Who: Thor and Loki What: Morning time emergencies. Where: Their apartment When: Thursday Morning
Thor woke with a blink. It took him a moment, his eyes adjusting around the fuzziness of his dark room and the ceiling came into focus above him. Had he gone to bed? Was it day time? Where was he? Who was he?
He sat up slowly, as if in a fog still. He pulled on some sweatpants that were near the bed, and he saw some framed pictures of a woman and two little girls. Nothing about their unseeing eyes made him feel comfort or familiarity. It was… odd. And he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He slipped his feet into fluffy slides… everything in the room seemed to be built for him from the size of the shoes and the clothing, to an oddly decorated hammer that seemed to fit perfectly in his hand, it seemed to call to him.
He wandered through the doorway and into another set of rooms. Still, it was foggy. There was something there and not there at the same time. Like he couldn’t put his finger on it, and it was wild and unfamiliar. He moved to the kitchen. He reached up and he found a box of poptarts… how did he know where that would be? Like an instinct or muscle memory. He leaned against the counter, chewing slowly on the pastry, his eyes set in confusion.
Emerging from his room, Loki couldn't have known anything was amiss. To him, it was simply another day in Midgard, and really only coincidentally his brother's name day. His own absurd jealousy that the Midgardians had never deigned to give him is own name day had been set aside ages ago. Mostly. In his robe and slippers, he made a beeline to the coffee maker, glad as ever that this was one thing in the apartment he insisted should be of the highest quality.
The machine had barely started making noises before the heavenly scent perked up his mind enough for him to offer up a hint of a smile and a, "Hello, brother. Sleep well?"
Thor’s body snapped at attention when the other man approached him, not defensive or offensive, just… guarded. There were other people here too then, but not even the people that he’d seen in the picture frames by his bed. Brother?
“You are my brother?” He asked him, moving closer. “Tell me what else you know.” Thor didn’t even honestly know what to ask. “Who am I? Where am I? What is your name?”
Unfortunately, the bitter nectar wasn't close to being ready, which means Loki was forced to face the brunt of Thor's baffling questions without its life-giving sustenance. He turned at the first question, not quickly, and for a split second he was back in the TVA. Mobius and B-15 were staring at him with zero recognition. ("Who are you? What's your name? Where did you come from?") Dread pulsed through him, because it was a look shared by his brother now.
He wanted to move back, but stayed where he was as he searched his brother's face. No hint of jest could be found. Worry seeded itself in his heart. "Thor, this isn't funny." He was grasping at desperate straws and knew it. "You know who I am."
Thor. That was something… not familiar, but reassuring somehow at the same time. Though the crease in his eyebrows lessened, it didn’t fade and Thor found himself searching for something in the other person’s eyes.
“I am Thor?” He asked again, and he took another bite of the poptart he was eating. “I truly… I truly know nothing. I want to… my brain is —looking— for something, but I don’t know what. Or who. Or where. I am sorry, if you are my brother, but I do not know you.”
He moved again, to the fridge, which was littered with drawings and pulled out a bottle of water before drinking half of it in one gulp. “I do not… understand what I know and what I don’t.”
Certainly, the Asgardian Princes had had their grand entertainments in the past, but this didn't feel like one of them. There was no artifice to Thor's confusion. Loki had to firmly set aside a sudden flare of anger—not at his brother, but at the universe for being this cruel. He watched his brother move around the kitchen, at ease and yet not, before he held up a hand to stay his course and direct him toward the living room and one of the enormous couches they'd gotten out of necessity.
"Go. Sit. Please. You may take your water and your Pop-Tarts, but there is much to explain, and I feel as though it'll go over better if you're comfortable." Love. Was Love home? He couldn't recall if she might be in her room or staying over with one of her little friends. "You can trust me, brother. I won't lead you astray. My name is Loki."
Thor’s eyes followed his brother's hand to the next room. He nodded. The couch seemed comfortable at least, and he tried to offer Loki a small smile, something that he hoped might be reassuring, but he wasn’t sure the gesture made it to his eyes.
He moved as instructed, to the couch, and sat cross legged in a way that was very familiar to Thor, as if he had done it a thousand times, but couldn’t recall why or when. He took another bite of his breakfast. “This is… very confusing.” He admitted.
"It is," Loki tossed over his shoulder, having stayed at the counter just so he could get his first cup of coffee. His need was desperate at this point. The little machine whirred and dripped into silence, at which point he grabbed his mug ("Horse Girl"—a gift from Thor, one that he loathed at first, but grew to love and treasure and, thus, his favorite), filled it, then came into the living room. Naturally, he swiped one of his brother's odious prepackaged pastry treats, eschewing his normal habit of cooking something for himself for the sake of expedience.
He sat on the edge of the loveseat, but only for a moment. After pushing out a sigh, he curled up in his customary position and eyed Thor with wary concern. "You must have questions. It would be better if you ask them instead of me trying to dump a few dozen centuries of information on your head."
“My name is Thor.” It wasn’t a question, but it helped him. It helped him figure out how to build this web of himself that was dying to come out. “Where are we?” He asked the other man. “And… there are pictures. In my room. Of a lady and a baby and a girl. They feel important. Who are they?” He chewed on the poptart in between his questions.
“Why have I forgotten?” Had there been an accident? Something or someone who might have caused this?
Loki took a breath and let it out slowly. It was as much to gather his thoughts as to calm himself. One went better than the other. "We are in a place called San Francisco, in a state called California, in a wider conclave called the United States of America, which is situated on a planet called Earth—although we call it Midgard in our native tongue. We came from Asgard, a realm far, far from here."
There was a possibility it no longer existed, but he didn't say that. All of this was burden enough. "The people in the photograph are a woman named Julia, her infant daughter Hope, and your daughter Love. You're quite correct, they're very important to you. They—We're your family."
A lump formed in Loki's throat, but he swallowed around it. "I don't know. I wish to our mother I did. Better yet, I wish I could find out if it's anyone specific so I can end them. With great relish. But know this, brother, you have nothing to fear in this apartment. You're safe here."
Thor nodded at the words that Loki was saying, but he didn’t know really what those words meant. Not in the grander scheme of things that he might have normally. “San Francisco,” Thor said again.
“Do they live here?” He asked, his head tilted to look around. There were certainly toys and dolls, but nothing that told him where the three women might be in that time. “They are all beautiful girls.” He said, a somewhat proud smile, even if he didn’t know exactly why he felt that in his soul.
He noticed the emotion written on his brother's face, and he leaned forward, putting a hand on his arm. Thor wasn’t sure what to say, he didn’t know what to do, to comfort his brother. “I believe you.” He said, solidly. “We will figure this out.” He promised.
The way Thor echoed the information was exactly like someone repeating a fact without fully understanding it. It made Loki wonder if this would be the case every morning. Hadn't there been some Midgardian movie where someone woke up to a house full of sticky notes, each with something mundane like the person's name and where they were? The concept was silly, but now Loki could see the merit in it. He just hoped it wouldn't go this far.
"Love does, yes, but Julia and Hope have their own apartment. They come over often, however." So often that Loki wondered who his brother hadn't invited them to move in. Then he recalled Julia's roommate, and how it was likely that she didn't want to leave him. He seemed fragile, even for a mortal. "They all adore you just as much as you do them."
He tried for a smile, then abandoned it. Instead, Loki leaned over so he could pat Thor's knee. "Aren't I supposed to be the one offering heartfelt support in these confusing times? I suppose it's comforting that some things never change."
“... Could you tell me about her?” Thor asked. “How old is she?” He felt bad that he didn’t know anything about the girl who was meant to be his daughter. What did she like? How would she react. “What should we… tell her?” Cause at this point, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be leaving Loki too much.
He flashed Loki something that he would hope was comforting. “Are you Older, or Am I?”
It wasn't surprising that Thor would ask about his daughter. He would have been more alarmed if his brother had reacted with indifference. Loki smiled as thought about the niece he hadn't known about until his own arrival in this strange place. "She only recently turned nine, just this past September. You adopted her after her father's passing, but somehow she's still every bit your daughter: courageous, stubborn, curious. Powerful. Immensely so. She's quite lucky to have you as her father." His warmth faded, eyes drifted toward her door. "The truth. She's of an age where I think she could handle it, so long as you treat her kindly. You'll be back. You-as-Thor, my brother. Anything else is unacceptable."
His mouth curled in response. This time it reached his eyes. "Older, by a few centuries. You don't let me forget it either."
There was a warmth and a pride to hear the other man describe his daughter. He didn’t know her, not on a level that he could understand yet, but he was proud of her. Immensely so. “She sounds like an amazing little girl.” He told him, “A true future Valkyrie.” But the comment made him pause. A Valkyrie? The hell? But he knew that was the right word, even if he didn’t know why it was. “I imagine that she is the reason my things are covered in marker.” He laughed.
“You are a good younger brother, I should hope I am a worthy brother.” He smiled at Loki. “We shall tell her when she wakes up. It might make her feel more comfortable for you to be there because you will know her.”
Loki's brows rose sharply in surprise before he quickly schooled them. So, Thor knew names and concepts, but it was clear he had no real memory of why. It made him think of Mobius and his odd interest in aquatic recreation vehicles. Perhaps there were connections that ran deeper than whatever this spate of amnesia effected. Voice tight, but smile anything but, he replied with a quiet, "She is. And about the marker, too. In that respect, I suspect she takes after me somehow, although we hadn't met until my arrival here."
The booming laugh was the same, as was the smile. Real and genuine like Thor could always be. Loki shook his head with a wry grin of his own. "I don't know if I'm very good, but you've always been worthy, Thor. Always." Leaning forward, he put his coffee down and slapped his knees as he stood. "And if we're to be a team about this, I think we can do better than packaged pastries. I'll make her favorite—pan-flaps."