God Awful Beige
Clothing was something Loki never struggled with. As a child, as an adult, he knew what he liked and felt pleasurable to wear, and followed those feelings. On Tuesday, what was calling out to him was a green tweed suit with a cool grey button up underneath. A few bits of gold jewelry, black leather shoes and belt, and Loki was satisfied.
Mobius’s office was in a high-rise in the center of town; despite it being well within walking distance, Loki drove there. A modern and corporate place has an expectation of sterility to it- extremes of openness and confines, materials that are cool to the touch, constant reflection and shine. The first floor of the building was like that, windows and stainless steel in a lobby of gaudy size. But when the tight elevator doors opened to Mobius’s floor, everything expected was absent. Carpets, warm lighting from interesting fixtures, murals on the wall that looked like public art, and a lot of beiges. Somehow, it was worse.
Mobius was standing at the front desk and chatting with the receptionist. When the bell of the closing doors sounded, he turned around. He was wearing the same outfit as the funeral. “Loki! I was waiting for you to show up. Here, let’s head over to my office and talk there,” Mobius gave a little wave to the receptionist and gestured to Loki to follow. As they walked the halls, every window had drawn blinds and few very doors were open. Mobius stopped at his door and let Loki in first. It was like the rest of the office, but it had a large window that flushed out the aged lighting. Mobius closed the door behind him and the two sat down on opposite sides of a round desk.
“I already looked over the will,” Loki blurted. He hadn’t really done this kind of thing before and while he knew the end goal, everything until that point was unclear. Yes, he attended funerals of family allies, but Frigga was the first death of his family.
“Uh, before we start, I’d just like to start off with basic information about the two of us. My name is Mobius- first, middle and last- my parents were a bit of hippies but I like it, and my pronouns are he, him.”
Loki felt his eyebrows twitch, “Loki Lauferyson, he and him.”
“I don’t often talk that much about my clients to their family, it brings up a lot of emotions and is just a tricky thing to navigate, so after this I’m done. But, when I was talking with your mom, she told me that you were genderfluid and to just double check what to call you from time to time, is that right?”
“...yes.”
“So him, him is the right ones? For now of course?”
“...yes.”
“Great, I know that you said that you read the will already, but I made some personal notes on my copy. I find that when people read it, it makes things a lot more clear to them.”
Before Loki could protest, Mobius was handing Loki the few pages that involved him. “I am well aware of what I need to do,”
Mobius reached out the papers a little bit again. Loki let out a sigh and took them. The notes were in the margins with very neat letters in bright blue:
- Must earn $100k w/out any help from Odin, no money attached to him will work
- Clean out garden shed/greenhouse, can keep anything found, must be to a “respectable standard”
- Attend Social Handiwork Club (every meeting) for two years
- Can live in house while working on goals
- Must meet terms in 2 years OR contract expires
- Will receive an alternate list of items, but no property or anything not yet collected in the house
“You can keep that copy for yourself,” Mobius interjected.
“I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s the social handiwork club?” Loki flipped to the page that mentioned the group.
“It’s a club your mom was a member of, I’ll bring you to the first meeting. We’re gonna check that you’re attending by talking to the other ladies there, so don’t try anything.”
“Okay, and how exactly will you be checking that I’m cleaning out the home myself?”
“You can only tidy up shed and greenhouse when I’m there,”
“What even qualifies as a ‘respectable standard’?”
“Oh, Frigga said whatever I find to be nice.”
“So you are the only person who is checking to see I’m achieving all these things.”
“Well, I have to give my reports to a third party, and it’s all gotta be notarized, and I took an oath when I started this job to be fair and equal and all that.”
“Ah, my apologies, surely your ‘oath’ will protect me from anything unjust,”
“Listen, I know the people who come in here are hurting, and it would be wrong to take advantage of that, no matter how snippy they are.”
Loki gave a scrunched and pained smile to Mobius, “Well, let’s just hope this works out then.”
“So, you’ll be taking on the contract?” Mobius straightened his back a little.
“Of course I am,”
“Alright! Let me get in a couple witnesses and a notary, and we can sign all this,” Mobius picked up a landline on his desk, made a few short calls, and then hung up. “Have you seen the house yet?”
“No, if it was a surprise to my father then it was an even greater one to me,” Loki seemed to find that the question itself was absurd.
“Okay, I’ll show you the property and hand you the keys,” Mobius pulled out a small leather pocketbook planner and flipped through a few pages, “Does Friday at noon work for you? Or are you too busy shining your fancy little shoes.”
It was driving Loki up a wall how casual and sweet Mobius made his little digs, “Fortunately enough, I’m available.”
The little cohort of people Mobius called arrived shortly after, thick stacks of papers were signed, and they all left as quickly as they came. Mobius began putting things back where they belonged and Loki took that as his cue to leave.
Loki spent that night looking up the house online, nothing came up except for a measly google street view. He then started to research the town it was in. As expected, it was chock full of other rich seasonal residents, contained a tiny downtown, and seemed to only thrive when the wealthy were there to throw money around. The final subject of study was where the social handiwork club met, which was also in that town. It met twice a month in a bungalow outside of the gated communities that seemed to dominate the land, and the owners of the house were Hunter B. Fenton and Loki Fenton. Loki was a bit surprised to see someone with the same name as him. The last name, Fenton, also appeared in the contact info Mobius gave him of the club organizer- except her name was Sylvie. Loki came to the conclusion that she must have been the sister of either Loki or Hunter, and looked over to the time on his laptop. 5 AM. Loki rubbed his face and let out a little groan then started his night routine.
While patting in face cream, Loki contemplated a few methods on how to go about the will. By the time he finally slinked into bed, he was fairly certain on what his plan would be. Most of which relied on the quality of the summer home, but gladly some planning could be done beforehand.