"Sick" Day fluff (for magpiemythos)

[alittlehinky]

Sex education in Franklin County in the 1920s was virtually nonexistent. Cricket is lucky he had a friend with an older brother who had been in the army and therefore had no filter, else he might not have known anything about it beyond the preacher's hellfire and brimstone proclamations and one or two of the more explicit bits in the Bible. He remembers a bit in the New Testament where a woman who'd had a "flow of blood" for years and years touched the hem of Jesus' robe and was made well. He pictured it as her bleeding out of her hands when he first read it, for whatever reason, like stigmata coming from beneath the fingernails, and he had to ask his Aunt Winnie a few awkward questions to clear up that misconception.

Now he has the basic idea, but when Loki decides to sit out a certain time of the month in female form for whatever reason, he realizes how little he understands about the female body and how to comfort her when she's in pain.

He has to fall back on his own ideas, what he does when his legs give him hell, and fortunately those are pretty good instincts. Lots of pillows and soft blankets, check. Sweet drinks, not liquor--he mixes up some chocolate milk, gets some coca-cola. Hot water bottles. And desserts, probably more than any one person needs. He makes some peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips, and buys a dozen cupcakes from the store. It's almost fall and they have little sugar pumpkins on top.

He doesn't even question it when she asks him to bring a couple chickens inside for company and cuddles. Loki could ask him for just about anything and he'd do it.