| Cheetah Hybrid! Reader x Cheetah Hybrid! Julien Loki 17k words
Synopsis: Football has been your life since the second you could even pronounce the word, it was the only thing you’ve had to yourself for a while. You’ve worked yourself to the bone just to be considered one of the very best on your small team, that all fell apart the second you’d met Julien Loki. His existence itself became an unreachable goal for you, even more so after a match with him shattered one of your legs. You expect him to laugh at your situation, to stare at you like one would a half dying dog. But why won’t he leave you to recover in peace? And why does he keep staring at you with this look you can’t decipher?
A/N: baby's first canon bllk fic after like 30 of them... its okay lol! ty for tuning in to part 9 of my very awesome beastman au!!!!!! i've never written anything for loki so plssss forgive me if it sucks. ALSO i know reader also playing football as well kinda questions the gender neutrality of this, but in my mind being a beastman (which everyone in this is) kinda levels the playing field so co-ed teams are fine!!!!
ALSO i've never broken a bone or played football so again, forgive me for any inaccuracies
The wind blows itself out over your face, forcing your eyes into a deep squint that doesn’t actually impair your movement. The field you’re in is covered in a dense fog, hovering over the blades of grass under you, the smog making way for your legs as they power down the patch of land. It’s icy and withering, the narrow beam of sunlight that bursts through the densely packed clouds just enough to light up your path. A layer of sweat coats every inch of your fur, culminating at your forehead, running down your neck until it slithers under your jersey. Locks of your hair tickle the fur at your forehead and the back of your neck, adding another layer of irritation that almost slows you down.
You push all of those feelings away, the same way you always do whenever you’re playing, your only focus on getting down the field as fast as possible. The ball bounces evenly between your feet, jumping ahead of you every five seconds, before you move to catch up with it. Your teammates are spread around you, ready to receive the ball whenever, though they’re lagging a bit behind.
Even with how hard you’re focusing on your current task, a sliver of satisfaction manages to make it’s way through your chest. Knowing you’re still the fastest player on your team is a crown that’s still yet to slip off your ego. Most of your team’s plays revolve around you, that’s what the cheetah blood in your veins gets you. Your coach has drilled it into your heads, your teammates are allowed to do what they think is right, before they pass the ball to you and watch as you speed towards the goal with no issues. It’s worked every time, at least before now.
You’re still running through the grass, your spine bent in a position that makes it easier for you to move, your chest pumping with oxygen that rapidly spreads through your body. The faces of your teammates are still in the edges of your vision, solid reminders that there’s people you can still pass to if your legs start to give up, but there’s one face you see that keeps you moving, even faster now.
It’s the only one that can catch up to you, the person getting closer and closer until the two of you are side by side. Dark brown spotted fur, an arrogant smirk, equally dark ears sticking out of his same coloured buzz cut.
Julien Loki.
Sometimes you think his existence is the consequence of your massive ego, he was born just to make you furious. Clearly you got too comfortable being the best player you know and the universe had to remind you you were just a speck of dust floating in space, in the presence of greater stars. The first time you’d met Loki, he was alright. Not kind, you could tell he was looking down on your smaller team, only because he had the same look in his eyes that you did whenever your coach came across even smaller teams for you to play against. You’d been cordial, shook his hand when he offered it, gave him and his team half smiles you hoped didn’t look too fake, but that was only based on your still intact ego. You assumed you could decimate him on the field, that you could relax.
If you could go back to that time, you would strangle yourself in less than a heartbeat.
Your coach had spoken a little too highly of you, talking to Loki’s stern looking coach. You could tell the man wanted to brush your coach off, but Loki had taken to his words immediately, offering the chance to prove your skills in a practice match. You’d never felt slower in your life than you did that day. The only thing you could catch up to were the soles of Loki’s cleats, and even with the two goals your team had scored, your self-esteem took a nose dive.
You couldn’t shake off the looks you thought your teammates were giving you, the heavy sigh your coach had let out afterwards, even though it wasn’t directed at you. You felt like a fraud. The only thing you got out of it was that that helpless feeling had turned you towards the field even more. You practiced more than ever, spending more time in the gym than you ever had at home, sometimes you fell asleep there. Your goal of becoming the best sectioned off into a smaller one, you had to be better than Loki.
That period after you first met him was sensitive for you, people couldn’t even mention his name around you, fearing how hard you would lash out.
Your coach became more and more worried every day. He tried to reassure you, he showed you your progress reports every few weeks, making sure you knew you were still improving, just not at the higher rate you wanted. It helped a lot more back then, you recognise that now, you just hated how many people made Loki seem superhuman, like you could never bridge the gap between you no matter how hard you tried.
You’re back in the PxG training centre now, juggling the ball between your racing feet, trying to keep it away from Loki. You watch his leg shoot out several times, his shoulder slamming into yours so hard it nearly sends you sprawling into the grass, but you keep your pace, eyes on the space in front of you. The ball stutters only once, lifting into the air and landing on the tip of your shoes, before you shuffle it backwards, kicking it in a general direction behind you.
You know the play is risky, and you can’t even glance back once to see if the ball landed in the hands of your teammates. All you can do is hope as you decelerate enough to shift around Loki, savouring the genuine shock that crosses his features, before he’s gone in the blur that surrounds you. Your plan worked, somehow, you know that when you see the ball shoot ahead of you, in the perfect position that you just have to power yourself towards.
The muscles working themselves to death in your thighs are starting to fail, your energy starting to diminish with how hard you’ve been pushing yourself. Your eyes are still on the goal post, almost watering against the wind that pushes into them, the need to get this goal higher than the need to collapse into the grass. Loki catches up to you as fast as you expected, the effect of that brief distraction you’d managed to pull over him now faded away. He pushes you once more, your bodies colliding in a rapid blur.
The rest of the field has faded behind you both, time practically slowing down as your legs wade through the air. As far as you’re concerned, this match is only between you both, a test to who can make it the farthest. The goal is in sight, a distance you could’ve covered with one kick if Loki wasn’t breathing down your neck. You can expand the space between you, you just need to push yourself more.
Your thighs burn harder, the space right under the back of your shoes aching with every step you take. You’re starting to overtake him, your legs stretching out longer, getting you closer and closer to the end.. until a sensation stops you dead in your tracks.
Something in your leg just… snaps.
It starts at your knee, a small ache that seems like it’ll pass in a few seconds, but it doesn’t. The second bit of pressure you put on that leg brings everything down. Your body collapses a second later, the world tilting in your vision before it’s blocked by the patch of grass you fall into, your cheek slamming painfully into the ground. For a second, you don’t hear anything but a high pitched whine that pokes itself into your brain, your mouth going numb as it hangs open, the adrenaline in your brain solidifying into a loud buzz that takes over every inch of your form.
Then it all comes rushing back.
You didn’t even know you were screaming until you snapped back to life. It doesn’t sound human, not like it’s coming from you. The sound alone makes you want to cry, but you can’t when you’re too busy curling in agony. Your nails claw at the skin of your knee, as if trying to pry the burning pain out of it. Every shallow breath you take sends a wave of unfathomable pain through your bones, like your veins are filled with liquid fire.
Your vision blurs under the weight of your own sweat and rapidly falling tears, but you can still see the way everyone surround your crouched form, the obvious worry in their gazes as they stare down at you. You can feel your coach’s hands spread across your chest and back, looking for any other sprains or cuts.
He presses lightly on the knee you’re still clutching, flinching sharply at the scream you let out when he does. You can hear him yell for someone to call an ambulance, before his hands meet your face, trying to wipe your tears away in a gesture that only makes you cry harder. You can’t imagine how upset he is; He’s told you time and time again, not to strain yourself, to stay within the limits of what you can do. Those warnings only got more frantic after your first match with Loki. And now look at what you’ve done.
At the peak of your team’s success, you push yourself for the sake of your stupid ego, and now only god knows what you’ve done to your leg.
In the midst of gentle touches and small strokes you recognise as your teammates, there’s something else, a touch that feels foreign but more concerned than anyone else. You can finally see the face that belongs to that touch when he’s in your face, his bright yellow irises staring down at you with something you can’t place.
Loki is holding onto your hand with a force that rivals the hold you have on your knee, almost as if he’s the one in pain. You think he’s trying to calm you down but you can’t hear anything over the sound of your own agony and everyone else’s panic.
“Look… me. Breathe. Help… on…. way.”
You watch his mouth move, only able to catch on a few words as they fly out of his mouth. Your hand grips his tighter, his hold an anchor you don’t want to lean on, but also can’t let go of. Both of your breathing evens out into the same rhythm, yours a lot shakier than his, but still enough to settle the anxiety still swirling around in your chest. It gives you the space to think, firstly about why Loki is so close to you in the first place.
The pain is still making it hard to think, but you can’t help thinking about it when the source of confusion is right in front of your face. You can imagine doing this for a teammate, a friend, someone who would be worth the concern. If this had happened to Loki, and you had been in his position instead, you wouldn’t be right in his face, attempting to comfort him. You would’ve stared from a distance, and in a perfect world maybe you would’ve felt bad for him too.
It feels like it’s been hours before the on and off whine of ambulance sirens reach your ears, a welcome sound against the pain still throbbing in your mind. Your coach looks down at you with a relieved smile, his hand gently patting yours where it’s hovering over your knee. The paramedics work fast, shuffling you onto the stretcher with a speed that doesn’t affect your leg as much as you thought it would.
Your hand falls away from Loki’s as you’re carted into the ambulance, it’s solid white metal shielding you from the bursts of sunlight that suddenly decided to emerge from the clouds. For a twisted second, you almost miss the feeling. Your body jolts in its bed as the vehicle rolls away, your leg held in place by a few straps. You can only think of one thing as you slowly get closer to the hospital.
Your life is over.
There’s a firm layer of exhaustion that’s hovering over the space you’re lying in, spreading throughout the room in a motion that almost makes you sick. Everything smells like antiseptic, fresh bandages and misery. You open your bleary eyes to a stark white ceiling, taking in the bulb right above you that shines bright light directly into your irises. The memories come back to you slowly, as if trying to help you exercise patience.
You running down the field, your legs breaking under the pressure, Loki’s hand on yours before you were charted off into an ambulance. That last part is something you have to shake your head a little to force away, it shouldn’t have stuck with you the way it apparently has.
Even without having your full whits about you, you know it’s most likely been a day or two since you fell in the first place. You try to shift your body upwards, immediately stopped by the pain that shoots through your knee, then radiates down to your thigh. You can see it now, your leg, hanging in the air a few inches away from you, from a lightly coloured swing. It’s clad in a thick cast, one that makes your leg feel even heavier.
Every small movement you make sends another fresh wave of pain through your body, enough to make you nauseous all over again, but you manage to stretch sideways until you reach the button right beside your bed, hoping a nurse comes faster than you can start to get agitated.
A nurse walks in a minute later, her fur covered with light turquoise scrubs, a neat little clipboard sitting in her hands. She’s a dog hybrid, her ears lifting slightly as a genuine surprise crosses her features.
“Oh you’re awake! That’s good, I’ll let the doctor know. She’ll be with you in a moment.”
She shifts towards you, tucking the clipboard under her arm while she rearranges the pillows at your back, lifting you into a position that gives you a better view of the room. It’s as simple as you’d expect it to be, your bed takes up about half of the entire room, with two small bedside tables spread across each side. There’s a window to your left, a relatively big one that you can peer out of even from where you’re laying, the hospital’s courtyard peeking up at you.
The doctor she’s talking about is a serious looking panther beastman, her inky black hair slicked back into a neat bun that meets her equally black ears on top of her head. The coat that hangs over her shoulders is neat, pristine, the wrinkles around her eyes make her look mature, not tired. The stoic look on her face melts the second she gets close enough, into a calm smile that does everything but reassure you.
“Good morning, how are you feeling?”
You bite back the sarcastic remark you immediately wanted to respond with, she’s not the one you should be taking your anger out on
“..Fine. How long do I have to be here before I can leave?”
She looks awkward then, her smile melting into a sideways glance that deepens the worry in your gut. You watch her turn to the nurse behind her, taking a thick manilla envelope that she opens soon after. The nurse wheels in a small black box that she lights up with a small switch at the back, the doctor approaches the box with two large papers, though they look more like film.
They’re x-ray scans of your injury, your knee and the bone right under on full display. Even without the doctor pointing it out you can see it, the obvious disconnect between the ball of your knee and the bone under it.
“It’s a fracture, most likely from strenuous exercise. You’ll have to stay here for around a month, but we’ll monitor the break and let you know how things are progressing.”
The pain in your leg fades into a dull hum, overtaken by a loud whine ringing in your ears. It’s similar to the whine you’d heard when you fell, the kind that comes with a deep sense of dread swirling around in your gut. Your stomach clenches painfully, bile rising in your throat until it feels like you’re going to double over.
One month.
One month of never playing the sport you’ve dedicated your whole life to again, the only reason you walk, breathe, eat, sleep. A whole month of being stuck to your hospital bed like dead weight. What would your team do without you? How long would it take before your teammates realised it would be easier to replace you rather than wait? And would your leg even fully heal, would you ever reach the speeds you used to again?
Your chest is starting to feel tight, your breath coming in short bursts. The mattress beneath you no longer feels like a comfort, the cast your leg is wrapped in starting to feel like a trap. You can’t keep staying here, if you lay in this bed for one more second you think you’ll pass out. The nurse rushes to your side as your limbs start to flail, your hands trying to push yourself out of bed while your leg swings painfully in the sling. She’s begging you to calm down with a careful hand on your shoulder, but you’re not listening, you can barely hear her.
Your vision’s starting to fray at the edges, but you can still see the doctor duck her head out into the hallway, calling out to someone you can’t see. The nurse still has her hands over your shoulders, trying to push you back into the pillows, when your coach walks in, his eyes bleary with worry.
Seeing his face settles something in you, enough for the tears to start falling. They feel hot against your fur, leaving tracks in the sandy beige hair you can’t begin to wipe away. You curl over the bed frame, hands clutching the sheets as you gasp and sob. You’re scared to look up, to watch the concern in his eyes fade into irritation once he realises you’re useless now.
“I’m sorry.. I’m sorry. It’s my fault… I wasn’t- The team is going to-”
Your panicked ramblings are cut off when your face slams against something solid, a pair of arms wrapping around your trembling shoulders. The tears stain your coach’s plain shirt, but he doesn’t seem to mind, only holding you tighter the harder you cry.
“It’s okay, I heard from your doctor. I’m just glad you’re alright.”
He smooths a hand down your hair, shushing you gently, something he hasn’t done since the first match you ever lost. You’d been so upset that day, somehow maybe even more upset than you are now, and he’d just held you, let you vent your frustrations for as long as you wanted. Your shoulders start to shake less often, the tears drying up as you slowly catch your breath. He takes the seat beside you, his hand never leaving yours where it’s still clutching the covers.
“Everyone’s so worried about you, they’ll come visit when you’re feeling better.”
That brings you another sense of relief, your back falling into the pillows a bit more, your body relaxed now. Your leg still aches from where you were struggling earlier, though you force yourself to push the feeling away, still of the belief that as long as you don’t focus on the pain it doesn’t exist.
“…Am I still on the team?
Your coach’s face hardens for the first time since he walked in, but you can tell he’s not angry at you, more at the workaholic attitude that got you here in the first place. He gives your hand an affirmative squeeze, the brief anger morphing back into worry.
“I don’t want you thinking about that right now…” He cuts in when he notices the panic coming back across your features. “But I’m not kicking you off the team, I would never.”
He gives your hand one more pat before he turns back to your doctor, starting a discussion you can’t be bothered to listen to. Your attempt to soft launch coming back to the field quicker was thwarted immediately, clearly that was the end of that conversation.
“Listen to the doctor, alright? I don’t want you coming back until you’re fully cleared, no matter what.”
Your coach’s words have always been ones you tried your best to listen to, most times if you didn’t, it caused more issues for you than it did him. You fully fall back into bed, your head lolling against the back of the pillows, much to your coach’s relief. He places your phone beside the bed, practically begging you to call him if you need anything before he leaves, taking the nurse and doctor along with him. Your eyes close against the soft light of the room, a temporary reprieve from your situation.
You’ll think about it more when you’re in a better state to do so.
…
Two days passes you by in that hospital room before it feels like you’re about to lose your mind. You’ve never been so sedentary before, just watching every one pass you by, shuffle around, practically doing everything while you’re stuck in bed.
It’s hell.
There’s never been a moment you haven’t been moving since you started playing football seriously; Typically, you’d wake up in the morning for a jog, head to your team’s gym before anyone else, practically spend the whole day dribbling a ball between your feet. There’s only so much you can do chained to your bed, your phone became boring to use a long time ago.
You also can’t stand the way people look at you. It had been fine just a few seconds ago, you realised the nurses were being nice because it was their job, you can’t imagine they’d want to treat a salty patient with a shitty attitude and a leg cast with anything but disdain. Somehow someway, it became public knowledge to the nurses on your floor that you were an athlete, or at least that you used to be before your fracture.
Their smiles got tighter, the check ups more gentle. Every time a nurse managed to strike up a conversation with you, it would always end in reassurances that your leg would heal fine, as if they didn’t actually expect it to. It gets infuriating for you each time. You hated being pitied more than how useless your injury made you feel. You were still getting used to just laying around, they were making it worse if anything.
Then one day, you just snapped.
One of the nurses on rotation asked you the wrong question, something about if you wanted to speak to anyone about what you were feeling, any doubts you had, you stopped listening halfway through his speech and had flung the chair right beside your bed in his direction, watching it clatter to the floor. You started screaming just as fast as you threw the chair, the crash of several items on the floor echoing throughout the space.
In your struggle, you manage to drag your leg out of its sling, letting it fall onto the bed sheets, an action so agonising your vision nearly goes white. That doesn’t stop you though, your nails digging into the bedside table as you drag yourself halfway off the bed.
“Please calm down. You’ll worsen your injury if you keep moving!”
The nurse pleading with you realises in a quick second that if he doesn’t get you himself, then you’ll drag yourself out of this hospital with your own two hands. There are several more standing around the entrance, staring at you like you’ve lost your mind, one nurse has a set of crutches, something you assume she’s meant to take to someone else. She probably doesn’t want a chair to the face too, that’s why it’s so easy for you to snatch it out of her hands, jamming the pads under your armpits.
At least two nurses are trailing behind you, still insistent on getting you back to your hospital room without actually grabbing you, that’s what you’re still banking on.
You shut the elevator in their faces. slamming your finger into the ground floor button. Obviously you have no game plan. You recognise that what you’re doing is insane, but you can’t stop your arms from dragging the crutches along the reception floor, making this heavy clicking sound until you finally reach the solid white hole in the wall that marks the front desk.
“I want to discharge myself.”
The woman sitting at the front desk has a concerned smile on her face, her hand shifting back from where she dropped the reception phone back into it’s receiver. That must’ve been the nurses from your floor, clearly she already knows how to handle you.
“I’m sorry but I can’t do that. A nurse is coming down to take you back upstairs, please wait-”
She’s cut off by the quick hand you reach into the hole above her desk, reaching around blindly until you feel something solid like a clipboard. Luckily enough for you it’s a release form, brand new too. The nurse grabs onto the other end, dragging it back and forth with you in a way that’s still meant to leave you uninjured. You can hear the click clack of several shoes behind you, the hospital security you spot in your peripheral vision getting closer every second.
The hold you have on the clipboard is loosened by another hand that lands on yours, the same coloured fur as your own, bending your hand at the wrist until it falls off the small bit of wood. The nurse looks relieved to see someone step in to help her, but the offence written across your features is a complete contrast, furrowing the space between your brows as you whip around to see who’s still touching you. Your day couldn’t have gotten any worse.
Loki doesn’t even glance down at you once, his nails digging into the skin at your shoulder while his other hand forces yours back to your side. He shines a perfect smile at the still frazzled nurse, one she reciprocates with one of her own. He’s already shuffling you away before the woman can even thank him.
“I’ll take this one away, don’t worry.”
Any attempt you make to get him away from you is brushed off, the hand you try to push against his face dodged with an ease that pisses you off more. He has both arms wrapped under your armpits, your injured leg dragging across the floor as the elevator comes into sight. One more failed swipe at his face and your journey stops right in the middle of the hospital hallway, your leg twisting slightly as Loki spins you around to face him.
“You can either walk up with me or I can carry you. I don’t care either way.”
That actually makes you pause, the optics of you being carried back to your room worse than your need to leave. You let Loki wrap your arm over his shoulder, sliding an arm around your waist while your crutches go underneath his other arm. It takes about half the time it took you to hobble downstairs to get back up, the nurses on your floor looking relieved to see you being returned.
The sheets of your bed feel like hell under you but you don’t say anything, the energy you would’ve used to act up again already gone. You watch the nurse that trails in after you tie your leg back up in it’s sling, surprised they’re not strapping you down to your bed as well. You turn to Loki before the room is even empty, hard glare still on your face.
“What do you want?”
He looks shocked you’re talking to him like that, his body falling into the chair right by your bed before he glances around the room. The small shrug he gives your question only deepens your glare.
“Wanted to check up on you, I didn’t think you’d already be trying to leave.”
Its a lame excuse, at least to you. You stopped thinking about it for a second, but seeing Loki’s face has brought back your train of thought. There’s still no reason for him to come see you in the hospital, unless he’s here to laugh at you. The thought makes you even more irritated immediately, the friction of your hair against the pillow as you turn your head towards the window echoing through the silent room.
Loki’s still trying to talk to you, but you’ve already shut yourself down, forcing your eyes closed and your breathing to even out until the sound of the chair screeching against the floor reaches your ears. Your ears strain to hear the withered sigh that comes from the man still haunting your room, the door opening and shutting a second later. That’s when you finally relax, your arms falling from their folded position back onto the bed, your eyes staring off into space until you fall asleep.
You can tell he’s going to come back again today.
There’s been a pebble of stress sitting heavy in your chest since yesterday afternoon, making it harder for you to rest. You’d spent ten minutes in the early hours of the morning trying to get your thoughts in order; Even if Loki’s coach had asked him to check up on you, in a world where he out of all people would be chosen to do so, he wouldn’t have any reason to come back after yesterday. He’d seen you, and you’d caused enough trouble for him to not want to return for the rest of your hospital stay.
But that doesn’t quell the anxiety still churning in your gut. You’ve been so jumpy so far, you nearly threw something at the nurse who’d walked in to bring your breakfast. She was none the wiser as you stuffed your pillow back behind you, pretending you weren’t just getting ready to attack her.
Just imagining Loki’s face in your mind is enough to ruin your morning, especially after yesterday, you know he’s going to bring it up. Thinking about it now, you’re not that embarrassed about your outburst, if anything, you’re the only one who suffered. It’s the fact that Loki had to be the one to witness it is what gives you nightmares.
You’re still shifting around in bed, looking for the most comfortable sitting position when the knob of your room door starts to rattle. It could be one of the nurses, you know that. But you get such a bad feeling in your stomach that the second pillow you have laying over your lap is in your hands before the door fully opens.
You were right.
The pillow in your hand goes flying towards the door, to where Loki would be standing and would’ve gotten hit if he wasn’t as quick as he is. Instead it floats right out the open door, flopping to the hallway floor with a dull thud. The man in question watches as it goes flying, turning back to you with a face that’s clearly meant to stifle laughter. It takes him a while, but he manages to push it down, softly shutting the door behind him.
“That was rude.”
You let out a loud scoff, practically rolling your eyes to the back of your head. The pillows behind you feel more empty now, you’re almost starting to regret trying to throw it in his face.
“Why are you back?”
“It’s not like you have anyone else visiting you, shouldn’t I be getting a thank you instead?”
He takes the seat still standing by your bed frame, placing down a paper bag on the cabinet a few inches away from your hands. You didn’t even notice when he brought it in, the rustle of it’s material dragging your attention towards it. It’s filled with fruit, at least that’s what you assume as you watch Loki pull out a bright orange tangerine from it’s dark brown confines. He starts peeling it immediately, focusing his full attention on the small task.
You don’t like how comfortable he seems to be in a room he’s not wanted in, and you can’t even do anything about it. It feels like speculation, but after your first, and last, escape attempt, you could’ve sworn the nurses started slinging your wrapped up leg higher. Sometimes it’s hard to even shift around, let alone drag your leg out of the strung up cloth. The only thing you can do is fall back into bed, your head nearly hitting the headboard, a loud sigh escaping your lips, an action that makes Loki glance up briefly.
“So.. how’re you feeling?”
“How do you think I feel?”
You watch him shrug, the last bits of the orange peel falling to the floor to reveal a sweet looking tangerine. Loki holds it out to you, clearly expecting you to take it from him. You don’t, you don’t know why he expected you to, the hand you reach out in his direction an attempt to swat the fruit out of his hand. He’s faster, drawing his hand back towards his chest before simply placing the the tangerine in the space between your legs, reaching over into the bag again.
You don’t push this one away, there’s no point, you know Loki will just give you the next one, and the one after that until you stop disposing of them. It’s too early in the morning to let yourself be rage baited.
“If you hadn’t pulled that stunt yesterday, you’d be in a lot less pain.”
The glare you give him is sharp enough to cut glass, but he doesn’t even see it, still focused on that stupid tangerine you still want to smack out of his hand. He has a lot of nerve lecturing you in your own hospital room, that he barged into. More than anything you think he’s lucky you’re still stuck. Another sigh falls off your lips, your fingers tangling in your hair for a second in frustration.
“Yeah, mhm go ahead and lecture me while you still can.”
“I’m not trying to, you just need to be more careful.” It’s his turn to sigh now, his shoulders rising and falling in an exaggerated gesture that makes your lips curl.
“No, no. You’re so right! I’m so sorry, I should’ve watched every single step I took on that field. Next time I’ll just kill myself. Hey! Since you know everything, please, enlighten me.” Your arms are flailing in the space around you, a sarcastic smile plastered over your face, one that doesn’t reach your eyes.
“Was it my shitty form that broke my leg or is this what I get for dreaming too big? Hm?”
A look of genuine confusion crosses Loki’s features as he finally stares up at you for the first time since you started rambling, his fingers pausing over where he’s stopped peeling the second orange. A lump of awkwardness clogs your throat, you wish he’d ignore that last part, you’d just blurted it out of frustration, it was not something you wanted to reach his ears.
He shifts closer to the bed in his chair, your attempt to shift backwards in your bed ruined by your still hanging leg. You can’t tear your eyes away from where his gaze meets yours, focusing on you like he has nothing else to look at.
“Your running form wasn’t bad, it never is. You just put too much pressure on your leg that day.”
The moment passes as if it never happened to begin with, with Loki going back to the tangerine still in his hands. Silence passes over you both, your body sinking into the mattress as you try to sift through the feelings rapidly switching through your mind. Most of it is disbelief. Out of all the things you thought he would respond with, that didn’t even make top 50 for you.
“..That’s it?”
If you got a good lump sum of money for every time Loki shrugged at something you said today alone, you’d probably have enough to buy yourself a better hospital room. A part of you is upset nothing you say seems to be affecting him, or maybe your words are just that unintelligible.
“Yeah, if you asked me for advice at any point in time, I would’ve told you that.”
That almost makes your face burn with a stupid sense of embarrassment you don’t want to confront. Its still infuriating, how he’s telling you this causally, like talking to him is something you would do on the daily, you just find that you have less words to respond this time. Your mouth opens and closes several times, before you push out a small quip, almost like it hurts.
“Well.. why would I want to do that?”
You pretend you can’t feel it, but the slight moment you’d just had is gone, faded into the air along with any sense of control you thought you had. Loki barely responds, not even with a sideways glance, his focus on opening the gym bag he dropped on the floor when he came in, a small textbook in his hands when he comes back up. The silence goes on for longer than you expected, almost like he’s now aware any more responses will just make you mad, but that quiet in itself makes you angry.
Now you’re just looking to irritate him, the same way his presence does to you. The acknowledgement of your childish behaviour doesn’t make you rethink it anymore, your eyes zeroing in on the orange still balancing in his left hand. You reach for it immediately, not surprised at all when Loki’s hand retracts faster than you can reach across the bed. He glances down at the untouched bundle of fruit still in your lap, giving you a barely perceptible eyebrow raise.
He only pauses for that one second, before he’s tearing the small fruit in half, handing you a piece that you snatch up immediately. His compliance takes half the fun out of your burst of mischief, demotivating you with a quickness that surprises even you.
The rest of the day passes in relative silence, the only noises you can pick up being the frequent flipping of book pages and the tearing of orange slices from their white membrane. The tangerines are sweet, a discovery you makes after finally getting over yourself and taking a slice from the half you still had. They make for a good enough snack as you stare out the window, watching the sunset peacefully under the horizon, the sky fading from a steady blue to a rusty orange.
Eventually, the sound of metal scraping against tile shakes you out of the nap you were just about to fall into, your peripheral catching the sight of Loki getting up out of his seat. You pretend you’re not watching him pick up his gym bag, placing the textbook back inside. He leaves the fruit, even though both of you know you’re most likely not going to eat it.
“You’re not missing anything on the field.” His hand is already on the door, the remark thrown over his shoulder before he leaves. “You might as well stay put and get better quicker.”
You refuse to respond, keeping your gaze trained on the sky outside your window. Loki doesn’t say anything back for a second either, long enough to realise you’re not going to answer him, pulling the door wide open from what you can hear.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It feels like all the sleep you’re getting is actually starting to affect you. Most people would see that as a good thing, but you hate how lethargic the non-stop rest is making you feel. Even as you’re talking to the nurse in your room, lazily spitting out answers to her check-up questions, you can feel your eyes begging to close, the hand with your fork nearly clattering into your plate of food. You’re answering as honestly as you can. If you’re being completely honest, Loki dragging you from your shoddy escape attempt has compelled you to be a lot less snarky. You’d imagine the nurses are celebrating in their staff rooms because of that.
The nurse in your room leaves eventually, taking your half eaten tray of food with her. Your body melts back into the sheets, your hands coming up to your chest to intertwine, your thumbs winding around each other in a repeated motion.
You shake away the thought the second it enters your head, but it still persists, you almost wish Loki would appear a little bit earlier. You don’t doubt he’ll show up again today, it would just be more convenient for you if he walked in right as you’re dying of boredom. Your thoughts start to spread out, branching off into all the things you could be doing right now.
If you had thought of it before, you could’ve asked one of the nurses for a book or anything they had in their staff rooms. It’s too late now, anything you ask for will just be considered another weapon for the next time you lash out. They might be keeping your room plain just based on self preservation. Your phone is charging peacefully on the table beside you, but you haven’t touched it since the first day you got it back. There’s nothing to do on it anyway.
You’re just about to succumb to the sleep pulling at your eyelids, your breathing becoming more shallow the longer you lie there, completely still. Your eyelids shoot back open in a split second, your shoulders practically jumping up to your ears in shock as the door slams open, nearly breaking against it’s hinges.
Loki stumbles in a lot less gracefully than he had yesterday, but you can’t even fault him this time, not when he has about five different bags hanging off his arms. The most obvious gift is the massive bouquet of bright, colourful flowers, it’s practically half his size. You watch him hobble over to your side, pushing yourself upright to meet him. Even if you wanted to help him, you can’t.
“Who’s all that from? That’s not all for me, right?”
He drops everything down on the floor, breathing out a small sigh before even beginning to answer you. It’s only after it’s been a solid minute that he finally computes your question, the incredulous look on his face enough to silence you before you can ask anymore.
“Of course these are yours. All your teammates sent you something.”
You can’t help the anticipation that shoots through your veins, a fifteen minute visit from them would’ve been enough to lift your mood for a whole week, you weren’t expecting presents.
The simplest ones are the cards, about a dozen of them, in colours like light beige and white, with drawings of bandages on the front cover wishing you a speedy recovery. Each one Loki brings out, you take immediately, running your fingers over every crevice and fold, until you decide to display them on the table to your left. The biggest one is from your coach, the folded cardboard at least as big as your head. It has a lengthy message written on the plain page right behind the cover, his usual words of encouragement, reassurance, along with a picture of him and your entire team clipped to the bottom.
This one you keep in your lap, unwilling to let go of it so soon. It warms your hands where they’re folded together, giving you this fluttering feeling in your chest you can’t shake off. Loki reaches out as if to take it from you and place it on the stand as well, but you shake your head no, pressing the card even closer to your chest. That makes him sigh but he doesn’t push it, turning away to rustle through one of the bags he’d dragged in.
“This is from Hugo.”
He turns back with a hard back cover, a massive book that nearly creases the card still in your lap as it drops in your hands. The art on the cover is familiar to you, but it still takes you a second to recognise. It’s a book series you’ve been following for a while, one of the only things that could ever distract you from your progress on the field. The one in your hands is the fifth book in the series, one you were just about to buy for yourself before your knee shattered.
You don’t remember a single second where you mentioned the series to Hugo though, the only person you ranted to about what irritated you and what didn’t, was yourself. The only instance you can think of is the one time your team had been in the PxG centre again, and during a long break you’d pulled out one of the volumes and sat beside Hugo, who had been going through a book of his own.
The gift is still appreciated, especially since you couldn’t go out and get the book yourself. You would’ve appreciated it more if you’d ever spoken a single word to the man.
“And this is from Charles. I told him to make it presentable, don’t worry.”
You’re already steeling yourself for what the young boy could’ve given you, but you find that it’s not too bad. It looks like a hand made card, literally scribbled down on lined paper in colourful pens. The message is short, a wish that you’ll come back soon because he “misses you”, and can’t wait to play with you again. You’ve spoken to Charles a lot more than his teammates, mostly because no one can really bring themselves to ignore him once he takes an interest in you.
The shitty drawings lined along the bottom of the page actually draws a laugh out of you, exactly what you’d expect from the boy. The card also wraps around a massive bar of chocolate, something you treasure way more considering how bland the hospital food is.
Your gaze trails back to the giant bouquet still sitting on your bedside table, surprised you almost forgot about it considering how vivid the petals are. Loki looks surprised too when you point at them, doing a bad job of pretending he’s just noticing it.
“Who’s that one from?”
“Someone.”
The weird, confused look you give him is completely ignored by his eyes shifting all over the room, refusing to look at you. It’s such a weird answer, you’re almost not interested in the flowers anymore. But you still pick them up, pausing for a second at how heavy they are. They smell fresh, a wave of pollen making its way up to your face, as if the flowers had just been picked five seconds ago.
Coincidentally, they’re also your favourite. You remember them growing in a small patch behind your childhood home, when your mother still had her wits about her to take care of them. The only person you’ve admitted that to is your coach, when he’d insisted on knowing what flowers you liked so he could get them for you after every match, whether you won or not.
That partially answers your question, it had to be him, but you still have a feeling it might be someone else.
“You like them?”
You let out a content hum at Loki’s question, still keeping your gaze trained on the beautiful arrangement.
“They’re nice.”
This time, you let him help, handing the flowers off to him for them to be placed in a nice, ceramic vase, right opposite your bed. It makes the room look a lot brighter, you can feel your mood lifting the longer you stare at them. Just like yesterday, Loki takes the seat still attached to your bedside, leaning into it with a heavy sigh. You glare at him where he’s sitting, sticking your hand out to push at his knee, a gesture that forces him to look back at you.
“You’ve brought all the gifts, you can leave.”
“You’re chasing me out already?” His expression is curled into a furrowed amusement, his arms folding over his chest in a motion that you mirror soon after.
“Yeah, fuck off.”
Even as you say that, Loki doesn’t make any move to leave, not that you expected him to that easily. If anything, he leans back further into the chair, giving you a smug, questioning look that’s practically begging you to try him. The call button by your bed makes a continuous chiming sound, the light ding layering over the other as you jam your finger into it five times each second. Another loud sigh comes from Loki’s direction, already anticipating the trouble you’re about to cause.
A nurse comes rushing in a second later, probably expecting you to either be screaming and throwing things again, or to be convulsing on the floor, anything that would explain the spam alert you’re unleashing on the staff room. Unfortunately for you, it’s the nurse that had suffered the most of your tantrum that day you tried to leave. It sucks for you because you could’ve sworn you saw him speaking to Loki after you’d gotten back to your room, probably to thank him.
You take the chance anyway, almost poking Loki’s eye out with how hard you shoot your hand out to point at him
“I want him out of my-”
“Oh! It’s you again, how are you doing?”
The nurse practically ignores you, turning to Loki with a smile bright enough to light up the whole room, as if he’d just seen his saviour. Loki glances at you only once, with an obvious amount of smugness, before turning to face the nurse, a pleasant smile on his face.
“I’m good thank you.” He places a hand on the edge of your bed, almost as if to remind the nurse you’re still here. “Sorry about my friend here, I’ll keep things under control.”
The nurse finally turns to you for the first time since he stepped in, his eyes immediately shifting away after just a second, like you’ll flip the chair again if he stares at you for too long. Any exclamation you try to make, any protests you have are drowned out by the nurse steadily shuffling back out the room door. He gives Loki an apologetic smile, as if he’s the one suffering in this situation, before finally leaving.
The second that nurse is gone, any sign of maturity you’d seen on Loki’s face is gone completely, replaced by this arrogant smirk that makes your blood boil. You’re beginning to regret having that breakdown a while ago, the only thing it did was cement your status as a crazy person. If you hadn’t done all that maybe the nurse would’ve listened to you.
“You’re such a bitch.”
You watch him cross one leg over the other, folding his hands together over his knees, shining an annoyingly bright smile your way.
“Thank you.”
“And we’re not friends” You take your arm off where its hanging over your eyes to point an accusing finger his way, still glaring at him. “You’re only here because you won’t leave and I can’t kick you out.”
“I know, anything else?”
He’s actually waiting patiently, staring down at you, expecting you to ask for anything that doesn’t include him leaving early. You slump back into your bed sheets, feeling the snarkiness melt off your bones the longer you sit there. Eventually, you manage to lift your hand enough to point at your new book, sitting on the table to your left.
“Pass me that.”
Both of you actually manage to sit in relatively comfortable silence, the flipping pages of each of your books lining up from time to time. You’re too invested in the novel to notice the sun setting beneath your window sill, the vivid orange light that spreads across the words on each page finally snapping you out of it. Loki gets up to leave soon after, promising to come back the same way he had before. You don’t even have the energy to tell him not to bother.
Another week passes you by in your hospital bed; A week, four days, 10 hours and 43 minutes if you wanted to be exact. You could keep track because that’s all you have left to do now. To the doctors, you’re halfway through your healing journey, on the right path to recovery. In your mind, this makes it two weeks that you’ve spent trapped in your own bed, forced to watch everyone else walk by on their perfectly normal legs.
Spending each and every one of those days in complete silence, forces you to get in your own head. You start getting antsy again, your legs twitching over the sheets like they’re begging to push you up and start running again.
You’re not saying Loki’s presence would be keeping you calm, you’d still rather die than admit that, but his absence feels like its making you crazy. It’s not his company you miss, it’s the fact that he can get up and leave whenever he likes, and you can’t. He gets to saunter into whatever gym he goes to, work on that superhuman speed you still can’t catch up to, and never will at this point, while you waste away in your sterile prison.
It’s not fair.
You’ve worked so hard to get to where you are now, turn that shitty co ordination you had into something useful, given everything to the black and white ball that now runs your life. You had to be good at football because you weren’t good at anything else, you weren’t given the chance to be good at anything else.
If you hadn’t nearly killed yourself several times just to train your body right, you’d still be at home, letting your mother throw wine bottles at your head while she blamed you for the alcohol she was poisoning herself with.
You can’t count the amount of times you’ve sprained joints, twisted ankles, worked your muscles to death in your continuous effort to be the best. If your coach hadn’t spotted you first, you would’ve probably just died on the street. So why did it have to end now?
One fractured knee and you’ll never be as fast as you used to again.
The tears started first, right in the middle of the afternoon when your thoughts had gotten too convoluted for you to stand, running down your cheeks in hot, furious lines, dripping softly into the pillows behind your head. They kept coming until it turned from a silent stream to loud, wailing sobs.
Then they turned angry.
You haven’t thrown as many things as you did before, you’re too busy wiping tears from your blurry vision. That, and everything around you now are the gifts you received a while ago, you’re not angry enough to throw those. Every nurse that tries to come closer, to comfort you, gets a set of choice words thrown in their face. You can’t help it, you don’t want anyone near you right now, ready to stare down at you with pitying eyes and mocking smiles.
There’s one brave nurse in your room, you can see her now, slowly approaching your bedside with a medical tray, a needle and a vial of something you can’t read. At this point, you’d almost rather someone sedate you, maybe you could get something to make you sleep until your leg heals.
That train of thought doesn’t make it through your body in time. Just because your legs haven’t moved in a while doesn’t mean your hands aren’t as fast. You grab the tray the second it gets within range, swinging it over your head, ready to slam it back down on to the floor right in front of you. It happens in slow motion, or at least slow enough for you to comprehend. A heavy grip attaches itself to your wrist, with such force that it nearly breaks the bone, forcing the tray out of your hand, the clatter of it meeting the floor echoing through the air.
You curl against the pain immediately, your spine folding until your nose almost touches the bed, your other hand coming up to try and pry your wrist away. It’s blocked by another iron grip that takes that arm as well, your body struggling against the hold it’s trapped in until both your arms are dragged away from your head, forcing you to look up into the impatience sitting in Loki’s light yellow irises.
“…Where were you?”
The words force themselves out, the only ones your mind can focus enough for you to say. You already know what you’re going to hear in response, you almost want the excuse to keep lashing out. You can’t be the only one in this much pain.
It’s not fair.
“That’s why you’re screaming like a lunatic? You were looking for me?” Something like genuine offence crosses Loki’s features, crinkling the corners of his eyes into a mixed expression that doesn’t match the slight excitement you swear you can hear at the end of his sentence.
You don’t answer him, your hands still attempting to free itself from his, to no avail. Your nails dig deep into the flesh at your palms, leaving hole shaped imprints in the skin, enough to ground you but not enough to draw blood.
“I was at practice, you couldn’t be patient for a few days?”
That’s all you needed to hear. Your shoulders are starting to ache from where they’re still hanging in the air, the limbs starting to tremble under the pressure. You ball your hands into fists, swinging around as much as Loki will let you, only aggravating the strain even more. The second you start pulling your hands towards the other side of the bed, he lets go, your whole body falling back into the sheets.
“No I couldn’t, because it’s not fair! It’s not fair you get to go train, whenever you want, while I have to sit here, and die!”
Your voice is getting louder with every word you spit out, until it’s the only thing you can hear echoing in the room. Loki takes his usual seat beside you, as if you’re not screaming your head off, his hands still lifted in your direction as if he expects you to start throwing things again. He doesn’t fidget with anything, the bag by his feet, his tracksuit, he just sits there, hunched over slightly, staring at you like he’s trying to read your mind.
“It’s not that bad.”
He quiets down when you snap your head towards him, your eyebrows creased in a furious confusion. You can tell he regrets saying anything almost immediately, you don’t even have to point out the hypocrisy.
“How would you know? It’s over for me..”
“Who told you that?”
It feels like every question that comes out of his mouth is said just to irritate you, but you don’t even have any energy left to do anything about it. You already know nothing you do will work when Loki is right there. You turn to him instead, incredulous smile already on your face.
“No one has to tell me anything. What do you call a cheetah that can’t run?”
Loki hesitates for a second, his eyes shifting off you for just long enough for you to sneer at the silence, his shoulders lifting in a light shrug. “Physically challenged.”
“Worthless.” You spit the word out painfully, letting it carve a hole into your chest. “You’d call it worthless, that’s what I am now.”
That actually makes him quiet down, a sliver of awkwardness crossing his features for a second. It gives you the perfect opportunity to turn away from him, your eyes tracking along the window as you feel the tears start to come back, burning in the back of your throat, all the way up to your eyelids.
“..Your leg isn’t going to be broken forever.”
“But I’ll never be as fast as I used to be.” You’re looking back at him now, not even caring about the tears that track down your cheeks, matting the fur it flows over. He looks surprised to see you’re crying, his eyes widening for that split second before it morphs into something softer.
“That’s not.. completely necessary.”
“It is if I want to beat you.”
That sentence seems to suck the life out of the air, leaving behind a thick tension that tries to chock you. You watch the look on Loki’s face shift from a calm pity, to shock, before it settles on a hard look. Thinking about it now, this is the first time you’ve mentioned your silent competition out loud, let alone straight to Loki’s face. But at the same time, you wonder what he thinks you’ve been doing around him since the two of you met. It feels like it’s been hours before one of you finally makes a move to speak, the air around you giving way just enough for you to breathe.
“That’s been your issue this whole time?”
A loud scoff falls off your lips, the first laugh you’ve had in a while, heavily contrasting with the tears still staining your fur. “Don’t pull that bullshit with me, of course it has.”
The silence this time is more peaceful, easier to breathe in, but it still doesn’t settle your spirit. You feel Loki shifting around in his seat, most likely looking for the next best thing to say. At this point, he can just leave. Just like the last time, the angers left your body before it even has the chance to manifest, leaving you with this hollow pit you can’t bring yourself to swallow.
“Don’t tell me I’ll learn to be faster than you if I just try.”
“I wasn’t going to, I know you won’t.” Something in Loki’s energy has changed, now it feels like he’s trying to treat you the way you treat him. He folds his arms over his chest, staring at you with this deadpan you reciprocate as well.
“Thanks. I really needed that.”
He actually barks out a laugh, smiling down at the sarcastic grin on your own face. You watch him shuffle closer in his seat, knees almost touching the frame of your bed.
“Why me though? I’m not the only cheetah on both of our teams.”
It’s your turn to shrug this time, your expression much calmer than what it had been just a few seconds ago.
“You’re the only one I know that’s faster than me, it sucks when we’re being compared.”
“By who? We’re not on the same team.” The space between your eyebrows creases immediately, your eyes narrowing into a heavy glare. You hate how he’s fighting you on this, and it’s absolutely clear on your face, but Loki doesn’t back down at all.
“We play for the same country.”
“We’re playing in different leagues.”
“That’s part of the problem.” You insist.
The two of you are getting closer the longer you go back and forth, almost getting in each other’s faces. At some point, silence takes over your conversation once more, forcing the both of you into a stare down that seemingly lasts hours. Loki shuffles backwards in his seat when it look like you won’t let up first, folding his arms back over his chest with a heavy sigh and his head lolling back. You watch him look back up a second later, his expression morphed into a reluctant acceptance.
“If you want, I can train with you. After you’ve gotten better.”
He says it so casually, again, the same way he’s been talking to you since the first day he came to visit you. The offer feels more ridiculous to you than it would’ve if it had come on any other day, mostly because you just admitted to seeing him only as a rival.
“Why?” There’s genuine confusion lacing your words, an emotion you can’t even begin to hide. “You just said you don’t believe I can be as good as you. That’s the whole point.”
In that split second, it feels like the temperature drops several degrees, sending an involuntary shiver up your spine. Loki shifts back into your space, but even closer this time, his nose almost touching yours until you’re forced back into your pillows. He’s leaning over you, the creak of his body weight dipping into your bed loud enough to make you wince.
The overhead light casts a shadow over both of you, drenching the look on his face in an inky black, though you can’t even begin to decipher it. The only thing you can see is the wide eyed yellow of his irises, burrowing into your soul with how hard he’s staring. It unnerves something deep in you, the instinctual desire to run plaguing every cell in your body. You want to look away, but you can’t. The crazed excitement in his eyes feels like it’s stirring something up in you too.
“There’s no point in trying to be better than me when we’re so alike. You and I.. are the same. So I believe you’re talented. People like us don’t give up after some stupid injury. That’s the difference between us, and the idiots that are actually useless. You give up now and you become one of them. Is that what you want?”
You’re almost breathless after his monologue, like you’re the one who just finished rambling without taking a single breath. You still can’t tear your gaze away from him, your mouth opening and closing at least ten different times before your vocal cords finally remember they have to respond.
“No..”
The moment fades away with a single, invisible snap, your lungs taking in as much air as they can the second they’re able to. Loki slides off you just as easy as he’d come closer, settling back into his seat like nothing had happened at all.
“Good. Then it’s sorted. Stop freaking out every time I’m gone.”
You’re grateful for the silence that takes over right after, it’s enough to give you the time to think about what just happened. That’s the first time you’ve ever felt so uncomfortable in Loki’s presence, yet it got you so riled up, you can barely explain what you felt in that moment. The silence you’re sitting in lasts long enough for a nurse to stalk back into the room, staring at you warily before she realises you’re not angry anymore.
You watch her pick up the tray that’s now sitting in the corner, most likely kicked away by the scuffle you’d had earlier. The presence of a hard stare on the side of your face makes you turn to face Loki, studying the quick glance he gives the nurse, a signal you pick up on immediately.
“I’m sorry.. I shouldn’t have acted like that.”
She takes the apology quickly, clearly not wanting to stay in the room for a second longer. Loki takes it as well, leaning into his seat with a content hum.
There hasn’t been a day so far since about last week, that Loki hasn’t come to your hospital room. Every day, basically 24/7. You don’t know if it’s out of fear of you lashing out again, or the secret third option of just wanting to irritate you, but Loki refuses to miss a single day in your room like it’s a full time job. The next week you’d let pass by with his constant presence was more than enough for you, if you didn’t say anything you’d slide back into being irritated again.
“You know, you don’t have to be here everyday.”
Loki had glanced up at you from the pages of his book then, questioning eyebrow already raised. The look he’d given you had made you feel guilty, your gaze shifting off to the side immediately.
“I know I had that moment, but I’m good now. Go back to your training, I’ll be fine.”
He’d just leaned back in his chair, switching his small book to one hand, crossing one leg over the other.
“I’m not that bad. A few weeks without training won’t kill me.”
No matter how much you’d protested, he hadn’t moved an inch, even sinking deeper into his seat. You hated how arrogantly he had to explain, but it made sense, you wouldn’t expect Loki to stop being such a good player because he’s too busy babysitting you. It’s also hard not to notice how much more lax he’s gotten around you, his words, expressions. You’ve also gotten more comfortable having him around, a feeling you took several weeks to get over. Now you don’t even say anything when he walks in every morning.
Starting conversations with Loki still isn’t easy, you haven’t gotten that comfortable, and most of the time the two of you still spend hours just sitting in silence. If you’re unlucky enough, sometimes you’ll catch him on a talkative day, giving your own one words answers to whatever he says. He knows better than to ask anything about your leg, or how you’re feeling, and you’ve learnt to appreciate that.
It took you about halfway through the week marking your first month in the hospital, to realise you could use your condition to ask for anything you wanted, within reason of course. It started the first time you complained about the lack of sweets in your new diet, you’d finished the chocolate bar Charles gifted you the day after you’d gotten it, and was desperate for anything else that wasn’t bread and steamed vegetables. The only response you got from Loki, was an elongated stare and a small snicker, something that only made your ranting louder.
The next day, he’d shown up with a fancy looking paper bag, refusing to answer any questions you had about it. He’d just pulled out a small package, leaving it to you to discover it was an apple tart, freshly baked and wrapped beautifully.
Croissants, profiteroles, macrons, any dessert you begged hard enough for would be in your hands by the next day. And if you wanted something savoury instead, that was also sorted. You barely needed to say thank you, Loki would brush it off every time, waiting for you to mention the next thing you wanted.
The only other thing that came and went in rotation were the flowers still sitting directly opposite your bed. They’d started wilting, finally fading into a dull, dark grey around a week and a few days ago. You let the nurses dispose of them with a heavy heart, saying goodbye to the only slice of happiness in your room. Loki came back into your room two days later with a fresh bouquet, placing it in it’s vase without a single word. He’s been doing that since, the bouquets almost getting bigger every time he brings one in.
You’re not stupid.
Loki still won’t admit anything to you but you know he’s the one buying the flowers. Every time you’ve joked about him still not telling you who they’re from, he just smiles in response, choosing to keep silent. It’s obvious, you’re just doing him the favour of not pointing it out. You even know who told him those were your favourites.
The one other time your coach came to visit, he’d noticed the flowers within the first hour of him being there. According to him, he loves them, apparently they brightened the room in spite of your gloominess. When you told him Loki was the one who kept bringing them, his expression had turned to one of brief surprise, like he’d just remembered something he did, then gave you a satisfied nod, approving of something he wouldn’t say.
In the weeks you’ve been spending burrowed deep in your bed, your leg has slowly gotten better. You’ve gotten used to having the cast clamp down on your fur, and the usual pain you’d feel just trying to shift onto your side has now dulled into a muffled buzz. The sling is gone, taken off by a nurse that had just waltzed into your room with the brightest smile ever, so your leg no longer hangs in the air like a pinata. You can’t even explain how much better you like having it just lie across your bed, lying down whenever you want and just falling asleep works way better now.
The weather’s beautiful today, you can see and feel it right outside your window. You wake up to the sun risen high in the sky, shining it’s light across the tiles of your room, warming the sheets of your bed into a comfortable glow. There are barely any clouds in the sky, the sounds of birds and the hum of cars on the street mixing together in the air.
It must really be a good day because the breakfast you’re served actually isn’t that bad; Pain au chocolat, two slices of toast with a bit of jam. You even get two little things of vanilla yoghurt, an extra treat judging by the smile coming from the nurse who brings it in and takes it out. You push yourself up in bed, even shifting your leg a little as you manoeuvre into a better position. You’re just about to press the call button, ready to get over your arrogance for the first time since last month and ask for a wheelchair, just to get a better glimpse of how nice it is outside. The gentle slide of your door opening cuts you off first, someone else stepping into the room again.
You think it’s Loki, your mouth already forming the words to mock him for being so early, but it’s not. It’s a doctor, specifically the panther hybrid that broke the news of your leg in the first place, she looks happy to see you’re alright, stalking towards your bedside with a polite smile. You haven’t seen her in a while, only on days where she had to check on your injury. That meant you didn’t see her often, there were never any issues with the limb itself, your knee either hurt or it didn’t.
She spends a few minutes asking you perfunctory questions, writing on her clipboard every time you respond. You’re almost wondering why she hasn’t just laughed at your current expression, because you’re certain it’s bent into one of deep confusion. You watch her close the pen she’s using, folding it into her coat pocket while the clipboard goes to the nurse behind her, along with a few whispered instructions.
“We have good news. Your fracture should’ve healed properly by now. We’ll do an x-ray just to be sure, but you’ve definitely made good progress.”
Your face is still bent into one of surprise, it doesn’t actually feel like an entire month has passed. It’s funny too; The first time you’d been admitted, a month seemed like forever to you. You thought you’d be sitting here for what would feel like weeks on end until you slowly lost your mind. And you did, several times, but compared to how much more volatile you could’ve been, you did way better.
A nurse comes back into the room then, with what looks like a camera sitting in her hands. She doesn’t get you into a wheelchair, doesn’t try to take you somewhere else for the imaging. All she does is tell you to stay still before the now dark room fills with a sharp flash, one that makes you flinch, then it’s over. It takes the nurse a few minutes to go and come back with the same kind of scans you’d been shown, again on your first day.
Now, the obvious disjointed bone you’d seen under your own skin has snapped back, almost like it had never fractured in the first place. The doctor nods at your scan, looking satisfied with what she’s seeing. She barely needs to turn to the nurse before they run out again, another nurse trailing in with what looks like the baby version of a chainsaw. The first nurse takes a place beside you, a comforting hand on your shoulder, while the other stands over your leg cast.
“Your friend isn’t here today?”
You look up at the nurse by your shoulder, confronting the placating smile on her face. Her words make you shrug, a reaction better than the last few times one of the nurses had called Loki your friend.
“Not yet, I’m not sure when he’s coming.”
Usually, Loki would never show up in your room before ten in the morning, looking at the clock right above your door, it looks like it’s only five minutes past ten. Somehow, the nurses are looking forward to him arriving more than you would be. Your train of thought flies out into the air with the sound of the saw powering on, your ears flattening against the loud whirring that echoes throughout the room.
It feels like the saw might nick your skin, the blade cutting too deep into the plaster for your comfort. Your hand instinctively shoots towards the nurses’ on your shoulder, squeezing lightly over the fur that covers her skin. It doesn’t take long for the cast to split in half, though you spent the entire time with your eyes shut.
By the time you finally pry your eyelids open, the last bits of your cast are falling away to reveal your perfectly normal leg. You don’t know why you expected it to look much worse, but it’s fine.
The fur over that patch of skin is matted, slicked down by the month it spent in a white cast prison. The plasters quickly disposed of, by the same nurse who had taken it off in the first place, and soon brings back a basin filled with what looks like soap and water. It’s placed halfway underneath your bed, waiting for your right leg as you slowly shift over to the edge.
The water’s warm, the perfect temperature against skin that hasn’t even seen the sun in four weeks. You can practically see the dead cells falling off into the water, leaving your much cleaner, length of fur in it’s wake.
Right after, the nurses wrap your leg in another set of bandages, not nearly as thick as the cast had been. The thin layer of brown fabric wraps tight around the limb, twice around your upper thigh, down to your calves and back up again. There’s an empty space right over your knee, enough room for you to bend it, even though you can’t find the energy to.
“You’ll have to do quite a bit of physical therapy to get back to your daily life, nothing too strenuous. We can start now with a short session, if you’d like.”
You’re nodding before the doctor can even finish speaking, eager for the chance to finally get yourself moving again. A pair of crutches are already waiting by the door, in the hands of one of the nurses, the pads finding their way under your armpits in just a few seconds. These ones are actually yours, you don’t need to steal them from anyone, the memory of what you did scalding the skin of your cheeks.
You can feel the burn of your thighs as you stand up, weeks of inactivity weighing heavy on your bones. Thanks to the experience you got from your failed escape attempt, using the crutches isn’t something you struggle with, especially since there’s no longer a cinder block attached to your leg.
The nurse takes you down to what looks like a combination of a gym and a dance studio, several pieces of exercise equipment scattered around, along with a separate area with yoga mats, balance balls and a long wooden railing that runs along that area’s wall. That’s where your headed, the click clack of your crutches against the wood floor echoing through the empty room.
You don’t have to do anything too complicated, at least from the instructions you’re given; Two hands against the wall, your wrapped knee in front of you with the other pressed against the floor behind you. You’re meant to bend forwards on your sprained knee as much as you can manage, and even though the nurse says there’s no pressure to stretch all the way, you refuse to back down.
Curls, leg extensions, leg raises are all you’re doing continuously for ten minutes, your lips pressed tightly together to prevent any pained hisses that try to escape. The brief bit of exercise is taking a toll on you, embarrassingly enough, droves of sweat running down your back, melting into the fabric of your hospital gown.
But you can’t bring yourself to stop, it somehow feels depressing and invigorating to start over again, learn how to move your muscles the way you used to. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the nurse with you try to speak up a few times, most likely to stop you, worried you’ll sprain your leg all over again. The naked excitement she spots on your face with every extra movement stops her each time.
“You’re doing good.”
Your head snaps up towards the door, immediately locking on the person stalking towards you now. Loki shines a small smile at the nurse standing a bit away from you, giving you a less than polite smirk. You watch him crouch down next to where you’re stretching on the floor, poking a nail into your upper arm he’s right next to.
“Thanks.”
“Need any help?”
He stretches out a hand to you then, as if to drag you up from where you are, but you don’t take it. You can already see the grin forming on his face in contrast to the frown forming on yours, your eyes shifting once towards the nurse before they’re back on him.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to help.”
Both of you stare down the nurse still standing a while away from you at the same time, both with different intentions swirling around in your eyes. She jumps a little under your gazes, adjusting the clipboard in her hands before showing you a nervous smile.
“Therapy sessions are usually done by staff-”
“Exactly.” You don’t even wait for her to finish speaking, turning back to Loki with a victorious smirk plastered across your maw. That brief victory is stolen from right under your feet when the nurse pipes up, clearing her throat to get your attention again.
“But we encourage having friends or family around during sessions. It usually helps patients recover quicker.”
It’s Loki’s turn to rub his victory in your face now, not even needing to say anything before you’re glaring at him. His hand is still stretched out for you to take, a silent insult to the dignity you’re still trying to hold onto.
“We’ve been over this, I said I would help.”
That actually makes you stop an think, but it still doesn’t make you want to reach your hand out and take his. You don’t know how to explain taking help from anyone feels like a failure on your part, let alone from someone you were fighting with just a few weeks ago, and you still haven’t fully gotten used to sitting around like this with him.
“Well.. I still don’t trust yo-”
“I’m not looking down on you.” The sentence cuts through yours like paper, spreading a silence that nearly wraps it’s hands around your neck and chokes you. Loki seems completely undisturbed, both by the tense silence and the words you’d just tried to utter.
“And I don’t think you’re weak, I never will. That’s beneath me.”
For all the big game he’d talked just a second ago, the only thing Loki does is help you balance when you need it. If you’re against the wall then he has a hand constantly pointing out flaws in your posture, like a trainer. When you’re trying to stretch up right, his arm’s hovering over the small of your back, pushing you back into position every time you fall. You’ve been here for fifteen minutes now, five minutes more than your nurse would’ve liked you to be here judging by the look on her face. She’s just about to suggest you head back to your room, you can tell, when another nurse sticks their head into the room, calling her away before she can even get a word out.
She turns towards both of you with an apologetic smile, promising she’ll be back in five seconds. Technically, you don’t have any more stretches to do, you can wait on the floor till she comes back, but that doesn’t translate to Loki who starts shifting towards your position. You try to tell him he doesn’t have to do anything, but he refuses to listen, aligning himself behind where you’re sitting.
His right hand hovers over your knee in a silent ask for permission that you give him soon after. The warmth of his palm burns against the back of your leg as he starts to lift it, his ears leaning down towards your direction for any low grunts you let slip. He’s too close to you; But you can’t do anything about it when you’re focused on your thighs aching in their new positions.
He does it over and over again, letting your knee settle back into it’s default position before bringing it back up again. When you curl against the pain, he goes down with you, wrapping an arm tight around your waist to pull you up when you stay down for too long.
Each curl bears down harder on your bones, the sweat coating your forehead dripping down steady towards your chin, your tail is wound tight around Loki’s arm, a gesture that happens so quickly it almost feels natural.
“Agh!”
After what feels like hours, you’ve had enough, finally gaining the strength to push at Loki’s chest, shifting him far away enough for you to shuffle away on your good leg. He lets you go, you're certain with a smirk on his face but you’re too embarrassed to turn back and check. Waiting for the nurse to come back isn’t an option, your crutches back under your arms in less than a second.
…
Heading back to your room is a lot harder when Loki is behind you every step of the way, his gaze burning into the back of your head while you hobble through the hospital. He never steps a foot ahead of you, either as a way to bully you or make sure you don’t topple over in shame, you’re not sure. All you can think of is the sense of relief burning in your chest as your room comes into view, the silence of your abode never sounded so good.
Your body collapses against the sheets the second you’re close enough, your knee hitting the edge of the bed, but you're too tired to even wince in pain. You hear the door shut a few seconds after you keel over, the sound forcing you to shift your head sideways, staring up at him as he stands over your form.
“Visiting hours are over for you. Go home.”
You frown at the sharp laugh he gives you in response, a genuine one from how hard he doubles over. The annoyed blush hovering over your cheeks only makes him laugh harder, wiping a fake tear from the corner of his eyes as he stands back up.
“Aww, are you shy? Did I embarrass you?”
“Fuck off, no you didn’t!”
Your shoddy defence doesn’t do anything to help your case, the sheets meeting your face and doing a great job of blocking out whatever mockery Loki throws your way. You can still hear him shuffling around the room, refusing to sit as if he’s actually planning to listen to you and leave.
“And I thought we were getting closer.” That makes you look up again, the irritation coating your features not even enough to shut him up. “I spent a whole month with you and you still can’t stand me? I think you’re the problem, my plan couldn’t have failed.”
“Plan my ass, is that why you’ve been giving me those stupid flowers?”
The amusement on Loki’s face dies almost immediately, replaced by this shifty guilt that’s about to start making you laugh. He’s trying to play it off, but the way he’s looking at you now feels like you’ve caught him in some trap. You give the look he’s showing you a lazy shrug, propping your head up with your hands so you’re looking at him properly.
“It was pretty obvious.”
The room goes silent for the first time in a while, a solid second of peace that your ears treasure dearly. Both of you end up staring at the flowers at the same time unintentionally, it should be wilting a little by now, considering you got them about a week ago, but they seem to be glowing brighter than ever.
“Do you mind?”
That gets another shrug out of you, your views of the room switching to the ceiling as you flop onto your back. “I don’t really care, I still like them.”
Another bout of silence takes over the room, so much so that for a second, you think both of you aren’t even breathing. Something in the air has changed, you can’t place it exactly, but you blame whatever’s floating around for how willing you are to speak up again.
“..I don’t hate you as much as I did a month ago. You’re not that bad.. sometimes.”
“That’s it?” It sounds sharp, but there’s a softer tone to Loki’s voice, one that you hate you managed to pick up on so quickly. The end of his question fades into a light, breathy laugh that makes your ears perk up.
“That’s all you get. Be grateful.”
Even as you say that, the only thing you’re grateful for is the silence that attaches itself to the end of your sentence, giving you the chance to flop your head back into the pillows, relishing the soft, cool material against your warm cheeks.
“Well I don’t hate you at all.”
That brings your head back up, not high enough to make your neck hurt, but a simple twist to the side, pushing your face up to meet where he stands over you.
“You’re the only one who thought we were rivals. I was nice to you from the beginning, because I wanted to be.”
Hearing it out loud does more to your psyche than you’d expected, mostly because it feels like you’ve just suffered the biggest humiliation you can think of. It’s not like this is your first time hearing it, your teammates had spent days trying to convince you your rivalry was one sided, you ignored them because you assumed it was a ploy to make you feel better about yourself. The humiliation burns hot on your face, and your default reaction is to try and embarrass him too.
“Aww, so what? Are you saying you like me?”
The mockery is obviously done in a high pitched voice that you hope does more damage to Loki than it does to your dignity, and thankfully for you, it does. His expression collapses in a second, into this offended shame that you don’t even get to wallow in, a heavy hand pushing your head back into the pillows. From the corner of your eye you watch Loki pace around the room, barely stopping to pick up his gym bag before he’s right in front of the door.
You allow yourself one last laugh before turning over in bed, eyelids already fluttering closed. The sound of footsteps advancing towards your bed waking you back up. You stare up at Loki as he stands over your bed, questioning look obvious in your eyes.
He ignores whatever you try to ask him, hand shooting out towards the hem of your hospital gown, pulling you towards him in a split second. Your lips meet in a kiss that’s somehow gentle and rough at the same time. Absolute shock keeps you stuck in that position until Loki lets go of you, his figure ducking out behind the door before you realise what just happened.
Another two weeks of being in the hospital and you would say this is the best you’ve ever felt. You refuse to sit down for longer than forty five minutes; If you’re not down in the physical therapy studio, then you’re outside taking a walk in the hospital courtyard, or you’re doing your own makeshift stretches in your room.
The constant movement initially made your doctor and nurses nervous, but now they don’t even blink twice when they see you rushing around. You’re making the perfect amount of progress, straight down the right path according to your doctor. Obviously, you’ll still need to dial it back for a bit longer before you can get back to the field, and even then you’re certain your coach will have you on a strict, easy-going schedule. Thinking about how slow you’re going to have to take things doesn’t fill you with as much dread as it used to, so you also count that as another bit of progress for yourself.
Being in your empty room for too long starts to make your mind wander, specifically to the last time you’d seen Loki. You haven’t even spotted an inch of his fur in the hospital since that day. You can’t imagine him being the type to get embarrassed easily, and it’s not like you’re going to hit him for kissing you, that moment’s already passed.
For the first few days after that one, you couldn't stop thinking about that kiss, no matter how hard you tried to pull your hair out. At first, you convinced yourself it was a joke, it had to be, an impulsive reaction to how hard you’d teased him. But once you started trying to rationalise it, your mind opened more and more.
If someone tried to insinuate you liked someone you didn’t, you would just brush it off, especially if it was someone you had a complicated relationship with. Kissing the person in retaliation isn’t an option that would even make it’s way into your mind, which only meant one thing.
Julien Loki actually liked you.
It only got worse from there; You started wondering when he started liking you, was it when you first met? Or was it something about him decimating you on the field time and time again that made you more attractive? For one stupid second, you’d even wondered why he hadn’t told you, just for a second, before that line of thought was shut down immediately. Just hearing Loki’s name a month ago would send you into a rage, you think even he knows if he’d said anything about it he would’ve gotten attacked.
…
You’re being discharged today. After what feels like an eternity of sitting in one place, then an even longer time trying to recover, and that part isn’t even over yet, you finally get to leave. A part of you wants to set aside some money to buy a few gifts for the nurses on your floor, just as a small token for dealing with your bullshit. You decide you’ll get that sorted when you finally spend a few days away from this place, you need your sanity back.
Your football tracksuit is strewn across the bed, the jacket settling on your shoulders with a comfort you didn’t even know it could possess. It’s been so long since you’ve worn athletic wear, having a hospital gown on all the time made you realise how much you missed a loose pair of sweats and a simple jacket. You remind yourself to send your coach a thank you message, he’s the only reason you have a nice change of clothes and your gym bag sitting with you now.
The zipper on your jacket gets stuck a few times, but other than that, changing barely takes you anytime at all. You’re just about to pocket your phone and start leaving, when the sharp clack of the room door opening and closing shoots past your ears. You move to start arranging the bed, convinced it’s a cleaner here to arrange your less than stellar looking room.
It’s not one of the cleaners, you realise that when you finally turn around, the apology you had waiting on the tip of your tongue gets swallowed back down.
It’s Loki, standing right behind you with his hands in his pockets. Both of you are dressed the same, aside from the colour of your tracksuits, almost as if you’re on the same team. A brief look of surprise crosses your features, but it’s gone before he can even begin to point it out.
“Oh wow, you mean you’re not dead?”
You don’t look at him long enough to see the face he gives as a response, but you can almost hear the rustle of his jacket as he shrugs his shoulders.
“No. You must be upset.”
“Not really.”
The sound of your bed sheets rustling around as you try to make your bed look presentable echoes around the room, but you can still hear the energy in the room shift, you just decide not to focus on what it shifts into.
“Did you miss me?”
You try not to let your heart race a beat faster than it should, or your mind wander somewhere you don’t want it to. Your voice comes out right without a single crack, something you had to go through an internal fight to accomplish.
“Maybe. What were you doing?”
“Stuff.”
The conversation fades into a simple silence, and you let it go on for as long as it takes for you to adjust your jacket one last time, leaving the bed to go around picking the cards and gifts you’d left lying around. You place them in your gym bag, with enough care to make sure the corners don’t even have a chance to crease. That’s when you’re satisfied enough to fully turn to Loki, coming face to face with the slight uncertainty hovering in his eyes.
“You still owe me a few more training sessions.”
“Sure, if you’re still up for it.”
For the first time today, a genuine smile crosses your face, though you’re certain it must look predatory instead. You lean in closer to him, just enough to make him want to step back before he rethinks that decision.
“You say that like I won’t. Why? Because you kissed me?”
You have to be honest with yourself, the feeling sitting heavy at the bottom of your gut isn’t something you can put a positive name on. The last two days were already wasted on you trying to do so, accepting it is way easier. The fact that Loki likes you makes you happy because it’s the only bit you feel like you have over him, someone you thought was completely unattainable, so far from you in the skill gap you almost thought he wasn’t human. Maybe that sliver of superiority you think you have will turn into something nice one day, maybe it won’t, you can’t bring yourself to think about that now.
Your question keeps him silent long enough to give you the opportunity to reach out and grab him, your nails digging deep into the fabric of his tracksuit, pulling him in before he can pull away first, if he even wants to. Your lips crash together in a kiss that seems more like a battle than affection. You can see Loki’s eyes widen just a little, before they flutter shut, his hand coming up to cup the back of your head. The kiss tastes a lot sweeter than last time, maybe because you’re the one in control, but you still manage to push him away before anything else happens.
“Tell me before you do shit like that next time.”
He tries to reach an arm out to stop your journey, most likely to drag you back in but you weave around it, trailing an easy path towards the door. You turn to look at him one last time, the smug smile spread across your face a heavy contrast to the slightly dazed look on his. You take back what you thought earlier, running around freely on the field, scoring a goal against any team, none of that can compare to this. You’ve never felt more victorious than you do in this moment.
“I’ll see you on the field.”
reader's a little bitch in this LMAO just think of it as god complex x god complex. a match made in hell <3
