Roomies
After rinsing her hair Darcy eyeballs the bottle of hair remover with a healthy dose of suspicious caution. She’s used stuff like Nair before, and experienced their occasional unpleasant ingrown hair results. She most definitely preferred a razor, but she’s seen the horror of what she was working with under her arms and between her legs and now cannot un-see it. She’s willing to take that gamble to fight the jungle back.
Grabbing the hair tie that had miraculously survived the odd turn of events, she piles her wet hair into a messy bun atop her head before lifting a leg out of the warm water and resting her foot on the cool, rounded stone edge of the bath. Picking up the decanter she pours a small puddle of the hair removing oil into her palm, rolling her eyes. Everything that has to do with personal grooming in Asgard seemed to be an oil, besides the tooth wash. As she rubs it across her wet thigh and down her calf to her ankle she wonders if anybody’s ever gotten them mixed up. Like the hair washing oil and the hair removing oil.
Dropping the oily leg back into the water she raises the other one and repeats the process. Then she does her armpits and finally the delicate work of between her legs. She waits a moment; expecting to smell the same hair melting scent of Nair or something. Nothing. Shrugging she plops back down into the pool and rubs the oil off then rises again to inspect the results. Smooth. Hairless. Dayum Gina.
After that it’s a quick soap up and rinse down and then she’s stepping up and out of the sudsy tub and wrapping herself in the plush towel Jane had left for her folded up on the edge. Walking back over to the vanity, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind, she reaches up to let her hair down, and pauses when she catches sight of the dangling earring hanging from her left lobe. Turning her head to get a better look, she lets out a low whistle. Woah. Never let it be said that functional couldn’t be fashionable, ‘cause the Asgardians had it down to a science.
It’s gold, is the first thing she notices about it. So sue her alright? She came from an over-full household filled with many a night of hamburger helper, endless pots of spaghetti, and a sickening about of meatloaf; the closest she’s ever been to gold is cheap party jewelry from Clair’s. But she’s pretty damn sure that the sparkly hanging from her ear is a hundred percent real. The hook, if you can call it that, is a delicate horseshoe of chain that attaches to the points of a fat half circle, thickly carved with Asgardian knots and sigils; at its center is a tear drop shaped hole. The edge of the half circle is studded with gold balls and hanging down from the center of the curve is a lightly foggy, jelly bean shaped clear (space?) stone, its edge wrapped in a thin layer of carved gold as well. When the light catches the dangling gem jagged gold veins flash through it, like trapped lightning. Swank. Tentatively, Darcy reaches up and starts fiddling with it, trying to figure out how it comes undone. It doesn’t. The chains don’t have a clasp at all, it’s like it was made in her ear. Okay, not swank. Not swank atall.
Pushing aside the rising tide of panic, again, and saving the freak-out for the hopefully perfectly logical explanation for the permanent face weight, Darcy goes back to her previous mission. Tugging the black band of elastic free, she lets her damp dark hair tumble down around her shoulders. Gathering it over one bare shoulder she picks up the ornately worked brass and bone comb (cheese and rice, is anything plain in this place?) and, beginning at the dripping ends, starts to work it through; letting the slow, methodical drag of the teeth sooth her way past frazzled nerves. When she’s finished she twists it into a tight fishtail, and gives her brows the dirty look they deserve then a lightbulb goes off and she hustles back over to the bath, grabs up the bottle of hair remover, and hustles back to the vanity. Carefully- ever so carefully- she dabs the tip of her pinky into the oil and (holding her breath and going cross-eyed) smooths it between her eyes making sure to keep it even. Just as carefully, like a seasoned brain surgeon, she wipes the residue and hair away leaving her with two very bushy brows instead of the one, and calls it good. That’s all she can do, anything more would require the skills of a professional or Jane’s steady hand.
Laughter and the low murmur of pleasant conversation trickles in through the bathroom archway as she contemplates the dress hanging from the dressing screen. It’s as ridiculous and beautiful as everything else in the place, and she’s pretty damn sure that it’s worth at least the price of a semester at Culver. At least. Dropping the towel around her ankles, she wiggles into the very snug fitting cream colored cap sleeve gown and somehow feels more naked in it than when she was bare-assed two seconds ago. It hugs every dip and curve and leaves nothing to the imagination. Apparently, Asgardian women don’t have to worry about gravity and just let the girls free hang, lucky bitches, but right now Darcy can see her dusky nipples through the fabric and that’s just no bueno. Snatching the silky wine and cream brocade fabric draped over the screen she hastily unfolds it and holds it up and just stares at the heavy, lengthy material. She has noidea what to do with it. At all. Darcy makes a few desperate attempts to wrap it around her body in any way she thinks it might work then finally gives up with a frustrated huff.
“Jane?” she calls, fed up.
There’s a lull in the conversation out in the other room, “Coming!” Jane calls in a chipper voice and she hears the slap of her friend’s heavy footfalls and the swish of thick fabric seconds before the woman herself rounds the corner of the archway.
“What’cha need?”
Darcy just holds up the offending article of clothing and says, “Help.”
Giving her a confident smile, Jane takes it out of hands, “It can’t be that hard.”
They give it the old college try, but two heads, an extra pair of hands and a PhD in astrophysics can’t figure it out either. Jane finally calls it quits tossing her hands in air and marches back out of the bathroom, “Thor!”
She comes back with reinforcements in the form of what Darcy assumes is a maid or something. The tall (again, lucky bitches) statuesque woman doesn’t even bat an eye and silently takes the wine panel from her and in a matter of seconds wraps it, drapes it and tucks it around the cream dress then glides back out of the room with a bob of her head.
Jane and Darcy stare at each other.
“Well,” says Jane, “that was easy.” They smack hands over their mouths to muffle their laughing but Jane snorts and Darcy chokes on her spit and they just lose it and it feels so good to laugh and for a moment it’s like they’re back in dusty dry Ethiopia and they’re laughing at some cheesy stupid joke that Ian totally doesn’t get while Erik rolls his eyes all disapprovingly in the background.
Finally their mirth peters out and they just smile at each other for a moment, “Come on,” Jane says, taking her hand, “Everyone’s waiting to see you, plus there’s food. You remember food right, your one true love?”
Darcy makes it out of the bathroom only tripping over the hem of her dress twice (a graceful hippo she is not) and wishes another hole would open up for her to jump into when everyone in the main room (bed room? Hospital room? Demon containment zone?) stops their conversations and all eyes zero in on her.
She’s getting really sick of these mini anxiety attacks. For real. The Darcy Lewis Rollercoaster of Emotional Turmoil needed to be shut down. Like, this cannot be good for her indigestion or something, and she’s already got enough pooping problems what with all the coffee and pop tarts and banana’s that made up her three basic food groups before possession.
True to his word, the only people in the room are Thor, Erik and Ian. Both men have followed the ‘when in Rome’ dress code and are clothed in what she assumes is the peak of scholarly Asgardian fashion. Erik is in a long, open, high-neck over-jacket in a vibrant carnelian, its cuffs and border embroidered heavily in silver, the ends reaching mid-calf. Underneath he wears a dove gray V-neck tunic, its edges also heavily embroidered, and loose rust red pants. Darcy commends whoever dressed him, as even if he were to lose the pants, the tunic that fell mid-thigh would keep the goods from possibly scarring any young Asgardian’s who happened to come upon the half-naked scientist. Ian is dressed similarly, in a hip length, high neck hunter green jacket, slightly less embroidered in black, which is closed hiding his tunic and black pants with a more form fitting cut.
She waves her hands at them nervously, “Heeeey guys,” and oh my god her voice actually squeaks at the end. Could this get anymore awkward? Like it’s not bad enough that they’re all looking at her like her head would start spinning at any moment-
“Darcy!” annnd Erik’s hugging her. Bear hugging her to be exact, with his cheek pressed to the top of her head. Relief floods her veins as she inhales his old man cloves and coffee smell so fast she feels her legs go weak with it. He’s not afraid of her; he didn’t go running from the room screaming his head off, he hugged her. Darcy wraps her arms around his squishy middle and squeezes back tight; love for the quirky scientist filling her and leaking a little bit out the corners of her eyes. Two more arms band around her and another body presses into her side, this one much narrower and significantly less fluffy.
“Glad you’re awake,” Ian says. Darcy reads between the lines and hears, ‘Oh-thank-god-you’re-back-I-can’t-contain-Jane-and-Erik-help-me-this-place-is-terrifying-meep’.
“Me too, Minion, me too.” She says in a slightly wobbly voice. Gah, she needs to get a handle on these weepy emotions. Pushing out of the hug-a-thon, feeling like she’s more than filled her being nice quota for the month, she surreptitiously wipes at her eyes, hoping no one will notice.
Her stomach does her a solid and distracts everybody from all the feels taking place in the room by growling like it’s never even heard of food, and everyone chuckles.
“Come, eat Darcy,” Thor says, practically Vana White-ing the spread laid out on the table. It’s like that scene from Hook when old Peter finally sees the food; it’s a mix of delicious looking familiar things and intriguing, but no less yummy, strange looking things. Spit pools in her mouth and Darcy makes a conscious effort not to drool all over the fancy dress. Waddling delicately over to the massive table that had somehow magic’d its way into the room while she was bathing, she carefully sits down on an empty bench chair, and stares in awe at all the food. She’s going to eat all of it. All the food. She doesn’t care what it is, she’s eating it. Reaching out she takes hold of a leg of something.
“Ah, a fine choice,” Thor says, “The-“
“Uh-buh-buh-buh-buh!” Darcy cuts him off holding a finger against his perfect plushy lips, “Do not, tell me, what it is. Don’t tell me what any of this,” she flails the hand holding the mystery leg at all the food, “is. Just let me enjoy its tasty roasted goodness in ignorance. Unless I’m about to eat baby anything, I don’t wanna know. We cool?”
“Very,” Says the mighty thunder god in obvious amusement.
“Awesome,” she says around the hunk of meat, then blocks everything out to focus solely on the feast laid out before her. A colorful tartlet catches her attention next and she hums in pleasure when heavily spiced deliciousness glides across her tongue. After that it’s something that looks a lot like an apple hollowed out and filled with meat, nuts, bread chunks and possibly raisins with some sort of ooziness dribbling down the sides; followed quickly by a pillow-soft golden bun dripping with a butter-like substance, one bite into its softness reveals a hidden meat and vegetable filling that makes her eyes roll back in almost orgasmic pleasure. She tries something that looks like stewed pears, hums in surprise at how amazballs it actually is, and goes back for seconds with one hand while the other reaches for a terrine of odd fruit-like things that’s calling her name.
“You are a woman after Volstagg’s heart,” Thor comments in an obviously impressed tone, “He too, enjoys feasting in all its many forms.”
Taking a quick gulp of honeyed something-or-other that should be outlawed for how it slips gently and sweetly over her palate and slithers down her throat to pool warmly in her tummy out of a literally –literally –golden chalice, “Nah,” she licks her bottom lip, “If you think I’m impressive this is nothing; you should see Jane on twenty-five cent wing night at the Chicken Haus. She can put ‘em down like nobody’s business. Gotta pic on the wall and everything.”
Thor raises eyebrows at his lady love, “Truly?”
“Darcy!” Jane hisses scandalized.
“Cool it Janey, I’m singing your praises like a good wing man –get it? WingMan? Buh-dump-buh! Oooh, is that tentacle thing like calamari? Please say it’s like calamari.”
Jane sighs in defeat and sits on Thor’s lap, pouting. In an effort to cheer her up, but mostly just because it pleased him to do so since he and his intelligent beauty seldom have had the time or setting to simply enjoy each other, he carefully selects choice morsels from various platters to hand feed her; making soulful googly eyes at the woman who claimed his heart. Darcy would’ve totally gagged and vomited at the super sugary lovey-dovey-ness taking place at the head of the table except she’s starving and this food is hella good. Erik and Ian join them at the table as well lured by the siren scents of the feast wafting about the room and they’re surrounded in a bubble of comfortable silence for the span of time it takes everyone to eat their fill and the healers to be sent for.
Eir strolls regally in trailed by two other non-descript women. Darcy assumes they are also healers based solely off the fact that all three women are wearing identical sea blue dresses. Stopping before the absentmindedly munching group the women bob their heads in difference at the golden haired god.
“Highness.” Eir intones.
“Healer. The Lady Darcy is most eager to know the details of her situation, please explain.” “So eager,” Darcy mutters sarcastically, willing for her appendix to spontaneously burst or an asteroid to fall out of the sky and crush her.
“As you will. Please, Lady Darcy, if you will follow me to the soul forge.” The stately woman gestures with a hand to the stone slab Darcy’d woken up on.
The group as a whole rises from the long table and, with minimal tripping, mosey to the center of the room where, what Darcy privately thinks of as a sacrificial alter, stands.
One of the healers fiddles with the odd controls and the wavy, green, energy body that had been floating over her shimmers into existence over it and the lights in the room dim.
“This is the physical manifestation of your anima, the energy which makes up your being –your life force, if you will,” Eir says walking around the soul forge so she’s looking through the energy waves at the others, “A normal being’s is represented in a simple color, as with the green you see before you. What is not normal is the thick black energy strands weaving its way throughout your essence. This,” she says with a wave of a hand, “is the other; the ancient being that has taken root within you.”
“But,” Darcy says licking suddenly dry lips, “you can get it out, right? Like Jane and the Aether?” Said scientist takes hold of her hand.
“I fear not,” Eir says, and here her voice holds the first shade of emotion since she started talking, the tint of regret, “The entity has more than latched on, as with the Lady Jane and the Aether. It is not simply just an unwanted passenger. When you made contact with it, it did not just bind itself to you, it has twined itself with your soul, worked itself in the very fabric of your being.”
“So what are you saying?” Darcy asks in a voice that only has the faint edge of a tremble.
“The two cannot be separated, one cannot exist without the other. Whatever happened when you made contact has melded you souls together and remade you into one being, and not just at the spiritual level. When we ran tests on you physical form we found changes have even occurred at the deepest levels of your cells.”
Annnnd que brain explosion.
“Are you telling me that there’s a demon in me and I’m just a Darcy jacket?”
“No. It was weak, when you stumbled upon it; formless, barely a shade of what it once was, fading for millennia, when it sensed your aura. You have an uncharacteristically bright soul, and it must have woken it from its slumber. I believe it was pure, mindless, instinct to survive that had the being reaching for you when you fell into that cave. Upon contact it tried to consume you, to replenish itself and form anew, in a last bid effort to remain alive. Had it been stronger, I fear that yes, you would be nothing more than a, ‘Darcy Jacket’, if anything of you would have been left at all. But your soul was stronger, and the being’s only option was to submit to your stronger essence or be burnt away, which would have most likely resulted in both of your demises. Luckily, the favor of the Norns was shining upon you. Your soul is the dominant of the two; you are the master of the body you now share. Your body is simply just not entirely Midgardian anymore.”
Her fingertips were numb, and her stomach rolled, threatening to evacuate all the delicious food, “What percent are we talking here, Doc? Like, when the space census comes in the mail and asks my species do I still mark ‘Midgardian’ or do I fall under ‘Other’?”
“The being makes up roughly forty percent.”
Darcy’s mouth is desert dry, “So totally checking the ‘Other’ box. And I barely won the spiritual thumb-war.” Fucking awesome.
There’s pressure on her hand and she looks down in surprise, seeing Jane’s fine boned fingers grasping hers. She’d forgotten that she was holding it. A large hand settles on her shoulder.
Eir blinks at the odd turn of phrase, but seems to grasp the general meaning of it, “Yes,” in her vast time spent as the head palace healer, she had learned that being as perfectly clear about a patient’s ailments was the best route, even in the face of horrible diagnosis. She would not start lacing it with honey now, “It was a close thing this last month, as your physiology underwent the changes. Not only did we have to battle high fevers, brain swellings, sporadic heart arrests, fluids in your lungs, and seizures, the being was also occasionally surfacing to the forefront of your conscious. It was deeply confused and hostile, after waking form such a long slumber. It tried repeatedly to gain the upper hand, before we could seal it.”
“What is it?” Darcy bites out. I don’t want to know. This isn’t happening. I don’t want to know. Wake up, you’re still in the cave. You just knocked your noggin. This is all a massively fucked up dream.
“Something very ancient, from before the time of the All Father this much we know. There are whispers of it across the Nine Realms but most have faded into obscurity. My healers have been combing the archive extensively for any sign of a name, but have been fruitless.”
“Is…Is it…Evil?”
Eir gives a gallic shrug, “That is undeterminable, at our current crossing. Such an ancient being comes from a time when such delineations were not distinctive. Good and Evil were not even yet concepts. No black nor white, just simply gray. It comes from a time before Gods were Gods. With it currently sealed and slumbering, we cannot ascertain its nature.”
Darcy’s floundering brain caught the term ‘sealed’ and clung to it with all its might, “This thing,” she gives the low grade BMW hanging from her ear a gently tug, “This’ll keep it locked up, right? As long as it’s in the thing can’t get out and redrum everybody, right?”
“…In theory? We believe so. With so little known about the being and it’s abilities we can only assume so much with a certainty. The being was wild, uncontrollable, when it was in possession of your body. As soon as we attached the seal it settled into what our mind healers confidently believe is an exhaustive slumber, cut off from your energy as it is, in the section of your being it now resides in. Its attempt to assimilate you took much of what depleted energy it had left. A span of seven days has passed since we attached the seal and we have run a multitude of tests and, with as much assurance as I can give you, I can say that while the seal remains intact you shall remain in control.”
“Greaaaat,” she draws out, squeezing the bridge of her nose and sighing, “So let me get this straight: some possibly blood thirsty, literally older than dirt, maybe doomsday god-dude, possibly hoping to lay some serious smotage down on all the Nine Realms, ended up in a cave that was in another cave that smelled like my cousin Dwayne’s bedroom in effing Ethiopia, that I was juuuuust lucky enough to fall into, smelled the chocolatey snarky goodness that is my sexy-ass soul, tried to straight up Buffalo Bill me but I’m just enough of a BAMF to fight it’s currently weak ass off, but only just, and is now my own personal Tyler Durden times a billion, and I am literally almost half an illegal alien. Literally.”
Ian lets out a nervous giggle. It’s his standard response to uncomfortable and/or stressful situations.
Eir just blinks at her, only understanding about every third word that came out of her mouth. Mostly the ‘the’’s and the ‘it’’s and the ‘literally’’s but not necessarily the context in which they were being used.
“Technically Darcy, I believe you would still count as an American citizen, being born in Astoria,” Erik supplies.
Darcy just sighs deeper and lets her head fall back on her neck so she’s addressing the twenty foot (ridiculously carved and bronzed) ceiling loudly, “Is that seriously supposed to make me feel better, right now? Seriously, Erik? Being born in Astoria Oregon, where the only –single– cool thing that ever happened there in the history of ever was the filming of the Goonies? Seriously, Erik? Seriously?” She finishes her voice going slightly screechy at the end.
“We’ve gone over everything, Darce,” Jane says, defeat and frustration with herself clear in her tone, as she musses her hair with her free hand, calling attention to the dark smudges under her cognac eyes, “We’ve tried everything we can, everything. Exhausted every avenue Thor’s people could find in all the Realms and the only thing we were able to come up with was the seal.”
“It is not an ideal situation,” Thor says softly, squeezing her shoulder again, willing her to understand, “It is, possibly, one of the least desired of solutions, but it was the only course of action we could take that ended with your survival. Be angry with us if you must, but I for one will not feel sorry about choosing the option that left you alive and with us. I would have a living Lightening Sister, even one sharing forty percent of her being with an unknown, to a possible Darcy Jacket, or a dead Lightening Sister.”
Darcy sags, deflating as all the anger and fear left her like hot air, leaving her empty and drained. It really wasn’t their fault, “I know. I get that you guys did what you had to do, and, I promise I’m totally, stupidly grateful that I, like, don’t have a face talking out of the back of my head right now demanding unicorn Bloody Mary’s for breakfast. I’m having a moment, and as soon as it passes I swear I’ll be okay.”
Taking in her pale pallor and wide eyes Eir suggested, “Perhaps it is best if I and my staff were to return to the healing ward until Lady Darcy has any further questions.”
Thor smiles gratefully at the woman who had been the head healer for as long as he could remember, patching up his childhood scratches long before he could wield a sword let alone his hammer, “That is a most excellent idea. We shall call if there’s a need.”
Darcy didn’t pay attention as the women left once again, instead allowing Jane to tug her back over to the table and nudging her back onto her bench chair.
“Well, not gonna lie, this sucks giant hairy donkey dicks.”
Erik, once again taking his place across from her, runs a hand through his thinning hair, “Not exactly the best words to describe the current situation, but yes, it does suck giant donkey dicks.”
Picking at the remains of her plate Darcy rests her free elbow on the table and props her head up, “So what happens now?”
“When the sealing appeared to be a success Eir recommended upon you waking, whenever that would be, that you remain on Asgard for a short period of time so she and her staff may observe you. If there are any complications that arise during that time it would be safer if they were to happen here, as opposed to on Midgard. If –when –all goes well you will be free to return to your life,” Thor said with a shrug that seemed to convey ‘and that’s that’.
“And if there are complications? If the thing wakes up and decides, ‘hey, I kinda like it here, I’m gonna enslave all the peoples’?”
Jane rolls her eyes, “Then we knock your ass back out and do some more research. Duh. And if that doesn’t work we’ll just beat the thing into submission.”
“You called us the Borg,” Ian pipes up, “Resistance is futile.”
“We’re not going to give up on you, Darcy,” Erik reassures her.
Thor gave her a bemused smile, “As I don’t believe there is an entity out there capable of dominating your rambunctious spirit, I do not think it will come down to that.”
Feeling herself getting slightly choked up at the awesomeness that was her geeky misfit family, Darcy tries to deflect, snatching up the nearest strip of meat, “Man I could totally go for some coffee right now. Where’s the alien coffee, Jane?”
Jane shares a cautious look with everyone else and slowly turns back to the curvy brunette, “Darcy, honey….”
“Yesh?” Darcy says chewing on what she thinks is bacon. She’s hoping it’s bacon.
A large hand grasps her shoulder and she looks over at where Thor sits with big, soulful puppy eyes….is he trying to comfort her?
“Asgard…Asgard doesn’t –it doesn’t-“ Jane stutters out.
“There’s no coffee here!” Ian blurts out, then slaps his hand over his mouth like he could take it back.
The room stills and Erik just closes his eyes and waits for the storm.
Jane gives him a ‘what the fuck’ look.
Darcy sets her hunk of space bacon down and struggles to her feet in the Dress.
“Darcy, where are you-“ Jane gets out in confusion.
“Put me back in a coma you guys,” she says, trip-marching over to the fluffy bed, “Wake me up when you either figure this whole thing out or get coffee.”
“Darc-“
“Nope,” she says, yanking back the thick covers and struggling into the bed, Dress and all, “Nuh-uh. Sharing forty percent of me with something that will never cover half the bills? Possibly going completely psycho and murder-y? Okay, I can work with that. But I can NOT-“ she thumps the pillows behind her into submission “-actually, no, WILL not, do this without coffee.”
“Darcy,” Erik soothes, “You’re being unreasonable.”
“Am I, Erik? AM I? I fell in a hole, I’m possessed, been in a coma for a month, lost one of my two –two! –best features, and don’t even get me started on my eyebrows! Now there’s no coffee! None! Nada! Zip! Considering what I’ve had to deal with in a short period of time I think I’m being very reasonable! I am the fricking poster child for reasonable!”
“It’s, it’s not so bad,” Jane tries to cajole, hoping up to sit on the edge of the bed, “They’ve got tea, it’s got caffeine in it.”
Darcy gives her dead eyes, “I don’t know who you’re trying to convince more right now, me or yourself, Jane?”
Jane narrows her eyes at the sass and starts to snap back when Darcy lets loose a long, involuntary, jaw-cracking yawn.
“Whoo. Sure doesn’t feel like I slept for a month.”
“I would not categorize it as a restive slumber, more like a healing one,” says Erik.
“We should let you sleep,” Jane chimes in, “It’s been a pretty long day for you. Lotta stuff to take in.”
Darcy felt a little fissure of panic shoot through her at the idea of being alone. With herself. And the thing. Orange eyes.
“Ah, yes!” Thor exclaimed, unaware of Darcy’s private micro-meltdown, “On the morrow we shall dine together and then I shall take you about the city and show you all the wonders that Asgard has to offer. We shall leave you to rest. Come, my Love,” he says with a sweet smile on his puppy dog face directed at Jane.
Jane, who knew every one of Darcy’s smallest expressions and tells, saw the minute shifting in her best friend’s face and decided to take matters into her own dainty hands, “I’m gonna stay with Darce tonight,” she says loftily, as if that had been the plan all along, giving the other girl’s fingers a squeeze, “Have a slumber party, catch her up on Asgard gossip, braid each other’s hair, tame her eyebrows, you know, girl stuff.”
Darcy gave the tiny astrophysicist a grateful look.
Thor’sj eyebrows rose in surprise at this new knowledge, but only hesitated a moment when he saw the way the two women were leaning into each other; hands clasped tightly together, Darcy’s shoulders drawn slightly up towards her ears. Smiling softly at the two women, one the light that filled his soul the other a sister to that same soul, “Very well,” Striding forward he busses a quick kiss against Darcy’s forehead, “Sleep well, my lightening sister.”
“Like I have any other options with this orgy sized bed. Is the mattress literally a cloud or what?”
“An Asgardian secret,” he smirks then turns to Jane and places a much less chaste and definitely not brotherly kiss across her plush mouth that left the thinner brunette a little breathless and slightly dazed, “And you as well, my sweet Jane,” He says, practically preening at the obvious effect he had on the brainy woman.
“Uh-huh,” Jane sighs, ‘Back at’cha.”
Erik and Ian exchange goodnights with them as well, both strictly verbal, and the three men stride out of the room finally leaving to two best friends to themselves. As soon as the doors are closed Darcy turns to Jane with a shit-eating grin and starts poking her narrow shoulder.
“Spa-looosh,” She sing-songs.
Jane flops back onto the mountain of downy pillows with a gusty sigh, arms wide, “Right?”
“You might wanna scoop your brains back up since they oozed outta your ears during that panty-dropper tongue-tango I just witnessed. They’re about to soak into the bed spread,” since the shoulder was no longer within reach, Darcy continued her poking assault on her unguarded boney hip.
“I know,” Jane practically moaned in mortification-tinged pleasure covering her face, “Stop that,” she swats at Darcy’s attacking finger, meeting laughing blue eyes, “I keep thinking the-the, glow or whatever’s going to fade or something, you know? We’ve never spent so much time together, consecutively, without having some possibly world ending thing popping up, and we’re usually spending that time doing, ah, other stuff–“
“If by ‘other stuff’ you mean sexy-sexy times where he bends you into a human pretzel while doing, unspeakable, dirty, awesome things to you to make you moan his name, then shyeah, you guys are usually doing ‘other stuff’. Erik, Ian and I’ve all heard you guys doing ‘other stuff’.”
“You have?” Jane squeaks.
“Dude, we spent, like, how long in the jungle together, and quiet you are not. I don’t even think Thor knows the meaning of the word whisper. But yeah. You guys gave the howler monkeys a run for their money. Pretty sure all the predators were scared off any time he visited though, so thanks, my love handles owe you one.”
Jane covered her face once again, “Oh. My. God.”
Darcy braved another poke to the hip, “Hey,” jab, jab, “more about this possibly fading but not fading glow thing.”
Brown eyes peeked through spread fingers and met blue for a long moment. Darcy waggled her bushy brows at her.
“Fine,” Jane says, sitting and sliding off the massive bed, “But I’m fixing those things on your forehead before they decide to break free and take over the world.”
“Oh thank God,” Darcy cries as Jane hustles into the bathroom, “You don’t know what I was willing to do to get these fixed, Janey,” she yells over the sound of the petite woman rummaging around in the other room, “Like, literally, I was about to offer some stuff I save for, like, dire situations. Like crazy, freaky stuff.”
A triumphant “Ah-HA!” echoes out of the room and Jane marches back out, freaking gold tweezers held aloft. Climbing back onto the bed, Jane settles down crisscross and pulls a fluffy pillow into her lap, patting it in invitation, “Come on.”
Darcy practically throws herself at her lap, laying face up, hands resting on the brocade covering her belly, legs crossed at the ankles, “Okay, I’m ready, spill the beans.”
Leaning in and focusing on the delicate and complicated work before her (Darcy’s eyebrows were a mess) she started plucking, an act that both had found very therapeutic since their time in New Mexico.
“So, like I said, Thor and I usually spend a good part of our time together just, ah–“
“Reafirming?” Darcy supplies.
“Yeah, reaffirming our relationship and I guess basking in the glow of both of us still being alive and attracted to each other? Not a whole lot of deep, meaningful conversation goes on. I mean, we’re literally from two different worlds.”
Jane yanks out a particularly deep hair, and Darcy hisses in pain.
“And he’s literally a hundreds-of-years-old prince of an entire planet, with god-like powers, non-existent body fat, ridiculously thick eyelashes, great smile-“
“–amazing ass,” Darcy cuts in helpfully.
“Perfect ass,” Jane corrects her, “And I’m, you know, me–“
“Super awesome, all around bad beezy, Nobel Prize laureate, Queen astrophysicist, record holding Chicken Haus wing eater, eyebrow master extraordinaire?” Darcy cut in again, and the two smile at each other.
“Yeah, that. But I figured once we actually spent any real time together we’d sort of figure out that we were way too different. That it was all physical you know? Except that’s totally not what happened, Darcy! He’s been helping out with all of the research we’ve been doing since we got here a month ago. And not just carrying heavy equipment or holding stuff. He actually understands what I’m talking about, like everything I’m talking about! I barely have to explain things to him and he gets it! We sleep together and that’s, you know, amazing, and he gets my corny jokes and he thinks my snarky caffeine withdrawal is cute, and likes that I’m a clingy octopus when I sleep it’s-it’s like a dream come true, you know?”
Jane stops tweezing and bends even farther over so she and Darcy are practically eye to eye, “Darcy,” she says tone grave, “he’s perfect. Like, the definition of perfect.”
Darcy reaches up and gently pats Jane’s face, a soft smile stretching her plump lips, “Congratulations, Janey. Awwww, I think you’ve found your zing.”
Jane gave her a cheesy smile, “I know, right?”
Realizing the sap level in the room had reached critical, the two women snap themselves out of it, and get back to business. For a moment, the only sounds in the room is the almost silent clacking of the tweezers grasping at another hair.
“So,” Darcy asks casually, “True or False: when Thor visits, and you guys are doing ‘other stuff’ and he asks, ‘you want me to put the hammer down?’ that’s dirty talk for his dick right?”
Yank!
“OW! Knew it.”
After Jane tamed Darcy’s eyebrows the two changed into some ridiculous night dresses that made Darcy feel straight out of the Victorian era, turned the lights out, leaving one dim light on in the bathroom, and crawled back into the crazy big bed, settling down for the night.
Laying wide awake, staring into the inky black darkness of the room, Darcy hears the sheets rustle a second before Jane’s narrow, dry fingers curl around hers.
“How are you really feeling?” Jane asks in a hushed tone.
Wriggling over onto her side Darcy stares at the dark blob across from her that is Jane’s head.
“Honestly? I can’t remember really anything after touching the ooze. So I guess I’m more scared of the idea of having some crazy old space person living inside me. Something that could possibly take control of me at any moment and hurt everyone, doesn’t sound like anybody I want walking around in my skin.”
“You know if we didn’t think you were okay we’d let you wake up, you know that right? The seal’s going to hold. But if anything happens, or whatever, you promise to tell me, okay? No trying to fix it by yourself.”
Squeezing Jane’s fingers, “Trust me, if I wake up and feel the sudden urge to eat souls and crawl up walls you’ll be the first to know.