Loki oneshots

Christmas Cookies (post-s2 domestic Sylki au)

It's a rare moment when Loki goes to bed alone.

It's an even rarer moment when he wakes up with someone by his side.

Today is one of the ordinary days. He wakes up alone, and as he rests his palm against the other side of the mattress, he can tell she's been up for a while. It's not always quite this cold. It must have been a particularly bad night.

He yawns and reaches his arms up, stretching his upper body and getting all the creaks and cracks out. Sometimes he feels like he aged a few hundred years in the two weeks or so he was in the TVA – which is ridiculous because there's no time there so obviously he couldn't have aged, but it seems nobody told his joints this. (Or maybe it's just the wear and tear of traversing the universe for a year, facing Thanos's reign of terror, and getting Hulk-smashed into the floor of Stark Tower repeatedly. That would make sense, too, he supposes.)

But right now, he has much more important things to attend to – namely, his wonderful girlfriend, wherever she may have wandered off to today. If she's been up for a while, she's probably calmed down from whatever nightmare doubtlessly woke her this time, but he still wants to do his boyfriend duty by making sure she's okay (and maybe kissing the top of her head and telling her he loves her, too, just in case she doesn't remember).

It's not hard to find her today. It's the sound of the television that lures him in, and if she's watching TV, there's a good chance she'll be fast asleep by now. It won't stop him from kissing her head and telling her he loves her, but he'll have to be quiet about it. She needs the sleep. She may know she's safe here in New Asgard, but her body isn't so sure, and she's still getting used to resting for more than a few hours at a time.

So he sets off to see his girlfriend in the living room. He's quiet as he walks and his fuzzy-socked feet barely make a sound as they step against the floor, but somehow, Sylvie knows he's there. As soon as he steps into the room, she looks up at him from where she's sprawled out on the couch, and it takes every ounce of self-control within him not to run over and pick her up in his arms and kiss her cute little nose.

Is he stupidly lovesick? Yes. Does he care that he sounds like a pathetic little fool because of it? Not really.

As soon as she sees him, she asks, "Is Christmas real?"

Loki raises his brows. "'Is Christmas real?'" he repeats, dumbfounded. That's not quite the good morning he'd expected.

"Mm." She nods, and the way her messy, tangled-up, half-curled hair falls in her face somehow makes him love her even more.

He cocks his head to the side. "It is," he says cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

She jerks her head toward the TV, and it's almost physically painful to look away from her in her comfy, bedheaded state. Admittedly, he's not fully sure what's happening on the screen, but he watches it for a few moments to try to make some sense of it. There's a guy and a girl dressed in comfy sweaters and scarves and winter jackets, standing in the snow-covered yard of a house covered in little lights as they have some conversation he's doubtlessly missed the context for.

Finally, he asks, "What am I looking at?"

"It's almost Christmas," she says.

Loki does not know what today's date is or when Christmas is celebrated, but he'll take her word for it.

As though reading his mind, she adds, "In the movie. It's almost Christmas in the movie."

Loki mouths a silent "oh."

"In all of the movies," she says. "This is the third movie in a row about Christmas, and they all make Christmas look so..." She trails off, shaking her head helplessly. "I don't know. It's so Christmas."