New Asgard, way back when

The Great Dining Hall of Asgard used to be a place of joyous congregation, with merry drinking and great feasting all year round; it was obvious King Thor had every plan to emulate the Asgard dining etiquette and protocols of old, the tables heavily-laden with great casks of beer and platters of roasting meat and poultry of every attainable kind, locally-sourced of course.

But dinner that night was a sordid affair; the Royal Council had once again convened to discuss Thor's sudden announcement, and the emergency session had lasted deep enough into the evening that Loki, despite his usually meagre appetite, was feeling actual pangs of hunger, having taken little breakfast and missed lunch.

When Thor took the seat next to him on the High Table, the hunger headache had so soured his mood that he could not even bring himself to look at his brother, despite Thor's attempt at exchanging pleasantries.

"I am not talking to you, Thor."

"You cannot ignore me forever, Brother."

"Watch me," he said viciously through gulps of water.

"I have always known you weren't the brightest of the bunch but of all the stupid, stupid things you could have done – " Loki clenched his teeth against the suddenly increased throbbing in his temple. He pushed his ice water away. "No. This simply has to wait."

He irritably signaled Einar to come closer.

"Highness?"

"Could you please tell the kitchens to prepare something lighter for me? All this meat is making me nauseous."

"Certainly, Your Highness." Einar suggested, "Some fish chowder perhaps? Fresh catch just came in."

"A small bowl, please." Thor did not even deserve the deadly glare he would have usually sent his way at this point. "I need to see to Stian. I've been called away for far too long today."

"Thought you were hungry." Thor was still trying to make conversation.

Loki sighed. "And so are you. Just eat your damn dinner and leave me in peace. We will talk later." He added maliciously for good measure. "In private."

"As long as we talk, Brother," Thor said in a calm manner which Loki found simply infuriating.

A sense of déjà vu filled him as he swept his eyes over the Dining Hall, finding the seating arrangements of the courtiers and palace officials, as well as the almost identical looks of foreboding? – discontent? – on their faces somewhat familiar, as if he had lived this night before.

He turned his head to look at his brother and true enough, Thor grabbed for the pitcher of wine first instead of diving straight into his food, just as Thor had done that night –

No, not only had Loki lived this night – he survived it.

This is a dream, he realised. I am reliving the nightmare.

Instead of returning him to awareness and wakefulness, the sudden insight into what he thought was reality being actually not pulled him under deeper; Loki's vision began to yellow with everything around him taking on sepia undertones.

Loki willed himself to ride against it but it was futile; just like the previous nights, his attempts at changing something, anything, in the effort to alter the course of the dream utterly failed. His hands, his limbs, all his muscles would not override the old commands, would not execute any new movements that could have returned to him some semblance of control.

The cloying scent assaulted his senses first before a small bowl of thick, creamy soup was served him by an unseen hand. His headache was giving him tunnel vision.

"A splash of milk, my Prince?"

No. "Sure," his not-mouth answered.

No milk. No soup. I want none of it.

Yet his fingers would not listen, readily picking up a spoon instead to start eating.

Maybe tonight will be different, he thought frantically. Maybe I will wake up sooner, before I could taste it –

Before the pain.

Yet the rich, savoury chowder slid down just as easily as before; it was a familiar taste and his personal favourite, a taste of home, just the way the old kitchen of Asgard used to make it.

Spit it out! Loki screamed at himself but his trapped psyche could only look on in horror as his corporeal form took in spoonful after spoonful, feeling each one hitting just the right spot, filling him with a deep warmth like a coat of fur in the cold of winter. He could even feel Thor's smile on him, for of course he would find the sight of his brother scoffing his food down like a ravenous beast entertaining; Thor was simple like that.

Thor, help me. He begged. Knock the spoon out of my hand, the bowl off the table, anything – just do something.

But the stupid idiot just kept smiling.

But perhaps Loki was the bigger idiot; despite the warning pangs of a peculiar, twisting pain in his gut he had kept eating, putting it all down to hunger.

"Good?" Thor tried again.

Loki frowned.

Thor's smile wavered. "Loki?"

Loki's hand had stopped. The spoon dropped with a clang. Bile collected in his mouth, for the burn had begun.

The fire started in his throat and his hand reached for it. It trembled as it followed the trail as the fire travelled down his gullet before his shaky fingers finally came to rest against his stomach, where the blaze suddenly roared to thrice its size.

What is this?

Loki's other hand left its deadly grip around the edge of the table to join the other as they desperately fisted his belly. A moan escaped him as he doubled over.

"Thor." He tried calling out but he choked as the inferno of pain erupted and the gust of air driven out of his lungs took on the shape of a strangled scream as he bucked against the heavy mahogany of his chair, sending it crashing onto its side.

He felt hands on his shoulder, on his back, pawing the side of his neck -

His body lost all form of muscle memory and he slid down, slipping into the gap between the table and the toppled chair.

Stephen.

He did not remember hitting the floor, only the long curtain of black hair that had suddenly fallen over his face like a veil – Valkyrie? She had slid her knees across the dais and caught his falling head with her thigh before it could slam into the floor.

"Thor, help me turn him before he chokes on his own vomit!" He dimly heard her shout and he felt the brush of the cold steel of her vambraced arm against the skin of his cheek as she attempted to push him off his back and onto his side –

"Loki."

His muddled brain must have gotten it wrong this time for Stephen had never before answered, the excruciating pain having robbed him off all capacity to think, let alone the mental strength to call.

"Stephe-"

The thousand blades knifing through his stomach drowned all coherent thoughts and he could feel an agonising howl rush past his constricted throat, but he could not hear it for his mouth was fast filling with something tangy and metallic and hot.

"Loki, wake up!"

Something ripped inside him and clawed its way out of his stomach; Loki must have screamed again for his chest gurgled against the blood and vomit going down the wrong way, and flooding his airways.

Against the fire raging through his insides, a coldness snaked its way inside his head, twisted around the pain

"Loki, for God's sake, I know you can hear me – "

and yanked

"Wake UP!"

Loki gasped at the sudden catapult to full consciousness and autonomy over his body. He bolted into an upright position, turned his head and vomited onto the floor.

A hand rubbed circles on his back and another found its way to his convulsing stomach before felt the burn rapidly replaced by a deep-seated, soothing coolness, like a touch of ice to the forehead in the throes of a fever.

Loki retched again, convinced that he was bringing up blood this time like he had the last time, but alas the dry heaves came up empty as Stephen's fast-working healing spells took effect. As he slowly collapsed backward into his lover's fussing arms, Loki palmed the phantom pain in his stomach and shuddered.

Stephen held him for the longest time and not a word passed between them.

"I would have come." Loki felt Stephen's voice rumble in his chest against the sweat-soaked wetness of his back as he finally spoke. "No matter what."

Loki closed his eyes. Arguing was the last thing he wanted to do right now. He swallowed down the last remnant of nausea that was fast fading into a bad memory. He reached out a shaking hand over the edge of the bed; it took longer for his seidr to respond but when it finally did, he magicked the mess away.

"Sure."

"I look a fright."

Fresh out of a shower and a good scrubbing down Loki almost felt normal again, nowhere near as weak as he usually felt after the dream; perhaps Stephen's presence and timely intervention had had something to do with it.

Stephen looked at Loki's reflection in the mirror. "It's three o'clock in the morning. Not even Miss Universe looks good at this hour."

"Would you cut my hair, Stephen?"

Stephen was quiet. Even if there was a shortage of hairdressers that would otherwise be ever ready to serve at the Prince's beck and call, Loki could easily cut his own hair with magic if he so wished.

"You caught me cutting Stian's hair, didn't you?" Stephen ventured a guess. Loki had been so mad the day he came back from a long day at court to find their son's hair trimmed; Loki would have kept Stian's hair long but it was simply something Stephen's prim and prissy side could not accept in a baby.

"So you finally admit to it." Satisfied, Loki leaned back in his chair, squaring his shoulders. Stephen shrugged.

"It looked good, didn't it."

Loki fingered the tips of his shoulder-length hair thoughtfully. "Can you do it without using magic?"

At Stephen's inquiring gaze, Loki hesitated momentarily before deciding to give his secret away.

"My mother used to cut it for me back when – " he stopped short. "Never mind. Forget about it."

Stephen inhaled deeply. He knew there was a reason Loki was being very forgiving about Stephen sneaking behind his back to give their son a badly-needed haircut. "Sure. I'll do it. If you don't mind me accidentally stabbing you in the neck with my scissors as I do it."

He tried not to think of how back in the day, when once in a while he would have patients requesting the same. Almost always, they were palliative patients with terminal illness irremediable through medicine or surgery both; changing their looks had been the one thing the patients had control over in their life anymore.

Yet Stephen found himself playing along; he rested his hands on Loki's shoulders. "How short do you want it?"

Loki reached behind his head and gathered all his hair, bunching it into a tight ponytail. With his hair away from his face and neck like that, Stephen understood why Loki thought a haircut could perhaps do him good – Loki looked ten times younger, his face now not so pale in the relative absence of the contrast the blackness of his hair conferred against his alabaster skin.

"As short as yours."

"You do know I can't really cut it the way you want it, right?" Stephen said drily. "It might end up looking like Thor's."

Loki released his hair, sending it tumbling down the sides of his face once more. He reached for Stephen's hands still resting on his shoulders and pulled them toward the front of his body.

As expected, the more Stephen tried to still the tremors, the more they shook. The Stephen of old would have pulled his hands away instantly either in humiliation or indignation or both, but tonight he just did not have the heart. There was a vulnerability about Loki that Stephen had never seen before.

Loki held Stephen's hands palm-down over his own, much like he would hold an open book. He scrutinised the scars on their backs, weighing the coarse tremor coursing through his lover's fingers.

Stephen felt the warmth of Loki's seidr against the skin of his palm before he saw it, and he frowned.

"What are you doing?"

Light green crackled in between his fingers, sizzling and popping like little tiny bubble wraps. "Loki?"

Loki ignored him completely, and in the mirror, he could see Loki's lips moving soundlessly over the words of a spell. His forehead furrowed further.

Loki had tried healing his hands before, on the night they met - well, not really met met but as in physically connected; it was still a touchy subject, the whole kidnapping and sending him falling through an endless vortex thing. It never really came up what with the surprise baby and unwittingly falling in love and all - and it had not worked.

But Stephen knew better than to interrupt him in the middle of a spell.

Finally, as suddenly as it had come, the rush of seidr stopped.

Stephen waited. When he felt the tremors, unchanged, his heart sank like a stone.

"Thanks again for trying, Loki, but it didn't work the last time and I don't know if we should bother trying anym –"

Loki suddenly released his hands and Stephen took an involuntary step backward.

He stared at his hands. They were still and steady, with not even the slightest flutter of the tremors that had plagued him for years. His heart began to pound.

"What did you do?"

Loki shrugged. "I used a different spell."

Stephen stared down at the top of Loki's head. Despite his disbelief and wary elation, he could not help feeling something was amiss.

He searched their reflection in the mirror and his gaze trailed down to the pale hands Loki had clasped in his lap.

Anger stirred in him, slow and curling.

"What the fuck did you do, Loki?"

"I took the shakes away," Loki said coolly.

"Give them back." He spat.

"How else will you cut my hair?"

"I will cut more than your hair if you do not undo this right now."

"Whatever is the matter, Stephen?" Loki stared at him through the mirror, mildly perplexed. "I thought you would be delighted now that the tremor's stopped?"

"Not when you've taken it onto yourself!"

"For Norns' sake, Stephen, calm the Hel down," Loki said irritably. "It's not like it's permanent."

"What?"

"It's a temporary transference spell." Loki sighed, "I could not possibly steal something that was destined to stay with you for the rest of your life, no matter how powerful I am, no matter how much I want to."

Stephen stared at Loki's hands, now shaking involuntarily in his lap. "Loki?"

"Yes?"

"Please don't ever do something like that again. Ever."

The light in Loki's eyes dimmed.

Perhaps it was the hurt in Stephen's eyes, or the sudden transition from disbelief to delight to anger and finally to utter devastation that made Loki realise that perhaps he should have kept his quirky whims to himself next time –

"I'm sorry, Stephen."

Stephen gazed at him for a long time. Finally, he conjured a pair of scissors out of thin air. "You're crazy, you know that."

"Uh, yeah, you told me that like, last night."

Stephen pursed his lips. Carefully pointing the blades away from Loki's neck, he laid his hands on his lover's shoulders gently.

He could not keep it to himself anymore. The anxiety would drive him mad.

He had felt it as Loki thrashed in dreams he could not escape from, in the way Loki had to take his shower hot for he could not seem to take the cold as well as he normally could, the slow-healing wound on his chest…and in the subtle difference in Loki's energy signature when he pulled the stunt with his hands, the nail in the coffin. "Your seidr is greatly weakened, Loki."

The light dimmed further from Loki's eyes. "I know."

"Is it the poison -?" Stephen took a deep breath. "What do you need?"

Loki slowly dropped his head to his chest, suddenly looking every inch his fifteen hundred years of life in spite of his unlined, youthful face. "I need Thor."

"Have you done this before?"

"Once." Loki was quick.

"Many times." Thor was just as quick.

Loki glared at Thor.

"There was this one time little Loki was so into ornithology that he tracked a bird-of-paradise deep into the forbidden forests on the outskirts of Asgard –"

"It was a magical Paradisaea and it had not been sighted in the Nine Realms for the last thousand years!"

"And for good reason too, they were extinct." Thor growled. "He fell into a trap meant for him and we only found him after five days."

"Thor," Loki growled.

"We were what, sixteen, eighteen, at the time?"

"Thor, stop it." Loki covered his ears, his face turning red.

"But yes, I suspect my Brother here decided to wait for a week instead of coming to me because he is just too proud and stubborn and idiotic and would rather suffer than admit he needed help!"

"Excuse me?" Loki hissed. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, shall I remind us all who is the bigger idiot of the two of us?"

"Out of everybody I thought you would be the one to understand, Loki –"

"Well, clearly I don't understand because after all we have been through, after all I have done, how could you just throw it all away like that?"

Stephen cleared his throat loudly. "Well, clearly, I am missing a big chunk of the story here but let's just put it all aside for now, shall we?" Then his eyes narrowed. "Although I do have a question for you, Loki. If you knew Thor could help you, why didn't you say something earlier?"

Loki remained stubbornly quiet.

Thor sighed. He looked at his brother as if seeking for permission to speak but Loki avoided his gaze. "Because the process is very painful for him without a…" he searched for the right word, "Dampener? My seidr isn't exactly…you know, gentle."

Loki's eyes dropped. Thor nodded. "Our late Mother was our buffer."

Stephen stared at Loki, finally figuring out at least one part of the missing puzzle. "I'm sorry you had had to wait for me, Loki."

Loki only shrugged and lifted a sarcastic eyebrow. Stephen half-expected Loki to come back with something snarky but to his credit, Loki held his tongue.

Thor gazed at Loki warmly. "I like your new hair." He stopped. "Or old hair. Well. You know what I mean."

"Yeah well I wouldn't want to walk around looking like a cactus after our bonding session, would I."

An awkward silence suddenly befell the infirmary.

"Great." Stephen clapped his hands. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"