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There were few things more upsetting than the sight of a sick child.
Volstagg’s children tended to be boisterous, loud, and unruly, and he loved them all the more for it. That he could have had any hand in raising such wondrously lively creatures made him too proud for words. They were his joy, his motivation, his life, for all that they sometimes drove he and his darling wife to distraction. And that spark of theirs’ was one that so often refused to go out. Even in their sleep, they were shifting, tossing, turning, restless things. Even when hurt, they often chomped at the bit to go right back out and get hurt again.
Sickness, however, was an insidious thing that sucked the life out of even the most hearty child. Sickness stole their breath and their warmth and their energy, and even after all the dedicated nursing and care he and his wife provided, there was still often nothing to do but wait. Sickness dulled the spark that otherwise seemed so resilient and indomitable in children, especially his own.
So when Thor turned up at his door late one night, bearing a feverish Loki in his arms, Volstagg felt the breath leave his lungs in a rush at the sight of the boy. Loki was clinging to Thor, head nestled against his brother’s shoulder but tilted just enough that he could stare at Volstagg with clouded, unfocused, bloodshot eyes.
Volstagg had opened the door and motioned for them to come in even before Thor could open his mouth. His friend nodded his thanks and did just that. Loki turned to press his face against the crook of Thor’s neck with a protesting whimper as the darkness of outside gave way to the light of the living room. Thor replied with soft shushing sounds, bringing up a hand to shield Loki’s eyes.
“I found him,” said Thor, quietly, without looking up at Volstagg. “When he did not come to greet me upon my return, I grew concerned, and sought him out. I found him, my friend, collapsed on the floor of his room. He cannot even remember how long he was there.”
Oh. Volstagg felt the bottom drop out of his ample stomach. “Two or three days, perhaps,” he said quietly. “That is the last time I remember seeing him at breakfast in the feasting hall.”
Thor looked up at Volstagg steadily, barely controlled rage roiling behind his steely blue eyes, and he knew what his friend was thinking. Could not even blame him for thinking it. Truth be told, Thor had steadily become as much father as brother to Loki since his return. Even if the Thunderer did not see it that way, Volstagg knew that look in the eyes from looking in a mirror. If he had found one of his children so neglected in his absence, he wasn’t sure he would be quite so composed about it, even if only on the surface.
“I am sorry, Thor,” Volstagg continued on. “All I will say in my defense is that I did not mean to leave the boy alone in his hour of need. I did not even know he had come into one. You must know that Loki keeps to himself, most days, especially when you are gone. Sometimes, he isn’t even in Asgardia at all. I only thought he was busy with his own affairs.”
It was an explanation that was all the better for being the truth. For all that Loki had genuinely frightened Volstagg at times, in the past, he had no desire to see children suffer. Not even Loki. Maybe even especially not Loki.
He knew that Thor didn’t want explanations – Thor wanted recompense, Thor wanted to make it better. That was what Volstagg would have wanted to do, in his place. The vibrating tension with no chance of release thrummed in fine tremors throughout the Thunderer’s body. But even Asgardia’s healers could only do so much against sickness, without compromising the body that housed it. More often than not, the only thing to do was carefully tend and wait and try not to drive yourself into a fit.
Volstagg knew that he was not, perhaps, quite so valiant a warrior as Thor. There were, however, certain areas where he was far more skilled, and always would be. That sort of dedicated patience was one such domain.
Something in Thor’s expression seemed to crack, as he dredged up the words he said next. He hesitated, visibly, but forced himself. “I cannot stay. Not long enough to see him recover. I only returned to report to the All-Mother. I thought…” He closed his eyes, looking suddenly so very old. Took in a deep breath that Volstagg could hear rattle around in his lungs, and let it out slowly. When he spoke, it was with a level, deliberate tone of calm that nevertheless rang utterly false. “…I would stay with him. But I can’t, and I fear I would do him precious little good even if I could.” He looked up at Volstagg, and there was a note of something hopeful, almost desperate, in his deep blue eyes. He stumbled over the words, as though trying to force them out all at once, as though charging an enemy that might otherwise shake even his steely nerves. “He speaks of you often, Volstagg. I know you have been kind to him in the past, far more than most.”
Ah.
Volstagg had barely said a handful of words to the boy since they had parted the morning after the Serpent’s fall. Though he had tried to protect Loki during Thor’s imprisonment, he had avoided him after, even upon remembering that he had made the oath at all. The fact that he had been talked in to doing what he had, talked in to helping Thor die even for the sake of all, still left Volstagg feeling shaken to his core.
Oh, he wondered glumly. Would you still fuss over and love this child so if you knew what he condemned you to?
Of course he would. After all, there had been no other choice. To say nothing of the fact that none had mourned for Thor as fiercely as Loki.
Of course he would, because Loki was a child, and no child should have to pay such a heavy price for mistakes that were not even entirely theirs’.
“Give him here,” said Volstagg, reaching out his arms. Gratitude showed plainly on Thor’s face, and he handed Loki over with only a moment’s further hesitation. Loki stirred faintly as he was passed over, as Volstagg bundled him close as he had so many children in years past. Younger men might mock the ample bulk of his stomach, but it certainly gave a good bit of support in that regard. He looked to Thor, worry and confusion making their way through the haze of his eyes.
Thor drew nearer, just enough to run his fingers with rare, true gentleness through Loki’s matted hair. “It’s all right, brother.” He spoke, even if Volstagg privately doubted that Loki would remember any of this later. “I will return to see you as soon as I am able. Volstagg will look after you until then.”
He looked to Volstagg as though for confirmation once more, and Loki looked as well, as though realizing only then just who was holding him now. Volstagg nodded to Thor, looked down at the boy, and…damn him. He should probably be insulted, at how the recognition in Loki’s eyes was followed by a weary sort of peace, acceptance. Trust, as the boy moved to cling to him instead, cling with the desperation of every child who was well past the point of caring about anything except feeling better. To trust Loki was a fool’s game, and so to be trusted by him was probably little better.
Damn him, but Volstagg smiled instead.
“We have space in the attic,” he said, shifting Loki just enough to try to get a better sense of the state of him. “It’s quiet, and warm. The children will know better than to go up there, not if they don’t want to share his fate.” Loki’s condition wasn’t good – the boy’s skin was dry and clammy with old sweat, hot with fever. His hair was tangled and matted, his clothes were rumpled and smelled, and their occupant smelled little better. Perhaps most troubling still was that the boy seemed to have gotten, if possible, even thinner and more fragile-seeming. But, of course, if he’d really been left alone for days, if he’d become so sick that even staying awake to change his clothes was too much, that meant he’d had nothing to eat, probably even nothing to drink.
There was no true way he could have known that Loki had come to this, Volstagg knew. And yet, taking in the full wrack and ruin, he couldn’t help a feeling of hot, sick rage at himself, and resentment at the rest of Asgardia’s people. No child should suffer like this, and Loki was – for all that he seemed to try so hard to seem otherwise, for all that the people around him found it easy to forget – a child. Someone should have looked. Someone should have seen. Children were to be taken care of.
“We’ll have a healer over in the morning,” he promised. “Never you fear, Thor. He isn’t our first, and he won’t be our last. Not even this year.”
“Thank you, my friend.” Thor clasped his shoulder and smiled, looking as though the weight of the world had just been lifted from him. “I will not forget this.”
“I’ll take care and remind you if you do.” He saw Thor out, closing and locking the door behind him against any other terrors of the night. Then, carrying Loki with truly distressing ease, Volstagg went to wake up Hildegund.
* * *
Loki had long ago lost track of what was real and what was just a fever dream. Ikol had vanished some time ago, feathery wretch that he was. So he had no one to tell him the difference, or to claw and peck at him to keep him awake. Leah was still in her cave, and he'd left Thori with her.
He truly wasn’t sure which this was. It was too…nice to be one of his dreams, but also too nice to be really happening. He felt wretched, of course, weak and sore and sick, but he had almost forgotten what it was like to not feel wretched and so that did not necessarily mean anything. It felt as though someone had stapled gauze to his ears and mouth and eyes, making it hard to hear and breathe and see so that everything felt muffled and far away. That, on the other hand, might be a sign that he was awake. His dreams were not so kind as to come to him through gauzey uncertainty.
Loki’s mind, addled with exhaustion and fever though it was, could still pick up on some details of his surroundings. He remembered being held, remembered Thor’s worried face drifting in and out of focus. Loki wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he might have wept a little with relief on seeing his brother there, after he had resigned himself to dying alone and forgotten on the floor of his room. Thor’s touch – a hand against his forehead, brushing through his hair, arms around him – had been gentle and careful, yet heavy and solid enough to ground Loki at least for a little while.
He remembered dark, then light, the sense of movement that wasn’t his. He remembered murmured voices, and a different pair of arms around him. Now Volstagg’s face, staring down at him in concern, and Loki had started to wonder if this was all just a dream again before sliding out of consciousness once more.
Loki came back once more with the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. A woman’s voice in his ear, urging him, “Up, boy, you must stay awake! Come now!” He was sitting up, thanks to something hard and solid at his back. Chair, his mind supplied. You’re sitting in a chair. At someone’s table, as though you belong there. He might have giggled a little at the impossibility of it all, before pausing as a hand was pressed lightly to the back of his head and a cup was held to his lips. Doing so reminded him of just how painfully thirsty he was – the last thing he could remember was trying to get more water for himself.
Sure enough, when he parted his lips, Loki felt some water tipped into his mouth, clear and warm. He barely recognized the broken moan of relief that left him as having come from his own voice, and Loki reached out with fumbling fingers to try and take hold of the cup and drain it entirely. He found his efforts brushed aside, but he was rewarded anyway with another swallow. “Easy now, boy,” said the woman’s voice nearby. “I’m not sure if there’s anything left in your stomach, by the look of you, but I think we’d all hate for you to lose it on the floor instead.”
“Thirsty,” Loki heard himself plead senselessly around mouthfuls. Each gulp of water against his parched tongue and throat eased what had fast become an almost ever-present suffering, soothed him as no golden apple ever could. It gave him his voice back. Yet it wasn’t enough, it couldn’t possibly be enough. “I am thirsty. More, please, more, more…”
This time, when the cup was taken away, Loki felt something even more surprising and impossible. An unfamiliar hand at his forehead, smoothing back through his hair. Like Thor might touch him, except this wasn’t Thor’s hand and no one else was nice to him like that. “And you shall have more, my child, but not if it will make you sicker. Sit back, now, and hush.”
He believed her, perhaps only because he had no other choice. In fact, it was less the thirst that still plagued Loki and more the fear of winding up back where he had been – needing water, needing food, but too weak to get it, with no one to help him. But this woman was here, and she was speaking softly and helping him drink, so surely that would not happen again. All the same, for all the good it did, he couldn’t help but ask in a blurry mumble: “Promise?”
“Of course, Loki.” As though to drive home the point, there was the brief sound of running water, and then the cup was brought to his lips for one more swallow. “I promise.”
So satisfied, and knowing that he did not have much choice even if he wasn’t, Loki leaned back heavily against the chair. His eyelids still felt unbearably heavy, and so he let them fall closed once more. The boy was glad in that moment that Ikol seemed to have left him. He was sure that the bird would have chastised him now for acting this way, acting like nothing more than a weak, whimpering child.
Yet he was a child, wasn’t he? Not even a very old one, at that. Most days, it was dangerous to let himself remember that, or let others remember that. Most days, he had to walk a fine line between drawing on the Old Loki’s strength and cunning while shying away from the Old Loki’s madness. Loki was even mostly okay with that, because he was intelligent and curious by nature, so much so that he had followed Thor into this life at all. The pampered and simple life of an ordinary child would never have suited him.
Yet he was a child, in body and perhaps a little in mind. So sometimes Loki nevertheless caught himself wishing – dark, secret, quiet wishes buried so down deep inside that even Ikol could not hear – to be taken care of just a little. To not have to pick himself up off the ground or tend to his own bruises or watch after his health all on his own. Thor did his best, of course, but Thor could not always be here. Thor was not here now, but someone else was, and even though they must know who he was they were nevertheless taking care of him.
All the same, Loki was still sick and weak and his mind was still feverish and dizzied. So when, upon finding himself awake enough to start taking in more details of the world around him, Loki found himself detecting a smell of something cooking, something good that made his achingly empty stomach twist and growl, his first thought was a panicked they’re going to eat me! In the way of the sick and half-asleep, it was a thought that made perfect sense to him. The figure he made out outlined against the glow of firelight, stirring a pot, was absolutely enormous especially compared to him, and that only solidified his wild fears. They’re going to put me in that pot and cook me! I was so thirsty that they had to rehydrate me first, like old jerky! They’re being so soft to me to tenderize me!
He had to get away – he didn’t want to be eaten! Loki tried to force himself to move, to stand. Yet the room was dark and his body felt heavy, sluggish, and slow. When he tried to stand, Loki misjudged the distance to the floor and…found himself suddenly sprawled on the ground. He didn’t remember falling.
“Silly boy, what are you doing?” the woman said, hurrying over and picking him up once more.
Loki tried to thrash and struggle in her grip, but he could barely squirm. “No, no,” he tried to protest. “Don’t eat me…”
Fortunately, he found himself deposited back into his chair, rather than the stew pot he’d been expecting. The woman made a sound it took Loki a second to realize was a laugh, and he found his hair being ruffled. “Eat you? Bah, you’re barely a mouthful, boy. And I’d hate to catch what you’ve got, not when I have far too many children of my own to manage.”
It wasn’t a terribly reassuring thing to say – though some dim part of his mind insisted that she was joking – but it was enough for Loki to sit still and boneless in his chair while a bowl and spoon were placed on the table before him. It was a bowl that he was not in – a bowl for him to eat, not a bowl to be eaten in.
The woman placed the spoon into the bowl, and Loki made a small, broken noise of protest as his first thought was that the food was for her and not for him and he hadn’t eaten in longer than he’d gone without water. She shushed him, however, and offered the spoon to him instead. Obediently, gratefully, Loki opened his mouth.
Oatmeal, his mind supplied him, as the mush slid down his throat. And then, almost as an afterthought: Yuck. It was, however, a thought with no corresponding reaction. His mind knew that he did not like oatmeal, but his mind was clearly not in possession of all the facts. His stomach rumbled and growled demandingly at the first bite, and he’d opened his mouth even before his caretaker had finished filling the next spoonful.
Dimly, as he was helped to work his way bit by bit through the bowl’s contents, Loki was aware that the woman was speaking to him. He couldn’t quite follow what she was saying, but she didn’t sound terribly urgent or upset, so it probably wasn’t important. He wished again that Ikol was here – the bird could listen for him, and tell him later, but Ikol was not here and the food was too good to let him care about anything else.
Footsteps. He could hear footsteps. Loki looked up, and into the flickering circle of dim firelight came the hulking figure he nevertheless recognized as Volstagg.
That was impossible, too. What would Volstagg be doing here, except to make him go away? What would Volstagg he doing here if this was not his house at this dark hour of night? And Volstagg would never let Loki into his house. Stay away from me, Loki. I do not trust myself around you.
Yet the woman – Volstagg’s wife, this is Volstagg’s wife, Hildegund, of course I have seen her before – laid a hand on Loki’s shoulder when he shied away in anxious fear and in doing so nearly fell off the chair again. She looked up at her husband, and therefore so did Loki. “Well?” Hildegund asked.
“The bath is ready,” Volstagg replied. “And I have found some clothes that should fit well enough, though anything much larger than a babe’s swaddlings would be too large on this stick of a child.”
“Good enough,” she said with a nod, before looking to Loki. “Go and get yourself scrubbed, then. You smell like a barn.” She smiled, reaching out to pat him on the cheek, and spoke in a tone that he couldn’t disbelieve as amusement. “And remember it’s a bath, not a stew pot.”
Loki thought he should be proud of himself for even managing to scowl, but Hildegund only laughed. And when he tried to stand up from the chair, it was only to find himself scooped up once more by Volstagg, who grumbled, “Ridiculous child,” before carrying him away and up the stairs.
They passed through two connected bedrooms crowded with beds and other sleeping bodies, and then up a ladder into a large, warm room where a bed and a full tub had been squeezed in by the window, around boxes and old furniture. The tub was full of water. There were bubbles in it.
Volstagg set Loki down on the bed and, working together, they managed to get him undressed. Then, with Volstagg lending his support, Loki actually managed to make it the few steps from the bed to the tub and clamber in without falling or otherwise injuring himself again. His legs might have felt as weak as a newborn kitten’s, but Volstagg’s legs were like tree trunks and his grip was strong.
The water was warm, and smelled nice. Loki sank into it with a wince of shock at first, as the bubbles and soap came into contact with his sweat-stained skin. But then the warmth started to seep beneath his skin, gentle where the heat of the fever had ravaged him, relaxing muscles made cramped and sore by lack of movement and sleeping on the floor for too long. It was intensely, blissfully pleasant, and Loki leaned back against the side of the tub with a contented hum, closing his eyes.
“None of that,” Volstagg harrumphed, cutting through the pleasant haze. He reached down to shake Loki carefully by one shoulder. In response, the boy opened his eyes with a protesting grumble and forced himself to sit up. He saw Volstagg uncapping a bottle of Broxton shampoo, and, taking his cue, quickly closed his eyes again before it was poured out over his head.
For all that Volstagg was one of Thor’s most trusted warrior friends, he worked the shampoo in and through Loki’s tangled, matted hair with a gentleness and care that would have surprised anyone who did not know him. Of course, this could not have been the first time he had found himself needed to help tend to a sick child. For all that Volstagg’s children had always seemed aggressively boisterous and hardy, whenever Loki had seen them around, everyone got sick sometime. So for a long, long moment he let himself just sit and enjoy the feeling. When he asked for a sponge to wash the rest of himself, however, Volstagg obliged, and Loki did what he could to help so that Volstagg did not have to bother any longer than necessary.
It was a slow, painstaking effort, broken by periodically closing his eyes to avoid soap and water as his head was sluiced clean. Such a slight thing as bathing still left Loki exhausted and trembling just a little, sick as he was, heart pounding a little too hard and head spinning. At last, however, Volstagg finally deemed him clean enough to be helped out of the bath. After that, Odin be praised, Loki just had to stay upright long enough to change into the clean clothes that had been laid out for him. As predicted, they were too big, but they were clean against his skin and it was the second-best feeling in the world.
The best feeling was being able to finally being able to collapse on a bed with cool, clean sheets and a pillow beneath his throbbing head.
Volstagg, damn him, bless him, tucked Loki in. He brushed the boy’s damp hair back from his face, and held him up just long enough to take a little more water. Then, without another word, he turned away.
Loki, for his part, thought he should be proud of the speed with which he reached out to grab the man’s sleeve. He missed, of course, but it still got the warrior’s attention. He turned just enough to look down at Loki, but at such an angle and in such a dark attic room, lit only by the starlight shining in from the window, Loki couldn’t read the look in his eyes.
He went for broke anyway. “Thank you,” he said, in a voice that sounded worlds away from the cracked and broken sound he’d barely been able to recognize as his own a while ago. “Thank you, Volstagg. I know you did not have to do this for me, but for what little it is worth, I do want you to know that I am grateful. When I am well, I will find some way to repay you. I swear it.” He winced in saying the words, knowing that they would not be believed, but he said them anyway and meant them with all his battered heart. If he hadn’t been found by Thor, cared for by Volstagg and Hildegund, Loki knew that he could have died. Alone and forgotten, he would have died.
There wasn’t much that scared Loki, anymore, but that was a thought that somehow left him chilled down to the bones in a way that even the fever could not manage.
With that thought in mind, to say nothing of the memories of all the reasons why Volstagg should not be helping him, Loki couldn’t help but flinch slightly as the warrior reached out to him, closing his eyes in a reflexive anticipation of a blow.
What came instead was a pat on the head.
“Sleep now, Loki,” Volstagg ordered, a gruff note in his voice that couldn’t quite cover up the worry that was there as well. “Sleep and speak nonsense no longer.”
He wanted to sleep. He wanted so very much to sleep. His entire body felt heavy, muscles aching, eyelids heavy as twin Mjolnirs. His head still felt stuffed full of cotton, and his skin still felt feverish with a heat that somehow left him feeling chilled at the same time.
Yet the bed and the pillow were both so soft beneath him, with the sheet a comforting weight that covered him without overpowering the attic’s natural warmth. There was a window waiting to let in a breeze if he wanted it. He was hydrated, fed, and clean, and now Loki wanted so much to sleep. Maybe, like this, he would even be spared his usual nightmares.
Maybe…but Loki knew better. So he could not bring himself to let go of Volstagg’s sleeve. He knew that he had no right to ask anything of this man after already being given so much, far more than he deserved. And yet, in a voice that was somewhere between a whisper and a whimper: “Will you…will you s-stay?” In a small, broken, and above all humiliated voice, he added: “Please?”
He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to wake on the floor of his room and find that this had been just a painfully sweet dream.
Yet when Volstagg let out a long, heavy, and above all tired sigh, before gently disentangling the boy’s fingers from his sleeve, Loki was prepared to endure his fears quietly without another word.
“Let me get a chair, at least. I’m too old to be sitting on these floors.”
Loki’s gasp of delighted relief earned him another pat on the head, and then Volstagg moved away and, presumably, deeper into the attic in search of a chair. Maybe he was really going in search of one, maybe he really meant to stay. Maybe not. Maybe they’d just been reassuring words.
He never knew for certain, because the boy let his eyes fall closed and he was asleep within seconds.
He couldn’t get used to this. That much Loki knew. In fact, to even stay here any longer than absolutely necessary could not be allowed. After all, for it to be known that he was in the care of Volstagg and his family would invite negative scrutiny and scorn that Loki would never dare to inflict on people who had dared to be kind to him. No, as soon as he could walk across a room an digest solid foods once more, he would leave, and life would return to business as usual for all. It would certainly only take a few days. Ikol would probably return even before that to urge him out.
Yet, just this once, when he awoke with a terrified cry from a nightmare of fire and death, there was someone there. Someone to make soft, meaningless shushing noises, someone to hold him steady and pet him gently. There was someone there when he awoke to tell him that everything was all right and that he was safe.
They were meaningless words – lies, even – but they were lies he wanted to believe and sometimes that was enough. When Hildegund hugged him tightly, letting him shudder and sob himself empty of terror in her arms, that was far from a meaningless gesture, especially not when she chased away the memory of burning with a fresh drink of water.
This couldn’t last forever. This couldn’t even last long. For now, however, just for now – with Leah and Thori far away and no Ikol to remind him of what he was – Loki thought he could be allowed to just be a child.
Nothing lasted forever. All he could do was savor this while it did, and pray that it never became necessary again.