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Jane
Chapter One
"And what can I get for you today, sir?"
There was no avoiding it. Even had he wanted to try, he wouldn't have – couldn't have. The smile spread slowly over his face, changing the usual angular severity, transforming him into something soft and youthful and relaxed enough to melt right off his chair, the smile that Jane said made her fall in love with him all over again every time she saw it. Yet he never did it for her, intentionally. It was a look he couldn't feign easily, or well. It came unbidden, from his heart, through his veins, and spilled out over his face.
"Jane," he answered.
/
/
Jane had wanted to try the place.
Loki had been less convinced.
But when it came to such things, Loki was usually content to follow Jane's lead. He only grumbled when she dragged him to that vegan place she liked; lately when she insisted on that, he'd taken to threatening to bring a steak with him in foil and ask for an empty plate.
So they went.
It was, as Loki had suspected, too "frilly" for his taste. Literally. Bits of frilly lace adorned the walls, along with artwork meant to capture nineteenth-century England, as Jane had explained. He had no desire to dine amongst lace. Unless Jane was wearing the lace, in the form of one of those "teddies" she had, especially that dark green one, and he was dining on Jane. His mouth watered just thinking about it.
Loki, blatantly staring at Jane and merging the real thing with the version that was rather inappropriately dressed for a public outing, was rudely ripped from his fantasy by his eyes suddenly having to refocus on the menu being handed to him, blocking his view. Beneath its clear plastic cover – miniature bits of lace, and words written in loopy curves forming twisting and winding sentences. He followed one such sentence to its end: "I feel monotony and death to be almost the same thing."
He looked up at Jane quizzically, but her head was bowed over the menu and she didn't notice. More strings of words were scrawled on the walls; he'd paid them no heed before, but one was just above Jane's head of luxuriously soft brown hair, and he dragged his eyes upward. "Give him enough rope, and he will hang himself."
His eyes squinted almost into non-existence, but there was nothing wrong with his vision. "Jane, darling?"
"Hm?" Jane asked, not looking up from the menu.
Jane loved new restaurants. She devoured the menus, complained about her inability to choose, sometimes ordered something extra "to-go" when she found the choice truly impossible. "What is this place?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's a restaurant," she said with that tone of voice that told him she was looking for the trap in his question. He couldn't blame her; there often was one, albeit for her, a harmless one.
"Yes, my sweet, that much is clear. I'm asking about the things written on the walls, and on the cover of the menu. They don't seem to be quite in line with the…sentiment of the décor. The lace, the frills, the blue tablecloth, the portraits of serious-looking women in large gowns and men in tall hats."
"Periwinkle."
"What?"
"The color of the tablecloth is periwinkle."
Loki considered arguing – she was welcome to call it "periwinkle" if she preferred, but that didn't mean it couldn't also be called simply blue – but decided against it. "Yes, dear," he said with an indulgent smile.
Jane frowned at him then rolled her eyes. She knew exactly what his "yes, dear," with that particular look and tone, meant. "Loki, I told you about it before dinner, while we were getting ready. Weren't you listening?"
"I always listen to you, my love. However…if you were…shall we say…not entirely clothed at the time…then I might have been a little distracted."
Her eyes bulged as she glanced around to see if anyone had heard. Loki suspected it was at least half for show; he'd uttered more scandalous things that that in semi-public before, mostly because he loved to see her blush, and, though she would never admit it, he also knew that it gave her a secret little thrill. "It's themed around Charlotte Brontë, the writer. From England, in the 1800s. I think maybe these are all quotes from her, I'm not sure. And the décor, it's supposed to have a Victorian feel. That's what that time period is called, the Victorian era."
"Themed around a writer? Of literature, you mean?"
"Yes, of course literature."
"You hate literature."
This time when her eyes bulged, it wasn't for show, and when her eyes darted around, it wasn't with a secret thrill that perhaps someone had heard. "I do not," she hissed as her eyes fell back on him.
"All right. Tell me more about Charlotte Brontë, then."
"What is this, a test?"
"If you like."
"Fine. Charlotte Brontë was a – can you give us another minute please? Sorry," she said to the approaching waiter, who agreeably moved on. "She was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of three sisters who survived into adulthood. Her novels became classics of English literature. Happy?"
Loki regarded her skeptically, then pulled his phone from his pocket and started typing. Then he looked up at Jane and started laughing. He knew when words fell from Jane's lips that were not her own. "You got that from Wikipedia." Jane was giving him a look – and they both knew each other's looks well by now – and Loki dialed down his laughter to a lightly teasing smile. "If I've never mentioned it or otherwise made it clear to you, Jane, I'm already rather impressed with you. You've no need to try to impress me with your literary knowledge. It's not as though I've ever heard of her, either."
"I have heard of her. Everybody's heard of her. Except you, of course. But it's not you, it's…"
"Ah. Didn't you say Hannah recommended this restaurant?"
"Yeah."
Loki read the story on Jane's face and didn't need to ask. Hannah and Ethan were their neighbors and were becoming friends. Hannah and Jane got on well, and Loki found Ethan tolerable. Ever since they'd had dinner at Hannah and Ethan's house, however, Loki had begun to dread hearing Hannah's name.
/
/
Loki and Jane ate out often. In the first year or so, it had annoyed both of them to no end, though not at each other.
Jane felt guilty because she thought she should be cooking for her husband, and then felt guilty because of course she was a modern woman and not beholden to traditional gender roles in a marriage that were based on the husband working and the wife staying home and taking care of the house, which was not their situation, and then she felt guilty because regardless of what she felt in theory about gender roles in a marriage, she wanted to cook for her husband, at least sometimes. But Jane, in all honesty, much as he loved her, was a terrible cook. Her dishes were too salty, too dry, too bitter, too charred, too something. She had no patience for cooking and ended up missing steps as she rushed, or deliberately skipping them or modifying them in an effort to save time. In the last disaster, which had resulted in a terrible, reeking mess on their stove, instead of laughing it off Jane had sat down and cried. That was when Loki told her she wasn't cooking anymore.
Loki didn't care about any of that. Although on Asgard in many ways gender roles were more strictly defined than here in this particular area of Midgard, he hadn't grown up in a household where his mother was expected to do the cooking; they'd had servants for that.
No, Loki was annoyed because here on Midgard he couldn't provide for his wife the way he would if they were living on Asgard. To be sure, they lived well by local standards, better than most, he knew. Their house was not extravagant, not even by local standards, but in an area where housing costs were high it was quite adequate, and they had a housekeeper who came once a week to do the regular cleaning that neither of them could be bothered to do. (When Patricia realized they were eating out for almost every single meal, she also started cooking something for them while she was there, though by the time they ate it they were heating it up just like leftovers, so it still did not compare to having actual servants.)
And he would have been happy to take on the role himself. Happy, perhaps, was not precisely the right word. For Jane, though, he would have been willing. Willing, that is, had he not sworn off Midgardian kitchen appliances for the rest of his life. Even before they'd married, he'd set fire to her microwave. How was he supposed to know he shouldn't leave the crinkled "tin foil" over the plate he put inside of it? Later, some two months into their marriage, his attempt to make a simple chicken and vegetable soup had poisoned his wife. Salmonella, it was called. He had not touched the oven or stovetop since. Literally.
Ethan had introduced him to the Midgardians' concept of a fire pit – something Loki would have assumed to be illegal here, had he bothered to think about it before – and, for a few weeks at least, Loki felt as though his entire life had been changed. He dedicated every spare moment to gathering the materials and constructing a fire pit of his own, except for time set aside to express his enthusiasm to Jane in the best way he knew how. Jane was excited about the fire pit, too, or at least Loki's enthusiasm about the fire pit. When he'd held the fork to her mouth, watched it open, her lips close over the bite of steak he had cooked for her, her mouth chew, her eyes go wide with delight, her throat swallow, her lips open for more…he'd dropped the fork and brought his lips to hers instead, licking the juice from the corner of her mouth and losing himself in the taste of her and the meat and his pride. The steak was cold by the time they got back to it, but that was easily fixed (by Jane, after a quick search on Google) in the oven.
As much as they'd both loved that evening, they couldn't do that every night. Not the steak part, anyway. Jane preferred not to eat much beef or pork – she had even talked about possibly becoming a vegetarian, to Loki's utter horror – and given the salmonella incident, Loki refused to cook any form of bird even on the firepit. And Loki himself didn't actually want to have steak or roast for every meal.
Over time and with enough mutual reassurance, then, they'd both accepted that most of their meals were going to come from restaurants, and that was fine. They liked restaurants. For Loki it was almost like having servants wherever he went. And Jane was happier going out and trying something new and going for an after-dinner stroll than dealing with the stress of trying to cook and the clean-up that followed.
And then Hannah and Ethan had invited them over for dinner.
And Hannah had cooked.
And Loki had made the mistake of saying it was good.
Twice.
/
/
It had triggered something in Jane he'd never noticed in her before: insecurity. He apologized to her in every way he knew how, but she assured him he had nothing to apologize for. Hannah was a good cook, and there was nothing wrong with saying so, and Jane knew – so she said – that he hadn't meant it as an insult to Jane, and she did not feel – so she said – insulted. Loki mostly believed her, at least he believed that she didn't blame him.
But he wished she did.
If she blamed him, then he could find a way to make it better.
Instead, Jane seemed to be comparing herself to Hannah, and, inexplicably, finding herself lacking.
Hannah was fine. Thick frizzy brown hair usually held back in a broad cloth headband, green-rimmed glasses, eclectic sense of fashion, and a bubbly, friendly personality. He'd paid closer attention after that night, and had become certain that Hannah wasn't doing or saying anything to bring up those feelings in Jane, certainly not intentionally. It was all coming from Jane herself.
It wasn't a catastrophe; Jane wasn't trudging around miserable, wallowing in a pool of crippling inadequacy. But occasionally, something odd came up that could be traced back, in Loki's mind, to that dinner.
Something like Jane's sudden need to not let anyone in this Charlotte Brontë-themed restaurant think that she didn't know anything about Charlotte Brontë.
/
/
"Let me guess. Hannah is an expert on Charlotte Brontë? Just another minute please, if you don't mind," Loki said to the approaching servant – waiter, he corrected himself, he couldn't help it, he'd lived much longer as an Asgardian prince than as a Midgardian husband.
"I don't know if she's an expert, but we were talking, and she mentioned this place and how it has this cool funky vibe, and then she was saying how much she loved Charlotte Brontë's works, and I was nodding, and…there wasn't really a convenient place to blurt out… I don't know why I never read anything by her," Jane continued, lowering her voice further. "I think everybody has. In high school, or college. Why haven't I?"
"I don't know. Perhaps because you were too busy working toward a doctorate in astrophysics and formulating theories that would change your entire world's understanding of the nature of the universe?"
"I wasn't doing that in high school," Jane said drily, though Loki was pleased with the little smile she mustered after. "But when did Hannah find time for it? She's got a doctorate, too. And it's in public policy, not English literature. Where does she find the time? Did you know she bakes all her own bread from scratch?"
Right back to that dinner, Loki thought, nodding.
"You do?"
"What?"
"You knew she bakes her own bread?"
"No. Jane, does it really still bother you that much, not cooking?"
"I didn't say it bothers me."
"But obviously it does. I don't believe you're truly bothered about what works of literature you have and haven't read, nor do I believe that the comparison you're drawing between yourself and Hannah is really about that. It's more about freshly-baked bread than about Charlotte Brontë, isn't it?"
Jane gave a frustrated sigh and slouched down in her chair. "I don't know. Probably. I thought I was over it, I really did. But I just…I just wish I could do that for you. For us, but…I know it's stupid but I just…." She took a breath and made a concerted effort to sit up straight again. "I just wish I could do it, that's all."
"If you're feeling it then it's not stupid. Haven't you said something like that to me a few times? But please don't feel that way for my sake. I love going out to eat with you. I'm happy with the way things are and I don't at all wish for it to change. Even if you could suddenly cook meals worthy of a Michelin star." Loki allowed himself a grin over that one; he'd only recently learned that reference. Jane was never as impressed with his cultural savvy as Loki himself was, though, so the moment was fleeting.
"Well, then you married the right girl."
"Without a doubt."
Jane was smiling, but he knew her words and he knew her smiles and he knew she was faking it. She didn't want to let on how much it bothered her. He'd spent centuries not letting on how much things bothered him; he understood. And they were at dinner, in public, it wasn't the time, he understood that, too, but letting something fester inside was toxic. Even something as silly – to him, if not to Jane – as one's cooking skills. Or literary acumen.
Loki looked down at the menu that Jane had gone back to studying. His eye was again drawn to the quotation on it. "I feel monotony and death to be almost the same thing."
"What are you getting?"
"I don't know. I'm just now looking at the menu. Is there steak?" he asked.
"There is, actually," Jane said, unfortunately not reacting in the slightest to the lascivious look he was giving her. Steak, for Loki, had taken on a whole new meaning after the night of the fire pit's inauguration. "It's called the 'Mr. Rochester.'"
"That's…an odd name for steak." He scanned the menu until he found it.
"Everything on the menu is named for one of Charlotte Brontë's characters. That's what Hannah said."
Well, if Hannah said it… But that was childish. And unfair to Hannah. His instinct to defend Jane, though, was strong, even if no one was actually attacking her but herself.
He started looking through the menu more seriously. He would pass on the steak, he thought. He could have that any time, cooked over his own fire, just the right amount of seasoning and just the right amount of pink. Monotony and death and so forth. This menu, though, with its strange names and stranger terms in the descriptions, wasn't easy to absorb through his distraction.
Then his eyes lit up at one name he knew well. He looked at the woman who bore it, the woman he loved. "There's a character called Jane?"
"Yeah," Jane answered, looking up and setting her menu down. "Brontë's most famous book is Jane Eyre."
"Do you know what you want, or do you need some more time?" the waiter returned asking.
"Are you ready?" Jane asked.
"I'm ready."
"Okay. I'll have the Eliza. What's the vegetable of the day?"
"We have roasted cabbage wedges garnished with carrot and turnip."
"That sounds perfect."
"Anything to drink, ma'am?"
The waiter picked up the drink menu and pointed out a few options to Jane, who tucked her hair behind an ear and listened, while Loki simply watched. In the end she chose a Burgundy.
"Let's get the bottle," Loki said; Jane nodded.
"And what would you like, sir?"
"Jane."
"Great choice," the waiter said at the same time as Jane said, "Hm?" "It comes with freshly baked bread. Would you like to add cheese?"
"No, thank you. Jane is enough for me."
By the time the waiter left with their orders, Jane's head was back up from her menu. She had the softest smile on her face, and Loki thought that an artist really ought to make a proper portrait of it.
/
Notes
1. There's no backstory here, beyond what's actually in the story. Imagine whatever you like. (No connection at all to Beneath or any of my other stories beyond general understanding of the characters.)
2. This started out as my attempt to write unadulterated fluff. Yeah, it got adulterated pretty quick. :-)
3. Parts of this I wrote tonight, same day as publication. I wouldn't normally do that, but there's currently a "Lokane Week" going on and I've been trying to get this out in time for it. You wouldn't believe the amount of research I had to put into this (might be more apparent in the next chapter), which really put a crimp on the time available for actually writing it! Those of you who know me know I'm not particularly a "shipper," but if the story-idea strikes I'm there. This story idea I owe to "TonaAthena1996" (she can be found on AO3 by that name); doing some writing research herself she happened to come across a restaurant menu on which all the dishes were people's names...and there was a "Jane". This was in a chat with some Loki-Jane supporters, so naturally my first thought (and everyone else's there) was...Loki would go there and say he wants Jane. Next thing you know I'm researching the Victorian era and Charlotte Brontë and all sorts of things.
4. Should be just one more chapter. (Original anticipated length: maybe 5 paragraphs. Ha.) Hope to be able to finish and post it tomorrow.