Bleachers
I asked the front desk clerk if any rooms became available overnight. When she told me in her dull voice that there wasn’t, I paid for another night.
I washed the rain and dirt off my skin in the shower and curled back up on the bed, flipping through television channels while Loki took a shower next.
By the time he returned I concluded that out of all twelve channels the motel got, none of them were interesting enough to leave on.
To keep the boredom from seeping back in, I opted to plug my phone into the television speakers and pulled up whatever music I had saved.
The music was slow, but interesting enough to hold my attention. I flopped back onto the bed and closed my eyes, picturing that I was back at the compound in my own bed.
It was hard to do this since all I could hear was Loki rustling around the room.
I finally sat up with a huff and put my weight on my elbows, ‘what are you doing?’
He turned away from the mini fridge and held up six shot bottles that he had found, with a devious smile. ‘I figured, what do most people do in a town where the population of people is outweighed by the population of cows? They drink.’ He found two paper cups and started to pour.
It was only five pm, but I never pass up a drink, so I shrugged and stood up, taking a cup from his hand. ‘Six shots won’t nearly be enough.’
After quite a few trips back to the front desk for more liquor, the clerk finally decided to fill a box for us so we would stop bothering her. I told her to put it on the card on file. Thanks, Tony.
I couldn’t decide if Loki had grown on me enough to make me laugh, or if I was just that drunk. After stumbling to change the music playlist, I decided I was just drunk.
‘Your music is strange.’ Loki told me when I changed the song.
‘It’s supposed to be strange. It makes you feel it more.’ I said. He was talking about Bleachers, one of the only bands I had saved to my phone.
‘What exactly am I supposed to be feeling?’ He raised an eyebrow as the instrumentation of the next song came up.
‘Well, you’re supposed to decide that.’ I swayed standing near my phone, both hands around my paper cup.
I felt Loki watching me move, so I stopped. He stood up and walked towards me. ‘I’m deciding it’s making me feel depressed. It’s tempo is too slow to make me feel anything else.’
I stiffened as I felt one of his hands go up my back and the other pull me towards him by my elbow.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked as he took my hand in his. My eyes widened slightly and I furrowed my brow.
‘Slow songs are meant to be danced to’ he had a mischievous smirk on his face that I didn’t like the look of.
‘You’re going go have to get me a little more drunk if you want me to dance with you’ I smirked back at him.
Instead, before I could protest further, he took my cup from me, placed it on a near by table, and pulled me into to move with him as he started to lead.
For someone who was trained extensively in combat, I was clumsy. Loki pulled us slowly, but my feet still betrayed me. I brought my hand up and around his back to hold his shoulder for balance. I let out a small giggle when I stumbled again.
‘You know, I’m starting to not mind your company’ I said as I leaned my head to his chest.
‘You may be the first to admit that to me.' He rested his cheek on the top of my head, talking quietly into my ear.
‘Well, the liquor helps, so don’t get too confident’ I teased, giving his hand that held mine a light squeeze.
‘In that case I’ll get you drunk more often.’ I could feel his mouth shift into a smirk against my hair.
For a few minutes there was just the music, and the faint sound of Loki’s heartbeat in my ears.
I suddenly felt uneasy about the idea of someone being so close to me.
Physically and emotionally.
The liquor fueled a few hours of talking between us tonight. This wasn’t something I made a habit of. Sure, I’ve gotten to know people at the compound, but I considered a lot of the avengers to be work friends. The kind you get along with easily during the nine to five but you never see them outside the office.
This situation was dangerously leaning Loki and I out of a work friend dynamic.
As if he read my thoughts, he broke the silence, ‘thank you for letting me get to know you a little tonight, dear.’ I felt him graze a kiss on my temple.
I held my breath so it wouldn’t hitch.
Suddenly he was too close.
I pulled away and tried to seem nonchalant by busying myself, so I found my cup and filled it. ‘Don’t get used to it. I told you, the liquors doing most of the talking’.
I heard what was either an exasperated sigh or a very strange chuckle from Loki. Before I could decide he said ‘why do you do that?’
I turned back around to him, ‘do what?’
He stepped closer so I stepped back, I couldn’t go far because I ran into the table behind me gently.
‘Every time I try to get to know you, you pull away before I can get too close. What are you scared of?’
I gave a short dry laugh, ‘I’m not scared. I’m just not interested in making friends.’
‘You can’t lie to a trickster god.’ The ghost of a smirk was on his face. I didn’t like how he kept stepping closer. ‘You forget that I can read right through you. You’re afraid of getting hurt when people get too close. That’s why you keep this façade up when others are around. You wear a mask. You can’t show anyone what’s underneath it because you think you’d be too vulnerable without it’ he was directly in front of me now. I kept my eye contact.
‘I’m not afraid of getting hurt. I told you. No one hurts me. I just don’t like disappointment.’
Our noses were only a few inches away from each other. I wondered to a second what would happen if Either of us broke the distance. ‘I can assure you dear, I never disappoint’ he smirked. I rolled my eyes. There it was. The ghost of our dynamic pre-Iowa purgatory.