Oh, yes, little Earth toxin capsules.
They woke up on the tiles of someone’s floor. There was already someone waiting and watching them curiously.
She- He- They looked back at them and groaned slightly as they pulled their body off the floor, ignoring the hand that had been offered to them, they were not a child.
They scowled at the mortal for potentially insinuating such a thing. The mortal just smirked back.
“You’ve been there for a good few hours, do you want some painkillers?”
“What?” They said, and it sounded a bit like an accusation, but there was no reaction from the other person.
“Painkillers. Drugs and stuff to help with the whole being torn out of reality thing?”
“Sure.” It was sarcastic, but when the little pills that had been cut into pieces of two, still wrapped in the plastic were thrown at them, they took them out of the sheet of metal that was so ungodly thin that he wondered which deity would eventually find this and then get pissed off- oh yes, the little capsules of Earth toxins and swallowed them. The pieces of poison scraped their throat.
“Dude- I- We had water?”
Loki promptly decided to ignore them as they inspected the surrounding area. It was a relatively empty house, decorated mainly with a dark green- a shade a bit darker than the Asgardian green that he used to wear and black shades.
It seemed clean, as if it had only been recently occupied and cleaned.
“You were awake, but sorta out of it, so then we took you to sleep in one of the bedrooms, but then you came outside and you were yelling, passed out here and when we tried to get you to move you just screamed, so you’ve been on our kitchen floor since last night at around 2:45am. Sorry.” The person did not seem apologetic.
There was a pause as Loki took into account just how tired their body was (even after being passed out before), how little they had eaten in the past...amount of time (they couldn’t remember when they had last eaten properly) and their wounds.
“Oh! Sorry. If Vallie was awake she would kill me. Introductions, I’m Alyce, you can call me Allie if you can’t be bothered to say Alyce and I use she/they pronouns. I’m a person and a being for reference.”
There was this look that she was giving them. It told them that they did not have to share, but it would be appreciated.
“Loki. Never had another name before that isn’t straight derogatory. I’m- what is the term-”
Just because the All-Speak existed doesn’t mean that they always remembered what the words meant or the terms.
“Ah- I’m genderfluid,”
They posed it almost as a question, wondering if they got it right. Alyce nodded.
“And I’m currently favouring they/them pronouns, but that might change. I’m a god and a being… for reference?” They were copying the other beings introduction and only changing out a few words, mainly because they didn’t know what they were doing. There was also a feeling of static, like a threat in the air.
They didn’t know. They just wanted to hide under a quilt somewhere and get out of this, a mess of bad decisions coming to a climax with this.
“Cool. Anyway, later today, a kid called Sam is gonna pick you up. He’s loud, but if you tell him to be quiet they will. Don’t touch his neck and you should be fine.”
“Pardon?”
“You’ve been here for three days. We did the paperwork, they’re going to check up on you if you consent to it, you get to meet a bunch of people and then eventually something will happen that will let you get out on the field. Anyway. Sorry.”
“It’s just how the arm-”
“If you call it an army, then Valentine will get up specifically to lecture you, and she’s sick, so try again.”
“It’s just how the group works, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Well, then, considering that I’ve come all this way, I might as well just do it.”
They were trying to sound certain, their hands were shaking. Alyce just hummed and started cooking some sort of plant in a smallish pan.
“Are you allergic or have a dislike to tomatoes?”
“No?”
“Good.” Alyce said somewhat gruffly, “Do you like tea?”
“What’s-” They paused, a sinking feeling in their stomach that they were about to be made fun of for this, which wasn’t anything new, but they were so tired of it, the feeling that they couldn’t do anything right, “What’s tea?”
Alyce looked at them and smiled, giggling a bit. “So you’re telling me that the trickster godbeing, occasionally genocidal bisexual- I could go on with these titles all day, doesn’t know what tea is?”
“It was made after our time on Midgard, do forgive me for not knowing what it is-” They went to reply sarcastically, but they were interrupted by a gleeful exclamation of, “But it did! Tea existed back in Ancient China, and you’re a god. You could have easily gone and gotten tea, or learned about it at least.”
Loki glared at Alyce, who was poking at the tomatoes- that was what she had called the red, bulbous, plants at least, with an aggression that was somewhat scary in terms of, if that’s what you do to random dead fruits that you intend on consuming, how do you react to those who have wronged you? Alyce didn’t glare, she looked somewhat triumphant, but also concerned.
“So, what is tea?”
“It’s like… you put different dried plant bits into hot water and then add other liquids? Depends on the tea. There’s one where people put in cow’s milk and a sweetener- but not always… anyway, yeah, that’s tea I guess.”
“That sounds disgusting, why would you want to contaminate good water with spices and cow’s fat?”
“Does it sound pitifully mortal?”
“I- I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I guess it does… why?”
“Because when I described it to my old friend Deb, that was her reaction.”
They smiled back a bit, deciding that despite the mortal being there and going at the tomatoes like they had personally wronged her, she was alright.
***
Alyce did not take people in out of pity. Never. It was a rule. If you felt pity, turn it into something else. Turn it into anger, turn it into compassion, turn it into motivation, turn it into affection, turn it into forgiveness, never pity.
So when they felt the familiar pull of pity when they looked at the god, who looked less god and more tired at this point, they turned it into effort. She looked them up and down, looked at the bruises and the pain and the fact that they had seemed to have just given up before their… relocation, which was just… just- they didn’t like that.
She turned it into effort.
The house was clean, the paperwork was done, she had checked in and all the papers were in order. Valentine was sleeping. Yesterday they had called and checked in back home and how things were going, and had reassured a bunch (so much in fact that it was obvious that something was wrong) that everything was going great.
They knew that when Sam got here, he would be sad that Valentine was asleep, but the lady needed to get sleep somehow. Speak of the devil-
“Ettie!” someone- namely Sam, called from the front door.
“Valentine’s asleep, she got sick. But I have your new pick-up job.” Alyce whispered- well, it was rather loud, so not exactly whispering, but still, the idea was there.
“The gr-”
“Don’t say it.”
“Actually, why not. Say it.” Loki said, calling out from somewhere.
Alyce was giving him a look that promised that she would come at him with a spatula next time they saw each other if he said another word, and Loki gave him a look that was mostly a challenge.
“The grumpy immortal with the gross clothes who keeps screaming on the kitchen floor.”
Alyce swatted at Sam, who dodged in a way that spoke of years of experience.
After a good few moments of that, Sam turned over to Loki.
“You ready to start the next chapter of your life or whatever, Mr Kitchen Floor Immortal?”
There was a moment, as the wind blew threw the house and time ticked away, a timer in the back of everything ready to end, that no one knew about-
It was broken by a quiet, “Yes- I think so.”
“Unlike certain couples,” A half-hearted glare at Alyce, “I’ll warn you before tearing you through reality.” Sam said to Loki, leaning back a bit.”
Then he whispered, completely deadpan, “That was your warning.”
Then they were gone.
***
Somewhere there was a toaster, a bomb, and two friends.