Somewhere on Knowhere: Book Three

13

Loki was already struggling with the sarcasm break. As soon as Strange had asked what was going on he'd been tempted to say something ridiculous which was obviously not what had been happening, maybe like riding unicorns with Thor across space. He opened his mouth to speak, but then he remembered the no-sarcasm rule and stopped himself.

Loki looked at Strange standing up awkwardly (did he do anything non-awkwardly?). "Do you want to sit down, Strange?"

"Uh, yes please," Strange said, and Loki gestured towards the co-pilot chair that no one ever used.

"Don't touch anything," Loki warned as Strange reached out to touch the steering handles/weaponry on his seat. "That's a gun."

Strange's eyes were wide. "It is?" he asked, staring at it in disbelief.

"Yes," Loki said, and promptly pulled the lever on the armrest of his chair that enabled only his controls to work rather than Strange's, just to be safe. Strange looked confused as all the lights turned off on his side of the cockpit. "So you wanted to know what's been going on? Well, basically what's being going on is a load of shit."

Strange looked at him. "I thought you said no sarcasm."

"That wasn't sarcasm," Loki argued.

"Definitely sarcasm," Strange insisted.

"No, it's really not," Loki corrected. "It's an entirely valid response to your question."

Strange wasn't giving up. Loki had to admire the stubbornness, even if he was wrong. "No, think about it, you haven't actually told me what's going on and you even said it in a sarcastic fashion."

"How can you say a load of shit in a non-sarcastic way?" Loki pointed out. "And anyway, sarcasm involves avoiding the truth, whereas actually I just haven't elaborated on my point."

"Well please, elaborate on the point," Strange said.

Loki almost wanted him to carry on with the argument, but he didn't, which was disappointing. Maybe he knew defeat when he saw it.

But where did he even start? So much had happened since they last saw each other it was hard to explain without simply summing it up by saying "A load of shit."

Loki sighed. "This'll be fun. Well Strange, I know you don't know much about the politics of space and everything, and I don't know if it's the same as on Midgard, but up here, we have these rules where, if you do something a government doesn't like, you can get arrested or killed for it."

"That sounded sarcastic," Strange said, frankly.

"It did a bit," Loki admitted. "But you get my point. I did something a government really, really didn't like, and never mind arrest, they want to kill me in a brutal way for it."

Strange's eyes widened even more. Loki wondered whether he knew how ridiculous he looked. "What on earth did you do?"

"I did some research when I came out here," Loki said, as though Strange hadn't said anything. "And I found out that Thor was travelling with the Guardians of the Galaxy. I've never actually met them, but I have heard rumours and they're quite famous, so I figured it would be easy enough to find them or send a message to Thor through one of the governments here. What I didn't consider was they would have some enemies out here who want the Guardians and anyone who is a potential ally to the Guardians dead."

"And that's who you contacted?" guessed Strange. He looked totally shocked. When Loki nodded, he exhaled emphatically, clearly relieved. "The way you were speaking I thought you'd committed global genocide or something."