Chapter Text
“There’s no more Josta,” complained Mobius, plopping into the chair beside Loki’s desk in an attitude of utter defeat.
Loki leapt at any excuse to take a break from the mind-numbing routine of TVA tutorials he’d been assigned. Trying to swat Miss Minutes with Mobius’s jetski magazine had been amusing, but the infuriating TVA mascot had now retired to a corner of the computer screen, muttering “I never” and similar regionalisms from a Midgard dialect known perplexingly as “Southern.” She was no fun any more. Loki’s brain was full. No more tidbits about the Sacred Timeline or the mindnumbingly Byzantine organizational architecture of the Time Variance Authority were going to stick.
“Hallelujah,” Loki said, trying on another of Miss Minutes’s expressions.
Mobius glared at him, a combination of surprise and childish irritation coloring his face. His moustache bristled in that way Loki was beginning to find charming.
Loki knew better than to dwell on anything “charming” in one of his kidnappers. But following his own better instincts was a skill Loki had yet to master.
“That word is out of character for you,” accused Mobius.
“You force me to interact with Miss Minutes all day,” Loki pointed out. “Of course I’m going to pick up some of her vocal habits.”
“Especially the ones you guess are going to annoy me,” Mobius retorted. “Am I right, or am I right?”
Loki cringed. “You have a lot of nerve, accusing me of annoying language habits. So tell me. What brings you to darken the desk of your prisoner? You say you’ve run out of your precious flavored water? What do you expect me to do about it? I would conjure you some, but oops! My magic powers don’t work here.”
“I don’t expect you to do anything about it,” Mobius said with irritation. “It’s just something people who are coworkers do — drop by each other’s desks every once in a while, to engage in chit-chat.”
“I am a god,” Loki sniffed. “I don’t have any interest in acquiring the habits of worker drones.”
“You’re a god who’s going to need to cop a better attitude if you want to earn a meeting with the Time Keepers.”
Loki slumped in his chair, his attitude now a mirror of Mobius’s.
“You’re just dangling that at me as bait,” he told Mobius. “You have no intention of letting me meet the Time Keepers. But never mind that,” he went on. “Tell me about this Josta, king of beverages. What’s so wonderful about it, that its lack sends you into a spiral of despair?”
Mobius perked up. “It’s hard to explain, really. I discovered it on my first mission, to an Earth at the end of what they called the twentieth century.”
“You never forget your first,” smirked Loki in a low, sultry voice. He’d only intended to yank Mobius’s chain again, so he was surprised to find himself wondering how it would feel to kiss that mouth, with its mustache.
Mobius actually shut up. (“You love to talk,” he’d accused Loki the day they first met. “Talky, talky, talky.” All Loki could say to that, now that he’d known Mobius for a couple of weeks, was “It takes one to know one.”) The bureaucrat gazed at his minion, an unreadable expression crossing his face.
“Go on,” prompted the temporarily embarrassed god.
“In the infinite variety of carbonated drinks, there’s just something special about Josta. A can of Josta could turn a dull day into a bright one. It just…pumped up the volume.”
He slumped again. “And I thought I had another case, but now it’s all gone.”
“So, go and get some more,” Loki said, in the tone of everyone who thinks the solution to a complex problem is simple.
“It’s not made around here.”
“You are a senior agent, are you not? You have the use of a TemPad, no? So go to that Earth at the end of its twentieth century and get some more from the source. Honestly, Mobius, it’s so simple. Why didn’t you think of it yourself? The TVA really bred initiative out of its employees, didn’t it?”
Loki had definitely gotten Mobius’s goat now. “It’s not that simple, L1130!”
“Stop calling me that!” Loki snapped, his goat also gotten.
“Then stop saying stupid things!” Mobius retorted. “I can’t just pop off to anywhere using the TemPad. That would be irresponsible! Maybe you’re used to living on your own terms, but that doesn’t apply to everyone, your godhead.” Mobius glared at his captive. “Not even to you, although I’ve apparently failed to convince you that your role in the Sacred Timeline is fixed. There’s a reason so many intelligent races in the multiverse have a concept of Fate.”
“My, my,” said Loki sarcastically. “I suggest a five minute jaunt to a 20th century Earth convenience store, and I get a lecture on Fate? Are you sure that there’s not something addictive in this Josta? You certainly act as if you’re experiencing withdrawl.”
Mobius surprised Loki again. Instead of continuing the lecture, he hung his head. Almost as if…
“There is,” Loki crowed. “What wondrous ingredient does Josta have that’s so rare in the other infinite varieties of fizzy drinks?”
Mobius muttered something unintelligible.
“I didn’t catch that,” Loki prodded.
Mobius muttered again.
“I can’t heeeaar you,” Loki said in a sing-song voice. Agents at other desks were beginning to pay attention to the conversation.
“Guarana!” said Mobius, more loudly. “Look, I’m not happy with this line of conversation.”
Having encountered resistance, Loki did what Lokis throughout the multiverse do. He pushed. “What’s that?”
Mobius didn’t answer, just glared at Loki as if he could explode his brain from the inside with the power of thought alone. Loki knew only one being in the universe who could come close to doing that. And Mobius was no Thanos.
“Stop!” hissed Mobius as Loki turned to the computer and entered something on the keyboard.
A moment later he was snickering uncontrollably.
“Has a reputation as an aphrodisiac!!!” he announced, although now that he had his little Mobius-goad, he lowered his voice. “But my dear Agent, why do you need an aphrodisiac?”
“Look, it helps me survive my workday, all right?”
Loki narrowed his eyes. “Who are you shagging, then? Renslayer?”
Mobius’s face turned purple, which told Loki he’d hit a target, although he didn’t know what kind. “I’m not ‘shagging’ anyone!”
“I see. So on your afternoon break you like to go somewhere private with your Josta and your hand?” Loki teased meanly.
Mobius realized how Loki had tricked him, and frowned furiously. “You’re feeling sorry for me,” he grumbled.
Loki forbore to mention that his own experience was likewise neither wide nor deep. Every time he felt as if he might want to get close to someone, he began mistrusting them. “Whyever would I feel sorry for you? You’ve got an important job, a nice apartment, respect from your peers, friends, a hobby or two. Who could ask for more…? Except maybe a warm, moist…”
“Loki, stop it. You told me you didn’t like being cruel. But you’re being cruel to me right now and clearly enjoying it.”
Loki remembered his Fate, as Mobius had shown him. Losing his mother. His brother. Dying at the hands of the monster he’d so recently escaped.
He suddenly felt sad and lonely.
“I don’t have a lover, either. Or a, how did you put it the other day? A fuck buddy.”
The look he gave Mobius was needy and pleading.
Mobius’s face had still been indignant, but now it softened. “We’re two lonely people. Peas in a pod. Aren’t we?”
Loki’s first instinct was to reverse course, go back to harassing Mobius. He didn’t like how vulnerable he felt, hearing the comparison and knowing, in the tiny part of him that couldn’t hide from the truth, that it was real.
He also knew Mobius would be hurt, would feel betrayed, by what he was going to do next. He wanted to change the subject, walk away from the desk and pretend this conversation never happened, undo what he’d done.
But no. You might be able to prune timelines, but you couldn’t roll them back and redo them.
Loki unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and brought out two of the cans of Josta he had hidden. He handed one to Mobius.
“Time for a break?” he suggested.
Mobius looked at the cans. Loki expected him to show anger. That wasn’t precisely what happened. He took one, and his eyes became moist, even while his brows remained drawn down. He was in the grip of some complex emotion.
And then Loki saw Mobius relax. His face smoothed out into a smile as tension drained out of his shoulders and arms.
“Yes, Loki. Thank you. A break would be just the thing.”
Loki gazed intently at Mobius. “This is a…surprising reaction to my prank,” he remarked.
Mobius’s smile faltered.
“I’ve been on edge recently. I don’t know why, but it feels like something’s going to snap. Break. Give. It feels momentous. Nothing momentous has happened for what seems like thousands of years, we just go on, year after year, pruning timelines. But… then you arrive. At first it’s all the same old, same old. Yet another Loki. But instead of getting yourself pruned within a few hours, you manage to make a place for yourself here. We rely on you now, your research skills and, in the field, your magic. It’s different. You’re different. Still a Loki, but…different.”
Loki didn’t know what to do with this emotional unburdening. He hated being called “a” Loki and reminded that Mobius had encountered other versions of him. He didn’t know whether to be indignant or relieved that the other versions had been pruned! “I still fail to see how my pranking you helps.”
“It’s predictable. It’s expected. Thank you for being you, Loki.”
Loki realized several things.
He didn’t want to be predictable to Mobius.
He liked Mobius.
He wanted to make Mobius feel good.
Loki wasn’t used to caring about whether someone else was happy, unless it meant they’d do something he wanted.
But it wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken a chance when he was at a crossroads.
Loki took a chance. He let his voice drop to a husky growl. “Shall we take a break…together?”
He stood up from his chair and offered Mobius a hand.
Mobius’s eyes narrowed and then went wide. Sweat sprung out on his brow. He licked his lips.
He accepted Loki’s hand.
They strolled to the elevator together.