, removing the first section. “I need to get at your other leg.”
The very thought of moving brought fresh waves of pain, but he tried. Verity helped as she could, guiding him, giving him her arm to hold on to. His vision washed out twice before he succeeded. He hoped she didn’t expect him to talk much more.
It seemed she did not. Verity finished her work in silence and tossed the mail aside, leaving him dressed only in his undershirt and breeches. The lighter weight of his clothing helped a little, but he knew the respite wouldn’t last.
Verity tugged at his legs, trying to straighten him out, maybe even ease him onto his back with his head on the pillows, but every attempt to extend his limbs brought further agony and he resisted until she gave up.
“Okay, you know what? You are really fucking heavy, and I don’t know why you even called me here if you’re going to fight my every attempt to make this easier on you, but you have to stop doing this to yourself. There is no physical evidence that there’s anything wrong with you.”
“It hurts,” he said, the only evidence he found self-evident and the only reply he had the energy to make. He watched as his hands started to blacken.
“Well, yeah, it hurts. Something hurts, but it’s not what you think,” Verity said. “Look at me. No, really, look at me. Just me. Not your hands, not the covers, not your phone…” Here she paused to snatch it up off the bed and deposit it on the dresser, ignoring his strangled protest. “Look at me! Loki!”
The sound of his name was galvanizing in a way the rest of her words were not.
No.
The sound of his name spoken by Verity was galvanizing in a way no other words could ever be. The way she said it made it true, made it real, made it strong, and its strength fed him, at least a little bit.
He uncurled enough to look up at her, trembling from the intensity of the pain.
“All right. Good,” Verity said. “Just keep looking at me. Let’s say Hell exists, as you say, in another dimension. That dimension will still have to play by some sort of rules of physics just to function. Right?”
“Yeah?” he ventured. He didn’t feel it was quite that easy, but her conviction was immovable and he didn’t have the strength to argue.
“Okay. So, if something from another dimension is making you sick, it would stand to reason that there should be some physical evidence of it. But there isn’t any. There isn’t the slightest sign that anything’s wrong with you. You’re not on fire. Hell, you’re not even warm. You’re not blistering. There’s nothing wrong with your veins. It hurts, okay, but it’s all in your head.”
He’d have laughed at her then, if he’d been able to laugh. In his head? This kind of screaming, sizzling pain was in his head? These blisters on his arm…
“LOOK AT ME!”
His gaze, which had started to stray, snapped back immediately.
“Look at me,” Verity said, quietly now that she had his attention. She slipped a cool and soothing hand against his cheek on the side he continually tried to turn to. “Look only at me. You can’t believe in it if you don’t see it. Let’s say, hypothetically, that Hell exists the way people describe it. It’s a place of torment for those who’ve done evil. In some cases, for those who think they deserve it. Where would you find space enough for that? Why would it be anywhere but in your head?”
The idea clicked like tumblers sliding into place. It made a strange sort of sense. Why wouldn’t it be in his head? At least to some extent. Not a full-blown attack spell, but something that would convince him to kill himself. He couldn’t counteract a torture he was actively instigating.
Keeping her eyes locked with his, Verity took his hand and squeezed it gently.
“Do you feel that?” she said. He tried to speak, but could only nod. “Does it feel like anything but skin on skin?”
It didn’t.
It really didn’t.
Although he had seen it – seen it – there was no sensation of blistering between them. There was no heat. In fact, the burning stopped where she touched him.
When Verity spoke truth, it was absolute. He shuddered as something shifted inside him.
And then it was gone – the blistering, the blackening.
The pain was still real though. That much was certain. Except…
Except it was different now.
He convulsed and twisted on the bed, doubled over and groaning, but, instead of overwhelming him, he felt as though the pain were retreating, scraping burning claws along the inside of his skin as it did so, a nasty gift to remember it by.
“I can believe in poison,” Verity said, kneeling on the bed and slipping a hand against his back to steady him. “I can believe in drugs. I can believe in disease. I can believe in things that warp the mind. But I don’t believe in magical attacks. And I don’t believe you’re anything but fooling yourself.”
The muscle spasms continued, almost as though they were squeezing the sizzling, burning heat from their cells. Fire poured into the centre of him, heavy as molten lead, crushing his lungs and twisting his belly. He coughed and gagged and clung to Verity when she tried to help him sit up. His throat burned, but he was determined to at least try not to puke in his bed.
“Okay, listen,” Verity said, pulling his arm over her shoulders. “You sound like a heavy-duty case of food poisoning. I’ll try to help you into the bathroom, but I can’t carry you. Think you can support most of your own weight?”
“I…uh…” His initial thought was no, but he didn’t want her to leave him lying on the bed either.
“Good enough. On the count of three…”
She counted them down and he pushed himself up automatically, which turned out to be the worst thing he could do. The pain still existed, whatever its exit strategy, and the world washed white with constellations of black stars as it stabbed at his brain. His legs gave out immediately and, though she could not hold him, Verity directed the fall so that he hit his knees first, and then bent over them, trembling.
“Shit,” she said, which about summed things up.
He thought his nose was bleeding and touched it, but the substance that smeared the back of his hand was not blood. Greyish and slimy, it looked like sewer sludge and smelled like a rotting corpse.
That’s when he threw up.
Greyish, foamy, almost spongy, but not quite so solid, what came out of him smelled of death, disease, and decay. And if that had been the end of it, it would have been bad enough, but whatever was inside him forced itself out by any means possible and he was helpless do to anything but let his body cramp and void itself of grey rot. Slime dripped from his nose. Noxious liquid seeped from his ears. Even his shirt grew damp with greasy, foetid sweat.
Verity could have left him then. He wouldn’t have blamed her. He would have even preferred it. Instead, she crouched beside him and rubbed his back until he was nothing but a limp and shuddering mess on the floor.
“Okay, maybe not entirely in your head,” she said. “I don’t know what that is, but I can say with utmost certainty that it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Are you going to be all right on your own for a minute?”
Slumped over his knees, weak, ragged, and utterly humiliated, all he could do was nod.
Verity stepped away and, from somewhere in the apartment came the sound of running water. It went on for a long time.
After a few moments, he tried to stand, but barely made it onto his hands and knees before the room started to spin in lazy circles. He paused there, head hanging, and the sludge and slime that had poured out of him began to dry up and crumble, turning to powder before his eyes. That was something, anyway. He wouldn’t have to mop it up.
“Think you killed it,” he murmured when Verity returned. His voice, thick, stuck in his throat.
“Well, something died in here,” she said. He heard her put something down and open a window, but he was too worn to look up and see what she was doing. She picked the item up, crouched beside him, and put it on the floor. It was a glass of water.
“Okay, Pinocchio. Sit back on your heels and take a drink,” she said, hooking an arm around his chest to support him. “When you’ve got that down, we’ll see about getting you into a bath. You smell like you’ve been living in the dumpster behind a shady restaurant.”
She let him lean against her to stay upright, steadied the glass so he could drink. He could only finish half the water – so wonderful and cold – before he choked on it and she put the glass aside.
“We’re not doing that again,” she told him and pulled his arm back across her shoulders, “but we’re going to try this one more time.”
“Can’t,” he murmured. He felt wrung out like an old dishrag.
“Then lie to yourself and make it a good one,” Verity said. “I can’t carry you, and if you don’t get your ass into the bathroom, I’m getting a large pot and soaking you in here.”
He groaned at the thought and steeled himself for pain and dizziness. Verity coached him through it, one stage at a time, and though it hurt and his head swam, it felt nothing like the pain from mere minutes ago. Soon, he stood swaying, leaning hard against Verity until they reached the hallway where he could lean against the wall instead.
Inside the bathroom, the air was warm and damp from the heat of the tub. He braced himself against the counter, too startled to protest when Verity stripped off his soiled shirt. He found his tongue around the time she started unfastening his pants.
“I’ll be naked,” he said.
“Yes, that’s the usual consequence of getting undressed,” Verity told him. “Also the usual state of having a bath. You’re not shy, are you?”
He was too wrung out to be sleazy and too tired to be modest.
“No,” he said. “Should I change?”
It occurred to him that he should have probably specified his sex. But he’d already shared that story with Verity and she caught on quickly.
“Would you have the energy to do it if I said yes?” she said.
He thought on this, and then shook his head.
“So don’t. I’ve seen dicks. As long as yours looks like a dick and not an octopus tentacle, we’re set,” Verity said. Then she looked at him oddly. “It doesn’t, does it?”
“No!”
“We’re off to a great start then,” she said and yanked down his pants, scattering foul, grey powder everywhere. She helped him into the tub – a proper, deep one for soaking – and they said no more about it.
There was a large pot in the bathroom and it steamed gently, filled with warm water. Verity dipped a smaller bowl into it and held it up.
“Close your eyes,” she said and poured it over his head without checking to see if he’d complied. He sputtered and coughed and protested, but she grabbed a shampoo bottle, put a little in her hand, and worked it through his hair.
“You had shit coming out of your ears and it’s all caked in here,” she told him, matter-of-factly. “You might want to wash that, by the way.”
“You… You don’t need to do this,” he protested, tentatively using a wash cloth to clean his face and the shell of his ears.
“What? And leave you lying in a pile of filth all night?” Verity said. Her voice gentled as she worked the shampoo through his hair. “Look, you called me over here because you needed me. You said so. It was the truth. You needed someone and it turned out to be me. So it’s me you’ve got and I don’t do things half-assed. Close your eyes.”
This time he managed to cover them before the water sluiced over his head. Verity ruffled his hair and poured a couple more bowlfuls over him to get at the last of the soap and then squeezed the excess water into the tub.
“Ugh. This stuff is horrible. A shower would have been better, but I didn’t think you’d stay standing that long,” Verity told him. “Are you going to drown if I leave you in here a few minutes?”
He shook his head and leaned back against the cool edge of the tub.
“Fine. I’m going to rifle through your dresser. Let me know if there are any sex toys I should avoid.”
“Bottom drawer is booby trapped,” he managed, but Verity didn’t seem surprised. She merely lifted her hand in acknowledgement, scooped his clothing up off the floor, and left the room.
He tried to wash while she was gone, but mostly managed to doze with his head propped against the tile and his hands folded in his lap. When Verity returned, she dropped a pile of clothing in a clean corner, used a rag to clean up the grey muck around the counter, and then stripped unselfconsciously and stepped into the corner shower without a word of explanation. She washed quickly and wrapped herself in a towel when she stepped out.
“You got shit all over my clothing, so I’m stealing yours,” she said, towel-drying her hair. When it was no longer dripping, she slipped one of his shirts over her head and pulled on a pair of light track pants. He tried not to stare, but couldn’t help noticing that she didn’t bother with underwear.
She grabbed another towel, pulled the stopper on the tub, and then helped him stand again. It was harder this time because his legs were as wobbly from the heat as from his illness, but they managed. He sat on the toilet to dry off and pulled on the pyjama bottoms she’d dug up from some damned place.
He didn’t even know he had pyjama bottoms.
Verity steadied him as he stood, but this time he was able to walk on his own. Though he clung to the wall, it was a relief. For a while he hadn’t been sure he would ever walk again.
The bedroom smelled fresh and clean with no sign of the powder and rot he had spewed all over the floor. The bed boasted a change of sheets, turned down and waiting for him to collapse between them. He obliged without complaint.
“You didn’t need to do this,” he said again, although it hardly mattered. It was already done.
“Well, it had pretty much all dried up by the time I got back,” Verity said. “I vacuumed everything up with some baking soda. Keep the place from stinking to high heaven.”
“I have a vacuum cleaner?” he said.
Verity smiled. “Apparently.”
“Fuck me.”
“Not tonight.”
He laughed then, and it hurt, but in the way muscles that had been too tight for too long and were only starting to loosen up hurt. Verity watched him and her smile was one of satisfaction.
“Better?” she said, drawing up the sheets.
“Yeah,” he said. “Hey, I think… I think you saved my life. Thanks.”
“You can owe me one.”
“Well, I do. I owe you one. Maybe more than one,” he said, “but, really, even if you hadn’t saved my life, thanks. Just for…for showing up, you know?”
“I know,” Verity told him.
“No, really. Really. You don’t know what kind of shit I bring home,” he said. He felt giddy and lightheaded from the heat of the bath and relief from the pain. “I swear… I swear when it’s all over, I’ll drop your contact info and you’ll just… You’ll never have to worry about this kind of thing again.”
Verity paused in what she was doing and frowned. It was a subtle expression, disguised as thoughtfulness, but quite emphatically disapproving.
“That’s probably the shittiest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she told him.
“I mean it,” he protested. “Total truth.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why it’s the shittiest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Really, your idea of doing good by someone who helped you out is to promise to disappear on them?”
“I, uh…told you who I was,” he said, forcing himself up on his elbows. “I’m not exactly the kind of person decent people should hang around with. You’d be better off.”
“Maybe,” Verity said. She was frowning more deeply now, arms crossed to show the depth of her displeasure, “but it’s not a bunch of arrogant posturing that gets to decide that. I get to decide that. It’s my life. If I want to ruin it hanging around with assholes, that’s my decision.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said before he could protest. “If you want to delete my contact information, move, and change all the locks just so I can never find you again, that’s your choice, but own up to that. Don’t tell yourself you’re just doing right by me. And sure as fuck don’t give me a patronizing speech about how it’s for my own good.”
“Ah,” he said and, after a moment’s pause, added, “Sorry.”
“Not really, because you still think you’re right,” Verity said, but she relaxed her stance and stopped frowning. “But you won’t delete my number, right?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’ll just end up using you,” he warned her.
“You’re using me now,” Verity said. “I don’t seem to be any worse off.”
He felt awkward in the silence that followed, thinking he should have something else to offer, but not really knowing what. Verity solved the problem by running her fingers through his hair.
“You should catch some sleep. You look barely functional. It’s the middle of the night, so I pulled out some extra blankets. I’ll crash on the sofa.”
“Not here?” he said, startled by a moment of blind panic. “I mean, the bed is huge and more comfortable and, if it’s awkward, you can put the blankets on top of the bedspread. That’s all right…”
A half-smile tugged at Verity’s lip.
“Still scared?” she said.
“Fuck, no,” he answered immediately.
She looked at him a moment and then smiled in full.
“I’ll give you that one because you had a shitty day. Lie down, I’ll be right back.”
He did, and she was, making a nest of spare blankets for herself on the other side of the bed. He watched anxiously until she was settled in and grinned sheepishly when she rolled her eyes at him.
“Go the fuck to sleep,” she said. “I’ll make sure you don’t die. Like an overgrown kid, I swear…” she grumbled as she curled up in her blankets.
Satisfied that he wouldn’t spend the night alone, he allowed himself to close his eyes. Sleep followed quickly after.
Morning was so bright, he determined that it was actually noon. Also that he’d still be asleep if not for the heavy knocking on his door.
He groaned and rubbed his eyes as, beside him, Verity sat up, blinking. He only half-noted that she’d had to disentangle their hands.
“I got it,” he told her, stumbling out of bed. He felt wrung out, but functional, and that was almost enough to eclipse his displeasure at so rude an awakening.
Almost.
There was no reason for anyone to be pounding on his door, he thought, opening it.
Fandral and Hogun stood in the hallway, looking him over with vague dislike as though he were a duty to be quickly taken care of so that they could get on to better things. He figured this was how broccoli must feel.
“Hey,” he said, giving them what, at another time of day, would have been a charming smile.
“The All-Mother insisted that we fetch you,” Fandral said. “Apparently it is of a most urgent nature.”
Ah, right. In the excitement, he had quite forgotten about the All-Mother’s envoys.
“Weren’t you dying?” Hogun said.
“Yes,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you. But, uh, come in! Better not to talk about such things in the hallway, yes? How did you even get in the front door?”
“Heimdall sent the Bifrost to the roof,” Fandral said as though that explained how they managed to walk through locked rooftop doors.
“We only encountered a little resistance,” Hogun added, putting a hand on his mace.
That went much further by way of explanation.
“Well, I thank you for coming, but it seems I’m quite well again,” he told them. “The All-Mother suggested I call a friend to look after me and it turned out the friend was a curse-breaker. Who knew?”
As if on cue, Verity stumbled up behind him, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
“Who is it?” she said.
“Two envoys sent to bring me back to Asgardia if I managed not to die in my sleep,” he told her. To his brother’s friends, he said, “This is Verity, the friend that helped me. Verity, this is Hogun and Fandral…”
No sooner had he said it than the realization hit. Verity was going to meet Fandral. The blond was already eying her appreciatively and it didn’t take much effort to imagine all the fancy pick-up lines rattling around in his skull.
He allowed himself a broad and possibly evil grin.
“You know,” he said as Verity eyed the newcomers warily. “I owe Verity my life, and possibly breakfast, and you two deserve something for coming all this way. Why don’t you come in for pancakes and bacon? I’m sure we all have so much to talk about…”