Neutral Omens

"Not doggie. 'S a wolfie." Loki remembered. "Here boy! Here, no growl at nice girlie."

Freki's ears twitched towards Loki. That was not normal behaviour from his sometimes two legged pack-mate. Something was very wrong here and it came from that young two leg. He whined pleadingly at Loki, but it didn't seem to help.

He turned to growl at the young two leg again wondering whether biting her would fix the problem.

"Lil flames," Loki said staring at the orange butterflies. His vision was beginning to blur and what was that? "Pink wolfies?"

That wasn't normal Loki knew. He was hallucinating. And he was still dizzy. He buried his face in his hands wondering vaguely whether his forehead was really this hot, or it was just another hallucination and put his elbows on his knees to help ground him. If he could feel his legs and arms and keep them close together he ought to be able to stay in control of his body, right?

Well, it made sense to him at the moment.

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"Hallo wolfie. You're a big doggie. I had a dog once sometime before. He was very um... clever. And you're very clever too I think but you don't like me I wonder. That's not very nice of you I like doggies. I miss mine well, he was my brother's but I still miss him..."

Blinking, she screwed her face up in confusion, trying to remember what exactly had happened to her doggie after all. She vaguely remember being the colors in the carpet. She didn't so much comprehend that she'd spent several months doing so and that Barnabus had most likely wandered away.

She was distracted by the rest of what the god was saying. "Um, are you alright?" she bit her lip anxiously. I'd go over there and do something maybe but you seem nice and the butterflies likes you and I really don't want to hurt you."

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"Nice pink wolfies." Loki decided. "I like wolfies. Why's the room turning around?"

He really wished the room would stay still, or at least give him a bed to lie down on. Moving rooms were fine when he was in bed. He was used to it from ships, though he'd never really had a problem being on a ship when he wasn't in bed.

Then again he'd usually traveled on ships with Odin and Odin had great control over the water and didn't like watching people be seasick. It involved too much whining.

Loki felt like he might be seasick now.

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"Like um... one of those pretty colored things on a stick that you blow at and it spins?" Delirium inquired from across the room. She was holding a pinwheel that her hair spiraled rainbow to match. "That happens to me sometimes. Sometimes it's hard to keep it all together... like most times," she added quietly.

She continued to study the man curiously, unsure if they'd met before but sensing that he was at least partly in her realm at present. "You look like you need a hug..." she frowned absently.

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Loki pondered that. The lobby didn't quite look pretty coloured to him, but it did spin.

"More like ship 'n storm." he decided. "Big storm."

It was hard to keep everything together, too, like where left and right and up and down were right now.

"Hug? Hug's n ..." No, wait a minute. Something was wrong there. Oh right! "Norse gods don't hug."

He suddenly remembered snuggling up to Odin after a having a nightmare. Norse gods didn't do that, but it sure had felt good.

"Want Odin," he decided. If he was going to get a hug anywhere it was from Odin.

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The pinwheel changed and Delirium held a miniature scale replica of a Viking warship. "Like this?" A miniature storm cloud hovered over it threateningly and began to thunder, lightning, and pour. She had payed a visit to many men aboard such ships in her time. had She giggled and twirled. The ship floated through the air towards Loki on a sea of sparkles.

"Um.. maybe you could hug the wolvie.. Would that make you feel better?"

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"Thor." Loki mumbled when he heard the thunder. "Yeah ship."

But he was much too dizzy to catch it. And then he was distracted by John walking in.

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Returning from a cigarette run to Lower Tadfield, John walked into the lobby and was immediately assailed by a sense of disorientation that made him think he was having another amnesiac fit.

But no, this was something different, he realized after the first jolt of panic subsided. He hadn't been trying to remember anything in particular, for one thing, and for another, his memory lapses didn't usually include...multicolored frogs and butterflies? Or girls with pinwheel hair.

"What the fuck...?" he said, staggering slightly as his sense of balance went haywire and he momentarily had the impression he was walking on the ceiling (or everyone else was....?) Had somebody slipped him a hit of acid?

He meandered to one of the lobby couches and leaned on it, peering at the other occupants of the room as he fought not to let the dark and demented things scuttling about the edges of his mind break into the light. He'd had practice with that, lots and lots of practice back in Ravenscar--no don't think about Ravenscar!--so it was all good. Rainbow bugs, yeah, no problem, he could deal. Right then. Pinwheel girl, Uriel, wolf, Loki. Very-not-looking-good Loki.

"Oi. Loki, mate, you feeling all right?"

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Loki blinked up at the hazy figure that had just said his name. "Odin?"

But no it wasn't Odin. "Thor?"

Not right either. "Not Frey. Please not Frey."

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"He's very... not good, I think," Delirium interjected. She looked sad that her attempts at making him better seemed to be failing but then this one belonged to Pestilence as much as he did to her. She only had so much influence when it came down to it.

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"I see that," John said, startled that the girl's words echoed his own thoughts so closely. He walked carefully to where his friend sat slumped in the lobby's godawful pink chair and crouched in front of him, deeply concerned. The god had gone chalk-white under an unnatural flush, and was clearly not altogether cognizant of what was going on around him.

"Loki. It's me, John," he said, picking up one of Loki's wrists to check for a pulse. It was a bit weak, and he could feel the feverish heat coming off the god in waves. Christ, he's really sick. How the fuck do I help without coming right out and saying?

Deciding that the situation warranted being less than completely discreet, he asked softly, "What do you need, man? Is there something you need to take, someone I can call...?"

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bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com

Uriel had stayed out of the interaction between Delirium and Loki, content with giggling at all the pretty and interesting things she saw and heard. Now, however, somebody else had come into the lobby. She remembered vaguely meeting him once or twice, although she couldn't remember his name.

Uriel wasn't usually this bad during her manic episodes. Although she may have appeared to be as much out of her mind, she usually was pretty much aware of what was happening around her. In her typical manic state she just didn't care. Now, however, Delirium's closeness affected her enough to actually cloud her comprehension.

Finally, however, even her not-exactly-right mind managed to comprehend that not everything was right with her brother. Her worry for him, while could not drive away the manic state, cleared her mind a bit. Hopping over the front desk, she hurried towards Loki, the semi-strange man, and the pink chair. This was serious, she decided. Anybody would have to be very badly off to sit in that pink chair.

"Loki is sick," she stated the obvious as she got close to the two men. "He shouldn't have come here. He's so sick he should just stay in bed and still he walks around and doesn't let anybody know or help or anything. He's such a stubborn idiot, but a dear idiot, and I don't like him being sick but I can't heal him because I aren't Raphel. Raphael could heal him. I'm sure he could, but I can't, because I really can't heal anything but there was one time I helped and it wasn't much so I can't do anything."

There wasn't much sense in her words, but she didn't care. She simply had to talk, the words pouring out of her mouth like an endless stream, and as senseless as her words were they were at least somehow connected to the problem at hand, so she wasn't perhaps completely lost. She could have just as well started reciting a poem in Latin. Sometimes, while manic enough, she had done just that -- even though nobody had been there to hear.

"Can you help him?" she asked the man. "You're a human, though, so you probably can't heal him. Can you heal him? Maybe we should get Odin. Odin could probably heal him. But Loki doesn't want Odin to know that he is sick and he would get mad at us if Odin found out and I don't want him to get mad at me so what can we do or can we do anything?"

She started bouncing nervously up and down, trying to think of something she could do to help her brother. At the moment she couldn't think of anything.

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John blinked and spent an utterly bewildered moment trying to sort out everything Uriel had just said, then shook his head and gave it up as a bad job, forcing his attention back to the matter at hand. "Dunno luv, I'll do what I can."

He wasn't sure if it was the strange girl or something else in the vicinity that was bolluxing everybody up, but it hadn't hit him til he'd walked in the door. Maybe getting Loki away from this area would help? At least it might let John get his own head clear so he could come up with something better. (Getting away from Uriel's rambling wouldn't hurt, either.)

"C'mon mate, let's get you someplace...else. Away from here." Christ, hope it's not the whole damn Manor, he thought, lifting Loki carefully out of the chair and heading for the east staircase. The bar might have been an easier choice, but by John's admittedly skewed logic, the last thing any of them seemed to need right now was a drink.

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"'M Cold." Loki complained, though this was rather nice. Almost like a hug from Odin only that it wasn't Odin and wasn't Thor and apparently wasn't Frey either. Frey would not hug him.

Though this wasn't really a hug. Or was it? Why couldn't the fucking room stop spinning for a moment and let him check that.

If the room stopped spinning he might also remember why he had the feeling that he'd forgotten something important. Something to do with ...

"Ship? No, not ship. Rainbow? Butterfly?" he mumbled trying t figure it out. "Wolfie. Pink wolfie. Freki!" Where was the wolf? He was supposed to have a wolf with him! Loki struggled against John's grip trying to look around. "Freki?"

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John paused, not sure who or what Loki was talking about or whether it could be considered important, given his state of mind. Looking over his shoulder, however, he saw a (neon pink? Christ!) wolf sitting near the pink chair, looking just about as flummoxed as everybody else. "Oh. 'zat Freki?" he asked.

When Loki just repeated the name, John sighed, hoping he wasn't about to issue a dinner invitation, and whistled softly in the wolf's direction. "Here, Freki. C'mere boy..."

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Freki was confused and worried. The two-legs were all acting odd and he didn't know what to do about it. Besides something was wrong with his fur. It had changed in a way that he suspected was altogether indecent.

When the stranger who'd picked up his currently two legged pack mate called out to him he was almost relieved. Anything seemed better than to stay here and he did have a certain responsibility to protect his pack mate.

He walked over to John, checked his smell and deemed it okay. He'd smelled this one on Loki before and he didn't appear to have any hostile intentions.

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Relieved when the wolf padded over with no indications that he meant to attack, John hefted Loki (shit, he was light for somebody so tall) and started slowly up the stairs.

Seemed this was becoming a habit, hauling fucked-up mates up the Manor's eastern staircase. (Or tumbling down it and getting cold-cocked.) If the bad shit didn't get him first, John reflected, then between one thing and another in this place, he'd probably wind up needing back surgery or a neck brace.

His head was clearing as they got up above the ground floor, and he heaved a sigh of relief and paused at the landing to rest and gather his wits. "All right. Where d'you need to be, Loki? The attic? Or have you got a room?" he asked, trying not to sound as worried as he was. It wasn't cold, but the god was shivering like he'd just come in from a blizzard.

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Freki whined softly at John trying to convey his worry. Things just weren't going right today. He followed the human up the stairs like a well mannered dog, though. He just wasn't sure what else to do.

Loki blinked a few times. He was being carried which was probably wrong, but felt very nice and right. He was much too cold and dizzy to protest anyway, so he didn't.

John's question took a while to sink in.

"Room?" he realised finally. "Room. Bed. Bed's nice." Bed sounded very good in fact. Even more comfortable than being carried.

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"Right. Room number?" John prompted hopefully. When Loki seemed baffled by the question, he added, "Have you got a key, mate?" That would have the room number on it.

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Once again it took a while for the words to sink in.

"Key?" Loki mumbled. "Pocket." And then: "Dizzy. Bed?"

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"Working on it. Just hang in there a few more minutes," John told him enouragingly. He had to stop and set Loki on his feet for a few moments, supporting him with one arm while he rummaged his pockets with the other and finally turned up the room key (and, he was interested to note, not a great deal else; nothing that struck him as suspicious, certainly. Maybe Loki wasn't the klepto after all.)

"209. Good show, it's just 'round the corner. Off we go..." Thankful he wouldn't have to tackle another flight of stairs, John picked the god up again and walked the short distance to the suite, where he awkwardly unlocked and opened the door and entered, depositing Loki on the bed.

After automatically tugging off his friend's muddy shoes and setting them aside, he tucked the covers around him securely. They weren't all that heavy, so he dug a spare blanket out of the room's wardrobe and added that as well.

Still concerned, he sat on the edge of the bed and patted Loki's shoulder, hoping he hadn't already passed out. "Oi. Stay with me a minute, man. D'you have meds you need to take? Or a doctor who needs to know?" The last thing he wanted was to leave the poor sod alone if this constituted a full-blown medical emergency, but he had no way of telling for sure.

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Ah, Loki loved Odin's bed, but it had never before felt this welcome. He snuggled in and sighed happily. Now all he wanted was sleep. He probably would be fine when he woke up he told himself. He'd had similar bouts of feverishness before, after all, just never one that came on this suddenly.

John's question rang the alarm bells in his head, though.

"I'm fine." he assured the human. "Probably just flu. I react rather badly to fever. Thanks for the help, though. I owe you."

That was almost coherent, he thought feeling quite proud of himself. It had to mean that he wasn't as badly off as he was feeling.

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John nodded, not believing a word of it, but this wasn't the time to push the matter (not that he really had a right to anyway.) "All right. I'll leave some water on the nightstand in case you need it. Ring me up if you need anything else, yeah? Whoever's at switchboard will put you through."

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Loki smiled at John. That was really nice of the human. Odin never got him any water when he was sick*.

"Thanks, you're a real friend. Don't worry about me, though. I'll be fine and Odin should be back in a few hours. Freki will watch me until then."

Indeed the still pink wolf was standing beside the bed like a guard.

*Of course he'd never let on that he'd want any. Unlike John Odin probably didn't know what it was like to be sick.

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