Young Writers Society

“Maybe it is,” they quietly agreed, “but I really don’t think you could ever be evil, Landon. I know what evil is, and it’s not you.”

They were usually uncomfortable with being too close to Landon, but they were surprisingly fine with Landon resting his head on their shoulder and holding their hands close to his chest. They could sense that he needed the comfort; they would gladly give it in whatever form they could. And the closeness wasn’t the same as it always was. Landon had chosen to do this. For some odd reason, it made it feel okay in their head.

After another moment passed, Magic pulled their hands out of the bundle. It was hard figuring it out because of how they were sitting, but they managed to pulled him into a tight embrace.

Landon Brassey

All Landon could do was nod into Magic’s shoulder at their comment. As he was pulled into a hug, he let his body relax, and gripped onto their shirt tightly, squeezing his eyes shut.

A few gradually smoother breaths later, he turned his face from out of their shoulder, not pulling back in any other way.

“What are we going to do now?” He asked softly. “Were you… serious about giving me a tour? Because I can- I can play along with the whole ‘evil’ thing… I just need a few more moments of staging like this first.”

“I don’t know,” they admitted. “I said it back there because it sounded like a good excuse to drag you off to my room - I didn’t want anyone questioning what was going on if they overheard us.”

They could feel heat rising up to their cheeks again. Now that they weren’t solely trying to comfort Landon, the flustered feeling that accompanied close contact with him had decided to return. They knew they couldn’t pull away; that would seem rude and would probably worry Landon.

So they forced themselves to stay where they were.

“But a tour does sound like a good idea. It gives us a chance to figure out what’s going on, and explains why you’re here without compromising my position. You might get dragged along for a mission, but it shouldn’t be bad - Celeste will have already warned the person, and I’m great at improvisation.”

They gave him a little smile. They didn’t move their hands. They could have, probably, if they said it was because they were planning to get up soon. But hugging Landon felt nice, and they didn’t want the experience to end just yet.

“You can be yourself - you just have to pretend hate anything nonhuman and be very cautious around magic,” they continued. “That’s what I do, and no one’s caught onto me yet. Even Loki’s pretty laid back, though he is a little on the childish side.”

Landon Brassey

Landon nodded from Magic’s shoulder, looking up and returning their smile. He turned and promptly buried his face again, soaking up their comforting warmth.
After several long moments, he finally gave them one last little squeeze and pulled back.

“Okay.” He said, resolve on his face. “I'm ready.”

With the little nod he gave, a twig tumbled out of his hair and onto the bed. He picked it up and twirled it for a moment, suddenly sheepish.

“Um. I might have to clean up a bit first.” He mumbled, running his hands through his hair and dislodging some more leaves. His eyes widened a moment and caught Magic’s.

“Actually, yeah, do you… do you have a shower I could use? If it isn't any trouble. It's just been um- really crazy with Reida, Vesper, and, and I haven't had one in so long.” He quickly amended this, a little blush leaping to his cheeks. “I mean, not to say I haven't bathed! I try to keep clean, really, we just haven't had any hot water or anything. I mean, it's not an excuse and I probably don't smell too great. And- oh gosh, you had to hug me! I- I'm really sorry.”

He finished this little rant with his face even redder, and lifted his arm to rub the back of his neck, only to realize that he was exposing his armpit and quickly put it back at his side.

Magic grinned at him.

“It’s alright,” they reassured him. They had been so caught up with the details of their conversations and how intimate Landon had been with them to notice how badly he smelled; it was only now that him not bathing really made sense.

But they didn’t mind it. They would have, if this was three months ago, but hanging around Loki involved getting very familiar with strong body odors. Loki’s shapeshifting abilities came at the price of bucketfuls of sweat and a hunger that was nearly impossible to satisfy, which led Magic - and everyone else that knew him well enough - to believe that he likely wasn’t using his true form.

Whatever the case really was, they could focus on Loki later - he was bound to show up eventually. For now, they had to direct Landon to a shower.

...And find him a good change of clothes.

Of course, there was the slight problem that Landon was taller than them, and had a noticeably different set of proportions to his body. They would have just used a spell to conjure them into existence, but they didn’t have magic at their disposal.

They would have to rely on someone else.

They pointed to a door towards the front of the room. In retrospect, their room was almost modeled off of the rooms they could have found in a hotel, though it was certainly more personalized than most of them. “The shower’s in there,” they said. “I’ll work on getting you a fresh change of clothes.”

They brought their phone out of their hoodie’s pocket and opened the messaging app. It wasn’t hard to find him; he was at the top of it. They tried not to look at the message history - it was really stupid stuff that didn’t make any sense out of context, especially when Thor was worrying him again.

→ do u have any spare clothes i can borrow
landon needs clothes and he’s taller than me
→ his clothes looked fine earlier
→ wait where are u?
→ my room

There was a pause

→ is he going to be naked when i walk in
→ ...what
→ he’s in your room and needs new clothes
→ u did the
→ u know
→ the birds and the bees

When Loki’s interpretation finally clicked, their face turned bright red and they nearly dropped their phone. Which, when they looked back on it later, would have led to a pause that seemed like quite the guilty admission, but Magic was just too flustered by the suggestion.

→ it’s not like that!!
→ landon and i are just friends
→ but he’s naked
→ he’s not yet
→ yet?

They held back an embarrassed groan.

→ can you bring some spare clothes to my room?
→ i can
→ but if i walk in and he’s naked
→ thor and i are out
→ the clothes will be thrown at ur face
→ and i will leave the room before u can even blink
→ neither one of us likes seeing naked men
→ ...how do u know that
→ he covers his face with his tail when i’m getting changed
→ and one time he bit me when i got too close to where i had put him down
→ and then i tried to pick him up to calm him down but he squirmed too much and i almost dropped him
→ that’s too much information isn’t it
→ yeah
→ see u in my room soon

They looked up from their phone and gave Landon a thumbs up, though it was very clear that the texting had made them feel uncomfortable from the blush on their cheeks.

Landon Brassey

Landon smiled back at Magic and quickly hopped up, not wanting to soil their blankets any more than he already might have. He waited a moment as they texted someone- presumably about clothes for him.

He did notice that they were uncomfortable about something, and normally would have made sure that they were okay, but he was eager to get clean and took off toward the bathroom at the thumbs up.

“I'll try not to be too long!” He called through the door after he'd shut it.

He slung off his clothes and left them in a tidy little pile as he started the water. As soon as he stepped in and felt the build up of dirt run off him, he sighed in relief. It really had been too long- he missed hot running water even more than he'd thought he would.

As he used generous amounts of soap, he hummed happily, which turned into singing quietly to himself.

Barely five minutes had passed before they heard a knock on their door. It was a knock that could have only belonged to one person - whether intentional or not, Loki had a habit of knocking to the starting knocks of “Do You Want to Build A Snowman?” So when they opened the door to see him standing in front of the room with his arms laden with more clothes than they had ever expected, they weren’t exactly surprised.

Loki hesitantly peeked into the room.

“He’s not...you know....” Loki said, gesturing vaguely with a shrug when freeing his hands failed. Thor, who was in the middle of climbing up the side of Loki’s arm, looked very nervous as he followed Loki’s gaze.

Magic pointed at the direction of the bathroom. If they focused closely enough, they could hear Landon singing faintly over the rushing water. A small smile danced across their lips; his singing was nice.

Loki looked at the closed door - his eyes didn’t leave it, even when he was in the middle of putting the pile of clothes down on Magic’s bed. It was only when Magic shut the door to their bedroom that Loki’s attention finally shifted. He had a look to his face that Magic wasn’t getting a good feeling about. A glance was briefly shared with Thor, who was now perched on his shoulder like he was Pikachu with Ash Ketchum.

“You like him,” Loki accused them.

Their face turned bright red.

Thor eagerly nodded in agreement, giving a little hiss to further show his support of Loki’s all-too-true suspicion.

“I don’t,” they whispered, frantically glancing back at the closed bathroom door. Hopefully Landon hadn’t heard Loki’s comment over the running water; it should have been loud enough to hide something like that, right? “Landon and I are just friends! He was feeling gross, so I let him use my shower, and, well…” They suddenly realized they didn’t know how to explain Landon’s sudden and inexplicable appearance in the base. The visit explanation could work for most, but Loki was bound to question something like that.

“He was out in the woods,” they continued. Keep some truth in there, and it should last long enough for them to come up with a better explanation with Landon when they were alone. “I admit I didn’t give you the full story - you see, I didn’t even know it. Landon was hunting down a faery.”

Loki nodded, absentmindedly holding out a hand to Thor for the snake to slither onto. “Like the fairies that were bugging you when we first met?”


“No, those were just pixies,” they said. “I’m talking about a serious faery here, Loki. You know, the pointy ears, Seelie and Unseelie courts, masters of trickery and deception - that kind of faery.”

Loki grew uncharacteristically still. “And?”

“Well, it sprung a trap,” Magic lied. “It cast a curse or a spell on him - Landon’s not really sure. But the spell brought him here, so he’s here now. I’m going to give him a tour once he finishes his shower and gets changed.”

“Unlucky him,” Loki said. He was good at hiding his feelings most of the time, but Loki was an open book right now. They felt a twinge of guilt when they saw how solemn his expression had gotten; even Thor was tilting his head and giving him a worried look. They should have remembered Loki’s story before coming up with that lie - Loki’s parents had been killed by a faery. It was what made him hate the nonhumans of the world; Loki talked about it all the time. It was a good lie, and one that Loki would never question.

...So why did they feel so horrible about mentioning faeries in front of him?

Landon Brassey

When Landon had finally scrubbed his skin and hair enough to get all the dirt off, he turned off the water and stepped out, trying his best not to slip in the little puddle of water he’d created. A few moments later, he emerged from the bathroom. Steam escaped into the room as he padded onto the carpet, clutching the towel around his hips with one hand.

“Thanks, M-” just in time, he spotted the man next to them and saved the close call without so much as a blink. “Sam. I really needed that.”

He mustered a little smile for the man and his snake, and attempted to call up a name. He had been pretty out of it earlier, and didn’t remember too much of their interaction besides his face.

“Loki, right?” he started cautiously, pressing on more when he wasn't corrected. “Hi again. Are those for me?”

Tilting his head at the pile of clothes in question, he started shifting from foot to foot slightly. He hadn’t been self-conscious walking out in a towel earlier, but now that he was standing here with both Magic and Loki’s eyes on him, he felt the effects of the awkward situation.

Magic had known they were going to inevitably blush when Landon emerged from the shower, but they hadn't anticipated the reaction that Loki had when he saw Landon. His blue eyes widened, and he took a startled step back when the sight really seemed to register - knocking into the dresser right behind him. Then his cheeks started to grow red, and Magic suddenly realized that their partner wasn’t nearly as straight as they had assumed for the past three months.

It was just almost as bad as when he got flustered over Aria Wright.

They could have felt jealous, but there really wasn’t any need to - Loki would never make a move, and Landon would never fall for someone like Loki.

“H-Hi,” Loki said. He straightened a little and gave Landon a surprisingly shy smile. “They are. I’m not sure what your style is, so I thought I’d bring as many different styles as I could.”

As they spoke, Thor moved his tail from in front of his face and adopted an almost sorrowful look to his little reptilian eyes. He curled up into a tiny ball on Loki’s shoulder, tucking his head in so he was no longer looking at the exchange.

Loki didn’t seem to notice - he was too busy staring at Landon. And Magic would have been, too, if they hadn’t caught Thor moving around out of the corner of their eyes. Turning their attention away from Landon, they walked over to Loki’s side and picked up the albino rat snake.

Now Loki seemed to notice his best friend’s distress. Before Magic could even open their mouth, Loki had snatched Thor back from their grasp. He raised him up so they were staring face-to-face - or would have been, if Thor was actually meeting his eyes.

“Thor, buddy, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Thor just kept his head tucked in.

Loki frowned and held his best friend close to his chest, gently stroking his head with a finger as he looked worriedly over in Magic’s direction.

Landon Brassey

Landon clutched his towel tighter and stepped forward, his eyes only on the clothes in Loki’s hands. He was still smiling widely, oblivious.

“Thank you. Really, you didn’t have to go through the trouble- anything will do.” he looked up then, and noticed what was unfolding with the white snake. A little frown crossed his features, and his eyes were wide in concern.

“Is he okay?” he asked softly, taking in interest in how much Thor was acting like a person.

“I don’t know,” Loki whispered. Thor gave a startled hiss - briefly breaking out of his unusual melancholy - as Loki apparently held onto him too tight. Loki had mentioned that Thor wasn’t a fan of naked men, but they doubted that was the source of the problem. Something else had to be at fault.

...Something that Magic had suspected ever since they had learned Thor’s story.

Loki was convinced that Thor was just a regular old snake that had been blessed with a higher form of sentience by the witch he had taken him from. Maybe he was. But a witch would never leave their familiar behind, even when trying to escape from a group like Perseus. Add in the fact that Loki found his best friend cowering in a pile of clothes when he checked out the witch’s old lair, and it seemed all the more likely that Thor had once been a person.

(Part of Magic had always hoped that Thor was just like them - someone with magical abilities that had accidentally gotten trapped when magic when awry. But they had never been able to confirm that, and they doubted they would until Thor eventually turned back to whatever was “normal” for him.)

And if the theory on Thor being a person was right…

...Oh multiverse. How were they supposed to help with that? And why in the world would Thor fall in love with someone like Loki?

Well, there was an easy enough solution. Now that all the clothes were on the bed, Loki was free to go. Magic made sure he got the hint, pushing him in the direction of the door. Loki barely protested; he was far more concerned with Thor. “Let’s figure out what’s wrong with Thor after Landon gets dressed,” they said. Loki gave a small nod, still stroking his best friend’s head with a finger as Magic shut the door - and locked it - when Loki was finally out of the room.

“Loki has a crush on you and his snake is jealous,” Magic explained, keeping their voice quiet in case Loki - though they doubted it - was listening in.

Landon Brassey

Landon paused from where he had turned to the clothes, and his eyes widened briefly as he tried to reckon with what he'd thought he'd head.

“Wait… w-what?” He spluttered after a moment, still in shock.

He glanced at the door, and then back to Magic, his clothes forgotten on the bed.

“But he didn't act like… how do you know?” He shook his head for a moment to clear his thoughts and then refocused on the other half of their explanation. “And- and Thor is jealous? Of what? Does that mea-”

He paused, and his eyes widened once more.

“Gosh. Thor’s not a normal snake, is he? And that means that… he has feelings for Loki.” He but his lip a little at this discovery, his expression turning sad in sympathy.

Magic nodded, casting a brief glance at the door before joining Landon over by the bed.

“Loki found Thor before I came,” they said. “Back when he still was working with his first partner. They were raiding a witch’s home - Celeste had warned the witch, so she wasn’t there when they arrived. But Thor was. Loki said he found him cowering away in a pile of clothes. Shadow - his old partner - said to get rid of Thor because he could be the witch’s familiar, but Loki decided to ignore what she said and keep him instead.”

They took a deep breath and leaned up against their desk. “I’ve always thought that Thor’s kind of like me,” they admitted. “He acts too much like a person for it to just be spellwork. But Loki’s convinced Thor’s just a very magical snake - I don’t think he wants to consider what he would have to do if it turned out Thor was something other than a snake.”

They glanced back at the door.

“...And it’s, um, actually kind of obvious when Loki has a crush on someone,” they said. “He gets really flustered - you should see him around Aria Wright. He can barely get a sentence out, and his face gets bright red. Thor used to act a little off back when Loki first started interacting with her, but it’s hard to stay mad at Ari for any reason.” They gave him a smile. “I’m sure he’ll feel the same way once he gets to know you.”

Landon Brassey

Landon chewed his lip as he thought this over, now perched on the bed.

“Well, if he was in a pile of clothes, then yeah… that's pretty self explanatory.” He murmured to himself, his eyes slightly distant.

A little flustered blush (and flattered, if he was honest) rose to his cheeks at Magic’s explanation of the reaction he apparently hadn't been aware of. It was kind of strange to imagine someone being attracted to him, and he still didn't understand why.

“I hope so. I don't want to cause any more problems.” He smiled up at their reassurance. His gaze turned down then, and he realized that he was playing with the hem of the towel that was still around his waist.

“Oh,” he gave an awkward little chuckle. “I should probably get dressed.”

He stood up, scooping up a random bundle of the clothes Loki had brought.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Magic agreed, trying to ignore the worried pang they felt when a slight blush appeared on Landon’s cheeks. Landon couldn’t have a crush on Loki, right? He was just getting awkward because he had become the topic of the conversation.

...Right?

They waited for a moment before they realized how bad it would be if Landon got changed right in front of them. It wasn’t like they had a problem with seeing people naked - take that, Loki! - but seeing Landon naked was a deeply uncomfortable concept.

(Or maybe it was too comfortable.)

“You should probably get changed in the bathroom,” they suggested, already averting their gaze in case he decided to get dressed out in the main room instead. “Or out here. Whatever works for you works for me!”