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farm-girl-fictional · 1 year

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Dude Looks like a Lady

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Characters: Loki & OCs

Rating: T (language… and mentions of ‘Twilight’—reader discretion advised because of the latter)

Genre: Humor and family

Summary: A short tale involving denim shorts, a crop top, a mortified teenage girl, and a chaos god that doesn’t give a shit.

Being over a millennium old, Loki had had many experiences both good and bad. Finding out he was a Frost Giant; ruling over Asgard for a brief time; attempting to take over Earth and being imprisoned for it; helping Thor avenge the death of their mother and protect the woman he loved and being killed in the process; being brought back to life—just a few of the highlights. But none of these or any other past experiences could ever have come close to those that came along with being the guardian of a sixteen-year-old Midgardian female that he now found himself encountering on a daily basis. No, such a lifestyle—as well as his charge, Brynn—was proving quite the education.

One of the most recent experiences had centered around the seemingly mundane concept of laundry. Aside from the fact that, until the last year on Earth, Loki had never done laundry in his life (that’s what servants were for and what being a prince granted you); Loki had never realized how much of a hassle the chore was. First, there was the sorting: whites and colors had to be separated; denim and heavier fabrics were best sorted into their own piles rather than clumped together with everything else; delicates needed a pile of their own as well. Then there was the washing; whites used hot water, everything else could be cold or warm water; delicates should often be handled by the instructions on the tag and this often meant hand-washing; heavily soiled clothing shouldn’t just be thrown in the washer—it had to have a little extra care in order to get them effectively clean and avoid unsightly stains; you had to adjust the size of the loads so that there’d be enough water in the machine to actually get the clothes clean; and always remember to put the soap in or else you’re just rinsing the clothes and you might as well just use a hose if that’s the idea.

The drying process was much easier, though sometimes you had to make a judgment call on whether to use the dryer or the clothesline outside. (On at least a couple occasions, the weather forecast had gone unnoticed and Brynn and Loki had ended up outside racing the storm clouds in an effort to get the half-dry laundry off the line before it got soaked again.)

But if sorting through dirty clothes was the most unpleasant part of the laundry process, the most boring process, by far, was folding. Not only was it tedious to fold the clothing it was also tedious to once again sort through the clothes so the right person ended up with the right garments. It was also somewhat awkward. Neither of them enjoyed handling each other’s underthings, nor the idea of the other handling them.

In part, that was the main reason for the decision for them to each do their own laundry. They were both more than capable of this by now (though sometimes Loki did still ask Brynn for help if he was unsure or something slipped his mind), and it was much easier to keep track of what belonged to who and made them far more comfortable. But, once in a while, something occurred that would lead to someone’s clothes ending up in the wash with someone else’s. Such a case was what led to Loki’s most recent experience with Brynn.

It had started off innocently enough. Loki had just thrown a load of his shirts into the washing machine when Brynn had arrived home from school and walked through the back door soaked and muddy….

“What happened to you?” Loki chuckled, arms crossed as he leaned against the doorpost. He looked the sixteen-year-old up and down.

Brynn scowled at him, lips curled into a snarl and a slight growl rumbling out of her chest. She was not in the mood for his teasing. “Slipped and fell on my ass in the mud walking up the driveway,” she grumbled. “About half a dozen times! Seriously, we need to get some rock put down that thing, or else someone’s gonna end up breaking their leg after a rainstorm, and it’ll probably be me!” The teen angrily dropped her mud-splattered book bag to the mudroom floor, tossed her sandals (which she’d been carrying) to the side, and kicked off her dirty rain boots. Afterward, she eyed the bag a bit dolefully. “You can magic this clean right?” she asked, looking at her guardian with hopeful, blue-gray eyes.

The raven-haired god looked over the bag with pursed lips, taking in the damage, before finally nodding affirmatively. “I can do something about that,” he assured her with a smirk. “I am a master sorcerer after all.”

Brynn smiled, looking rather relieved. “Good! ‘Cuz I think the books inside are wet too.”

The Asgardian’s brilliant green eyes suddenly widened in mock alarm and he splayed his hands across his chest with a dramatic gasp. “Odin forbid! We mustn’t allow such tragedy to befall such remarkable tomes of knowledge!” Loki found what Brynn’s school so laughably referred to as “educational reading material” was really anything but educational and the most mind-numbingly dull works of text he’d ever come across in his life. At least most of them. Her science book could be fairly interesting from time to time. As could her literature one.

The girl gave him a hard look, albeit a playful one. “Well, if you wanna pay for the damage done to school text-books fine then, go ahead. They’re all pretty much falling apart anyway, they’re so old.” Then she grew serious as she added, “But seriously, at least save my reading book—it’s Maddie’s and she’ll kill me if I ruin it.”

Loki rolled his eyes at the mention of the dreaded book. “Ruining that monstrosity would only be an act of mercy for the world,” he remarked dryly. He shook his head and raised an eyebrow. “Why on earth would you ever agree to read something so…”

“Moronic and gross?” Brynn finished for him with a flat look. “‘Cuz Maddie got sick of me ragging on ‘Twilight’ when I’d only ever seen the movies and never read the books. She only agreed to let me keep doing it until after I’d read the books too. If I wanted to, that is.”

“And do you?”

There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation, just an insistent, “Yes.”

The god snorted. “Very well,” he sighed, “I will see that the sparkly vampires are saved along with everything else.” He then looked Brynn over again. The girl certainly must have taken a tumble. Her curly blonde hair, which had been braided down her back when she’d left for school that morning, was coming undone and sticking out in odd angles with mud and rainwater: In fact, she almost looked brunette now! Her arms and legs were caked with mud, and her face looked like it had been covered in a mud mask that she’d haphazardly wiped off. Brynn very much looked like something from a horror story that had just crawled out of a muddy bog. “Would you like for me to do the same with you, or are you planning on joining a colony of swamp monsters?” he teased.

Brynn gave him another scowl. “Ha, ha, you’re a riot, Loks.” Then she looked herself over and shook her head with a heavy sigh. “No, don’t worry about me,” she answered his previous question. “This stuff needs to be washed anyway.” The teen flapped her vest in reference. “It’s been tainted with Nina’s godawful, cotton-candy scented pew-fume.” She met Loki’s gaze again, her nose wrinkled in disgust as she added, “And, unfortunately, the same goes for me.”

The God of Mischief nodded. “Very well,” he sighed, moving towards her. “I already have some of my clothes washing, but you can go ahead and add your things to it—we’ll sort them out later. No, no kiss now!” he exclaimed. Brynn had been going up on tip-toe to administer her usual ‘hello’ kiss to his cheek, but Loki put up a hand to hold her off. “I have no desire to be muddied up with you. It can wait until after you’ve cleaned up.” With that, the man made a slight wave of his hand. “There should be a towel waiting for you on the counter of the laundry room now,” he commented as Brynn began to make her way to the door that led to said room. “You be sure to towel off as much mud as you can in the laundry room and wrap your hair up before going up to shower,” he instructed warningly. “I don’t want muddy tracks leading all over the house.”

Brynn snorted. “Whatever you say, Mom.”

“Hmm. And here I thought you were going to insult me.”

Smiling, Brynn rolled her eyes and opened the laundry room door. She was about to go inside when she stopped and looked back over her shoulder to see that Loki had picked up her bag and was inspecting it and its contents a bit more closely. He was distracted—excellent! Pivoting around, the girl lunged at the tall, lanky man and, before he could react, tackled him in a big, muddy, wet, full-body hug, almost knocking him over. She planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek. “Mmmwah! Loveya,bigbrother,you’rethegreatest—thanks!” As quickly as she’d embraced him she released him and barreled back towards the door, grinning smugly.

Recovering from the shock of the ambush, Loki whipped around with a glare. “Brynna May Hagel!” he barked. But Brynn had already disappeared through the door; the god could hear her giggling with triumphant glee in the laundry room on the other side. That caused his scowl to quickly melt away into a soft smile, and he shook his head with a chuckle. Ah, Brynn…. She was an infuriating, little Machiavellian, that one. But she was his infuriating, little Machiavellian, and the trickster god couldn’t be happier or more proud.

With a sigh, Loki looked himself over to assess the damage his little troublemaker had done to him. “Well, it would appear I’ll have to magic myself clean as well now. Thank you so very much, Princess.” Then he caught a whiff of a strong cotton candy scent. Nose wrinkling in disgust just as Brynn’s had, the man curled his lip and groaned, “‘Pew-fume’ indeed.”

And that’s where it had started: Brynn—under his suggestion—had thrown her soiled garments in with his because it was simply the most sensible and convenient thing to do. She’d promised to come and get them later and fold them herself. Great, wonderful—no big deal, Loki hadn’t cared; they were just clothes after all and he could handle folding a few of her things once in a while just as she could in reverse. But since she had said she would deal with them later herself, Loki had taken her at her word and left it at that. So when the load had finished the cycle and he’d put it all in a basket and brought it back up to his room in order to put things away, the man had let Brynn know that her clothes were ready for retrieval.

That had been four weeks ago. An entire month. The clothes—a pair of high-waisted shorts, a graphic crop top, and a denim vest—were still lying in the clothes basket, waiting to be folded and put away. And they weren’t even in his room anymore; the basket was sitting out in the hall beside his bedroom door which Brynn had to walk by in order to get to and from her own bedroom. So it wasn’t as though she didn’t see them there and was able to forget about them. But the clothes were still there. The teen hadn’t even so much as pulled the vest out of it to wear it again—she just left them all there unnoticed.

Loki had finally taken to reminding his charge about them and suggesting she put them away. It was only a few articles after all; it would take no time at all. And every time he had, Brynn had nodded her head and waved a dismissive hand, declaring that she would “get to it later” and that she had “something else on her mind at the moment”. On some occasions, she had: There had been a science project that had taken both her and Loki all night to complete; then there had been the assignment for literature in which she’d had to rewrite the American Constitution in her own words; then there had been the practice PSAT tests that the school’s guidance counselor had sent home a few times because, apparently, “it was never too soon to start getting ready”. But as many times as there had been something else to occupy her time, there had been even more moments when Brynn could have turned attention to her clothes and put them away. After all, once again, it was only three articles of clothing. But she hadn’t.

Now, it was true that Loki could have taken it upon himself to fold her clothes and put them away for Brynn, or even just toss them into her room on her bed. Again, it was only a few garments, and all of them, thankfully, were of the outerwear variety. And, admittedly, the god had considered it. Hel, he wouldn’t have even had to do it by hand—he could have just magicked them to reappear in their appropriate places folded/hung up and ready to go for the next time. But the simplicity of the task wasn’t really the point. The point was that Brynn had stated, for a fact, that she would take care of and put her clothes away herself. She’d promised to. And so far she wasn’t holding to it.

While it might have seemed hypocritical for him, Loki, a literal trickster god, to make a thing about his charge not holding to her word, in truth, promises were something Loki took quite seriously. Especially where the people he cared most about were concerned. So the fact that Brynn, someone he indeed cared very deeply for, was not sticking to something she’d sworn to do, did not sit well with him on both a personal and moral level. There was also the simple fact of the god finding this dismissive, lazy, irresponsible behavior of hers rather irksome and was doing his best to break her of it. After all, he was her main parental figure now; it was his job to help her grow into a responsible, well-rounded, well-adjusted adult.

It was because of all these participating factors that Loki finally decided it was time to teach Brynn a little lesson about responsibility and keeping her word. It wouldn’t be anything too drastic, just something to get the message across. And while simple communication usually did prove to be an excellent teaching tool, with some people it just didn’t have an effective enough impact. Unfortunately, Brynn could be one of those people. And also unfortunately (at least for Brynn) Loki was the type of teacher that, when presented with an opportunity where he could either teach a lesson via communication or in a more active way, he tended to choose the more active way. Especially when the more active way allowed him to have a bit of fun. After all, his title wasn’t ‘God of Mischief’ for nothing!

“Look, I’m not saying the movie is gonna be bad,” Devon declared with all sincerity. “All I’m saying is that these people are idiots! I mean, seriously, this is the same universe where the original Jurassic Park happened—and we all know how well that turned out—but we still think it’s a great idea to go and make another one after everything that happened before? “Oh, we can control the dinosaurs this time around!” I think the first park proved that you can’t control the dinos!”

“That and they’ve genetically engineered a totally new dinosaur that’s never existed before,” Sean added. “Because that’s such a great idea.”

“Exactly!” Devon exclaimed, clapping his buddy on the shoulder. “Thank you!”

“No problem, bud.”

It was a balmy, summer night, and Brynn and her group of friends—Devon McCredie siblings Sean and Madilyn Asher, and Caitlyn Willis—were all gathered out by the pickup. They had plans to attend the local theater that evening for the premiere of Jurassic World. Being Jurassic Park fans, the group had made plans to see the movie all the way back after the first trailer had dropped. Now it was here, and they were not about to miss it.

Brynn smirked as she remarked, “Well, we can’t be too hard on their decision-making, can we?” She exchanged a significant look with Maddie and Caitlyn that only teenage girls can share with each other. “I mean, it’s giving us Chris Pratt, right? Who can say that’s a bad thing?”

Maddie and Caitlyn enthusiastically murmured their agreement.

“Oh, please,” Devon snorted, rolling his eyes. “You guys just like him ‘cuz you like how his ass looks in the trailer.”

“Also because he’s sweet, funny, handsome, and charming,” Maddie added.

“He wears a shirt that shows off just a little bit of chest,” Brynn continued.

“And he’s got gorgeous blue eyes,” Caitlyn sighed. “I love blue eyes….”

At that statement, a funny look came over Sean’s face and he looked down at Caitlyn, whom he had an arm wrapped around. “Y-you love blue eyes?” he stuttered rather meekly. He looked more than a little put out by this.

Smiling warmly and reassuringly back up at him, Caitlyn reached up and caressed his cheek. She gazed at him adoringly. “Not half as much as I love brown, baby,” she soothed him.

With that, Sean smiled back before turning his face into her hand and gently kissing her palm.

The rest of the group groaned, Maddie adding in an extra gag.

“Ugh, get a room, guys!” Brynn sniggered.

“I thought we agreed no PDA in the group,” Devon teased at the same time.

“I knew it was a bad idea for my brother and one of my best friends to start dating,” Maddie lamented. She, as opposed to the other two, seemed like she was only half-joking. And maybe she was: Madilyn had yet to get used to the fact that her big brother and best friend since preschool were a serious item. It was very strange, especially since Caitlyn and Sean used to bully each other all through elementary and middle school. And, even more especially, just because—again—it was her brother and one of her best friends.

“Shut up!” Sean and Caitlyn shot back, playfully glaring at their pals.

Snickering, Devon looked down at his watch. “6:30,” he informed everyone as he looked up again. “We need to get there by at least 7:15 if we want our good seats. I asked my cousin to try and save ‘em for as long as he can, but if we don’t get going soon…” he trailed off as everyone would know what he meant.

All gazes suddenly turned to Brynn.

Noticing this, the sixteen-year-old rolled her eyes in annoyance and crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “He knows the timeline, guys,” she assured them. “He’ll get us there on time. … He might frickin’ NASCAR drive the whole way, but he’ll get us there—so relax.”

Loki was their designated chaperone for the movie that night. Usually, the kids would have just gone themselves but as Devon’s car was in the shop, Sean’s new car was only big enough for two people (specifically himself and Caitlyn), and the only one of the girls who had their license yet was Maddie and she’d gotten it revoked after dinging up her car for the fourth time in a month, they were left virtually transportation-less without an adult. That and, plus, since the prom incident, their parents seemed to have come to the conclusion that it would be better if they were chaperoned, even though the prom had been a one-time incident and, in all honesty, an adult probably wouldn’t be able to stop what had happened and prom from happening again. So, because of that, Loki had become the default chaperone. Of all their caretakers, he was definitely the one that was the coolest: He generally stayed out of their business and gave them their space. And, apart from that, he was a literal Asgardian god and a master sorcerer. So, you know, in case something like prom did go down again, he was really the best—and only—line of protection they could have. Plus it was just really epic to have a literal god hanging around with them. Because when people found out you had a god on your team, they just didn’t mess with you. (Not that any of the kids ever flaunted that they hung around and were friends with a god. … Much….)

“Well, what’s taking him so long?” Caitlyn asked of the man in question. “I mean, god or not, he’s a guy; how long can it possibly take for him to get ready?”

Brynn gave her friend a flat look. “You clearly do not know Loki,” she stated. “Seriously, if you guys think I can be bad when I get ready to go out, you are all in for a rude awakening.”

There was the familiar sound of the front door of the Hagel farmhouse opening and closing.

Devon, who was facing the house directly as he leaned against the side of the vehicle, lifted his gaze up the slight incline to the house. Almost immediately, and rather violently, he averted his gaze, covering his eyes as if they’d just been burnt. “Ohgod--myeyes!” he howled. “My eyes!”

The rest of the group gave him alarmed looks before turning to see what he was reacting to. A chorus of horrified, earsplitting, inhuman screeches rang out through the otherwise quiet evening, one, in particular, quite a bit louder and more horrified sounding than the others.

Looking utterly mortified, Brynn sprinted up the sidewalk toward the cause of their reactions. “Loki!” She skidded to a stop in front of the Asgardian and held her arms out as wide as she could on either side, as she would if she were trying to head an animal off from a direction she didn’t want. Apparently, the girl thought this would work on Loki as well. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” she wailed.

Stopping in his tracks, the green-eyed man fixed her in a gallingly innocent stare, even going so far as to tilt his head to the side like a confused puppy. “What do you mean?” he questioned with just as much innocence. “I’m ready to take you all to the movie.”

White as a sheet, except for her face, which was turning a brilliant color of reddish pink due to her embarrassment and exasperation, Brynn fixed the trickster with a heated glare. “That’s not what I mean and you know it!” she hissed.

Raising an eyebrow, Loki crossed his arms over his chest and released a patient sigh. The action only caused Brynn’s ire to rise even more. “Brynn,” he addressed her calmly, “if you want me to understand what you mean, you’re going to have to speak more clearly.” While his face remained placid and serene, the god was smirking a mile-wide and snickering devilishly inside. This was almost too much fun!

Knowing full well his cool and collected demeanor did not match what was really going on inside that twisted, raven-haired head of his and becoming even more flustered by it, Brynn clenched her hands into fists. Oh, she wanted to hit him! She hadn’t wanted to hit him this badly since the point at the beginning of their relationship when they’d hated each other! She could do it! If she really wanted to, she could do it, and, boy, she really, really wanted to! But that wouldn’t get her what she wanted. Nothing except keeping her cool and playing along with Loki’s game—whatever the hell it was—would get her what she wanted. And that was a tall order to deal with: What she wanted was directly tied to what was making her want to hit him. And knowing Loki, he was going to drag this out for as long as he could to make her suffer with her humiliation all the more. He was sadistic like that.

So, setting her jaw, Brynn enunciated, very slowly, through teeth clenched so tightly they might shatter, “What. The hell. Are. You. Wearing?”

For you see, this is why Brynn was so cross with Loki that she wanted to hit him, why she was so mortified that she might keel over and die: he was wearing her clothes. Yes, that’s right, the lanky, 6’2, 206 pounds, full-grown Asgardian God of Mischief had managed to stuff himself into clothes that were meant for a 5’5, 130 pound, teenaged girl of average build. And it looked about as terrifyingly hideous as you could imagine.

Brynn’s insides squirmed uncomfortably as she looked him over. He had to have magicked this stuff in order to even get it on, but even then it all still fit him poorly: her high-waisted shorts rode nauseatingly high up on his legs and hips, so much so that the bottoms of his buttocks were exposed (not a good look for guys!); her crop top clung to him almost like it was another layer of skin and stretched across his chest so tightly that it distorted the Wonder Woman graphic so much she looked obese; and her vest… it fit so tightly across his broad shoulders that it crinkled and stuck out in a strange way at the bottom where it should have hung loose. It all just added up to one massive nightmare.

Looking as though he had no idea what she was talking about, Loki looked down at his attire before meeting Brynn’s gaze again. “I’m wearing clothes,” he answered simply. That would only help to irk the teen off more.

Brynn felt a new flame of irritation flare up inside her at that answer. Oh, he was so gonna get it! (If she didn’t die of embarrassment first.) “No,” she corrected, trying to keep her voice even. “You’re wearing my clothes—there’s a big difference.”

Loki’s brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed as if he’d just heard something fishy and wasn’t sure whether he’d believed it or not. “No,” he shook his head, “these are my clothes.”

Brynn gawped at him in bewilderment at that. His clothes?! What?! Had the God of Mischief finally gone insane?! “What are you talking about?” she scoffed incredulously. “That’s my shirt, those are my shorts, and that is my vest! But I don’t need to tell you this because you know that those are my clothes, so, I’ll ask again, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man gave her a slightly annoyed look. “And again, I am ready to take you all to the movie,” he responded firmly. “And, yes, these are my clothes—you gave them to me.”

The blonde stared at him for the longest time, trying to process what he’d just said. “Yep,” she finally murmured, wide-eyed and pale, “you’ve finally snapped there, Merlin.”

Loki’s lip curled into a snarl. “I have not snapped,” he growled. “I thought we left the “insanity” business behind us some time ago, Brynn.”

“Well, how the heck else am I supposed to explain this?!”

“I just did: You gave these clothes to me.”

“No, I didn’t, Loki!”

“Yes, you did, Brynn.”

“When the hell did I do that?!”

“Well, to be honest, it wasn’t so much an outright gesture as it was a quietly implied transferal.”

Once again, Brynn stared at her guardian, perplexed. “What?”

Sighing in a longsuffering way (once again, just to piss Brynn off further), the god recounted, “A month ago you came walking through the door covered in mud, dressed in this very outfit, mind you. At my suggestion, you put these things in the washer along with a load of my laundry. You did so and promised me that later on when everything was finished, you would come to retrieve your clothes and put them away yourself. You didn’t. Even as I reminded you about them and set them out in the basket in the hallway, you still didn’t. I naturally assumed that that meant you had no desire to keep these clothes any longer.”

It took all of Loki’s considerable willpower to not burst out into outrageous guffaws at the look on his charge’s face in reaction to this explanation. Priceless! If only he’d had a camera! Her blue-gray eyes about the size of dinner plates and her jaw dropped to the sidewalk, Brynn looked quite lost for anything to say. Which was saying something, considering she always seemed to have something to say.

“I… but… you… er… uh…” Brynn fumbled around for a response. It was a next-to-impossible feat, she was so dumbstruck. Finally, she managed to snag onto something: “You’re insane!”

Again that glower came back to Loki’s face. Joking or not, getting the reaction he wanted out of Brynn or not, he did not appreciate being called “insane”. “Crazy” was one thing—he couldn’t very well deny that allegation—but he was not “insane”. “Brynna May,” he growled in warning.

“Loki, if I don’t want clothes anymore, I will put them in a box or bag and let you know so that we can take them to Goodwill or something,” Brynn tried to explain as calmly and rationally as she could. “I’m not gonna give them to you! Silently, verbally, or otherwise!”

“How was I to know that? You did leave them in a laundry basket next to my room.”

Brynn exploded. “YOU ASSHAT, YOU’RE NOT STUPID!!!”

“No, I’m not, but that’s redundant.”

“This entire conversation is redundant!” Brynn shrieked, hands waving wildly around. “Loki, I don’t know what the hell kinda lesson you’re trying to teach me here, but get to the moral already, please! I’m begging you!”

The man shook his head. “There is no lesson, Brynn,” he assured her. “As I’ve stated before, I’m wearing clothes that you gave to me-”

“THEY ARE GIRLS’ CLOTHES!!!”

“And I think they’re utterly adorable.”

“Yeah! On me! They make you look like Ken if he got dressed when he was still half-asleep and put on Barbie’s clothes by accident!”

A radiant smile beamed across Loki’s angular face. “Why, thank you!”

“LOKI!!!”

Cringing at the volume of her screech, the God of Mischief gave his charge a disapproving look. Brynn had a propensity for the over-dramatic, but that didn’t give her an excuse to forget her manners and yell in such a way when she was standing barely a foot in front of him. “Brynna May Hagel,” Loki scolded, “watch your tone. You don’t need to yell—I am standing right here.”

“Oh, believe me, I know!” Brynn huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring back at her guardian. She ran her eyes over him and his unbelievable attire again. “Good god, do I… By. Odin’s. Beard! Didyoushaveyourlegs?!”

Again that bright and maddening grin. “Why, yes, I did!” Loki chirruped, looking down at his long, muscular legs himself. He pivoted around in a rather effeminate way so that Brynn could see his limbs from all sides (almost making Brynn lose her lunch when she got a full view of what his ass looked like in her shorts). “It was an experience, let me tell you,” he remarked. “It took up a lot of time and I wasn’t sure if I should do it, but they looked ghastly otherwise.”

“As opposed to now?” Brynn muttered, shielding her eyes. As much as she adored her guardian—which was saying much because she absolutely loved him to pieces—it made the sixteen-year-old highly uncomfortable to see him in such a state of undress. Or was it more of a… “dressed but very inappropriately” situation? Yes, it was probably that—she’d never had an issue with him walking around in nothing but a pair of pants before.

Loki suddenly looked down at his watch. “Hmm, a quarter to seven,” he murmured. “We’d better hurry if we want to get there in time to get your seats.” With that, the god made to continue his previous trek down the sidewalk toward the vehicle and the rest of Brynn’s friends. (He noticed with some pleasure that they all looked rather dumbstruck and horrified, peeking out at him from behind their hands… except for Maddie. She wasn’t averting her eyes at all. And she looked just a little bit too pleased and dreamy-eyed as she checked him out. Maybe Loki hadn’t completely thought this plan through….)

Brynn suddenly braced her hands against his chest and her feet against the sidewalk, pushing back on him with all her might to make him stop. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” she exclaimed. “Back up! Joke’s over!” She met his brilliant green eyes with her stricken blue-gray ones and shook her head desperately. “You are not going to town dressed like this!”

Loki looked himself over yet again. “What’s wrong with this?”

“‘What’s wrong with this?’!” Brynn repeated incredulously. “Loki, if these clothes fit me in the same way they fit you, you wouldn’t let me out of the house in ‘em—that’s what’s wrong! Loki, your ass is hanging out! Nobody wants to see that!”

“I wanna see that!” Maddie shouted from her spot by the truck.

“SHADDUPMADDIE—NOBODYASKEDYOU!!!” Brynn hollered back, not looking away from Loki. Clasping the front of his shirt—well, her shirt—the girl gazed up into the trickster’s face beseechingly. “Loki, please, I’m your little sister and I love you with all my heart,” she pleaded frantically. “And if you feel the same way about me—if you’ve ever loved me at all, Loki—please put something else on! Please! I’m begging you!”

With that, Loki’s face sobered and the whole air about him grew serious. ‘… if you’ve ever loved me at all…’ how could Brynn even question such a thing or vaguely imply that maybe he didn’t? In fact, the very reason he was willfully wearing her clothes and making a complete imbecile of himself was proof enough that he did, in actuality, love the girl. It also spoke to the fact of just how much he loved her. He certainly wouldn’t have done this for Thor. (Then again, he didn’t have to; he’d already proven his love for his brother by protecting Jane and dying on Svartalfheim—his obligation there was done as far as Loki was concerned.) “Of course, I love you, Brynn,” he murmured. “I love you very, very much—you know that.”

There was actually a slight gleam of tears in Brynn’s blue-gray eyes. “Then why?” she rasped, desperate to understand.

The man sighed heavily. “I believe you’ve already come to the conclusion, as you’ve mentioned it once.”

Brynn thought for a minute, trying to remember what she’d said. “So this is a lesson then,” she responded after a moment. She watched as her guardian nodded in confirmation. “A lesson for what?” she inquired. She still didn’t understand why Loki had done this, why he’d allowed himself to look so hideously ridiculous and foolish, especially in front of company. What could he possibly be trying to teach her? What could be so drastic?

And then it hit her.

“Are you serious?” the teen deadpanned, some of that annoyance rising back up inside her again and burning away the franticness. “Are. You. Fucking. Serious?” She was more emphatic that time around, pounding a fist hard against his chest.

Loki’s face darkened. “Brynna May Hagel,” he rumbled dangerously. “Utter such vile language again, young lady, and you will find yourself spitting soap suds for the rest of the evening. And if you hit me again you will regret it, I assure you.”

Brynn ignored him and continued on. “That’s what this was about: me not putting away my laundry? You almost made me break down crying in desperate humiliation for that?!”

“Actually, I never intended to make you cry,” he confessed, looking a bit guilty, “and if that is the case, I apologize. Perhaps I pushed a bit too far.”

“Ya think?” Brynn snapped, shoving away from him and forcefully perching her fists on her hips. She glared hotly at him.

“But the lesson wasn’t so much about you not putting away your laundry,” the god informed her, choosing for the moment to let her tone go rather than reprimand her for it. That would only lead to an argument they didn’t have time for. “It was more about you not putting it away after you had given me your word that you would.” A scolding expression came onto Loki’s face as he said that.

The teen squirmed slightly under that gaze, some guilt springing up through that annoyance. Okay, he had a point—Brynn had to admit that. She remembered now and she had promised that she would put her clothes away, but then other stuff had happened and it had slipped her mind a few times, and… well it was laundry! Whether it was a full basket of clothing or a pair of socks, who wanted to put away laundry? Still, she had said that she would. But that didn’t mean he had to go around wearing her things in front of her friends, completely intent on actually wearing them out in public just to teach her a lesson about responsibility and keeping her word! “Ya couldn’t’ve just talked to me about it?” she growled, her face turning red again.

Loki pursed his lips in contemplation a bit, his eyes rolling skyward as if the heavens would somehow help him consider her question more thoroughly. “I could have,” he admitted after a minute or two. Then he looked back at the girl, smirking devilishly. “But where would have been the fun in that? This way I got to watch you go into a classic tizzy.”

Brynn grabbed at her head, fisting her hands in her hair as if to rip it all out. Screwing her eyes shut she threw her head back and released a frustrated roar through clenched teeth. She stomped her foot. “God! You are such an ass!” she fumed. Honestly! How the hell could someone be this exasperating?! One thing was for sure: it definitely spoke to Loki’s superhuman-ness, because no human could be this irritating—it wasn’t possible. If he wasn’t careful, the man really was going to make her pull all her hair out!

“True,” Loki conceded good-naturedly, arching an eyebrow. “But are you going to shirk off a responsibility again? Are you going to treat your word as if it means nothing again?”

Releasing her curly, blonde tresses, the girl let her hands fall limply to her sides and hung her head so that her hair hid her flushed cheeks. “No…” she muttered just loudly enough for the god to hear.

“Then my plan succeeded and my being an ass was well warranted.”

“Yeah, keep tellin’ yourself that, Viking Boy.”

“Oh, I intend to.”

Brynn couldn’t help the slight smirk that curled her mouth. She shook her head. This man—this god… how she’d managed to deserve his presence in her life she still wasn’t completely sure—nor was she sure she really wanted it sometimes—but here he was, and she couldn’t imagine it any other way anymore. Whether he was being stern and protective or sweet and loving or just being a total douchebag like tonight, he was there with her. For her. And, whether she liked or wanted it or not, Brynn wouldn’t have it any other way. She really wouldn’t.

“Seriously though, Loks,” she said after a moment, becoming all serious business as she looked him over yet again, “can you please change into something that won’t give people heart attacks?”

Rather surprisingly, a look of utter relief came over the Asgardian’s face at this request. “Gladly,” he sighed. With a gleaming blur of a flash, Loki’s clothes had instantaneously changed from his hideous, stolen get-up into one that was much more pleasing and fitting for him: black slacks, a green v-neck, and a dark gray blazer. The god shifted around, swinging his arms a bit and rolling his shoulders and neck, a look of pleasure on his face. A soft utter of, “Thank Odin,” fell from his lips.

Striding out yet again, Loki wrapped an arm around his charge’s shoulders, turning her around and leading her back down the sidewalk toward the others. “Your clothes are horrendously uncomfortable,” he told her.

Smirking, Brynn looped an arm around the man’s waist, matching her strides to his as best she could. (It wasn’t as easy as it sounds, as he had very long legs.) “Well, for one, they’re my size and are meant to fit me,” she retorted. “They definitely weren’t designed and made with Asgardian chaos gods in mind.”

Loki chuckled as he smoothed a hand over her hair. “No, I suppose not,” he agreed.

Brynn gazed up at him. “I’ll put ‘em away when we get home after the movie,” she said, face sincere. “I promise.”

Her guardian nodded. “Of course, you will,” he replied. “They’re back in the basket waiting for you. And on the off chance you won’t put them away—and I’m sure that you will—I’ve charmed them to scream bloody murder at you every time you walk by the basket until you’ve dealt with them.”

Brynn raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t that seem a tad bit overdramatic?”

That brought on a mocking sneer from the god. “It would seem they take after their mistress.”

The girl gasped incredulously. Had he seriously just called her overdramatic?! “Uh! Pft! Tsh! Huh! Ha! Excuse you?!” she yelped, offended by the insinuation. “I am not overdramatic!”

“Says the girl who nearly broke down into tears over a prank not two minutes ago.”

“Did you see what you looked like in that outfit? Hulk would have cried!”

“Perhaps, but it still wouldn’t have been as hard as you would have.” He leered down at her and snickered mischievously, “Crybaby.”

“Jerkface.”

“Drama queen.”

“Bite me.”

“Where would you like me to?”

Brynn’s gaze darkened and narrowed into a glower. “I hate you,” she rumbled.

Loki gazed fondly back at her. “I hate you too,” he returned lovingly.

The girl reached up and playfully smacked his cheek. “I hate you more.” A slight smile was starting to fade onto her face.

The god slipped a hand down and swatted her hip. “But I hate you most.”

“That’s what you think, big brother.”

“That’s what I know, little sister.”

Bonus Ending: Did they make it to the movie in time?

With a squeal of tires on pavement, the champagne gold Dodge Ram drifted gracefully into a parallel parking space outside of The Sun Theater in Dalton. Moviegoers who were still filing into the building all stopped and stared as the doors of the truck opened and five teenagers and a tall, dark-haired, green-eyed man exited the vehicle.

Four of the teens—the two boys and two of the girls—were white as sheets and trembling so badly they could hardly walk: One of the boys even threw himself down on the ground and began to hug and kiss it. The man, however, was smiling in a rather self-pleased way. The fifth teen—a blonde girl who looked much more composed than the others though she still looked abnormally pale and appeared to be shaking as well—merely turned to her friends and said a bit numbly, “See? Tol’ja he’d get us here in time.”

Just then the wail of sirens was heard, and a second later, several police vehicles squealed around the corner and peeled down the street towards the cinema, lights flashing.

Looking slightly alarmed by this, the black-haired man quickly turned his eyes to the truck they’d all just come out of. The truck suddenly changed colors from gold to gray. The license plates seemed to have changed as well. Then, the man grabbed the blonde girl by the hand and began quickly tugging her along toward the theater doors. “Come on, kids,” he called back over his shoulder as the police drew closer, but didn’t seem to have any inclination of slowing down. “Come on now.”

The police cruisers blew right past the theater. They didn’t even look back.

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