An Interlude
~*~
Waking with Loki in bed with him was, hands down, Mobius’s favourite way to start a morning, despite the borrowed rooms and the multiversal war that still threatened. Mobius spent a few minutes just watching the other man, his face relaxed in sleep, more vulnerable-looking than normal. He was so very beautiful, and it still seemed rather unbelievable to Mobius that he was here in Mobius’s bed, that they’d actually found one another, that they actually both wanted this, that it wasn’t a con. But there were no stakes left, no other reason to have spent so long hunting for one another.
Loki’s eyes opened, that changeable green and blue bright and irresistible. His lips curved up into a smile.
“Good morning,” he murmured.
“It certainly is.”
Loki’s smile deepened. “C’mere.”
Mobius went, thoughts about morning breath abandoned in the pure joy of hungry kisses and tangled limbs and the sweet slide of two bodies pressed together as close as they could get.
This led them into the shower, and then they were finally dressing.
“Staking a claim, are we?”
Mobius looked over at the sardonic question to find Loki running his fingers over a series of hickeys high on his neck—so high that they weren’t going to be covered by his collar when he finished doing up his shirt.
They weren’t the only lovebites on his body, but they did look more than a little deliberate.
Mobius cleared his throat. “Apparently.”
Loki crossed the room to stand in front of him, reaching up to straighten and tighten Mobius’s tie, much as he had in the elevator all that time ago.
“You’ve met enough of me to know that I am absolutely going to push your buttons sometimes, just because I can. I like things that are pretty. I have a whole host of habits that I’m going to have to figure out how to modify or abandon in the wake of this new life that I never expected to find myself in.”
Mobius nodded, mind reeling a little because he knew that they had—mostly—managed the expression of love, but matter-of-factly tackling longterm behaviour changes seemed like something really concrete, especially for this particular man. There was a reason he’d largely flourished on Saakar and lazily enjoyed his time impersonating Odin, after all.
Loki winked at him. “Also, I really enjoy your possessiveness.”
Mobius rolled his eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Actually, for someone who had spent most of his life believing that he belonged alone, it made a lot of sense, and now that Mobius was allowed to express himself this way, he was going to do more of it—but rationally and deliberately, not an accidental pissing contest.
Loki continued, looking vaguely uncomfortable now. “And just to be clear. You are, in fact, claiming what’s yours. So, even if I’m being a bit of an ass sometimes, I don’t ever mean for you to doubt that.”
Mobius came extremely close to actually gaping at the man, staring at him in stunned amazement before the deepening discomfort on Loki’s face impelled him into motion. He cupped Loki’s face with both hands and pulled him into a kiss, which Loki melted into after a moment, hands gripping Mobius’s hips.
“Sorry,” Mobius said, when he finally needed to draw back to breathe. “I was taken aback because I was wildly impressed. Part of me’s still not used to all the emotional growth that took place while I wasn’t present.”
Loki raised an eyebrow. He looked amused. “Are you saying I was emotionally stunted when we met?”
“I’m not sure that’s a strong enough word for it,” Mobius told him.
“You offered me a handshake at the end of the universe,” Loki pointed out.
Mobius had to laugh. “I never claimed I was the epitome of emotional maturity.”
“The contrast was implied.”
Mobius tried to look innocent.
Loki shot him a look. “Let’s go see how my close personal friend Mobius is doing this morning.”
“Ouch,” Mobius said.
And then their gazes caught and they came perilously close to giggling at one another.
Mobius felt as light as air. He’d insisted to himself that he was going to find Loki, that that was the only option, but he hadn’t let himself dwell much on what the aftermath of that finding would be. It had felt too dangerous to dream too hard. But it meant that pretty much every minute that they spent together had far exceeded Mobius’s expectations, like his brain had only really been able to replay the games they’d played in the TVA with the idea that they would definitely be genuine, but not actually taking it any further, to what it was like when they both cared and they’d both admitted it, when there were no prisons and no constant threat of pruning.
The actually being in a relationship part—he was pretty sure he got to call it that—was completely unanticipated, and completely awesome. The level of honesty he was getting from the God of Mischief was stunning, really.
They swung by the cafeteria for food—“Still terrible, but still better than the food in the infirmary!”—and then made their way back to the other Mobius’s bedside.
He was awake when they arrived, and he brightened visibly when he saw Loki—and then shot Mobius a look that was caught between chastising and hilarity.
Mobius shrugged. “What can I say? I got a little carried away.”
The Mobius in the bed laughed. “Can’t blame you for that. All that pale skin.”
Loki stepped in, saying pointedly, “I seem to recall it working rather well on nice tanned skin, too.”
The injured Mobius flushed faintly, but offered, “You have excellent suction?”
Loki laughed and came to sit down in the chair by the bed. “As do you. You also sound like you’re feeling better.”
“Much better,” the other Mobius confirmed. “I should be out of here by tomorrow or the next day.”
Loki brightened. “That’s wonderful. So you won’t mind if Mobius and I keep borrowing your apartment until you’re ready to come home?”
The other Mobius looked a little startled, his gaze crossing Mobius’s, and Mobius knew that he had assumed that this was goodbye.
“Uh, well, of course not, but—”
Loki grinned at him, the sly curl of his lips that Mobius had always found endlessly appealing, even when he didn’t want to admit it.
“Who’s going to sneak food to you if I’m not here?”
The other Mobius brightened visibly. “Ooh, what did you bring?”
Grinning, Loki produced the bounty, insisting on opening the can of Josta for the other man, and tearing open packages for him as well. The Mobius in the bed finally laid a hand over Loki’s.
“I’m fine, and you’re fussing.”
“Who says I can’t fuss?” Loki asked, sounding a little defensive.
The other Mobius squeezed his hand. “You’re allowed to fuss, I’m just saying that the reaction is outweighing the cause in this case. I’m very touched by the worry, but you don’t need to do as much of it as you’re doing.”
Loki sniffed. “I’ll worry as much as I want to.”
Both Mobiuses laughed at how absurd that was, and Loki’s tense shoulders relaxed a bit.
“Yeah, okay, that sounded better in my head,” Loki admitted. “You know I’m still figuring out this whole reciprocal caring thing.” He hesitated for a moment and then asked with studied casualness that was fooling exactly no one, “Is it so bad?”
Mobius honestly couldn’t say if this was a play or not, but the hint of uncertainty in Loki’s voice really just meant that they were both completely screwed. The Mobius in the bed caught Mobius’s eyes for a moment, and Mobius saw that he’d come to the exact same realisation. Neither of them were willing to hurt Loki if they could prevent it.
“Are you kidding?” the Mobius in the bed said. “How often do I get a god at my beck and call?”
Loki spluttered a protest.
“You know what I really want?” the other Mobius said hopefully. “Coffee. Good coffee. Or at least, you know, not completely terrible coffee.”
Mobius hadn’t realised that he had puppy dog eyes nor that they worked on Loki, but he watched Loki cave in an astonishingly short period of time, grumbling about gods not being lackeys obviously entirely for show as he hurried off to get Mobius exactly what he wanted.
And then the two Mobiuses were alone, which Mobius assumed was the point.
“Sorry about this,” the injured Mobius said with a general sort of gesture at himself and the infirmary. “I assume it’s not what you were imagining a reunion would be like.”
“I wasn’t sure what to expect, to be honest,” Mobius admitted.
“If we work together, we can convince him to go. Get on with your honeymoon.”
Mobius laughed. “I think you’re drastically underestimating his stubbornness.”
The injured Mobius’s lips tipped up. “Maybe so. I just … I don’t want to mess anything up, you know?”
Of course Mobius knew. He sat down in the chair next to the bed.
“When I was working for the TVA, I exploited his feelings of loneliness. It was a weakness, and I took advantage of it. I locked him in a time cell where someone from his past repeatedly told him that he was alone and that he always would be.” Mobius blew out a breath. “He seems to have forgiven me for it, but it means a great deal to me that he wasn’t alone in this. Thank you for trusting him and sticking with him, even when … even when it might have been hard.”
Mobius knew how he’d reacted to Sylvie, after all, and this Mobius had been confronted the entire time by a Loki who wanted someone else—in this case, a different version of Mobius.
The injured man stared at him for a moment. “You know, it was the easiest hard thing I ever did.”
Mobius huffed out a laugh.
Laughter brightened the other man’s eyes. “Yeah, I know that sounds ridiculous. But I knew from the beginning. I mean, he never said he was in love with you, but it was entirely obvious that he was and that his single-minded determination to get back to you had very little to do with the war. I mean, we’ve been fighting that this whole time. So even as, uh, feelings were developing on my end, I knew they weren’t going anywhere, not unless I wished for something that would break his heart, and I couldn’t ever do that.”
“Thank you,” Mobius said, knowing that the words were entirely inadequate.
He was pretty sure that they both knew that had the other Mobius tried harder, he could at the very least have lured Loki into bed. (Exploit that weakness. Mobius knew he was capable of it, after all, didn’t he?) And who knew what might have happened after that.
The other Mobius’s lips quirked up a little. “It was my pleasure. It felt a lot like he opened up all of time and space when I thought I already knew it all, you know?”
Mobius could only nod because of course he knew. It was exactly that. Mobius had always been a fan of Loki, but he had never in his wildest dreams imagined something like this.
Loki arrived with the coffee, eyes darting between the two of them.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“Of course,” the Mobius in the bed said.
“It’s not like our variants are known for stabbing one another in the back,” Mobius pointed out.
Loki rolled his eyes. “Stab people in the back fifty times or so, and it’s like you earn a reputation or something.”
They all laughed, and Mobius watched the injured Mobius lose the battle to prevent Loki from helping him drink his coffee. His hands really were shaking, though he had tried to hide it.
Mobius’s curiosity got the better of him.
“What did happen?”
The other Mobius grimaced a little but answered readily enough. “Got pinned to the inside of a collapsing building.”
Loki nearly snarled. “Impaled. Through your kidney.”
Both Mobiuses made a face.
“Falling debris knocked me out,” the other Mobius confessed. “So I actually missed most of it.”
They both looked at Loki, whose hands had clenched into fists. Mobius settled his hand over Loki’s.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about it.”
The other Mobius opened his mouth, looked again at Loki, and then closed it again.
Loki’s eyes flickered closed and then open. He sucked in a breath and then slowly blew it out.
“The building collapsed. Took most of the invaders with it. We dispatched the rest.” Loki cleared his throat. “And then I got you out of the building and brought you here.”
The Mobiuses exchanged glances again, and Mobius imagined they were thinking the same thing, the amount of power it must have taken to protect Mobius through that.
“Thank you, Loki,” the other Mobius said, voice raw.
“If I’d been faster—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” both Mobiuses said at the same time, and Loki huffed out a wet-sounding laugh.
“You are not responsible for everything that happens in the universe,” the other Mobius said.
“Thank god,” Mobius teased, and Loki rolled his eyes a little.
Mobius continued, “You’ll drive yourself crazy if you do that to yourself. I can tell you exactly how we’ll react if you try to wrap us in cotton wool and keep us from any danger.”
“Not happening,” the other Mobius agreed. “I’m so grateful that you saved me, but I wouldn’t have blamed you if you hadn’t been able to.”
But Loki would have blamed himself, and they all knew it.
“This universe is dangerous. It always has been, and the war certainly isn’t helping. I need you to give me the right to make my own choices.”
“What if they’re stupid choices?” Loki asked.
“Well, if they’re really dumb, you can try to talk me out of it. But ultimately, it’s still down to me. Free will, remember?”
Loki huffed. “Who says I was ever a fan of free will?”
So much easier when you were the one directing what everyone was doing. So much safer for this god who felt like he was destined to be alone. To try to take all the control and shape the world the way he wanted.
Mobius laid a hand over Loki’s. “I don’t know, I think it’s got some good perks.”
Loki’s lips curled up. “Maybe one or two.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t like how fragile you are. But you wouldn’t be the person I cared about if you weren’t doing what you thought was right. Even if it kills you. It’s just … not ever allowed to kill you, okay?”
“Okay,” the other Mobius agreed because that was really the only possible answer to that question, even if there was no possible way to back it up. “Come here.”
Loki fell into the embrace with a grateful look, and Mobius found that he really didn’t mind. This was what Loki needed right now, and there wasn’t much that Mobius wouldn’t do for Loki.
“I’m really quite curious about another TVA’s archives. How ‘bout I go take a look for a while?” he suggested. “Leave you two here.”
The look Loki turned on him hit him like a punch to the gut. Oh, wow. Apparently, it was a bit premature to suggest separating. The other Mobius squeezed Loki’s shoulder and let him go.
“Why don’t you show Mobius around? Wouldn’t want him to mess up our filing system. I need to sleep again anyway. Want to get out of here as soon as I can.”
After a moment, Loki nodded.
In the hallway, Mobius said, “Sorry.”
Loki made a scoffing sound. “You’re not the one acting like a … a scared little boy.”
If only Mobius had known how much that ice runt comment was going to bite him in the ass.
“It’s actually a really flattering amount of attachment.”
Loki looked away.
Mobius laid a hand on his arm. “Loki, the things you care about have historically all been taken away or lost.” Sometimes because of Loki himself, but he definitely wasn’t going there right now. “Your instinctive reaction is a very natural one. And you’re not the only one who’s reassured by a show of feelings, you know.” Loki looked at him again, finally. “It still feels pretty unbelievable that you picked me.”
Loki cupped his face. “You picked me, remember, took a chance on someone making a fool of himself in a courtroom.”
“Best decision I ever made,” Mobius said easily.
“Yeah,” Loki agreed, and leaned down for a kiss, which Mobius happily gave, never mind the fact that anyone could walk by at any point. It wasn’t like Mobius even actually worked here.
They swung by the other Mobius’s desk so that Loki could pick up the small stash of jet ski magazines there and have someone deliver them to the Mobius in the infirmary. Mobius couldn’t help but laugh, and Loki grinned at him, bright and irrepressible.
The archives were a lot like the ones in Mobius’s TVA, but the classification system was different, and Loki tried to get Mobius up to speed, though it soon became obvious that Loki hadn’t spent much time here.
“There was a video,” Loki said, waving his hand. “I watched it. Sort of.”
Mobius laughed and, truthfully, spent more time playing footsies with Loki under the table than actually reading the files they found. (He may have let Loki lure him into the bathroom for some, er, tension relief. It was probably a terrible precedent to set, but Mobius couldn’t bring himself to regret a second of it.)
After lunch with the invalid, Mobius compared notes with Loki and B-15 to see if there was anything that one TVA was doing better than the other that they could improve on for the war efforts. It didn’t seem to Mobius that the TVA was the answer to this issue, but he’d only started ruminating on an idea, and he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.
~*~
The other Mobius was allowed to return to his apartment the next afternoon with the assurance from Loki that someone would be there to make sure that he took care of himself. Even knowing that it was seriously going to cut into their alone time, Mobius didn’t begrudge him the help, and he knew that it would only be good for Loki in the long run to see the other man back on his feet and getting well.
They stayed for a full week, until the other Mobius finally dragged Loki away to talk with him privately, and whatever he said finally convinced the God of Mischief that his work here was done. And then it was just time to say goodbye.
“I’m sorry that you had to lose your Mobius for a while,” the other man said, smiling up at Loki. “But I’m so grateful that you fell into my life.”
“Me too,” Loki said. “Thank you for being so very you.”
The other man laughed. “Ditto.”
Loki pulled him in for a hug, mouthing, “See, no handshake,” to Mobius over the other man’s shoulder, and Mobius rolled his eyes but grinned. And it meant that he had to give the other Mobius a hug as well, so that Loki couldn’t mock him forever if he went for a handshake now.
“Thanks for everything,” Mobius said.
And maybe he got Loki and Sylvie a little more now after all. Because while it was extremely disconcerting having a man who looked exactly like him and behaved like him in so many ways, Mobius was also fully aware that it wasn’t him. They might be extremely similar, but at the end of the day, that Mobius was going to make his own decisions and choices independent of this Mobius. He was his own person.
“Thanks for loaning me a Loki,” the other Mobius responded.
“Hey,” Loki protested.
They all laughed, and that was easier than anything else.
“You’ve got my coordinates,” the other Mobius said finally.
“And our TVA as well,” Mobius agreed.
None of them knew exactly where they were going to end up.
“And locked in temporal readings,” Loki agreed.
Mobius punched in coordinates in his TemPad, and a Time Door appeared. He’d give Loki as long as he needed, but he was pretty sure at this point that it would only make it worse to delay longer. He wondered if they needed a minute alone, but then Loki twined his fingers with Mobius’s.
“Don’t be too good,” he told the other Mobius with a wink.
The other Mobius grinned, though it looked a little forced, and nodded, and then Loki tugged Mobius through the Time Door.
It winked shut behind them, and Loki closed his eyes and drew several deep breaths before he opened them again. And then he looked round himself and eyed Mobius.
“This isn’t the TVA.”
It was distinctly not the TVA.
“I thought maybe a little vacation would—”
Loki tackled him, and it turned out to be a good thing that Mobius had picked a secluded beach, because getting arrested wouldn’t have been quite the vacation he had been imagining.
Despite getting sand everywhere, it was totally worth it, especially since they could get clean again in the ocean (and then play around in the water, too).
They finally made it into the beach house, showered to get the salt water off their skin, found shorts to pull on, raided the kitchen, and settled on the couch with their bounty. Mobius felt like he had never in his entire life had this much skin-on-skin contact with someone, and it was the best feeling ever. (And he knew full well that Loki’s contact tended to be either seduction or fighting, not letting people really close. They both seemed to be enjoying this.)
They ate their fill, put dessert to a decidedly messy but thoroughly enjoyable use, showered again, and finally tumbled into bed, sated, exhausted, and thoroughly happy.
~*~
It was on the third day that Loki tapped Mobius’s right wrist. “What’s this?”
Mobius startled. “I didn’t realise you could tell it was there.”
Loki just nodded, looking completely unaccusatory, which was pretty amazing, when Mobius thought about it.
He cleared his throat. “I was, uh, waiting for a good time to bring it up. I didn’t mean to hide it from you. I mean, I didn’t hide it at all, obviously, but, uh, you can look if you want.”
Loki waved his hand, and with a shimmer of green, the spell was lifted, and the cuff bracelet was revealed. Loki sucked in a breath.
“That’s Asgardian.”
Maybe he’d suspected, but now he was staring at the proof.
“Yes,” Mobius agreed. “Your, uh, your mother gave it to me.”
Loki just stared at him, and Mobius hurried on, “And while we’re on the subject, I wanted to apologise for using your mother’s death against you. It was a tragedy, and there’s no proof that you had anything to do with it.”
Loki’s eyes dropped.
“I mean it, Loki,” Mobius said. “They might have turned left on their own. They might have turned right and still got there.”
“Or not,” Loki said stiffly.
“Or not,” Mobius conceded. “But we both know she’s the last person you’d ever deliberately harm.”
“You watched me tell her she wasn’t my mother.”
“And she knew exactly how much you were lying. She’s pretty awesome.”
Loki huffed out a laugh. “Yes, she’s very awesome. You still stalling, or you going to tell me what she gave you?”
Mobius let him turn the subject back to the original one, hoping that he’d really heard what Mobius had said. But he intended to repeat it as often as necessary.
“I’m, uh, still stalling a little, I guess,” Mobius admitted. “I think this is still a sensitive subject for you, and I don’t want to upset you.”
Loki eyed him. “So you tried to distract me with my dead mother?”
Mobius made a face. “I mean, I really wanted to apologise and this seemed like a good moment, but I see where you’re going with that. Have I mentioned that I thought the TVA created me and I don’t remember having any romantic relationships myself? It looked easier when I was just watching them.”
Loki laughed, thankfully, leaning into his side once more. “Tell me about it. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was at a window looking in on something I couldn’t quite grasp in my own right. Everything seemed to come so easily to Thor.”
He didn’t sound as bitter as Mobius had expected, and he wondered just how much of the file of his life he’d watched in those stolen moments before B-15 and then Mobius had found him again.
Then Loki tapped him on the wrist again. “Okay, stop stalling for real, I mean it. What did my mother give you?”
Mobius cleared his throat. “Like I said, she was awesome, and while she didn’t seem to know about the TVA per se, she totally accepted that I was a time traveller who’d maybe dealt with different versions of reality and was at Asgard for an important reason that wasn’t going to hurt anyone. She disguised me as an Asgardian, and I might have spent a lot of time staring at the variant of you that was there—apparently, most people look at Thor for some reason?—so she figured out embarrassingly quickly how fond I was of you.”
Loki’s smile was bittersweet. “She was always good at seeing into the heart of things. If Odin had had the same gift or had allowed himself to be guided by her a little more often, everything might have been different.” For a long moment, he stared off at something that Mobius couldn’t see, and then he blinked, shook his head a little, and looked back at Mobius. “But then, had that been the case, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. And I’m very glad to be here.”
Mobius felt his eyes tear up a little and blinked back the moisture. “Me, too,” he assured the other man.
He couldn’t ever wish for all the things that had befallen Loki in his long life to have befallen him, but he was nevertheless so very grateful for this particular outcome.
Loki nudged him again, and Mobius continued.
“I talked about you, kind of a lot.”
Loki’s lips curled up into a grin. “Were you fanboying with my mother?”
Mobius felt his ears heat up. “Maybe a little? It’s not like I could do so at the TVA, and she wanted to hear about it, and I maybe got a little carried away and, uh, might have sort of chewed her out for hiding your heritage from you?”
Loki just stared at him for a moment before finally saying, “You told off the Queen of Asgard? When you were her guest? And she’d shown you every courtesy?”
“… Yes?”
Loki went off into bright peels of laughter, and Mobius relaxed as he realised that the other man hadn’t been offended. It was also delightful to see the other man so genuinely amused.
Loki looked more relaxed when he finally stopped laughing, but he did quirk an eyebrow.
“I’m impressed with your stalling technique.”
“No, I swear I’m getting to the point,” Mobius said, still trying to figure out exactly how to say this with the least chance of upsetting Loki. “I might’ve implied that you disliked your Jotunn form.”
Loki stiffened.
Mobius hadn’t used the word “dislike”.
Mobius’s voice was soft. “Which I said was a shame, because you’re so beautiful.”
Loki scoffed, shifting away from Mobius, and the metaphorical distance grew even wider. Mobius suppressed a sigh.
“I mean it, Loki. We both know I love the Asgardian version of you, but I’m altogether enamoured of your Jotunn form as well.”
Loki still wasn’t looking at him. Should Mobius count it as progress that he hadn’t either left or attacked? Maybe he really was trying, and Mobius couldn’t give up now.
“In fact I’m so enamoured that I accepted your Mother’s gift, a bracelet that will let me touch you without being affected by the cold.”
Loki’s eyes snapped to his face, and Mobius made himself just sit there, give the other man time to process this.
“My mother gave you a magical object that would allow you to touch me if I appeared as a frost giant?”
Mobius nodded.
“Why would you want to do that?”
Loki seemed to genuinely not know the answer to that question.
“Oh, Loki,” Mobius said gently. “Because I always want to touch you.”
Loki continued to stare for another long moment, and then his eyebrow snapped together.
His voice came out a bit too high. “Are you saying you want to have sex when I’m a frost giant?”
“The short answer is ‘yes’,” Mobius said. “But I don’t want you to misinterpret me. I am already addicted to having sex with you like this. I love it, just like I love you. Based on details of your life that I absolutely did not carefully watch in the past, I know that you’ve enjoyed taking other forms during sex before. If ever you want to do that because you think it would be fun and not because you think that you need to do it, then I’d be happy to experiment with you. And while I wish that I could love you enough to make up for all the people in your life who didn’t, to make up for the shitty circumstances that means that you don’t love yourself, I don’t think I can. But I truly believe that you can learn to love yourself, and I think that needs to include all of you. And I just wanted you to know that as far as I’m concerned, all of you is loved. And I hope one day that you feel comfortable enough with me to show me that form. But I really wasn’t going to bring this up on day, what is it, three of our being together?”
An eyebrow quirked. “Saying it’s all my fault?”
Mobius laughed, probably a little harder than was warranted, but at least Loki wasn’t just staring at him now.
“No. Or maybe sort of yes, but only in a good way. I don’t know when I would suddenly have decided it was a good time to talk about something that I was positive would upset you.”
“But you’re so good at poking me where it hurts.”
Mobius couldn’t quite decipher the tone. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Makes me a good analyst. And probably a terrible lover.”
Loki laughed, and after a startled moment, Mobius realised his awful double entendre.
“That is not what I meant,” he said dryly. “Honestly, how old are you, twelve?”
(But he wasn’t really upset. He was desperately relieved that Loki seemed to be regaining some of his equilibrium.)
Loki twined their hands together. “You’re a wonderful lover. And you think more about my feelings than I think anyone in the history of my entire life has ever done. That means a lot to me.”
Loki swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and then a blue flush washed over his skin. Mobius watched, entranced, as the blue deepened and chased itself across every available inch of skin, as raised lines appeared, as those beautiful eyes went blood red. Loki was watching him anxiously, holding his fingers a little too tight with nails that were definitely longer and sharper right now.
But all Mobius could say was, “Wow.”
Mobius had come across a couple of Jotunn variants of Loki in his career, but they were few and far between. Seeing the transformation of this Loki on the screen was altogether different from witnessing it right in front of him, especially since this was for him.
“It doesn’t look like I’m giving you frostbite, so my mother’s charm seems to be working.”
Mobius had forgotten about the charm. Loki’s fingers felt cooler than normal, but certainly not the painful cold that had so badly affected the Asgardians and could easily kill a mortal.
“Mmm hmm,” Mobius hummed, still scanning Loki’s features, fascinated both by what was familiar and what was different.
“You’re staring,” Loki said.
“You’re beautiful,” Mobius told him.
Loki flinched, hard.
“I mean it,” Mobius insisted. “I guess I can’t make you see yourself as beautiful, but I won’t let you dismiss what I see, either. I don’t want you to feel like there’s any part of you that you need to hide from me.”
“And what if I want to hide it from you?” Loki demanded.
Mobius blinked. “Oh, well, I guess that’s totally your business, then.” He grimaced and released Loki’s hands. “Wait, am I pressuring you? I’m so sorry, your body is your body, and you’re the only one who gets to decide what it looks like.”
Mobius suddenly felt incredibly creepy. Only then Loki lifted Mobius’s chin with those beautiful blue fingers and leaned in to press his lips to Mobius’s. Mobius exhaled shakily and leaned into the kiss, hands coming up hesitantly, and when they weren’t rebuffed, sliding across the wonderful expanse of Loki’s chest, now bisected periodically by those beautiful swirling lines, something new for Mobius’s fingers to trace.
Mobius found himself stretched out on his back on the couch with Loki on top of him, their legs entwined as they traded lazy kisses and explored exposed skin. Eventually, Loki’s head ended up pillowed on Mobius’s chest, Mobius still tracing those lovely lines until they faded back into the rest of his skin as pink obscured the blue once more. Mobius continued to stroke Loki’s back.
They were silent for several minutes, but Mobius thought the silence was comfortable.
Eventually, Loki broke it. “I would have done my utmost to hide that from you forever. This was … this was nice.”
His voice shook a little, and Mobius wanted to hug him more than he was already doing.
“It was nice for me too.”
“You’re sure?” Loki asked carefully, tilting his head up so he could meet Mobius’s eyes.
“First of all,” Mobius said, “I didn’t grow up with frost giants as my country’s bogeyman. Don’t even get me started on vilifying an entire race of people, I’ll leave that argument for the day I get to tell Odin all about what I think of his A+ parenting skills.”
Loki snorted at Mobius’s bone dry tone, but his eyes held a little bit of awe, like it still surprised him when someone took his side. Mobius wasn’t going to rest until it was something that Loki knew that he could depend upon, at least when it came to Mobius.
Carefully, Mobius continued, “So to me, Jotunns are just another in the amazingly vast array of species in the universe, with no reason to take them instinctively in aversion, and I assure you, if you don’t do that, there’s just nothing there to be horrified about. The colour is so lovely, the patterns are exquisite. Proportions are elegant. And, sure, it’s a little disconcerting that those proportions normally mean I can be squashed like a bug in addition to being frozen into a block of ice, but that just means they’re majestic.”
Loki was eyeing him like he was a crazy person.
Mobius continued, “And then there’s the fact that it’s you, and I find you incredibly attractive. So yes, I am absolutely positive that it was nice for me. Because all of you is nice.”
Loki laughed. “That is quite possibly the least true statement you’ve ever uttered—and you worked for the TVA.”
Mobius rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. You’re smart and tricky and always beautiful to me.”
Loki’s lips tipped up. “My folksy dope.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
The grin turned sly. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”
~*~
The next day, Mobius detected a little reticence in the other man, but he chalked it up to Loki processing everything that had happened yesterday. He didn’t resume his Jotunn form, but Mobius hadn’t been expecting miracles, and Loki wasn’t at all reluctant for them to touch. (And Mobius hadn’t been lying about how much he liked Loki’s Asgardian form, either.) They swam, rested on the beach, cuddled, ate, and had enough sex that Mobius seriously began to wonder how he’d existed as long as he had without it.
But there were still moments where a frown sneaked onto Loki’s brow, where he stared off into the distance and Mobius knew that he wasn’t seeing anything that was in front of him.
Mobius gave him the day, not wanting to push too hard, too fast, but when the obvious discomfort lingered the next day as well, Mobius couldn’t leave it alone.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, not giving Loki the option this time to tell him that everything was fine this time.
“I need to tell you something,” Loki said, not quite meeting his eyes.
“At least you didn’t say ‘We need to talk,’” Mobius joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Loki’s eyes flashed to his, something like misery in them, and Mobius shut up.
Loki was silent for several long moments, like he was gearing himself up to speak, which probably should have prepared Mobius but totally didn’t for the first words out of his mouth to be “Sylvie and I”, and Mobius couldn’t be certain that he’d managed not to visibly react. Fortunately, Loki didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, once again staring at something Mobius couldn’t see as he continued, “We faced Alioth together.”
Loki stopped there, and since that wasn’t anything that resembled a surprise revelation, Mobius prompted after a moment, “That’s why you stayed behind.”
That’s why you left me. It went unsaid, and with the way Loki was still staring ahead with a slightly unfocussed gaze, Mobius could be reasonably certain that it hadn’t been understood. Mobius had genuinely thought that Loki had told him everything that had happened in the Citadel. Given that he hadn’t left out the kiss, Mobius had truly believed that was the whole story. What else could there be? Mobius was pretty sure that he didn’t want to know—and equally certain that he was going to let Loki make whatever confession he was gearing himself up to.
Loki nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t want her to have to try alone.” His lips tipped up, though he didn’t look amused. “It was a real Loki team effort, and you know Lokis, so you know how unlikely that was.” Loki fell silent for a moment and then said, “Sylvie and I enchanted Alioth.”
Mobius nodded, waited for a moment, and then tried, “You said.”
A much better plan than trying to kill the living storm, as far as Mobius was concerned.
Loki huffed out a breath, sounding exasperated. “You’re not listening. I enchanted Alioth.”
Mobius was listening but still not understanding. Cautiously, he ventured, “I know you can use magic?”
He hadn’t seen a ton of examples of it in person, it was true, but he’d always known what Loki was capable of, and he’d seen more casual examples of magic while they’d been here at the beach house than he had in all their other time put together. Mobius had been intrigued and grateful, and surely he hadn’t seemed like he didn’t like it?
Loki shot him a look, but then his face softened, perhaps because he saw how confused Mobius was.
“Alioth was the first being that I enchanted the way Sylvie did, but at the other Mobius’s TVA, once they found out the truth, some of the staff wanted to know who they really were. So I … I gave them their memories back.”
And Mobius finally, finally knew what conversation they were having, and he couldn’t help but exhale a shaky breath of relief because it wasn’t, at all, the conversation that he’d thought they were having.
Firmly, he said, “I don’t want my memories back, Loki.”
Loki’s lips had settled into a tight line, hands clenched into fists at his side.
“But you have a home. You might have a family.”
Mobius settled his hands over Loki’s, willing the man to look up at him, which he finally did.
“I do have a family,” Mobius told him with every ounce of feeling he possessed. Loki sucked in a breath. “I like who I am now, with you. I can’t go back. I don’t want to. I want to move forward with you.”
Loki exhaled shakily and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching.
“I mean it, Loki. You’re the home and the family I choose, if you’ll have me. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Loki whispered before tilting his head to catch Mobius’s lips even as he scrambled to climb into Mobius’s lap.
Mobius kissed him back, happily accommodating him. Mobius felt a little bit lightheaded, because it had really seemed as though this discussion was going to result in something terrible, not the confession that Mobius had known but had to admit he had still wanted to hear.
Just as they were getting to the point of so hot and bothered that Mobius assumed there was only one logical conclusion, Loki pulled back.
“There’s something else.”
Mobius groaned, eyes flickering open to eye the other man. “You’re killing me here.”
Loki’s lips tipped up, but his eyes were serious once more, and he climbed off of Mobius to sit beside him again.
Mobius blew out a breath. “Do you think you could just give me this one? You’re stressing me out a little.”
Loki licked his lips, nodded. Hesitated for a moment. “Under normal circumstances, I don’t think even I would be doing this quite so quickly. But who knows? No part of these circumstances are normal, and I did believe for centuries that I was meant to be alone. So maybe it’s not such a surprise after all that I’m greedy about the things that I want. And I want you so much.”
“You have me,” Mobius promised.
“But for how long?”
They had carefully never talked about how time passed outside of the TVA. Mobius had known the cost of falling in love with a god—but he supposed it wasn’t really him that was going to pay it, was it?
“For as long as possible,” Mobius said, because he couldn’t lie about this.
Loki’s eyes snapped to his, bright and so intense.
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes,” Mobius said, because that was the truth, though he didn’t really understand the question.
Loki swallowed, then said, out of the blue, “You really made an impression on my mother.”
Mobius blinked, processed. “You didn’t say you went to Asgard.”
Loki nodded. “Thought I was going to try to be patient before we had this discussion. But like I said, I’m super greedy, and we’re kind of in the middle of a war. I’m afraid of what might happen if I wait.”
“Wait for what?” Mobius asked. Made a face. “Or don’t wait for what?”
Loki huffed a breath, looking almost amused but still really tense. “It doesn’t guarantee anything, of course. We both saw how my file ended, after all. But I’d worry less.”
“You’d worry less if what?” Mobius tried again.
Loki held up his hand, palm up, and with a flash of green he was holding a small golden apple.
“I’d worry less if you eat this.”
Mobius stared at it in complete confusion, and then his Norse mythology came back to him. (He’d admitted he was a fan, right? He’d liked to compare the stories with reality.) He stared at the apple, and then he stared at Loki in awe.
“Loki, is that one of Idunn’s apples?”
“My mother’s actually the one who grows them, and only when they’re needed.”
Mobius stared at the shine, something stronger than just the reflective properties of gold, a glow that left you with the irrepressible feeling that this was a magic object. He swallowed.
“You’re saying that your mother started growing this apple after she met me?”
Loki nodded. “And once she saw that I felt the same way, she gave it to me. For you. If you want it.”
And Mobius finally got it now, the whole conversation that they were having, how Loki had stewed and then done the right thing, offered to give Mobius his old home before he offered him a new one instead.
He heard Loki swallow with a dry click, and Mobius realised that the hand holding the apple was shaking faintly but perceptibly.
“I know it’s sudden. You can think about it, of course.”
“I don’t know,” Mobius drawled. “Can you really call it sudden when it’s something we’ve both been waiting for for centuries?”
Loki’s eyes widened slightly, and then he clearly read the answer in Mobius’s face because he lit up, and, wow, the knowledge that Mobius had so much of an impact on Loki’s feelings was pretty awe-inspiring. The apple disappeared in another flash of green, confusing Mobius for the half second until Loki tackled him and they dealt with all their pent up emotions in the most pleasant way possible.
They wound up sprawled on the floor afterwards, Mobius propped up against the base of the couch and Loki resting against his chest. Mobius was playing with Loki’s hair, combing his fingers through the dark strands, curling them round his fingers, and stroking Loki’s scalp. Loki was practically boneless against him, and Mobius made a note to try this whenever they needed to have a difficult conversation in the future.
“How does it work, if I eat the apple?”
“You’ll age like I do, like Asgardians do, which is to say, very, very slowly compared to Midgardians. But I guess, uh, technically faster than you’ve been doing in the TVA.”
“I think we’re putting that one down as existing, not living.”
“You won’t need to eat or sleep as frequently as a Midgardian. You should heal more easily. You’ll be harder to kill in a lot of significant ways. But, you know, a blade through the heart, crushing of the throat and spine, complete incineration, behead—”
“Whoa, whoa, yeah, I get it, you do not need to name every single way I could possibly still die. So it’s the, uh, fragile sort of near immortality?”
Loki laughed. “Yes, let’s call it that.”
“Chances that it’s going to go horribly wrong?”
Loki stiffened, but Mobius thought it was important to ask the question, and he kept playing with Loki’s hair.
With a sigh, Loki relaxed back against him.
“Not impossible, I suppose, but slim. This was grown by my mother for you and me. She’s very powerful. I’ll have my magic, and I’ll be here in general, with you every step of the way.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’ve heard of it going badly wrong if stolen. And being a very difficult transition if alone. I don’t know exactly what it’ll feel like, but it’s, uh, kind of rewriting your genetic makeup.”
It probably was madness to be considering this so soon, when they’d barely actually been together for a week. But Mobius hadn’t been lying to Loki when he said it felt like he’d been waiting for this forever. He hadn’t known that he’d been waiting for it. It was possible that it was all actually the machinations of He Who Endures, paving the way for that final confrontation, a way to get Loki into the TVA, to get Sylvie the help she needed. Only they were past that now, left with all the feelings that had developed and all the regrets of the past and the hopes for the future. No matter what they’d learned about free will, it had certainly felt to Mobius like he was making all his choices when he was making them, and it still felt like it now. And just at the moment, there was nothing he wanted more than this particular man.
Maybe, if they weren’t in the middle of a war, Mobius would have counselled waiting.
Or maybe there was a reason he was attracted to the God of Mischief.
Mobius raised an eyebrow. “How close did you come to blending this into a smoothie and just feeding it to me?”
Loki catapulted off Mobius’s chest and slewed around with a look of outrage on his face. When he caught sight of Mobius’s expression, his lips compressed into a thin line, which worked until the corner of his mouth twitched up.
“I’ll remember that for next time, asshole.”
Mobius grinned at him. “Whatever you say, pussycat.”
Loki flopped back onto him, “accidentally” elbowing him in the solar plexus, and making Mobius laugh even as he groaned theatrically.
“Let’s do it,” Mobius said.
Loki tipped his head up so that he was looking at Mobius upside down. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Mobius confirmed, feeling free and hopeful—and like this was one of the first decisions that he’d made for his life, nothing to do with for all time. Always.
It was nothing whatever like eating a regular apple, nor was it anything like Mobius imagined eating a metal apple would be like. It was weirdly heavy, the apple between his palms and each bite in his mouth, but it was juicy and so packed full of flavour that Mobius felt like he couldn’t capture the taste at all, that he didn’t have the words to describe it.
Despite the fact that he’d carefully chewed each mouthful, it started to feel like the apple had reappeared in his stomach, too heavy, too solid, something that wasn’t really supposed to be there. A sharp pain made him double over. Loki’s hand on his back and his voice telling him that he’d be all right was the last coherent thought that Mobius had for what felt like eternity.
~*~
When Mobius came altogether back to himself, he was in bed. Loki was sitting in a chair by the bed. Everything was a little too bright.
Mobius groaned. “Remind me never to believe you when you say you’re not sure what something will feel like.”
Loki’s face went expressionless and without a word, he rose to his feet and left, closing the door behind him with what looked like rigidly deliberate care.
Mobius blinked, brain still feeling a bit like it was bouncing around his skull. After a moment, he pushed himself to a seated position, finding when the sheet pooled at his waist that he was naked. He stared at the sheets. They were pale green. Hadn’t they been orange? Mobius climbed out of bed, grasped the headboard and managed to stay upright until the dizziness passed, and carefully made his way to the bathroom. He peered in the mirror. He looked … way less weird than he felt, actually. He looked clean, but he could remember flashes of tossing and turning and sweating, pain and discomfort, a cool body wrapped around his, soothing him, green light that always made him feel better.
Mobius climbed into the shower even if he was technically clean, feeling like the water sluicing across his flesh brought a measure of clarity and reason with it, like everything was settling into place the way that it was supposed to be.
Then he tugged on a pair of shorts and went in search of Loki, finding him on the beach, knees drawn up to his chest, staring out at the horizon. He was actually wearing a shirt along with shorts, and Mobius wondered how armoured he’d felt the need to be since they hadn’t worn more than one piece of clothing maximum since they’d arrived and got naked for the first time.
Mobius sat down beside him, feeling the grains of sand beneath his fingertips. He drew in a deep breath of ocean-scented air and marvelled that this was apparently how Asgardians felt all the time. He’d no doubt get used to it, find his new normal, but right now, everything still felt enhanced.
“I will work on my tone when I’ve just been unconscious,” Mobius told the other man.
“For three days,” Loki spat out.
Mobius made a face. “Oh, Loki, I’m so sorry.”
He held out his hand, and after a long moment, Loki reached out and twined his fingers with Mobius’s. Then he shifted a little so that his head was leaning on Mobius’s shoulder and he wasn’t hunched quite so tightly together.
“I didn’t know it was going to be that bad,” Loki murmured. “I swear.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “I thought I was going to lose you.”
Mobius’s hand tightened on Loki’s. “You didn’t.”
“I could have. All because I wanted—”
Mobius rearranged them so that he could look Loki in the eye. “Hey. This was something we both wanted. It was something I chose. If it hadn’t worked, it would not be on you.”
Loki looked like he entirely disagreed, but he allowed Mobius to pull him into a hug anyway, hugging him back hard.
“I wasn’t lucid through much of it, but I do remember you. You stayed with me. Took care of me. That’s everything I could ask for.”
“You were burning up with fever,” Loki said after a long moment, voice still raw in a way that Mobius was only just getting used to, naked emotion from someone who’d spent a lifetime hiding what he really felt. “But you didn’t want to be alone. You, uh, seemed to react better when I was right there, touching you. Turns out you really do like my Jotunn form.”
He sounded faintly apologetic and mostly still a little perplexed, like Mobius’s reaction still wasn’t one that he could fully comprehend.
Mobius just nodded. “It’s cooler than your Asgardian form. That makes my vague memories make a little more sense. Thank you.”
“I thought about trying to take you to my mother, but you started to convulse if I tried to move you. By the second day, you writhed in pain if anything but me and my magic touched you, so I just laid you out on top of me and wrapped us in my magic.”
Mobius caught a vague memory of burrowing against Loki’s shoulder and chest, pressing his hot forehead into the cool skin, slurring, “S’nice, s’nice, so nice” a lot.
“I used a juicebox to get some liquids into you. Turns out water was the only thing you’d tolerate, and your body excreted a lot.”
Mobius grimaced. “Maybe I’m glad I was unconscious for most of this. And I really appreciate your magic. And you taking care of me.”
He could—thankfully—only imagine what a mess he’d made.
Loki sniffed. “Yes, it was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever had to do.”
Mobius pressed a kiss to Loki’s temple. “My hero.”
Loki made another huffy sound but didn’t make any attempt to move away.
“Judging by the fact that I feel like my senses got an upgrade, I’m guessing it worked?”
Loki hummed an assent. “Once the fever finally broke late yesterday, I knew you’d be okay. You could touch things again and actually fell into a proper sleep.”
“And when’s the last time you slept?” Mobius asked.
“Asgardians don’t need to sleep as often as mere mortals.”
“That is definitely not what I asked.”
But Mobius hadn’t really needed to ask anyway. The answer was right in front of him.
“Hey,” Mobius said. “You know what time it is?”
Loki eyed the sun high in the sky. “Early afternoon?”
Mobius rolled his eyes. “Time for me to take care of you.”
Loki eyed him, and Mobius held out his hand. “Let me?”
Loki hesitated for a moment and then laid his hand in Mobius’s. Mobius climbed to his feet and then tugged Loki up after him.
Mobius liked so much about Loki, his intelligence, his wit, his prickly bits, his mischievousness, his glee, his take-charge attitude, his ability to find a loophole, his scheming. It was also really nice to complement this with the softer side of him that mostly came out with Mobius, this willingness to lay himself on the line emotionally, the growing trust to put himself in Mobius’s hands and believe that he wasn’t going to be hurt or betrayed.
He grew increasingly loose and placid in the bath, leaning up against Mobius’s chest as Mobius ran a washcloth over his skin. He made appreciative noises as Mobius massaged shampoo into his hair and pouted but obediently ducked under the water to rinse most of it out before Mobius poured clean water to remove the last of the residue. Mobius carefully towelled Loki dry, watching the other man’s eyes gleam with appreciation as Mobius knelt at his feet. He settled them both on the bed so that he could brush out Loki’s hair, the other man practically purring in contentment at the rhythmic strokes, and Mobius wondered if anyone had ever done this for him before. Mobius thought of the tightly slicked back hair, the helmets and horns, and he acknowledged just how lucky he was to have this Loki here with him now.
In the kitchen, Mobius put together as many quick finger foods as he could find, and then he fed them to Loki until neither of them could take it anymore. And then Mobius took Loki apart as slowly and carefully as he knew how.
Afterwards, Loki lay sprawled out on his side against Mobius on the bed.
Loki’s voice was languid and pleasure-filled. “Sign me up for that one twice.”
Mobius laughed, and Loki’s lips curled up into a pleased smirk.
As Mobius was falling asleep, he felt a kiss pressed to his temple and heard a voice whisper, “Thank you for staying with me.”
There was nothing Mobius wanted more.
~*~
Mobius took a couple more days to get used to the way his body now felt, to enjoy every second of this time with Loki.
And then, finally, he admitted, “About the multiversal war. I have an idea. You’re probably not going to like it.”
~*~