Of course it's a coffee shop. There's no better way to get over jet lag than huge quantities of caffeine until one's sleep schedule re-stabilizes. Except maybe via sleep, and who has time for sleep? The shop has a carefully cultivated air of quirkiness about it, from the mismatched tables to the aggressively cheerful blackboard declaring specials of the day.
     It's also nearly empty; even constantly open coffee shops don't get much traffic at four in the morning on a weekday. The sole shop attendant is somewhere in the back attending to the biscuit baking for the day. Loki has claimed a corner table, his feet kicked up on another chair while he scrolls through a book on his phone's tiny screen. A crumpled napkin from a long-gone biscuit sits beside a cup of coffee, half-drunk and far from the first of this night.

     Ah, so there you are. Hm. I wonder what the best angle will be, for this. You will be spooked, and I do not want you to be so spooked that I cannot achieve what I need, oes? But your psyche is in a susceptible state, and I should take advantage of that.
     He is watching you. You are often being watched, in fact, although not always. Sometimes by one or another of the Holly King's rooks; right now, by the Holly King himself, unnoticed. Unobserved. Invisible. Gwilym Gwyn Garu reads over your shoulder from Somewhere Else, smiling to himself in secretive amusement as he plots and plans. Your instincts are good. But I will make them better. And worse, of course. That goes without saying...
     He withdraws and appears, not bothering to come in by doorways this time. Your mind is ripe for it, and he knows which buttons to push. He coalesces from shadows, just out of your line of sight, comfortably out of the line of sight of windows and doors and of the baker himself. Jeans, today, and Doc Martens, and a fantastic purple shirt spun from moonglow moths' cocoons; it is a rich shade, with black shiny buttons and green embroidery at the cuffs. No one in this world has one like it. The silk is silk, and the exact fineness of it would be remarked upon but not be noticed as more than merely remarkable to most. A black bandana ties loosely around his throat, and his hair falls forward to hide one eye. And he smiles, and his features transform from beautiful to unearthly...
     Gwilym steps forward, the movement intended to bring himself into your line of sight. Time slows and the shadows freeze a little; this little corner is now out of step with the mortal world, though nobody would notice it. There is, after all, nobody here to notice - except him, and you, if you had any way of doing so.
     "You're up either very early or very late," Gwilym remarks breezily. "Mind if I sit? Or are y' expecting someone else?"

     The book on the little screen is Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, in the original French. Dantes has just been sentenced to prison--there's little more to be seen from a screen so small. A tab on the side of the screen holds a French-English dictionary. So maybe Loki's grasp of the language isn't perfect.
     He looks up at the sign of movement. Freezes. There's a ripple of shock through his eyes before his face sets into a flat expression that'd go well with the way a dog looks when it pins its ears back in preparation for a growl. His voice has more acid than growl to it. "No excuses for why you're here, this time?"

     Gwilym laughs quietly, and he lifts a hand to clutch at his chest. "Well, you seem happy t' see me," he answers cheerfully. "Excuses? I wasn't aware I needed an excuse. Whether or not you believe it, I happened to be in the area and saw you, and decided to come in and have a chinwag." It is true, of course. It just isn't the entire truth. He puts a hand on a chair, taking a seat uninvited.
     "It's four in the morning," Gwilym continues, a bit dreamily. "It's one o' my favorite times, I must confess. One of many, granted. Sommat magical, though; that time when the world's almost all asleep, just the so-called undesirables still awake. Next to nothing moves; fog fills the valleys, trickling down into the streets, creeping along with no one there to attend it, a forgotten bride's-veil moving over the aisle of the world. Listen, d'you hear it on the prowl?"
     His eyes are laughing and serious at the same time, his expression intent, voice holding the musical lilt of Wales as the words roll out over his honeyed tongue. He leans back in his seat, watching Loki with a golden smile. "What excuse are you looking for, Loki, no man's son?"

     "Once is incident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." The phone vanishes back into a pocket of Loki's jacket, the wrinkles in the fabric a better indication of fatigue than how he's holding himself so very straight. His feet slide down from the chair where they were propped.
     The coffee comes with him when he sits back. "An excuse is likely superfluous at this point. You'll just have to forgive me if I can't find it in me to believe you only stopped by for a chat."
     And whatever you meant by 'no man's son', you're off on your count by three.

     "If I were your enemy, you'd find me acting against you. Has your life in any way become the worse since we met?" Gwilym asks reasonably. "At worst, I am a very incompetent enemy, then, aren't I? And at best, I am a friend."
     He grins at you, as relaxed as you are tense. "But by all means, let's clear the air, oes? Tell me what makes you think I'm an enemy. Just because I happened by? Tss... how many places are open in London in this neighborhood at four in the morning? I don't keep banker's hours, y'know." Emerald eyes spark with quiet mirth. Riot. No, I'm the one who the banker fears...
     He rises, going to the counter and hopping across it, helping himself to a cup of coffee to which he adds liberal amounts of cream and honey both. He takes a wallet from his pocket somewhat ostentatiously, laying down a five euro note. "Bit dear for coffee, but lest your opinion of me drop further," he cracks, "I'll tip handsomely, oes?" He sits on the counter, lifts his legs and spins, dropping back across. "Tell me why you're so alarmed, and I'll analyze. Unless, of course, you're afraid of what I might say?"

     "It's just a saying," Loki says, voice pulled out into that deliberate drawl that doesn't quite reach a sneer. "Who say I'm afraid? Pissed, maybe." The smile's fast, sharp, not warm at all. "In the American sense. If I wanted someone to fuck with my head and then disappear suddenly, there are all sorts of television series I could watch that'd take care of that setup neatly in the comfort of my own home. Some of them are even worth watching."
     The tension's not going anywhere. Transforming from fight-or-flight nervousness back to concentrated irritation, perhaps.

     "You could've followed me," Gwilym points out easily, returning to the seat. He drops into it, taking a sip of his coffee with an appreciative sigh. "Piss-poor coffee, but oh, the honey they use is the real thing. Y' should try it." He wraps his hands around his mug, opening one visible eye with a smile for your continued irritation. "We both made choices, didn't we? No harm came t' you. Are you more upset because there's something left unanswered - or because you were afraid to take the chance?"
     There's no accusation in his voice. It's asked as curiously as if he were asking where you went to school, or what the name of your dog was when growing up. "S'funny, though. What you just said - it really does explain your problems. I wish y' could see it so clearly."
     Gwilym sets his coffee down, and his smile is thoughtful, gaze landing on you with a warmth, though he makes no move to rise from his seat, or even to learn forward from his loll. "Do you want me to explain?"

     "No way to follow you when I couldn't even see where you went," Loki mutters. It's not exactly a lie. You're not the only one who gets to selectively edit the truth. He drinks more coffee, and it fails to solve his problems. How inconsiderate of it.
     "What do you get out of all of this anyway? General amusement from messing with people?" He's not quite slumping backward. The table has been lost in this battle, and it's time to shore up the defenses back at his chair where he has a chance of holding some ground. "But by all means, tell me what you've decided my problems are." It's surly enough to be nearly adolescent in tone.

     "I get t' know you a bit better. If I were just messing with you, I wouldn't give you this much of my time - or offer y' insights or information," Gwilym answers promptly. He picks up his coffee to take another swallow, enjoying it just as much as the first sip. "You must dislike yourself a great deal, oes? To be so certain I'm not at all interested in anything but a brief mindfuck."
     He sits up, stretching and then leaning forward, bracing a forearm along the edge of the table as he grins at you. There's something thoughtful, meditative in his regard of you, and there's still no tension in him at all. "Your problem? Oh, oes," Gwilym answers casually. "Your problem is that you're a coward. S' not surprising - many people are afraid, in this world. And being a coward isn't always a bad thing - self-preservation and all that. The problem is where your fear lives rather than that it exists. And ," he grins, "now that I've already disposed of your arguing about self-preservation versus fear, I'm going t' go ahead and explode some more o' your arguments, which is going to make you hate me a little, love me a little, desire me a lot, and get you pissed off at me, in the American as you say."
     He stands as he speaks, wandering back to the counter to grab the coffee pot and pouring himself a refill, then brings it with him over to the table to refill yours as well. This puts him next to you, leaning over your shoulder to pour, and as he does so, he speaks again, his free hand resting on the back of your chair.
     "You're afraid to let anyone close enough to you to matter more than a little," Gwilym says in a lower voice as he pours, as if confiding a secret. "Because they might leave. So you throw up spines like a hedgehog's and you curl tightly in denial o' your real self, and you peep in at windows and moving pictures to watch other people live. It isn't any fun, is it? Being a voyeur at life's supper table. But that's the choice y' made, and you're damned if you'll change your mind, even if you're miserable." He straightens, the pot in one hand, his other hand brushing between your shoulderblades as he releases the back of your chair. And he gives you that damnable smile again, one emerald eye closing in a wink.

     Pissed off. It's a good way of describing it. There's still that undercurrent of nerves and not knowing quite what's going on, but annoyance bleeding into honest anger is so much more comfortable to hang onto when being lectured by a -- not stranger, not at this point, but not anyone who really knows him, either.
     Loki edges away from every movement closer, across the table or on the back of his chair, and it says as much about the way he's paying attention to where you are as any opinion on getting too close. And still he wasn't expecting the touch, flinching away with a shiver as if an ice cube dropped down the back of his shirt. And even the coffee in his hand's a traitor now. Damn collaborating bastards. Who can a man trust if not caffeine?
     It takes another breath or two for him to find a response to all of that. "You're right about one thing. I'd rather make my own choices about my life than have someone else make them for me. No matter how much better they're sure they could do with the same material."

     "And yet, I'm not making any decisions for you," Gwilym answers. His tone is perfectly reasonable. Patient, even. He carries the pot back to its proper place. "Let me know if y' want any honey or cream. I am not interested in controlling your life, Loki, no man's son. I've enough on my plate without directing another person's every move."
     He finds the carafe of cream, the pitcher of honey again, and with an air of a conquering hero, he carries them to the table to set them down with great ceremony. "A decision loses meaning in my eyes if I make it for the other person. How could it be otherwise, oes? Duw," he laughs, "it wouldn't mean a damned thing, then. Not a bloody thing."
     He sits again, and directs the fullness of his attention upon you; an interested, direct scrutiny, unabashed and unashamed as it moves over your face. "You could at any time ask me questions, learn about me," Gwilym points out. "But you don't. Because you're afraid to take the first step. If you unlock the door, then they might get in. And if they get in, later, they might go away again. You paint the world with a very wide brush, my lad. I prefer to paint in my own colors."

     It is a difficult thing, to remain angry at someone who brings him coffee. And it's nearly an irritation in itself, that it's so hard to stay angry in the face of someone being so...reasonable.
     This can only possibly make sense because I haven't slept in so long.
     Loki takes up the honey to doctor his refilled coffee, eyes dropping almost but not entirely off your face to focus on that small business. "You assume I want to know more about you." It is not, strictly speaking, a denial of exactly that. "If you're in such a mood for answering questions, what's with the 'no man's son'?"

     "Loki is a bit of an enigma, in Norse mythology," Gwilym answers promptly. He grins at you. "He is sometimes described as Odin's comrade and enemy, sometimes as one of the giants, sometimes as something - else. But Odin was the father of the gods; he wasn't Loki's father. Loki was something older, predating all of them, even Odin, some think - and he had no mother or father. It is part of his alienation, oes? Part of what marks him as different from the rest. His story ... it's not a happy one."
     He picks up his coffee, taking a casual sip. "I do assume you want to know more about me. Am I wrong?"

     "It's just a name," Loki says, some of the fatigue finally bleeding through into the irritation. "Twenty years of dealing with the idiotic name my father gave me because he was going through a Norse phase at the time. No, dealing with that never gets old. The original might have predated the other gods. When it comes to fathers, you're off by two or three on my end."
     The coffee takes more stirring until he slouches back with his cup, eyeing you across the table. Nothing casual in his posture, but neither is he likely to bolt right this instant. "I don't know. Look where curiosity got me last time. Maybe I should be working on kicking the habit."

     He smiles. "And," Gwilym counters softly, "where did curiosity get you, last time, Loki? Tell me, oes? If you know." His gaze is alert, intent, but his posture does not change, his voice remains easy, even tranquil, a dreamy note to it. "Am I frightening? Perhaps I am a little strange, oes. But I've offered you no harm."
     "All I have offered is a different way of seeing things," Gwilym adds offhandedly. "I swear to you upon my mother's golden hair, I've not drugged you nor forced you. And as all good Welsh boys, my mother is sacred to me. I would not swear it if it weren't true. Look at me." His eyelashes flick up, one and one-quarter emerald eyes glinting beautifully from the curtain of red-gold hair.
     "Tell me ... is it really fear that I inspire?"

     "Curiosity," Loki says, with careful precision and a little straightening from his slouch, "got me ditched. Not harmed, or I wouldn't be sitting around to talk to you here now."
     He uses his coffee like a pause button. It gives him time to think while he's watching you. Blue eyes almost locking emerald, still too wary to not be running over your face while he watches. "Fear of the unknown's a survival trait. You are an exceedingly unknown man, Gwilym, and so I'd be a fool not to be a little afraid of you, wouldn't I?"

     "I didn't say you shouldn't be a little afraid." Gwilym smiles. "But curiosity didn't get you ditched. Insufficient curiosity got you ditched."
     He stands, finishing his coffee in a long swallow, turning the mug around in his hands, and he sets it down. He puts his palms down on the table, leaning towards you with that devil's grin; but his eyes are thoughtful and contemplative. "I wouldn't have let you fall, y'see. You were curious - but not curious enough to follow me all the way. Your fear was more than your curiosity; I never left you."
     He waits a moment, his gaze locked upon your own. "I never left you," Gwilym repeats dreamily. "But you ... didn't follow me all the way. It was a choice. But I didn't make it for you."
     Gwilym smiles again, and he stands straight, moving to your side of the table, moving towards the corner behind you, looking over his shoulder and down at you. "So. Now what, Loki, no man's son?"

     "The leap of faith thing works better in the movies than real life," Loki says in a low voice, turning to watch as you move behind him. "What reason do I have to trust you enough to follow any further than I did?"

     "Everything's a leap of faith. Every time we have a conversation. You are afraid of loneliness, and perversely, you make yourself alone, so that no one else can afflict that state on you." Gwilym smiles, and for a moment, it is a tender thing. "I know how that goes. I've been there a time or two myself."
     He looks at the wall, drawing two fingertips down its painted surface. "Reasons? You need to find your own reasons, because any reasons I give you will just make you the more stubborn, because no matter what you want, you don't want to want it. But if you insist... then I will give you a reason."
     He turns, and he is half in shadow, and he smiles with that flash of unearthly beauty. "Do you insist, Loki?" Gwilym inquires, voice quieter. "Or will you find your own reasons, and follow me?" He holds out a hand, palm up.

     Loki freezes, cup in hand. You've found an even more effective pause button than he managed.
     Strictly speaking, is that two options or three? Follow or don't. Insist on a reason or don't. Sit here and think about it until the decision is rendered moot, which is admittedly sort of inspiring right now as an option. Except that didn't go so well last time.
     I think that's five. I need a flowchart. Or more sleep. Maybe both.
     What the fuck. What's the worst that could happen?
     He stands, coffee still in hand, and reaches for your hand, with a bemused mutter of, "Just don't make me late for band practice."

     His smile spreads and widens, the devil's own. "Then," Gwilym coos, "you've finally made a decision. Oes? Good." It's about bloody time...
     He takes your hand, and a current runs through it, passing from him to you. It is like an electric shock, and for a moment, you see two of him, one overlaid upon the other. He stands before you, backed by shadows, a poet-punk young man with a white flash of smile. There is the cafe, the table, and everything as you might expect. And at the same time...
     Trees grow tall in shadows, casting shadows of their own. He stands before you and over you, his smile no less beautiful for being unearthly, his eyes no less keen for reflecting forests instead of gemstone green. He wears the skin of a stag, its horns lifting from his head as if grown there by him himself; a sword at his waist, his chest and arms bare of all save the tendrils of holly and ivy tattooed as if from life.
     It passes; as brief as it lasts, it passes, and he lifts your hand to his lips, drawing you two steps towards him. "We are agreed," Gwilym remarks. "And you shall see me again, Loki, spirit's son. But for now," he looks at you, "the dawn will rise soon enough. The streets are still empty; the fog is creeping away, as it should. None will harm you. Go home and sleep." His other hand lifts to touch the side of your face, his thumb dragging at the corner of your mouth. "Go home and sleep," he whispers, "for you will dream, as you have not dreamed; you will wake, and the world will be new."
     His hands fall away, and he smiles again; he steps back, and the shadows rise to swallow him. Before your very eyes he vanishes, Gwilym Gwyn Garu, and you are alone in the coffee shop once again. The shadows diminish, and time is restored to its proper ebb and flow; there is the sound now of the baker in his kitchen, the squeak of ventilation and all the other signs of Life and London. Were you dreaming? Have you gone mad? It is a madness that has corroborating evidence of sanity, if so. For all that you are alone, for all that sound and shadow have returned to normal...
     ...there is, still, a coffee mug extra that shows signs of use on the other side of your table.

     Loki swallows hard. He says very quietly to himself, as if it's a mantra, "I need more sleep."
     He gathers up both cups to return to the appropriate bin. Drops the napkin in the trash, brushes crumbs from the table, pushes chairs back into place. And then he draws his jacket close, hands in his pockets, and walks briskly towards the door. This will make more sense after some sleep. Somehow.

Posted by rowan at March 02, 2009 10:36 AM