Chapter 13.
Port Townsend is a one stoplight, throwback waterfront town to Washington State's lumber industry era. Extravagant Victorian Facades dominate the main drag and the buildings in some cases boast rabbit warrens of storefronts that tourists wander through as they walk the red brick sidewalks and drive the actual cobblestone streets. Meandering through the town, you find all sorts of history, left up on the walls in advertisements that are left to fade in peeling paint on the sides of the buildings from a long gone time, when women wore bustles and corsets and men walked in dapper ties and coattails. When canes were fashion, and horses were the main mode of transportation and not just a family pet.
Beautiful trees lined the street, and large windows, warped with time reflected our image back to us as we rode by in the large semi truck, even Loki seemed to admire the town that was a place from another era on the Olympic Peninsula. He ducked his head and looked up at a four story brickwork building with Art Deco accents, seemingly admiring the simple stonework structure that served as a testament to a long dead architectural style.
The top of Cheryl's truck scraped on a bare tree along the street as we pulled into the parking lot of the Grocery Store that stood at one end of town, and was the only modern looking building. She put the gears into park with a grinding shudder from the massive semi truck and turned in her seat and made me nervous as she looked at the two of us, I feared that she would recognize Loki from New York but she just smiled and opened her door. She grabbed a hat off the dashboard, and I looked at her as she put it on her head and we prepared ourselves to get out of the truck. She paused as Loki rolled the window back up and smiled at us, continuing to climb down as she checked her appearance in the mirror.
"Well Lucas and Lilly, here you are. Thanks for the company and conversation. Good luck to you both." She said as Loki unhooked his seat belt and pulled the latch on his door and climbed down from the cab gracefully.
Sadly, I was not as graceful, and dizziness protested at my head and it swam as I dangled my foot over nothingness, Loki had to guide my foot to the step to prevent me from falling and doing some real damage to myself. My heart skipped a beat when his hands came up and placed themselves on either side of my hips, but I managed to not loose my mind and kick back at him by reminding myself that he was just helping me down from the truck and not coping a feel.
"Our pleasure Cheryl, may your journey be less eventful than we were." Loki said as I put my feet on the asphalt parking lot, and waited for the last of the dizziness to fade from my head. Cheryl turned back and waved to us from the doors of the grocery store and I smiled back at her and gave her a nice wave as she vanished into the building.
"Lay it on a little thick why don't you." I said and slapped his arm, he glared down at me and my stomach protested my entire existence thanks to it being empty.
"You told me to be civil," He retorted defensively and I tried not to groan. "Lucas?"
He raised an eyebrow at me and I rolled my eyes and groaned again as I heard a ship horn in the background. I crossed my arms and stared up at him as he regarded my sudden defiance, and I pointed a finger at him.
"Well, I can't exactly introduce you as Loki, that asshole who destroyed Manhattan and tried to take over the world." I snapped and I instantly regretted my choice of words because I was hungry, irritable, and exhausted all at the same time.
Loki looked down at me angrily, and clenched his fists as I stepped back instinctively. He turned sharply and began walking down the main drag leaving me standing in the parking lot, I threw my hands out and sighed. I groaned and shook away the dizziness that had become a constant background noise in my head and chased after him as he kept a steady stride past different shops, his face completely stormy and the normal mask of placidity he wore cracking. I reached out for his arm as another wave of dizziness wrapped around my head and had to steady myself before I fell. My fingers missing his arm by millimeters as he walked, focused intently ahead and ignoring me.
"Stop." I said and he ignored me as tunnels formed in my vision but he kept walking and I grabbed a black lamp post along the street to steady myself and nearly slid down it as my heart pounded in my ears. I groaned and pinched my eyes shut and I tried not to shake my head in the need to clear it, fearing it would make the dizziness worse. The cold metal against my cheek felt good and I took in a deep breath as I tried to steady myself.
"Where are you going? You don't know this town, and I need help. Shit." I cried out and tried not to faint as he spun on me and I pressed my cheek back on to cold metal pole. He turned and saw I was struggling and immediately forgot about being angry with me and walked back over quickly and put his hands under my arms carefully as he unwrapped my arms from the pole and steadied me against him.
"Look, I'm sorry." I said looking up at him and feeling a bit better. I bit my lip and tried not to get dizzy again and nearly managed it before my legs decided otherwise and tried to come out from under me.
"That was too far, but please listen, we are basically fugitives and I'm scared shitless alright? If someone finds out who you are, S.H.I.E.L.D will get called and…" I said and stopped before I made a huge ass of myself. I found my legs and feet, forcing them to cooperate with me and I managed to pull away from Loki.
"And?" He asked, his anger dropping off exponentially and he put a hand on my face gently as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and braced me so I could stand without swaying.
"And they may just kill you for everything that happened." I said and his hand fell from my face as I looked down again. He let go of my shoulders, letting me test my own balance and took my hand in his and started guiding me down the street, I followed him quietly, feeling embarrassed at my condition and what I had said.
"Let us get you some real food as you call it, and then we can form a plan of what to do next." He said as we walked down the street and shops began opening for the day and the town slowly woke up. He scanned signs and glanced in windows in his search to get me something to eat and had to put an arm around me as the color drained from my face again, I moaned as the dizziness got worse and my stomach felt like it had a ball of nails sticking into it. I put both my hands over my stomach and cringed at the pain, how his own hunger did not bother him, I still don't know.
We eventually found a Soda shop style Diner that was cramped, but served what looked like decent food and I pushed the door open as a guy behind the counter looked up from his car magazine at us. I shook a bit, but managed to look as normal as I could. I stood in the doorway and smiled at him brightly, feeling the muscles in my legs cramp unmercifully from the lack of glucose in my system.
"Sit where you want, I'll be right with ya." He said and we chose a seat in the window and watched people walk around outside. The guy brought us two menus, and I looked mine over as Loki set his down on the table and watched me closely, I ordered two cheeseburgers, onion rings, a basket of fries and the guy brought us back two cokes and I tried desperately not to roll my eyes at his Tapout shirt.
"You both must be starving." He said as he set down the two Cokes and walked away to the counter and put our order in through the window. Loki took an experimental sip of his Coke and winced. I laughed at his reaction, his face immediately darkened at me as I giggled.
"I forgot you have never had a carbonated drink before." I said and he sat back and lifted the ketchup bottle and read the label casually before returning it to the basket near the window.
"I am not entirely a stranger here, but that is new." He said and looked at me completely relaxed but alert.
"You must feel like a fish out of water. Welcome to how I feel back in Asgard." I replied and sighed as the Coke gave me a bit of energy, and he nodded.
"A bit, but I must admit, my guide this time is more pleasant." He said back and I blushed a bit and giggled to myself sardonically. Loki sat back and looked out the window, looking relaxed but still staying alert to everything around him.
"We should probably find a place to stay," I said as Tapout brought our food out and set it in front of us. "Nothing on the main drag but quiet, so I can sleep away from everything and recover. Hopefully, Heimdall will find us and get us back to Asgard and I can start doing my penance for the trouble I caused." I said and poured some of the ketchup on an extra saucer for the fries and onion rings as Loki looked at the burger in front of him and opened it slightly to see the contents. He frowned at it and looked at me, I sighed and rolled my eyes. I picked mine up and took a huge bite of it, chewing and swallowing before taking another and rolling my eyes at the pleasure filling my empty stomach gave me.
"It was not your fault. Odin knew full well that bringing you to Asgard was a risk, and he may have had ulterior motives in that. However, where do you suggest we should look for said shelter?" He asked as he tasted the rest of his food cautiously, tasting a fry and then dipping it in the ketchup.
"Manresa Castle." I said around a mouthful of burger and Loki picked up his and took a bite, raising his eyebrows around the food and tried an onion ring. Taking a bite of it first, and then dipping it in the ketchup and experimenting with it all.
"That is Ketchup?" He asked and I laughed startling the guy behind the counter as he scooped ice cream from a case into a metal milkshake container.
"Yes." I said and sipped more of my Coke and he ate some more, looking out the window searching the street for any signs of threat.
"I can see now what Mr. Whatney in your book lamented running out of on Mars." He said chewing and drinking more of his Coke, following with another bite of his burger.
"It does make some food better." I said and smiled at him. "Welcome to Earth, enjoy the cuisine."
He smiled at my joke and I watched out the window as it started to drizzle and the people of Port Townsend went about their lives, I felt a pang of jealousy at them and wanted to be one of them. Fate was a cruel bitch though, and I was far from one of them. An impostor among their population. I was an impossible being, capable of so much, sitting across the table from Loki in a soda shop and it all seemed so surreal. The people outside as the glanced in the window at us unaware of the people and the powers locked in the beings that sat and ate in the diner feet from them, and the danger we both posed to them, all separated from them by a fragile pane of glass.
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The Kree screamed from the airlock as decompression began, The Presence listened to the screams as the vacuum of space made the creature's blood boil and his body twist in silent death as the air left the cramped space. The body ejected from the ship, drifting free into the black void beyond.
It was not her screams, but this would suffice in penance for losing the girl.
He had barely made it off Asgard, and his anger seethed in him, he was so close to her and he could taste the power surging through her. Her smell still filled his nose, and he craved more screams. She was more clever than he initially thought as well, the bastard Loki had seen to that.
However, he had accomplished his plan to flush her out and get her away from Asgard but he had not intended for her to run so far. Now she was not alone, she took a protector with her and they were most likely together, his power concealing her from his sight.
"Loki" He hissed and reveled in the horror he made the Jotun hybrid feel when he controlled his body and consciousness, hearing the screams of Loki as he thrashed at the walls of his own mind as he filled it with visions of her screams and blood. The feeling and sensations were divine to The Presence, and he craved to do so much more to him before he allowed Loki to kill the girl.
"Sir." A Kree general said behind him and he turned form the body floating away from the ship. "What are your orders?"
The Kree looked back at the General and returned his focus back toward the body as it drifted further and further from she ship.
"We wait, she is somewhere and when Asgard finds her, they will open the Bifrost to send someone to get her. We will then track it and go collect the girl, and I will have her do your bidding." The Presence replied blandly, and the Kree nodded.
"Yes Sir, a wise plan." He replied and bowed to him in a salute before leaving. The Presence continued to watch the body floating away, but it was just a dot in the vast emptiness of space by the time he looked back..
"I am going to enjoy making you tear her apart before I kill you." The Presence said to himself and his mind wandered as he composed a symphony of pain and suffering in his head.
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Manresa Castle Hotel was surprisingly booked for it not being Tourist Season, so we had to settle for a room with a single queen bed. I felt nervous and internally groaned at the thought of being alone in a room with a man, but it could be worse. The woman behind the desk assured me that there was a couch in the room before I paid for two nights, but it did nothing for my mood any. Loki was so getting banished to the couch, I was exhausted and I groaned internally again as the room contract printed out. I signed the paperwork, and took the two keys from the woman, happily full from the food in the diner and ready to go into a food coma for a few hours. Maybe a shower or a bath after sleep, but for now, I was content we were not sleeping on a beach or under an overpass somewhere.
The woman gave me general directions to our room, and I turned to head up the stairs as Loki looked at the elevator and I shook my head. He sighed and shook his head at me but I ignored him and continued up the stairs with him in tow, I may be exhausted, but there was no way in hell I was getting into that coffin.
"Why are you so nervous about enclosed spaces?" Loki asked as I walked up to the second floor and down the hall toward the room.
"I am not so much nervous, as I experience screaming terror every time I get into one. Thank you for rubbing salt into that sore spot, and I really don't want to talk about it." I said as I found our room and struggled to get the key into the lock, but eventually managed to get the door open after several attempts. The room was your typical hotel room, but a bit nicer and it was warm inside. I sat down on the end of the bed and as Loki looked around the room taking everything in as he set my bag down on the desk and I untied by boots.
"I did not mean to offend you, and this is not much of a castle." He said as I tossed my coat onto the couch, and pulled my sweater off over my head and lay back and sighed.
"It is just the name for the place." I retorted and scooted up the bed and turned on my side as he sat down on the couch. "I only know about this place from the Travel Channel anyways, it was some show about haunted hotels." He sat and watched me talk and I just felt too bone wearingly tired to continue arguing and sighed, blowing out my cheeks as I rolled onto my stomach and tried to get comfortable.
"You look exhausted." He said and I snorted.
"So do you Magic Dance." I shot back at him and he stretched his neck as my eyelids drooped a bit as I yawned into my hand and shivered from a cold breeze from somewhere. He said something and my eyes snapped open and I looked at him, He smiled at me softly and watched me.
"I asked what our next move should be." He quipped and I shivered a bit again as I pulled the Duvet from the other side of the bed over me and made myself into a human taco.
"Current thought process is toward sleep, I paid for two nights. We can from a plan later. Just please let me sleep for a while." I said and buried my face in the pillow and groaned, my head shooting up in a panic as the other side of the bed depressed.
"Wait." I squeaked out and shook my head. No was was this happening, no freaking way.
"What are you doing? " I asked Loki as he laid down with his back to me.
"Agreeing with your plan." He said over his shoulder, and tucked his arm under the pillow as he settled his head in. I sat back and moved closer to my edge of the bed and pushed his back with my hands, trying to get him off the bed.
"No. wait. No way! Not cool, you get the couch. I claim bed." I said and wrapped the duvet around me and started freaking out a bit. "This is a no dude zone, girls only."
"Little Mouse, calm down and be an adult about all this."
"I am being an adult, and I have experience that men try to put the moves on you on beds. And ewww!" I said as Loki held a knife up over his shoulder and handed it to me.
"Lay down and sleep, you have my word and that dagger that I shall not lay a hand on you." I took the dagger and eased back on the bed, laying it next to my pillow and resting my hand over it. But still refusing to take an eye off him.
"I will sleep when you are on the couch jerk face." I shot out and pointed at the sofa against the wall as he sighed and he continued to be stubborn from his side of the bed and remained still. He grabbed his pillow from under his head and put it in between us and I groaned at his being a complete ass and buried my face back into the pillow in frustration. I fought the urge to relent and move over to the couch myself, and the standoff began.
"Men have not been kind to you have they?" He asked as I relaxed a tiny bit, but still shuddered when he shifted his weight to settle in on his other side, facing me.
"No." I admitted, and felt shame come back. "Not that I wasn't part of the blame."
"Never say that." Loki replied and lay still. "Being a woman gives no man permission to abuse you in any form. "
I turned onto my stomach and crossed my legs uncomfortably and looked at him and felt a tear burn my eye. I buried my face into the pillow and groaned in frustration, I sighed then and looked back at him.
"Have you ever?" I asked as he looked at me, and he smiled.
"I did have a lover, once, she was mortal and she smiled so beautifully." He replied and looked sad as he sighed in memory. "She died in childbirth, the child not long after."
I swallowed and felt awful for him then, and he wiped a tear away from my cheek with his thumb.
"I'm sorry." I whispered and touched his face gently and he pushed my hand back into the blanket cocoon and tucked the blanket around me.
"Mortal lives are fleeting, you will learn this soon enough. Your children will be immortal as you are, and I see you surrounded by them." He smiled at me as I lay still. "You will have to go through the pain of saying goodbye to lovers yourself, but you don't suffer any less for caring for them."
"I think all that was taken off the table for my by what I am. I can't go through immortality with one person, why bother loosing people over and over again?" I sighed and he looked back at me.
"Sleep." He said and smiled at me sadly. "You are safe with me, but you are far too exhausted to have this conversation right now."
"Why don't you just ask it though?" I said back as I closed my eyes, and snuggled into the pillow.
"What?" He replied his eyes popping open and looking at me concerned.
"If I have ever had any mortal lovers?" I said, imitating him and he smiled back at me as he rolled his gray blue eyes and groaned.
"It is not my business, and if you have never had one, I have no current plans too change that against your will." He replied and closed his eyes. "Now, go to sleep."
I giggled again, and he opened his eyes and looked at me with a smirk, and poked me in the forehead. I could see him thinking about it, and I chewed at my thumb and giggled again. I got his goat.
"What of your lovers?" He asked me and sighed as I smiled back at him and laughed.
"I'm a virgin." I said and he laughed at me, a bit shocked. "I don't believe in just hopping from guy to guy, so shoot me."
"I admire that in you." He replied and I blushed and buried my face in the blanket as embarrassment crept up to my face and I wanted to sink into the mattress. I really needed to work on that edit button between my brain and my mouth.
"Why did I tell you that, we are just friends. Don't get any ideas, the Friendzone is like the Mafia, no one gets out." I groaned out and he laughed back at me, and I had to admit that he had a warm laugh when he wasn't hiding it under his anger.
"Go to sleep Little Mouse, the secret of your innocence is safe with me." He said and turned his back to me and settled in to sleep.
"Thank you." I mumbled into the pillow and let my eyes close. "If you snore, I will smother you with this quilt."
"Go to sleep." He replied, laughing over his shoulder and I let my eyes close as the mortar in my personal wall shifted inside me and I sighed, more sunlight getting in and warming the trapped creature inside it.
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I was running through the halls of Asgard but did not know what from. My bare feet slapped against the stone and I cried out as I turned a corner and tried to get my bearings, lost and confused. Lost in my running and I cried out for help, shouting as loud as my voice would allow me. I heard someone call my name in the distance, and I cried out to get their attention, to let them know I was alive and looking for them in return, but their response was so very far away.
And I was so very alone.
I picked a different direction, but the walls were so close to me, it was hard to breathe. I turned another corner and cried out to come face to face with the man with black eyes and my burnt father. I screamed and tried to run back the way I had come, but a burning arm was around my waist as I struggled against the heat and another burning hand was on my forehead. Blisters rose in my skin and burst as I screamed and struggled against the demon that held me back as I looked down to see the white shift I was wearing soak through with blood.
I screamed as loud as I could and tried desperately to free myself as the man came closer, raising a knife up and wrapping his hand around my throat as I cried, choking me and causing my voice to cut off. His hand then released me and he ran the tip of the knife over my cheek and down my chin as he tore open the shift and revealed the skin over my heart.
My whole body became numb with terror, and I knew that he was going to make me scream when I died. But I couldn't move, I could barely even breathe from the fear. The knife came to a rest over my heart and I cried knowing that he had won, his soulless eyes trapping mine as he smiled and I screamed, ripping everything loose inside me as I cried out for help.
I screamed one name over and over as the knife plunged into my chest, and I screamed again as he held his hand up to show me my red blood.
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I screamed out and two arms were wrapped around me, I gasped in the dim hotel room ans I struggled against the tight restraint. I was gulping down air greedily and arching my back as I cried out and fell to pieces as a hand smoothed my hair softly back as my head fell back against a shoulder and I cried out and took long breaths. I struggled again and cried out in panic as I slapped a hand over my chest and found everything still intact, the familiar comfort of my stone pendant under the turtleneck sweater and I relaxed back into Loki's chest and sobbed. He started rocking me and let me just cry it out and I turned in his arms to lay against his shoulder and slowly stopped shaking a tiny bit at a time.
I groaned and chewed at my thumb in my fear induced state and his hand gently moved my fingers away from my mouth and I relaxed after a while.
"You don't have to tell me," He said and rubbed my back between my shoulders. "You are safe now, it is over." I sighed into his neck and sniffed, feeling embarrassed and scared, but I knew that only one thing is inevitable in this awful world and the truth of it was painful to even voice.
"I am going to die aren't I?" I asked and turned my head to look out the window and his arms tightened around me, and I felt him tense briefly and relax under my cheek and I tried not to cry again.
"No." He said firmly, and his arms tightened more. "I will not allow that to happen…ever."
I settled into him and held onto him for some semblance of support and slowly he untangled himself from me, he sighed and looked into my eyes.
"You are not going to die, not while I live. You have my word on that, I will die myself to keep you living." He said to me and I saw the truth in his eyes, and sat back on my knees not knowing how to react to his promise. This had just become uncharted territory, and I was scared and without a map. Butterflies formed in my stomach and I looked down in nervousness, I bit my lower lip and felt him shift across from me and glanced up.
"Are you better?" He asked me and I nodded as I sank back onto the mattress and he reached out and lifted my face, looking at me and searching for any signs of a lie. My heart skipped a beat as he looked at me, really looked at me and I pulled back a bit.
"I will be, just give me a moment." I said and he stood up straightening his clothes and using his power to clean the traces of my tears away. He handed me my sweater and I stood up and walked into the bathroom quietly, washing my face and groaning into the rough towel as I looked into the mirror and let my hair down. I raked my fingers through it, and jumped out of my skin when a green sleeved arm popped up behind me holding my hairbrush and laughed nervously as I took it.
"Goofball." I said and he regarded me with amusement.
"I have never been called that before." He said and watched as I tamed my mop of hair and braided it into something manageable before tying it off and pulling my sweater over my head and leaned against the door frame of the bathroom. Watching him pick up a binder and scan a tourism brochure as I let myself stop being afraid for a bit.
"You know." I said and he looked up from the binder and turned on his heels to face me. "For a guy who is supposed to be a jerk, you are pretty compassionate."
He gave a snort and genuinely smiled as I crossed my arms, and debated being a complete idiot, but decided against it as he looked at me and smiled.
"Is that such a terrible thing?" He said, challenging me gently.
'No." I said and shook my head and he smiled back at me as he continued to look through the brochure and then glanced back up at me. "It is just cool to see that part of you, let it out more sometime."
He looked up at me and studied me carefully as I pushed away from the door frame and sat down on the foot of the bed to put my boots on and began lacing them as I smoothed my socks over my feet. Loki set the brochure back on the desk and leaned back against it and crossed his arms.
"Well Little Mouse, you have found a hole to get in." He said and I looked up at him, not quite understanding the analogy and shaking it off. "But we have other problems to sort through, what is your current plan to solve what we face now?"
"Aren't you the one who has to be in control all the time? The guy with the master plan for everything?" I said to him and he jerked his head back and he held his hands out.
"You are the expert on this realm, and I look for your advice in this." He said and I thought about it as I leaned forward and sighed. Thinking and my stomach rumbled at me again, I was hungry and needed more food.
I laughed and finished tying my boots slowly, and relaxed back casually onto my hands and thought for a bit. There was a option, several really, and my brain fired and went into overdrive. Coming to the decision that the best route to remain invisible was easy and obvious. Seattle. We could get lost among the crowd, and hide out there until Heimdall sent Thor and the rest if the fight was over in Asgard, and I hoped it was. I made a mental list of everything we were going to need, and mentally went over how much money I had left.
"Well, first let's eat and then we will need to go to that hardware store for some tools and other supplies. It is probably not a good idea for us to stay here too long, you being you and the obvious reasons behind that, and me being hunted by our evil friend." I said as I put my jacket on and felt my stomach rumble again.
"How do you propose we leave here? This seems a bit remote, and you are still too weak to travel or use your gifts." He said as he put on his own coat, and I picked up the room keys and put them in my pants pocket, and sighed.
"I will explain it later." I said and he raised his eyebrows at me. "Food and tools now, the rest of the plan can be hammered out later."
I opened the door and he walked out into the hall and I checked the handle to make sure the door was secure and shut it quietly. A million questions ran through my head, but I was too tired and hungry again to ask them all. We walked down the stairs and I thought about the woman and child he once had, and wondered if he ever thought about them. I pushed the thought out and away as we left the building through the lobby doors, and I shivered and buttoned my jacket up to my neck. It was none of my business really, and I felt awkward as hell for revealing the stuff about myself earlier. What the hell was wrong with me.
We turned and walked the footpath to the stairs that lead down the embankment to the town below us, and he stopped me and looked at me worried.
"No one knows about them….." He said and I nodded and smiled at him completely understanding what he meant. I opened my mouth to assure him I would say nothing, but he stopped me before I could speak. "I miss them both every day."
"Maybe someday, you will have a second chance to have them again. Life is like that, second chances and all that." I said and he let me continue walking down the stairs, and he blinked at me as I walked on. I nearly stumbled when my foot missed a step, and he caught me before I fell down twenty five feet of concrete stairs.
"Please be careful." He said and I laughed, and continued walking down the stairs.
"I'm not made of glass, I think I would at least bounce a bit of the way down." I quipped and he looked at me sternly and I giggled.
"I do not find that funny." Loki replied and followed me as I walked. We turned down the main drag and found a little hole in the wall Italian Restaurant that looked pretty decent, and he opened the door for me as I walked past him. The waitress looked him up and down, and basically ignored me obvious in her not liking my existence and it showed in the way she went out of her way to openly flirt with Loki in front of me as she showed us a table.
She handed him his menu and began making recommendations and going over the wine list while giving him great views of her cleavage, I looked through my menu as he completely ignored her chest and annoyed her in his actions. I wanted to gut the bitch with the salad fork in front of me and looked up at her and smiled and set my menu aside. She licked her lips and pouted at Loki, I rolled my eyes as she leaned a hip close to him and twirled a bit of her blonde hair around her finger. She giggled and I growled internally, I somehow managed to keep my inner bitch back.
'Is the Ricotta Ravoli any good?" I asked her, forcing her to acknowledge my existence, obviously irritating her.
"It is." She said tersely and asked Loki what he would like and he looked down her shirt accidentally, his eyes staring at her huge breasts for a second too long. I kicked his foot under the table and he jerked a bit and turned his head toward me and I smiled and shrugged as I rested my chin on my hand.
"What would you like to eat?" I asked him and he swallowed while looking at me in embrassment.
"The Fettuccini you recommended sounds good." He said and looked at me with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. "And my lovely friend would like her Ravioli if it is not a problem."
The waitress frowned at the mention of me and sighed as she wrote down our orders and went off with an extra swish of her hips and winked at him as she left. I glared at her, and she grinned at him over her shoulder as I internally pictured how many ways I could kill a woman with a shrimp fork.
"Do I sense a bit of jealously Little Mouse." He said to me and I rolled my eyes at that thought and pulled my phone out of my pocket and started tapping apps.
"You wish." I said and opened Angry Birds, a grin broke out on his face in amusement, ignoring him I began catapulting computerized birds across my screen at green pigs.
"She got any closer, your face would have ended up between her tits though, she should have just blown you right there." I grumped at him and continued shooting the birds across the screen. Ignoring him and doing a pretty good job of it as he chuckled to himself. I was not about to give him the benefit of attention right then.
Under the table, his hand squeezed my knee and I jumped up nearly turning over the table and dropping the phone into my lap. He laughed openly at my reaction as our food was brought back out to us by the waitress and she patted his shoulder as she left. I was going to get into a fight unless someone stopped me, I could sense it. Either Loki or the waitress would be my target, it was just a matter of who irritated me more.
"Hilarious." I said and turned off the phone, shoving it back into my pocket angrily as Loki picked up his fork and began eating. I stabbed a ravioli and took a bite of it and put the rest of it in my mouth.
"That was rather amusing" He said as he put a forkful of food into his mouth and I rolled my eyes and stabbed another innocent ravioli, picturing it being one of her eyes in my head.
"I am so freaking glad you are entertained, wait until I stab that bitch with a fork." I said and he looked at me concerned. "Besides, the real fun will be when we steal a car, see how amused you are then."
I chewed the food in my mouth and smiled at him as he shifted uncomfortably a bit at the thought of me going Quest for Fire with a fork on the waitress and stealing a car to escape.
"We are eventually going to steal a car, we need to get to Seattle." I said and ate another mouthful of food, my hand tightening around my fork as the waitress walked by again and asked him if everything was to his satisfaction. He confirmed that everything was good, and waved her away dismissively and part of me cheered at her annoyance.
I am not jealous…..really I am not fucking jealous.
"Is that what the tools will be for?" He asked me and I nodded instead of talking with my mouth full. I loosened my grip on the fork as the waitress looked at me nervously and left, I watched her leave and wondered if I would ever be able to repeat the face I gave her for use later.
"We have some options on how to get to Seattle." I said. "We can take the Kingston Ferry, drive to Bainbridge Island and take that ferry across, cross the Narrows Bridge, or drive around through Olympia." I put another ravioli in my mouth and chewed while he turned the options over in his head, and thought carefully.
"Which option are you thinking of?" He asked and looked at me seriously. I thought about it for a second, and pushed the food around my plate as I thought.
"Three of our four options have cameras," I said and sighed. 'We don't know who is watching them, and it is a four to six hour drive from here to Olympia and then into into Seattle, so we really have to think it through. My thoughts are on going through Olympia, and taking our chances on the road." I said and twirled the fork in my fingers thinking about the risks of driving a stolen car that far.
"I have stolen cars before, but I have never had an actual known fugitive with me. Who knows what will happen if we get caught."
"You have thought of everything, but I don't know why we should return to Seattle. Your former slave owner is looking to get you, and are there not monitored cameras there?" Loki said and I pressed my lips together in thought.
"Because it is harder to hide in a city than a small town like this, someone is eventually figure out who you are, and then we will have a whole new set of problems. And he is not a slave owner, he paid me for the work. Completely different if you really think about it." I said and ate more of the food, feeling full.
"You are clever," He said and pushed his plate away. "I hope this plan of yours is successful."
He wiped his hands and mouth on the cloth napkin as the waitress returned with the check, I left enough money for the food but no tip out of spite, and we both walked back out onto the darkened Port Townsend streets. I popped the mint from the tray into my mouth and held it between my teeth as we walked.
Loki stopped me half way to the hardware store, turning me and looked at me seriously. I looked at him and sucked the mint back nervously, his face was intense and I felt nervous.
"I had no interest in the servant girl." He said and I looked back at him with a bit of awkward surprise, and laughed.
"Dude, I was just trying to save you from a trip to the free clinic. She obviously gets around, and well, she was going to give you some really raunchy syphilis or something even worse." I said and laughed at his confusion and turned to walk on.
"Free clinic?" He asked, grabbing my arm gently as we continued to walk, and I laughed harder.
"Oh Loki, you see, if you don't wrap your little Jotun, and then you have sex with a nasty girl like her. You will wake up one day and it hurts when you pee. After that you have to visit a doctor, and get a shot of penicillin and get that cleared up." I laughed as he rolled his eyes, and chuckled at my joke.
"Please tell me that was a joke." He said and I laughed again.
"Awkward as it is to have 'the talk' with a guy older than me, it is a sad fact of life here, another reason I don't jump from guy to guy. There are plenty of really nasty things you can catch from people." I quipped, and he nodded at my logic and held the door to the hardware store open for me.
"Please don't make references like that again, I am not exactly enjoying being who I am." He said and I sighed.
"Sorry, you get treated like dirt for being born the way you were, it is not like you asked for it." I said as I grabbed a cart and looked back at him. 'I don't see why people in Asgard can't get over that crap, it is stupid really. I thought they were supposed to be all wise and shit like that, turns out they are just another race of bigots."
I walked down an isle and tossed a map of Washington and a map of the Olympic Peninsula into the cart, and tried to reach a box of screwdrivers over my head and Loki removed one and handed it to me.
"It really does not matter to you what I am?" He asked seriously and I smiled back at him as I picked out a small flashlight and rolled my eyes. I called up and image of a Geisha on my phone, and showed him the screen and he looked at her and then back at me.
"I am a quarter Japanese, does it make me a bad person? The only feature I got from my bloodline is being short, and I am super good at math. But it does not make me any less me." I said and he handed me back the phone and smiled at me as I tossed the flashlight into the cart and turned.
"I can see now why you are also so pale." He said and I laughed at him.
"She is wearing traditional makeup, I am pale because I am also part Irish. Get over what you are and start being who you want to be." I picked up a pair of pliers and Loki looked at the items that stocked the shelves, openly bored as I tossed the pliers in the basket. I rounded the end of the Isle and grabbed a few bags of candy, and opened a cooler and grabbed a couple Cokes for later. I looked back at Loki and stopped and sighed.
"I actually appreciate that you are here, and that you are keeping me alive. You also have taught me some pretty cool stuff, you know way more than I do about whatever it is I am, and I would feel really freaking lost if I were alone right now." I said and he smiled back at me crookedly. "I would be scared, and you being here with me makes me feel better about this whole scary situation."
He stopped and looked down as we walked up to the cashier, and hid in his own thoughts as I paid for the items in the cart and the person handed me the bags. I opened the door and walked back out into the street as a misty fog began rolling in and I started feeling tired again. Wanting a hot bath and to wash my hair, maybe after I could look at the maps and make some decisions, but I felt grimy and cruddy.
Loki took the bags from me and offered me his elbow as we walked, and I put my hand in it happily. I smiled up at him as the mist began to get heavier, and I really didn't feel all that lonely in the world anymore. Like no matter what, the big jerk had my back. We turned up the stairs and he let me go ahead of him and I had to stop and rest a bit on the way up thanks to the food we had just eaten, and I leaned on the railing as he stopped and looked up at me.
"Is it me, or are these stairs steeper going up this time?" I asked and he laughed at me.
"Perhaps a bit." He said and I laughed back at him as I rested.
"Aren't you supposed to be a God or something? What getting old?" I said teasing him and he looked up at me with a look of annoyance. And I turned to start walking up again, and he followed.
"I have a thousand years on you girl." He said and I stopped and looked down at him with my mouth open.
"You have aged well." I said and he stopped again and looked up at me and rolled his eyes as I scrambled up some more stairs to avoid a swat.
"For a fossil." I laughed and turned to see him putting both bags into one of his hands and he flipped me the bird.
"I taught you that." I said laughing and we both walked the paved path back to the lobby.