Pumpkins
There was no other way to describe it, Ash decided, looking around her at all the work piled up, piles which kept growing as her boss kept finding more and more work for her. Miranda was just plain evil. She knew by now that her boss liked seeing people work hard, but this was just plain ridiculous. She was suddenly reminded of the fairytale Cinderella and bit back a laugh, thinking how ironic it was at that moment that she happened to be called Ash. Ash. Cinders. Ironic.
If it wasn’t one thing, it was another; something hadn’t been filed correctly, those envelopes should have been franked and in the In Tray by now, the magazines still hadn’t been labelled, those newspapers still hadn’t been de-stuffed, and Ash felt just about ready to scream when a voice close by said “This is where you work?” and she let out a yelp, jumped to her feet and upturned the box of magazines on her lap, spilling them to the floor.
“Jesus, Loki!” Ash exclaimed, spinning about to face him, one had over her chest in case her heart suddenly leapt out of her ribcage. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry, I thought you’d heard me,” Loki shrugged, slipping his hands into his pockets. Ash noticed that he was wearing his favoured Midgardian clothes, the one he had worn for her that day in the park, instead of his usual outfit, and she managed a smile.
“Just...make a bit more noise next time you decide to teleport in here,” she scolded, gently, bending down to retrieve her work. “You’re so quiet, I nearly had a heart attack.”
Loki crouched down beside her and began helping her pick up the magazines. “Would that mean I get your flat, then?” he asked, mischievously, and for the first time that day Ash laughed.
“Nice try,” she said, taking the magazines from him and piling them all back into the box. “What are you doing down here anyway? Not that it’s not good to see you, with the day I’m having,” she added, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
Loki shrugged. “I got bored.”
“Oh, run out of reading material?”
“Yes, as it happens.”
“Oh, sorry,” Ash smiled, sympathetically.
“It’s not your fault,” Loki replied, in surprise.
“No, I know, but I do wish I had room for more books in my place,” Ash replied, sitting back down again.
“I was on my way to the library,” Loki added, “but I suddenly sensed you were a bit frustrated.”
Ash sighed. “It’s just...well, it’s really all being piled on top of me today.” She gestured around the room to make her point. “I really hate Miranda some days, she’s so strict it’s unbelievable.”
Loki glanced at the work piled around her and waved a hand at it. Everything organised itself at once; newspapers de-stuffed themselves, the magazines were labelled, the paperwork was all filed correctly, the envelopes franked and ready. Ash smiled at him, gratefully. “Thanks, but they’re just going to keep finding me more work to do.” Then, seeing his face fall at that, she decided on a way to cheer him up. “Look, I’m meant to finish a bit early today anyway, so why don’t I meet you in the library? And actually there’s a book I wanted to take out,” she added, fishing in her bag for a pen and a scrap of paper and jotting down the name and the author for him, “so maybe if you find it you could hold onto it for me before someone else nabs it first?”
Loki smiled and took the scrap from her. “I’ll do that.”
Part of him was screaming inwardly Tell her! Tell her how you feel! The other part was shouting No! She’s your friend! You’d ruin everything if you did that! Just as he was telling both voices to shut up, the door opened and Mark came in with another bundle of papers.
“Hey,” he smiled at Ash. “Sorry, but I’ve got another load-oh, hi,” he added, spotting Loki.
Loki straightened up and glanced at Ash, wondering if this man should be perceived as a threat or not. Ash smiled back at Mark and got to her feet. “That’s ok; she’s really piling it on me today, isn’t she?”
“Piling it on everyone,” Mark replied, handing her the bundle. “I think she’s having problems at home or something.”
Noticing that Loki had become unnaturally quiet, Ash turned to him. “Oh, Loki, this is Mark. Mark, this is Loki I was telling you about.”
“Oh!” Mark grinned. “So you’re the reason she was all worried last week, then?”
Feeling he could at least trust this man, Loki decided to maintain his friendly demeanour and shook the proffered hand. “Yes, I’m afraid I got held up longer than expected.”
“Oh, tell me about it,” Mark grinned, his tone sympathetic. “Morning traffic’s always the worst.” Then, to Ash, he added “Have you had your invite yet?”
“Yes, it was on my desk this morning,” Ash sighed. “I just managed to get a costume at the last minute.”
“Yeah, it’s been crazy this year,” Mark agreed.
“Invite?” Loki cut in.
Ash reached into her bag and pulled out the square of card she had found on her desk earlier. “Miranda’s Annual Hallowe’en Party on Friday.”
“Yes, everyone she works with feels obliged to go out of fear that she’ll fire us if we don’t,” Mark agreed, scratching his head. “Why don’t you join us?” he added, brightly. “That is, if you’re not already doing anything?”
Loki flickered his eyes briefly to Ash and noticed her giving him a pleading look. He smiled. “I just might do that.”
“Great,” Mark replied, and then his pager bleeped and he sighed. “Damn it, what do they want now?” he muttered, hurrying out of the room.
“He seemed nice,” Loki commented, blandly.
Ash glanced at him. “I think he likes you a bit.”
“Oh, you mean-?” Loki felt a twinge of relief. So the man wasn’t after Ash after all, then. He smiled. “Well in that case I like him too.”
Ash’s eyes widened slightly at that. “Well, I never saw that one coming!”
Loki laughed. “No, I don’t mean like that!”
“Oh.” Ash smiled. “Right, well, I’d have no problems if you did swing that way, you know, but...” She shrugged and shook her head. “Shut up, Ash, you’re rambling again.”
Loki laughed again and then frowned. “Ash?”
“Mm?” Ash replied, absently, busy cutting the tie around the bundle of newspapers.
Loki turned the card over in his hands. “What does Hallowe’en mean?”
“All Hallows Eve.” When he looked none the wiser, she turned and smiled at him. “I guess you don’t have it on Asgard. It’s sort of celebration day, something to do with remembering the dead is what it used to be, but these days it’s just an excuse to dress up as something scary, or even just in some ordinary costume, and have a party.”
“Oh.” Loki seemed to understand. “We had festivals like that on Asgard.”
“Yeah?” Ash smiled. “Any good?”
Loki shrugged. “I don’t know, I never attended any.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know; I suppose I didn’t really see the appeal of attending one on my own. Thor had his friends to be with, but...I didn’t.”
“Oh.” Ash seemed to deflate in sympathy as she reached for his hand and squeezed it gently. “Well, please come with me to Miranda’s party, otherwise I’ll be left on my own if Mark goes home early like he usually does and then some sleezeball from the sub department will start hitting on me.”
“If you want me there, I’ll come,” Loki replied, trying to steady the motion of his heart rate, which had picked up the second her hand had touched him.
Ash smiled up at him. “See? I knew you could be a gentleman if you just tried instead of acting like a beast all the time.”
She let go of his hand and Loki forced himself to breathe as she did so. He managed a smile. “I’ll be in the library,” he said, and with that he was gone. Ash couldn’t help shaking her head as he left as quickly as he had come.
“Typical man,” she muttered, fondly. She was becoming rather fond of him, she realised, it was actually easier to like him than not once she got to know him.
Loki, meanwhile, teleported himself to a quiet corner of the library and proceeded to search for the book she had requested, eventually finding it filed on the wrong shelf. He couldn’t help rolling his eyes as he retrieved it; sometimes people could be unbelievably stupid. Still, he reflected, as he tucked the thing under his arm and began searching the shelves for anything interesting, they were only human after all.
Ash’s friend the librarian greeted him as he passed by. “Ah, she found you, then? She was in here last week wondering where you’d got to.”
Loki smiled. “I didn’t mean to worry her that much; something held me up.”
“Oh, well,” the librarian smiled. “How did you find all those books you borrowed last time?”
“I enjoyed them very much,” Loki answered, honestly. “Would you recommend any others?”
By the time Ash located them, they had gathered about twenty on top of the one she had requested. She laughed. “Am I going to be allowed to take out that many?” she asked. “I’ve only got the one card!”
“I think I can let you just this once,” her friend smiled, handing the two he was still holding to Loki. “It’s nice to see you’ve met someone who shares your passion for books, otherwise we’d be out of business.”
Ash blushed but neither of them bothered to tell him that they weren’t actually together in that way.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she said as they left the library, carrying half the books between them in large carrier bags the librarian thankfully fished out for them to use. “This would be your first Hallowe’en ever, so, maybe we should make it a bit special.”
“How?” Loki asked.
“Well, I don’t really tend to go overboard that much with Hallowe’en these days,” Ash replied. “I mean, I go to Miranda’s party and that’s about it; but maybe we could, I don’t know, rent a scary film and maybe put up some decorations. And get some Hallowe’en themed snacks in.” Then, with a sheepish smile, she added “That’s...if you’d like to. I mean I don’t want to pressure you if you’d rather not.”
Loki smiled. “I think I’d like that.”
“Great, we’ll start now,” Ash replied, steering him in the direction of the nearest Tesco’s.
“So, enlighten me,” Loki said when they were back in her flat, the books all piled up by her shelf, and two large pumpkins sitting on the table in front of them. “What are we supposed to do with these things?”
“We,” Ash replied, “are going to make pumpkin lanterns. We used to do this all the time at school, although I haven’t done it in years, but hopefully I haven’t lost my touch.”
Loki frowned as she handed him a knife and sat him down at the kitchen table. “We cut them up?”
“No, we carve into them,” Ash replied, beginning to slice the top of her own pumpkin. “Just watch me, and bear in mind, this is going to get messy.”
Loki simply raised his eyebrows as if to say that getting messy wouldn’t bother him and then watched her carefully as she set about scooping out the inside of the pumpkin and then copied her perfectly. “You can eat the inside,” Ash added, “or the seeds, if you want. I don’t because I don’t like them.”
Loki smiled, wanly. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Ok,” Ash shrugged and then went around to stand behind him. “Now you just carve something into the outside.”
Very aware that she was extremely close to him, Loki tried hard not to lose his nerve. “Such as?”
“Well, most people just carve a scary face,” Ash replied, wiping pulp off her fingers, “but you can do anything, really, as long as it looks scary, or spooky. It could be a monster or a scary house or a witch or a ghost, anything as long as it’s to do with Hallowe’en.”
“And the point of Hallowe’en is to be scared?” Loki checked.
“Mm-hm,” Ash agreed, sitting down in front of her own pumpkin and trying to decide what to carve. “And careful you don’t cut yourself,” she added, sounding more like a mother than a friend.
Loki simply smiled and set about carving. Ash thought a little longer, twirling her knife in her hands, and then decided on a spider, working it out like a stencil, a rather large one given that they both had rather large pumpkins.
“I’m done,” Loki stated, and she looked up at him. He grinned at her. “And I think you’ll find it rather scary.”
“Let’s see, then,” Ash replied, laying down her knife. Loki turned the pumpkin towards her and she gasped. “Wow! Loki, that is incredible!” Then, with a frown, “What is it?”
Loki rolled his eyes. “It’s a Lindworm; a dragon from Asgard legend. They’re incredibly fast, incredibly aggressive and incredibly venomous.”
“Well, you’re right, I would be scared if I came up against that in a dark alley,” Ash agreed, still marvelling at how intricate his detail was. It looked like something from the Book of Kells to her mind, the way it twisted and looped about itself.
“Let’s see yours,” Loki said.
“Oh.” Ash blushed. “It’s nowhere near as good as yours, it’s just a spider.” She turned it to show him and Loki nodded, thinking privately that it was almost as good as his Lindworm.
“That’s very good,” he insisted, with a smile.
Ash grinned and climbed out of her chair. “Come on, let’s set some candles in them. I’ve got to get a picture of yours.” She fished in the cupboard under the sink for a couple of candles and after she had set the in each pumpkin, lit them and slowly lowered the tops of the pumpkins onto them, worried about accidently putting the fire out. Loki couldn’t help feeling a swell of pride as she pulled out her camera and took several photographs of their pumpkins side by side.
“Aw,” Ash sighed, lowering her camera. “It’s a shame that they won’t last forever. But I suppose we can always do it all over again next year.”
Next year? Loki glanced at her in surprise. She was thinking that far ahead already? It had never occurred to him that he might be a permanent resident in her flat, especially after the number of times they had clashed when he had first come to stay with her.
“Let’s see how they look in the dark,” Ash said, running to turn the lights off. The effect was remarkable as the delicate Lindworm and scary spider loomed out of the darkness at them, casting their images on the walls and glowing brighter than the sun.
“Wow,” Loki couldn’t help murmuring.
Ash sighed, happily. “They look wonderful.” Then, nudging him gently, she added playfully “Not bad for your first time.”
“Thanks,” Loki smiled, nudging her back, and then, hesitantly, added “Ash?”
“Mm?” Ash replied, watching the glow from their lanterns.
“When you talk about...next year,” Loki said, and this caused her to look at him, “do you mean...you’re expecting me to be here then?”
Ash looked surprised. “Well...won’t you?” Then before Loki could reply, she added “Sorry, I just...I guess I just assumed you would be. I mean, we are flatmates, so...”
She let the sentence drift. “You mean I’m alright to stay...longer?” Loki asked, not daring to actually use the words “permanently” or “forever.”
Ash looked up at him, her expression serious. “Loki...you can stay for as long as you want to. I’m not going to kick you out. You need a place to live.”
Loki immediately wrapped her in a hug, burying his face in her hair. “Thank you,” he murmured as she returned it, meaning every word and wishing there was some other way of showing her just how grateful he was, how happy he would be to live with her for the rest of their lives.
“You’re welcome,” Ash replied, and then as she pulled away from him, she laughed. “Blimey, I can’t believe I used to be scared of you now! I mean...you’re really not a monster like I thought at first.”
Loki smiled, the mischievous look back in his eyes again. “Oh, I can be scary when I choose to, Lady Gray. Just wait until Hallowe’en.”
Ash quickly made a mental note not to tell him about April Fool’s Day!