all_inclusive | Think of all the luck you got.

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Think of all the luck you got.

There were a lot of really weird and screwed-up scenarios that Fiona Gallagher could imagine herself in. Her involvement in these scenarios was usually begrudging and her father usually the cause, but picturing herself caught up in something beyond most people's limit of belief had officially became much easier after this past summer. (Finding yourself crouching in a hole in your backyard, covered in sweat and dirt, and ecstatic over having unearthed a dead relative's remains could do that to a girl.)

Despite that, she had to admit that the Nexus was pretty fucking crazy, even by Gallagher standards.

It had been just at a week hotel time since she'd opened the downstairs bathroom door and found the Nexus beyond, but having a magical luxury hotel where her toilet should be freaked her out a lot less than the fact that the place was essentially free. In Fiona's experience, if something sounded too good to be true, it always was, and she probably should've gone home, chalked the whole experience up to some bad seafood and never thought about it again.

She probably would have, too, if the people at the desk hadn't told her the bit about time differences and job openings.

Christmas was right around the corner, and she'd spent almost everything Jimmy had left her on that damned deal for work. (Not that she was complaining; the money had come at the perfect time, and now they'd have enough plastic cups in the house that they probably wouldn't need to wash a single glass for half a year.) Back home, it would cost her 150 bucks to get herself licensed to sell alcohol, and she'd have no guarantee of being hired anywhere. Here, they apparently only cared that you could mix a drink, and a lifetime with Frank had more than prepared her for that. The great hourly wage and tips she was earning meant she could actually afford to get everything out of lay-away this year and maybe even buy some extra stocking stuffers for the kids. The circumstances may have been weird, but for Fiona taking the position was a no-brainer.

Today was her third day behind the bar at the Smoking Room. She'd allowed herself to come through early enough to get a solid nap before her shift and was now practically chipper, turning a wide smile to the guests waiting for a drink.

"What can I get you?"

For the first time in a long time, she actually felt good about the future.

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"Just bring that bottle over."

He elegantly cocked his hand in the direction of what looked to be a mostly full bottle of grain alcohol (its faint tinge of bronze, like a drop of blood in water, was oddly reassuring) gleaming next to its brothers on the back bar display. Loki was not unlike his family in that drinking was considered a fine way to pass the time, facilitate thought, or was simply a useful talent to have. Despite his size - rather slight compared to many a warrior on Asgard - he was markedly good at it, though now he knew his lineage might have had something to blame, there.

Though he was in a bar that was obviously a crossroads between worlds, where he was likely not the strangest looking person to go through, he'd muted his clothes somewhat, having whisked away the flashier gold of his armour. Even then he was still bound up rather securely in black leather with glimpses of green, but Loki was of Asgard and generally speaking they usually didn't care that much about blending in. But at least he didn't glint.

There was a kind of fierce pride that came along with being a Southside kid. Even Fiona could recognize it as a defense mechanism—If you weren't proud of it, the only other option was shame—but she was no different regardless, if not strictly proud of where she came from, at least proud of having survived it. She'd had misguided moments, though, where she'd dabbled at being somebody else, had let herself be briefly drawn into the sphere of wealth and privilege despite her innate mistrust. This guy's tone of voice, the bored gesture, they spoke of a life where you didn't request things, but were rather entitled to them. It reminded Fiona of Jimmy's mom, albeit less soused.

She retrieved the bottle of scotch and a rocks glass in her own time, and poured out a measure with a skeptically arched eyebrow.

"That's an interesting fashion statement you got goin' there," she noted, and pointedly stored the bottle behind the bar.

Only in extreme cases did Loki feel the awkwardness of being out of place; hailing from the royal family in Asgard put into motion the supposition that you belonged anywhere you happened to be, at least unconsciously. Sitting in a bar in a world he could not place was in no means extreme enough to put Loki on edge.

He noted her movements without even having to think about it. She certainly didn't jump at his request, but he didn't mind that. Worrying about what other people thought of you suggested you cared enough, and if she wasn't fond of him on sight he wasn't particularly bothered. "I suppose it must be," he said, raising one shoulder in a shrug. "Yours is to mine. Where are you from?" The curiosity was real. After all, he was still sitting in a small cloud of confusion, which was not a state Loki tended to be in often.

"Chicago," Fiona answered as she leaned back on her heels, watching him with a canted head. The polite reaction to her jab about his outfit was a surprise. "That's on Earth," she added, inferring easily enough that he was from some planet or alternate universe much more fond of leather than her own.

"Aren't you uncomfortable?" she asked with a nod his way. "Even in the A/C, you've gotta be hot in all that."

The name sounded familiar, which didn't mean much. When it came to geography, Loki had quite a few places crammed inside of his head. But it did sound Midgardian to him, but it wasnt an old city. (The places in Midgard never seemed to stick around for much longer than a couple hundred years, it seemed like).

At her question, he gave her a little smile, enough to show just a bit of his teeth. "I'm not, no," he said. "You would have to drop me in a volcano for me to sweat. You are human, yes?" If she was going to mention her planet in conjunction with her home, he assumed other species were not going to be beyond her.

Since she had poured it for him and there was only so long he would allow alcohol to go undrunk, he picked up his glass and drained it in one go, not with any particular zest or attempt to show off - more like he wasn't really thinking about it. It lacked the strength of the brews he was used to, but it had a pleasant flavour, like smoke and burning.

"Yeah," Fiona said, and smiled despite herself, a startled, guileless reaction to having been asked something she had, until now, figured was self-evident.

"That's the first time anybody's asked me if I'm human," she explained, and poured him out another measure of scotch. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that you're not."

"Well, if you've never been asked that before, I hope you're not offended." Loki could be charming, but he didn't bother laying it on thick. For one thing, he did not particularly need this girl to like him very much, just enough to keep filling his glass. Still, she was a woman, and also, she wasn't trying to punch him, unlike everyone else. The suggested code of behaviour was pretty self evident: be nice, Loki. Not too difficult so long as he wasn't talking to someone he found irritating.

"Not so much, but I would rather not go into details. That might be rude." That last bit might have been a bit teasing, but not coolly so. He considered his glass, then tapped a fingertip against the rim. "Think you could add a touch of water to that? It might bring the flavour out." He had a more discerning palate than his brother, frankly.

"Oh, definitely. Nobody ever talks about themselves at bars, it's a huge faux pas," Fiona replied with a smirk, and swept up his glass to add the requested water. When she slid it back across the polished wood of the bar, the liquid had gone from its original rich amber to a more mellow gold.

"There is a rule, though," she continued, bracing one palm against the back edge of the bar as she gestured with the other. "You may not know it since it's a human thing, but if you bring up a subject, you're kind of expected to talk about it. Just for your future reference."

He gave her a grin. "Oh, but then how do I maintain the aura of mystery except by not talking about things?" He asked. "Besides, I only brought up you being human, and you brought up my being not human. You're trying to trick me. It's not going to work."

He sipped the drink and this time the flavour expanded a bit and made its way up to his nose. Not bad. Still lacking a kick, but he expected that. "I'll give up some mystery, if you wish. My name is Loki." And now was the time to see if she wasn't going to make any connection, or she was going to throw a bottle at him, because that was clearly the response these days. You wander space for an indeterminate amount if time, and everything changes.

"Mystery is overrated," Fiona pronounced with the sort of firm authority that spoke to experience on the subject far beyond her years. A quick stab of emotion accompanied the words, registering as the briefest flicker behind her dark eyes, there and gone again in a flash.

"Fiona," she offered in return, no reaction to Loki's name aside from the thought that it was definitely weird enough to be from some other planet. "No tricking happening here, but I do usually give as good as I get," she added with a knowing arch of her eyebrows.

He smiled gently. He wouldn't argue with her. He didn't feel like it. Loki's moods swam about these past few months, but he was always an observer, and she was giving him something to look at.

He pressed his hand lightly to his chest, as courtly a salute as he could create across a bartop. "Noted," he said. Every movement he made was both idle and charged with purpose; it was an intensity he didn't often bother with hiding. It made some people nervous, but he doubted this Midgardian either cared even if she noted it.

"Maybe a different subject, then," he said, "do you know where this place is? In the scope of time, space, and everything else?"

"No idea," Fiona replied with a slight shake of her head, ponytail swishing. "Not that I'm any kind of expert on that sort of stuff anyway. But you know, I don't think even the people at the front desk know, and they know pretty much everything about this place."

Settling again, hips canted and one hand on her hip, she narrowed her eyes at the middle distance. "It's pretty fucking weird that they seem to just accept the place without question," she said, and then blinked, turning her attention back to Loki. "I mean, doesn't that seem a little creepy to you?"

The fact she didn't know did not surprise him. Knowledge did not seem so easily won in this place, if you were looking for important answers. Then again, he supposed that was how you knew the question was serious enough - the difficulty in solving it. "I would have thought that by working here, you've found some sort of comfort level about it," he pointed out. "It doesn't disturb you enough not to be here. Unless you have no choice?"

Loki had yet to try to leave, but then again, this was less boring than space. And space didn't have alcohol; none that he had found, anyway. He sipped from his glass again. "Maybe they're from somewhere else where this happens all the time," he suggested, with a small wave of his hand, 'this' apparently encompassing the entire hotel and grounds.

"Nah, it was completely voluntary," Fiona answered with a shake of her head. "I've got five younger siblings I'm trying to support, so I can't really afford to turn down a job that pays this well. Plus, I don't miss anything back home when I'm here."

Yet, she mentally added, and then immediately pushed the thought aside.

"Maybe everybody who works here is in the same boat," she allowed with a considering cant of her head. "I know a lot of people back home who will overlook a hell of a lot for a good paycheck."

When it came to wealth, Loki had never been wanting. Even now it was all within his reach; a tiny spell, a reach through time and space, and he could grasp hold of it. He was a prince, and such worries never reached his mind. His concerns were elsewhere - politics, government, sorcery, science, war. That didn't mean he didn't understand that others might have such concerns, but he truly had no personal experience of it.

"Five is quite a lot," he mused. He could barely stand the one he had; imagine if there were five of him. He'd have thrown himself off the Rainbow Bridge much sooner if he'd had to deal with five people Odin loved more than him, instead of just Thor.

"Yeah, well," Fiona began with a resigned tilt of her head. "My parents were never big on Planned Parenthood." Too late she realized that Loki wouldn't know what that was, but hopefully it was self-explanatory. He seemed like a pretty smart guy.

"What about you? You have any family?" she asked, swiftly sidestepping further discussion of her own circumstances. She reached to needlessly polish a clean glass and offered Loki a look of polite curiosity.

"One brother. You might see him around. He's the fellow who doesn't look a thing like me."

He knew she probably wasn't even really interested, and he was wondering if this was the part of person-to-person interaction where you hit bland smalltalk once you've run out of anything truly compelling to say. That would be a shame; she'd started out with such promise.

"He tends to break things, though."

"Yours, too?" Fiona asked, breaking into a unguarded smile. "Four of my five are brothers. Absolutely nothing is safe in our house, destructive little shits." This was all said, however, with an air of fondness that made it difficult to lend her complaints much weight. They were growing boys with Frank for a male role model, it wasn't as if they could help it.

"So no breaking things for you, or are you just better at getting away with it?" she asked, her smile shifting into a knowing smirk. God knew she'd broken enough in her own lifetime, even if she wasn't as prolific as Lip or Carl.

"It's a specialty of his, I think. He gets away with it better than I do." True, and not true. Thor was expected to be more rough and tumble, after all, so why not take advantage of it? But when Loki broke something, he hid it. If smashing things was a specialty of Thor's, half-lies were a specialty of Loki's.

"I only have the one, though. His path of destruction is rampant and wide, but at least it's singular."

It was hard for Fiona to tell whether Loki was bitter about his brother's destructive streak. Projecting her own situation onto his was natural, and she had to wonder whether his brother was more like her own—Messy but ultimately well-meaning—or like Frank, who'd been leaving a wake of chaos for Fiona to deal with since she could walk.

"You end up having to clean up after him a lot?" she asked, genuinely curious if only because Loki looked and sounded like he'd never had to clean up anything in his entire life.

For a moment he just looked at her - it was barely a split second of a blank expression, but it was enough for someone who was watching for that sort of thing. He had never been asked that question before, and it legitimately startled him for a moment. He was far too used to being overlooked when it came to Thor, even though more often than not he had operated as his brother's good sense.

"Whenever required," he said, and tipped his empty glass towards her in a wordless request for another.

"I know the feeling," Fiona replied as she reached for the bottle and poured him another neat measure of scotch. That it wasn't her brothers that she was mostly referring to didn't bear mentioning. Frank was a sore subject on the best of days, and lately…

On impulse, she reached for a clean glass, poured herself some scotch, and proceeded to knock it swiftly back with all the aplomb of an alcoholic's daughter.

"So if you're not human, does booze affect you the same way?" she asked after a brief wince, already setting the glass aside to be washed.

Though he viewed Midgardians with a vague amount of disinterest - they were delicate creatures, short of lifespan, and generally madcap - that wasn't to say he was beyond noticing them. Perhaps their short, blink-of-an-eye lives brought to the fore an activity of the mind that was often difficult for Loki to find on Asgard. In any case, she had surprised him; that alone merited his notice. Even if her one advantage was not knowing a single thing about him, it was, he had to admit, a difficult advantage to a member of a royal family.

Besides, she drank like an Asgardian.

He smiled at her. It was a good smile, the sort that would sometimes make a girl pause, before her eyes invariably strayed to Thor. He motioned to the glass she set aside, indicating she should keep it. "It will, eventually," he said. "Pour yourself another, Fiona. I'll settle the balance. Not to butter you up; but generally drinking is better with company."

If the smile didn't give Fiona pause, it at least caught her notice and held it for a moment, if only because it seemed like the first truly unguarded gesture the guy had made. Well, and it was a nice one, she could admit that much. Outwardly Loki seemed the polar opposite of her tastes, but he wasn't difficult to look at.

Fiona's own smile was instinctive, and she considered the bottle a moment before looking back to him.

"I do have other customers I'll be expected to occasionally serve, you know," she said, but was reaching for the bottle anyway. "One more," she said, holding up her index finger for emphasis. "I like this job, so I'd kinda like to keep it."

"And you'll serve them. Just far more cheerfully than normal, perhaps," he replied, teasingly.

He was mentally going back through their conversation, sifting out the parts he found interesting. "So you work here for your siblings?" he asked. His fingertip touched his glass, immediately sending a fine layer of frost through it, chilling the liquid. It was an action that was not unconscious, but not to show off, either. Mostly he wanted to see if she would notice, to see how sharp she was. "Do they do anything for you, or are they too young?" Or selfish, maybe, but judging by her looks, he doubted they were old enough.

Think of all the luck you got.

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