“Of course you are, Narugami-san,” Yamino said absently, wiping the table clean for the fifth time that night. The thunder god had arrived shortly after Loki left to investigate something he claimed to require no aid with, and Yamino had learned not to pressure him about such things, even if it was late at night. Narugami had bullied his way into the kitchen and raided the cupboards, ignoring Yamino’s faint protests, until he found the brandy that Yamino occasionally used for cooking. He’d been drinking it steadily for over an hour, now, and there appeared to be significantly less within the bottle than there had been earlier in the evening . . . “Narugami-san, are you quite certain I can’t make you something to eat? It would be no difficulty for me, truly.”
“No, no,” Narugami said, shaking his head slowly and rubbing his chin on the table where it encountered a bit of brandy that Yamino had not been able to reach with his cloth, smearing it further. Frowning, he straightened, wiping his chin with the back of his wrist. “No food, Megane, not tonight. Just drinking.” He stared rather blurrily at the glass in his hand, then reached for the brandy bottle, topping his glass up.
As Narugami poured his hand wobbled and Yamino reached down to take the bottle from him before he dropped it. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough for tonight, Narugami-san?” he asked tentatively.
“No!” Narugami snapped, pushing himself up to glare into Yamino’s eyes before his hand slipped and he slide back into his chair. “No . . . Can’t of. Tried to drink the ocean, once. Didn’t bother me a bit. Thought it was ale, I think it was ale, sort of, it was confusing, though . . . I could stay up drinking all night in Asgard . . . Me and Loki . . . all night . . .” He trailed off and stared muzzily into his glass before tossing the contents back in one gulp.
Yamino winced and a look of intense pain crossed Narugami’s face as he slowly slumped forward so that his head was resting on the table. Nervously, and worried that the easily angered teenager would yell at him again, or do worse, Yamino moved both glass and bottle out of Narugami’s reach.
“Your father,” Narugami began, before he needed to stifle a belch. He blinked slowly at Yamino before he continued. “Ah . . . Your father . . . could out-drink me, sometimes. Could eat faster’n me, too . . . But only because he . . . he didn’t appreciate food properly. All of it, all the same to him . . . in the end.” He frowned, squinting at Yamino, making the man squirm slightly. Slowly he lifted a hand and pointed a wavering finger slightly above Yamino’s shoulder. “You,” he declared, “waste your talents on him. Food . . . it’s all the same to him, he doesn’t appreciate it properly at all . . .”
“I just do what I can to be of use to Loki-sama,” Yamino said with a shrug and the soft smile he always wore when he spoke of Loki.
Narugami considered this. Loki inspired an odd kind of obsession in everyone he met, it seemed, even in his own kids. The World Serpent, doing laundry and cooking, just because it made an exiled trickster god happy. It was definitely weird, that a giant snake would be able to cook so well, cook the best food Narugami’d ever tasted, in or out of Asgard, when Jormungand would never have even had a chance to eat proper food until Loki’s exile . . . “Huh,” was all he said, before going back to his original train of thought. “We could drink and eat more’n anyone else in Asgard, the two of us. Weird, that such a little guy could hold so much drink, he was such a tiny guy . . . Never got drunk, either, that’s not normal, even I got drunk sometimes, I think, or maybe I was just angry, I think it used to make me angry, sometimes . . .” He reached for the empty glass, but let his hand fall back on the table when he realized Yamino had moved it beyond his reach. He didn’t want to move just to get the glass, although if he wanted to, he could ask Yamino to get it for him, but . . . “Doesn’t feel right, drinking like this without him, he should be here, it’s his house, too . . .”
“Loki-sama,” Yamino reminded Narugami, very gently, “can’t do things like that anymore.”
“He can’t, can he? Bet he wants to. I think he loved drinking more’n women, he always got all the women, he never cared about anything if it wasn’t a challenge, treated everything like it was a game . . . But he spent all that time with me. Just . . . drinking.” He lifted his head, tucking an arm underneath it to act as a makeshift pillow, and stared with drunken thoughtfulness at Yamino. “If he asked you, Megane, would you let him? Would you let him sit here, with me? Let us both sit here, drinking, like we used to do in Asgard?”
“Alcohol,” Yamino said quietly, “is bad for children.”
“Yeah. Bad for kids . . .” Narugami echoed sadly. “It’s not fair, y’know. I don’t know why he was punished, really, but if he had to be sent down here, he could have at least been given a form where he could enjoy something like he used to . . . Not fair, him just being a little kid now. That’s what I thought, when I found out. It’s gotta get to a guy eventually, be so frustrating, not being able to do anything properly . . .”
Yamino wiped the table again, carefully removing the glass and bottle, setting them both on the counter with a gentle clink of glass against glass. “It was your father who did it,” he observed. His tone was innocent, guileless, with no hint of accusation in it. “Perhaps, if you find a way to return to Asgard, you could speak to him on Loki-sama’s behalf.”
“That’s a pretty big ‘if’ there, Megane, but I wish it could. He’s my friend, and you can see how much it’s bothering him, more and more, every time I see him. Don’t say anything, though, he hates having stuff like that pointed out to him, he used to be able to hide his feelings so well, but now he’s a kid, it’s like everything’s more obvious, everything he feels or thinks . . . He’d hate knowing that, so you just pretend it’s not there, but I know. It’s frustrating for me too, Megane. Odin won’t let me come back, and I’m stuck in this weak body, but it’s stronger than Loki’s, so I’d feel bad complaining, but it’s still weird, feels really weird, sometimes . . . If I could have my old body back and go home . . . But look what happened to the last person who talked to Odin on Loki’s behalf.” They both thought about Freyja for a minute. Narugami sighed. “No one deserves that. To be robbed of who they are . . . at least Loki remembers, but that probably makes it just as bad, knowing all that stuff he can’t do, knowing what he’d lost . . .”
“But knowing means he knows that there’s something he needs to regain. With that, there’s a chance that he can return to Asgard, someday. Loki-sama is very lucky, in that respect.”
“Yeah . . . lucky. If Odin had done to Loki what he did to Freyja, I probably wouldn’t even be here. He wouldn’t have to send anyone to kill Loki, ‘cause Loki would just be a kid. A helpless, mortal kid, not able to look after himself, totally clueless . . .” Narugami stared at Yamino’s back and he suddenly, almost desperately, wanted to drain the last drop of brandy from the now-absent bottle, and any other bottle that happened to be in the kitchen cupboards.
“None of us would be here,” Yamino murmured, staring at his hands.
“That’d drive you nuts, not being able to look after him, wouldn’t it, Megane?”
“I wouldn’t even know what I was missing.”
“The world would be a sadder place without your cooking, Megane,” Narugami said with the sincerity of the very drunk. Yamino laughed half-heartedly. “The world would not,” he continued, waving a finger in the air to emphasize his point, “be a sadder place if Freyr wasn’t here. Or Heimdall. Or the Norns . . .”
“Or Freyja-sama.”
“Yeah . . .” Narugami ran his finger over the table, tracing patterns on the gleaming surface. “Seems like he’ll just keep sending people to Midgard until his problem is solved. Maybe someone else is already here . . . Hod, Hermod, Bragi, don’t know what Bragi would do though, Tyr . . .”
“I think we would have noticed if Tyr-sama was here, Narugami-san,” Yamino murmured. The one-handed warrior god had never been the most subtle or self-effacing of individuals.
“Yeah . . . What about Baldur? Could Baldur be here?”
“Maybe,” Yamino said, finally turning back to Narugami.
“Baldur always liked Loki . . . He always liked everyone, but he really liked Loki, he’d never kill Loki, he wouldn’t hurt a fly . . . Stupid kid . . .” Narugami sighed heavily, thinking of his brilliant younger brother. “He won’t send Sif, though, y’know. Nope, not Sif, no beautiful, golden-haired Sif . . . And she’d be right willing to kill Loki, too . . .”
Yamino ignored the last comment, deciding that one could hardly blame a drunk boy for speaking the truth, no matter how inappropriate it was. “You miss her, don’t you, Narugami-san?”
“Yeah . . . Sometimes I have dreams about her, the most incredible dreams, and she’s there, beautiful and golden and warm, and she’s all over me, and I take her like I did back in Asgard, but it’s different, things feel different, everything’s different . . .” Yamino suppressed a grimace at Narugami’s sharing nature. “Mortal girls, they just don’t compare, y’know? Not like I even have time for them. Have to work and work, just to keep fed . . . Me! Thor! The most worshipped god in Norway and Iceland, once . . . This is all so messed up. Needing to go to school, needing to work, my body working against me, doing stuff it shouldn’t, Freyr and Heimdall working against us, we’re all on the same side, after all . . . Loki . . . I don’t even remember when Loki was that young, back in Asgard. I know he was younger, once, but it’s all blurry, and he wasn’t this young, I’m sure of it . . . And you . . .” Narugami sighed heavily, waving a hand in Yamino’s direction. Apparently nothing further needed to be said about Yamino as far as Narugami was concerned. He sighed again. “Can I have the brandy back?”
“I don’t want to carry you back to your apartment, Narugami-san.”
It wasn’t a refusal. Alcohol-addled though his brain was, slower as he could be while sober, Narugami knew that Yamino was not saying he couldn’t have the brandy again. If Narugami pestered, threatened, and bellowed, Yamino would cave in, understandably terrified of the thunder god’s anger. He stared at the man; the tall man, quiet and shy, that the Midgard Serpent had become to follow his father into exile in the mortal world, who made the best food Narugami had ever tasted . . . “And alcohol is bad for children?”
Yamino’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That as well, Narugami-san.”
“I’ll be hung-over tomorrow,” Narugami observed, sounding rather pensive about the entire ordeal. “Never got hung-over in Asgard. Could drink and drink, get sicker’n anything but in the morning . . .” he waggled his fingers and Yamino raised his eyebrows in surprise at the gesture. “Poof! All better! No hang-over at all . . . Wonder what it’s like . . . Bet it won’t be fun to go to school with a hang-over . . . Never fun to go to school without a hang-over, though, either . . .”
“Narugami-san, do you even need to go to school? Loki-sama does not, after all.”
“Loki cheats,” Narugami said, for a moment sounding perfectly sober. “He doesn’t play by the rules at all, he never does, never has, probably doesn’t even know that there are rules . . . That’s okay now, though, I think, ‘cause sending him here like he is, that’s probably against the rules too, but Odin doesn’t care about the rules either, he just makes them up for other people, and breaks them all the time, worse’n Loki about that he is . . . But me,” he pointed to himself with a thumb, “I’m a keeper of justice. I gotta play by the rules so other people do too, even if I’m just a kid right now, I’m not gonna go breaking the rules. Midgard rules say, you’re a kid, you go to school, so I go to school, ‘cause Thor always does things honestly . . .”
“That’s very admirable, Narugami-san.”
“Admirable,” Narugami said, sighing once again, “gets me living in a tiny apartment, going to school in the day, working all night and all Sunday, and barely getting enough time to sleep and eat. Cheating,” he continued, looking slowly around the kitchen, “gets you a great mansion, great garden, great food . . . doesn’t it, Megane?”
“I never question Loki-sama’s methods.”
“Better be careful, Megane. Blind devotion isn’t good . . .”
Yamino stared at his hands again, as though they might contain the answer to all of his problems. “Narugami-san . . . do you think Loki-sama really will bring about Ragnarok?”
“Don’t know, Megane. Odin, Frigg, Baldur, they’d know, maybe. And Odin banished Loki, and that’s what he says, still doesn’t seem right, though, even if it’s true . . .” Narugami looked at Yamino, who looked more desperately unhappy than anyone had a right to be when they appeared to be the god of cooking in Midgard. He sighed. “But I’ve known Loki for a long time, Megane, longer than anyone except Odin, maybe, and he may not do things honestly all the time, and I may not understand a lot of what he does, or says, but . . . he’s a good person, I think. He’s saved my life . . . He may do stuff that’s not right sometimes, but he makes up for it. I don’t think,” he frowned, thinking intently, chewing on his lower lip, “I don’t think . . . that he’d have gone to the trouble of bringing you with him if he was the sort of guy who just wanted to bring about Ragnarok. Odin . . . he made a mistake, I think.”
Yamino’s face lit with a bright smile and he bowed deeply, his eyes on the floor. “Thank you, Narugami-san.”
“Just telling it honestly, Megane, don’t need to thank anyone for something like that . . .” Narugami yawned abruptly, blinking soporifically at Yamino. He was suddenly, inexplicably, very tired. It was all the talking, he decided. Normally he never bothered with talking that much, just with doing, and left the talking and thinking to other people, like Loki. It was obvious, then, that brandy was an untrustworthy drink. It was messing with his head. He yawned again, his eyelids drooping. “In Asgard, I never got like this when I’d been drinking . . .”
“In Asgard, Narugami-san, you were a giant of a man who could lift cattle over his head with one arm. In Midgard, you’re not even a grown man. Alcohol will affect you differently.”
“I know that,” Narugami mumbled sleepily into his arms. “Don’t need you to tell me the obvious like that, Megane . . .”
Nervously, Yamino reached forward and touched Narugami’s shoulder. The boy didn’t shake the hand off, or snap, or even acknowledge the gentle touch. “Are you going to be able to walk home, Narugami-san?”
“‘course . . . Nothing wrong with me, just had a little bit to drink is all. First drink since coming here to find Loki,” Narugami said, yawning in between the words, and lifted Mjollnir from the ground, taking two firm steps forward, before he stumbled and fell back against Yamino, who caught him easily with surprisingly strong hands. Narugami blushed. “Or maybe not . . .”
“You can sleep in one of the spare rooms, Narugami-san. Loki-sama won’t mind.” Yamino carefully put an arm around Narugami’s waist and lifted one of the boy’s arms up to rest across his shoulders.
Narugami yawned hugely and lay his head against Yamino’s shoulder. “Lead on, Megane.”
Walking up the stairs while burdened with an intoxicated teenage thunder god was not something Yamino ever wanted to do again. Even when he was partially supporting himself by using Mjollnir as a walking stick, Narugami frequently stumbled, and getting to the top of the stairs was a tedious, slow process for the pair. Things went more smoothly once the difficulty that was the staircase had been navigated, and Yamino was certain that Narugami would have no difficulty in getting from the doorway to the neatly made guest bed with Mjollnir to help him.
“Do you want me to wake you up in the morning for school, Narugami-san?”
“Yeah,” Narugami said, nodding slowly and staring up at Yamino. “Thanks, Megane.”
“Ah?” Yamino blinked in confusion, rubbing the back of his head.
“For letting me get drunk . . . for letting me talk . . . for letting me stay here and not giving me a lecture like Loki would . . . Thanks.”
“Ah, not a problem, Narugami-san . . .”
Narugami leaned up slightly, caught Yamino’s wrist with one hand, and kissed the man.
Yamino had never been kissed before. Giant snakes tended not to be. But even he could tell that the kiss was an empty thing, devoir of any passion. It seemed to lack emotion of any sort. It was a hopeless sort of kiss, like the god was trying to find something he had lost, and knew before he even began that he wouldn’t find it. It tasted like brandy.
Slowly, Narugami pulled away and released Yamino’s wrist, wrapping both hands around Mjollnir. “Thanks, Megane,” he said again before turning and, with Mjollnir’s help, going into the room, shutting the door softly behind him.
Yamino stared at the door, wiped his mouth carefully, and went back to the kitchen in order to hide the brandy bottle and clean Narugami’s glass.
End Notes (should they be needed):
Thor drinking the ocean occurs in "Thor's Journey to Utgard", where he is tricked by Utgard-Loki into drinking from a horn that's connected to the sea.
Jormungang is one of the alternate names of the Midgard Serpent.
Hod is the Blind God, a son of Odin and Frigg.
Hermod is a messenger god, a son of Odin and Frigg.
Bragi is the god of poetry.
Tyr is a god who lost his hand to Fenrir.
Baldur, the most beautiful of the gods, is traditionally killed by virtue of Loki's interference.
Baldur 'liking' Loki is implied during In Times of Need.
Loki shaves Sif bald in a myth called "The Treasures of the Gods" in "The Penguin Book of Norse Myths".