To Teach a Trickster

The following week and a half went by without very many problems. The nightmares showed themselves again, and each time they did Jane stayed in Loki’s room to help him feel protected. She quickly discovered that the chair she slept in was not made for sleeping, but if it meant Loki getting a good night’s sleep then she would tough it out. Although, she thought of sleeping on the floor one of the nights.

In time, both Jane and Loki learned to respect each other’s space. Loki spent his afternoons watching TV, reading, and drawing in the sketch pad Jane got for him, keeping himself as far away from Jane as he could while she worked. At nights they spent time either talking or watching a movie until it was time for bed. It was during these moments that they learned more about each other, like the fact that Loki was a pretty good artist. Jane marveled at all of the sketches and doodles he filled his sketch pad with. At first, it had taken the trickster some time to open up to Jane and show them to her, but he surprised her one night. After that, it became a nightly tradition for him to show her all of his new drawings he had done for that day. Finally, he had someone who was proud of something he’d done.

During these weeks, Loki behaved himself for the most part. There were still a few upsets here and there, like when it came to Loki still refusing to clean his room and expecting Jane to do his laundry. But he stayed out of trouble the best he could, making sure not to give Jane a reason to use her ruler on him again. The trickster eyed the long, flat piece of plastic with utter revulsion every time he passed by the coffee table. Some days he entertained thoughts of taking it and destroying it or tossing it out the window like he had done to the toaster. But he didn’t. After giving it much thought, he felt it wouldn’t do any good since Jane could just use her hand on him like she had already done…or use something else…like the wooden spoon he had seen in the kitchen drawer.

There were times when Loki actually proved to be helpful to Jane when it came to building her scientific equipment. He solved quite a few problems and even found ways of making it better. She was rather surprised as well as impressed with his knowledge of the tech, and even more baffled by his high intelligence level. There was no other way of putting it. Loki was a genius. It was hard for her to grasp this, considering how he normally acted. He was like a whole different person once he had something in his hands that required him to use his mind. So it quickly became commonplace to see Loki sitting on the living room floor each afternoon with an array of tools, electronic pieces, monitors, gadgets, wires, and computer pieces spread out around him. Each time he finished working on one of Jane’s projects, she praised him for doing such a fine job. The trickster was always pleased with this and beamed with excitement for the rest of the day. Jane allowed him to work and tinker on whatever he wanted since it helped to keep him out of trouble. As long as his mind was occupied with something, he seemed less interested in trying to get out of the apartment or sinking into his manipulative moods, which in turn meant fewer arguments, tantrums, and spankings.

Then, one morning, everything changed.

“Loki, it’s time to get up.” Jane knocked on the door. “Breakfast,”

She heard Loki moan from inside and then cough. “Jane, I don’t feel good.”

“Yeah, right,” she replied. “Not gonna fall for that trick again.”

“I really don’t feel good.”

“Loki, if you’re lying to me, I’m going to get my ruler and come in there and spank your bottom. I don’t think that’s something you want happening this early in the morning.”

“I’m serious!” he choked out. “I don’t feel good!”

She opened the door and walked to the side of his bed. “Loki…”

He quickly put his hands over his rear. “Please don’t spank me.” he pleaded with big, innocent eyes, looking like he might cry. He sniffed and coughed. “I’m telling the truth. I really don’t feel good. I’m unwell. I keep coughing and my nose is leaking and my throat kinda hurts.”

She admitted that he did sound awful. But then again, he was a trickster. He could easily be playing with her. She bent over him and put her hand on his face.

“You do feel warm.”

“Is that bad?” he asked with another cough.

“Well, yes, no…sort of. Just depends,” She moved her hand to his forehead. “You have a slight fever, but it doesn’t seem too bad.” Convinced that he wasn’t lying to her or trying to trick her, she smiled down at him and reached to pull the covers tighter around him, giving his arm a rub and playfully tugging at one of his hair curls. “You stay in bed today and get some rest.”

He wiped his nose with his sleeve and coughed. “Jane, am I going to die?”

“No, you aren’t going to die. You probably just have a cold or something.” She handed him his cape. He looked at it then looked at her. She smiled and gave him a wink. Slowly he took it, his cheeks turning slightly red. “Aw, don’t be embarrassed. It’s just us here. Besides, I think it’s kind of cute.”

“Thanks, I feel much better now,” he answered sarcastically, snuggling his face into the cape. “Don’t tell Thor.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Jane walked to the door. “Although, I’m pretty sure Heimdall knows.”

Loki grimaced.

Jane chuckled. “I’ll bring you some breakfast. Be back in a bit.”

Loki sighed. He forgot about Heimdall looking in on them. Now he hoped that his secret wouldn’t be spread all over Asgard. He brushed his nose against his cape and coughed. He felt miserable. He couldn’t understand how mortals lived with sicknesses. Although, it was a good way to get some attention. Jane seemed to make over him once she knew he was sick. And she was going to bring him breakfast in bed on top of it. Maybe it would be worth it.

When Jane returned, she carried a TV tray into the room and stood beside the bed until Loki moved to a sitting position against the headboard. He stuffed pillows behind him to make it more comfortable.

“Here you go,” she said, putting the tray over Loki’s lap. “And here’s something for your fever.” She took a cold, wet rag off the tray, folded it over, and put it across Loki’s forehead.

“Thank you,” he said. He watched as Jane went around to the other side of the bed and opened the blinds enough for the morning light to filter through.

“I’ll be in the living room. Holler if you need anything.”

Loki gave a nod.

A few hours later, Loki quickly became bored with staying in bed. So he got up and moved to the couch. He tried to read for awhile, but he just didn’t feel like focusing on it. He settled for watching TV instead. At least then he could drop off for a quick nap without reading the same sentence ten times. By this time, he was beginning to get annoyed with his constant coughing and the fact that his nose wanted to keep running. Jane had set a box of tissue beside him to help with that part, and he was quickly building up a pile of used ones on the floor beside his foot.

Jane tried to make the trickster as comfortable as possible. She brought him soup for lunch, and orange juice, water, and whatever else he wanted or felt that he could stomach. She taught him how to properly use cough drops, which helped to tone down his violent coughing fits and gave him some relief. And she brought him cool rags or ice packs to help with his fever.

“How long does this usually last?” Loki groaned as Jane switched out his ice pack for a fresh one. “I thought I would be over it by now.”

Jane laughed. “These things can last for about a week sometimes, maybe longer depending on how bad it ends up getting.”

Loki groaned again. “You mean I will have to feel like this for a week??”

Jane made a face of sympathy at him. She wanted to say something like, “Poor baby,” but she thought he wouldn’t appreciate that.

“Sorry,” she said instead. “Such is the life of mortals.”

Loki groaned again for the third time, rolling his head to the side.

In the days following, Loki got worse. At first, Jane didn’t think much of it, aside from it probably being the cold going into its worst stages before it gets better. But it was within the first couple of days when she noticed that Loki’s fever seemed to be getting higher. On top of that, she saw him rubbing at his eyes a lot. He suddenly preferred to stay in darkened areas of the apartment, complaining that the light hurt his eyes. One night before bed, she somehow got him calmed down enough to check him out. She was concerned over the fact that his eyes looked red and a little inflamed. And he was burning up.

“Here, put this on your face,” Jane said, handing Loki another ice pack. He moaned and did as she said. It felt good. The fever was making him sicker than he probably would have been. She couldn’t understand what was wrong with him. She’d never seen a cold do this.

“So…hot…” he said, his voice muffled by the ice pack.

“You’re a Frost Giant, right? Can’t you, I don’t know, cool yourself off?”

Loki shook his head. “I’m mortal now. Any abilities connected with my Jotunn form were put into hibernation, so to speak, when my powers were taken away. In other words, I’m basically just as human as you are, give or take a few differences.” Loki wrinkled his nose in disgust at the words he spoke.

It was Jane’s turn to groan.

That night and many other nights turned sleepless and restless for both of them. Loki spent his time tossing and turning in misery, and Jane spent most of her time running to and fro getting things for him and sitting by his bedside, making sure the fever didn’t get high enough to be dangerous.

One of the nights, Jane came into the room to find that Loki had thrown up. He was lying curled up on the side of the bed that hadn’t been soiled, hugging himself and looking very embarrassed.

“I’m sorry I ruined your sheets.” he said, shyly.

“Awww, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Everyone has to throw up sometime.” Jane helped Loki over to the chair and wiped his mouth off. Then she began taking the sheets off the bed. Loki kept quiet and solemn as he watched her go out and come back in with clean ones.

“Jane,” he said, “I feel like I’m going to do it again.”

Quickly, Jane grabbed him up and got him to the bathroom just in time for him to throw up his stomach in the bathtub. She had hoped he would aim for the toilet, but she couldn’t complain. Better the tub than in the floor.

“You stay there for awhile until you feel that it’s passed,” said Jane. “I’ll go finish putting clean sheets on the bed.”

“Just shoot me and be done with it.” he moaned out. He kept his head resting on the side of the tub. “I wouldn’t wish this misery on anyone, not even Thor.”

A few more days passed and Jane’s fears started coming true. Loki didn’t get any better. In fact, he got worse as the days progressed. His fever stayed and he started showing other signs that worried her, like the spots and rash he started breaking out in. If she didn’t know better, she could have sworn it looked like the measles. She consulted her medical book as well as websites she found online and compared photos to what was on Loki’s skin. Sure enough, it looked the same.

She didn’t want to take him to the hospital or to the doctor. Not only was she unsure how she was going to afford the bills since Loki didn’t have insurance, but she was scared of the doctors finding out that Loki wasn’t exactly human. How would she explain that? Even though Loki was now mortal, she assumed that he was still different from humans in certain areas of his body…like on the inside and his blood and DNA and whatever else. She didn’t want to have to give an explanation for the differences if the doctors found something in any tests they decided to run on him. That might open up bigger problems than they already had, especially if the doctors thought something that was completely normal in Loki was some horrible growth or abnormality that needed surgery or something. Who knows? Doctors were funny sometimes.

She also dreaded taking Loki because…well…it was Loki. He probably had never been to an earth doctor. She didn’t want him having any more stress than he already had. Due to his childish nature, she could just imagine how a trip to the doctor would go.

But one thing was for sure…she couldn’t sit by and watch him suffer. His fever was getting worse by the minute and it needed to come down.

Jane walked into Loki’s room and stopped beside his bed. She peered down at the pitiful face that was half buried in the pillow. She stretched out her hand and gently ran it over the trickster’s hair, feeling of his forehead and cheeks.

“My skin feels like it’s on fire, and I have the chills. How is it even possible for a person to be hot and cold at the same time?” he said in misery, coughing.

“Come on, Loki, I’m going to take you to the emergency room.” said Jane, pulling the covers off the trickster.

“What?”

“I’m going to take you to the hospital.” she translated, helping Loki out of bed. “You’re running a dangerously high fever and the rash is worrying me. I just hope it’s not what I think it is.”

“Is this hospital like the healing rooms on Asgard?”

“Uh…I guess?” Jane laid out some clothes for him and walked to the door. “It’s where we mortals go when we’re unwell.”

Jane called Darcy and told her what was going on while Loki got dressed. It was late at night, but the young girl said she would meet them at the hospital.

There was no problem getting Loki in the car. Due to his illness, he didn’t make any attempt to escape. Instead, he curled himself up in the seat and stared out the window, half in a daze, during the whole ride there. That’s when Jane knew he was really sick.

“It’s all right, buddy, we’ll get you well again soon.” Jane said softly as she pulled the car into a parking space.

While Jane filled out papers, Loki sat in one of the chairs in the waiting room and studied the new surroundings. He now felt anxious on top of his sickness. Already he didn’t like the place. Unlike the healing rooms back on Asgard, it had a funny smell to it, and there were people walking around wearing white coats and strange looking instruments hanging around their necks. He didn’t know much about human hospitals, he secretly admitted, but he knew enough about them to make him nervous. Most of what he’d heard or learned had been in passing, so he wasn’t sure how much of it was true. He had heard rumors about there being torture devices and a lot of pain. This thought made him sink down in his seat. Granted that some of the procedures in the healing rooms hadn’t always been comfortable or pleasant, but the healers always went out of their way to see that their patients had as little pain as possible. But then again, the worst sickness you could have in Asgard was a battle wound, which was already painful enough.

Since Loki’s condition was highly questionable, the emergency room took him quicker than normal. Jane and a nurse helped him into a private examination room and placed him on the gurney in the middle. The nurse examined him right away, her face scrunching up in concern as she studied the rash. Loki kept a wary eye on the stranger, not trusting her.

“He’s been running a very high fever,” said Jane. “Which is why I thought it best to bring him here.”

“Mm-hm,” the nurse mumbled, still preoccupied with turning Loki’s arms over and looking at the splotches. “Well, I think you’re right. It does look like the measles. But I’ll have someone come in and look him over so we can get a second opinion.”

Loki turned a worried face to Jane then turned back to the nurse. What were measles? It didn’t sound good to him, whatever it was.

“I’m assuming he never had them as a child?”

Jane nervously glanced down at Loki. “Uh, no, he never had them.”

“Has he ever been vaccinated for them?”

Jane shook her head, “I don’t think so.”

Loki’s eyes worriedly looked from Jane to the nurse. He wasn’t exactly sure what they were talking about, but it worried him greatly.

The nurse walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

Loki grabbed hold of Jane’s shirt sleeve. “Please, don’t let them hurt me.” he mewled. The way he said it made Jane’s heart drop. It reminded her of all the times he had screamed out after having his nightmares about the Chitauri. None of this had to be good for his post-traumatic stress, but she didn’t know what else to do.

“It’s okay, they’re going to help you get better.” she replied in a soothing tone, running her hand over Loki’s head.

“But…will it hurt?”

Jane’s mouth worked. “I don’t know.”

Loki let out a whimper.

A few minutes passed and the door opened again. Two more nurses entered along with the one that had been there before, and a male doctor came in behind them. Loki’s eyes nervously studied each of them in turn, finally resting on the nurse that was putting on a pair of latex gloves.

“That does look like measles.” the doctor murmured, putting on his glasses and walking closer to the bed. “Not a bad case, but measles nonetheless.”

“Could you step outside for a little while, miss?” one of the nurses said to Jane.

She hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, you see—”

“We won’t be long. Just wait outside in the hall.”

Shrugging, Jane slipped outside. She felt guilty for doing so, especially when hearing Loki’s whimpering pleas for her not to leave him as she exited the room. She walked a little way down the hall so she wouldn’t have to hear them through the door and was met by Darcy running up to her.

“How is he?” she said, out of breath.

“The doctor and nurses are in there with him now. They think he has the measles.”

“Measles?” said Darcy.

“It’s not a bad case from what the doctor said,” said Jane. “I’m sure he’ll be over it in a week.”

“But how did he get them?”

“I don’t know…” Jane shook her head. “Wait. That day you took him out and he got away from you. We still don’t know where he went.”

“He must have come in contact with someone who was carrying it. Figures,”

“It’s the only explanation.”

“You know, I want to say he deserves what he gets, but I can’t say anyone deserves measles.”

“Have you had them?” Jane asked.

“Yeah. You?”

Jane nodded.

“So, it’s safe for us to be around him.” said Darcy.

“We just need to quarantine him inside the apartment until he’s well.”

“But what if they want to keep him here?”

Jane made a face at that thought. “I guess he’ll just have to stay here.”

“That’ll go over really well with Loki.”

The two women’s conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud uproar coming from within the room where Loki was. It was followed by sounds of a struggle, some colorful words, and a loud clatter. The door shook violently as if someone had been thrown against it. Jane and Darcy looked at each other.

“Did they just stick him with a needle?” Darcy breathed out.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jane replied. “That sounded more angry than painful.”

Poor Loki, Jane thought. She couldn’t help wondering if she had made a mistake bringing him to the hospital.

Notes