Of family pictures and shapeshifting
An ant crawled through the thin space between floor and door to the master bedroom. When the insect was far enough, it transformed into a sparrow and flew towards a giant bed that had enough space for three adult people to sleep comfortably.
One of many good things in the new TVA was definitely the ability to finally use magic and related powers. Louis very often was using this to his advantage, like today.
He landed on the bed’s footboard and looked closely at the lean, pale form tucked under the soft comforter. Dad’s breathing was regular although one could hear that his respiratory system was clogged with mucus. Aside from that, everything looked fine. Nothing has changed since this morning. Right after getting his tea, Loki fell asleep. Louis wasn’t surprised by this. When he was sick, he would sleep a lot too, sometimes to just pass the time. However, in the current case it felt a little bit unfair, because Mobius made sure that his bedridden husband would not get bored. Within dad’s reach he left several books, magazines, a tablet and TV remote. On the nightstand there was also a bottle of water and an opened bag of gummy bears. Louis considered for a moment taking one or two before concluding that this kind of operation was too hard to succeed without waking up the sick one.
Instead he flew to the chair in a small office area. On the giant board above the desk were pinned photos of their little unusual family.
There was one picture taken during dads’ wedding, right before bouquet tossing. It shared one pin with a photo of a confused Sylvie holding the same flowers while Hunter B-15 laughed. Both women were wearing matching dresses and jewellery.
There was also a photo from the first anniversary of Louis and Croki being adopted by Loki and Mobius, which on the first glance might have looked like a birthday party. It was paired with a similar picture taken when they took Thor in too.
One pic showed Croki sleeping peacefully inside a full laundry basket full of clothes Papa just took out of the washing machine. Another was of Louis watching with amazement a herd of mammoths from afar during a mission-turned-family-trip to prehistoric Midgard. There was also a photo showing Thor proudly holding giant cotton candy he bought at a seaside fair. Events that transpired shortly after that were forever immortalised in a digital file titled “ThorVs2HungryAlbatrosses.avi”.
While watching all of these moments, a strange mix of feelings churned inside of Louis’ currently very tiny body. Before he could understand them better though, he heard a muffled cough coming from the bed. Luckily, it turned out that dad didn’t wake up because of this, but still it was a signal for Louis to leave the bedroom already.
He escaped the same way he had entered earlier. He went downstairs as a cat and finally on the first floor turned back into himself.
He found Thor watching TV in the living room. He was jumping from channel to channel until he stopped for a bit longer on something that looked like a documentary about a coastline. When the camera captured an albatross though, he immediately changed the channel with visible annoyance.
Louis couldn’t stop himself and chuckled.
“You’re still holding a grudge, don’t you?”, he asked.
Thor was looking at him now, but didn’t answer.
“How’s dad?”, he asked instead.
“He’s still sleeping.”
A moment, then two.
“That’s good, right?”, asked Thor again, now visibly concerned, if not anxious.
Not counting their trip early in the morning, Thor hasn't gone upstairs even once. Louis suspected that seeing their dad, who was a Loki, bedridden, sick and sleeping for hours, must’ve reminded Thor of his Loki.
Louis came closer and patted Thor on his shoulder.
“I assure you, brother, dad will be awake by lunchtime.”
A smile has returned to Thor’s face.
“Why are you so sure, Louis?”
“Because Papa said he has to take the next portion of his meds at that time… and if he won’t wake up by himself, then I will do it.”
Louis smiled mischievously which prompted Thor to glare at him.
“What are you up to?”
There it was! The familiar sceptical tone and look of an older brother Louis remembered.
Croki growled to protest the potential idea of tossing him onto dad.
“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll find something,” said Louis and went back to his room.
He returned a few minutes later with several comic book issues. Thor meanwhile had started watching TV again. He settled on another documentary about Midgardian fauna, crocodilians this time. Croki, obviously, was watching intently with him. Both of them were sitting on the carpeted floor, rather close to the screen due to the fact that the sound was lowered so much.
Thor looked at Louis.
“You don’t mind the sound? I can mute it completely.”
Louis shocked his head no. Long ago, back in Asgard, he developed a skill to ignore some sounds even if their source was just a few feets away. It was very necessary if one wanted to read during a break on the training grounds.
He laid on the couch on his stomach. He left his phone close within his sight in case Papa Mobius would call.
For at least half an hour it was rather quiet in the house. Louis was in the middle of Detective Comics #38 when he sensed a movement. On the telly credits started to roll and Thor stood up. Followed by Croki, he walked across the room to the bookcase. He was clearly looking at the shelf with framed pictures, so Louis joined him.
“What’s the matter?”, he asked, ignoring the strange feeling in his guts.
As he thought, his brother was focused on the biggest framed photo in the whole set. It was a group picture of Mobius with all of the Lokis that were now living in the TVA. Louis remembered that the photographer was pushing the button several times in rapid succession as if he was afraid all of them would start a fight anytime soon and he would lose a chance for a perfect shot.
The whole group was very varied, but there were some similarities between all of them, not just in clothes and sentiment towards horned headdresses.
Thor poked the corner of the photo where Croki was held by Louis and clearly staring at the President who was sitting on the other side of the picture.
“You know,” said Thor, ”I’ve been wondering lately about something I’m still not able to wrap my head around”
Louis raised an eyebrow.
“About what?”, he asked, mentally preparing for another philosophical talk about the nature of fate and individuality. The latter was heavily suggested to variants of the same person along with not thinking about being an aspect of a being. Because of that, some of the Loki variants, following Sylvie’s example, have started going by other names, like Louis and Croki. Some of them however, like the President or Old Man remained with the name Loki, but allowed for nicknames. The latter didn’t mind being called Grandpa, especially by young Thor and Louis.
“If Croki is really you, Louis… a Loki I mean, then why is he… like that?”
Hearing they talk about him, Croki opened his mouth slightly and waggled his tail. He looked like a dog who was about to get a treat or go for a walk.
Louis sighed. He thought they had this talk already, but it was probably just a dream.
Seeing his friend crouching, Croki opened a cabinet under the bookcase for him. Louis took one of the files and gave it to Thor.
“That’s all we have on Croki,” he explained. “I figured it would be better to show you rather than you questioning everything I say.”
Thor probably wanted to protest the implications of the last sentence, but one look from his brother stopped him and thankedinstead.
All three of them walked back to the couch. Louis seemingly returned to the story of Dick Grayson, but in truth he observed his brother checking the files.
According to what the old one and the new TVA had managed to gather, a Loki that became Croki, earlier than any other variant discovered his ability to shapeshift. He was an toddler then. His mother also had a small zoo-like garden where some Midgardian animals Odin brought for her were kept, including an alligator. One time little Loki turned himself into it mere seconds before an unexpected magical flare of some kind had hit Asgard. Most of its effects were temporal, but one of the exceptions was Loki, who got forever stuck in the alligator form.
“That’s horrible,” said Thor softly. He wanted to pet Croki, but the alligator had bitten him playfully as he often did.
Their new dads, after reforming the TVA, along with some specialists have researched if there was really no method to reverse this transformation. They finally concluded that even if there was, it wasn’t worth it. If Croki was transformed back now, he would be a boy not much older than Louis and Thor, but due to how early in his life this perma change happened and how many years have passed since then, mentally he would be still the same.
Besides, Croki was content with his current situation, especially now, when Thor picked him up and started tickling his tummy. Louis had to move to the edge of the couch to avoid enthusiastic wagging of the tail, but didn’t complain, seeing how happy his brother was, too.
There were even tears forming in the corners of the boy's blue eyes and for some reason Louis didn’t want to know why.