Friday couldn't come soon enough, and when it finally did, Loki felt so much relief he thought he would burst with it. This meant, of course, that his relief lasted mere seconds, replaced moments later by utter horror.

Football was Asgardian machismo at its finest, distilled into something in which mortals could partake without facing death. It was violent and loud, both in game and out, and the throws the cheerleading squad performed couldn't be good for his health. Loki was torn between keeping an eye on Anna to make sure her neck didn't snap should someone drop her and watching Mike. Mike was in more immediate danger. Every time he caught the ball, someone hit him and took him to the ground.

Joe and Jack screamed with unabashed glee, shouting their brother's name as they jumped up and down on rickety stands that couldn't be safe. Lyn sat beside them coloring, wrapped in a blanket and bored by the game.

"Don't remember football?" Jack asked, leaning on Loki's shoulder.

Loki glanced up at the boy. "Should you be standing on this thing?"

He laughed. "Why not?" he asked as his gaze swept the field. "That's the quarterback," he said, pointing to one of the players who looked just like every other player. "He's kind of in charge. He determines what plays they make and passes the ball or runs with it. Mike's a wide receiver. He catches the ball when it gets thrown to him and runs for the end zone. Then he gets six points."

"Six?" An odd, arbitrary number.

"Yeah, and then they get a chance to kick an extra point."

"Why?" Loki asked, baffled.

Jack shrugged. "Cause it's hard to get to the end zone, so they figure they should make it worth your time, I guess. Every time we score, the cheerleaders do pushups."

Loki drew his hand over his face and wondered at the mental state of mortals the world over. Clearly, there was something wrong with them. They delighted in the game, which was slow moving at best, shouting and cheering. Loki thought he would lose his mind.

"And Mike does this every Friday?" He was sure Frigga wouldn't approve of such an event on her day. Odin or Thor, on the other hand, would revel in it. They would likely suggest the addition of spears to make things more interesting.

"Only for a few months," Joe said, leaning on Loki's other shoulder. He slung an arm around Loki's neck and rolled back on forth on his feet, making the bench beneath them rock, and Loki thought he might be sick. "Just for football season. Then he does training to stay in shape."

"They do a lot of training," Jack added. "Oh, look! Look!" He jumped until Loki grabbed his jacket and, with a severe look, shook his head. "You're no fun," the child moaned, but his countenance brightened immediately. "Look! See, they're at the five yard line!"

"They better pass to Mike." Joe watched the field with an intense, fierce expression. "Stephenson is a dummy."

Mary would chastise Joe for that language. "Don't be mean," Loki said, but the reprimand was half-hearted at best, and it went unacknowledged.

He did, however, make an attempt to follow the game now that Mike was likely to earn points for his team. And he would, if asked, admit to some sadistic amusement at the thought of Anna doing pushups.

The stands quieted as the players lined up. Loki was sure there was a reason to how they organized themselves, but he couldn't fathom it. Faintly, he heard the quarterback's shouts, calls of numbers and colors and then some word he couldn't make out. Bodies collided, helmet met helmet with resounding cracks. Joe's arm around his neck tightened. Beside him, Jack shifted onto his toes, clasping his hands together as he whispered, "Please, please, please, get it, get it, get it."

And then everything exploded into a cacophony of noise. Even Lyn, who wasn't paying a whit of attention to the game, rocketed to her feet screaming and waving her hands above her head. "Rah rah rah!" she shouted while the boys belted out soundless shouts of delight.

They slapped hands over Loki's head, and Joe, still clinging to him, jostled him back and forth. "Mike got a touchdown!" he shouted in Loki's ear.

Loki closed his eyes and resolved to forgive the child for his exuberance.

"And they got the extra point!" Jack cackled, gleeful, and giggled. He dropped to his bottom in a smooth gesture that looked incredibly painful, scooped up his hot chocolate, and took a long sip. "Did you see?"

"I saw," Loki said.

"And look, see, now the cheerleaders have to do thirteen pushups, because it's thirteen to seven," Joe explained, and, indeed, the girls had dropped to the ground and were doing exactly as the boy described.

Loki glanced at the clock, glad to see there were only five minutes left on it. Time in football was a lie; he had learned that quickly when the first twenty minutes passed in closer to forty. But the game was finally drawing to a close. "Lyn, pack up, it's almost time to go," he said.

"What?"

He lifted his face to Joe. "It's almost time to go."

"No, it's not, it's just the end of the first half," Jack said.

Loki stilled. "The first half."

"Yes. Football has two halves and four quarters," Joe explained, holding up first two fingers and then four.

Loki tilted his head back, staring at the starless sky. It was a cloudy night, but even without the clouds, the stars would be impossible to see. The bright stadium lights blotted them out. Still, they were there, and it made him feel somewhat better to stare upward as he muttered, "This is more a curse than anything you could have done to me." Whether that was directed at Odin or Thor or both he couldn't be sure.

"You don't like football?" Jack looked thunderstruck and distraught.

"Ah, no, it's not that," Loki replied, quickly trying to come up with an explanation. But he didn't need one. Jack beamed at him and, dropping his hand to Loki's head, forcibly turned his attention back to the game.

Those five minutes passed with the same agonizing slowness as the rest of the game, and when they finally concluded, Loki couldn't bring himself to be grateful. He had another hour and a half of this interminable horror.

"Don't worry," Joe said brightly. "There's a halftime show."

Well, didn't that just make everything better. The field emptied of the opposing team's players, but Mike's team swarmed onto it, and Loki frowned. "Shouldn't they be getting off?"

Jack grinned. "Nope. It's part of the halftime show. Listen," he said, while Joe shushed them both.

A loudspeaker crackled, and Lyn set down her crayons. She clambered onto the bench beside Joe, clinging to his hand and grinning. A wolf's howl rose, fake, Loki was sure, from the speakers, and it was followed by a young girl's voice. "The foulest stench is in the air: the funk of forty thousand years. And grizzly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom. And though you fight to stay alive, your body starts to shiver, for no mortal can resist the evil of the thriller."

His brows lifted, and as he watched, the school's band filed onto the field, beating a beat on their drums. They were followed by girls with flags, and the cheerleaders. The four groups, the football players, the cheerleaders, the flag girls, and the band, arranged themselves on the field in what even Loki had to consider an impressive pattern.

And then they all began to dance. In relatively perfect sync.

With surprise coloring his features, but only barely, he watched the students dance. Even the ones playing the song were dancing, albeit less wildly. They weren't gyrating and swinging their arms about. The gestures were ludicrous, but so much so that they were actually enjoyable. The song had to be popular, too; a handful of seconds into the dance, everyone in the stands started singing and clapping along.

When it ended, as the football players and cheerleaders filed off the field, jumping and clapping, while the spectators shouted and the band continued to play, Loki had to admit the spectacle had been enjoyable. In a strange, over the top, sensory overload sort of way.

"They do it every year," Jack explained, his mouth against Loki's ear so he could be heard. "The band plays Thriller , and everyone else dances."

"Every year?"

"Uh-huh. For Halloween." Jack leaned against his side and offered Loki his hot chocolate. "Want some?"

The drink was too sweet, but he was cold and thirsty, and the last thing he wanted to do was explain to the children why he was turning blue. He accepted the cup with a nod and gulped down a mouthful quickly in an attempt to taste as little of the drink as possible.

Joe settled beside him, curling under Loki's arm, while Lyn dropped between his legs and returned to her coloring book. By the end of the game, when it was pushing ten, both Lyn and Joe were dozing, but the announcement that the Bears won had all three children on their feet, shouting. And then they were stampeding down the stands, rushing toward the fence between the stands and the field.

With a muttered curse in Old Norse, Loki quickly swept their things into his arms and hurried after them.

Mike was at the fence, along with five other players, and he helped his siblings over it by picking them up. He set Jack and Joe on his teammates' shoulders, and put Lyn on his own. Then, with a mighty shout, he went running across the field. Loki reached the fence moments later, unable to hide his aggrieved expression.

"No worries," one of the players still at the fence said. "We do this with them after every game."

"Delightful," Loki muttered, watching them and refusing to admit to himself that the anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach was real.

Anna appeared at the fence, a grin on her face. "Hey," she said, her cheeks flushed as though the victory were hers, too. He supposed, judging from the shouts behind him, that the team's victory was the school's. "As soon as Mike finishes his victory lap, we'll be ready to go. Cool?"

Loki nodded, but Anna had already turned away, rushing away and shouting, "Ben, Ben!" Loki's lips twisted into a thin line as he watched her jump the fence for a hug from her boyfriend.

The spell in her hair sparkled and snapped, crackling along Loki's senses. Ben touched her hair, giving her forehead a kiss, and fire and flame drifted through Loki's blood. "What are you, Ben?" Loki murmured to himself, his brows drawing together.

"Loki!" Lyn's shriek snapped his attention back to the field. She waved at him, giggling and smiling. "Loki, Loki, we won!"

Mike plucked her from his shoulders and passed her over the fence. Loki quickly set everything down and took her while the boys, sliding from the shoulders of the other two players, scrambled over the fence themselves. "We did indeed."

"Ice cream for breakfast!" Lyn shouted, her squeal of delight piercing his ear.

"It's tradition," Mike said sheepishly, laughing. "Lemme go change. I'll meet you guys at the field entrance, alright?" Then he was gone, leaving Loki with the children.

They danced about his feet while Lyn flailed in his arms, singing half of the school song, butchering it terribly, but uncaring. A breath of air escaped him, somewhere between an aborted chuckle and a sigh of defeat, and he picked up one of the two backpacks. "Jack, get the other. Joe, take the blanket. Let's get to the car."

Turning, he searched out Anna. "Anna!" he shouted, and she threw a look fit to kill a mortal over her shoulder. After a quick kiss for Ben, she swept her duffle bag onto her shoulder and hurried over. "Ready to go?"

"We usually go out after winning games," she said, her tone petulant.

"Tonight, we're going home."

She rolled her eyes and huffed. "Whatever, fine, let's go."

It was with much horror that Loki learned, not twelve hours later, that football games and halftime shows were not the worst of Halloween's terrors.