Back at the library, Kate's colleague and friend, Tash, was sitting in the break room with the "Positions Vacant" section of the newspaper spread across the table in front of her. It had been the most shocking week of her career to date. Kate had gotten herself caught up in some drama or other so she'd been absent for the first half of the week and now that she was back, all she could do was gaze listlessly at the front doors, wander aimlessly around the shelves and very occasionally, collapse uselessly into one of the staff lounges, weeping.
Tash was left to bear the brunt of the obnoxious talkers, the ubiquitous snorers and, her least favourite library pest, the amorous embracers. Having turfed out nine-and-a-half kissing teenage couples just that morning, the single late-thirty-something was looking for a change of scene. She loved the books, she was just beginning to passionately hate the humans who came to find refuge amongst them.
She looked up at the clock just in time to see the last minute of her lunch hour tick itself into oblivion. She sighed, gathered up her mug and her newspaper and slouched back to the circulation desk where Kate sat slumped in her chair, mindlessly flicking rubber bands at the intermittently flickering fluorescent lights.
Tash rolled her eyes. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, Kate?"
Kate shook her head.
"Because you should probably know that I want to kill you and half the people in the library this morning."
"Me too," Kate agreed, yawning.
"I'm even fantasising about how I'd go about it."
"Gas?" offered Kate. "Or maybe you could poison the water in the overhead sprinklers and set off the fire alarm."
"That's a little bit disturbing," Tash replied.
"I've gotten to know this secret team of commandoes recently. They'd probably do a pretty thorough job of it."
"Come on, Kate," Tash urged. "You have to tell me what's been going on."
Kate laughed humourlessly. "You would never believe me, even if I could."
"Well, you're the literary genius," Tash replied. "Make something up so I get the gist."
Kate narrowed her eyes. "Like an allegory?"
"Go on."
"Like something totally unbelievable and ridiculous, something outlandish and silly, that would sort of parallel what I've been experiencing in my real life?"
"Exactly."
Kate grinned. "Ok, what do you know about Norse gods?"
"What!?"
"This was your idea, Tash. I'm making up the world's most ludicrous allegory! Play along!"
Tash held up her palms defensively. "Ok, ok," she looked up at the ceiling. "Umm, Asgard? Odin? Thor? Loki?"
"Ok, that'll do. Imagine that the Norse god, Loki, walked into this library one day and confessed to having been in love with me for the previous year despite the fact that I'd never even laid eyes on him."
"Riiight," nodded Tash amused.
"And imagine that I had met his brother Thor and even attended Thor's wedding to another American girl."
"Uh huh," Tash laughed. "'Cause our Earth girls would always trump those immortal chicks that hang around in Asgard."
Kate shrugged. "Maybe feminism hasn't taken off in Asgard. Maybe they're all repressed?" She shook her head and continued, "And, anyway, imagine that Loki had caused a bit of trouble a while ago and was being hunted by this global spy organisation."
"Well, he is the god of chaos."
"Mischief," Kate corrected.
Tash nodded. "Right, mischief."
"But he had to get away from them so that he could be with me."
"Because he's head-over-heels in love with you."
"That's right," Kate nodded.
"And in this allegory," Tash enquired, "Are you in love with him back?"
Kate paused, three fingers pressed to her lips. A minute ticked by.
"Kate?"
"Yes?"
"I said, in this ridiculous allegory that is meant to somehow give me insight into what is really going on in your life – this Norse god that's in love with you – do you love him back?" Tash repeated.
Kate nodded, "Yes."
"Excuse me," said a resonant male voice behind them.
The two women spun around to find an extremely tall, slim but well-built blonde man who looked to be in his early thirties. Tash wondered how long he'd been standing there.
"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."
"By Dave Eggers?" Tash asked. "You'll find it up in Adult Fiction," she paused for a beat to ensure her stating the bleeding obvious didn't fall on deaf ears, "Under E."
The man seemed to be looking right through her. "That was just my assessment."
Tash raised one eyebrow and turned back to hit Kate with her well-worn why-are-all-the-cute-ones-crazy look.
Kate was smiling back at the nutjob. "Want me to show you where to find it?"
"Please," the man nodded.
Tash shook her head as Kate stepped out from behind the desk to lead him into the forest of shelves. One minute she wants to kill everyone, next minute she's bending over backwards for a mental case. She turned back to the piles of new books she was cataloguing.
Half-an-hour or so later, Tash was interrupted by a waspish old woman in a tightly buttoned brown coat.
"Excuse me, Miss?"
"Yes?" Tash replied, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.
"You might need to go and supervise on Level Two. Things seem to be getting a little bit out of hand up there."
"Out of hand? In what way?"
The woman pursed her lips disapprovingly and walked out of the library.
Tash braced herself for the worst. Beat-boxers in the Quiet Study Area? Graffiti in the Children's Section? Pole dancers in Reference? Kids shooting up in Young Adult Fiction? She grabbed her water bottle - the nearest thing to a weapon she had on hand.
She tentatively made her way to the second floor, looking and listening out for the source of the disturbance. Approaching the Reading Lounge she spotted her target. A man was sprawled across the length of one of the vinyl lounges, obscured by a woman straddling his lap. The man's large hands were visible, his fingers entwined in her long dark hair, and she could see his long legs, splayed out beneath the pair of them.
Tash couldn't help but side with the waspish complainant. Though the pair thus far remained fully dressed, which awkwardly wasn't always the case in circumstances like these, things were clearly on their way to getting out of hand. Sneakily circumnavigating the Reading Lounge, ducking in and out of shelves, Tash circled away from the couple and around, approaching them from behind the blonde man's head.
The woman's arms were wound tightly around him, the fingers of one hand sliding into the curls at the nape of his neck where his crisp white collar met his golden flesh. So oblivious were they to anything else around them that Tash managed to sidle right up to them, unscrew the cap of her wide-necked water bottle and hold it high over their heads without them registering a thing.
The instant the first sheet of water splashed over them, they pulled apart gasping at the shock of the cold.
"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!" Tash screeched, continuing to pour water over the pair, who scrambled to disentangle themselves from one another and clamber to their feet. "HONESTLY! GET A ROOM!"
Every eye on the second floor, and many hurriedly travelling up from the first and down from the third for a look, was on the couple and their incensed assailant.
Tash's vision, still clouded by her fiery rage, began to gradually clear. Before her, dripping, stood the tall ruddy blonde nutcase from just earlier. Laughing next to him stood a sopping wet Kate.
Tash's mouth fell open. "You!"
"Tash!" Kate cried. "You're right! You definitely need another career!"
"Well," sniffed Tash defensively, "I would've thought a fellow librarian would never have let herself stoop so low as to make out in a Reading Lounge!" Her eyes flashed. "And on top of that," her voice grew more hysterical, "I have never seen anyone look less like the Norse god of mischief in my entire life!"
"Excellent," chuckled Kate's companion.
Kate looked up at him, slipping her hand into his. "Tash advises us to get out of the library and get a room." She flashed him a devilish grin, "Perhaps we should take her advice."
Her companion's eyebrows shot towards his hairline. "Perhaps we should get a room?" he repeated.
Tash rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Well, if you're going to carry on like that, you certainly can't stay here!"
"There you have it," Kate nodded decisively. "We are going to be carrying on like that for the foreseeable future…"
"We are?" he asked gently, stroking her long hair back from her face.
"And it would seem that we are no longer welcome in the library."
"Ahem," Tash menaced.
"Let's get out of here," Kate whispered against his throat. "Take me anywhere!"
"Anywhere?"
"As long as I'm with you."
Loki beamed, his eyes sparkling in a way that hinted at tears of joy. He pulled Kate close, kissing her hard. She threw her arms once more around his neck.
Tash filled a paper cup from the water cooler next to her and threw it over them.
The man laughed and effortlessly scooped Kate into his arms. He strode over to the elevator whose chrome doors conveniently slid open with a muted ding. The last the gathered crowd saw of them before they were obscured by the gleaming doors was the sight of a smiling Kate nestling her head into the crook of his neck.
It was a good thing that Tash and her onlookers weren't back on the ground floor in time to watch them get out.
He may have looked nothing like the Norse god of mischief but there was the muted ding, the doors retracted and the elevator was utterly empty.
.
.
THE END! Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing! That was fun! Let me know if you have more room in your life for this iteration of Loki. And I know, I know, the title of this could really have been "In which she turns Loki back into Tom Hiddleston." I was even toying with the idea of having Loki discover a talent for acting and hit the big time just because I love those "What if Tom Hiddleston is Loki raising an army?" memes. Anyway, if you like the stuff I write, nothing motivates me to write more than you guys telling me you like it! And now that I know that a bit of holding chapters for ransom pays off, for a teensy bit more reviewing love, I might be persuaded to throw in an epilogue that details the fate of the mysterious mischief-making talisman from last chapter...
Now, to review the reviews, just coz I can and if you hadn't been writing, I might not have been either:
Most faithful reviewer: Bornrider2 - top effort! I think you reviewed every chapter! Thanks, ole reliable! You made it all fun!
2nd place to TheBoyWhoWalksInTheLight - dude, appreciated.
My most humbling review would have to be the one that came by private message and said, succinctly, "Sucks." Thanks, man. I can only presume that you won't have read far enough to find this. If so, that would be sad. You need to find a better way to spend your time than reading stories that suck. But hey, my first flame - is that what it's called? I've learnt and grown as a person from the experience ;)
Favourite comments ever:
"Lokate for the WIN!" - whoever you are, I was SO chuffed :) I kept saying it aloud to myself and chuckling delightedly!
literaturelife7 - do you realise that you quoted me talking about the power of a quoter of literature? also very very chuffed :) you do NOT suck at reviews. rambling is aLWAYS appreciated :)
KatieBug1017 - thanks for appreciating this against your will and for liking the low-level swoon. Reviewers who quote back lines that they liked are my all time favourite...
anifreakazoid - thanks for persisting despite my being baffling!
iColor With Crayons - it's been an honour - all of it!
Very excited to hear this evoked some squeeing - possibly even embarrassing public squeeing!? cool...
AND thanks to kijefa - whose undying love for Tom Hiddleston prompted me to write the first chapter, which wasn't supposed to go anywhere, and then it (and him it has to be said) momentarily took over my life... Check out her unfolding story: "A feast of caps and gowns" for some undiluted Tom Hiddleston love if you're into that kind of thing.
alright dudes, over-and-out. unless you talk me into this epilogue...