Loki didn't go to sleep after Sam retired to her room. Instead he stayed up and read books on her bookshelf at random. The books ranged from fictional stories about a wizard to the one book Loki probably never wanted to come across; The Poetic Edda. Half in old Norse and half in English, Loki read the old Norse with ease and reminded him of the books he has, had, in his chambers back in Asgard and left a bitter taste in his mouth remembering his 'home.'
He read and argued in his mind the entire time reading the Poetic Edda. Separating facts from fallacies of the nine realms. Whenever there was a particular ridiculous fact, he wanted to slam the book closed and be done but the writing pulled him back in more times than he cared to admit. Poetry was a very popular genre among his personal collections. Loki finally put down the book at the beginning of "The Greenland Ballad of Atli" seeing as the sun was starting to rise, signalling the start of a new day.
Loki was just turning the corner to enter his room when Sam came tumbling out of her room in just shorts and a tank top. Her hair was thrown into a messy bun showing off her smattering of freckles on her shoulders and the faintest hints of black ink hiding underneath the hem of her top. Sam didn't notice Loki until he cleared his throat, which caused Sam to almost collide with him.
"Jesus Christ! You almost scared me half to death! What are you even doing up at this ungodly hour?" Sam placed a hand over her heart as if it would somehow slow down her quickened heartbeat and the other on her forehead.
"I couldn't sleep so I read." Loki looked down at her, eyes focused on hers. Sam could tell he had been reading, his eyes were slightly red from lack of rest.
"Loki, you can't not sleep; you're body is mortal. It needs rest every night no matter what you were used to. I get it's a little hard to get into the swing of things but trust me, sleep is very crucial. You could say it was a gift from the gods." All Sam got in return was an eye roll at her pathetic attempt of a joke. Giving an eye roll of her own, Sam changed topics. "So I have two classes today and I probably won't be back until the early afternoon and when I get back here we need to do some things and you might not like it but it has to be done. Cool? Cool." Loki nodded once and returned to his room while Sam just stood there awkwardly until his bedroom door closed.
Sam ended up having to rush out the door because she spent a little too much time on the internet when she was supposed to be gathering her books for class. But her problems didn't stop there, she of course hit every red light on the way to campus and had a hell of a time finding parking near the lecture hall. By the time she did, she was already twenty minutes late and had to somehow sneak into the class without the professor noticing.
Sam wasn't able to catch a break until she sat down in class right next to her good friend Anahita, who just smirked at Sam and returned to taking notes. Sam met Ana while in the campus book store. Both needed help looking for their art history textbooks so they started chatting while they waited for the sales associate and by the time they left the book store all set for the semester, they had exchanged phone numbers and agreed to hangout later that week.
"Looks like somebody is frayed. You're lucky the professor's back was turned when you came in, which I might add was ever so graceful." Anahita whispered while Sam pulled out her laptop and tried to copy the notes from Anahita little netbook.
"Shut up. Now let me steal your notes." Anahita shook her head while she nudged her netbook a bit so Sam could see it without craning over too far.
"So, what made you late? Cute guy from upstairs get you flustered again?" Sam internally face-palmed; she knew telling Ana about him would be the worst thing ever because Ana never let's Sam forget.
Sam had told Ana about this college guy wasted out of his mind just walking into her apartment completely naked and convinced that her apartment was his when it was actually right above hers. It took Sam the better part of two hours to get him to leave and since then Sam was good at avoiding him too embarrassed to talk to him.
"Would you shut up about that? I was not flustered! Just embarrassed for him!"
"Puh-lease! I know you. And when a man like that walks into your apartment stark naked at 3am, anybody would be flustered and I know you, so I know you were very flustered the entire time you dealt with him." Just thinking back to that night made Sam's cheeks redden.
"Why am I still friends with you? You suck. I just woke up late." Sam mumbled, trying to avoid that incident, sliding down her chair a little while Ana suppressed a laugh.
A couple hours later, Sam and Ana finished their second lecture of the day and were walking back to Sam's car chatting about a party Ana was invited to.
"Come on, Sam! When was the last time you let loose and had any fun? I feel like it's been ages since we did anything together!" Ana moved herself so she was in the way of Sam getting into the car.
"I would love to but I have errands to run and I need to do some things at home." And it was the truth, Sam really wanted to get this done sooner rather than later because who knows how long the convincing part will take.
"Fine. While you stay home all alone I'll be partying it up with my fun friends." The two said their goodbye's and soon enough, Sam was driving to the nearest drugstore.
"Loki? I'm home, I hope..." Sam's words died when she walked into the kitchen. "What in god's name are you doing?"
Loki was standing in front of the stove with the most intense glare aimed at the kettle, looking up his glare intensified at Sam trying to contain her giggles but failing horribly.
"Here, let me help you." Sam giggled as she filled the kettle with water and placed it back onto the burner, this time turning the element on. "Okay, so remember how I mentioned this morning that we needed to do something 'you might not like it but it has to be done?' Yeah so, this is it." Sam pulled out two boxes and set them on the table in front of Loki who looked at the boxes suspiciously.
"What are those?"
"Well, at some point we'll have to go outside together and for long periods of time and with SHIELD out there you can't really look like well... you. These boxes change your hair colour and I kind of want to cut it too. Now I know that-"
"Fine. Just get it over and done with." Loki interjected none too pleased that this has to be done.
"Really? You'll let me? Just like that? Wow, okay, let's get started after some tea. You'll need to change into a different shirt though, something light." Sam jumped up and zipped into the kitchen as the kettle began to whistle and poured tea for the both of them...
While Loki changed, Sam pulled out her scissors, comb, electric razor, and bleach stained towel from underneath the bathroom sink and brought it all out to the kitchen island. There was no way that Sam would be able to do all this in the bathroom with him being so tall and her being tiny, it just wouldn't work. After laying everything out, Sam pulled her desk chair from her room and placed it near the tools.
"Okay Loki, let's get this show on the road!" Sam said as she spotted Loki turning the corner wearing just a plain white v-neck shirt. To say he looked good with his arms crossed wearing that shirt, showing how lean and wiry he was would be an absolute understatement.
Smiling weakly, Sam signalled for Loki to take a seat while she picked up the towel and carefully draped it over his shoulders. Quietly Sam began to cut away at his dark locks which were surprisingly soft and thick until a fair amount of hair was piling on the floor and towel.
Setting down the scissors, Sam stood in front of Loki running her fingers through his hair, lightly styling it to see if it would lay okay. While doing this Sam noticed that ever so slightly, Loki was slowly relaxing his tensed shoulders and taking deeper breaths. Removing her fingers, Sam cleaned up the small mess before opening the bleaching kit.
"So just to warn you, this stuff is going to smell really bad so I apologize in advance." Sam warned Loki as she mixed the cream and liquid into the little bottle and shook it.
Taking Loki's silence as an okay sign, Sam broke the bottle seal and began to bleach his raven hair. After getting a solid even coat, Sam warned Loki that it had to stay on for a while and to not touch his hair while it set. So while they waited, Sam got Loki to move to the couch and reading so she could move her desk chair to the kitchen sink so she could rinse his hair. Since the brand of hair peroxide she bought only stayed in for 20 minutes, Sam brought her blow dryer to the kitchen and prepared the second bottle of hair dye. Sam contemplated on giving Loki blonde hair but with his alabaster complexion he would've looked like a ghost so instead she bought a copper-ish colour which would actually make him look healthy.
About an hour later the hair transformation was complete, Loki was now sporting ginger hair that had a slight wave to it.
"Well Loki, I don't know how you'll react but I personally think you look so much better and different but a good different. You can go look by yourself, I'll just stay here and clean up." Sam fidgeted with the towel while the still silent Loki quietly stood up and walked into the bathroom.
After cleaning up everything, Sam walked into the bathroom to see Loki still looking at himself, but before she could say anything she swore she could see a ghost of a tear track on his cheek. Looking at him in the mirror you could see the slight relief in his eyes but as soon as it settled there it was gone in a flash.
"Do you want me to make dinner, and then we can just read books and ignore each other if you want?" Sam offered, trying her best to smile at him. With a slight nod of his head Sam left him alone and made some grilled cheese sandwiches and a light salad for them.
And read books is what they did until 11 pm where Sam retired to her bedroom and Loki stayed up reading.
Once Loki was sure she was in her room and out of earshot, he whispered, "Thank you."
A/N: Wey hey a new chapter! So I think this is the longest chapter so far, yay! So this might be a little late but work and family have been whoa. Review if you want it's not required, but it inspires me to right more for you guys! :)