The week takes forever. The skys are grey and I spend most of my afternoons slaving away at my chores and my homework. I barely get time in the evenings to check on the blogs, but they are still quiet, not even irrelevant reblogs. I can't help but think that maybe someone is blocking their posts. I can think of two someones that might have the means to do that, Loki and S.H.I.E.L.D, but I have no idea about the reason why.
I make it to Friday afternoon after what feels like an eternity, and I still have to clean my room so that we can fit the spare mattress on the floor. In the end I just shove my clothes in a drawer and shift the other stuff under the bed before collapsing on top of the covers and resting for just a few moments.
'A few moments' turns out to be closer to half an hour as I am stirred by a car rolling up the driveway. The moments pass agonisingly slowly but also in a hurried frenzy as I scramble off the bed and make it to the front door in time.
Mum steps outside for a moment to talk to Katie's parents about a number to call in case of an emergency and other pointless worries while I show Katie into my room and offer her a drink. We wander around the house aimlessly for a few moments before mum comes back in and reveals her stash of chips and chocolate. We pick up as much as we can carry and race back into my room where the spare mattress has appeared, thanks, I suspect, to my younger brother, who is desperate to show off his latest burst of strength at any opportunity.
We sit in silence for several seconds, waiting for one of us to say something.
"So."
"So."
"What should we do?"
"I don't know, I'm thinking staring endlessly at pictures of Tom Hiddleston would be a good start." I am somewhat surprised at that, I really didn't expect Katie to suggest anything quite that fangirl-ish.
"Let's do that." I respond, somewhat absently and fumble for my laptop.
Unfortunately tumblr is still being blocked by some unseen force, so we are reduced to saved pictures and google searches, still bountiful riches of fangirl fodder, but not quite the same as scrolling tumblr.
Eventually we both give in at almost the same moment. We have to swap to videos or one of us is going to go crazy in a bad way, as opposed to the good, screaming fangirl way.
We are halfway through a really funny interview when mum pokes her head in the door, asking what we want for dinner. The eventual verdict is pizza and garlic bread.
Apparently my brother has decided that if I get a sleepover he should get one too, and is about to leave for a friend's place, so we get the TV to ourselves tonight.
We close up the laptop and emerge from my room for the first time in nearly three hours, stretching out stiff muscles. Pizza is on the way and we take the opportunity to look through the DVD collection for something to watch later on.
"I know you said you watched it just the other day..."
"You have The Avengers?"
"Signed by Loki himself."
"I have to see that, NOW!"
I pull The Avengers off the shelf and pass it over to Katie, she sees the signature and her grip on it tightens for a moment before she shifts her hands, now holding it reverently, like some sort of ancient relic.
"So, back to the question at hand, what to watch tonight."
I get the feeling that the question was answered when we sat down at the laptop hours earlier.
"Will it just be us in the room?"
"Should be, after mum goes to bed, we just can't make too much noise."
"Done, I can probably manage to keep quiet."
"Ok, Avengers it is."
No sooner is the decision made than mum gets back, pizza in one hand, microwave popcorn in the other. Like the vultures we are Katie and I practically tackle her to the ground and run off to the table with the pizza.
Mum puts on the news and we eat, the news is just more death and destruction, as usual.
"I really hate watching the news." As usual I am the first to make some desperate attempt at conversation. "It's all just doom and gloom and the world's ending."
Katie nods, and mum agrees, adding that it's still the best place to know what's going on.
"Nope, have you seen the internet?"
Katie get's all her news on the internet, I'm not sure how she manages it but she always knows what's going on nearly an hour before everyone else seems to, I still don't know how she didn't see what happened on Friday morning.
The rest of the pizza disappears and mum pulls out her laptop again. We hide away in my room for a while longer, setting up Katie's bed for the night and putting my laptop on charge.
We chat for a while about regular stuff. School, work and gossip. I have never met most of the people she tells me about, but I have heard stories about them for years. There are only so many kids in a small town. Cas has been through three boyfriends since I last heard and Dylan is making plans for a big surprise at formal at the end of the year.
After a while mum announces that she is going to bed and the TV is ours, as long as we aren't too loud.
I don't think I have ever moved that fast before. Before mum is even in her room we are out of mine. Katie puts on the microwave popcorn and I struggle to plug in the DVD player properly through the mass of cords going every which way behind the cabinet.
After a long struggle I manage to manhandle the wires into place as Katie sits down with a huge bowl of popcorn and at least three different types of chips.
I can feel the excitement growing, and before I launch headfirst into that particular world I give Katie a quick rundown of what I am likely to do considering my mindset. Basically in the past I have never watched this movie with anyone else aside from in the theatre, so I have strange habits at certain points.
The menu pops up on the screen and we start the movie.
