Sylvie spent the whole weekend starting to redecorate her house with Loki's help. They'd picked paint colors, tore down wall paper, and sold off old, ugly furniture that Sylvie didn't want to keep. Honestly, they could have just burned it all and she would have been happy with it, but Loki insisted that selling it would help pay for the renovations, which was true even if Sylvie felt like with all the inheritance she had endless money. It was a good idea to be responsible and all that.
It felt so good to start clearing her aunt's memory out of the house. When she'd moved in, Sylvie felt the need to preserve the house, a duty to preserve her aunt's memory in that way. Apparently the woman had been a real shrew with no real friends to speak of, and no other family. Sylvie felt like if she didn't keep the house as it was, seemingly the only mark her aunt had made on the world, then her life really would have amounted to nothing. It was only after she stopped blaming herself for her aunt not wanting to adopt her that she realized she didn't give a single fuck if that woman's life meant nothing. It was her own damn fault.
Loki had been so helpful throughout the weekend. He came back over on Sunday in jeans and and old t-shirt and got right to work helping her carry furniture out to people's cars and priming the entire living room once the stupid wallpaper was gone. It would have been faster, and much less work for each of them individually, if they'd called Vis and Wanda over to help, but Sylvie had rejected the idea when he suggested it. She just wasn't ready to tell them yet. Loki hadn't protested or brought it up again. He was so different than she'd thought at first. Once you got past his prickly outer layer, he really could be shockingly kind and thoughtful. If you earned that from him. Sylvie was really glad she apparently had.
Though she still wasn't sure why she'd kissed him. She didn't feel that way for Loki, not really. Sure, he was super sweet when he was pretending to be her boyfriend for their fake dating scheme, but that wasn't what it would actually be like to be his girlfriend. There was no way, no high school boy was that perfect of a boyfriend. It was all just for show, all to make Val jealous. Even if she did have feelings for him, it wasn't like he had any feelings for her anyway!
Sylvie pulled her hands from under the water, causing the automatic sink to turn off, and reached for a paper towel as the door to the girl's bathroom opened. Glancing in the mirror, she saw it was Val. "Oh, hey," Sylvie smiled at her friend via the mirror. Tragically only a friend.
"Hey. I was looking for you," Val's reflection smiled back.
"What's up?" Sylvie asked, turning to face the other girl and leaning against the sink.
"Well," Val smirked, moving closer to Sylvie. Really close. Val placed her hands on either side of the sink, trapping Sylvie there. Not that Sylvie particularly wanted to escape. Her heart sped up, feeling like it was in her throat. "I wanted to ask you to Homecoming," Val finally answered.
"Yes," Sylvie blurted out right away, and then only after making a total fool of herself did she come to her senses. "Wait. What about you and Thor? Aren't you two going together?"
Val laughed at her, but it was good natured, and then shrugged. "We broke up. I wasn't really that into him anyway. I'm guessing the same way you're not really into Loki if you're that eager to go with me."
Sylvie knew her cheeks were red, and for every part of her that wanted to run away and hide, another part of her was celebrating being right here. "Well, I mean, if I have the choice," she slowly started to grin.
"So I take it you meant that yes then?" Val asked, only now a bit of her nervousness showing on her face.
"Absolutely," Sylvie answered. And then, she kissed Val. Finally.
Loki smiled up at her as Sylvie came over to their table with her lunch tray in hand, scooting over a little to make more room for her. He could tell from her, well, everything, that she was excited about something. She seemed to be glowing with joy, and he found himself smiling with the infectiousness of it. Part of him wanted to believe that she was just that happy to see him, but he was too much of a realist for that. Maybe she'd done particularly well on that English test? The teacher said how disappointed she was in everyone's grades, making his 98% all the sweeter. Maybe the same thing had happened to her, his brilliant Sylvie.
However, instead of sitting down, she stopped at the side of their table. "I have news," she announced, but didn't give him, Vis, or Wanda the chance to ask more before going on. "It worked! Val asked me to Homecoming!"
Loki felt like a giant hole suddenly opened up beneath him, sending him falling down to the center of the Earth. Maybe to Hell itself. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
After this weekend, he'd begun to let himself hope that maybe the double-cross was working. Maybe she really was falling for him and forgetting about Val. She'd shared her darkest secrets. She'd kissed him. They'd danced together in her living room, both covered in paint primer, singing All Star at the top of their lungs.
It was everything he'd ever wanted in a relationship. An equal partnership where they trusted each other. Someone to challenge him, but who still understood him. Someone who was fun and smart and beautiful. Someone like her.
But she wanted someone else. Of course she wanted someone else. He'd known that from the beginning, and it was stupid to think even for a second that she would change her mind and choose him instead. Maybe he'd been hoping that if Val never wanted her, he'd at least be a decent second choice. That she could be content with that. But of course, who wouldn't want Sylvie?
Vis was the first one to say anything, with a confused, "What?"
Sylvie deflated a little at their lack of excitement on her behalf, and no matter how heartbroken he was, he couldn't bear to see her lose that shine. "What Vis means is: What?! That's amazing! Congratulations, Sylvie," he grinned at her, putting on an Oscar worthy performance.
Apparently it worked because she perked right back up. That smile was for him, and maybe that would be enough. It would have to be. "Thanks," she grinned back. "I told Val I'd break up with you at lunch, so consider yourself pretend dumped. Sorry about that," she teased.
"How should I respond? The amicable ex or completely heartbroken?" he joked back. Like he had any sort of choice.
"Considering we're still going to be friends, let's go with 'you knew it wasn't working out and that we're better off as friends anyway'," she answered.
She must have been too overjoyed to pay him much real attention because he could feel his act fraying around the edges. If she didn't go away soon, he was afraid he'd end up giving too much of his real emotion away. "Sounds good," he nodded, and hoped she'd take it as the end of the conversation.
Thankfully, she answered with, "Great, I'll see you at rehearsal then," and headed off to sit with Val.
Rehearsal that night was the worst kind of torture, but maybe the best acting he'd ever done in his entire life. They were finally working on Kate's monologue and Loki had to declare over and over how he'd serve, love, and obey her in exchange for her doing the same. How he wished that were true. Instead of a grand speech to the audience as it was usually played, Loki made a different choice, one that felt so much more right to him. He said it to his Petruchio, like a poem or a wedding vow.
Usually, Loki loved escaping into a character, letting himself be vulnerable when there were no consequences, since it wasn't really him after all, but this time felt too honest. He really was begging for her back, only with words three centuries old.
Sylvie really was a gifted actress, he could see the tears in her eyes by the time he was done with the speech. She was a perfect scene partner, giving him so much to work with, even if he hadn't had real feelings for her. He wondered if he should add that to the list of things he wanted in an ideal partner: a good scene partner.
"Wow," Mr. Mobius said from the audience. "I can see you've been working hard on this already! Great job, Loki. I really like the choices you're making here. Okay, let's run it from the top again, I have a few changes I want to make to the blocking."
Torture.
Loki didn't linger once rehearsal was over, and instead drove himself straight home. He went right up to his room and put on his headphones, hoping a podcast played at full blast would be enough to drown out any thoughts about the horrible, horrible day.
As long as he was careful to focus on the words and not let his mind wander, it mostly worked. He even started to doze off, lounging on his bed, when Thor slammed his bedroom door hard enough to shake the walls, waking Loki from his almost-slumber. Loki paused the podcast and took off his headphones. Mom and dad weren't home yet, so it couldn't have been something to do with them–not that Thor got into fights with their parents–but that meant it had to have been something at football practice. Maybe his teammates weren't up to scratch for the homecoming game?
Loki pressed his ear to the wall that his bedroom shared with Thor's, trying to hear what Thor was muttering to himself while pacing. It was what his brother always did when angry, and Loki had learned a lot of things with this method of eavesdropping. But, to his surprise, he didn't hear angry mutters, but instead…crying. Thor was crying.
Loki found he was ready to commit the murder of whoever had caused this. He hopped out of his bed and went to knock gently on his brother's door. "Thor? Are you okay?" he asked.
"No!" came his brother's loud blubbering voice.
"Can I come in?" Loki asked. He knew if he was crying, he very much would not want anyone to see it, and would probably answer the same question with a string of profanities and creative locations that they could stick pineapples, but Thor was a different breed.
"Yeah…" was his answer instead, slightly muffled.
Loki slipped into his brother's room, which was a mess like always and smelled vaguely of stale sweat from the pile of dirty work out clothes littering one corner of the space, but for once he didn't sneer or comment. Thor was laying stomach down on his bed with his face smushed into his pillow.
"What happened?" Loki asked as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed next to Thor, and rested what he hoped was a comforting hand on his brother's back.
Thor didn't answer for several moments as he tried to calm his crying before turning his head so at least one eye was peeking out from the pillow. "I got rejected," he answered in a quiet voice Loki didn't usually hear from Thor.
Oh…of course. If Val was going with Sylvie to Homecoming, then she must have broken up with Thor. How selfish was he? He'd been so wrapped up in his own pain, he hadn't even considered the implications and how this might affect Thor. Unfortunately, that also meant he hadn't had time to prepare something comforting to say, and since comforting didn't exactly come naturally to him, preparation was key.
"I'm…so sorry. I know you liked Val a lot." Well, that was generic. But at least it wasn't actively making the situation worse? That was something at least.
Thor shook his head as he rolled over onto his side, giving Loki more space to sit and fully meeting his eyes now. "No, not Val. We weren't really dating, that was just an idea she had to help me make the person I really liked jealous," Thor sighed, looking guilty and honestly a little tired as the last few tiers finally stopped.
"Wait, what?" Loki asked, blinking a few times. He wouldn't have expected something like that from Thor, so it made sense it came from Val, but was still weird.
"Yeah, and so she could, well…so she could make Sylvie jealous too. I had no idea you were into her when the whole thing started," Thor quickly added the second part.
"Oh, um, I don't," Loki lied. "We were fake dating too, so Sylvie could make Val jealous." He really did not want to have story time at the moment and definitely could not deal with his brother's pity right now.
"Oh," that made Thor smile at least a little bit, "that's good. I didn't completely ruin everything then."
Loki smirked a little at that. "Of course not, that's my job, remember?" he teased, trying to cheer his brother up. Then something occurred to him. "Wait, if it wasn't Val, then who rejected you?"
Thor looked sheepish, his eyes moving away from Loki to stare at the ceiling instead as he let out a long sigh. "Peter Quill," he answered.
"Wait, what?" Loki gasped. "But-but-but-Are you even into guys?"
"I don't know," Thor groaned. He rubbed his palms over his eyes in frustration. "I don't know if I'm bi or…or if it's just him. But I asked him to Homecoming after practice today and…"
"Well, I have to say, you have shit taste in men," Loki teased. At least that got Thor to laugh, though he also playfully smacked Loki in the arm with the back of his hand which hurt a bit since Thor had no awareness of his own strength, but at the moment Loki couldn't say he cared much.
"So he rejected you, huh?" Loki said to fill the silence they sank into once Thor's little bit of laughter died out. "Did he at least do the 'well, it's because I have a girlfriend' let you down gently bit?"
"He has a girlfriend?" Thor gasped, sitting up straight in the bed. "Shit!" he groaned and flopped back down, almost throwing Loki off the bed with the force of it. "Shit, I didn't know that. You mean all of this could have been avoided?"
"Yeah…Gamora," Loki answered. "...Wait, then how'd he reject you?"
Thor's shoulders tensed slightly and he subconsciously scooted a bit away from Loki as he answered in a tone about an octave higher than usual, "Oh, you know. Don't feel that way, sorry man."
Loki tilted his head as he gave Thor the 'we both know you're lying' face and waited for Thor to give him the real story.
It took well over 30 seconds (Loki was almost impressed at how long he held out) before Thor sighed and dramatically said, "Fine!" He took another deep breath, looking back up at the ceiling. "He…He told me I was a disgusting homo and that I shouldn't be allowed in the locker room anymore."
Oh yes, Loki was indeed going to commit murder.