No one left until ten that night. Hank being Hank and Hope being Hope, they and Janet left first (at least Hope had the decency to kiss him before they left, because Scott felt forgotten) and Maggie and Paxton left soon after. Cassie decided to stay at Scott's for the night, probably because she realised her dad would let her eat as much chocolate as she wanted whereas her mum would force her to go to bed early. Clearly Loki and Stephen were staying – there wouldn't have been any point in Scott inviting them today if they weren't.

The four of them retired back into the sitting room. Before long, Cassie left to go to bed, and Scott was left alone with Loki and Stephen.

Scott was vaguely watching the TV, which was playing some weird Christmas film, absently snacking on his chocolate for something to do with his mouth. Only an hour and a half until Christmas. That was mad... where had this year gone?

None of them spoke for a minute or so. Cassie had taken the conversation away with her.

"Your family is actually so great, Scott," Loki said, suddenly.

"They are pretty awesome," Scott agreed. "I mean, most of the time I just want to kill them. Except Cassie. Cassie's great. But usually I want to kill the others. But I love them to pieces and they love me to pieces back and I couldn't do without them."

Loki nodded absently. "Sounds like my family, except without the love. Just the killing bit actually."

Scott looked at Loki. He wasn't sure what was worse: what he'd said or the casual tone in which he'd said it. "You're joking, right?"

"No," Loki said. "Seriously, we didn't love each other, like, at all. Except mother."

That was beyond sad. Scott had heard about Loki's troubles with his family, of course, but he'd never actually talked about it properly before, so Scott had no clue what was up. "Why, is Thor, like, a total jackass or something?"

Loki made a sound that could have either been a cough or laugh. "Well, I mean, not so much now, but my first thousand years were practically torture having him around. But it was Odin who was the total son of a bitch."

"Wait, Odin's your dad?" Scott interrupted, and both Stephen and Loki stared at him. "I thought he was Greek Mythology."

"Uh... no," Loki said, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Oh," Scott said, and quickly grabbed his phone. "Hang on a second."

"Are you Googling Odin?" Stephen asked in disbelief.

"No, he's Googling "Who is Loki's dad in mythology?" Strange," Loki said, facepalming himself. "Scott, you can be a real douchebag at times."

"Google says Odin isn't your dad," Scott insisted, even holding up his phone as if he needed to prove it. "Google knows all."

Loki stared at Scott in disbelief and couldn't help himself from bursting into laughter. "Wow. Just wow. Scott, listen to yourself. You're trying to tell me I don't know who my own dad is. Of course I know who he is. I killed him."

The silence that followed was so quiet the sound of Stephen biting his chocolate could be heard. Scott stared at Loki. "You killed Odin?!"

"Um, that wasn't who I meant, but I guess I technically killed him too," Loki said.

Scott was getting incredibly confused. His big brain was starting to hurt. "So Odin wasn't your dad?"

"He was," Loki said, further confusing the hell out of Scott.

"But then... do you have two dads?" Scott asked, feeling his brain combust.

"I did, they're both dead now," Loki confirmed as though it cleared everything up. At the look on Scott's face, he must've decided this required further explanation. "I'm adopted."

Well that made sense, Scott thought, his face now bearing the ultimate realisation look. "Oh... I get it now, Odin's your adopted dad?"

Loki nodded and Stephen spoke. "You didn't know that? I thought it was obvious."

A cushion smacked him in the face, and it didn't come from Scott. "Shut up and eat your chocolate, Strange," Loki wisely instructed him. He turned back to Scott. "But yeah, basically Odin was the biggest jackass son of a bitch you've ever met. I should be sad he's dead but... this is really bad but I'm not."

Scott wasn't telepathic, but he somehow got the gist of what his friend was saying. He could tell Loki had never really had many friends in his life, maybe close to none until they'd all met. Hadn't he said as much all that time? That there were three people on this planet he counted as friends? And two were in that room, and the other was nowhere to be found...

But Scott could also tell Loki didn't particularly want to talk about his life's trauma to him at half ten at night on Christmas Eve with a wizard crunching chocolate between them. It could join the category of serious conversations to be had after Christmas, alongside the awaiting Hope and Hank situ.

So he did Loki a favour and didn't ask anything else. He simply said, "Well, Google's ruined my life. I've been lied to. It's supposed to know all, and yet, it doesn't. Though, I should've seen it coming. I mean, Google comes up with a picture of Anthony Hopkins wearing an eyepatch when you search Odin. I should've known Google doesn't know all."

OK, he'd definitely overdone it, but Loki might've looked grateful. He didn't know. It was hard to tell with him.

"Well, no one knows everything," Loki said, nonchalantly. He put his boots up on the coffee table (he'd refused to take them off, but Loki was magic, so it wasn't like he'd tracked any dirty snow into the house). "So, what's tomorrow's plan?"

"Well," Scott said, preparing to talk the two of them through the extensive schedule, "we need to make sure we get to sleep before midnight, first. If we don't, Santa Claus won't come."

Stephen stared at him, but Loki raised an eyebrow. "Another friend of yours?"

"Sort of," Scott said, ignoring the look Stephen was giving him. "He comes every Christmas to bring gifts and comes in through the chimney."

Loki looked confused. "You wait around for some guy to break into your house while you sleep."

Stephen burst out a laugh, but Scott was being totally serious. He'd believed in Santa Claus his entire life. "Well, yes. And we leave him mince pie and milk as a present. And nine carrots for each of the reindeer. But he never takes them for some reason."

Loki met Stephen's eye, and Scott could immediately tell Stephen was telling him Santa wasn't real. Disgraceful! He'd even met Santa in real life! He'd taken Cassie to see him in the mall when she was younger!

"So, um, Scott," Stephen started. "Do you keep up the pretence because of Cassie?"

"Pretence?" Scott asked, offended. "I believe in Santa! Cassie won't see sense!" They just blinked at him. He'd been afraid this would happen, but it wasn't like he hadn't expected it. "Anyway, we'll wake up tomorrow, open all our presents before breakfast because I'm impatient, then eat, and then do whatever until eleven, when everyone else will come. Maggie has very generously offered to cook dinner, and I think Cassie is helping out. We'll have Christmas dinner, then play games and stuff until tea. After tea, we have a special tradition where we take a walk to this special cliff and watch the view together for an hour. Then we go home." They still looked confused, so Scott continued to explain. "About ten years ago, when Cassie was a kid, we went on that walk, and there was a huge firework display going off, so Cassie made us watch. We went back the next year, and Cassie made us stay so she could wait for the fireworks again, but we've been back every year and its never happened again. But its become a bit of a tradition now."

"That's sweet," Stephen said, smiling. "I've never done anything like that on Christmas. Recently Christmas has been all about the festive annual library sort with Wong. It's not a tradition I would encourage."

Loki didn't say anything, but he was clearly plotting something, by the look in his eyes and the absent-minded nod. But this was Loki when he wasn't trying to hide that he was plotting. "And what sort of games?" he asked eventually.

"Monopoly. Trivial pursuit. Cluedo. All the classics," Scott said, shrugging. "I feel like you're going to get really, really competitive."

Loki raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah," Scott confirmed, nodding.

"So we'll go to the mirror dimension after breakfast then," Stephen decided, scrunching up his empty chocolate wrapper and making a portal to the trash can and dropping it in. Scott had honestly forgotten about that. "I'll show you some seriously sick magic if you want."

OK, Stephen was almost pulling that face Loki did when he was planning something they wouldn't like. Loki was still the master of basically every expression, but Stephen wasn't far off with this one. Scott wasn't scared at first, until he saw even Loki look a little apprehensive. OK, so he'd read his mind. Now Scott was actually terrified – if something could make Loki apprehensive, it was going to give Scott a heart attack for sure.

Stephen seemed pleased with their reactions, so he stood up. "Well, if Santa's coming, I'm off to bed. I'm going to need the rest for tomorrow, by the sounds of it."

And with that mysterious cliff-hanger, he left the room. Scott met Loki's eye.

"Don't tell him I said this, but I'm actually kinda nervous for tomorrow," Loki said, quietly. "If you tell him I said that, I might accidentally poke you aggressively with a knife."

Scott didn't want to be accidentally poked aggressively with a knife. It was a good thing he didn't respond to threats, because Loki gave a lot of them. "Not gonna lie, same. But it can't be that bad, right? If he's taking Cassie too?"

"Hope not. She's a great kid," Loki said.

A pause. "Well, I guess we should get some sleep too," Scott said, standing up. "Otherwise Santa won't come."

"That's if I can," Loki shrugged. "Haven't slept in a week. Or longer. I don't know. A while anyway."

"Wow," Scott said, eyes widening. "How come?"

"There ain't no rest for the wicked, Scott," Loki said. "But don't worry about me, I'm fine. Asgardians don't technically need anything to survive anyway."

It didn't sound natural to survive that long without sleep, and Scott wasn't too sure what to think about Loki's reluctance to answer his question properly, but he didn't say anything. "Well, you're gonna have to rest now, because I can imagine your first Lang Christmas is going to be one to remember."

"I don't doubt it," Loki said, then stood up from the sofa. "But I swear, if Stephen snores, I might commit murder."

With that lovely goodnight, Loki left the room and went to the guest room. Scott prepared the mince pie and carrots for Santa, leaving them on the mantlepiece, then went to his room, pulled on his Christmas-y PJs and collapsed on his bed.

Yes, tomorrow was definitely going to be a Christmas to remember.