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leos-regression-cove · 2 years

Text

Nothing in the Parenting Books Prepared me for This

8. Power Outage

Synopsis: The power's gone out and now the artificial noise which had been helping to drown out the storm has been taken away. Mobius and Sylvie need to help Loki stay calm and happy through this difficult time.

Word count: 1,008

Stand Alone?: 2/5 of an arc

Warnings: angst/hurt/comfort elements

Notes: Wow what a clunky chapter. Cute, but just... clunky.

Read it on AO3

Loki’s eyes snapped open, but he couldn’t see anything. He started to cry even though he felt Mobius’s arms around him.

“Hey, it’s okay, champ, it’s just a power outage. They’re normal during storms like this."

Sylvie rooted through drawers looking for a flashlight. She found a couple as well as a little radio which she turned on for updates.

Loki seemed frightened by the static as Sylvie hurried to turn it to a listenable news channel.

“Shhh, Loki, why don’t we read some stories?” Mobius asked, petting the shaky little's back.

Loki seemed to be in an extremely small headspace, as he didn’t directly respond with a shake of the head or a nod. Instead, he just twisted his hands into Mobius’s shirt.

He got up, cradling Loki to go grab a book off the shelf while Sylvie lit a few candles and the wood burning stove.

Loki enjoyed the story seemingly, he at least stopped crying, but couldn’t see the pictures well and didn’t particularly feel like processing Mobius’s words. It seemed the caregiver’s gentle voice was enough for Loki to calm down.

Sylvie made a shadow puppet which delighted the baby. He pointed at it and cooed.

Loki got down off his daddy's lap, and crawled to Sylvie, who was sitting on a dining chair and projecting simple animal shapes with a flashlight she had set on a kitchen counter.

Loki didn’t seem to get it at first; he just held up his hand and looked at the shadow, and then made a fist.

Sylvie got down on the floor and pulled Loki into her lap. He was still sucking on his pacifier, so she had no fear of touching a hand that was drowned in saliva.

She took his hand and taught him how to make shadow puppet animals. “See? This one’s a bunny, like you. And this is a snail, look at that.”

Loki babbled and clapped, doing little kickies whenever she showed him a new one. Eventually, he twisted his wrist out of her grasp, though. “Do you want to try one on your own?” she asked.

He made an impossible shadow with magic.

Sylvie had a new idea. “Loki, can you turn the lights back on?” she asked.

Loki tried his best. The lights flickered for a second, but then they turned off again and he shook his head, unable to make it work. He looked disappointed but was also excited to go back to his shadow puppets, making fantastical animals with no linking storyline.

Mobius worked around them, trying to find something for him and Loki to snack on, eventually finding some dry cereal and fruit he could cut up.

That would be good, right?

He set Loki in the highchair and Sylvie moved the flashlight so he could keep playing as he ate. Loki experimented holding up his food items and any nearby toys to the light.

He didn’t listen at first, as Sylvie and Mobius talked about something further away from him. The whipping wind, rain, and booming thunder nearly drowned them out even only a few feet away.

“I think we should make a visit to Thor,” Mobius proposed. “I think they really miss each other.”

Sylvie nodded but didn’t respond.

He looked at her. She was barely illuminated by candle light.

“I miss him, too,” she whispered.

“I’ll talk with him about it in the morning.”

Mobius acknowledged her pain for a moment with a hug, and then went to get Loki, who had finished his food and then knocked the flashlight on the floor. When he saw Loki’s face, he realized the tot had in fact heard and seemed upset or at least confused by the idea. “No!! No Tor!” he yelled on the verge of a very sad and scared sounding meltdown. At least, he didn’t seem angry.

This confused Sylvie as it seemed to directly contradict what he had said earlier.

“Hey,” Mobius said, “we’re not going to do anything you don’t want to.”

Loki seemed near hysterics as the thunder started to bother him again. It felt like it was consuming his mind.

Mobius directed Sylvie to put some water on the stove for Loki’s bottle and probably some tea for both of them.

Loki seemed reluctant to go into either of the bed rooms. They were much darker than the big main area, but Mobius was able to change Loki and give him some pajamas. This particular pair of one-piece pajamas looked like a fox.

He set Loki back down on the floor of the nursery.

“Grab some toys,” Mobius told him, “we’ll need them for the fort.”

Loki sniffled, “for’,” he repeated.

“Yeah, mommy’s getting a bottle ready and the blankets from the bedroom.”

Loki sorted through his toybox, taking mostly comfort stuff like plushies, specifically Croki and Sylvie’s pegasus, but he also gathered anything that lit up so he could help. Mobius took the pillows and blankets out of the crib and brought them to the main room with Loki walking on his knees following him. They built a large comfy fort in the center of the living room, using the couches and chair as bases for the blanket ceiling. The inside was nice and spacious for a blanket fort, but probably a little smaller than their bed.

Sylvie blew out the candles as she came in and sat down with two cups of tea and a baby bottle.

Loki put all his baby toys up on the seat of the recliner but handed the pegasus to Sylvie.

“Oh thank you,” she said as she accepted it.

Mobius also grabbed a story book of fairy tales for Loki and read through a few while Loki was cradled in his arms and Sylvie sprawled out on the blanketed floor.

The woodburning stove went out, but they were still warm and comfortable.

Comfortable to the point that Loki didn’t think about the storm.

Comfortable to the point that the only thing he felt was the love of his caregivers and the warm nipple of his bottle in his mouth.

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