Chapter 1
A lot of time has passed since Loki's sacrifice. Each of his friends was able to move on somehow. TVA started to get back on its feet to protect the multiverse this time, B-15 became a member of the main council, O.B continued to work on the intricate and almost endless topic of the multiverse, Casey was no longer just an ordinary guy at a desk with no purpose, he now spent most of his time together with Ouroboros . They both seemed to enjoy each other's company and were able to understand each other's chaotic speech. Sylvie returned to work in the timeline she had chosen, continuing to live a quiet life. However, one person was unable to find his way after all of this.
Mobius tried, really, really tried, to keep working at TVA somehow. This was his whole life, he had nothing more than his job as an analyst focused on Loki variants. Now, like everyone else, he was tasked with monitoring the Kang variants. And that was fine! This was the job he knew and loved! But now he couldn't find any joy in it. Before Loki came to TVA under Mobius wing, Mobius had to admit that his life wasn't particularly fruitful. It was focused, or rather revolved around work, sometimes he had occasional friendly meetings with Ravonna and that was it.
However, when Loki brought his chaotic personality into his life at TVA. Something changed in Mobius, he felt as if he had regained a long-lost part of himself.
And now he could no longer find a place for himself at the TVA. Everything reminded him too much of what he had and lost.
It wasn't fair, but life isn't fair and what can he say about it?
I guess it was this feeling of emptiness that made him decide to leave TVA. And facing his own fear. Let's say he followed the example of Loki, who gave him a chance, gave them all a chance.
But after all this, the only thing he could do as an old and tired analyst was simply live.
He rented a small apartment on the outskirts of the city and took a new job as a substitute teacher at a local school. And that's where Mobius had been working for the last few months, falling into a routine. Thanks to some activity, he didn't have to wonder 'what if'? It didn't have any sense anyway.
This day started like the other 238 days. Mobius counted every day he spent like this.
Now he could only regret that he hadn't somehow stopped Loki before that damned door closed.
“No, wait, Why I'm thinking about him again? Ugh, get a grip, Mobius. Loki was just one of thousands of people I had met in my life, one of his many variants!” - Despite this knowledge, the man still believed that his Loki was special, he was his whole world.
Mobius sighed, rubbing his eyes at the teacher's desk. There was a long break now, so unfortunately he had a lot of time to think, which always made him reflect in some way about TVA, Kang, the potentially upcoming war and... Loki.
Mobius looked at the clock, seeing that the break was almost over.
“Great, and I haven't even started my lunch.” - He sighed mentally.
The man just looked at his salad in front of him and felt a knot in his stomach as he looked at it.
“I'm not really hungry.” - He thought, putting it back in the bag.
Suddenly the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch break, and students started walking to his classroom.
If Mobius enjoyed anything other than being an analyst at TVA and Jet Ski, it was teaching kids. He had to admit that he was a really patient man, which was a huge asset when working with a bunch of rambunctious teenagers. Being among children, he felt like a fish in water.
“Okay, has everyone taken their seats? Yes? Great, so today we're going to talk about ancient Rome.” - And this is how Mobius once again got carried away by his work.
When he returned to his small apartment after a long day of work, the man went to bed thinking that he didn't feel like eating anything today. After a few hours of staring at the dark ceiling he finally was able to fell asleep.
In the middle of the night, he was suddenly awakened from his sleep by a loud bang coming from deep inside of his apartment. At first, the man thought that his half-asleep brain was playing tricks on him, but after he heard footsteps in his living room, he suddenly got up and got out of bed.
His first thought was burglars, and honestly Mobius didn't know why they would break into his apartment. He didn't have much, the only electronics he had was a telephone and a TemPad which he always had with him, and an old TV with only a few programs on it.
Without thinking much more, Mobius grabbed the first closest thing within his reach, which turned out to be a bedside lamp. Then quietly moved towards the living room. When he got there, he saw the shadow of a tall figure standing next to his dresser. The man took a deep breath and turned on the light, raising the lamp as a threat to use it for self-defense.
However, as soon as he saw the person who was standing in his living room like a child caught red-handed, he froze.
“ Mobius, I-I can explain it! “- Loki said quickly, raising his hands in a calming gesture. Expecting everything from being screamed at to being punched.
However, all the man that Loki had broken into did was let out a strangled sigh and drops the lamp.
The next thing Loki knew, he was surrounded by Mobius's tight embrace.
Mobius honestly didn't care at this point why Loki was standing in his apartment in the middle of the night. The only thing he could focus on was that he was safe and sound in front of him. After this loom stunt, no one, including O.B, was sure whether Loki was still alive. It broke Mobius in a terrible way, and he had to live in this terrible uncertainty for almost a year. But now - … .
“Mobius, I...” - Loki started again, only to stop when he felt moisture on his clothes.
"Mobius?" - Loki said, hugging the man back.
Mans whole frame shook with silent sobs.
"Don't do that again..." - Mobius muttered, burying his face in Loki's neck.
"I won't. Never again, I promise I-I..." - Loki began to mutter madly as tears rolled down his own cheeks.
"Just hush."- Mobius muttered, adjusting his grip.
They probably looked like a very strange couple from a third-person point of view, a man dressed in rags and a T-shirt cuddling with a god dressed in something out of a cult.
But they couldn't care less about that.
They stood there, holding each other as if their lives depended on it, for a few more minutes until the adrenaline subsided and they moved to sit on the couch.
Finally sitting across from him on the couch, Mobius was able to look at the god before him. He hadn't seen him for so long, and at the same time, looking at Loki, he could see all the details of his face, his eyes, that he had been dreaming about for the last few months. However, at this point, looking at him, you can see that there are some signs of fatigue. Of course, Mobius knew he couldn't judge anyone because he looked like a hundred disasters himself. However, Loki had deep dark circles under his eyes and a glassy look in his eyes that greatly disturbed the man.
"How about I make us both some tea?" - Mobius suggested, getting up and going to the kitchen connected to the living room to put water on for tea.
"Yeah, that would be great." - Loki muttered, sitting on the sofa and stroking the material under his hands, staring listlessly at his own thighs.
He didn't even notice that Mobius had returned until he appeared in his field of vision with a hand holding tea, which he gratefully accepted.
Loki, not wanting to wait, took his first sip, moaning with pleasure after tasting the first sip of anything in who knows how long.
Mobius sat down next to him and in response to his vocal sounds, he only raised an eyebrow significantly, looking at him with an amused look.
“... So?” - Mobius started looking at Loki, drawing his attention. - “What happened after you destroyed the Temporal Loom? Because we really didn't learn much from your disappearance. Actually everyone were thinking you’re dead.”
His friend's mention of this topic made Loki play nervously with the cup of tea in his hands.
"It's a really long story, I don't know if you have that much time." - Said Loki, looking at the clock hanging on the wall.
"I have time and I'd love to hear everything you have to say." - Said the man, placing his hand on the god's knee - "I trust you, you can trust me too, Loki. I am not going to judge you."
The look that Mobius gave him and the words spoken to him made angry butterflies flutter in Loki's stomach and his face warmed up.
“Has it suddenly become hot in here?” - He thought, but looking at the man sitting next to him, he could tell that it was probably just his imagination.
"I don't even know where to start, I think it started with this arbitrary mission with Sylvie..." - He began, over the next hours Loki explained to one of his most trusted people everything he had experienced from cover to cover. He didn't hide a single detail in his story, wanting to tell it all to Mobius. It weighed on him for so long that he finally had to throw it away, and this man...always helped him no matter what, even though he knew what kind of person Loki was. Maybe that's why it was so easy for him to say all this, to trust him.
“So repairing the loom wouldn't help?”
“No, I tried thousands of times and even when I succeeded, the loom overloaded after a while.”
This brought to mind the question Mobius had wanted to ask for a long time - "Why did you go there? Why did you sacrifice yourself? You didn't have to do it, you know it, no one would blame you..."
"Don't you understand? I had to, no, I wanted to! For the first time, I had friends that I cared so much about and I wasn't going to lose you! I would do anything to save you!" - Loki confessed. The word "friends" sounded so foreign and yet so familiar on his tongue.
Mobius, having no words to respond, let it slide into the background for now. They can talk about it later.
He must have thought this through because he didn't want to react too violently when Loki obviously did all this with their best interests in mind.
However, Mobius was honestly puzzled by the thought that if Loki had done this for them, why didn't he also think about his own good?
"Okay, it's okay. I don't think I have the strength for such dynamic conversations today, so we'll discuss this topic another time. It's not that I'm not happy and grateful, but how are you even here?" - He asked curiously, looking straight at Loki, who was still playing with the cup in his hands.
"It's a bit hard to explain..." - Loki looked at Mobius and, seeing that the man was focusing all his attention on him, tried to explain - "It's as if I powered the branches with my seidr and at some point the entire multiverse started drawing energy itself? You know how seidr is sentient but at the same time it can regenerate itself? It was a bit like that with this tree. Most of my seidr is back there, but at the same time we're on one of these branches so my seidr is all over the place. I still have my share because it's already regenerating back in my body , but at the same time this second part is even stronger, because the branches make energy and transmit it through multiwerse at the same time." - said Loki, looking to see if Mobius understood. However, his friend looked at him as if he had said something that made absolutely no sense.
"And more simply? Because it sounds like gibberish to me." - He said a little shyly and confused.
Loki snorted at this statement, aware of his tendency to wander - "In short, my seidr was one, but now it has split into two similar sources of power, one I still have and the other is in the branches at the end of time. At the same time, I can manipulate and draw seidr from environment because the entire multiverse is saturated with it."
"Okay, that makes a little more sense." - Mobius calmly drank his tea as if he hadn't just been told how the entire multiverse still existed. He set his mug down on the coffee table and yawned.
Looking at the clock, it was visible that it was already well after four in the morning.
"How about we take a little nap?" - Mobius asked, patting the god on the shoulder.
"Don't you have a job?" - Loki asked.
Mobius looked at him confused - "Where did you-? You know what, I'm too tired for this right now. Tomorrow's Saturday anyway, so I'm off, so we can sleep."
"Oh. It's okay, I'll sleep on the couch."
"NO!" - Loki looked at him with terrified, wide eyes - "Uh, you mean, don't you prefer to sleep on the bed? You certainly haven't had a proper rest for god knows how long, I'll take the couch."
"What? No way, it's your house. And the guests are sleeping on the couch." - Loki replied sensibly.
"I insist, I really do." - Repeated the man.
"Nah, no way, I won't let that happen. Do you know how fragile human bodies are? You'd be in pain or something else after sleeping on couch!" - He said, sincerely worried about his friend's well-being.
Mobius sighed in response and looked at him with disbelieving and tired eyes.
In the end, they both ended up in Mobius bed, Loki of course after changing into more normal sleeping clothes that he got from Mobius human's closet. They both lay on opposite sides of the bed, trying to keep some space between them, which was almost impossible considering the size of Mobius bed. Despite the awkwardness, they were both glad that the other one was there, because spending so much time alone had made them a little paranoid that the other one was going to disappear.
"You know what?" - Loki suddenly asked, turning on his side so as to face Mobius.
"What?" - Mobius replied, glancing at his friend out of the corner of his eye.
“I think I like talking after all. I missed it terribly when I was at the end of time.”
"Is that really your first thought after getting out of there?" - Asked the older man in disbelief looking at the man lying next to him.
"Oh yes.... but you said it yourself!"
"When?"
"In the elevator!"
"In the elevator? Oh, oh you mean at the beginning when we met?"
"Yeah. I remembered that I lied and I had to straighten it out. So the truth is that I love to talk."
Mobius laughed kindly at Loki's statement, which he conveyed to him with all possible seriousness.
"What? Why are you laughing? Did I say something funny?" - Loki asked, looking like a completely confused kitten.
"Did you just admit that I was right? You, the great god, 'kneel before me'?" - This drew an outraged expression from Loki.
"Okay, if this is how it's going to go, I'm going to sleep on the couch." - He said seriously, about to get out of bed. However, a strong hand that held a firm grip on his forearm stopped him.
" Lie back down, I didn't mean to insult you." - Mobius apologized. - “Please? I won't be able to sleep without you.”
What he said could be a bit of blackmail and might not work, but looking at how worried Loki was about his well-being earlier, he hoped that this request would go through.
As it turned out, he succeeded, because the next thing he experienced was Loki sighing in defeat and falling back onto the bed with all the force possible. They could finally go to sleep.
However, the world had other plans because the next thing they know the bed creaked dangerously beneath them, and then they both fell down together with the mattress as the wooden legs of the bed broke under their weight, finally unable to support themselves.
Loki froze in shock, having no idea what to do and suddenly afraid of Mobius reaction. Because he not only broke to his apartment, scare him terribly but also broke his bed.
However, the man's only response was loud laughter.
"I guess that's what I get for getting a god into my bed." - He laughed.
Loki looked at the gray-haired man next to him, slightly embarrassed, but as he stared longer at Mobius smile, he couldn't help but notice the slight wrinkles appearing on his face when he smiled.
“When I watched him from the end of time, I had never seen him smile like that... “- He thought.
"Well, I guess we'll sleep on the floor on a broken bed instead of the couch." - Mobius commented, turning towards the raven-haired man.
Loki quickly looked away, not wanting to be caught staring by the other man. Already terribly embarrassed by this whole situation.
"You're right, goodnight!" - He exclaimed quickly, turning his back to Mobius and closing his eyes to pretend that he was going to sleep.
Mobius just looked dazedly at the back of the man's head, but he decide to follow his example. He lay down to pant on the other side and replied - "Good night."
His eyes felt heavy very quickly and he had no idea if it was because he had a sudden awakening during the night after only a few hours of sleep, or if it was because of the calming presence next to him. Anyway, Mobius didn't complain about it and quickly fell into the pleasant embrace of sleep.
When he opened his eyes in the morning or more in the afternoon, he saw his bedroom bathed in sunlight. Mobius rubbed his eyes tiredly and turned towards the bed where the dark-haired man should be sleeping. To his surprise, Loki wasn't there. When this registered in Mobius's brain, he immediately got up from the bed, which surprisingly was in perfect condition.
It should be broken, what's the point? Have I really lost my mind? - He thought, standing listlessly in the middle of his room. Suddenly, the grim reality really weighed heavily on his shoulders. He looked at the calendar, which showed it was Monday. However, the man could have sworn that the weekend had just started!
"Loki?!" - Mobius exclaimed as he walked around the apartment looking for God.
The man searched the entire apartment, but he found no trace of the presence of another person in his apartment.
The bedside lamp was in place even though Mobius was sure that he had left it in the living room. The clothes he gave Loki to sleep in were lying in the closet under many others, indicating that they had not been used for a long time.
There were no tea cups left behind.
And to Mobius's embarrassment, he actually counted the number of tea bags, which was right. But they shouldn’t.
This can not be true. He was here, I'm sure! - Mobius contradicted himself. However, the rational part of his mind knew how pathetic he was.
All that was left for him was to sit on his couch where he thought he and Loki had sat at night and put his head in his hands.
Uninvited tears rolled down his cheeks, the man tried to wipe them away, but seeing that it was pointless, he just let them be. Soon, the quiet crying turned into sobbing, punctuated by the soft utterance of the name 'Loki'.
“ Mobius!" - The sudden call of his name brought him out of his little form of misery for a moment.
“What?” - The man looked around with red eyes from crying.
"Mobius! Wake up!" - The voice called again, and at that moment the man realized that his eyes were closed.
When he looked at it against the daylight in his bedroom, he saw a dark-haired man leaning over him with a worried expression on his face.
"...L-Loki?" - He asked in disbelief as he sat down. He was still afraid that his figure might at any moment turn out to be a figment of his despairing mind.
"One and only." - He replied with a proud smile - "Well, maybe not the only one, but you know..." - He corrected after a while.
Mobius, not caring about it, touched Loki's arm and, feeling that it was solid under his touch, he lunged at the god. Hugging him like his life depended on it.
"Where have you been?" - Mobius asked and mentally cursed himself for how pathetic he sounded to his ears.
"Ah, you know, I took the liberty of using your shower because at the end of the time I didn't really have a way to freshen up and I really missed it. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to wake you up." - Loki replied as he returned the hug. Only now did the gray-haired man realize that Loki's curls were still wet.
However, regardless of this, the man pressed his face into the god's shoulder.
"Mobius?" - Loki asked, the man hummed softly in response, still glued to him.
"Is everything okay? You're crying..." - Loki said in a worried voice.
Mobius suddenly realizing this quickly moved away from his friend. Quickly wiping his face and with a groan of hopelessness, he realized that there were traces of his tears on his blouse where he was clinging to Loki.
"Uhm, I...yeah, I'm fine. Oh, and sorry about getting your blouse wet." - He muttered.
Loki didn't even look at his clothes, he just waved his hand and his clothes and hair were completely dry - “It’s fine, you see I have something what Midgardians call 'magic'.” - He added to the word 'magic' by wildly fidgeting with his fingers in his right hand.
He nodded again and now the bed they were sitting on was whole again.
Mobius looked at him - "Couldn't you have done it yesterday?" - He asked, trying to steer the topic away from talking about his moment of weakness.
"Ah, I might not have thought about it yesterday." - The god admitted shyly, rubbing his neck. Because yesterday something or someone else was in his mind than a broken bed. And the fact that he was at the end of time for so long meant that he could forget that he could use seidr.