by Raythe Reign
“No, you’re trying to send me away! Keep Liam to yourself! You’ve never wanted to share him,” Cameron spat. It felt like every ugly thing he wanted to say to her was bubbling out of him just like the cactus’ innards had with the fire. He knew on some level that this wasn’t right, that the magic was controlling him instead of the other way around. He was worried, but the power seemed to swamp his concerns away. “Well, you’re not going to get away with it! I’m not that little boy you can lock in some institution and throw away the key!”
“Cam, you need to calm down, baby. Please!” Liam’s expression was wretched, but it only caused Cameron a moment’s hesitation.
Because then he realized that Liam was weak with her. He’d always been weak when their mother was concerned. Taking care of her after Dad had died. Trying to uncomfortably fill their father’s place. Maybe that was why she was so intent on getting rid of him! She wanted Liam for herself! Again, the sense that this wasn’t right, that he wasn’t himself altogether swept through him, but it was soon gone again as the power crackled beneath his skin.
“I’m as calm as the situation demands, Liam! How calm should I be when she’s trying to lock me up so she can have you for her own?” he mocked.
Confusion filled his brother’s face. “Cam, that’s not what —”
“You don’t see! You never see! Well, I’ll show you! I’ll show her, too!”
Cameron lifted his hands in front of him and mimicked holding a ball the size of a basketball and he imagined a ball of fire. To his delight, a spark formed in the exact center of this imaginary ball. It grew from spark to golfball-sized then baseball-sized globe of fire. He could feel the heat on his palms and across his face. It didn’t hurt him at all just flooded him with an unnatural warmth.
“Cam! Please, don’t! That doesn’t look safe,” Liam pleaded as he started to advance upon Cameron, arms outstretched, trying to block their mother from his wrath. Displeasure flowed through Cameron and the fire’s heat seemed to become his anger. Again, that small voice in his head told him that he was making a mistake, but he batted it away or perhaps the fire burned it away.
“Liam, stay back!” he ordered and his brother halted reluctantly. “I feel pretty in control of this, but anything could happen.”
And anything will happen. Other than hurting Liam I am okay with that.
“All right, just be careful. Don’t — don’t hurt yourself … or anyone else,” Liam said, patting the air in front of him as if Cameron was a wild beast that needed to be calmed. Perhaps he was a little wild at the moment. He did feel very strange.
Cameron met his mother’s eyes. “You’ve always thought that I was dangerous to other people. Or really to the people you cared about like Liam and Dad. An interloper in your family.”
“Cameron, you know I love you,” she said, her voice raw with pain for him.
“But? There’s always that ‘but’ in there!” he snarled. “Aren’t mothers supposed to love their children unconditionally?”
“I do!” she cried, still standing tall, not curling in on herself despite the fact that the ball of fire must have seemed to be aimed at her. Their mother was not a coward. “But you aren’t well, Cameron. Can’t you feel it? I can see in your eyes that you know something’s wrong. Cameron, please I —”
The ball of fire was the exact right size to throw. He saw a long armed cactus just over his mother’s shoulder. That would make a fine target and cause her to jump. He had no intention of actually harming her though the fire seemed to want to go towards her. He wrestled it back towards the cactus. This was just to teach her a lesson not to actually burn her.
“I’m perfectly fine,” he lied. “Completely in control.”
He threw the fireball towards the cactus. It breezed right past her cheek, stirring her hair, before it hit the cactus and caused the plant to explode in another hail of green slop. The stump of it burned white hot in the darkness of the desert nearly blinding him. Cameron let out a laugh. No one else did.
“I can’t tell you how fun this is. Most fun I’ve had in a long time,” he said and started to make another fireball. This one formed far easier and took less energy to make. “I think I’m getting the hang of this!”
“Cam, no!” Liam called. His expression was drawn and his face looked pale in the red light of the sign and the fireball. “You’ve proved your point. You slagged her phone. You’re angry and not thinking properly.”
“Only because she drives me crazy. We should have just admitted it all from the start to her,” Cameron laughed bitterly. “There was no way that we could have presented this that she would have understood and not blamed me.”
Just as the fireball was half the size it needed to be, Cameron saw a pair of headlights coming down the highway right towards him. He quickly turned away from the vehicle, still having enough sense to know that someone else seeing him winging fireballs about was the quickest way to end up in a government facility, strapped to a gurney, about to be autopsied. He expected the vehicle to speed on past, but he heard the squeal of brakes and the crunch of wheels on the parking lot’s gravel base. Sweat started to trickle down Cameron’s face. He tried to make the fireball disappear, but it stayed there, stubbornly, glowing and hot.
He heard one of the bar’s regulars - a guy named Joe Dimony - call to his mother, “Sheriff, what are you doing here so late? No trouble, I hope.”
“None at all,” she said, her voice was cool and crisp as if she hadn’t had a fireball whizz past her head a few moments before. “You should go on home, Joe.”
“Are you sure, Sheriff, because — oh hey, Cameron, what you go over there? A torch?” Jim’s voice rose up in laughter, but Cameron felt another drop of sweat slip off his chin and spatter to the ground below.
“He’s fine, Joe. You just go on home,” their mother said firmly.
“But he’s -” Joe began but that was as far as he got, because the front door to Fenrir’s burst open and out walked Loki followed closely by Thor, who appeared very concerned about the Trickster God’s temper.
Loki clicked his fingers and said, “Go home, Joe Dimony, and remember none of this.”
Cameron’s shoulders sagged in relief as he heard the vehicle start up and crunch over to the highway. He turned quickly again as the truck went past so that Joe didn’t see the fireball in his arms. His hands were shaking now with effort. He was growing intensely weary. He was about to just throw the fireball, somewhere, anywhere, when Loki stormed over to him. The Trickster God’s golden eyes were flashing dangerously. Cameron had never been afraid of him ... until this moment.
“YOU!” Loki hissed and snatched the fireball from his hands and made it wink out of existence.
Despite the tone in the Aesir’s voice, Cameron couldn’t help but be amazed at the ease that Loki had handled the fire. He wanted to be able to do that.
“Cam!” He heard Liam call to him. He saw Liam start jogging over to him.
But Loki waved Liam off. “Not now, Liam! Your brother and I need to have a talk! Magic user to magic user.”
Loki suddenly grabbed Cameron by the ear, which had Cameron squealing, and then Loki dragged him around the back of the bar into the black desert out of everyone’s sight.
He heard Thor call out, “Don’t be too hard on the lad, Loki! Be … be fatherly! In a good way!”
The last was added almost desperately and Cameron wondered what kind of father Loki’d had, but then he was yanked further by the ear and he thought nothing else but curses at the Trickster God. Loki finally released him and Cameron stumbled a few steps before straightening up.
“Hey! What the Hell was that for?” Cameron rubbed his sore ear.
“Stupidity!” Loki’s hands were on his waist and his eyes were blazing.
“You’ve got to be kidding! You hate my mother. What do you care that I was —”
“Sending fireballs whizzing by her head in front of the bar by a main highway?” Loki’s left eyebrow rose up
.
“I didn’t —”
“What? Think that you could be seen? No, of course not, because you weren’t thinking at all. You were emoting with magic!” Loki shouted.
Cameron shouted back, “What’s so bad about that? I bet you do it all the time! Or, at least, did when you were first figuring things out!”
The blaze in Loki’s eyes lowered to mere flames, though they were still unnerving. “Yes, I did.”
“And —”
“And that’s why I know what a mistake it is,” he finished. “What would have happened if you had accidentally hit her with one of the fireballs?”
“At least you know it would have been accidental! I was just —”
“What would have happened Cameron if you hit her?” Loki pressed.
“I wouldn’t have!” Cameron yelled, but he swallowed quickly as he remembered how the fire had wanted to go towards her. For a moment, he imagined the red-gold fireball touching his mother’s skin, melting it, blackening it, burning it down to the bone. He whispered, “I wouldn’t have.”
“When you are in anything but an icy state of calm, Cameron, magic has a way of turning on you.” Loki ran a hand through his hair and looked out into the desert.
Cameron glanced where he was looking and his heart clenched a little. The stars were so bright. He forgot that even though he lived right here. He never came out here and just stargazed. The landscape at night was almost alien, but also inviting. It hinted at adventure.
With Liam by my side I’m never afraid. Everything’s an adventure. He suddenly had an image of them riding out of town on Liam’s motorcycle - or really, his wings - and never looking back. We don’t have to stay here after we deal with the Gash. We can just leave … Live our lives the way we want. Forget Mom and all the rest of it.
“You realize you played right into her hands by acting the way you did, don’t you?” Loki asked finally. He sounded more tired than angry now. “You behaved like the unhinged lunatic she wants Liam to believe you are.”
Cameron crossed his arms over his chest. “Liam knows better.”
There was the soft sift of sand as Loki turned to regard him with that upraised eyebrow. “Does he? Because what I saw was a very Thor-like look of concern on his face. You never want to see that concerned face. It never bodes well. Never.”
“What should I have done then? Let her call Dr. Jefferson?!” Cameron’s voice was rising again and his arms flew up in the air.
Loki considered this. “I actually did like the phone melting trick. That was quite controlled for one thing and it only did so much to stop her from doing what you didn’t like. It was the lunatic way you acted afterwards that’s pissing me off.”
Cameron frowned. “You don’t know how she gets under my skin with just a look!”
“Oh, I do,” Loki sighed. “And I know the feeling it brings out in you. I’ve felt it often enough, but I also know that giving into it doesn’t lead to a good place. It leads to the very place you don’t want to go.”
“She claims to love me, but she treats me like — like I’m a rabid dog! I’m not!”
“And the fireballs were what? She thinks you just tried to kill her, Cameron!” Loki stabbed a finger at the center of his chest.
“I wasn’t aiming for her. If I had been she’d be dead! She knows that!” Cameron shouted and those words echoed. He scrubbed his face with his hand. “She did exactly what I thought she would. She tried to blame me and then take Liam from me. I don’t care about her blaming me. I’ve never valued her good opinion. But taking Liam again from me? No way! Out of line! Not going to happen!”
Cameron pounded his chest. He knew his expression looked wretched. He could see himself reflected in Loki’s softly glowing eyes, like witch lights in the desert.
“I know, Cameron, but she’s only a threat to you and Liam if Liam allows her to be,” Loki responded softly. “Do you fear he’ll bend to her will? Leave you? Let her lock you up?”
A cold wind seemed to pass over Cameron from the deep desert. “No … but she makes it harder on him. She can make him unhappy. She can’t make him leave me. But she can make him thoroughly wretched. And I don’t want that. I just want —”
“Liam to be happy and bouncy and sexy? Yes, I know. Believe me I know.” Loki was looking out into the desert again. “It’s amazing how things parallel even when you don’t intend them to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” Loki turned back to Cameron. “You need to figure out some rules for yourself, Cameron.”
“Rules?” Cameron’s brow furrowed.
“Alien word?”
“No, just … alien coming from you,” Cameron admitted.
Loki rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache coming on. “Notice that I didn’t say that I would give you any rules, only that I advise that you make some up for yourself.”
“Such as?”
“You don’t use magic unless you intend to kill with it,” Loki suggested. “Sort of like a loaded gun. Don’t point it at someone you don’t want to put a bullet in. Try to avoid using it when you’re emotionally upset. Practice, practice, practice with it until you can do and undo every power you’ve figure out.”
“Like dousing the fireballs?” Cameron asked guiltily.
“Exactly like that,” Loki agreed. He gave Cameron a grin. “I do enjoy chaos, Cameron, but it’s hell on one’s love life. You could easily go the crazy route. We both know it. We could dance down that highway of madness and death easily together.”
Cameron gulped. “But Thor and Liam won’t go with us?”
“No, they won’t. We’ll just cause them pain by it,” Loki answered with a long sigh. “The regret for us will come later when we see the destruction in our wake that they will try to clean up.”
Cameron scuffed the sand under one boot. “I just … I don’t know what to do about Mom.” He got down onto his haunches and covered his head with his hands and rocked. “You don’t know how tenacious she can be. She won’t be scared off by me. She just keep interfering.”
“I do know your mother quite well. She’s dealing with things, too, Cameron. Don’t you think it’s a little bit much to expect your mother to be jumping up and down for joy that her son’s are in an incestuous relationship? The Aesir are all for it. They do it themselves all the time. But humans find this deeply disturbing and your mother is mostly human.” Loki stepped over to him and Cameron saw the tips of his boots.
“Maybe a little … much. I knew she would be this way, but —”
“But you did nothing to prepare yourself emotionally for it? You just decided to explode cactuses and singe her hair?” Loki’s right foot tapped the sand. “Why didn’t you have arguments? Why didn’t you just inure yourself to anything she said?”
Cameron groaned. “Okay, you’ve got me there. Waiting for her to do what I knew she was going to do was driving me crazy. And then when she decided to call a psychiatrist to lock me away —”
“She wasn’t thinking exactly clearly either. As you so forcefully pointed out, it isn’t like anyone could imprison you. At least, not a human anyways,” Loki responded.
“I guess not. But humans are pretty adaptable. They might find a way if they discovered I had these powers.” Cameron rose up from the ground.
Loki was just a foot away, watching him carefully. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“Really? Because you’ve let other bad stuff happen,” Cameron pointed out, but he felt a strange sense of certainty that Loki wouldn’t allow that.
Those golden eyes glowed brighter. “Things have changed now between us.”
He frowned. “What exactly has changed?”
Loki put a finger under Cameron’s chin and a half smile graced his lips. “Let’s just say if I had a son of my heart, he’d be a lot like you.”
Cameron’s frown deepened. He felt he was missing something here that was likely obvious. “Is that why you’re …”
“I’m what?” Another arched eyebrow.
“Helping? I mean I would assume you would be egging me on to go burn down the town and stuff,” Cameron admitted with a shrug.
“Yes, and I might very well do that another time, but … I must be on my best behavior.” There was a slightly disgusted look on his face for a moment.
“You mean because of Thor?” Cameron grinned. The other Norse God had clearly a dampening effect on the Trickster God’s inclinations to cause chaos.
A very definite pout appeared on Loki’s lips. “He has this damned way of making me responsible. Especially when it comes to you and Liam.”
“Why especially with Liam and me?”
But Loki turned on his heel and started walking to the front of the bar. He called after Cameron, “Fix this with your mother peacefully. There will be no more fireballs being tossed in my parking lot.”
Cameron stood there for a long moment, watching the sway of Loki’s hips as the man disappeared around the side of the bar. He looked back over his shoulder, into the darkness of the desert and shivered. The skin between his shoulder blades twitched. He felt like someone was watching him back.
He put his hands on his hips and squinted. The wind picked up and he thought he heard whispers on it, urging him to let go, to let his magic run from his fingers like the waters of the sea, to dive into oceans of blood, to laugh at the cries of others.
Was it the Gash urging this? Or someone else he didn’t know yet?
Cameron stumbled back, feeling nauseas. He immediately curled forward and retched onto the sand. He stayed there, hands on knees, stomach heaving, for a long time. Finally, he stood up and wiped the back of one hand over his mouth. His heart fluttered in his chest as he stared out again. The voices were still there, calling to him, like some obscene lullaby. But he closed his ears to them. He wasn’t going to listen.
For that way lie madness.
That way lie death.
That way lie away from Liam.
He turned and quickly headed back to the front of the bar where his brother, his mother and the Aesir awaited him.