(I don't own Supernatural. Sorry about last chapter being short, but this one is longer to make up for it.)
"C'mon, Lokes, at least take a couple steps," Apollo urged me, "it can't be that hard."
My legs trembled as I held on tightly to the cot I'd spent all of yesterday on. I stared pitifully at Apollo, who stood about a foot away from me. I felt sick at the idea of trying to walk. Neither of us commented on why that was, both knowing that saying what had happened aloud would merely accept what had happened as truth.
I felt tears swelling in my eyes and I tried to blink them away; if I broke down, then my denial would all collapse, "I.. I can't."
"You can," he prompted me, holding his arms out, "come on, Lokes, I'll catch you if you start to fall."
"I'll walk weird."
"No you won't."
"It will hurt."
"It won't."
I eyed the short distance like a hangman eyes the gallows.
"Don't you want to get back to Cas and Sera?"
I took a deep breath and took a step forward, having to throw my arms out to balance myself; I practically fell on Apollo by the time I made three steps, clinging to him as if I wouldn't be able to get back up if I fell.
"See?"
"I told you, I can't!"
"But you just did!"
"I was never supposed to," I shook my head, "I can't do it, Apollo!"
"Stop, okay?" he patted my shoulder, careful to avoid my back, "just calm down?"
"Calm? I'm calm, I am."
"It can't be that hard, Lokes, I don't have wings and I walk just fine."
It was the closest either of us had come to mentioning it and it plunged us into a deadly silence. Apollo helped me back to the cot, but neither of us spoke until I was seated on the cot.
"I can't do this, Apollo," I said, wrapping my arms around myself, the tears falling when my hands brushed against my bare back, "if you've ever been my friend, I need you to get my sword from Poseidon and you need to run me through with it. Look, I even have this scar that serves as a big target, stab me right here."
"Look, today's just a bad day," Apollo sighed, the thud that sounded as he dropped into his chair sounded like a death sentence, his face tired and weary, "we can try walking again tomorrow. This isn't something we can just fix today, I get it, you need time. But until then, no getting stabbed with angel swords, doctor's orders."
Silence.
"I told you the deal wasn't worth it, Lokes."
"This is humiliating," I grumbled, head resting on the hand which had the elbow connected to it on the arm rest. It seemed I was healing alright and didn't have to worry as much about tearing my stitches, but I still didn't feel like being wheeled around Olympus like I was helpless.
"Shush, since you don't feel like walking I am going to be rolling you around," Apollo said, making sure I was comfortable before giving the wheelchair an experimental push. The wheels didn't make a single squeak, "besides, everybody knows that you're still recovering from 'being possessed' so they'll think nothing of it. Lot of pagans use wheelchairs occasionally, it's why we have them here."
"Still humiliating."
"Is this the bit you find humiliating or that I got to watch you scream yourself hoarse?" Apollo snapped at me, "make up your mind, Loki. For somebody who agreed to having his wings chopped off you sure have been complaining a lot about it."
I looked away, the words he said hitting denial's walls like a cannonball thrown by a trebuchet.
Apollo rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a sharp huff of pent up frustration, "just... I shouldn't have said that. You couldn't have known that's what he would do."
"Can we just... wait until tomorrow to go outside?"
Apollo gave me a look that had more of a begging tone to it than a starving dog.
"Fine," I sighed, "okay."
"We can go tomorrow," Apollo decided.
Thank Dad for that.
Nobody seemed to pay much attention to us, though I could hear inaudible whispering occasionally. We had yet to run into any of Apollo's fellow Olympians, so none of the pagans dared to speak about either of us in our presence, whether it be Apollo's Olympian status or whatever sort of reputation Loki had; maybe it was both factors that kept the gossip from our ears.
I had had all of yesterday to emotionally prepare myself for going outside today, but I still felt nervous and so painfully helpless, the feeling of the back of the wheelchair pressing against my back instead of smooth, soft feathers felt even odder than not having wings to help me balance. Without the weight of the wings and the shift of their weight, I had no idea how to operate without them.
Despite all the complaining I had originally done over my wings, I'd much rather have them back on my back than as a prize on Poseidon's throne, my former wingspan motionless and stiff, a symbol of Poseidon's so called battle against an Archangel.
Thinking about what I had lost left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I let out a sigh of boredom as I watched Apollo barter with the pagan running one of the stands, trying to lower the price of an item from a single, young bull from Apollo's herd of sacred cows to an old bull and an old cow.
It was right about then that a very friendly littl satyr came right up to me, the first being to do so on my day out so far. She had a nest of curly brown hair that almost covered the two little stubs on top of her head that would one day be horns, her little thumb in her mouth and a glint in her bright, forest green eyes, and her little goat tail seemed to wag on her lower half, which was the lower half of a brown furred goat. With no parent in sight, this little satyr seemed to hold no fears of me, not scurrying away at the sight of me like the adult satyrs I had seen shying away from Apollo or shivering in the presence of pagans, and there were a lot of pagans here.
"Is it true you mated with a horse?" she asked innocently without a single care in the world.
It completely derailed me from my train of angsty thoughts and I stared at her, brain recalculating, "what did you say?"
She happily repeated her question.
According to the memory I had gotten before I turned into Fenrir and killed Zeus, the answer to her question was no.
"Well," I said, leaning forward, elbows resting on my knees, "I have to say that that particular myth about me was blown way out of proportion. You see, when I was trying to stop the giant while he worked with his horse, my own horse, a mare, got scared and ran off. By the time I finally found my horse, she had a cute little, eight legged Sleipnir trotting by her side."
She giggled as I waved my fingers to represent Sleipnir's many legs.
"And Odin is a big meanie, so he took little Sleipnir without even asking," I faked a pout, "but I still have my horse, so it's okay."
"Did Odin take Sleipnir away from his mommy?"
"As I said, Odin is a big meanie, so yeah. Don't worry, they're both in the same stable, so they still get to see each other," I had absolutely no idea if any of what I was saying was true.
"I don't like it when animals get taken away from their mommies," the satyr agreed with me.
"Speaking of mothers, where is yours, my little satyr friend?" I asked her, glancing around to see if I could spot any satyrs, though the few that I could see were most definitely staring at us with utmost terror as if I would snap the little child's neck.
"Mommy's at home. Daddy took me to the market with him!" she said happily, "but I wandered off. Is he going to be angry?"
"Not if we can find him," I assured her, "I bet he's really worried though."
She nodded in agreement.
I glanced at Apollo, but he was still arguing with the man at the stand. Steeling myself, I tried to stand up out of the wheelchair, falling a couple times before finding a pinch of balance. The kid satyr hopped excitedly at my heels as I took a couple, swaying steps before managing myself. I stuck to the side of buildings as I continued onward a little bit, using the marble to balance myself.
"Okay, I think I have this walking thing cover-," I let out a squeak as I almost fell, "okay, maybe I have farther to go on this walking thing."
"Why can't you walk?" she hopped around my feet, almost tripping me a couple times but I didn't mind.
"Well, I had the Archangel controlling me, remember? It's been a long time since I was able to walk myself."
"That makes sense, I guess."
"Yep. Where did you last see your dad?"
She thought it over before responding, "um, it was near... near the satyr area."
"They have an area? Very well, let us go find your father."
The little satyr was happy to lead me towards the satyr area. Partly true to its name, the satyr area was the area of Olympus where the non-pagans lived and full of a lot of satyrs. It was fearful looks we received when they saw that a pagan was among them, most of them quite skitterish at the sight of me and giving me and the little satyr child a wide berth, watching warily as I limped along, using the walls of buildings to support myself and feeling absolutely exhausted by the whole experience.
The little satyr made an excited squeal as she spotted one of the satyrs that looked the most fearful, "there he is! That one is my dad!"
"Good, go on then," I told her, nodding towards her dad.
She hugged me before running off to her father, who practically collapsed into her hug in relief. It hadn't occurred to me before now just how scared these people were of the pagans they shared Olympus with. The satyr who was her father met my eyes a single time, mouthing the words 'thank you' to me.
Satisfied that the little girl was now safe, I turned around and started making my way back to the pagan area. I had my own caretaker to get back to, after all, one who was probably going to be pretty ticked by my little stroll.
Apollo was not ticked about my little stroll. In fact, he was practically ecstatic that I had gone for a walk. I, meanwhile, was ecstatic to collapse into the wheelchair, dreading the moment I would have to walk again. I didn't offer up my explanation, but Apollo did not ask for it, merely accepting that I had left and was now back. Perhaps it was his happiness over the barter with the vendor going favorably towards Apollo.
"After we're done here we can head back to the Hunters," Apollo decided, scanning a row of shiny jewelry at one of the stands.
I said nothing, eyeing the display for a moment and wondering if my Hunters liked jewelry; probably not, I've never seen them wearing it, although something with a lot of expensive stuff on it they could probably pawn off and the jewelry here was all pretty cheap. I grabbed a bunch of stuff made out of stuff that wasn't celestial. Apollo had no problem paying for them for me, seeming happy at every opportunity to show off his wealth to the lower pagans.
"That one matches your eyes," Apollo teased as we resumed walking (well, he walked, I was in the wheelchair) as I looked through what I had gotten. I gave him a dirty look before striking a pose.
"It's because I'm fabulous."
He laughed and I dropped them all from my lap into my satchel, something we'd both gotten one of at one of the stands. I wasn't looking forward to leaving Olympus; I didn't want Castiel to see that my wings were gone because I just knew he'd get mad at me for making such a deal with a pagan, something I probably could have turned into a mist of blood and body parts with a simple snap back in my prime.
But the Hunters? I'm not planning on letting them ever know what I had lost.
"I..I just can't take you seriously like that," Apollo grinned across the table at me, glancing over his deck of cards.
I glared at him.
He stared at me before smirking and putting his deck down, "okay, I fold. I can't read your expressions when you don't really have any."
My little rabbit nose twitched and I showed my deck of crappy cards with a sense of triumph at my first win in a while, "donkey ears, cause you're an ass."
He rolled his eyes, his new ears twitching as we got new decks from the card pile in the middle. My rabbit ears twitched as I stared at yet another crappy hand, "are you cheating?"
"Isn't Immortal Poker fun?" Apollo said instead of answering.
"Cheating is punishable by death, I will hurt you if you're cheating," I bared my coyote teeth, throwing down my cards angrily and standing up on my little rabbit feet, nearly falling off the stack of phone books that I had had to grab after Apollo had chosen rabbit body, my white tailed deer tail twitching.
"Calm down, I'm not cheating," he said, smirking as he checked the score and updated it, "hmmm, antlers."
I grumbled angrily and snapped, giving myself antlers.
"You are the oddest jackalope I have ever seen," Apollo grinned, "bam, full house."
The smug bastard still only had his donkey ears and a long fluffy cat tail.
"Person," I warned, one of my rabbit ears twitching as well as my little bunny nose. We both snapped, turning ourselves back into our normal forms just as the door of the laundromat opened. The lady who walked in glanced over us as she carried her laundry towards one of the washers before she froze and glanced back, face going beat red. She hurriedly stuffed her clothes in and started the washer, glancing at us every now and then.
"Acts like she's never seen two dudes in their boxers playing cards in a laundromat before," Apollo grumbled, glancing over his cards at her while we waited for her to leave. I angrily plopped the phone books I didn't currently need onto the table.
"Probably because there usually aren't two dudes in their boxers playing cards in laundromats," I huffed angrily, "I do believe having one set of clothes isn't the norm."
"You do have a point," he hummed thoughtfully, "when she leaves and we resume where we left off, I choose for you to have a tiara on your little bunny head."
"I can have a tuft of scruffy fur, I can't snap up clothes and accessories," I rolled my eyes.
"Alright, chicken feet then."
I grumbled angrily. I'd much rather have waited until we got back to the Hunters before stopping, but the slush outside hadn't agreed with my new lack of balance and I'd dragged Apollo down with me when I had slipped and toppled into a puddle. Alright, so I had pulled him in while he stood by and laughed at me, but what's the difference? Luckily Apollo is much like a forge in the amount of heat that continuously radiates from his body, so it hadn't been long before we were both dry simply by sitting across from each other. I felt a pang in my chest after my mind wandered to how long it would have taken for my wings to dry before my much too light bare back reminded me of my situation.
Apollo seemed to sense the turn in my mood, or maybe he simply had a crappy deck, for he frowned at his cards and glanced at me, "this one is crap, I fold again."
"Lucky you, I had a royal flush," I said, glancing at his deck as he plopped them down on the table before I laid my own cards down, a play that would have indeed lost against mine. Unfortunately for him, the rules of Immortal Poker said this was still a win for me, "cow feet."
"What is with you and barn animals today?" he smirked.
"Shut up, Sunchild, I may as well be a children's book fairy tale reject."
"Aww, but your fluffy little bunny form is so cute."
"Rabbits do not have antlers, coyote teeth, cat whiskers or a deer tail, Apollo. I hate this game."
The washer our stuff was in finally finished and I got up and switched it to a dryer before returning to my seat.
The lady had left while I had switched Apollo and I's laundry, but Apollo hadn't resumed his donkey ears or cat tail or given himself cow feet by the time I sat back down at the table. Instead he turned the paper he was writing on over and cut the deck, "new game?"
"Sure."
"Full house, I win the first round," Apollo said after we'd put forth our cards, "cat ears."
I sighed and snapped my fingers.