A/N: Happy Lokane Week everyone! For the occasion, here are some unwritten days from Lokiday. There will be seven in all and will take place at various points in Loki and Jane's journey.
This one is set during the events of chapter ten, Days 25-65.
Hope you enjoy!
Day 32
Jane Foster
Every inhabitant of the observatory, long-term or otherwise, is allowed enough personal items to fill a medium-sized container stored under their beds. Going over that limit was grounds for a write-up. Repeat offenders risked docked pay or even expulsion, depending on Dr. Ahlberg's mood. She typically fluctuates between sour and really sour, making it even more important to follow her rules.
At least in theory.
The amount of books Loki magicks from the twenty-four other dorm rooms is enough to fill three very high bookshelves. The kind one would need a ladder to reach the top of. They come in a variety of languages from English to French to German to Russian. One appears to be in Japanese. Most are in Norwegian, but with a wave of Loki's hand, all the words turn to English. Jane reads every title; most of them have nothing to do with that she needs. She shakes her head and whistles regardless.
"That's unreal," she says, hating that she has to compliment Loki of all people. "A spell like that… you could eradicate all language barriers!"
"I suppose," Loki says, picking up a mystery novel and flipping through it.
Jane waits and he has nothing more to say. Of course, he doesn't. Magic is a parlor trick to him.
She picks up the nearest book and stuffs her face in it. He will not get any sort of rise out of her today. Jane Foster is a woman of science, taciturn and focused. That she is currently holding a holiday cookbook and it's upside down will not be acknowledged. Jane stealthily switches it out for a science textbook after memorizing the last three steps of a gingerbread cookie recipe.
Five minutes pass before she gives in and looks. Loki is flipping through the pages of his book way too fast to actually be reading them. At least she hopes so.
"Find anything interesting?" he asks. There's a smirk in his words though he keeps it off his face.
"More than you," Jane retorts. "You were useful for two seconds there. Why not make it a pattern?"
Loki tsks. "Come now, Jane. Don't you want to know the identity of Mr. Ratchett's killer?"
"They all did it. Everyone knows that."
"I didn't, but thank you for informing me."
He continues flipping and closes the back cover after another two minutes. Jane did not watch the time. She shuts him out as he mumbles something about the mediocre quality of Midgardian thinkers blah blah elitism blah. She wonders if she poked him with a pin, would he bleed or just expel a stream of concentrated hot gas.
"You should try And Then There Were None next," she drones, "probably her best work."
"If you say so." Loki ignores the rest of the books and stretches out on her bed. At no point did she allow this, but trying to drag him off would only get her dragged in and she was extremely not in the mood right now.
(Okay maybe she's kind of in the mood but that's just the stress talking.)
"You don't get answers overnight." She reads the table of contents. Biology, geology, botany, meteorology, oceanography… all equally represented within the pages of this fist thick tome. All equally useless. The only section on physics is so basic, a high school freshman would laugh at it. "You just don't. It takes patience. Trial and error. Nothing just happens in the real world. This isn't a movie."
"Are you talking to me?" He glances over his nose. His eyes have barely moved, yet she feels them burning her. "Or has your mind finally snapped under the pressure."
"You wish," Jane says. "You're just pissy because I won't buy into your 'the end is nigh' BS and get lazy like you."
His jaw twitches. "I assume 'pissy' is a term for frustration?" He sits up, knocking one neatly stacked pile of books into a replica of the leaning tower of Pisa. "I can't deny there are more productive ways to spend the day."
He gives her a look, but he hasn't used that voice, so Jane is immune. Mostly.
"It's a term for 'shut up so I can concentrate." She picks up another book. The Art of Kamasutra. She puts it down.
"Somehow, I doubt that." He stands and Jane turns away from him. His shadow falls over her, as she knew it would. She had hoped despite knowing it was hopeless, that he'd grow bored of her and leave her in peace for the day. Loki Laufeyson doesn't know peace, though. Or if he does, only so he can destroy it. His hands come around her waist and she tenses. She tries not to, but they both know the effect he has on her body. Her most sensitive nerve endings respond to him from twenty feet away. Donald Blake had to stick his tongue in her mouth and get her bra off before she was this turned on. "Tell me your theory."
"Don't have one," Jane says (not moans). "Not yet."
"Then tell me a theory." He breathes in her ear. She whimpers. Fuck. "I know your people have them."
"Casual loops." She squeaks the second word as he brushes the small of her back. She never knew she was ticklish there before Loki. "Past events create future events create past events."
"Explain."
"Like if someone from the future tries to kill you," she breathes through her mouth and squeezes her legs together. He plays with her buttons. "Because in the future you do something important that they want to prevent, but in trying to kill you, they end up giving you the tools to do that something in the future. It creates a time loop. You wouldn't know your destiny if not for that person trying to change it."
"Fascinating," he says as though he means it, "though I don't believe it applies to us."
"It doesn't. Too many variables in constant flux," Jane says. "We change things every day, only the way we wake up stays the same."
"So what you're saying…" he leans in and bites her earlobe. She sighs and falls limp in his arms. "...is that your current line of reasoning is useless."
"Fuck you."
"Language."
"Fuck you harder."
"I will fuck you harder, yes." He kisses her neck. His lips are like fire. "So hard, you'll never even think another man's name again."
A specific male name doesn't come up, but Jane hears it anyway. It's a little pathetic, and a little sad.
"I don't think so." She summons the last vestiges of her willpower and pushes him off. She backs away and only now feels the tidal wave of sweat on her brow. It's like she's been waterlogged.
Loki certainly notices. "You do seem quite put out."
"I'm working. Today is a work day, not a play day." For added emphasis, Jane sits and grabs another book. It's an exotic plants guidebook. Close enough. "You can do whatever you want, but I am not sleeping with you today."
She sleeps with him the next day.
(The Kamasutra book may have been involved.)
