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This was not, Sam determined as he took another fist to the face, one of his shining moments. Real smart, Sam, real…
He must have blacked out for a second, cause then he was propped up on someone’s shoulder, an arm around his waist keeping him upright. “Dean?” he tried blurrily, and with some confusion, as he was pretty sure Dean had said he’d be out of town for the weekend.
“Not exactly.” Sam blinked, trying to get the world to focus. That couldn’t be right. “Are you always this stupid or am I merely fortunate?”
“M’gonna barf,” Sam mumbled. Loki obligingly stopped and let him retch for a few minutes. He could almost feel the disapproving stare on the back of his neck. “Um…thanks,” Sam said to the pavement. “But I can get home from here, I’ll be-”
“Don’t be a fool.” Loki’s voice was caustic. “I am not going to have you fall into a coma on the couch – or wander into the street to be hit by a car, or any of the other dire possibilities. Here’s a bench, sit, I shall call emergency services-”
“No,” Sam tried to protest, even as he was manhandled into a chair. Strange, Sam thought, he wouldn’t expect his whip-thin roommate to be able to hold him up, or push him around, or…huh. His ribs throbbed, his head pounded, and his stomach turned uneasily. “I can’t…”
“I shall see to it,” Loki said, his voice clipped. Great, Sam though, good impression you’re making. He bent over and closed his eyes, trying to focus on not throwing up again. Loki’s voice was a low and indistinct murmur. A moment later he was back. “An ambulance shall be by shortly.” Visions of hospital bills danced in Sam’s head and he resisted the urge to wince. “What happened?”
The question was somewhere between incredulous and irritated. “S’not important,” Sam mumbled.
“If I do not miss my guess,” Loki said dryly, “you have at least two broken ribs, a concussion, potentially a broken nose, and a great variety of bruises. It seems it was important to someone.” Sam did wince, then.
“Can we talk about this later?” he asked plaintively. His roommate breathed out sharply through his nose.
“Very well. I suppose.” Sam was pretty sure there was no one who could do that you have sorely inconvenienced me and I shall not forget it voice like Loki could, but a moment later he settled next to Sam on the bench with perfect delicacy. “I hadn’t thought of you as the brawling type.”
Sam closed his eyes, hoping it would keep his head from spinning. “M’full of surprises.”
“Apparently.”
Sam swallowed several times, trying to settle his stomach. Dean’s going to kill me. One of these days maybe he’d learn to stay out of things that weren’t completely his business.
Yeah, probably not.
They taped him back together at the hospital and sent him home with Loki, who stood in a corner for the whole process, arms crossed and mouth a thin line. Sam could almost see him cataloguing reasons to dislike him, if he didn’t already. They took a taxi, in which Loki said not a word. He caught Sam as he stumbled on the stairs, mouth thinning further as though this was a grave imposition, and Sam resisted the urge to apologize.
“Can I just say this wasn’t my idea?” Sam protested. “Cause I feel like you’re pissed at me.”
“I am not.” Sam scrutinized his roommate, trying to work out if he believed that, and regretted squinting as the world swooped dramatically. Don’t throw up on his shoes, Sam. That won’t help you.
“So just sort of…generally.”
“Hardly an unusual state of affairs.” Loki’s voice was dry, and if there was some humor there it seemed bitter. Sam supposed that was true enough, though. Loki did seem to be in a fairly continual state of annoyed, only in varying degrees of severity.
“Sorry, though,” Sam said, as Loki unlocked the door. “I mean. This doesn’t usually happen to me.”
“Which,” Loki said, tone not changing at all, “Getting into fights or losing them?” Sam opened his mouth and then shut it. Loki caught him again swaying on the landing, guided him through the door and over to the couch. “I am getting you a bowl,” he said, standing over Sam. “If you are going to vomit, please try to aim.”
“Uh huh,” Sam said. “I’ll do my best.” He tried awkwardly to arrange his limbs so he could recline on the couch. His whole body was starting to hurt. This was going to be awful tomorrow. He could hear Loki moving around in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, running the sink for a few moments. “Can I ask…what happened?”
“I thought you were going to tell me.” Sam frowned. There was something odd in Loki’s tone that didn’t sound quite right, quite like him – or at least as Sam’d gotten to know him over the past couple weeks – but he couldn’t tell what it was. He frowned, trying to work it out, but Loki went on before he could reply. “It is simple enough. I found you unconscious in an alley near the drug store.”
Sam put a hand over his eyes. The light was starting to hurt them. “And you were just taking a midnight walk in the area?” he said, and then realized how suspicious that sounded, and immediately said, “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I think you were, I- I don’t know, dealing drugs or something-”
“You don’t know. I might have been.”
Sam frowned. “…what?”
A moment’s pause. “Never mind.” The soft sound of Loki’s feet on the floor, coming near, and Sam pried his hand a little off his eyes to see his roommate frowning down at him. “What is – ah, of course. The light.”
“S’fine,” Sam said, “It’s not-” but Loki had already flicked the main light off. And it was better. “Thanks,” he said again, wondering if this would all make more sense when he didn’t have a concussion. He was pretty sure Loki didn’t like him. Tolerated him, sure, but he’d never seemed to consider Sam a friend.
“In answer to your question,” Loki said, “You were a half hour late returning from your weekly trip to the drug store. I was…troubled…by the irregularity in your schedule.” Sam opened his eyes to slits to watch Loki return and place a plastic bowl by the couch, straighten and drop something cold on Sam’s chest. “Put that on your eye or you won’t be able to see tomorrow.”
Sam groped for the cold, found an ice pack wrapped in a towel, and brought it obediently up to the side of his face. It felt blessedly good, and he couldn’t help letting out a happy little sigh, the good feeling momentarily distracting him from the oddity of what his roommate had just said.
“You went looking for me?” he managed, when he picked up on it, not sure if he was concerned that he was that predictable or just confused.
Loki shrugged loosely and folded himself into the armchair he seemed to have chosen as his. “I enjoy walking, and I wished to know what was keeping you.”
Sam frowned. “S’not a great neighborhood,” he said, thinking worriedly of his roommate, well-dressed, thin, practically a blaring ‘MUG ME’ sign over his head.
“I can manage myself.” Sam peered at him, curled up tight enough to fit within the confines of the armchair.
Uh huh, Sam thought skeptically. But there was something more interesting, he realized blearily, about what Loki had just said. “Wait – wait. Were you worried for me?”
“I am hardly so cold that I would not feel concern for injury caused to my sole companion.” Loki’s tone went clipped again, but the lines between his eyebrows – worry lines, Sam thought – remained. “Not to mention that if you were murdered I would likely be the first suspect.”
Sam snickered, and then regretted it. He likes me, Sam thought, and felt strangely pleased by the idea. Maybe this roommate thing would work out after all. His stomach was trying to flip again, though, so he closed his eyes and focused on taking deep breaths.
“So,” Loki said, after a few moments of silence. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“I thought I was going to do that later.”
“It is later.” Loki’s voice was implacable. “You still have your wallet, so this was not a robbery. What possible reason, then, could you have given what I estimate to be three opponents to beat you to a pulp?”
Sam had thought it was going to be bad having to explain the whole thing to Dean. Nope, he thought, this was worse. “I should’ve just called the police,” he mumbled. Loki’s ‘mm’ was less invitation than demand.
“I was just walking,” Sam said, “and there was this girl…”
Loki snorted. Sam raised his voice a little, regretted it, and dropped it again. “There was this girl, walking a little ahead of me, and between us this group of guys and they were just – I think they were drunk or something, being jerks, cat-calling and being rude as shit and I could tell the girl was getting freaked out…maybe they weren’t going to do anything. I don’t know.”
“Go on,” Loki said, his voice scrupulously even. Sam didn’t really think much of it, though.
“Anyway, I…said they should stop. And one of them turned around and asked me what my problem was, couldn’t I see they were just having some fun, and I said it didn’t look like she was, and he said something dumb about how ‘yeah, they act like that but’ and I just…got mad, so I said…” Sam trailed off. Loki was merciless.
“Said?”
“Um…it was something like, ‘it takes a really special kind of asshole to get his kicks out of harassing people’ and maybe something about…I don’t know. It probably wasn’t called for.” Sam wanted to put his face in his hands. He settled for hiding his eyes behind an ice pack. “And then he tried to punch me and I punched back and…they were drunk, they were mad, there were three of them. Yeah.”
Dean would have something to say about Sam letting himself get beat by three guys, but Sam could deal with that later. And he definitely wasn’t going to tell Loki what they’d said about Jess that was the real reason he’d started the fight, what he’d implied about her.
Loki was silent. After several moments of it, Sam moved the ice pack just a little so he could see his roommate’s face. It was blank, almost masklike.
“Did you know them?” he asked, finally. Sam nodded, and put the ice pack back over his eye.
“Uh huh. I mean…they’re popular guys. Scumbags. Not friends of mine. If you were wondering.”
"“Charlie,” Sam said, his eyelids dragging back down. “Daniel, I think the third guy’s…Zach, maybe? Why? You gonna take out a hit on them?”
“Mm,” Loki said. “I would not hire someone to perform a hit for me, Sam Winchester. I would do it myself. Feel free to rest. I will ensure you do not die overnight.”
“Thanks,” Sam mumbled, turning gingerly to get more comfortable. “’Preciate it.”
He crashed fast. He’d forgotten how concussions did that for you.
He woke up to an empty apartment around midday with a monstrous headache and his whole body in pain. The ice pack had melted to leave a wet imprint on his face and the couch. He did not, however, feel like throwing up. So that was nice, at least.
There was a note on the table, but even as Sam picked it up the door rattled with the sound of unlocking and Loki walked in, carrying a bag of groceries and looking peculiarly cheerful. Sam blinked at him.
“Good morning,” Loki said mildly. “Or – afternoon, now, I suppose. I suspect you feel rather wretched.”
“You don’t have to sound so happy about it,” Sam managed. The previous night seemed…fuzzy, but he remembered a few things. A few vital things. “Um…thanks for coming to get me.”
“Mm,” Loki said noncommitally, in lieu of accepting gratitude. Sam was beginning to get the feeling he never did. “Would you like a yogurt?”
Sam considered that. “I can try one.” Loki dropped one over the couch onto Sam’s lap, and Sam frowned up at him. “Why’re you in such a good mood?” Loki’s smile was thoroughly mysterious.
“I have had a pleasant morning.”
Sam frowned, slightly, but it didn’t seem that important, so he let it go, and set to opening his yogurt.
“Ah,” said Loki, from the kitchen. “Also, I should tell you – your hospital fees are taken care of. I’ve seen to it.”
Sam felt himself flush. He knew Loki’s family was rich, but every so often… “I can pay for myself,” he objected. Loki waved a hand.
“I do not doubt it. Consider it a thank you for allowing me to maintain my autonomy and not needing to live with my brother and his friends. And for being uniquely tolerable while you’re at it.”
Uniquely tolerable, Sam thought, wrinkling his nose. High praise. He’d figure out how to get around the bills thing later, when his head was a little clearer.
And hey, Sam thought, his new roommate liked him at least a little. That was something. Not worth a broken face, maybe, but it was something.