Loki keeps a mental note over the next week, finding himself becoming more and more familiar with the signs of her sickness.
They conversed for a few hours and then her tongue would get tied so he would call a nurse and it would be fixed. He did not like the idea of becoming fond of this human, which he was.
She was intelligent and airy, she actually had a sense of humor he hadn't paid attention too in a long time. He was so used to trying to prove himself, so used to hearing epic tales of battle, that he forgot what having a calm conversation was like. Even after a thousand years of life, Loki had never talked too easily to anyone or anything before. She talked with her hands a lot, waving them about in the air as though they were telling the story instead of her lips. She laughed a lot, a weird sort of laugh that made his right eye twitch but he put up with it.
"Why can't you tell me your name," she pried again.
It had been going on for three days.
"I just believe it would be best to not get too attached," he muttered. "Once I am able to walk again, I am leaving."
"That doesn't mean I can't have a name," she pouted. "I think after all of the work I put into you, I at least deserve that."
"All of the work you put into me," he looked at her incredulously, unknowing in his slip in façade. "How dare you."
She giggled a little. "You talk so funny, where you from? Can you tell me that?"
"No," there was no hesitation in his throat. "Why must you insist on becoming familiar with me?"
"Because you're funny," she adjusted the blanket over her legs. "I always have a bed mate that is either too sick to talk or is always so mean ta me that I can't stand them. But I like you. . .don't you like me?"
He didn't say anything, he just looked back up to the ceiling. Her accent is so strange, he supposed his wasn't exactly normal for this realm. She had called him British twice but he had refused to say he was anywhere near human standards on his culture. He would tell her nothing and she would not get attached, she would not mourn for his loss and he would soon slip from the memory of the humans here. He would be another ghost in the corner, he would be a shadow.
As he had always been to most that met him.
"Why are you so mean?"
His body tensed and he looked back over to her. "Since when –"
She shook her head. "You're always mean," she sighed. "You'll be super nice and then you'll just. . .snap, I guess. It's really frustrating when I'm just trying to be your friend."
"Friend?"
Now didn't he sound pathetic.
"Yeah," her tone became frustrated. "Friend. What, never had friends before?"
Loki couldn't really say he never had friends before. Thor's friends had once been his, but that was when they were children and then everything changed when Loki decided against becoming a warrior. He wasn't built for that, he was built for long ranged attacks, attacks of the mind and magic had come so easily to him. So, for the last thousand years, Loki had not had friends. But he wanted a friend, just not a human. That was too fragile a friendship. It wasn't one that would last. She would die or she would ask questions, mainly as to why he was not aging. And that was not a question he could answer. He would have to clear her memory.
He wouldn't do that, couldn't.
"No," he hummed a little. "And I do not intend to have any, not now anyway."
She blinked slowly and then she laughed. He cringed at the laugh and glared at her. "You're so weird!"
Weird?
"How dare you."
She pointed at him. "You've said that before! See, weird!"
Was she trying to get some sort of rise out of him? She wouldn't do it.
"Heathen."
Ok, maybe she would.
It only made her laugh harder. "You sound like an old man!"
"And that's a bad thing?"
He was old, far older than she would ever be. But he couldn't tell her that, now could he?
She laughed again and then it died down, a smile coming onto her lips. "Will you tell me your name?"
He stared at her blankly for a long time and then he blinked, slow and agonizing, making her smile turn sweeter. "Loki…my name is Loki."
Her smile continued to mesmerize him, continued to make him stare at her in such interest that it made others stare warily from the far corner of the room. "I like that name. . .I like it a lot."
He was in that bed for two weeks when she disappeared.
He woke up one night, a horrible nightmare rocking his frame. As his eyes opened, the sweat dripped across his lashes, making him blink over and over again while his heart felt like it was beating the muscle of his chest into a mush. His hands gripped the handle of the bed, enough to leave indents he had nothing to blame on. The lights in the corner were off again, a sheet separating him from the rest of the room after copious amounts of complaining.
He reached up, wiping at his forehead as he looked out the window. He had been told he was on the fourth floor of a large hospital and it was enough to see halfway over the top of the glittering city. It was strangely beautiful, far more beautiful than New York had been. At least they had an over-growth of trees here. New York just had pathetic sticks along the sidewalk and a big patch of green in the center.
Disgusting.
"Same nightmare," he stated, knowing she was awake.
She was always awake in the middle of the night, always there. But the relative silence was not something he was used to. It took him a moment but he finally looked over to her bed and found it empty, perfectly straightened and pin neat. He could still smell her, still smell that awful perfume she used on occasion, especially when she was not feeling her best. She was always there, where was she?
He didn't notice his heart racing again until he felt his breath quickening against his lips, a strand of black hair fluttering against the chapped skin. He reached up, wiping at his forehead again and he pushed himself up into a seated position, his eyes never leaving that empty bed.
Two weeks…two damn weeks and she leaves without saying something? Just up and leaves, without letting him know where she was going, without telling him goodbye or anything? He sounded like a pathetic mortal but he didn't care. She was…someone there to make him feel like he wasn't alone. Loki hated being alone and she was always there to make him feel hopeful. She had a power, and he hated saying that. How much he loathed thinking that about her overruled any of his hatred of Thor or even Odin. She was someone to talk to, someone to occupy his mind, someone to make him think of anything else but her sickness and his injury and the hell he was hurled into. Luxia was a very intelligent young woman, though she was only twenty one.
"I'm a miracle baby."
He had gone quiet after she had said that.
His eyes flickered up as the curtain was pulled back and a small young woman came in, dressed in pink scrubs. She smiled at him. "Well hi there," she held a clipboard in her hand and was tapping the pen against the side of it. "Didn't expect you to be awake, just came to check your vitals."
"Luxia," his voice was firm. "Where is she?"
Her eyes shook and she looked over at the empty bed beside him, pointing sideways with her pen. "Oh, right," she smiled at him again. "She was released this afternoon, I think. That's what her chart said anyway."
"Why would she be allowed to be released when she is so fragile," he sneered at her.
He was making her uncomfortable, making her hazy, making her forget what it was she came here to do in the first place. At least he hadn't lost that when he was thrown here. His wit, his sharp tongue, his anger. Her steps shook back and forth for a moment and then the nurse swallowed, trying to sound firm like the others but she was a novice, she did not have the strong will the others had. She was no rousing partner to fight, she was nothing. Just a weak little girl playing dress up at this point.
"Th-The doctor said -."
"I do not care what the doctor said, you need to check your notes. She is too ill to leave."
She didn't like his clipped tone. "I-I don-"
"Now, Trisha, don't be stunted by our patient," a familiar nurse glared at him. "He's a feisty one."
Trisha looked back at the woman and nodded, shuffling out of the way, close to tears. The older nurse chuckled and stepped in, closing the curtain and she gave him a scolding look. The nurse was a frequent of this wing of the hospital. Luxia had called her Marideth. Loki called her nothing. That's what she was to him, nothing.
"Calm yourself around the newbies, you might scare them off."
"Go away," he growled.
But she didn't.
She hovered around him, checking his vitals and making sure he was comfortable. As her fingers ghosted over the bars of his bed, she noticed the indents and looked at him quizzically. "What happened?"
He followed where she was touching. "Nightmare," was all he said.
She stared down at him, leaving the word to hang in the air. Nightmare. She pursed her lips gently and walked around the bed, pausing at the curtain, half open, and then she looked back at him. "She's coming back, you know."
"Hmm," he didn't look at her, he didn't want to seem desperate for an answer.
"Luxia," she sighed a little bit. "She'll be back in soon. She jumped out of bed this morning, got dressed and said something about going to buy something green."
Ah, so released for the day.
His brow furrowed gently. Something green? Why wouldn't she say anything to him? He watched the curtain flutter for a moment and then looked over at that empty bed. He was kind of scared that she was gone. That wasn't something he was used to feeling. He didn't want to feel it but there it was, staring at him, growling at him with an ugly set of teeth. Loki sighed and adjusted himself into a seated position. He plucked up the book on the rolling table to his left ad he thumbed through the pages, finding the place he had been at yesterday and he began reading.
Anything to pass the time.
Anything to keep him busy until she came back.