Chapter 2
Thor pressed his fingers over the back of Loki’s head, searching for the lump he’d left behind during the confrontation with the owner of the dingy motel.
Unreasonably bright, early morning sunlight made it difficult to focus, as did Loki’s sleep warm weight. He should’ve expected to wake with the sun in his eyes—seeing as they’d slept in his truck—but he longed for the burbling, smoky thunderheads that reputably dogged the Pacific Northwest.
“No, Mama,” Thor whispered, cradling his phone between his shoulder and ear. “We—”
“You’ve been eating though, right? Three meals a day, and snacks too?” The tinny sound of Mama’s voice crackled from the receiver and left a tightness in her voice that Thor previously thought of as impossible, given how tight her voice already sounded.
“Yes,” Thor said quickly, “Well, we—I had dinner last night, but—”
“Do you need money for breakfast?”
“Mama, let me speak!”
A shameful silence choked the truck and had Thor’s jaw wrenching closed with a snap.
“I’m sorry, my darling,” Mama said softly.
Thor wished he could swallow his own tongue. “No,” he sighed, “I’m sorry, Mama, I—we slept in the truck,” he half wondered if his tone came across as apologetic or excusing and slanted his voice lower in an aim for apologetic in the event it didn’t. “It’s really early here too,” he added, eyeing the little red clock on the consol, “just after dawn.”
Mama let out a consoling hum. Thor could hear precisely how troubled and deeply layered that hum sounded though. She believed Thor could take care of Loki, but she also wanted them healthy and whole, and at home where she could see living proof of those qualities. All he needed to say was, ‘I think Loki has a concussion’, and she’d be on the next flight.
“Loki isn’t exactly feeling friendly either,” Thor said, freezing when Loki’s shoulders tensed as the lump Thor had been worrying over appeared beneath his fingers.
Silence met his ear once more, making Thor wish he’d slept through his phone ringing. Mama deserved to know that both Thor and Loki were safe—or as safe as sleeping at a random beach at dawn could be.
“Has, uhm, has Pa—Odin said anything?”
“Is Loki awake?”
Thor blinked and focused on the dull black curls tucked between his fingers. He wouldn’t be surprised if Loki slept through Thor’s inspection, nor would it surprise him however, for Loki to pretend to sleep through his inspection.
“I don’t,” Thor started in a quieter voice, “I don’t think so?”
“Did you two sleep in different trucks?”
“No.”
“Is Loki with you?”
Thor hummed a ‘yes’, “but what does that have to do with Odin?”
“My babies are a world away,” Mama said. “I can’t hug either of you, or make sure you’re warm enough and eating—”
“Odin, Mama.”
“Thor,” Mama said in a firm voice. “What your papa has said or done is between him and Loki.”
Loki grunted, drawing Thor’s attention to the flattened curls strangled beneath his fingers.
“I don’t deserve to know?!” Thor asked, making a concerted effort to loosen his grip in spite of the bitterness clawing up his heart. “I flew to this fucking country—”
“Thor,” Loki slurred.
“Loki?” Mama’s voice echoed from the receiver, “Thor, is that Loki?”
“No,” Thor lied. Despite the immense physical distance between their truck and Mama, panic bubbled through Thor’s stomach at the memory of how Loki broke down at the mention of anything related to their parents yesterday. Mama’s voice alone may cause spiraling, doubly so for how it lacked the everpresent scent of oats and honey, or the array of floral notes which lingered on her person. “I have to go, Mama,” he said as a static sensation flooded his tongue.
“Mama?” Loki asked, clumsily trying to sit up.
The tail end of ‘ I love you,’ whispered from the phone before Thor ended the call and tucked his hands beneath Loki’s armpits and pulled him, or her, or them—Thor couldn’t tell yet—closer.
“—’s Mama calling?” Something bitter crossed Loki’s eyes, though Thor couldn’t say why.
“She wanted me to call when I landed, but I forgot to,” Thor said, hoping that the early hour would make catching lies more difficult.
Dark purple circles bled across the skin beneath Loki’s eyes, leading Thor to hope that a warm cuddle might encourage them both back to sleep for a scant few extra hours. Papa’s leather jacket made for a warm enough blanket for Loki, but Thor found himself wishing he’d brought out every blanket, cover, and throw he’d shoved into his carry on.
Frizzy black hair tickled Thor's chin as Loki’s head gave a weak shake from side to side.
He’d previously thought Mama had been crazy to hand across such an abundance of fabric, particularly as the airline had given him more than one odd look, but he supposed she’d been right to. Few things spelled comfort better than Mama’s blankets. Half of Thor’s childhood memories featured her quilting supplies, and the remaining half included a mismatched combination of her knitting needles, and twining strands of patterned wool and yarn.
A muffled sound met Thor’s ears, and took him a few minutes to realize that Loki had spoken again. “What?” he asked.
“How long ago did you land?”
Loki had been missing for a little under a week before Thor discovered where he ought to start searching. However, that left two weeks of apparent phone silence from Thor, which Loki would no doubt find uncharacteristic.
“Oh, uhm,” Thor started, wondering if gently steering the conversation toward breakfast would deter Loki. “A while,” he said lamely.
“Vague,” Loki said, sniffing.
“Nosy,” Thor let out a strained laugh and sat up, hoping to make them both more comfortable, but he stopped short when Loki’s eyes pinched shut as a nauseating green color spread across already pale cheeks.
“If you’re gonna be sick—”
“—’m not sick,” Loki said, looking painfully sick.
Perhaps Thor ought to accept that everyone in his family lied. “How’s your head?”
An unpleasant and familiar viciousness flashed across Loki’s eyes.
“Do I have a little sister, brother, or sibling today?” Thor asked, aiming for a different distraction as he tried to remember what tipped him off about how Loki presented yesterday.
Maybe it’d been the sweater? Loki liked Mama’s sweater, but usually only wore it when a sense of masculinity struck. Thor always felt some confusion around that, because he’d have thought Mama’s sweaters would bring out femininity, but then, Loki might pair it with men’s trousers and draw a mustache on, all the while calling the outfit solidly masculine.
Maybe Mama thought of her sweater as a men’s sweater and that’s why Loki thought so as well? Maybe Papa initially bought it for himself—
Loki swallowed heavily, seeming less frustrated by this distraction than the last. “Sister,” she said, before pulling a hand over her mouth and gurgling, “I’m gonna be sick.”
Thor jolted and very nearly missed the door handle as his fingers slipped over the metal paneling before shoving it open. Loki spilled across his lap and spat foamy, thin bile down the siding and onto the sand. It would’ve been hard for her to throw up anything of value, given how little she’d eaten at the diner, and the uneaten sandwich the diner gifted the two of them. Would breakfast help? Thor couldn’t help feeling as if food always helped, but then, Loki didn’t always agree.
“Why didn’t you call her sooner?” Loki asked as she spat again.
Perhaps Thor ought not lie. He could never think quickly enough to justify his untruths, and Loki had never allowed Thor a graceful defeat when she’d caught him in one.
“I—er,” he stammered and winced as the sun crested the dashboard and briefly blinded him. “I’d been angry,” he said, unable to deny the honesty there, “and upset.”
“You’ve never ignored her for so long before.”
“I’ve—”
He wanted to say he’d never heard her lie so boldly before, but that would paint agony across Loki’s face and Thor couldn’t bear the thought of being the cause of that. They’d only just found one another last night, they ought to have a bit of respite before leaping into misery. Mornings should be reserved for peace, and soft awakenings, and it struck Thor as needlessly cruel for Loki to wake and be thrust face first into chaos.
Loki blinked slowly and seemed to be trying to do the same with her breathing, though it appeared to do her little good. A sickly, feverish color flooded her face and caused misty sweat to dot across her hairline.
“Are there emergency clinics in small towns here?” Thor asked instead. He snatched a squeaky styrofoam Big Gulp and dumped its slushy drink into the sand before grabbing a bottle of water and pouring a healthy amount into the cup. “I think you have a concussion.”
“Even if there were, they’d only give me Tylenol.”
“You liked your courses in human anatomy, Loki. You’ve told me a hundred times that head wounds aren’t to be messed with.”
“Are my pupils mismatched?” she asked, tilting to show Thor her teary eyes before sipping from the styrofoam cup. “Am I slurring my words, or forgetting anything? Do I seem confused?” A near silent huff followed her voice, leading Thor to wonder if she truly felt that she’d already know whether or not she had a concussion, which struck him as both alarmingly, yet painfully characteristic.
“You were slurring a moment ago,” Thor said as he pulled one of her eyelids a bit lower than the other. “What do you remember about last night?” he asked, wondering if he should stipulate that her memories focus on the diner and dingy motel rather than the adoption.
“You met me at a diner.”
Thor hummed.
“It was annoyingly busy, and you made me miss my telenovela.”
“You do like your soap operas, though sometimes I think you just like the thought of someone else manufacturing the drama.”
“Dramas are reflections,” Loki mumbled. “All art is.”
A quote belonging to Shakespeare whispered in Thor’s thoughts, but it spoke too faintly for him to properly recite. He could never remember the poems themselves, only Mama’s voice as she read them, or Loki’s, though even Loki agreed that Mama read them best. “Go on,” he said with a nod.
Loki rubbed her nose and nodded before the color drained from her skin and she swung forward, gagging again, though this time nothing came up.
Thor felt it prudent to make an executive decision.
He helped Loki make a controlled spill onto the passenger seat and ensured her book sat in her lap before climbing out to search his bags. Whether or not she felt chilly, Thor felt being bundled in something comforting and familiar helped make nausea, and the general air of misery it preceded, more bearable. Once he’d tucked her into a fluffy cover, he idly imagined she’d been swallowed in pillowy, pastel meringue, and the sticky sweetness helped to hold her traitorous belly in place.
The truck roared to life with metal grating upon itself as a plume of black smoke rose into the air.
“Thank God for Google,” Thor whispered to himself as he tapped over the cracked glass of his phone and found an emergency clinic not far from the beach.
“No,” Loki said, curling her lip rudely.
Thor couldn’t help letting out a soft chuckle.
——
Loki dragged her nails through a cloudy ring of water. Blurry shapes took form, before shrinking into one wobbly puddle the moment her fingers left the laminate.
“No more than two pills every six hours,” Thor read aloud. “Must be taken with food.”
“No. Everything just comes back up.”
“They gave you anti-nausea meds in case of that,” Thor said, pulling another packet from his bag and sliding it toward Loki. “It says they’ll settle your stomach.” At least, he hoped they would settle her stomach. However, he had more than one memory of Loki having taken something to ease an illness, only for the illness to fight back.
Loki let out a huff before swallowing the pills and gently lowered her head until it lay cradled against her palm.
Thor longed to reach across and tuck her into Papa’s jacket once more or find the lights in the diner and dim them, regardless of what the other patrons or staff wanted. Maybe everyone would agree that some mornings needed to start a bit softer, and that today would be a good day to ease into life?
She needed comfort.
Quiet raindrops pattered against the scratched window to Thor's left.
He’d wished for rain this morning, when the sun burned too brightly for tired eyes, but now he felt as if it brought some unwelcome gloominess. Loki needed sunshine, flowers, and sweets. Her book sat comfortably in her lap, so she had something tangible to hold, but Thor struggled to guess if that could keep her content. She needed something cheerful, or at least pleasant to occupy her time with, rather than thoughts of her adoption, their parent’s lies, or her concussion.
The concussion!
“Which sort of galaxy eats another?” Thor asked loudly, recalling the doctor’s suggestion to test Loki’s memory.
Loki flinched at the sound and her eyes pinched for a moment before she said, “the larger of the two. We talked about this last night.”
Thor hummed. “I’m supposed to test you though.”
“You don’t need to, the doctor said that she couldn’t be sure I had a concussion.”
“She said it was likely though.”
“She also said I might’ve caught the flu, because I’ve been staying in motels for nearly a month.”
Loki could have the flu. She hadn’t taken good care of herself throughout her time in the states, and running her body ragged never helped her immune system. She hadn’t been eating like she should, or feeding her soul as it needed either. She’d fallen into a slump eerily similar to one of the black hole’s described in her book, one which had been wrenched into existence by the circumstances of her birth.
Her fascination with cannibalized galaxies made more sense the longer Thor rationalized how it must feel to be swallowed by circumstances out of anyone's control.
If their parents just said something though, it wouldn’t have been so damning, nor uncontrollable.
“My pupils aren’t messed up either,” Loki continued in a weak voice, “and I can remember everything from last night.”
Thor dearly wanted to argue with that. The keyring Loki had found in her pocket during the doctor’s exam lingered in his thoughts, as did the way she’d thrust it at Thor with poorly concealed confusion. She neglected to answer anything surrounding it, and following its reveal, Thor silently, and shamefully, spent the rest of her exam worrying about the discovery of his altercation with the motel owner.
Could Thor be charged for defending Loki?
Could Loki be charged with a theft she had no memory of? Did she truly have no memory of it?
Thor wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, though even he had to admit that if Loki had no memory of the event, that it likely occurred directly after her head cracked against the railing.
Would police accept that a concussion would drive someone to petty theft?
Thor reached forward and pulled one of her hands into her own. “Humor me, please,” he said. “It’s my fault—your head—I mean.”
Loki stared at their hands, leading Thor to worry if he should’ve asked before reaching across the slim distance between them.
Their waitress came and left, dropping off a breakfast Mama would’ve been proud of. Thor supposed the region's seasonal fruits would be coming to an end soon, though their bowls were still piled high with an array of berries, figs, and plums, all drizzled in honey and layered atop cinnamon oats and yoghurt. Idly, Thor debated the merits of cinnamon and cardamom in oats, and ultimately decided that cardamom would always win out, but he kept his picky-ness to himself as he spooned a dollop into her bowl.
He privately admitted he hadn’t done the best job of helping take care of Loki since he’d arrived, but they’d slept—in a truck, but slept all the same—and visited a clinic—where Thor learned that he’d possibly given his sister a concussion. Few things could be made worse by food though, food made everything a bit brighter!
He discovered how wrong he was moments later.
Loki’s eyes had gone flat, and her face slack with the same agonizing emptiness he’d seen yesterday in the diner.
He leapt to his feet, rattling their table and drawing several pairs of eyes as he sank to his knees before her chair and softly called her name. She hadn’t begun crying. Thor hoped that meant she hadn’t fallen too deeply into a spiral, but he had no way of knowing the truth. He should probably stop thinking of their time together in terms of absolute successes and failures, because at that moment, he worried they’d always be one or two moments away from a spiral.
What if Loki never quite recovered?
The rain weakened, drawing attention away from the windows and toward the two of them.
If Loki noticed their audience, she might’ve been inspired to put on a performance. She rarely suffered fools, and enjoyed making others as uncomfortable as they’d made her, which made her prolonged silence all the more disheartening.
Thor stroked his thumb over Loki’s fingers, hoping that her name could wake her, but he began to doubt himself.
He wished he knew what brought it on, or what might bring her out.
“Loki,” he whispered, brushing his thumb over Loki’s fingertips and trailing it upwards to brush a finger over her nose and eyebrows. Mama used to dry their tears with similar little touches, and Thor hoped she might find comfort in the habit, but he quickly discovered that he was terribly wrong twice in a row.
Silent tears now gathered around her eyes, dripping down her cheeks.
Thor snatched a scratchy paper napkin and tried to dab at them, but failed to do much aside from causing sticky, soaked, paper to cling to her face.
“We’re alright,” Thor breathed. “We’re alright.”
Maybe they just needed a change of scenery? That helped yesterday, hadn’t it? They could sit in Thor’s truck, or find a florist, or a library. Loki loved her garden back home, and kept an alarming number of books on any subject.
The cafe could rot for all Thor cared, the same went for the nosy eyes he felt, lingering on his back.
“How about,” Thor started, dropping one hand to his pocket and fumbling as he tugged his phone out. “How about we find somewhere a bit quieter? Google says—what does Google say? There’s, oh! Loki, there’s a little library five minutes from here!”
“The library?” Loki asked in a near silent voice.
Thor nodded and hoped his smile looked more reassuring than he felt.
Small town libraries on Tuesday mornings couldn’t be very busy, could they? The library’s photos looked cozy, and quiet. Whoever created the page either didn’t know how to market online, given how few events were listed under their ‘Events’ page, or had so little business, that they’d just left the page blank. Thor hoped for the latter.
“How does a rainy day at the library sound, Loki?”
Loki’s head wobbled on her neck in a parody of a nod and her lips parted in a quiet breath.
“These sorts of cafes were never my favorite,” Thor said, twisting and searching over the seating area for their waitress. He supposed if she didn’t appear in the next second, he could just leave cash on the table. Loki would hate it if she ever learned Thor paid for a meal she didn’t eat, but he juggled his phone and wallet all the same, tugging out bills as he described his plan and hopes for the library.
He snuck an arm around Loki’s elbow and helped pull her to her feet, all while hoping that much like yesterday, her sense of balance would keep her upright despite her lack of focus.
“I bet they have a bay window, one with a little bench. You could have some tea!”
He wished he’d thought of buying tea. Maybe he could ask a librarian if they had a kettle, or any tea? In his head, all librarians drank tea, but that may just be a stereotype.
Loki slumped against him as they stumbled out the door and into the drizzling rain. Mama would never let either of them out of her sight if she ever heard of Loki possibly catching a cold, atop a concussion—or the flu—all while running from motel to motel.
“Up,” Thor said, helping Loki climb into her seat. He couldn’t help feeling as if he’d failed twice over for possibly causing another spiral for Loki.
The fluffy white blanket Loki used this morning had been left atop the seat. Her fingers danced over the hem, seeming to want to tug it closer, but lacking either the will or the strength, or, Thor supposed she may just want a tactile sensation.
“I have some raincoats back here if it gets worse, no wellies though,” Thor said, bundling her into the puffy cloud of fabric. He buckled Loki in and searched his bags before leaping into the driver’s seat. “Do you remember the ones we had when we were small?” he asked as he slipped his coat around his shoulders. “You used to secretly wear mine to jump into the muddiest puddles, because you refused to get your own dirty!”
For years, Thor assumed his wellies just attracted more mud. It’d been the same with his white t-shirts and red sauces. Loki’s t-shirts never sustained the stains Thor’s had.
“Yours had trucks,” Loki whispered.
Thor nodded. “And yours had little deer and foxes. Owls too.”
They once spent an entire train ride imagining how the animals on Loki’s boots found day jobs using the array of autos on Thor’s. Papa had gone out a day later to buy them a few matching toys so they could recreate their stories.
“Maybe we should pick up a pair, if we’re here for much longer,” Thor said, spinning the steering wheel as he drove away from the cramped parking lot and into the street. “I don’t know if your Converse will hold up against your love of puddles.” Maybe they would? That all depended on how often Loki jumped in puddles these days.
“I like puddles.”
“You do, but does canvas?”
Loki nodded slowly as she took a deep breath. “Canvas is waterproof.”
Thor dearly wanted to ask about her spiral, but didn’t want to send her back into it. He wondered if her concussion, or nausea could cause it, but ultimately decided that the evidence pointed elsewhere, because she’d been able to speak about both at length with the clinic’s doctor. He supposed their discussion on galaxies might cause a spiral, but she’d been reading about them since she’d run.
Why Thor thought he could guess the cause of her spiral baffled him, seeing as he couldn’t tell what’d caused it yesterday.
“Is that the library?”
Thor blinked upwards to find Loki pointing at a squat, pale brick building built on a surprisingly steep incline. Six parking spots, paved with cracked concrete lay before the doors.
“I suppose it is,” Thor said, parking the truck.
“Is it for children?” Loki asked.
“It says it’s a family library online.”
Loki hummed.
The rain now battered the roof of the truck, lulling them into a strange, sedated sort of comfort. If Loki wanted, Thor figured he might as well let the truck idle in the small lot so they could watch the rain. She hadn’t made a move to leave the truck yet, and her eyes lingered on the gray, streaky trails each drop left behind as it ran down the windshield.
Maybe Thor should call Mama. He’d thought he could find Loki and convince her to come home and speak with Mama and Papa, but the more time he spent with her, the more worried he felt about her safety.
Could someone with a concussion fly on a plane though? Mama would probably come here anyway. She might have the same thought Thor had, about a different environment helping to open minds or ease them.
What if Loki ran again?
What if she took one look at Mama and left, because even Thor admitted, loudly and with genuine shock, that Mama keeping Loki’s adoption from her had been wrong. What purpose did either of their parents have to keep such a secret? If it truly made no difference, why bother hiding it?
What if Loki witnessed something traumatic as an infant, or a toddler? To be frank, Thor had few memories without Loki, and the earliest he could remember included Loki following after him with enough motor function to run—or toddle quickly—so had she come to them as a toddler?
Why hadn’t they just been upfront?
Why hadn’t they just said Loki ‘We love you, you’re adopted, here’s what that means’, when they’d been children?
Thor’s phone trilled.
“Who’s that?” Loki asked.
“Uhm,” Thor started, fumbling with his phone as he pulled it from his pocket. “It’s, uhm—”
Papa. It was Papa.
“Is it Mama again?”
He knew Loki didn’t believe him earlier. He shouldn’t have bothered lying, least of all because he had never been able to lie.
“It’s no one,” Thor said, cursing himself for lying once more.
Loki hummed.
“I’ll take it outside.” Thor fussed with the heating in the truck, turning it up just in case Loki’s perpetually low body temperature grew any colder.
He leapt out of the truck, vowing to keep an eye on both doors in case Loki spiral encouraged her to leave. Did Loki want to leave? Thor didn’t want her to feel imprisoned, or controlled, but he also didn’t want Loki to wind up in another situation where a frankly terrifying motel owner may traffic her first chance they got.
“Hello?” Thor asked.
The rain pattered almost too loudly for Papa’s voice to reach his ears.
“You found Loki?”
He rocked on his heels and watched a frothy stream form between the cracks in the concrete.
“I did, yeah,” Thor said, bristling at the lateness of the call. If Mama knew Thor found Loki hours ago, how had Papa not known? “Do you want to know where she was staying?”
“Is she alright?”
Thor paused.
“Is she safe, Thor?”
“Yes.”
Thor couldn’t describe that sound that echoed from the phone, but he knew he’d heard it before. It dogged his steps after his first car accident, and followed after Loki when she’d wound up in a fight with a bully. It’d chased them both after a particularly fierce case of pneumonia they’d suffered through when they’d been small.
“Are you both well?”
“No.”
Apparently, he could lie to Loki, but not his papa. He didn’t want to investigate that thought.
“Do you need us?”
“Why would we—” Thor stammered, suddenly unable to keep himself quiet. “You must’ve known this would happen! Why did you keep it all quiet, why didn’t you tell her? Why didn’t you follow after her—”
“Why did I not hound her, Thor?” Papa asked.
“YES!” Thor screamed, before lowering his voice when Loki’s concerned eyes landed on him. “Why?! Why—what was the point of all of this?” he asked, flinging his hand wide though Papa couldn’t see it.
“You’ve fought with Loki,” Papa said in a quiet voice. “How did that go?”
Thor hissed a breath, wishing he hadn’t answered the call.
“Did it go well?” Papa asked. “Did she listen to you, and do as you asked?”
A quiet sound echoed across the phone line, too faintly for Thor to identify.
“When Loki is mad at me, it’s because I forgot something she asked me to do, or—or messed up her books! I didn’t hide her adoption, or lie about who her parents are!”
“And who are they?”
Thor’s chest heaved. He wished he hadn’t worn his slicker. It stuck to his sweaty skin and kept him itchy and uncomfortable until he dodged beneath the library awning and wrenched the fabric free.
“Who are her parents, Thor?”
“I don’t know,” Thor said in a reedy voice. “Some—some couple in Iceland.”
“Ah,” Papa said, “an Icelandic couple helped her with first library card. An Icelandic couple walked her to school—”
“No—”
“No? It wasn’t the Icelandic couple?”
“It—”
“I want to talk with him,” came a voice in Thor’s ear.
Thor whirled around to find Loki, having snuck out of the truck and now standing in the rain.
The faint sound echoed again as Thor passed the phone over. His heart pounded in his chest. Loki and Papa could fight more viciously than any two Thor knew, no matter their physical distance, because what is distance in the face of fury? Neither may be able to see the other, but their tone—delivered as if the other’s opinion may as well be a forgone conclusion and in turn, utter silence—could speak volumes.
Loki held the phone to her ear and her face paled as Thor heard the sound again, though this time, he knew precisely who the sound belonged to.
“Mama?”
Thor’s hands shot toward Loki, half catching her as she sank to the ground. He dearly wished she’d brought the blanket with her, if just because of how it held her together when neither of them could. She’d sewn it herself back when she’d learnt that stores would never have precisely what she wanted.
Without it on hand, Thor’s heart thundered at his own incapability. His feet split in two different directions, with half of him wanting to help Loki sit, and the other hell bent on ending the call, taking her back to the truck, and finding a hotel.
What if she ran again?!
Loki cradled the phone close, never reacting to Thor’s frantic indecision.
She shook her head before croaking, “no.”
The awning dribbled and dipped, nearly showering them before Thor shoved Loki backwards to sit with him against the brick siding of the library.
She shook her head again, though this time she caught herself quickly enough to realize that Mama couldn’t see her. “No.”
Thor’s throat nearly closed up as his mama’s voice grew strong enough for him to hear.
“—think you’re not ours,” Mama said.
Loki’s face crumbled and she crushed her book against her chest. Thor hadn’t noticed she’d brought along, though he probably should’ve assumed she would have, given that it never strayed far from her reach.
“Will you share your thoughts?” Mama asked in a soft voice.
Truly, Thor couldn’t tell what Loki would say. Would she talk with Mama, or would she keep silent? He couldn’t help worrying about whether or not Loki could even put a voice to her thoughts.
What if her throat ceased to work, and she choked on her grief?
“I’m you,” Loki said.
Had Thor been sitting any farther away, he doubted he’d have heard her speak.
“No matter what I do, I’m you.”
‘Swallowed’, Loki’s book called it; swallowed by something larger than herself. How else could she feel? She’d been fed, and raised in the belly of a lie?
Rain pounded the concrete. It ran in rivers, pooling into a grimy sea at the base of the parking lot. It baffled Thor how the rain could be so predictable, despite how his world had fallen off its axis and no longer seemed to make any sense. Thor wondered how Loki handled it. He couldn’t imagine being so exhausted and emotionally distraught, atop an unshakeable, inescapable belief that her entire life had been built upon a lie and woven into her very character. Every step had been futile. She could never escape herself, no matter how far she ran from those who crafted her.
“I don’t know how to be someone else,” Loki sniffled.
“Do you want to be someone else?”
“I don’t know,” Loki said, dragging a half-soaked shirtsleeve over her nose. “I don't know who I’d have been, I don’t know who I—I should be.”
Mama grew quiet as a noisy car splashed through a deep puddle. Thor couldn’t help but feel glad that Mama spoke with Loki. He doubted Papa would’ve been so successful. Thor knew he’d been less than successful himself, though he wondered if finding Loki showed some measure of success?
“Have your travels shown you who you should be?”
Loki shook her head ‘no’.
“Loki?”
“I’m just you, or—or—Odin.”
“Is Thor, us?” Mama asked.
Loki’s teary eyes found Thor’s, and she nodded, though she only cried harder at that. Thor understood his childhood resulted in his personality, but on that same level, he struggled to see himself as a mirror of either Mama or Papa. He didn’t see Loki as a mirror of either of them either.
Her character belonged to her, in the way that her smile belonged to her, and her voice belonged to her.
“Thor wears Odin’s jacket,” Loki said, searching Thor’s shoulders.
“Does that make him Odin, or does that make him Thor, wearing Odin’s jacket?”
Loki scrubbed her eyes, hiding them from Thor’s view, despite how dearly Thor wished to see them. He couldn’t help feeling as if his mama made a fair point. Thor did love Papa’s jacket, but he never felt like Papa in it.
Perhaps he had when he’d been young, but it’d always been for make-believe.
“Thor also shares my love for roast lamb,” Mama said, “and you, my love for fruits and cream, but that doesn’t make either of you, me.”
“I only like it because you do.”
“No,” Mama said firmly. “You only know about it because of us. We introduced you to roast lamb and fruit and cream, but despite how much I like lamb, you don’t.”
Loki blinked, allowing Thor a brief chance to see something thoughtful flash across her eyes.
“You’ve never allowed yourself to be defined by someone else, Loki,” Mama said in a steely voice, “nor have we ever stood by and allowed anyone else to define you,” she added in a tone which reminded Thor of the first time she’d learnt of someone bullying Loki.
“Why did you hide it then, if it never mattered?”
Something about Loki’s question rankled Thor. He couldn’t help feeling as if Loki spoke of a question beyond the one she asked, and as if she’d thought Mama and Papa hid her adoption because something about her needed to be hidden or changed.
“It was wrong to never tell you the truth, and our hopes and our actions aligned in a severe misjudgment, one we should’ve mended far sooner.” Mama took a deep breath. “You come by blood from someone else, but we’d never wanted you to feel or think of yourself as unloved for it.”
Again, Thor heard a sound his papa so rarely made. He felt his eyes widen as he realized that Papa may have been present for the conversation, and if that would affect how Loki reacted.
Loki however, hadn’t reacted.
She hadn’t blinked, or frowned. She hadn’t begun breathing either, which Thor felt distinctly more worried about, because no matter how often she’d fallen into her thoughts, she’d never stopped breathing.
Thor curled closer to Loki, wondering how to encourage someone to breathe and how soon he should call for help.
Before his panic spun out of control though, Loki spoke in a whispery, small voice.
“Did they think there was something wrong with me?”
Thor didn’t need to ask to know who Loki meant by, ‘they’.
Mama didn’t either, and answered in an unyielding voice. “If others thought something was wrong, neither your papa nor myself ever thought so.”
“What if there was something wrong though?” Loki asked, tucking her knees tightly against her chest. “What if there was and you just missed it, or ignored it, or—”
“Does your heart beat?” Mama asked. “Do you try your best, when you see a reason to?” she paused, whether to let Loki think on the question, or to take a breath herself, Thor couldn’t say. “Is there something wrong with that?”
Thor couldn’t imagine how so. He hoped Loki couldn’t either, though he also knew that he could never predict how Loki would interpret a conversation.
“Have you eaten?”
They’d tried to eat twice since Thor arrived, and failed both times.
Loki shook her head ‘no’.
“No, Mama,” Thor said, loudly enough that he felt sure she heard. “We haven’t really had a chance,” he added, wanting to soften the blow of their running ragged in a strange country without eating, though he had a feeling Mama would feel upset regardless.
She’d spent a tremendous amount of their childhood instilling the importance of water, and healthy eating.
“The day may look differently if you do,” Mama said instead.
Thor floundered, feeling as if his own world tilted and took his understanding of Mama with it.
She’d been so upset with Thor this morning, so much so that Thor hadn’t been able to get a word in once she’d realized how poorly the two had been caring for themselves. Why wouldn’t she show that care now, when Thor felt sure Loki needed to hear it?
When Loki turned to look at Thor though, he met clear, present eyes. She hadn’t spiraled. Why had Mama changed?
“Should we, Thor?” Loki asked in a quiet voice.
Why had that worked, when it shouldn’t have?
Maybe she knew Loki wouldn’t—couldn’t— tolerate her mothering her, not now.
Maybe she felt she had no right to mother?
Maybe she couldn’t bear to mother, after having seen the effects of it on her daughter.
Thor didn’t know. He doubted he’d ever know, in part because Loki kept her feelings so close to her chest, and would likely never tell him, if she ever learnt the truth herself. The oddness behind Mama’s comment didn’t seem to bother either Loki or Mama though, because the two whispered a soft goodbye and Loki passed the phone back to Thor.
Loki sat still for a long while afterwards, despite how the chilly concrete bled into their backs and the rain had long since soaked their clothing. She looked content as she watched lightning flash overhead. The burbling, smoky thunderheads Thor hoped for that morning, and dreaded this afternoon darkened the sky soon after.
Maybe Loki hadn’t needed the sun, as Thor previously thought.
Few things brought the comfort of a thunderstorm.
Few things spelled illness like one either, which no one suffering a concussion, or the flu needed, and had the two scrambling to the truck.
Sooner than Thor expected, he and Loki found themselves freshly showered and bundled into her cover, atop a soft bed. They’d found an unreasonably expensive hotel, one with a doorman who would be unlikely to let any creep motel owners—former football players or otherwise—inside.
Thor handed Loki a slice of cucumber as a fuzzy telenovela flickered across the television screen.
Loki’s sleepy eyes tracked the characters, her head sank carefully, and then heavily onto Thor’s shoulder as she crunched on her snack. Her book still hadn’t left her reach, with its pages crinkled from the rain and creased where it’d been tucked between the two of them.
One of the characters, the main one—if Thor guessed correctly—slapped another.
“She says she won’t marry,” Loki mumbled, with her cheek pressed against Thor’s shirt. “No matter how much her mama wants,” she daintily accepted another cucumber slice. “But, her mama says that’s unfair.”
“Why’s that?”
Loki shrugged. “Posterity, vanity, both?”
Her eyes drooped, and Thor hoped they’d droop lower still. The deep, purple circles beneath them had grown a bit more pink after her nap in the car, and lighter yet after her shower.
“Have you seen this episode before?”
Loki shook her head ‘no’.
Thor had a feeling she might be lying, and nearly teared up at the immense relief he felt for that. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I couldn’t even tell they were related.”
“Look at their costumes, Thor,” Loki mumbled. “They’re obviously related. The entire family wears one color scheme.”
“Well if that’s what we’re going off of, then the boyfriend is related to them too.”
“He might be.”
“No!”
Loki gave a weak grunt as a half-eaten cucumber slice fell from her fingers and thunder rolled, loud enough to cause her eyelids to flicker, but too comforting to rouse her from sleep.
He wondered if he ought to call Mama. Maybe he ought to call Papa?
He felt he should call someone. Someone needed to know that, while the world hadn’t been righted, nor would it ever be returned to its previous tilt, Thor felt sure something in Loki had been soothed.