3.
"I don't get it," Thor frowned.
"No, of course you don't," Loki sighed, as though this was only to be expected.
It was their second night playing Newcastle, and despite trying really hard not to, Thor could no longer ignore the fact that Illusion's Destiny were going down a lot more enthusiastically with the crowds than they were. It was all wrong; they were only supposed to be supporting and yet he felt like when Terminal Deafness took the stage the audience were disappointed, wanting more, always more of Loki Laufeyson and the pretentious-wank-band. It had not gone down well on the first night when Loki had heard Thor calling them this, but he had, as was his irritating custom, covered up his anger with a more than usually wide grin and the sweetest lilt in his voice when he swept by declaring –
"At least some of us have something to be pretentious about."
It did not help that he could see why people liked them. It would have been better if he had just thought they were terrible and could not understand. But Loki drew every eye in the room as soon as he was in it. It was partly the costumes, partly the stage tricks; but a lot of it was simply Loki.
"Darling I am the costume," he said, when Thor had pointed out that people were probably so dazzled by the look of the thing they did not care about the person or the substance – "This is where you have it so wrong. It's not a disguise. It's who I am. But you make it look like a disguise so that nobody will ever work you out." He whispered it, winking at Thor as though imparting a great secret. Thor grunted.
"Who'd you steal that bit of wisdom from?"
"Oh no –" Loki shook his head "That's pure original me, baby."
"Original bull shit. Who are you then? I've seen the act, you start off looking like some – shiny gay alien and end up like – what is that – a fish? And call me baby again and I will punch you."
"Look," Loki said patiently, as though explaining it to a child – "The act is not only an act. If it was nobody would fall for it. That's how you lie. That's how you tell a story. That's what we do, isn't it? Formulate beautiful musical lies, get the audience to believe you are the alien, you are the fish. But you have to believe it yourself or they never will."
"And so – what – you're a fish alien?"
Loki rolled his eyes. It was at this point that Thor announced he didn't get it.
"Of course you don't," Loki sighed – "Okay. Listen –" he leaned in across the table in the hotel bar, grimaced, realised it was slightly sticky and lifted his sleeves off it with precious disgust – "The act tells a story. Each song is a chapter in the story –"
"So?" Thor leaned in, not giving a crap about the beer stains – "Tell me the story."
"Do you want me to rock you to sleep when I'm done?"
"Shut up Loki."
"Fine. In the beginning –" Loki closed his eyes. Treating Thor to the full view of his perfect kingfisher blue eye shadow with a silver streak like a fish in the centre, he nodded, opened them again, his voice had dropped to the sonorous hum of the storyteller. Thor didn't want to be hooked, but he was despite himself, Loki dazzled the eye in the tight silver fish scale suit like sunlight on the water and his voice was the murmur of a stream - "The alien is a trickster from another planet, he comes down to earth and doesn't know his place; nobody understands him, he doesn't understand himself. That's the first song."
Thor could picture it; on stage Loki began in green and gold, appearing in a beam of light cutting across the stage, sparks of light danced from his hands from something he could only assume he had hidden up a sleeve, a great cloak of green swirled around him and behind him, dancing in a play of lights in the same colour until you did not know what was light and what was cloak.
"He tricks them. He captivates them. He helps them, over and over again, every time a trick goes well they're in awe, yes, but they also take it as their due. Then when a plot goes wrong they turn on him and blame him, every time. He doesn't care, dances on to the next game. Even when the gods intervene he does not care for them either. Same story, he helps them, bends them, tricks them again. We've got a lot of songs to cover various instances but not enough space in the act for all of them yet."
"But why the fish?"
"I'm getting to that! The trickster is a shape shifter; you see it in the costume changes throughout the act. He's a horse, a bird, a woman. In the end he upsets everyone so much he takes the form of a fish to escape their wrath."
"And does he? Escape?"
"Of course not," Loki grinned – "That's what the last song Venom is all about. We've got this whole big set up planned for it – but right now I can't work out the costume change – hence the fish –"
He gestured at the last outfit- that he was still wearing despite the act being long over.
"I do like it though –" he smiled, almost sweetly, stroking his own shoulder – "It's so – shiny."
Thor sighed.
"You can't just get on stage and sing songs like a normal person?" Loki just looked at him with the most glittering condescension, that made Thor feel uncomfortably as though Loki could see right through him and knew that he was only saying this because he didn't want to admit to any jealousy of the thought Loki had put into his work.
"I really hate you Loki." Thor got up on that note and went over to the bar, Loki watching him intently and whispering behind his back –
"Do you now?" He grinned to himself; if anyone was really the fish here it was Thor and it was ridiculous how easy such a catch was proving to reel in. He was not even faintly surprised when Thor returned to their table, all the while making an incredibly terrible show of looking around to see that there was nobody else available to join.
"So why are you here?" Thor asked – "If you're so much better than us, why agree to it?"
"Look, I didn't want this any more than you did. But as it is our supporting band abandoned us too and we're strangers in a strange country here. It was either this or some crappy bar in Soho where the only patrons are a couple of scary old queens in a corner babbling away in Polari and eyeing me up like I'm their next meal."
"You speak Polari?"
"Ah naff off you omi palone, I look blue to you?" Loki raised his eyebrows with a grin.
"Kinda," Thor smirked back, then looked away awkward that this might have been perceived as flirting when in fact it – might have been;
"So – what did he do?"
"What did who do?"
"Your trickster. How'd he piss everyone off so much they wanted to kill him? He annoy them half to death being a pretentious little shit?"
"Oh, you wound me," Loki clasped his chest dramatically – "But yes, in a way; well first he brought about the death of their most beloved hero but then –"
"Oh there's worse than that?"
"Oh yes –" Loki's grin was almost threatening – "Then he made them all take a good look at themselves."
"Doesn't sound so bad."
"Try it. You'd be wanting to kill me too."
"What do you mean – would be?"
"I dislike you, Odinson."
"Finally –" Thor nodded, although it was about the friendliest they had been – "Something we agree on."
_x_
Quick fyi: for anyone not familiar, Polari is/ was a form of British slang used by actors, criminals and all manner of underworld show folk, popular in the in the gay subculture of the 1970s, essentially it was used as a non – incriminating way of finding out if the person you were talking to was gay. Essentially Loki told Thor to "Fuck off you big lady-boy, do I look gay to you?" In other words making it clear that he was. :-)
And yes, Loki's act is a combination of Norse mythology and Ziggy Stardust. :-)
