"I don't understand why we can't just let the hound wander home… He must be nearby."
"Look, my mom's in a mood, so let's just get this over with."
Max heard Loki sigh noisily, and then grunt when the branch she let fly smacked him presumably somewhere nearb his face… possibly the neck, based on their height difference. She smirked to herself, and carried on as though nothing had happened, whistling every so often to catch Gus's attention. The stupid dog had been locked out the night before; it wasn't difficult to do, seeing as ten million other dogs also lived in her parents' house. However, her mom was pretty upset to discover that he had spent the whole night outside, and subsequently sent Loki and Max on a mission to find him after their fairly early breakfast.
Garret planned to pick them up around ten, but based on his slightly drunken text messaging from the night before, Max expected him to be there around half passed. The game was supposed to start at eleven, and sometime around noon her various old high school friends planned to break out some beer and light snacks before returning home to their families for dinner. As far as she knew, none of his other roommates would be making an appearance, which meant she was in for a Ben-free weekend, which was kind of a relief. She really did like the guy, but having Loki hone in on his territory even more than he already had might be a bit too much.
She had tried to explain the complexities of football over breakfast that morning, but after her dad repeatedly interrupted to point out that she was telling her roommate something wrong, she figured she would just let Garret explain it. After all, Max lacked form and true athletic ability, but she could run and catch. Generally, she was in charge of booting it down the field and catching a ball if someone managed to throw it to her, and that was all she cared about. Well, and not getting tackled. In high school, it was been pick-up games of touch football, but as the boys grew to men, things got a little rougher, and that meant touching evolved into tackling. When girls – women – managed to actually play, Max generally noticed they weren't tackled quite as harshly, but she was definitely going in a pair of unattractive sweats and a few layers of terrible shirts to counteract the mud.
Shockingly, the weather had taken a turn for the better, and when Max and Loki scuttled outside with warm cups of coffee in hand, they were moderately surprised at the temperature. The sun was up and out in full that morning, and the ground was squishy when they tromped through toward the treeline. Max hoped it stayed for the sake of the game, as it was never fun to play in the bitter cold, and the weather had actually boosted Loki's spirits a little.
He was in the weirdest mood that morning, and Max couldn't quite put her finger on it. As far as she knew, everything had been fine when they went to bed the night before. They had kissed a little on the staircase before disappearing to their separate rooms, and yet he sat across from her at breakfast with a slightly uncomfortable glow about him.
Also, the doorknob was missing from the bathroom he had been using. He claimed to know nothing about it, which struck Max as a little odd, but her dad guessed that one of the dogs had finally torn it off. Apparently, they were destructive when bored. The issue was dropped when her mom agreed, and suddenly realized Gus was missing, and then all of a sudden Max and Loki were outside with their coffees.
They strolled along quickly, him behind her, and she squinted through the thick trees in an attempt to spy white and black fur. The dog wouldn't be stupid enough to wander too far from the place where he got free food, and she had a sinking suspicion he was under the porch. However, her mom had been really insistent that they check the woods first, and in her rush Max had forgotten to grab the dog whistle on the way out. Instead, she had resorted to shouting the dog's name across the silent wood, and thus far had only spooked a family of squirrels.
"So, do people get hurt in this… football game?" Loki inquired as she stepped over an unearthed root.
"Sometimes," she told him, "but I think they'll go easy on you because it's your first game."
"I don't think you understand how the male species works, Max."
"What?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder when she heard him chuckle. He flicked out at her high ponytail, batting the hair playfully.
"If it's your first time doing anything with a group of men," Loki clarified as he now wrapped his hand around her thick hair and gave it a sharp tug, "then they're merciless."
"You're merciless," she blurted awkwardly, the words tumbling out in the place of something witty when he released her hair and stepped around her. He grinned again as he passed, and Max absently tried to readjust her small ponytail with her one hand while clutching at her coffee cup with the other.
"Sometimes."
"Well, you don't have to worry about anything," she insisted as she hurried to his side. "They aren't going to be total dicks the entire time."
Hopefully.
"Oh, I'm not concerned for my safety," Loki mused after taking a small sip from the pink polka-dotted mug in his gloved hand. "I'm concerned for them, you see."
"Because of your terrible, terrible strength?" she offered, quirking an eyebrow when he looked at her, "As I recall, I had to open someone's jar of pickles before we left this weekend-"
"Well, I had to find a way to make you feel good about yourself somehow," he droned, and Max rolled her eyes. "I think you'll find I'm stronger than I look."
"Yeah, that's what every guy thinks," she muttered, eyes scanning the bases of the trees around her for a pile of fur. When that proved fruitless, she stuffed her nearly empty mug into Loki's spare hand, and then brought her fingers to her mouth. She heard Loki grimace when a shrill, slightly obnoxious whistle sounded from her lips, and moments later a yip responded. Shocked, Max's eyebrows shot up when a pile of dead leaves rustled nearby, and then smiled when Gus surfaced. "Come here, you jerk."
The dog trotted across the muddy ground to her, his belly coated in a layer of mud and leaves stuck here and there. Max crouched when he approached, and she heard Loki scoff as she brushed the leaves off and gave the dog a scratch behind the ears.
"Success at last," he sniped, tapping a finger loudly against his mug. "May we return now?"
"You're in a right fucking mood today," Max snapped, a little more harshly than she intended, and then forced a grin to compensate. "Yes, we can go back." She retrieved her phone from her pocket and checked the time quickly before shoving it back in, "And Garret should be here soon to grab us, so turn that frown upside-down."
"I'm not frowning."
"Well, you're in some weird… thing," she told him, taking her mug back when he handed it to her and quickly gesturing for Gus to lead the way back to the house. The dog bounded off happily, as if the invitation was just what he needed to return. "Is everything okay?"
"If you must know, I'm not sleeping all that well on the mattress," Loki told her stiffly. "I suspect I'm a little tired."
"Oh."
"What? No biting retort?"
"You could have just told me the mattress was uncomfortable," Max insisted as they stepped through the treeline. She watched Gus barrel toward the house, barking happily when her mom waved him in from the back porch. "I mean, we have stuff in the basement I can put on top of it."
"It's fine."
"I'll get something for tonight-"
"It will do for now," Loki told her tightly, cutting her off. Her eyebrows shot up. "It's only one more night."
"Look, you didn't have to come." He glanced off toward the field to their left, and she tightened her grip around the coffee mug, "I can always take you back to Masonville-"
"You jump to remarkable conclusions with very little prompting sometimes," he remarked, turning his head back to face her with a large grin on his lips. "I want nothing of the sort."
She was about to comment on how little he knew of the female species if her jumping to stupid conclusions surprised him, but he silenced her with a kiss: lips slightly parted, a hand at the back of her neck to tug her closer. Her eyes shut instinctually, cheeks aflame at doing this during the daylight in plain sight of the house. However, as quickly as he swooped in, he pulled away, and she opened her eyes to see him give her a once over before strolling toward the nearby fence. Max swallowed thickly and followed, a hand smoothing her hair down somewhat unnecessarily. Once at his side, she took the mug, which he dangled dangerously from the crook of his finger, and set it next to hers atop the fence post. In the distance, she saw that their neighbour had let the cows out.
"Ugly creatures, aren't they?" Loki mused, wrinkling his nose a little when one shuffled closer – though still a good distance away – and began grazing at what appeared to be a fresh pile of hay.
"I don't know," she sighed as she leaned against the familiar wooden fence, the frame only just digging into her. "The babies are kind of cute."
"Women."
She nudged him as hard as she could in the side, and she heard him chuckle at her efforts. It wasn't much of a genuine chuckle, but she would take it for now. Instead, Max climbed onto the lowest rung of the fence, getting her up to roughly Loki's height, and then arched an eyebrow at him when he looked.
"Nolan and I used to play a game when we were really, really bored," she started, pausing briefly to retrieve her phone when she felt it vibrate. Garret was on his way, apparently. She typed a vague response and slipped it back into her pocket. "We used to see who could be the first one to get a certain cow to look at us."
"How thrilling."
"Well, there were bets placed too," she added, a smile forming at the memory. "I'll play you for the front seat of Garret's car… He's on his way."
"I don't care where I sit, Max."
"That's what people say who are afraid of losing," she teased. "Are you afraid to lose?"
"I think I concede to you far too much," Loki muttered, his gaze staring almost beyond the field, unfocused and distant. "You do realize that, don't you?"
"It's because I let you touch my boobs."
She bit her lower lip when he looked at her sharply, his eyes widening, and she shrugged. Her attempt to appear nonchalant was foiled by the blush on her cheeks, which darkened when his eyes flickered down her chest for the briefest of moments.
"Yes," he muttered, smirking at her, "I suppose that's it." Max continued to stare at him pointedly. "Fine, I'll play your silly game."
"Winner takes the front seat," Max told him. "Okay, so the point of the game is to get one of the cows to look at you… We'll use… that one." She pointed at a group of cows nearby, singling out the one with the silly purple blanket on. "You have to get her attention by yelling the word 'moo', and-"
"This is ridiculous."
"This is a game concocted by ten year olds… just accept it," she snapped playfully. "First person to get the cow to look will win."
"I'm not yelling 'moo' across a field."
"Then you lose by default."
Loki sighed loudly, shaking his head as he glared at the cow. "Alright, you first."
Max squared her shoulders, and then cleared her throat: poised and at the ready.
"Moo!"
"Well, that wasn't very loud," Loki commented when they saw no reaction from their target.
"I thought I'd give you a fighting chance."
"How kind of you."
"Go on," Max prodded, poking his arm with her finger, "Moo a little…" She trailed off when that same finger hurt as she retracted it from him, "Did you do push-ups or something this morning? You are just… rock solid."
"Perhaps you've never noticed before," Loki commented absently, his eyes focused on the cow. "Moo."
"Put some feeling into it!" she ordered, gripping the top bar of the fence, "Moo!"
This carried on for an embarrassingly long period of time, and by the end of it, Loki was actually laughing, the sound genuine and true in the crisp morning air. Once he pushed through his initial embarrassment with the game, the competition finally began to heat up, and Max clasped his arm when her latest 'moo' echoed across the field. Several other cows had looked up, curious at the random noises coming from the pair, but they had yet to see movement from the one they wanted… until now.
"No, it's just readjusting itself," Loki told her heatedly, brushing her arm off. "I'm going to go again-"
"No, wait," Max hissed. They fell silent, and finally the cow looked up, chewing unattractively as it stared directly at them. Max threw her arms up triumphantly, and jumped off the fence in celebration.
"I let you win."
"You're the sorest loser I know," she teased, poking her tongue out at him when he glared.
"Guys… What the fuck?"
Both Max and Loki appeared equally surprised when Garret made his appearance known, and Max grinned cheekily. However, the grin soon disappeared, and was replaced with a look of confusion as she stared down at his hand.
"Are you… Are you eating pizza?" Max inquired, knowing full well that he was eating a piece of pizza, as evidenced by the slice in his hand.
"Pre-game warm-up," he told her in all seriousness, and part of her wondered if her friend did it to keep his stomach somewhat settled; he looked pretty hung-over. "Let's go, children… The Magic School Bus is saddled and waiting!"
Max smacked Loki's midsection when he rolled his eyes.
Loki eyed Garret's large vehicle skeptically, but kept his opinion to himself as they approached it. He hadn't bothered to fight with Max to clamber into the front seat, seeing as she did win their silly game, and dutifully took his spot in the back. It was as though he had his own personal driver that way, and why shouldn't he? With his strength returned to some degree, he was officially above them all again. The shattered doorknob – wrongfully blamed on a hound – was evidence that Loki was not mortal, and he never would be. To be mortal was to be weak, as he would demonstrate in this silly little match today against the men from Max's past.
He spent the rest of his night awake, flexing and testing his ability to lift unnaturally heavy items around the Wright household. When morning came, he was tired, but not as exhausted as he could have been for getting very little sleep – another sign that things were finally on the mend. He wasn't exactly sure what he had done to earn the All-father's favour again, but it couldn't have come at a better time. His venture on Earth may have been far more tolerable than he would have anticipated, and that was largely thanks to Max, but he wanted to be endowed with his rightful gifts and away from here as soon as he possibly could. His roommate complicated things, naturally, but he could come to a decision about her once he had dealt with the rest of his problems.
A part of him had contemplated leaving that morning. With his strength returning, surely his magic would come afterward, and he would be too powerful to remain amongst the little people. However, he was not wholly restored yet, and he had a sinking suspicion that his friendship and somewhat ill-timed budding romance with Max sped the "rehabilitation" process along. If he wanted to return to normal, Loki knew he would need to allow his relationship with the woman to continue on a natural, easy course; surely that would convince the All-father that he could appreciate the human race.
It wouldn't be difficult to continue to appreciate Max. She made him laugh, let him grope her, and hardly batted an eye when he was in a sour mood. However, the same could not be said for the rest of the human race; Garret's car was probably one of the most disgusting things he had ever seen.
It was an assault on all five senses when Loki slid into the back seat, and he wrinkled his nose.
"It smells like cheese in here."
"Ugh, Garret," Max groaned, sitting up quickly the moment she was in the front seat. "Why are there grapes on the seat?"
"Pre-game prep, guys," Garret remarked, snatching a plastic bag filled with fruit that Loki had never quite understood away and setting it on his lap. "The body needs to be ready."
"Are you still drunk?" Max inquired as she dusted off the front of her seat, shooting Loki a fairly unimpressed look as he buckled himself in.
"No, just really, really hung-over," the man replied as the engine roared to life.
Moments later they had jerked their way through Max's front forest, Garret grumbling the entire time about winding roads and unnecessary trees. Loki grasped at a small handle above the window to keep from tumbling over when Garret made a rather sharp turn out onto the road.
From there, Loki tuned out the conversation between the pair in the front of the car, as he had no interest to listen about stories of their school glory days. He had no desire, in fact, to know anything about the people he would spend the next several hours with, as they were all inconsequential. Garret was a pleasant enough fellow, though he clearly lacked a sense of smell if he could function in this car any longer than ten minutes at a time, and Loki would tolerate him because they were already acquaintances. However, if Max was the key to showing he appreciated mortal Midgardians, then he wasn't about to waste his time on any of the other small people he would encounter.
Well, unless that involved knocking them to the ground. He was actually sort of excited to inflict pain and then feign innocence; with his strength renewed, he was sure to tap someone from behind and send them sprawling as though they had been hit by a beam. Naturally, he would be mindful around Max, and Garret if they happened to play for the same team, but everyone else was fair game.
"Loki?"
"What?" he said quickly, snapping out of his daze as they came to a rather jerky halt at a stop light. He hadn't even noticed Max swiveled around in her chair, eyebrows up as she studied him. "Sorry, I wasn't listening."
"I said that he's going to give you a really quick run-down on how you play football, because apparently everything I've told you is wrong," she informed him, rolling her eyes a little when he grinned.
"Yeah, man, don't listen to Max," Garret insisted. "She just runs and catches the ball when we need her to. Do you play any sports?"
"Not recently."
"Are you a fast runner?"
"Immeasurably so."
"Good," Garret said, drumming his hands noisily on the front steering wheel, and then flooring it when the light changed, "well, we'll see who has actually come out, and then we'll find a spot for you. So, the basics of the game consist of a strange mix of awesomeness and danger…"
Loki sighed noisily as the man launched into a rather breathy speech about the tactics and rules involved in a game of football, but he lost Loki somewhere around the time when he was explaining about all the downs.
"Isn't that what I said?" Max asked, exasperation quite plain in her voice, and Loki reached forward to give her shoulder a squeeze.
"No, that's not what you said at all," Garret told her as they made another hard bank right into a fairly empty parking lot. Loki quickly spotted a group of men and women roughly Max's age milling about on a nearby field, and he assumed this was the party they were off to meet.
They exited the car slowly when they arrived, and Loki watched Garret retrieve a case of ale from the trunk. He muttered something along the lines of not telling Tiffany how drunk he had been all weekend, and Loki nodded, as though swearing a promise, but the information quickly filtered in one ear and out the other. Instead, he quickly fell in step with Max, forcing himself to take shorter strides to keep pace with her.
"So, are these all… old school companions?" Loki asked, rolling his eyes a little at his wording. "Friends."
"Some of them," she commented, eyes scanning the crowd as they approached the field. "Some are people that I kind of knew but didn't really talk to… It's all friendly here though."
"Until the game begins, I'm sure."
Max shot him a smirk, and then chuckled at Garret when he tripped over his own feet somewhere nearby. Loki then braced himself for the onslaught of introductions that followed; he was polite enough, but Max took the painstaking time to show him around to everyone, and by the end of it he wouldn't be able to produce one name. If he really made the effort, he would be able to identify any and all of the men and women standing about on the cool day, chatting under a glaring sun, and yet Loki simply didn't have to care anymore. He had the strength of a God again… What were these people to him?
Thankfully enough, Garret seemed only mildly more interested in socializing than Loki did, which seemed fairly odd. From what he had seen of the man in Masonville, he was actually fairly chatty. However, perhaps his woman brought out a different side of him, and without her around to prop him up, Loki could actually see his true nature. The pair sat next to one another on a wooden bench, the case of ale between them, and Loki accepted a bottle when it was handed to him. As he sipped the drink, which had a slight pumpkin aftertaste to it, he continued to watch Max as she flitted about from one cluster of people to the next.
"She hasn't hooked up with anyone here."
"Excuse me?" Loki remarked, shooting Garret a quick frown.
"Just in case you were wondering."
"I wasn't, but thank you," he said stiffly.
"No problem, man."
When were they going to start hitting one another? Loki sighed and took another sip of his drink, and then watched Garret force his way through some small talk with a trio of women who appeared almost out of nowhere. They tried to engage with Loki, but he kept his sentences short and to the point, which seemed to make them quickly lose interest. Eventually, Max wormed her way through the group, and at her arrival the other women dispersed. He sensed some sort of underlying dynamic at play, and perhaps it wasn't as friendly as she had initially led him to believe. Whatever the case may be, Loki didn't care – all he wanted to do was throw a few humans into the ground and then go back and eat turkey.
Delicious, delicious turkey.
"Come on, drunkards," Max chuckled, grabbing both Loki and Garret by their wrists and tugging. "We're on the same team."
Loki took a moment to finish his drink, her grasp barely affecting him, and then rose to his feet in a way that looked as though she had dragged him up successfully. In a spur of the moment, he leaned forward to place a kiss on her cheek, nothing too scandalous, but stopped when she inched back and glanced at Garret. He frowned; did she not want other people to know they were… well, beyond friendship?
"So what did the team hotshot put you on, Max?" Garret asked as he quickly downed the rest of his ale.
"Wide receiver."
"Shocking."
"I'm not complaining," she said as they strolled toward the field. "I usually don't have to do much then."
Loki noticed that there were only three other women out on the green, hard grass, while the rest of them had taken a seat on the bench. He smirked when he saw them dive into Garret's ale, but kept the observation to himself – it would be more entertaining to let the man realize scheming harlots had stolen all of his alcohol after he played.
At this point, unfortunately, Loki wasn't really all that sure what he was supposed to do, even if Garret had gone to great lengths to explain the game to him. So, after Max gave him a quiet reintroduction to all the members of his team, he simply stood there, arms crossed, and watched the people around him fan out. He noticed that the other team had rolled up their pants to their knees, which was only attractive on the far less hairy women, but Loki assumed it was so that people could tell who was fighting for what side.
This whole ordeal seemed ridiculous. Max didn't even seem happy to be here – not really, anyway – and therefore it made little sense for Loki to even participate.
"Okay," Max whispered as she practically dragged him across the field, "stand here. See that guy over there? With the brown socks?"
"And the ridiculous facial hair?" he muttered, shaking his head at the atrocity.
"Yeah, him," she laughed. "When the ball gets going, they are going to try to score on us… Block him from getting the ball."
"That's all?"
"From what I understand, yes."
"I can do that."
"We can do this," she insisted, clapping him on the arm before backing away. "Just ask someone if it's confusing… or run around and look busy. That's what I do."
"I'm not taking advice from you on this," Loki told her, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from quirking up when she knocked into one of their teammates as she walked backwards. Her face was a nice shade of pink when she looked back at him, and she waved awkwardly before darting across the field to her position. Shaking his head, he turned to face the line of people forming in the centre of the patch of grass, and then tried to look remotely interested when a few nodded at him.
A whistle suddenly sounded, and Loki watched the two opposing lines in the centre of the field launch themselves at each other, an oddly shaped ball tossed between members of the opposing team. Loki frowned, and then jogged across the field to the man Max had pointed out earlier. There was a lot of shouting and grunting around him, and several pairs of people were already on the ground. When the fellow with the sad facial hair spotted him approaching, he took off in the opposite direction, toward Loki's end of the field, and the god kept easy pace with him.
When the man held his arms up, presumably to catch the ridiculous ball hurling across the field, Loki used one hand to drag him down into the mud. He held in his smirk when the fellow crunched into the grass, the ball landing several feet away and bouncing at odd angles.
"Fuck!"
"Hey man, are you okay?"
"Grow a pair, Prewett," Garret laughed, appearing out of nowhere at Loki's side and extending a hand to him. For the sake of a show, Loki had gone down to his knees for credibility, but he could have easily stayed up. "The guy barely touched you."
"It feels like I got hit with a train…" the man wheezed as Loki rose. "Just give me a second…"
"Dramatic lot, aren't they?" Loki mused, dusting his knees off as he surveyed the field. He spotted Max being helped to her feet by a lanky man across the greenery, and she retracted her hand quickly to wipe her legs off. He crossed the field with a frown on his lips, shooting the man a bit of a look when they passed one another. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, yeah, fine," Max muttered, waving off his concern as she readjusted her hair. "Good save!"
"Why were you on the ground?"
"Oh, I was trying to block Kevin and we tripped over each other," she told him. Loki glanced back at this 'Kevin' fellow, who was laughing with another man across the way, and then shot Max a skeptical look. However, the woman remained oblivious to his suspicions, and instead pointed to another spot on the field, "Now, we're the offense now, and we want to get the ball across the field into the end zone. So, your job now is to protect everyone who is in charge of catching the ball."
"Like you?"
"Well, no, I'm not that important," she insisted. "Watch out for guys looking to tackle anyone running with a purpose and block them."
"Is this an actual position?"
"I don't know," Max laughed. "I mean, we're drinking beer and playing this on a soccer field… I don't really know how professional this is supposed to be."
"Point taken."
She shot him a smile before darting off across the field again, pausing briefly to say something to Garret along the way. Loki sighed, and then watched the proceedings happen all over again. This time, he ran quickly and blocked a woman from trying to get at another one from his team who had caught the ball. With his defensive tactics in play, she actually managed to cross some sort of line that signalled a point had been scored, and he managed to do it without crunching anyone into the ground. Small mercies.
Loki watched the teams set up again, and he felt very large indeed amongst the humans. Many were panting, sweating, some even limping, and yet he remained in peak condition. Pathetic. With his strength returned, he truly appreciated the gifts he had, not those of mortal men. Why should he appreciate a form that weakened so easily?
This game seemed a little pointless to Loki, and the only thing he could enjoy about it was the fact that he could knock people over. After a few rounds, he gained a reputation for being a good defensive player, and was moved to a more central position for the team. However, every single time they paused to reset after the ball changed hands between teams, he noticed that Max was on the ground, and that Kevin fellow was in the process of helping her up. Loki approached her several times over the issue, but she insisted it was all a part of the game – Kevin's position was to block her, and that was what he was doing.
Although he did get a little caught up in the competition, Loki continually found himself distracted by the display happening between Max and Kevin the longer they played. They had been at the game for the better part of an hour and a half, and at this point he was ready to do something. Their team was up by a considerable amount, but it seemed like there would be no mercy from the men who considered themselves captain. Loki, on the other hand, hardly cared about winning a silly little game.
"He's kind of a dick."
"Sorry?" Loki snapped, shooting a sidelong glance at Garret as they stood next to each other. He was finally starting to feel winded, his breathing heavy, and he glared down at the joints in his knees; they were starting to ache.
"Kevin," Garret remarked, nodding toward the lanky fellow. "I mean, he really doesn't need to tackle Max with every down, you know?"
"That's what I was thinking."
"He's doing it so he can get a good feel," Garret told him. "Or he's trying to… dunno how much you can actually feel through the sweater and track pants."
"Regardless," Loki ground out when he saw the man looking his roommate over. "It seems suspicious."
"You know, he tried to hook up with Tiffany once when I brought her home for New Years," the man started, hands on his hips, chest heaving. "He's actually kind of a huge dick."
"I think I'm finished playing defense for other people," Loki decided.
"Yeah, I'm ready to call it quits."
"No, I'm going to play defense for Max instead."
"Oh, right," the man said quickly, tearing his eyes away from his empty case of beer at the sidelines. "Well, how about I block her, and you can handle Kevin."
"I…" Loki trailed off when he spotted the man in question, and suddenly realized he wanted to do nothing more than slam his head into the ground. He would show some restraint, naturally, otherwise he would kill the fellow, and that might look bad. Possibly. "Fine."
"Just don't go for the junk," Garret commented as they parted. "Looks like a cheap shot."
Loki quirked an eyebrow at him, and then resumed his new normal position somewhere in the middle of the field. However, rather than darting right as he usually did, he took a hard left, nudging someone out of the way to go straight for Kevin. The tall, lean man saw him coming, but continued on, perhaps thinking that Loki was going for someone else on the team. A quick glance back saw that Garret stood in front of Max, hands up defensively, and Loki grinned. As Kevin raced toward him, Loki quickly stepped aside and stuck his foot out subtly, and when the man tripped over it, Loki shoved down on his back to ensure a fall. However, he made the motion fluid with his body turning, so that only someone who was paying a great deal of attention would have seen that he pushed the mortal.
Loki feigned a look of concern when the round was called, and many surmised that Kevin had fallen at an odd angle and inadvertently knocked himself out.
"It looked like he tripped over his own feet," Garret commented, and Loki offered a nod of agreement when a few eyes turned to him. "Can we just call it a game and drink the rest of the beer now?"
There was a small chorus of agreement, and finally the game had come to an end. Loki watched as a few of the man's friends helped him off the field, and he crossed his arms over his chest when he felt his stomach rumble irritably. Hopefully they could leave soon, as he was more than ready to indulge himself on Nancy's turkey.
Sighing again, he turned toward the sideline and started to walk, only to feel as though he had the Mjolnir on his shoulders. He swallowed uneasily, his legs starting to tremble, and he was forced to sit down on the wet field before he made it to the bench. For a moment, his vision blurred, and he had to blink hard a few times to restore it. He also needed to shake the ringing from his head, and a foreboding feeling swept across him as he gazed up at the now grey sky.
"No," he whispered desperately, "it was only in fun, All-father, I promise-"
"You finally worn out, champ?" Max asked as she approached, placing a hand on his shoulder as she crouched down. "You okay?"
"I suddenly feel a little tired," Loki admitted coldly, his hands shaking as he tried to still his rage. How could that old fool be so sensitive? It wasn't as though he had seriously injured anyone… The dolt was talking and drinking already.
"You're probably just hungry."
"No, I don't think so."
"Well, you'd better get hungry," she chuckled, sliding an arm around him and attempting to slowly ease him to his feet. "Mom went and bought more food when she saw how much you liked her cooking."
"Oh."
"You do look a little pale though," she said suddenly, stepping in front of him to touch his cheeks with the cool tips of her fingers. "Maybe we should just get going… I think Garret's ready to go to sleep at this point anyway."
"Yes…"
Loki managed to get his legs moving again, but every limb felt heavy. How could he be given his strength, and then have it removed so shortly after? Everything he had done today was for Max's sake; perhaps he would need to make it more obvious in the future. He wrapped an arm firmly around her shoulder and kissed her temple in plain sight of everyone, and then leaned his weary body on her more than necessary until Garret agreed to take them home.
Dinner had been excellent, as usual, and Max decided that the day overall had been a smashing success. Loki made a splash with the guys for his football tactics, even if he did go a little rogue at the end to have a go at Kevin. Max hadn't commented on it, mostly because she assumed it was done for her sake, and therefore let that idea stew happily in her mind rather than call him out on it. They returned home an hour before dinner had been ready, and while Max helped out in the kitchen, as much as her mom would let her do, anyway, Loki and her dad sat upstairs watching the remainder of some football game until everything was ready.
As predicted, Loki went through almost four plates of food, but there was still a sizeable amount for them to take home. Max loved having Thanksgiving leftovers, and was pretty excited to be eating turkey sandwiches for the rest of the week. After she and Loki loaded the majority of the dishes into the dishwasher, it was time for dessert. Her parents took it in front of the TV upstairs, while she and Loki drifted toward the living room. Before they commenced with the eating of delicious custard and pie, her dad and Loki got a fire going in the mantel, and after her dad disappeared back upstairs, they settled down on the couch, Loki's bed folded away for now, to enjoy their treats.
Max sat cross-legged in the middle of the couch, her bowl of deliciousness seated in her lap, while Loki leaned against the armrest. They seemed comfortable in the silence, but as Max scooped a forkful of pie into her mouth, she knew she would have to break it soon. With the actual dinner over with, it would be time to head back to Masonville, and in essence get back to their regular lives. That left the question of what was going to happen with them and their relationship, and the fact that they were roommates.
After swallowing her mouthful, she cleared her throat, eyes focused on the flames. She didn't want to be that girl who made too big a deal out of things, but she wasn't sure she would be able to go home without some sort of decision made between them.
"So, I was thinking," she started, tapping her fork against the side of her blue bowl, eyes narrowing in on a spark that flew out from the hearth. "I was just wondering what… we're going to do when we get home. I mean, we haven't really known each other than long, and we're living together, and now we're… well, we're doing something. I don't want to label it, or rush it, or make a big deal out of it, but I don't think we can actually say we're just friends anymore."
She took a breath, and then ate another forkful of pie. Loki remained silent at her side, but she felt a little too awkward to actually meet his gaze. Instead, she carried on; it would be easier to have a word vomit and get everything out of the way than to hash out everything slowly.
"I mean, people who suddenly aren't friends don't just… start living together," she continued. "They take their time, go on dates, get to know each other better, and I feel like we're bypassing a lot of steps all of a sudden, and I don't… I don't want it to ruin anything, you know? I like living with you. I like being around you. I just… I feel like we should talk about it before we get home and it gets awkward," she paused for a moment, "or not awkward. It could be awesome, and everything could be really great, but… I don't know. I feel stupid bringing it up now, but we may not get a chance to talk about it properly tomorrow."
Still, he said nothing, and Max immediately regretted saying anything at all. They weren't anything yet… Just because they had kissed a few times in front of a fire didn't make them a couple, and she had now become that girl. She sighed and ate another piece of her pie in silence, waiting tensely for him to respond. However, when the quiet dragged on for an uncomfortably long time, Max finally looked at him, and then groaned.
"Loki."
His head was tilted over the back of the couch, eyes closed and mouth gaped, and his bowl of dessert lay forgotten between his limp fingers. Max watched the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest for a moment, and then poked him sharply in the ribs, "Loki."
"What?" he snapped sharply as he bolted up, eyes shooting open and blinking rapidly, "What? What's wrong?"
"Were you sleeping?"
"No."
She quirked an eyebrow, "You were."
"I was merely resting with my eyes closed," he argued defensively, and then scooped some pie into his mouth. "This is delicious."
"All right, what did I say then?"
"I'm not playing this game with you-"
"What did I say?"
He stared at the fire for a moment, and then looked back at her, "We were… discussing… dinner-"
"Oh my god, you totally fell asleep," Max laughed, the nervous energy tumbling out when she realized he genuinely hadn't heard a word she said. Good. They could revisit the discussion later when something actually genuinely happened between them. "Come here. Turkey gets the best of everyone sometimes."
She set her empty bowl on the floor, and then beckoned for him to come closer. She resettled herself at the other end of the couch, and held her arms out for Loki to crawl between them. Moments later, he had settled on her, pressing only slightly on her full stomach. With his head on her chest, she heard him sigh, arms fidgeting until they found a comfortable position. She ran a hand through his short hair, and continued to do so until he fell asleep once more.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
I'm not sure what took me so long with this chapter… I just didn't want to get into it. I did, but I didn't, and meehhhhh. But I'm happy with the final result. I also had a midterm and a huge paper due this past week, and I updated twice for my Loki/Sigyn story, so it's not like I've just been sitting around doing nothing.
I know everyone was happy that Loki got his strength back, but in my mind he's got a long way to go… He's a huge derp, and you give him an inch, and he runs a mile unnecessarily. He's eager to get back to Asgard, and I think he jumped the gun there with all his thoughts about puny weak mortals, and then throwing his weight around on the pitch didn't help him either.
Whatever, Max still has feels for him. And who knows if Loki was actually asleep or not... but he did seem pretty wrecked to me. So. We'll see. FEELS.
I don't ever really have a favourite line in chapters. There are some that I like, and some that I thought were witty… But Loki saying Garret's car smells like cheese gets me every time. Also, in my head, Garret looks like Nick Miller from New Girl, and it makes me happy.
So I've planned out, in detail, this story up until New Years. Like I said, I plan around holidays. From there, it's a vague idea with a few chapters planned, but I keep working on this – and the sequel – fairly often, so you can expect continuous updates.
LOVE YOU ALL!