27th May, 2008
Proposal (1/2)
Tuesday, 3:27 pm in Corner
Okay. Screw this writer’s block bullshit! I’ve decided to take a leaf out of 
terrayndian’s book and force myself to do the typey.
One of the scenes I always used to imagine as kinda slotting in between the first two books of Corner involved Loki essentially proposing to Sigmund. Of course, Loki already considers Sigmund his wife on account of the fact that Sig is the reincarnation of Sigyn (i.e. Loki’s wife). Other complicating factors? Loki doesn’t believe in, a) love, or b) romance.
Should be fun. 1,400ish words.
Three months after the end of the world, he was called up into Hale’s office.
There was something wrong about that; about the stiff formality of the assistant who’d made the request, catching him on the phone exactly in the two minute walk between classes. Lain hadn’t been at school. No-one had noticed, as usual – at least not anyone important – and Sigmund still wondered about that. Not just about the actuality of it – after all, it was a fairly mundane power on the god scale – but rather how Loki actually physically managed to split his time so neatly between all three identities. Lain the high school student. Travis Hale the young corporate mogul. Loki the god.
Maybe that’s what was bothering him about the phone call. Loki must have compartmentalised fairly heavily in order to do what he did, but Sigmund supposed he’d always sort of felt he’d had some kind of exemption. Travis’ reaction to his presence was the same as Lain’s was the same as Loki’s, and somehow Sigmund couldn’t imagine either of the latter two sending him a meeting request via executive assistant. It felt so… corporate. Their relationship had never been corporate.
Three hours of nerves followed – Dee and Wayne did their best to keep him distracted but it only went so far – and then a moment of pure mortification when he walked out the door after his last class to find a limo parked in front of the school waiting for him. The large cluster of gawkers all glared at him as he opened the door, waving goodbye to Dee and Wayne who’d – wisely, in his opinion – decided that the bus was the greater part of valour.
Some part of him had expected Hale to be there in back of the car waiting for him, all slightly-crooked grin and some new electronic toy clutched in his long, elegant fingers. That part was, sadly, disappointed. The limo was empty. Even the privacy screen between him and the driver was raised, and there was a slightly surreal feeling as he closed the door and the car pulled itself away from the curb. Maybe there wasn’t a driver. He’d certainly seen weirder things. Now.
Loki’s cars never got stuck in traffic – whether he was in them or not, apparently – and the gleaming glass edifice of the Lokabrenna, Inc. building reared into view much sooner than Sigmund had expected. This time, when they stopped, his door was opened for him and a woman in a sleek black pant suit accented with the corporate green waited stiffly as he climbed out.
“Um. Thank you.” He tried a smile and got the barest hint of a nod in return, before being ushered into a massive, glass-walled elevator.
The elevator only went to one floor. The woman didn’t accompany him up.
It was a long ride. Sigmund stood close to the door and tried hard not to look down. Or out. Or anywhere. Tried to write off the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as nothing but the product of the elevator’s long ascent.
A chime and a rumble and he was there, walking out and across the wide marble foyer in front of Lokabrenna’s two executive offices. Another nearly suited woman noticed his presence and this time he merited a smile.
“Mr. Sussman, please come through. Mr. Hale is waiting for you.”
“Thanks.” He tried not to think of the invitation as ominous. It was hard.
Which was ridiculous, really. Because Lain was his friend, no matter what else he was. Friend and, okay, maybe a little bit more than just a friend, too. And they’d been through an apocalypse together; that had to count for something, right? No matter how notoriously fickle Loki’s reputation painted him as being…
(Let me tell you a story about the god and the high school geek…)
He went through.
Milky green eyes met his as he entered, a slight grin splitting the stitched purple lips as Sigmund hurried to close the office doors behind him. He was never sure how secret Loki had to be about the whole not-human thing, but years and years of TV and comic books had conditioned Sigmund to always err on the side of caution.
“Um. Hi,” he tried, and instantly felt like a massive dork. “Um. You wanted to see me.”
“Yes. Sit.”
Loki was acting… odd. Really, really odd. So cold and formal and he was never like this; at least not with Sigmund. So he sat in the chair opposite the massive desk and tried not to look as terrified as he felt. he wanted to say something like, You could’ve just called me! Have Loki laugh and make some quip before inviting him out for a night of junk food and video games at the penthouse. Have everything be normal – or as normal as they ever got – not this weird distance that felt more like a job interview.
Or a firing.
Loki looked like he was about to speak when Sigmund suddenly heard himself ask, “Are you breaking up with me?” before instantly wanting to sink through the floor in horror.
“What?” Loki actually looked… pale, maybe? It was sort of hard to tell, what with the whole mauve skin thing he had going on. But his eyes were bright and wide and suddenly Sigmund thought maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
“I just though… I dunno, with the whole–” he gestured around the office abortively, noticing Loki was looking steadily more and more distressed. “Never mind. Ignore me.”
Loki opened his mouth, closed it again with a snap, then said, “Sigmund…” and didn’t seem to know where to go from there.
It occurred to Sigmund that he’d never actually seen Loki at a loss for words before. The thought was oddly pleasing.
Loki sighed, an oddly human gesture for someone who didn’t actually breathe, and said, “I’m not… I have a proposal for you.”
“Okay.”
He was fiddling with something on the table, Sigmund realised. A small black box, no bigger than an inch either side with a smooth, domed top. He noticed Sigmund noticing and held the box out in offering. Velvet underneath his fingers and when he snapped the hinge open…
“Oh.”
Glanced up, saw Loki was holding up his own left hand. Sigmund’s mouth was suddenly doing its best interpretation of the Sahara, his heart hammering so hard he was sure Loki could hear it.
“You are my wife.” Loki’s voice – normally veering wildly all over the spectrum of slang – was oddly stilted. “If you want to be.” He lowered his hands, looked across the desk with eyes that suddenly seemed only as ancient as they were alien.
Inside the box was a ring; fine silver strands woven together in a eternal, snake-like knot. Sigmund knew without looking it would be sized perfectly to his finger. Knew that than that it was the twin to the one on Loki’s.
And what his brain thought was, A god just asked me to marry him!
Followed closely by, I’m only seventeen!
Loki chuckled, ran a hand back through long looping hair in a gesture that Sigmund was almost certain was nerves. “Both of those things are true,” he said. The shrugged, tension seeming to bleed from him. “The offer is always open. Keep the ring. Sell it. Whatever, it’s–”
“What does this mean? If I…”
“It means you’re my wife.” Which would seem to be kinda obvious but obviously Loki thought it was important. “It means I’ll care for you.”
“This isn’t the tenth century, Lain!” He was going for joking and didn’t quite make it. Loki winced a little, though Sigmund couldn’t tell if it was at the words or the name.
“I’m old fashioned,” he said eventually.
“And if I say no?”
“Then you won’t see me again.” And there was something odd about that sentence. Some strange emphasis, and Sigmund realised that as far as Loki was concerned, Sigmund was already his wife. Was already in his care. The only decision left to be made was whether it would be with Sigmund’s consent or not.
He sighed, closed the lid of the ring box with a sharp snap. “I need to think about it.”
“I know.”
He felt Loki’s eyes follow him home.
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