I haven't written any fanfiction in years, until recently. So please feel free to leave a review if you're reading this. Seriously, you don't have to say anything clever. Just say if you are reading it.
"He sleeps most of the day," Thor said, pacing the long, scarlet rug that ran the length of the room.
"Uh huh…that's to be expected," Stephen commented, without looking up from his book. He was seated in one of two leather upholstered armchairs, where he was barely managing to conceal his indifference to the other man's woes. He licked his thumb and casually swiped at the next page. "His body and mind are still healing."
"Still," Thor contested.
"Does he sleep at night?" Stephen asked.
Thor stopped pacing long enough to issue a shrug.
"I don't know…sometimes."
Stephen tilted his head, thoughtfully, eyes still on his book.
"Which means sometimes he doesn't."
"He has…nightmares," Thor explained, making another lap around the rug.
"Okay."
"And he moans and he…yells."
Stephen raised a curious eyebrow. That was at least mildly interesting. He glanced up at the other man for a moment.
"What does he yell, exactly?"
"Mostly individual words...no or stop…things like that."
"Hmm." Okay, maybe not that interesting.
"It wakes me up, of course...and when I go to check on him, it's like he doesn't remember doing it."
"He probably doesn't." Stephen replied, casually returning his gaze to his book. "That's a fairly typical side effect of severe emotional and physical trauma."
Thor cringed visibly at the word, trauma.
"Then he denies it, the yelling...or he accuses me of making it up...or sometimes it's like he doesn't even see me there at all."
Stephen nodded, unfazed.
"Mmm hmm, that's…also fairly typical. It's called dissociation."
Thor didn't appear to appreciate the other man's glibness. He stopped pacing again, pausing to regard the empty chair. It seemed like he was deliberating about whether or not he should sit.
"You know...I actually thought you'd be more helpful."
"I'm sorry I ever gave you that idea," Stephen deadpanned. Weeks earlier, when Thor approached him, he had reluctantly facilitated Loki's rescue by creating a portal to a specific point in space. Thor had used that portal to retrieve Loki and bring him back to Earth. At the time, given the dire state Loki had been found in, Stephen had felt a certain professional responsibility to see to it that he received emergency medical care. But as far as he was concerned, once he'd ascertained that Loki's condition was stable and that he wasn't currently a threat to Earth, his obligation had been fulfilled.
"Are you not his physician of record?" Thor asked, finally opting to sit. He slowly lowered himself onto the chair and then rocked back and forth in it, ever so slightly, as though he were testing its weight.
"Well technically there was no record," Stephen pointed out, "unless of course his name really is John Doe."
"I have no idea what that means."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't."
"So when you said I should call you..."
"I was merely being polite," Stephen supplied. "Which I kind of thought was obvious, but apparently not."
Thor huffed, irritably.
"Are all Midgardians so disingenuous?"
"I guess that's a matter of perspective."
"How long does it take for all of this to…stop?"
"No way to know for sure."
"Isn't there something you could give him in the meantime?"
"You mean like a magic pill?" Stephen quipped.
Thor shook his head.
"I wasn't suggesting the use of sorcery, Doctor."
"Look," Stephen explained, "psychological trauma is not the same as a physical injury. As you know...if you break a bone, the body will heal it. The cells know exactly what to do, how to repair themselves. They're programmed to do just that. They do it, with our without our intervention. Healing emotional damage…it's more abstract. It's not part of our programming. It takes conscious, continuous effort."
"What exactly are you saying?"
Stephen realized that he wasn't going to get any reading done, as long as his guest remained. He closed his book and sat it on the table beside his chair. Then he let out a long sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Do you want me to have him evaluated?"
Thor frowned, quizzically.
"Uh…to what end?"
Stephen concluded that the other man was probably unfamiliar with the Midgardian connotation of that term.
"I meant mentally...psychologically. Maybe he can talk to someone who…deals with this sort of thing."
Thor still looked confused.
"It's not that I don't appreciate your...medical expertise, but that doesn't really sound like something Loki would do."
Stephen clasped his hands together, emphatically. He had very little patience for fruitless conversation and this one was going absolutely nowhere. He wanted nothing more than to hurry it along, so he could return to his reading.
"Does waking up, screaming, sound like something Loki would do?"
Thor either didn't detect the other man's sarcasm or he was choosing to ignore it.
"No…I mean, as a child he had nightmares, but nothing like this."
"Right."
"What makes you think he would be willing to discuss his troubles with a total stranger?"
"Well, just thinking outside the box here," Stephen offered, "but given that he's your brother and all...have you thought about talking to him yourself?"
"I...don't know what I'd say," Thor admitted.
"Hmm…how about something like hey, you wake up screaming every night. What's up with that?"
Thor growled.
"This is not a joke."
Stephen issued a playful roll of his eyes.
"You know, you are awfully uptight for someone who can drown a stein of beer in three seconds."
"I am not uptight," Thor hissed, through gritted teeth.
Stephen grinned, smugly.
"Good...then I'm sure you'll approach this situation with all the sensitivity it deserves."
