Not mine. Sally forth.

((()))

It had been long enough that Loki had worked his way through most of the diagrams and was right in the middle of what he assumed were lecture notes of some sort before he heard people walking past the door.

"That's your apartment, right?" That was presumably Rebecca. She had followed Janie home.

Wondrous.

Of course, if the note was there because Janie couldn't remember which apartment was his, then it was a very good thing he had been followed. Elsewise Loki would have had to go and find him.

A bemused voice broke through Loki's brooding, "It is, isn't it? At least I know Louis is here. My sticky note is gone."

There was an awkward silence. Loki could practically feel it through the door. He was sorely tempted to go open it and mock Janie relentlessly for being a gormless idiot, but masterfully restrained himself.

"Well…" Janie sounded like he was on the edge of desperation. The woman probably thought he was being bashful. "I gotta go. See you later?"

"Okay, bye." Footsteps started off down the hallway and Janie let out a small sigh of relief. His sigh turned to a groan as the steps stopped, turned, and came back to in front of the door.

Loki may have been gloating a bit. He was exacting his revenge and it hadn't cost him anything except two sentences of dialogue with an irritating Midgardian.

"I was wondering," twittered the woman, "if you could give me Krow's phone number? He said he'd give it to me last time he visited, but when I came back with my phone he was gone."

"Krow?" Janie's utter perplexment quickly turned to unholy glee, "Oh! You mean Kiki? Sure, sure. I mean, he probably just had to go work and forgot." There was a moment of scribbling. "Here, try to call him around six if you do. He's not busy then."

That was a lie, no doubt. Who was this Kiki character, and why was Janie setting the woman on him? Did Loki really care?

No, no he didn't.

While Loki was affirming his utter indifference towards Janie's predicament, Rebecca finally left for her own apartment with a promise to drop by soon. Hopefully Loki would be gone before that happened.

After making sure Rebecca was truly gone, Janie muttered "Finally!" and tried to open the door.

Tried being the operative word.

"Oh come on!" Janie tried to wrench the door opened again, then kicked it in frustration. "Really? Really!? Now that's just petty. Fine. I'll sit out here. See if I care."

He was met with smug silence.

Janie sat down against the door and hissed, "Razzafrazzin' bipolar superiority complex driven psychopath. Things to do, I don't have time for this. Why I oughta-"

"If you'd like to come in," Loki interrupted, "All you have to do is ask."

"Ha. Not happening."

"Then I hope you enjoy the hallway. Or perhaps you could explain to me how you've dealt with magic before. Or how you knew of Asgard, or even why you're unphased by life-threatening situations." Now that Loki thought about it, he had quite a lot of questions. "Any one will do."

"I'll do that when you let me in."

Well, if he was going to play that way…"We appear to be at an impasse," Loki drawled.

"Yup." Janie had apparently regained his good nature. It wouldn't last long.

Silence fell, and Loki returned to reading. He could wait as long as he needed to; it was Janie who was stuck in that ugly excuse of a hallway.

Around an hour later, Loki had run out of reading materials and thus his main source of entertainment. He was searching for something else to keep him occupied other than Janie because that would involve interacting, which defeated the purpose of cracking the Midgardian with monotony.

The jumble of odds and ends was starting to look appealing, and Loki was about to reach for an oddly ornate-looking box when his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the Midgardian.

He hit the door with a BANG! "If you make one more doghouse joke, I will end you! Do you hear me? Fear for your life."

…That proved Loki's insanity theory quite nicely. More importantly, what was a doghouse joke and did Loki know any?

Sadly finding himself lacking any such joke, Loki settled for irritably calling through the door, "I haven't said anything you imbecile. Kindly take your madness elsewhere."

"I wasn't talking to you then, was I? Kindly keep your nose out of my private conversations." Janie pounded on the door once more for good measure. "And you, you zip it. I wasn't talking to you either."

Ignorance was bliss. Loki did not want to get involved in whatever delusions the Midgardian was suffering, and thus decided the box he had previously been examining deserved a closer look. He scooped it up carelessly and fingered the etchings around the top of the lid. They were oddly familiar…

"Don't touch that! It's closed for...reasons. Important reasons."

How did he even…? Well, all the more reason to open it. It wasn't even locked, just held shut with a simple latch and what seemed to be a mild repellence charm. Yes, now he recognized the designs on the lid. They were runes, simple ones, which wove delicate strands of protection over the objects they were imprinted on. Another question to ask.

Not that it particularly mattered; anybody with any kind of magical talent could rip right through it and Loki was nothing if not talented. He flipped open the lid with ease, tentatively touched what looked to be a dull greenish rock and watched in stunned silence as it twitched in response. Then, to Loki's growing confusion, it lifted into the air and started to circle lazily around his head.

He dispensed of his previous plan to bore Janie into compliance as he examined his satellite. "Is that a bloodstone?"

Janie's steady stream of grousing ground to a halt as he registered Loki's comment. "Bloodstone? Wha-"

The stone stopped circling and seemed to point towards the door.

A snarl ripped itself from Janie. "Birgir! You're dead, you hear me? I'm gonna grind you up, sell you on the black market, and buy a better stone!" He paused for a moment as if listening to something. "I don't care if he opened your box! We've already had this conversation. When people are over, you stay inside it you menace!"

The rock started sinking lower and lower throughout Janie's haranguing in what? Shame?

"Yeah, you'd better be sorry. Come open the door."

Perking up, the stone zipped over to the key and knocked it off of its hook before Loki could rouse himself from his stunned silence. Janie's fingers flickered under the door and snagged the liberated key, then he stormed in.

Instead of focusing on the dangerous Norse god lounging on his couch, he scowled at the stone. It actually flinched away from his gaze. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Was the stone talking back? It was the only explanation Loki could think of. Speaking of the stone… "Its name is helper?"

Janie snapped to attention as Loki spoke. "Hmm? Oh, that. I was, like, six when I named him. I've tried to change it, but he won't do it."

Loki stared incredulously at him. "You received a powerful magical artifact when you were a child? Where did you get it?" On a side note, why wasn't it given an English name?

Instead of answering, Janie plucked 'Birgir' out of the air and sauntered towards Loki. He perched on the arm of the couch and started gesticulating vaguely with his other hand, which was holding a bag of some sort. "There was this old lady who didn't want to deal with his sass anymore, so she gave him to me. She used to watch me when my parents were busy and Birgir and I hit it off. Probably because I actually talked to him instead of ordering him around like he was a piece of rock."

"I wasn't aware bloodstones existed on Midgard anymore." Loki held his hand out for the stone, curious despite himself. It was handed over with a shrug and a hiss to 'behave'. It wasn't clear as to whom Janie was directing that comment, but Loki really couldn't have cared less.

The stone appeared to be a bonafide bloodstone. A very old bloodstone, which explained the personality and the mobility. If he recalled correctly, bloodstones became more powerful as they aged. Loki supposed Janie having a bloodstone made sense if his claims of being a doctor were true, as healing was really the only art they were useful in, but still…

As Loki prodded Birger into revealing secrets, Janie raised himself off of the arm of the couch and started to nudge the various things on the floor, including another ear-hat and a pair of gloves, into small piles in an attempt to clean the room. He was still at it when Loki registered he had been sidetracked again.

Birgir seemed to sense Loki's sudden mood change and jerked out of his hand to cower in a corner. Loki glared daggers at the back of Janie's head, waiting for him to turn to properly give him some answers. He ground his teeth as it became apparent Janie wasn't going to rejoin the conversation willingly, and snapped his fingers together with just enough magic to make an eardrum-rattling CRACK!

Janie jerked in surprise and accidentally kicked a glass globe towards Loki, which gently tapped against Loki's boot. It was a fairly unremarkable object, and Loki was ready to dismiss it until he noticed Janie. He had frozen as soon as the globe had made contact with Loki, and looked to be debating whether to run away or lunge for it.

So whatever it was, it was much more important than it looked. Shooting Janie a grin that was all teeth he reached down to scoop it up, and right before he tapped it Janie hissed, "Wait a sec-"

And then nothing.

((()))

He was being stretched and spun, crushed and twisted, peeled apart all at once. He was falling through the void all over again, reaching out to stop his descent with everything he had both physical and magical, trying and failing to regain control. Bits of himself were spiraling off into the black, he could feel it and there was nothing he could do.

And then it all stopped. As far as Loki could tell, he had ended up in a delicate bubble bobbing though soft yellow mist. It was actually quite relaxing. He was having trouble remembering why he had been in such turmoil before… something about his brother. Had Thor broken his favorite staff again?

It didn't really matter. Nothing really mattered.

Did it?

It was nice, not feeling. He could float on forever like this.

Maybe not feeling wasn't the phrase. Rage, confusion, betrayal, they were whirling and fighting to get into his sanctuary, but he didn't have any intention of letting them in. Why should he?

Loki clasped his hands behind his back and stared contentedly out at the mist. He may have stayed there indefinitely if not for Janie's sudden appearance.

He landed with a yelp and slid down the side of the bubble, bumping into Loki's leg as he came to a stop. Judging by the way he scrambled backwards and tried to balance on the sloped side of the room, he obviously expected an adverse reaction of some sort, but Loki could only summon vague ambivalence. Intellectually, he knew this was somehow Janie's fault, but he honestly couldn't care less.

Janie stopped his scramble to stay a good foot or so away at Loki's complete lack of retribution, slid closer once more, and stood on the tips of his toes to be more eye to eye. "Hi."

He looked bemusedly down his nose at Janie. "Hello."

This reply seemed to unsettle the Midgardian for reasons Loki couldn't fathom. Janie cautiously poked Loki in the chest. "You're not looking to h-good. Good. Yes." He searched Loki's eyes. "You don't actually want them back, do you?"

A faint twinge of irritation swirled around the room. "I don't know what you're referring to," Loki drawled, "but I assure you if I wanted something, it would already be in my possession."

The Midgardian continued as if Loki hadn't spoken. "I mean. It only took me around an hour to get them back, and I thought you'd be so murderous you'd snap right out of it, but if you don't want them…"

As Janie floated away from the conversation, Loki cheerfully pushed him out of his mind and turned to watch the outside. It was wreathed in smoke now, thickened enough with various colors that mist wasn't really an applicable term anymore.

Loki glanced behind him as he felt a tap on his shoulder. Janie smiled apologetically at him, sharply drew back his arm and punched Loki squarely across the jaw.

Years of fighting snapped Loki out of his stupor as he reflexively snapped his elbow backwards, catching Janie across the chin hard enough to spin him a full 360 degrees. The bubble burst as Loki's rage crashed into the room. "You dare assault me?"

Clutching his jawline, Janie skipped backwards out of reach while yelling, "Hey now, I did you a favor! You're the one that went all suicidal on me!"

"I am not suicidal!" Loki snarled back, stalking towards the irritant with murderous intent.

The smoke swirling around became thicker and darkened into a frankly alarming shade of red, shot through with yellows, blues, and oranges, obscuring Loki's view and ability to breathe. "What have you done to me?"

How was Loki going to kill Janie if he couldn't see?

"Calm down! You're gonna smother us both!"

So he controlled the smoke? Well then…With a sharp breath in Loki neatly repressed his homicidal intent and confusion behind a wall of implacable apathy.

The choking smoke reflected the change by thinning out into a wispy fog. How helpful. It gave him a perfect view of Janie looking on in stunned silence. "Wow," Janie huffed, "You really are royalty, aren't you?"

If Loki acknowledged that he wouldn't be able to breathe again, so he decided to move on. "What. Did. You. Do."

Now it was Janie's turn to be irritated. "I didn't do anything. You're the idiot that touched the Looking Glass."

"Fine. What did it do?" Loki started to stride towards Janie, perfectly ready to inflict bodily harm.

Janie started to walk backwards. "It senses emotional…issues, and fixes it. Or at least it tries to." He broke into a light jog. "I told you not to touch it! But does anyone listen to me? No."

Suffice it to say, Loki was tired of the little game they had been playing. He just wanted a straight, highly detailed answer. Was that so much to ask? And why did he have something like that lying around in the first place?

What Loki needed was a plan. Currently that plan consisted of catching Janie and pounding an answer out of him, which wasn't his most cunning, but he hadn't been able to properly think since he had awoken on Midgard.

That was probably also somehow Janie's fault.

First, to lull his victim into a false sense of security. He stopped stalking towards Janie and asked in his most curious voice, "Where did you come by such an item?"

Taking note of Loki's shift in mood, Janie stopped as well and replied, "My brother. He thought I could use it for something."

The sudden switch from lethal intent to mild curiosity didn't even jar Janie. Perfect. Perhaps Loki's current inability to remain concentrated on one thing had actually done him a favor. Now to get within striking distance…

Loki started to subtly glide forwards as he asked, "Where did it take us? I do not recognize this place."

Janie took notice of the movement, but apparently didn't feel threatened enough to put more space between himself and the Norse god. His mistake. "We're not really anywhere. Or we're everywhere. It really depends on how you define minds."

That actually stopped Loki short for a second. "This is of the Astral Plane?" but he shook off his surprise and resumed his path forwards. "I suppose that would explain the endless, white nothing surrounding us."

All he received in response was a vague shrug of agreement. "Kiki thought it'd be more therapeutic than a view of the zooming cosmos."

Who was this 'Kiki' character? He had to have been very powerful to have created the so-called 'Looking Glass', as Janie was implying. No matter, Loki was almost within easy striking distance. One last question ought to do it.

"How does one leave this place? I don't see an exit." Loki reached his target distance and politely waited for Janie to answer. It would be nice to know how to leave, especially since he was planning on at the very least permanently damaging the person who knew the way out.

A bitter smile appeared on Janie's face. "You don't. Not until it lets you. It needs to complete its directive."

Directive? What was...It dawned on Loki that he really couldn't care less. What he cared about was turning this Midgardian into a smear, or possibly a pile of dust. Maybe even disintegrate him entirely. Loki was flexible.

Not one to tarry when a plan of action was decided, Loki took advantage of Janie's brooding spell to strike and lunged towards his target.

Instead of hitting something solid, as is generally expected when one attacks somebody, Loki caught air and watched as Janie fragmented into four replicas of himself.

Well that was an interesting defense mechanism.

((()))

AN: I was actually really nervous about posting this chapter, mostly because it's where things get a little wonky. I know at least I have a knee-jerk eye-roll reaction to OC's getting fancy, which is hilariously hypocritical of me I know, but we've almost hit plot people! I sound like the worlds saddest broken record at this point, but it's true. Also, random shout-out to CodenameRedKrystalMatrix for somehow finding my story and favoriting it, thereby successfully guilting me into actually getting over myself and updating.

Thanks to them and whoever else is interested.