Sorry for your loss. Loki laughed. Well, more of a baffled chuckle. Maybe it was a bit odd to be laughing in their current predicament, however, given the entire situation, which shouldâve been an emergency but was, in fact, not, he couldnât help the seeping casualness. Oh, yeah, youâve been shot but given that youâre somehow fine then itâs okay if I joke around. Never mind. It was funny for a myriad of reasons he couldnât verbalize in their current situation. And so he didnât. Guy was funny even with a gaping bullet hole in him. A go-go? He was a riot!
âNo, I donât,â he admitted. âbut I can heal the wound.âÂ
How open he was. Readily admitting, in so many words, his capabilities to a total stranger. But it wasnât just because. The guy was shot and wasnât bleeding! That wasnât a luxury afforded by humans and therefore this man couldnât be human. Right? So, Loki willingly offered his services without fear of bewildered questioning.
âOr take your attackerâs shirt. He doesnât need it anymore.â Here, he gestured to the man in question, sprawled on the floor âsleepingâ. Loki had very courteously grabbed a nearby metal tray during the attack and had bashed it upside the manâs head. Which, with his level of strength, had knocked him out and probably concussed him. Had he used full strength, the guyâs head mightâve popped off. Well, not cleanly. It wouldâve been a traumatizing sight.Â
Anyway. The guy would be out for a while and he didnât need a shirt in jail.
âIf you can fit in it. Heâs a bit scrawny.â
Ferdiadâs eyes turned downward, again at his chest, again at the injury that wasnât there. A bruise lurked beneath the skin, bright red a few minutes ago and darkening with the drag of time.
He was extraordinarily lucky that this man had been the only guest present at the time of the attack -- or maybe that was extraordinarily unlucky? There was something off about all of this, something askew and he could not pin the source, wasnât sure that he wanted to.
âItâs-- itâs hardly more than a bruise,â he said slowly, aware that this was an absolutely insane statement to make in the face of buckshot. âBut I appreciate the offer, I really do. If youâre magic or the like, you know, thatâd be nice.â
Easy enough to take as a joke, forward enough that someone like him could answer it with a nod, a shrug, a subliminal message of any breed.
Ferdiad knelt, an awkward display given the state of him, exacerbated by the fact that he did not take his eyes off Loki. For a moment he considered removing his tarnished shirt, tossing it aside like -- well, garbage.
In the end he donned it over his last, the fabric pinching him in the exact least comfortable places and loudly declaring some country bandâs superiority to the world, which Ferdiad would respect if he had recognized the band at all.
âThis is the second-weirdest day of my life,â he said bluntly. It was not quite like him, but there was a fear building at the back of his throat, an anxiety tied to the fact that someone now knew, even if they did not believe it. But he could not say that, could not voice this the way he would voice anything else, and so he added: âThere is a half-naked man on my cafe floor, and I think you might have put him in a coma.â
