neutral_omens | (no subject)

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Time: October 20, 2000
Place: The Stairs
Status: Public (Complete)
Summary: Maybe stopping to take those pills wasn't such a good idea after all...

Loki was feeling dizzy and weak. In fact he hadn't felt like getting out of bed at all this morning, but then he'd been spending too much time in bed lately and maybe a cold shower was just what he needed to get the blood circulating and give him some energy.

It hadn't worked, though, so he'd decided that he needed something to do. Maybe a few more books would help and walking up the stairs to the library would provide some much needed exercise.

That had been the theory anyway. After only a few steps however he had to stop to catch his breath. His knees felt weak and wobbly and he was considering sitting down for a while when suddenly he heard steps from above. He looked up and saw the very person he'd been trying to avoid most.

He forced himself to stand up straight and pretend that everything was fine. "John."

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Bast looked up in surprise. She'd been so focussed on Loki she hadn't even noticed John. At his question, though, she shrugged - as best as a cat could - and waved her tail from side to side. //Pride, I suppose. Pride and depression. He was really upset that no-one seemed to like him because of what he said to Crowley. That and sheer dog-headedness.//

John looked away at that, at a loss for words, crossing his arms defensively. So it is because of me, at least partly. Did it get round to somebody else, too? I never did tell Aziraphale.

Damn, damn, damn...why the hell did he have to get a paranoid fixation on Crowley, of all people?

"How bad is it, Gabriel?" he finally asked.

Gabriel, who was watching the cat - another deity, obviously - in a way that perhaps betrayed how little he was used to working with animals, shifted his attention to John.

"It's advancing fairly quickly now that he's forgone treatment," he said, trying to be somewhat tactful in light of the waves of worry filling the room. "I hesitate to simply siphon the cancerous cells out of his body, because they cover such an extensive network now I'm not sure what damage that would do to the rest of him. Not to mention this curse you spoke of.

"But I don't think it's incurable, I just think it will take some caution." He glanced at Anathema as he spoke, hoping that she wouldn't mind having her hands full with this treatment; he suspected it would take some effort on both their parts, as well as perhaps Adam.

If this god had really wanted to end his existence, he'd chosen quite an effective - if rather melodramatic - way of going about it.

"But the least we can do is get him started on his medication again," he continued. "Do either of you remember what he was taking?"

Anathema shook her head. "I'm sorry, I had no idea that he was sick. I mean last I saw him, he seemed to be rather...cheerful. He looked a little pale but I thought that was normal for him. But perhaps there is a bottle which contained the medication in his room?"

She looked down at the unmoving Loki and sighed. "I could help with getting him to take the medication, but I would need to know what it was, whether it was working well or not, and it might not be a bad idea to get him in for having chemotherapy. Since he was bald before, I am guessing he had already been on that too. Which means, when he is well enough it might be better for him to take a little trip to his hospital."

"I can check his room," John said, sliding off the table, glad for something useful to do. "And haul his sorry arse to the hospital, if he won't take himself. Sod all good it'll do if he's bound and determined to give up, though." He sighed, sticking his hands in his pockets and heading for the door. "Be right back..."

"Alright, thanks John." Then a thought occured to her. "Wait! Umm, you were sort of friends with him right? Do you know of anywhere else he might have hid his pills? Can you look there too if you did?"

Well! At least this time around Loki wouldn't be alone. No, he now had peopel that were lookign after him. Idiot, honestly, he seemed the kind of person who would do anything to try and stay alive.

John paused and cast a sharp glance over his shoulder, but if Anathema meant that as anything more than an innocent question, it wasn't apparent. "If they're not in his room, I'll have a look 'round a few other places," he answered vaguely, and walked out.

Bast, still crouched sphynx-like on Loki's chest, kneading with her front paws and purring to help the healing process the only way she knew how, watched John go with some confusion.

//He's not blaming himself for all this mess, is he?// She asked Anathema, turning to look up at the witch.

"Well," Anathema replied also watching John leave. "I don't really know John that well. This is the second time I have met him, and both times it was here in the hospital. He may be blaming himself though, he did say that they weren't so much friends anymore. Maybe they had a fight?"

She was beginning to understand that while she lived with these people she knew barely anything about them. Well, Loki would be stayign here for a while. Maybe when he gains consciousness he would be willing to talk.

"Don't mind him," Gabriel sniffed. "He just fancies the role of the brooding protagonist." And indeed, he doubted that whatever had happened would warrant the tangible guilt that hung about Constantine, but he couldn't disregard it completely. If the opportunity arose, the angel might try find out more about what had happened between them.

For now, though, there were other things to attend to. "Well, I expect he'll be around quite a bit in coming weeks, even after he wakes up," he said, nodding to the unconscious god. "We might as well get him settled into his own room. Anathema, would you mind? If you could just see that there's a room prepared, I'll bring him in..."

"Of course," she said, going over to the nearest private room and looking about it. It was big enough for at least small walks around, just in case Loki was up for it when he was awake, had the normal hospital bed and a bedside table wih a few shelves in it. Well, if Loki wanted anything to read she could go to the library or get someone else to go get him some books.

She went about making the bed and gettign everything ready for the god that would be occupying the room for however long it would be preoccupied. She would really have to see about reading material for the room, but until she knew what Loki lied reading, she left a few books in there, fiction and easy to read. There was also a bible that looked a bit ragged and worn that must have survived whatever must have happened to this building.

She made her way back into where Loki was at the moment and nodded to Gabriel.

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"Wolves? I haven't seen any wolves..." Ana said to that, wondering if she was missing something here. Wasn't it Odin who had the wolves?

"Um, sure. I think it will be alright...for the time being any way." She looked to Gabriel again, this time wonderign if having animals, even ones that were gods, in the hospital was alright. Some human places like these let in animals for therapy after all, why not in here too?

Bast leapt off the god's chest and onto the floor, pacing back and forth to and from the private room. //Is it okay if I come and stay with him occasionally? I think he'd like that, if he wakes up. Also, if it's okay, I could get someone to bring some of the other animals in here...//

Gabriel blinked down at the cat as he wheeled the unconscious god into the private room and prepared to transfer him to the new bed. "Preferably not all at the same time," he said carefully, trying to find the nicest way he could to say that he didn't want to see the hospital turned into a zoo. Angels could, in theory, be relatively any size or shape they wished, but that didn't mean he was used to having animals in a workplace, even those which were not animals in their true form. "But I suppose that is what visiting hours are for..."

He addressed Anathema as well as he continued, "I'm not sure there's much more we can do for him until he wakes up. Even if we were prepared for chemotherapy right now, we can hardly start it on an unconscious patient. I'll see that he's hooked up to the monitors, and I think for now we just watch and see that there are no drastic changes in his condition. Would you like me to stay for the rest of your shift, or will you be all right?"

After ransacking Loki's room (Christ, what a mess; books and playing cards scattered all over the place, and some of the empty booze bottles looked like they'd been piled there on the floor for months) John finally located Loki's medication in the bottom of a backpack lying near the couch. He came back to the hospital wing to find the exam room empty, and followed the sound of voices to the private room where Loki had been taken.

Walking into the room, he gave a sharp, short whistle to get Anathema's attention and tossed the bottle to her underhand. "Found that in his room. How's he doing?"

... He was in a nice soft bed. Comfy. He could stay here for a while.

Wait a minute! Hadn't he just been talking to John? Something about Ezra and that murderous Crowley.

If he'd just been talking with John, how could he be in bed now? Had it been a dream? Loki opened his eyes. Where was he? Too many black spots in his vision again, but he was used to that by now. Better wait a little before he tried to sit up, though.

Everything began happening at once. Before she could answer Gabriel's question about him staying on for the rest of her shift or not, a sharp whistle coming form the door had made her turn, just in time to see John throw her what looked like the medication that she had asked him to go find.

Before she could answer either of those two, Loki stirred on the bed and opened his eyes.

"Loki? I wouldn't sit up too fast. Do you know where you are?"

Blinking at the sudden rush of people to answer, she turned to Gabriel and smiled. "You can stay if you want Gabriel, I won't kick you out just because it is my shift."

She then looked down at the medication in her hand and frowned. "And yes John, I think this is right."

She hoped that the people in the room would be enough to convince Loki to go back on his medication.

Huh? The voice was familiar, but who?

Ah yes, Anathema, the pretty one with the unusual name. Who the fuck was Gabriel, though?

John was still here? Good. Or maybe not. Could he still trust John? It hadn't been a good idea to trust a human in the fist place and nothing would really have changed between them just because Loki seemed to have blacked out.

He got the feeling that this place was all in all too crowded. Wherever this place was.

"Wh.. What happened?" It sounded a bit more intelligent than 'Where am I?, he thought. Or maybe it didn't, but now he'd already said it and couldn't take it back.

"You went off your meds like a sodding moron, moron, and it caught up with you," John said gruffly, leaning in the doorway. "What the fuck'd you think would happen?"

Gabriel shot John a less than friendly look. "Could we please refrain from insulting the patient for the time being?" he asked, clipped.

His tone was considerably more cordial, however, as he addressed the god. "Loki,you're in the hospital wing at Tadfield Manor. I'm Gabriel, and this is Anathema, and we're just trying to help you. Do you remember what happened?"

"Damn pills weren't working anyway," Loki growled at John.

Gabriel's answer was a lot more helpful, though he wasn't sure how to answer his question. He wasn't even entirely sure which events he was referring to. What had happened before he'd ... well, fainted apparently? What had happened after that? Or how he'd got the cancer in the fist place?

Who was Gabriel anyway? He didn't remember ever seeing him around before which was alarming. Unless Gabriel was a very recent arrival it meant that Loki had either been very sloppy in his exploration of the manor or there was more than just one hole in his memory.

His mind was working slower than usual, but Gabriel definitely wasn't a human, nor any god Loki recognised ...

"Oh, not another not-god!"

"Not-god?" Anathema asked, rather amused by the way that Loki had said it. It sounded like such a bad thing.

She shook her head slightly. "Can you tell us what you were doing, where you were going, before you collapsed? And there are different medicines you could have tried."

"God that isn't allowed to call himself god," Loki explained.

"Library. Talked with John." He shot Ana a tired look that should have been a glare. "They didn't work either."

If his answers were a bit incoherent he didn't notice, though he did realise that his brain still wasn't back to it's normal speed. He was dizzy and tired and a little frightened even though he'd expected to die soon. It still seemed too early.

"It's the sodding curse, it's gotta be," John muttered, a trifle sullenly. His bedside manner might need some work, but he was trying to help, dammit. Adam alone knew why he bothered. "Odds are we're gonna have to find a way to lift it before anything will really work."

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Reposted to change a few details..sorry, everyone...

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