(no subject)

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

Time: September 28, 2000
Place: Loki's Room
Status: Private (Uriel, Loki)
Summary: Confronting and comforting.


Uriel was quite happy as she made her way back from yet another check-up. Everything was going perfectly well, she had been assured. Both she and little Bran were doing well, and things seemed to be developing at a normal pace. Activity, weight gain, everything matched her current stage.

Loki should be happy to hear this, she suspected. At the very least he might be interested in knowing what she was going to call her child.

With this in mind, she headed towards Loki's room. Knocking on the door, she asked, "May I come in?"

Comments

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"Hair? Oh, that. You only noticed that now?" What could he tell her so she stopped pushing?

"It grows back when you take a break with the medicines." Partial truth had always worked great on Odin. "They're too strong to take for long periods of time."

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Ah." Uriel nodded, accepting the explanation. She could tell there was something missing from this, but Loki wasn't outright lying, so... "Now, seriously. How many times do I have to ask before you believe I won't stop bugging you before you tell me what is wrong?"

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"I ..." Oh fuck, lets get this over with. If she hated him for it she'd leave and at least leave him alone. "I told Crowley that Ezra was the father of your baby. I thought, I'd be a good rumour to start. I mean if they think it fully one of theirs, the 'angels' would protect the baby and the others would expect them to and not dare attack you."

There, he'd said it. She'd know that he was telling the truth, wouldn't she?

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

For perhaps the first time since she'd first met him in Odin's room, Uriel hoped to find signs of lying from Loki. She could sense none.

For a moment she just stared at the god, not knowing what to say or do. Loki had told such a lie? For her? Except that it wouldn't work...

"That was very Viking of you, Loki," she said softly. "However, it's of little use. Angels and demons don't work the way Norsemen do. We do protect our own, especially against the other side, but only as long as rules are followed. In all cases I know of when angels have had children, the ones to bring punishment have been other angels. And if thinking the child is an angel would keep demons from attacking it, then how would any demons attack any angels? I do understand where you are coming from, but it just doesn't work that way. And besides," she added then quietly, "I fear that as soon as he has been born, those able to sense it will notice that my son is not an angel." She realized then that this was the first time she had revealed the baby's gender to anyone (she wasn't counting Bast, who had first told her). She also wondered whether Loki would even notice it in his current condition.

"But why tell Crowley? Do you think making him jealous of me would make him not want to hurt me? And who ever would believe that of Aziraphale? Michael, maybe, if he hadn't Fallen well before the conception, but never Aziraphale. And how, exactly, would telling this lie make you this upset? Lying has hardly bothered you ever before."

She continued petting him absently, wondering what she should think of this. On one hand, she did trust Loki when he said he had wanted to help her and little Bran, but on the other hand, he had hurt others without accomplishing nothing...

She sighed. "You, Loki, are truly a troublesome brother," she remarked.

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"They'd ... kill their own blood?" And he'd been upset with Odin for hurting his children even though only one of them had actually been killed and he didn't think that had been Odin's original intention. "You not-gods really are monsters."

It wasn't really an insult. Loki liked most of the creatures generally referred to as monsters.

"Well, Crowley ... he was going on how he could kill all the manor's animals and I could do nothing about it and then he even said the baby was Odin's and I just wanted to hurt him back. I talked him into doubting Ezra, I suppose, and for some reason instead of just fucking asking Ezra he told John and now John hates me and I don't really know why. It was just a little rumour and a tiny bit of needling Crowley."

He did indeed miss the reference to the baby's gender in between all the questions and the shocking news about the customs of the allegedly kind and loving gang of not-gods.

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

Uriel smiled sadly. "You would be shocked to know just what my kind would do," she said quietly. "Yes, we are monsters -- demons and angels alike."

At Loki's next words, she couldn't help but laugh despite her better judgement. "Odin's? He'd really think me that desperate?" she laughed. "If I managed to go without a gender for six millennia, I doubt I could suddenly become so deprived of sex that I would sleep with my own brother... Or does he think I'm mad enough to get pregnant on purpose? And how on Earth could even you make those two doubt each other? They have been practically joined at the hip for centuries even though they may not have been lovers for long!"

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"I didn't expect it to work this fast either, but then John burst in on me and demanded to know the truth," Loki said just barely suppressing a sob. "I definitely got Crowley convinced enough that he made John doubt Ezra."

He rolled over to look up at Uriel.

"I thought John was my friend."

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

Uriel swallowed. She knew all too well what it was like to lose a friend over something she had done. For a moment she was about to offer words of comfort, but then realization dawned on her and her curiosity wrong over for a moment.

"John? As in, John Constantine? Since when have you considered him your friend?"

She supposed it would have been horribly selfish of her to truly assume that she was the only one left in the Manor who was in any way important to Loki, but... she hadn't expected this. Especially not John, seeing how close the human seemed to Crowley and how much Loki seemed to dislike the demon. And the mere notion of Loki actually befriending a human...

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"Well, ... He's sorta cool," Loki admitted slightly embarrassed at having let on that he actually cared about a human. "And we get along real well ... That is we got along real well until now. He knows how not to bother me when I want to be left alone and ... also a lot of other interesting things. And he doesn't mind my paintings. Can keep a secret, too. Actually, I just liked him on sight. Don't know why, but that happens sometimes, I suppose."

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Uriel smiled sadly again. So Loki had gained a friend in the Manor, only to lose them because he was trying to help her? Even if he had had his own motivations for it -- like protecting his precious animals -- it was still because of her. And here she had been thinking there was at least one person she cared about that she hadn't harmed or troubled in any way!

"He'll come around eventually," she said, sincerely hoping so. "It's not like you can help being what you are. And if he can't understand that, then he's not worth your friendship. Besides, even an idiot would know that Aziraphale isn't able to father any child. The mere thought of him sleeping with any female-shaped being is just ridiculous. If nothing else makes that clear, then they'll at least realize their foolishness when Bran is born and they see he doesn't resemble Aziraphale at all." This time, the mention of the child's gender -- and name -- were deliberate. She was determined to cheer Loki up in any way she could think of.

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"Bran, eh?" Loki tried to laugh. He didn't think John would come around. Most people didn't like him once they got to know him. So he tried not to think about it instead, put it behind him. "Not Brenda?"

So Uriel remembered that he liked the name Bran, did she? Somehow that made him feel almost loved, if only by one lonely and monstrous not-god.

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Of cours he's going to be Bran," Uriel said calmly. "For one thing, I'm calling myself Brenda and I happen to think Juniors are just ridiculous, and for another, I hardly can name a boy Brenda, now can I? And I happen to like the name, so I could just as well use it."

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"So what if it is a girl, then?" Loki asked and snuggled up to Uriel so he could put his ear against her belly. "Are you a little girl in there? If so, do you want to be called Bran?"

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Bast told me it's going to be a boy," Uriel said. "She's the goddess of pregnant women among other times, so she should know. And if the child is a girl after all, well, then I'm in a bit of a trouble, right?"

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"Bast?" Loki repeated slightly doubtfully. "Are you sure you can trust what Bast says? She confuses boys and girls with toms and queens most of the time."

Frigga had never been able to predict the gender of his children, though there was a tiny little rest of doubt nagging that she just hadn't wanted to.

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Well, at least she confuses them the right way," Uriel said, doing her best to sound cheerful. "She might call the baby a kitten half of the time, but I do trust her to know it about as much as I trust you not to tell the truth. And it's not like I can have an ultrasound to try to find it out."

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"Why would you have to know, though?" Loki asked patting her round belly lovingly. "I never knew the gender of any of my children before they were born. Back then nobody did."

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Well, now I can at least pick baby clothes in colours that aren't gender-neutral," Uriel said. "Although I think it's just ridiculous to think that blue is for boys and pink is for girls, it might mislead people if I dressed a baby girl in blue or something. I don't have to think of any girl names, and, well, I'm curious. It's always been a flaw of mine. And besides, call it selfish or anything you'd like, but I like the thought of knowing my baby's gender before anybody else. Only Bast knows it, and now you."

That, and she wanted to know as much about her child as possible when she still could. Despite all Adam's power, she might lose him, and then it would be too late. But she wasn't about to tell Loki that.

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"You spoiled the surprise for yourself, though," Loki commented, but was paying much more attention to her belly than to her words.

He hoped that Bast had told the truth. Not because he wanted the baby to be a boy, no. Girls were fine with him, too. He wanted to know the baby, though and he most likely never would. It didn't seem so much longer until it was born, but he doubted that he'd live that long.

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"No, I didn't. It was a surprise to me when Bast told me," Uriel said. "And in my life most surprises have been bad ones, so it was nice for a chance to be surprised by something that would be fine either way. And besides," she added quietly, swallowing, "if Bast hadn't told me, I might have never got the chance to let you know that I am indeed going to use your name suggestion."

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

Loki looked up in surprise at that.

"Are you really?" He'd thought she'd been merely teasing. He was very aware that Bran was an outdated and very much not Judeo-Christian name. It was the very things that appealed to him about the name that Uriel was supposed to dislike.

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Of course I am!" Uriel said, surprised that Loki might have even doubted that. "Why would I have told you I'm going to call him Bran if it wasn't true? I think it's a sweet name, myself, in both how it sounds and what it means. Why on Earth wouldn't I use it? It's definitely better than anything I could come up with. All I can think of are artists' names and Michael, and the former would be too obvious and the latter would hardly be appreciated nowadays."

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

"Well, I thought you'd want something that goes with your pantheon," Loki admitted. "So how is little Bran today? He seems pretty quiet in there."

Somehow he was glad that the baby wasn't kicking all the time. He knew what that felt like. On the other hand he liked to feel the kicks when he touched Uriel's belly. It was the only way he had to interact with Bran.

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

"Why would I want something going with my pantheon if he isn't going to be an angel?" asked Uriel, confused. "And if he does turn out to be an angel, somebody will sooner or later start calling him Braniel or something equally silly."

Then, she started to smile. "Actually, I just had a check-up, and little Bran is doing perfectly well," she told him. "Everything is about as well as it can be!"

As though to confirm this, Bran chose this very moment to kick enthusiastically.