Stepbrothers
Chapter Twelve
Loki and Thor reacted immediately. One by throwing the blanket on the assailant's face and weapon, the other by grabbing the baseball bat that stood by the bed and hitting the screaming ghost in the legs and belly with such force that it fell piteously, yelling at the top of its lungs, cursing his bastard son and his male prostitute, sons of the great whore of Sodom etc.
Thor grabbed Loki (both still stark naked) and rushed out of the room. They managed to close the door and block it with furnitures. The banshee behind was still on it, banging on the door. Unfortunately, Larry had made them rather thick for soundproofing.
They ran to the ground floor. The loud banging increased. They grabbed haphazard trousers while Thor was trying to reach 911. They had actually rehearsed the attack so they tried to be accurate and stick to their plan. Holding his phone, still talking to the operator, graping the bat and guiding Loki, who had managed to get a kitchen knife and a hammer from the toolbox, Thor headed towards the only place that was more or less secure : Larry's office.
Loki prayed that a sudden enlightenment would tell him the damn password.
The banging went on an on though the yelling was simply inaudible. Thor prayed that his sire would remain dumb enough to believe that he would get free by shouting Scriptures at a piece of wood while forgetting about his gun. One thing he had time to notice : his sire's renewed interest in the spiritual life. Once upon a time, he was too busy torturing his wife and child and cutting them from the real world to remind himself the actual word of god. Prison did him a lot of good apparently...
They were locked in Larry's room. They were safe but also trapped. The operator reassured Thor that police was on its way. Thor hoped they would hold the fort against the crazy creature upstairs until then. While Thor observed his brother/lover searching the room frantically for the umpteenth time for a clue to gain access to the damn guns... Thor made a silent prayer to whoever, whatever was watching to protect his Loki who deserved none of this from this mad creature. He didn't deserve losing his mother, seeing his home invaded by strangers, having an incestuous (though passionate) affair with his own freshly made stepbrother to finally get killed by a deranged psychopath...
And then Thor remembered that he had done nothing wrong himself. He and, most of all, his mother didn't deserve being treated like cattle, forced to obey and to shut up and brainwashed down to their very soul until there was nothing left to save...
Thor finally felt anger and rage, more than fear or stress. He would protect Loki first and foremost and then his mother and Larry.
Till the very end if necessary.
Playing with the bat, Thor surprised himself with his apparent calm. The situation was dire but they were clearly in control. The police was on its way, they were temporarily safe. They had the means to protect themselves and furthermore, the enemy was not playing with a full deck, clearly. Time and prison had taken a toll on his father... Well, on his sire.
"Did you recognize him ?"
Loki's hushed voice woke him up from his stream of consciousness.
Loki, I couldn't see him clearly but, I don't know... He seems crazier. No surprise here.
Thor looked at Loki carefully.
– Did YOU recognize him ?
Thor, he was the school gardener, you know ? The new guy ? In the rose garden near the library ? Have you ever noticed ?" Nastily, Loki remembered that Thor RARELY went near the library. "Why didn't you tell me he was an albino ? I would have busted him right away !
Thor gave Loki a puzzled look.
Loki, my father NEVER was an albino ! What are you talking about ?
Loki realized his mistake. He never saw the man's eyes, so he couldn't say if they were the typical red color of albinism or something else with those thick sunglasses. His hair might have turned white in prison or he could have bleached them. And he could have used make-up to easily whiten his skin. He wasn't showing much skin anyways. Playing an albino gardener made him noticeable but since Thor's biological father wasn't one, no one would suspect of foul play.
Damn, he tricked me into talking about you...
Thor sighed.
Loki, I told you. The bastard's got the cunning of Satan himself.
No more religious innuendos, Thor, please. I've had enough for a whole life.
Thor chuckled.
Then we should stay quiet. The door won't hold him long. In his ape-like brain, he must have guessed how to get out.
Indeed, there was a loud bang. Olaf Odinson had finally thought about shooting the doorknob and force the door to open. The boys went silent in seconds. There was a noise of footsteps, furnitures turned upside. Something was smashed (Loki hoped it wasn't the hall's big mirror, his mother had it sent from Italy...). They couldn't locate the noise. Clearly their opponent was searching the whole house for them. Larry's door was the same color as the rest of the hall so in the dark, if you didn't see the silver doorknob, you wouldn't guess it was there. Sometimes, Larry's weird ideas could be very clever. Then came a long silence Loki didn't like at all.
Son ? Son, I'm sorry...
They both jumped. The voice was whiny, like the one of a miserable drunk.
I love you so much... and your mama... I just wanted to protect you... Shield you from the evils of the world. That's all I ever wanted, that's all I want !
Loki froze. Thor made a grimace, clearly in anger.
– Your mama, she is weak to the flesh... And you, you ! Look what you've done !
Thor rose his eyes to the ceiling. Loki took a firm grip on his knife and hammer.
Son, please ? Please ? I love you... I love you all so much... I just want you have you both back, in my loving embrace...
"Rather in your loving prison." Thor thought. There was another silence. It killed Loki's nerves. Then a quick pace and someone was clearly ransacking the house, loud thumps and crashes were heard everywhere. He was clearly running from one room to another, smashing the doors and everything he seemed fit. Then roaring screams took place that seemed to shook the walls. "Dear god, he is totally insane." Loki thought. "He is going to kill us." He hoped to hear the sirens soon, very soon.
Adulteress ! Adulteress ! "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled..." The voice ranted... " "..for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous !" That's for your whore of a mother, boy !
"Fuck you." Thor silently mouthed.
And YOU, you bastard of Sodom ! Shame on you ! "If a man lies with a man … They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads" ! You are DEAD, boy ! Ya hear me ?! DEAD !
Then things happened quickly. A series of shot came closer to the office, making the boys shiver. The lunatic was shooting inside while approaching. Loki went to the side of the door, in spite of Thor's protestations. Then, finally, sirens were heard in the distance and the crazy man stopped the shooting, possibly to hear the upcoming cops... Then a roar and a loud bang on the office door. Loki blood curdled and Thor blanched.
He had found them.
- Damn you, boy ! Damn you to hell, you, your male whore and your bitch of a mother !
A loud shooting and the door literally exploded. Then the crazy figure appeared in front of Thor. He didn't have the glasses anymore. Thor didn't recognize him, he was an old, wrinkled man, smaller than in his memories. A patch hid the fact that he had lost an eye. If the voice wasn't exactly the same as the one in his nightmares, he wouldn't have said that man was his sire. They locked eyes, the same sky blue color and the father pointed his gun at his son with a teethy, insanely ecstatic smile...
"He that doeth righteousness is righteous..." The madman murmured.
That was when Loki stroke him on the head with the hammer.
It plunged inside the man's skull and cracked it like a watermelon.
The following chaos appeared like a blur to Loki. The house full of cops and noise and blue and red lights. The detectives, the forensics, the ambulance. They had nothing but bruises and scratches. The neighbors gathering outside for the skies had fallen on their heads. What was going on in the Laufeyson house ? Once they had been cleared, the boys had to answer questions at the precinct. A place Loki never imagined to be in his wildest dreams. It was simply exhausting, even If the cops had quickly guessed it was a home attack and the boys were simply defending their lives.
They also had to explain why they were both naked in the bedroom when the attack occurred.
Luckily, the cops were on a job and didn't pry the matter when the boys declared that YES, they were in a relationship and YES, despite the fact they were stepbrothers. They agreed not to tell the parents but warned them that they could not keep the secret forever, especially during the inquiry. Thor and Loki silently nodded. The nightmare didn't seem to end.
Manuelita and José came, frantic. The boys stayed at their house, since their home was sealed for now by the police.
They finally had some peace and quiet and they slept for almost a day.
Of course, 24 hours later the parents came back. They were devastated. Needless to say, also relieved to see their sons fine. Fran had no choice but to go and identify her ex-husband and former abuser. That was him, of course, but he had changed so much she doubted it at first.
She never said how went that last meeting with the man who almost destroyed her life, though he was her son's father. The subject was definitively closed for her.
Some questions were answered. Olaf Odinson had started trouble in prison, acting as a surrogate prison chaplain and then getting pretty radical, especially concerning relationships between inmates (which were quite common in an all-male prison)... At first, it wasn't that bad but then it created ruckus because the various communities in the prison couldn't stand his meddling and his constant bible-thumping in their faces any longer. Olaf had to be put in security, which made him age prematurely. When he got out, an inmate he had called "bastard of Jezebel" among other nice things stabbed him in the eye, hence the eye-patch.
It happened that Olaf did services to some of the top godfathers in that prison. In exchanged, they organized his escape. A prisoner that was supposed to be set free agreed to trade places with Olaf in exchange for treatment for his sick child. Olaf then went to Loki's school under a false name and from there, it was easy to get informations about the Laufeysons' lives.
Olaf Odinson was cremated and his ashes sent to his parents in a distant state. Fran and Thor had no contact with them for a long time. They were loving and overdotting parents who were blind about their son's nature. They decided to believe that Fran was a liar and a bad wife, maybe even they wanted to doubt that Thor was their son's child, denying the obvious ressemblance. So that they couldn't admit somehting was wrong with their son.
No charges were held against Thor or Loki. The case was obvious. The violence of the attack, the state of the house after the deed and the neighbors' testimony made it quite clear.
They were out of judiciary trouble but not out of the woods yet.
In school and in the neighborhood the boys were considered as either heroes or suspicious characters. After all, Loki had smashed Olaf's skull in front of Thor who didn't seem grieving at all. It made people wonder what the both of them could do and to what extent...
Thor was still number one but he had lost a part of his former crew. He was not as popular as he used to be. For Loki, nothing changed much. He had always been set aside. Though now people were looking at him curiously, which was annoying.
Larry and Fran had difficulties in their jobs. It is noticeable when your house is being ransacked by your wife's ex. But Larry being Larry, he bounced back with surprising speed. He always did. He didn't seem to care about all of this, not even the rampaged house. Things were as usual for him. Fran remained more reserved and less expansive as she used to be. But little by little she seemed to get better. As she would say later, she felt guilty fir being responsible, for having left the boys on their own and not taking any precautions concerning her former tormenter. Him being in prison made her feel too safe and be careless. She had a hard time forgiving herself.
The house indeed had been ravaged. Olaf had shot through Francesca's piano, he had done a regular one in the master's bedroom, smashing all the mirrors, even Manuelita's precious kitchen had been upside down... But this massacre led to an interesting discovery.
Loki was trying to clean the mess in his father's office. Lots of his stuff was laying down, damaged because the boys had tried tom move the desk to protect themselves. Among the broken things was a framed picture of them four during a tour at the local zoo, Larry with his stupid safari hat, Fran holding a large ice cream and laughing, Thor, a bit stiff with his own treat and a sour looking Loki (who had been in a mood because, according to him, zoos were for children, not grown young adults). It had been one of their first outings and Larry had demanded to one of the zookeepers to take the picture so they could be together. Loki was still dwelling in self misery at that time. And here he was, barely a few months earlier, a much changed person. Who had killed someone else, though in self-defense...
The frame had fallen and was partly broken. When Loki picked it up, he noticed another piece of paper behind the photo. No, not a piece of paper, another picture and a piece of paper...
The picture behind the picture was one of Francesca, a younger Francesca holding a tiny newborn whom Loki recognized as himself, maybe a few weeks old.
On the piece of paper, a list of blotted out passwords, the last one had been spared. It was the current password : "My2Fr nS"
It was this discovery that helped him make his decision.
They told their parents everything. The hardest thing they ever done. It took a while for Larry to understand. Fran wasn't the happy bunny but she wasn't surprised either. She had guessed something was developing between her son and his stepbrother. When Larry finally understood he was angry. Blaming Thor for leading Loki to believe he was in love with him, for Loki to be that much easily swayed. The boys hold their ground. They were in love and that was it. Fran said nothing but simply nodded in acceptance.
Larry ranted, Larry protested, Larry bargained then came up with an idea. The boys would spent a year in different colleges, just to see if their feelings were right. If it was true love they would survive a year, right ? Right ? Thor and Loki felt their stomach drop to their feet.
Fran told him to stop this nonsense. It was just pushing away the inevitable.
"Plus, two boys in different colleges is a lot more expensive than in the same establishment."
Of course, that last argument won Larry. It made Loki tick a bit, but at least it had went well.
Life resumed as they used to be, except that sometimes, when they were alone in the house, Loki and Thor spent together the way they liked most. Their relationship had to be kept secret for now. Once in college it wouldn't matter anymore. Nothing had changed between them, it was a relief...
Now, Loki was laying naked in Thor's arms, thinking about the future. He still thought of the hammer destroying a life. He felt a bit that he had to do that in order for him and Thor to have a future. A bright future. Looking at the rising sun by the window, he admitted that was maybe the case.
