Archive of Our Own ^beta

A year’s worth of time passes before Mobius sees Loki again.

Maybe exactly a year, maybe not. Mobius couldn’t say. The immediate days after Loki made his sacrifice, saved the TVA, saved them all, had passed in a blur. Mobius at the TVA, still, but not present there, not really, caught in that last moment before Loki vanished through the rift and haunted by the prospect of what to do next. If you never look, you’ll never know.

After he leaves and returns to the timeline, his timeline, it’s not particularly any less of a blur. He looks. He knows. Knows what he was taken from, knows what was stolen from him. A family, a home.

It hurts more and less than it should.

He tells Sylvie he’s going to wait there for a little bit. And he does. He waits, and he doesn’t admit to himself what he’s waiting for. He knows this too, but he won’t permit himself to think it. Futile, foolish hope: it would cut him worse than any blade he has faced.

He waits, though not exactly in the spot Sylvie leaves him. It turns out, when Don heads inside, and the sun sets, and his sons are tucked into bed, that it gets chilly out on the dark street. That, and several dog walkers have looked askance at him, standing there, hands on his hips, staring at the house across the street, his house, and seeing something else.

He gets a motel that first night, the next few. Sleeps fitfully, grateful to, lest he dream of all he has gained and what he’s going to do about it. Lest he dream of all he has lost and how he’s going to live without it.

The TVA — Casey specifically — had appropriated some funds for Mobius, to get him on his feet. That, and paperwork that gives him the alias Matthew M Mobius (and the M doesn’t stand for Mobius anymore, so he’s down two out of three). He can’t be another Don; it’s odd enough that his doppelgänger moves in on the same block without their names being identical too.

Because that’s what he does. It’s not perhaps the best of ideas, but he doesn’t know what else to do. The TVA wasn’t fulfilling for him anymore, not like it is for B-15, but he doesn’t crave life the way Sylvie does either, isn’t content to head off into the sunset and never look back. Isn’t content at all.

The house he rents is comfortable enough, even if it is the worst on the block, not like the one Don, he, owns. It’s small and the interior is tired, faded wallpaper and scuffed floors, and the garden has run wild with neglect. But it has everything he needs: a bed to sleep in and a table to eat at and a roof over his head to shelter him. But despite the sun streaming through the windows, even with the thermostat turned all the way up, the chill never seems to leave him.

He gets a job because the misappropriated funds can’t last forever. At first, he thinks he wants something that will hide him away, like holing up in his cubicle at the TVA and pouring over files for days on end. Can’t imagine doing what Don does, being a salesman, talking to people when he feels so glum, so empty. He takes a temporary position archiving files at the local library. The job will only last so long as the boxes do but that’s okay. Mobius has had a permanent position before. As it turned out, they don’t last forever either.

Though, the library gig lasts longer than he expected. The boxes do eventually empty, at his hand, but by then he’s wormed his way in. It turns out, he didn’t want to be in that little basement room filing alone, all day every day, so he turns up early and leaves late, to avoid having to rush down there immediately or head up and straight out at the end of the day. He spends every break and lunch upstairs, in the staff room or out on the floor, talking, to staff and community alike. He brings in pie from a nearby cafe every Friday, though not key lime, never key lime. He remembers people’s plans and asks after them. He’s nice to the kids, volunteers to do the Tuesday morning storytime on his break. (He tries to remember what it was like to be a father, a dad, but can’t quite grasp it).

So, they keep him. They wouldn’t be able to, normally; he’s unqualified. But one of the usual staff goes on maternity leave and they can save some money by having him fill in, so they do.

He’s been working there for a little under a year. So, he knows it’s about a year, even if he hasn’t counted the days.

Even if it feels like it’s been longer.

The library is quietest weekdays after lunch, when people visiting on their break have gone back to work and parents have whisked away their little ones for a nap or to go pick up the bigger ones from school. Mobius is manning the front desk, normally directing people to where they can find what. Right now, in the afternoon lull, he’s doing a crossword.

There’s the sound of feet scuffing ever so slightly on the carpet in front of the desk. He didn’t think he’d been that engrossed, but nine down — complex mythological character for seven — is a tricky one, he doesn’t have any letters for it yet. That’s his excuse for why he hasn’t registered the patron’s presence until this moment.

“Hello,” he greets, dropping his pen and lifting his head, “How can I help you on this fi–”

It’s him.

Mobius would know him anywhere, every iteration, every variation, every variant, so he knows it’s Loki.

But this is his Loki. He’d know that even without the god outfit he wears, the one he transformed into as his TVA uniform disintegrated, and the shocked expression, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

Mobius shares the sentiment.

“Loki?” he says, and it comes out a question, hoarse and half-whispered.

Loki — his Loki, he knows it — inexplicably shakes his head. He looks pained, hurt. Is he hurt? Is that why he’s here? Standing only feet from Mobius, but space too far and separated from him by the library counter.

“Loki,” Mobius says again, pleading this time, for what he’s not sure, and this seems to bring forth words from Loki.

“Mobius,” he starts, “I’m– I didn’t mean to– I didn’t mean for– I’m sorry.”

And then he’s gone.

Mobius blinks and blinks at the spot where he was, heart racing. Stands frozen and tries to make sense of what he’d seen. What he thinks he saw. No, he did see it, see him. It can’t have been a hallucination, it can’t.

“Matthew?” Sarah says, in a concerned tone. “Matthew?”

Mobius remembers that he is Matthew. She’s been calling for him for a while and getting no response. He turns to see what she needs, to go back to his job, but he can’t get the image of Loki vanishing — again — out of his head.

It’s not another year before he sees Loki next, but it feels like it is.

Two months pass. Two months in which Mobius turns at every tiny sound, hoping, wishing that he’ll be there. He never is.

He’s twitchy, distracted at work. Useless at home, sitting idle or pacing, ranting at nothing, asking the air where Loki is, why he came back, why he left again. Why he left.

After two months, Mobius makes himself stop, forces himself to stop. The automatic doors swoosh open and he counts to five before he lifts his head to see if whoever has entered the library needs assistance, instead of cricking his neck snapping it up. His doorbell rings and he takes slow, even steps down the hall to answer it, instead of racing there so fast he slips on the rug and twists his ankle. A bush rustles in the garden, where he has taken to weeding and pruning to give himself something to do, something to pass the time, and he doesn’t turn to look, instead of whipping around and finding only a bird or the wind or nothing at all.

So, when he’s there, knees in the dirt, planting some begonias, and a twig snaps behind him, he doesn’t look.

At least, not until he hears his voice.

“Mobius.”

Mobius drops his trowel and then freezes, shoulders tensing. It– it can’t be. He can’t get his hopes up again.

“Mobius.” Loki’s voice is a little louder this time, as though Mobius didn’t hear him the first time, as though that is the reason he hasn’t looked.

Slowly, his heart beating in his mouth, Mobius turns.

Loki’s there, standing in the middle of the small patch of lawn that is Mobius’ back garden. But is he really?

Mobius knows it’s him, as he did before. He looks the same, though he is in his TVA uniform this time and his expression is not one of shock. Not that that encourages Mobius into believing that his presence is real or likely to continue.

“Loki,” Mobius says, clear, calm, a complete belie of how he feels: his insides the tumult of the overloading loom.

Loki smiles, happy but heartbroken, eyes crinkling but watering, mouth curving but trembling.

That gets Mobius off his knees. He pushes himself to his feet and throws himself at Loki, grabbing for him.

Mobius gets his arms around him tight, crushing his frame to his, and he’s solid, real. Really here. Mobius says as much. “Loki, you’re here. You’re really here.”

Loki nods and his head moving against Mobius’ shoulder is the greatest thing. And then his hands are reaching up to grasp Mobius back, to wrap around him, to return the embrace, and that is the greatest thing. And then he opens his mouth and says, “I am,” and that is the greatest thing.

“How?” Mobius asks, “How are you here?”

“I can’t stay,” Loki says, and Mobius knew this would be the case but hoped otherwise anyway, and it is the hope that kills you, truly. “I can only be away for so long. But I– I wanted to see you.”

Mobius pulls back so that he can see Loki, but doesn’t fully release him, keeps a grip on his forearms, at though he can ground him to earth through his puny human strength alone.

“You were here before,” Mobius states, but in truth it’s a question he doesn’t know the answer to. This isn’t a hallucination, it can’t be, but maybe it was before.

But Loki nods.

“Why did you go?”

“I had to,” Loki explains. “I can’t leave the timelines unattended for long and I didn’t know how long would be manageable then. I didn’t mean for you to see me, but…”

Loki trails off, like he can’t explain why he showed himself, why he got close enough that Mobius could sense his presence. Mobius doesn’t push him for it. “You were testing being away?” he asks, instead.

“Yes. And I have a greater understanding for it. But I still can’t be away for long. I–” Loki looks down and Mobius sees his throat move as he swallows around the pain of what he has to stay. “I need to go now.”

Mobius tightens his grip on Loki’s forearms, wants to rail against it, to refuse to let him go. But he knows he can’t. Or he could, but it would make no difference. Loki has to do this and is committed to, that is clear from every line of him: resolve and resignation in equal parts.

So instead, Mobius wraps Loki in his arms once more, this less crushing embrace and more holding hug, and says, “Just come back.”

Loki squeezes him once, whispers, “I will,” close to his ear, and then he’s gone, Mobius left holding onto nothing.

When Loki appears the third time, Mobius is in the middle of the freezer aisle at his local grocery store, squinting down at the list he wrote, but is struggling to read. Is his handwriting really this messy?

There’s a squeak of rubber soles on linoleum and the toes of a pair of shoes appear on the floor in Mobius’ peripheral vision. He gives up on trying to decide if he has written peas or pizza and looks up.

Mobius had counted the days this time, telling himself he wasn’t allowed to be anxious, to worry, until it had been longer than the previous gap between visits. Loki had said he would come back, and Mobius believed him. He had to.

So, he knows it’s been another couple of months since the last visit; he was only three more crossed-off days from his fretting being permitted. He has been anyway, but it would have been nice to not be breaking his own rules.

“Loki,” he says, and wonders if he will always say it like that, like it’s the only word his mouth cares to form. He grabs Loki up in a hug before he can respond. Hopes that Loki doesn’t mind his bruising grip. He hadn’t seemed to last time, and they had kind of made hugs their thing, but Mobius feels he is being entirely too obvious in his joy of having him here, in his grief that he cannot stay with him.

If Loki minds the hug, he doesn’t let on. It’s returned, tightly, and Mobius doesn’t want to let go but he cannot bare to feel Loki disappear from his arms like before. And he also wants to look at him.

He retreats a few steps, falling back in line with his shopping cart, and regards the man in front of him. His TVA outfit — probably more appropriate for their surroundings than his huge horned helmet — making it seem like no time has passed at all. But despite Loki’s ageless appearance, Mobius can read in the crease of his brow, the turning down at the corners of his mouth, that Loki feels the passage of time too, even if he is at the end of it, outside of it.

“It’s good to see you,” Mobius says, the largest understatement ever made.

“It’s good to see you too,” Loki agrees, and smiles, though it dims as he adds, “I have, perhaps, fifteen minutes.”

Mobius snuffs out the fire of panic that scorches through him. Fifteen minutes is better than nothing. One single second with Loki would be better than none at all. “That’s longer than last time,” Mobius observes. Then adds, unable to keep the hopeful lilt from his voice, “Are you working up to longer?”

“I’m trying,” Loki says, half impatient, half devastated. “Do you have any idea how many new timelines are generated every second I am away? The sheer number of alternate choices billions of beings can make? I return to a forest of branches so dense and disorganised I can barely untangle them, if I am gone for even the briefest of moments.”

Mobius swallows his disappointment, lays a soothing palm on Loki’s shoulder, says, “It is good to see you for however long I can.”

Loki drops his head, closes his eyes momentarily, and Mobius doesn’t mind the lost seconds, doesn’t feel they are wasted when he gets to look on Loki like this.

When Loki lifts his chin once more his expression has cleared, annoyance and anguish put away.

“Tell me what happened,” Mobius requests. He knows the beginning of the story, of their story, and he has seen the end, the world — worlds, all of them — saved, and yet tragic finale nevertheless, but knows Loki had a whole middle that he wasn’t privy too.

“That could take a while.”

Mobius grins, rueful. “Tell me anyway.” He knows they can’t cover all trodden ground in the time Loki has, but that’s only all the more reason for him to return, so they can pick up where he left off.

By the time Loki has to go, the ice cream in Mobius’ cart has barely thawed at all.

Mobius is mid-way through a riveting episode of his current favorite show when Loki appears for the fourth time, a little less than another two months later. (Seven weeks, three days, and twenty-one hours, but who’s counting?) 

Adding television to his repertoire of ways to pass the time had been a smart move. Mobius has the library for weekdays, his garden — or the garden store if it’s raining — for weekend days, and his shows for the evenings. They’re mindless entertainment, as good a distraction as he can get from the yawning emptiness of a purposeless existence, from endless waiting.

As he has eyes on his television screen — large and flat and nothing at all like the little boxes videos played on at the TVA — and Loki pops into being right in front of it, Mobius sees him immediately. He starts, popcorn dropping from his fingers back into the bowl at his side.

“Loki,” he says, hears the relief and excitement in his voice.

“Hello,” Loki greets, and there is a beat where they simply stare at each other, before Mobius shakes himself from his wonder that Loki is here — he doesn’t suppose he will ever get used to it — and waves a hand at the empty half of the couch beside him, says, “Sit, sit. I’ll turn this off.”

He wants to hug Loki again, to lay hands on him to feel he’s solid, real, but he settles for the sensation of the couch dipping beside him as Loki picks up the flowery throw pillow, which that Mobius bought from the thrift store next door to the library, and settles it in his lap when he sits.

Mobius lifts the remote to shut off the TV, but Loki squints at it, says, “You don’t want to see how Heather reacts to Jason’s affair and he to her pregnancy?”

Mobius does, has been anticipating it for the past three weeks of episodes, since Heather threw up and the audience were clued in that something was afoot, but Loki is here. He resolutely turns off the television. “I’d rather hear the rest of your story,” he tells Loki, and listens intently as he finishes his explanation from the previous visit, looping back to explain the tried, and failed, method of solving the problem by science, telling Mobius about pulling each of them in turn from their timelines and the unfortunate unravelling of time.

After he’s done, Mobius’ head is spinning and he knows the moment Loki leaves he will think of a million questions, ones he will be denied asking for weeks. For now, one crystallizes out of the soup of swirling thoughts in his mind, one he has from the first half of the story, the second half of the actual occurrence of events. If one can really place what is first and what is second when so much time travel is involved.

“Did it actually take you centuries to learn what you needed to in order to expand the loom? What did you do for all that time?”

Loki chuckles, says “That’s another long tale, and a boring one,” and Mobius wants to protest that he doesn’t care; there is not a single thing he would rather do more than listen to Loki tell it. But then Loki says, “I’ll tell you next time,” and Mobius will allow it. Because next time is all he lives for.

“Tell me about you,” Loki asks, “Tell me how you are.”

“Can’t you see me from up there?” Mobius waves a hand at the ceiling, the sky, even though he knows that’s not how it works, that Loki isn’t literally above him and looking down. He’s a god all the same. “Don’t you watch the timelines?”

“Yes. I can see them, though there are so many I can’t watch every single thing that happens on them all.”

Mobius waits, but Loki doesn’t go on. He prompts, “You don’t watch me?” He knows that Loki must. How else does he know that Heather, Mobius’ favorite character, found out she was pregnant in an episode several weeks ago, about Jason’s affair with Christi that has been going on for months?

Loki waves a hand, dismissive, but he also averts his eyes. “I have checked in on you a time or two,” he states, “But I don’t watch you every second of every day.”

“No? Only at 7 pm each Wednesday evening?” Mobius poses, with a significant look at the blank screen of the television.

And Loki might deny that he makes more than the occasional, casual check-in, but Mobius also suspects that Loki would scoff and claim gods are above blushing if he was accused of such, and yet, there is a clear pink tinging to the apples of each of his usually pale cheeks.

Loki could watch any moment of time on any of an infinite number of timelines, and yet he his choosing to watch Mobius watch his ridiculous television show.

The idea of Loki observing him regularly thrills Mobius when it should, perhaps, disturb him. But he doesn’t mind Loki watching him, likes it even. After all, he watched all the tapes on Loki he could get his hands on back at the TVA. Turnabout seems fair.

“You know how I am,” Mobius states.

Loki looks back at him and it’s good to be under the gaze of those eyes once more, even if they are rolling. “I want to hear it from you. How is it here for you?”

“It’s–” Mobius starts. Stops. He doesn’t know what it is, really. It’s waiting. It’s letting time pass. He shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

Loki picks at the lint of the cushion in his lap, says, considered, “It can be hard, adapting to a new reality.”

Mobius grins at that. “You’re talking from experience?” he teases, thinking of Loki first being brought in as a prisoner of the TVA, of the rage in him: a spitting cat, fizzing with fury. He had adapted remarkably well, with a little petting.

“Yes, I suppose I am. Thought it was easier for me.” Loki smiles. “I had an excellent mentor.”

Mobius smiles back, and they sit and they smile at each other, and Mobius wishes he could live in this moment — freeze it, bottle it — but his traitorous heart beats on, marking the passage of time, counting down until Loki will leave again.

“And how are you?” Mobius asks, when enough breaths have passed that he fears with the very next Loki will open his mouth and state his need to go. He doesn’t know how Loki is. He can’t watch Loki like Loki can watch him, not anymore. “How is it out there?”

“Fine,” Loki says, reflexive. Then seems to catch himself, smile turning a touch sheepish. He won’t lie to Mobius.

“Boring,” he amends. But the cadence of it is wrong, and the line of his mouth is tilted, and his eyes narrow just ever so slightly. That’s not quite right, and he knows it.

Dropping his eyes to the pillow and pressing his hands in on it from either side, Loki corrects himself again. “Lonely.”

If you don’t ask, you won’t know the answer. And Mobius wishes he hadn’t asked.

“Here,” Mobius says, as he slides into the booth opposite Loki, pushing a plate in front of him.

“Thank you.” Loki accepts the slice of pie and picks up his fork.

Mobius mirrors him, digging into the key lime with gusto.

He hadn’t intended to attend the cafe across the street on his lunch break, but it’s only been a month since he last saw Loki, and this shortening of the gap between visits seems worthy of a celebratory slice. Not that pie can only be consumed under celebratory circumstances; Mobius has found it a food for all occasions.

“Hmm,” Mobius hums around his mouthful. Rose’s does excellent pie, but it seems, sadly, the key lime is sub-par. He hasn’t had it before, has always avoided it, eyes passing over its green coloring in the display case longingly before selecting a different flavor. “Should have got you the apple,” he tells Loki.

Loki dismisses this, with a flick of his fork, and takes a second bite of his pie. There is a look of quiet contentment on his face. It stands to reason there isn’t any food where he now resides and his tastebuds have been deprived for so long that even this disappointing dish is delicious.

Mobius would like to let Loki eat, uninterrupted, but they’re operating under a time limit, as always — Loki estimating that he can manage maybe thirty minutes today — so he asks after the final sliver of the story that he hasn’t heard yet — the details of the years where Loki learned about quantum physics and engineering — and eats his poor excuse for a pie as Loki tells him of visiting an assortment of different famous scientists to get the information right from the source and of time slipping straight from one lecture into another, not granted the relief of evenings and weekends like a typical college student.

After Loki has recounted centuries of learning, distilled down to minutes, Mobius says, “So you’re a real nerd now, huh?” just so Loki will scoff at him and deny it.

“I’m nothing of the sort,” Loki says, muffled slightly, mouth half full of pie, and that more than anything tips Mobius off to time slipping away from them. He knows Loki’s table manners would be better if they weren’t under deadline, that he would take the time to swallow before he spoke if he felt he had it available to him.

Mobius casts around for something else to ask about, to capture Loki in answering so he might spend just a few extra minutes here, legs tangled with Mobius’ beneath their shared table.

“Do you ever visit the others?” If he’s honest, the question isn’t just a diversion to keep Loki from leaving. It is something he has wondered over. If Loki has been to see B-15, O.B., Casey. Sylvie.

“No,” Loki tells him. “I haven’t been back to the TVA. But I am watching how they are doing. And I am monitoring the timelines for He Who Remains, as are they.”

“And Sylvie?” Mobius feels transparent as her names leaves his lips; Loki must be able to see through him to his soft, vulnerable core. To the stabbing shard of jealousy embedded there.

“I check on her sometimes,” Loki says. “She seems happy.”

“But you haven’t been to visit her?”

Loki looks down at his fork where he’s using it to catch the last few crumbs of pie crust between its tines, and shakes his head.

It shouldn’t feel as good as it does. Mobius likes Sylvie: thinks, perhaps, freed from the pressing urgency of the impending end of everything that they could even have been friends, and misses her accordingly. But he can’t deny that it buoys something in him to know that he is the one Loki has chosen to see, has chosen to use his precious, limited time for.

Mobius knows that things were complicated between Loki and Sylvie, that it’s possible Loki may be unsure if Sylvie would welcome a visit from him.

But Mobius also knows that Loki loved Sylvie, might still love her. Can’t imagine him not testing out his reception at least once if he does. 

“I only have so much time to spare,” Loki says, as if that is all the explanation needed for why he’s having pie with Mobius and not her.

Despite working for the entirety of the life that he can remember for an organization that managed the flow of time, Mobius must admit that time travel confuses him.

He stands with Loki at the end of the block and watches himself stand with Loki further in along the street and watch himself stand with Loki talking in front of his — Don’s — house.

“So, this is what does it?” Mobius asks. Although he has access to his file, he didn’t know what had caused the branching in his timeline, what had generated him, variant Mobius, deviating from the sacred timeline. There’s no note of what occurred there, only the date the branch grew and the date they took him, today and tomorrow.

He’s known the date is approaching, but he hasn’t known, doesn’t know, what he’s going to do about it.

“Yes,” Loki says, and he sounds sorry. “I visited you on the timeline, and that triggered the branch. It’s my fault you were taken by the TVA.”

Mobius squints at the back of his own — Don’s — head, then past it to squint at the side of his — Don’s — head. “But, if you took me away already, how can the TVA take me from the timeline? Although, I suppose if you bring me back before… but then, wouldn’t… no, no. But what about– how can I…” he stops, brain overloading.

“Just go with it,” Loki says.

Mobius nods, as accepting as he can be that he’s never going to understand. Uncontrolled branching, time slipping: these are things his training didn’t cover.

“So, today you visit me, and tomorrow they take me.”

“Yes,” Loki confirms.

“Tomorrow the kids lose their dad.”

“Yes.” It’s softer this time, sorrier.

Mobius wants to say, it’s not your fault, you were trying to save them, save everyone, everything, you have nothing to be sorry for, but knows that Loki won’t see it like that. Maybe once upon a time, once upon a timeline, Loki wouldn’t have needed his words, could have excused himself from all fault, wouldn’t have claimed responsibility in the first instance. But this Loki now, his Loki, he won’t be so easily absolved. Instead, Mobius says nothing at all.

He has a choice to make. Not one that comes as a surprise. No, he knew, when he returned to his timeline at the point he did, that he had time, plenty of it, before this crossroad would be upon him. And he can’t say that it has come quicker than he thought, not when he has spent every day wading through the hours like molasses. He has nothing but empty excuses for why he still doesn’t know what to do.

Tomorrow, when the version of the TVA that no longer exists — has been dismantled and replaced with something, hopefully, better — comes to take Don, Mobius has two options. He can seamlessly slip into his spot, indistinguishable, so long as he discards the TVA-style suits he favors, styles his hair a little different, and trims his moustache short — these subtle differences apparently enough to keep the townsfolk who have come across both Don and ‘Matthew’ from more than a momentary mix-up or a subtle double take — and give the boys some semblance of their dad back, keep them from losing him at all, in a way.

Or, he can carry on living his new life. If you can call what he does living.

“What happens to them when they take me?” Mobius asks. If you never look, you never know. But he has to know.

“You have a sister,” Loki says, and this is true, Mobius has seen her going in and out of the front door, seen her car in Don’s driveway sometimes, visiting from out of town. “She takes them in.”

“And do they miss me?”

“Yes,” Loki says, simple.

“Do they get over it? Are they happy again?”

Loki hesitates before he responds this time. “Yes and no,” he says, finally. “They never get over it, not completely. But they do move on from it. And there is happiness in their future.”

Mobius wonders if Loki is talking about more than just the boys. Wonders if Loki could be describing his future. He can’t see one in which he ever has true happiness again, these little snatches of time with Loki too bittersweet. But maybe, if he had something else in his life, something like the twin terrors he’s heard roaring around outside, even from all the way down the block, he could find some.

“Do you know what I’m going to do?” Mobius asks, “Have you seen it?” Loki can see any point on any timeline; it’s more than possible he could have peered ahead of the point Mobius is now, could already have glimpsed Mobius’ future.

But Loki shakes his head, says, “No. I– I haven’t looked beyond the time we’re in now.”

So, it’s up to Mobius. He has to make this choice himself, can’t let future him make it for him. Can’t let future him decide his future for him.

He stands with Loki, watching himself stand with Loki, watching himself stand with Loki, and tries to choose who he is going to be. To choose the best way to pass the time.

“Kevin, Sean, this is Loki. A… a friend of mine.”

Loki, standing in the doorway of the dining room, raises a hand and waves, awkwardly. “Hello.”

The boys regard him, heads momentarily lifted from shoveling pizza into their mouths.

“Hi,” Sean says.

“Hey,” Kevin says.

They go back to chewing, unperturbed when Mobius sets a fourth plate for Loki, ushers him into a seat.

It’s satisfying, in a way Mobius didn’t know possible, to have Loki tentatively trying pineapple on pizza for the first time at his elbow, and his boys gulping it down with slightly nauseating enthusiasm, across from him.

In the months since Mobius made his choice, he’s found that the time passes quicker, that the gaps between Loki’s visits don’t seem quite so long, even though they’ve settled to approximately once per month. Sometimes, usually when Mobius is trying to corral Kevin and Sean and get them out the door quick enough that they won’t be late for school - again - he looks at the clock and wishes the hands would slow down: a novelty.

It hasn’t been plain sailing. Mobius has had to learn who these kids, his kids, are. The information in his file limited to facts that don’t quite add up to the children at his dining table; people are so much more than the sum of their parts. The black on white of a text document might be able to tell him his sons’ date of birth and a list of allergies and what school they attend, but it can’t cover how Sean likes to be woken up five minutes early, so he can have a moment to lie awake before he gets up. How Kevin won’t ask for it, but he needs extra encouragement when he’s struggling with his homework. How, despite every cartoon suggesting a universal contrary for all kids everywhere, both boys love broccoli and now Mobius has to hide it in sauces and cut it up small so he can palate that infernal green vegetable.

He’s messed up plenty: there have been tantrums abound, and resulting reprimands too harsh, punishments too soft, as he finds his feet. He’s sure the boys have noticed that he’s not the same, not exactly (not at all).

But some things must be muscle memory. Just as he didn’t have to relearn how to use a fork and knife or to tie his shoe laces or button his jacket when he started at the TVA, despite the absence of his memories, Mobius knows how to hug his boys just right, how tuck them in at night. Knows how to ruffle Kevin’s hair so he gets a whined Daaad in response. Can simply tell when to ask again if a how are you, Sean? gets naught but a fine in reply.

Mobius is finding parenthood both brand new and déjà vu.

For Loki, interacting with children is clearly the former.

This is the first time he has visited in their presence, and he eyes them, not unlike a cornered kitten eyes an approaching hand. It is oddly charming to see him so uncertain. The mighty Loki of Asgard, brought low by the prospect of having to talk to a couple of tweens.

“Sean, you were telling us about science class,” Mobius prompts, to fill the silence. Not uncomfortable on anyone’s part but Loki’s: Mobius used to either very loud dinners — the boys talking over one another in a stream of consciousness report of their day or to one another in an impossible to follow ramble about the video game of the month — or very quiet ones — they’ve fallen out and are pointedly not talking to each other or are spontaneously so ravenously hungry that all that can be heard is the sounds of chewing.

Sean starts back up his recount of the absolutely fantastic science lesson he had, which sounds like it was a disaster from the teacher’s point of view. Mobius is certain her intention was not to have a fire or a flood, let alone both.

Once he’s finished and Kevin has lamented over how he wishes he had Miss Kim, and not boring Mr Hawick, Mobius says, “You know, boys, Loki has studied lots of science.” Twin pairs of eyes snap to Loki, but Mobius feels Loki’s fix on him and glare. Smiling, Mobius continues, “Maybe he could tell you what went wrong with Sean’s experiment.”

Loki takes a drink of water, smooths down the napkin in his lap, then says, “I don’t know what went wrong. But, I could tell you how to make the fire bigger.”

And, ah, well, Mobius was asking for that, he thinks, as he watches Kevin nod franticly and Sean’s body nearly leave his seat with how far over the table he leans towards Loki in his eagerness.

And, he thinks, it makes so much sense that he was drawn to the God of Mischief during his time at the TVA, when he had lived with mischief personified in the form of two small blond boys for twelve years before that.

Selling jet skis, as it turns out, comes naturally to Mobius. He had been, maybe not worried (it’s difficult to worry about something so mundane as if you’ll be good at your job when your concern barometer is calibrated for multiverse-ending catastrophes) but at the very least, wondering if he’d find himself a terrible replacement for Don. But not the case.

He likes chatting to his colleagues, likes conversing with potential customers, loves sitting on the jet skis.

He does miss the library, but while it’s easy to play off being an uncannily similar but actually different man in fleeting interactions, he can’t go back there as Don without people being suspicious. He has stepped into Don’s shoes, literally, so he leaves ‘Matthew’s’ job. It wasn’t really his anyway; he already left his job, an ill-fit in the end, even if all the reforms were for the best.

And, jet ski salesman, that fits fine.

It’s a slow day at Piranha Powersports, as it often is — most people just don’t know what they’re missing in not having a jet ski. They’d had a promising customer in the morning, but Hector had scented him and latched on immediately, the shark that he is, always calculating his hypothetical commission. Mobius and Dale had commiserated about it over lunch.

The only folks in since have been a trio of young guys, clearly not serious buyers but who Mobius had fun with as they were all too eager to climb aboard the display model and have the fan turned on for the full effect, and a couple looking to purchase a quad bike for use on their farm — Mobius was all too happy pass them on to Hector. They’re supposed to be a personal watercraft store and he is still getting over the owner’s decision to branch out, even though it was made before he took Don’s place.

The bell above the door tinkles, barely audible over the 80’s pop rock Mobius has found himself drawn to — a hold-over from Don, he thinks, given Dale seems wholly sick of it and has requested to be allowed to update the playlist. Mobius is considering it. He’s leaning towards nah at the moment.

He turns, full salesman made activated, “Good day, my good–”

It’s Loki.

He’s dressed differently to normal. He has been known to deviate from his TVA uniform, though only usually to a simple shirt, tie and slacks. Today, he’s in that, but he also has on a fitted, fine-knit sweater in a deep emerald, shirt collar popped over and golden knot of his tie visible in the hollow of his throat, and over that a long, sweeping black woolen coat.

Mobius tries not to do a double take, feels something in his gut tighten.

Loki smiles, sly, and Mobius has already had his afternoon break so he can’t really do anything other than play along when Loki says, “Good afternoon, I’m in the market for a personal watercraft and I’m looking for some recommendations.”

Mobius breaks out into what he can feel is a frankly ridiculous grin, his cheeks near painful, and says, “Well, you have certainly come to the right place. Let me show you what we have available.”

He steps to the side, gesturing Loki ahead of him with a: “Right this way, sir.” As he tries not to focus on the strong line of Loki shoulders beneath the coat, he catches sight of Dale frowning slightly. Is it possible he remembers seeing Loki before? Loki’s never been into the shop while Mobius has worked here, but when Don worked here is a different story.

Or maybe Dale’s just never seen Mobius look quite this happy to show someone a jet ski. And Mobius figures his default is thrilled, so his current level of enthusiasm is perhaps staggering.

“Is this your cheapest option?” Loki asks, once he’s listened to — or at least pretended to – Mobius explain all about the Sea-Doo GTI.

Mobius shakes his head. “Nope, this is our mid-range offering. The Spark is our cheapest.” He points to it, over in the corner. “Or the Yamaha WaveRunner FX is our most premium option, if your budget allows.”

“Show me both,” Loki commands and Mobius happily obliges.

He’s even more elated when Hector comes back downstairs with the couple, forced smile on his face as he says, “Well, you have my card if you change your mind. Have a good day now,” and near slams the door behind them after he waves them out. When he turns and lays eyes on Mobius showing Loki — who Mobius supposes looks like a particularly wealthy patron in his attractive outfit — the Yamaha, he glowers and stalks off to the break room.

“To help decide if a jet ski is for you, I’d recommend hopping up on one to get a real feel for it.”

Mobius is so inordinately excited at the prospect of getting Loki on one that he’s actually disappointed at Loki’s counter proposal: “Sure, but could you show me how it’s done first?” And Mobius is never disappointed at the opportunity to sit on one of the incredible vehicles.

He slips his persona a little, just enough to shake his head, exasperated and far too fond, at Loki, and get an innocent smile — the one that always looks anything but on Loki — in return. “Of course,” Mobius obliges and climbs aboard the jet ski.

“Well, I must say, it does look a beautiful union of form and function,” Loki remarks, eyes on Mobius. Or, the jet ski, he supposes, but they feel like they’re cataloging him rather than the machine.

Mobius clears his throat, then agrees, “Oh, yes.” He slides off. “Hop up and you can see for yourself.”

Watching Loki drop his coat from his shoulders, set it aside, and then hike one long leg over the jet ski and settle in its seat has Mobius fighting off thoughts which are entirely inappropriate for the workplace.

Loki leans forward a little, grasps the handlebar, and then looks straight at Mobius when he asks, “How do I look?”

Mobius’ tongue is stuck firmly to the roof of his mouth. He wrenches it down so he can reply, voice less his jovial sales tone and more strangled rasp when he says, “Marvelous. Let me put the fan on so we get the full effect.”

Once it’s switched on and Loki’s shining black hair is blowing in the breeze, Mobius decides that this is a cruel and unusual form of torture. Loki looks like something straight out of Mobius’ dreams. But he can’t be mad about it, not when Loki is smiling so wide, genuinely having fun.

“So, what do you think?” Mobius asks.

“I’ll have to consider it,” Loki replies and gets down from the jet ski, slips his coat back on. “Do you have a card?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Mobius fishes one out of his pocket. “Here you are.” Their fingers brush as Mobius hands it over to Loki and he suppresses the shiver that wants to run through him.

Loki glances down at the card. “Many thanks,” he says, tone too satisfied and very amused, “Don.”

The name shocks a laugh out of Mobius that sustains him through Loki leaving, knowing that it will be another four weeks before he sees him again.

“He was so enamored by everything you said, I can’t believe he didn’t buy anything,” Dale remarks, when Mobius returns to the counter.

“Ah, well, you win some, you lose some.” Mobius can’t tamp down his good mood to something more appropriate for what appears to be a missed opportunity to close a deal. “Maybe he’ll be back.” He grins to himself.

Dale nods, like that makes the most sense. “Yeah, maybe he needs to talk to his bank first. The way he looked at you, I reckon you could have sold him the whole world.”

Mobius feels a flush climb up his neck and, if possible, his grin grows.

“To think,” Mobius says, picking up the umpteenth ball, this one foam and half-shredded because it quite clearly was not put away, like he had asked all possessions to be before he mowed the lawn, “That I could’ve been on a timeline where I don’t have to continually clear up after these boys.”

Loki looks up from where he’s collecting abused action figures into a box and smiles, then reaches for the next one, which appears to have been mummified in hot glue.

“That I could have stayed a man unstressed about crushing a toy with every step I take.” Mobius tosses the ruined ball in the direction of the trash. Misses.

Loki chuckles, hand closing around another plastic body, this one beheaded.

“That I could have been planting new bulbs in the flowerbeds down the street instead of rescuing lost things from them here. Though, I guess I am. Or some version of me is.”

Loki hums, but it sounds off.

Mobius straightens. “Or am I not?”

“No,” Loki says, focused on fishing dolls out of the grass. “There wasn’t a branch at that point.”

Mobius frowns. “So, you mean, I was always going to choose this?”

And he can understand it. He loves his boys, wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world, even in the face of their superhuman ability to create never-ending mess. Just wishes maybe he could have something else too. Someone else. Alas, time is not on his side.

Loki shuffles around a bit, picks up yet another toy, but eventually he nods.

“You could have just told me,” Mobius says, “Saved me all that agonizing over what to do.”

“I didn’t know what you were going to choose,” Loki explains, “I only knew that there wasn’t a branch there.”

Mobius hums this time, wanders over to correct his terrible aim. As he picks up the mauled ball and drops it in the garbage can, something in what Loki said registers. There wasn’t a branch there.

“Wait,” he starts, and Loki looks at him, expectant, and then turning wary at whatever he sees in Mobius’ face. “You said ‘at that point’. So, there is a branch somewhere else.”

Loki doesn’t make any move to confirm or deny it and that’s confirmation enough.

And he looks so grim that Mobius tries to claw back the lightsome mood they’d had before, to defuse the growing dread he feels. He chokes out a laugh, says, “Please tell me I don’t have any more life-altering choices to make in my future.”

Loki shakes his head, but he doesn’t brighten. “You’re past the branch,” he states, simple, final, and Mobius knows that Loki doesn’t want him to ask after it, wants him to leave it alone.

If you never look, you’ll never know.

Mobius has learned to look.

“When?” he asks.

Loki shakes his head, plasters on a smile that is so false it hurts, and says, “I probably shouldn’t be telling you about this. Maybe it isn’t safe, who knows what the ramifications–”

“Loki,” Mobius cuts him off, “When?”

Sighing, Loki steps over to Mobius and sets the box of bedraggled action figures on the lid of the trash can, faces him. “When you came back to your timeline.”

That surprises Mobius. He was so uncertain of everything then; he can’t imagine what he could have chosen that generated an alternate reality, a whole other universe. “What happened?”

“Sylvie asked where you were going to go,” Loki starts, “And you said…” He stops and he doesn’t go on.

Mobius can’t remember exactly his wording, but he knows the sentiment of what he said. “I said that I was going to hang about here awhile.”

Loki shakes his head. “On this branch, yes. You said you were going to let time pass. But on the other branch, you said you were going to find me.”

It hits Mobius like a punch to the solar plexus, knocks all the wind from him so for a long moment he can’t speak, can only stare at Loki, gutted by his words.

Bewildered anger comes rushing in with his returning breath. “What? You mean to tell me there’s some version of me that went off to find you, to get you back?” The rage is partly at himself, that he didn’t have the guts, the gumption to do such a thing. To even fathom of it. Except, apparently, he did: this other version of himself found it when he couldn’t. When he was drowning in grief, loss, another him managed to float clear of it, to swim for what Mobius wants.

But he’s also partly mad at Loki and he hears it in his voice when he goes on, hands outstretched at his side, fingers splayed, “Is that why you come here so infrequently? Why you don’t stay? Because you have a pet variant me up there with you?” It’s a hysterical accusation, one that attracts and revolts him in equal measure.

That Loki would want him is all Mobius himself wants. But the idea that another him has Loki in a way he never can– it takes him out at the knees, leaves him crippled by heartbreak.

Now it’s Loki’s turn for bewilderment. “What?” he breathes, aghast. “No, of course not. I want to be here more. I want to be here all the time. But I can’t leave the timelines unattended, you know that. And I obviously don’t have you there with me.”

“Because if you had my variant there, you wouldn’t even bother with me?” Mobius hears himself snap, and it’s mortifying, the sickening jealousy coating every word; embarrassing, the way he’s flaying himself open, laying all his pathetic feelings bare.

“Mobius,” Loki says, and there’s something pleading in his voice, like he can’t bare for Mobius to be hurt, but there’s something placating too, and that has the opposite effect, renewed scorn flashing through Mobius. At least until Loki goes on, “I don’t care about any variant but you.”

That quells Mobius’ ire enough that his next question is bitten out less caustic, some of the acid neutralized by Loki’s words. “So where is he then, this other me? If he’s not with you?”

There’s a curious curl to Loki’s lips. A rueful sort of half smile. “He is with a version of me.”

Mobius frowns, uncomprehending. Loki exists outside of time now; there’s only one of him. Sure, there’s others, other variants on the different timelines, but there isn’t some timeline outside of the timelines, a whole separate branching tree guarded by another Loki. At least, Mobius hopes there isn’t; his brain is barely built for understanding multiverses, let alone multiple multiverses.

Loki must read his confusion off his face because he clarifies, “You had your tempad, you could have gone anywhere, anywhen. He did.”

It’s true that Mobius had his tempad, used it to get to his timeline in the first place. He still has it, well hidden away from curious little minds — Mobius knows exactly where his boys would go if they got their hands on it and he has no desire to get eaten by a T-Rex in the process of retrieving them. But he cannot fathom why any version of himself would find it helpful. He didn’t want anywhere or anywhen, he wanted, wants, the nowhere, nowhen Loki now resides. A realm it cannot reach.

“You mean, he found a variant of you on another timeline?”

Loki nods, smile turning sad, and Mobius wonders if the other him settling for Loki’s variant is the wound it was to him to think of Loki choosing another Mobius. If it is even half as deep, it will be fatal still.

“But, why?” Mobius wonders aloud. “He won’t be you.”

When he meets Loki’s eyes, he feels it, he knows. Why Loki said he doesn’t care about any other variant.

“He’s not you,” Mobius says.

“None of them are you,” Loki responds, broken open.

It’s a precipice, the edge of something, of everything, and, in the true fashion of life as a parent, they’re prevented from falling — or maybe from landing; Mobius feels he has been falling since he first read Loki’s name in a file so long ago — by an interruption in the form of children.

The boys have been at a friend’s house two blocks over since school got out, and he can hear them racing on their trip back home, heckling each other as they careen round the corner at the end of the street, the green bike (Sean) just marginally ahead of the red (Kevin).

“Hi Dad! Hi Loki!” Kevin yells as they skid onto the lawn, tires spinning. Both boys dump their bikes on the ground, and while Sean slows to a stop at their side, Kevin makes a break for it through the front door.

Mobius shakes himself out of the remnants of his and Loki’s tattered moment. “Boys. Boys! We’ve just cleaned up the yard! Can’t have you cluttering it up again, already. C’mon, you know the drill, bikes in the garage.”

Kevin retreats outside to follow his brother in Mobius’ instruction, rolling their bikes the extra handful of meters to stack them against the inner wall.

Then they’re dashing back for the house and Kevin is over the threshold where he was before when Mobius chides, “Excuse me? No, hug for your good old dad?”

Kevin heaves a sigh like this is the greatest inconvenience he has ever faced, but does jump back out the door to wrap one arm around Mobius in the briefest side hug to ever occur, gone before Mobius can get an arm around him in return. Kevin gives Loki an identical, fleeting squeeze — which, truly, shouldn’t be allowed as Mobius’ heart can’t take it, particularly in the wake of all that’s been said, especially given all that hasn’t — and then he’s gone.

Sean dutifully hugs his father and then pauses outside long enough to ask Loki, “Are you staying for dinner? We could show you the new DLC that just came out after.”

“No, son, Loki’s not staying for dinner,” Mobius says, watches Sean’s face fall at the prospect of not getting to subject Loki to yet another video game. He wonders if his own face is mirroring that disappointment as he looks to Loki, says, “You have to go.”

It’s not a question, their time is up, he’s well aware. Everything left unsaid is going to remain so and things have never felt as unsaid as they do now.

It wasn’t a question but, still, Loki confirms, “I have to go,” and the disappointment is certainly mirrored in his.

Sometimes, Mobius talks to Loki even though he’s not there.

It’s silly, maybe, that he’ll start up a one-sided conversation, knowing full well he’s going to have to wait a long while to get any response. But there’s something comforting in knowing that Loki can hear him, is listening, is with him in this smallest of ways.

Usually, it’s during quiet moments at work, when Mobius would otherwise natter away to Dale or hum along to the radio, or while he’s standing freezing on the sidelines of the boys’ soccer practice, useless except for lifting the occasional enthusiastic thumbs up, only to get embarrassed eyerolls in return, or late at night, when even a hot chocolate hasn’t helped him to drift off.

Always, it’s about something inane, unimportant. His thoughts on how much better school would function for teenagers if it started at lunchtime, when the kids are actually functional. His opinion on quad bikes and how inferior to jet skis they are, something superior in having the sea air in your face. His dilemma of whether to bake terrible cookies or buy excellent ones for the block’s upcoming charity bake sale, though Sandra from two doors down is going to judge him regardless.

But this once, Mobius thinks he needs to talk about something important. About, perhaps, the most important thing he’s never said.

He sits in a chair at the dining table, looks at the empty spot where Loki would be if they were having dinner together, just the two of them, the boys off causing havoc in the neighborhood.

“I’m sorry to do it this way,” he says, to the air. Then chuckles, “Like giving someone bad news over the phone.”

He sighs. “I’d wait until you’re here again. Except, I don’t think this can wait. I should have told you before.

“You changed my whole life, you know? Or, I guess, maybe you restored it, if you look at me now.” He gestures down at the typical work outfit he’s yet to change out of, then waves his hand out to encompass the kitchen, the house as a whole: signs of his life, his life with his boys, everywhere.

“I might have had the coolest assignment in you, but I was still just a tired, washed-up old analyst, working for an organization built on lies. And you, you changed that.”

He smiles, and he hopes Loki will see it. “And I’d like to think I changed you too, if I may be so bold.

“You’re my best friend. I think you know that. I think I’m yours, if brothers get a whole category of their own and Thor’s in there.

“I think you might even know this next bit too. You always were a smart one, even before you learned everything there is to know about physics. Though you’re a bit blinkered when it comes to yourself, so maybe you don’t know. And I want you to. You deserve to know, Loki.”

Mobius takes a deep breath, steels himself for what he’s about to say.

And then finds he shouldn’t have. Because saying it doesn’t feel like something that leaves him vulnerable to attack, like something that he needs armor for. Instead, it’s freeing and poignant in its joyful simplicity and something he should have been saying all along, to help him pass the time.

“I love you.”

Three days later, not two weeks since Loki’s last visit, Mobius is brushing his teeth before bed when Loki’s reflection appears in the bathroom mirror.

Over his own reflection’s shoulder, he meets Loki’s eyes.

Loki says, “And I you.”

Mobius rips the toothbrush from his mouth, frantically spits into the sink, dropping the toothbrush in after, and spins around to face Loki for real.

He grabs for him, like he has wanted to all along — their hugs had diminished as Mobius had tried to be reasonable, to reign himself in. Apparently — gloriously — unnecessarily so.

And this isn’t a hug. Loki grasps him back and they clutch each other close as they fit their mouths together.

Loki presses Mobius back against the sink, lips moving over lips. Mobius forces himself to spare one hand to reach back and shut off the water, then slides it into Loki’s hair, tilts his head to slot their mouths ever closer. Loki gasps into the kiss and Mobius takes the opportunity to slip their tongues together, to taste him.

“Mobius, please,” Loki pants, pleading, breath spilling over Mobius’ lips when they separate for air. He looks undone, eyes black and hair mussed and cheeks flushed, and he’s everything Mobius has ever wanted and somehow he finds he wants more.

Mobius nods, says, “Bed,” and they stumble down the hall together, as quietly as they can. The boys are asleep. Or they should be — Mobius has a strong suspicion that Kevin at the very least will be illicitly listening to an audiobook, even if Sean is out like a light.

They practically fall through the doorway into Mobius’ room, Mobius’ hands on Loki’s slim hips, Loki’s twisted in Mobius’ pajama shirt.

Mobius shuts the door with his heel and then walks Loki backwards to the bed, pushes him down to the mattress, kisses him again, deep, deeper.

He lifts away long enough — despite Loki’s protesting whine — to flick on the bedside lamp, so he can see him, can look into his endless eyes, then lays back atop him, slotting himself between Loki’s thighs.

They kiss and they kiss and they kiss and somehow, somewhere, somewhen Mobius finds opportunities to shuck his pajama shirt, to wriggle out of his pajama pants, to remove Loki’s tie, to unbutton his shirt, to peel his trousers from his illegally long legs, to relieve him of his underwear.

Bare, they press their bodies back together, exquisite.

“I can’t stay long,” Loki says into the scant space between their faces, full of desperate regret. “I shouldn’t even have come so soon; I haven’t finished sorting the branches that grew in my last visit. But I had to see you, Mobius.”

Mobius has to laugh because: “It doesn’t matter. I’m a middle-aged man — my stamina is definitely past its prime. And you’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. I’m not going to last long.”

And he doesn’t, neither of them do, coming apart at the seams and stitching themselves back together as one.

Loki’s body moving under his is the purest pleasure he has ever felt, the smell and taste of his skin sweeter than any dessert, and he covets, treasures, every gasp, every moan, wrung from him.

Mobius loves him, loves him, loves him. And Loki loves him too.

After, when they’re sweat-slick and spent, Mobius tells him so to his face for the first time: “I love you so much.”

Loki buries his face into Mobius’ neck, says, “I wish I could stay. I never want to have to leave you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

And Mobius runs a soothing hand down his back, whispers, “It’s okay,” even though it’s not.

When Mobius awakes in the morning, he’s alone and the other side of the bed has long gone cold.

The doorbell sounds and Mobius goes to open it with gusto, excited to greet the first visitors of the night.

He swings the door wide, beaming, only for his smile to fall a little, perhaps for the first time ever on sighting him, when he realizes it’s Loki. And actually him, not a small child dressed as such.

It’s only fair then, that Loki’s smile vanishes entirely when he sees Mobius, eyes narrowing. “What,” he snips, “Are you wearing?”

Mobius could ask Loki the same thing, except he knows, has seen this get-up on two occasions previously. Once the first time Loki visited him and once when he watched Loki become guardian of the timelines. In some ways, he probably stands out much less dressed as such than he would in his usual shirt and tie in a neighborhood as Halloween-mad as Mobius’.

There is the sound of feet hurtling down the stairs behind Mobius and seconds later a pint-sized Iron-Man ducks under the arm he has outstretched holding the door open and takes off into the night, yelling back, “Hi Loki, bye Loki.”

Sean, hefting his Captain America shield, exits at a minorly more moderate pace, saying, “Nice costume, Loki,” and then freezes, before turning back around on the path outside to squint at him as if putting something together that Mobius would rather he didn’t. “Huh,” Sean says, nods slowly, and then adds, “Eight out of ten, I’d say. Dad, four, maybe four and a half if I squint.” And then he too is gone.

“Charming. Absolutely charming,” Mobius says. “Such wonderfully polite boys I’m raising, don’t you think?”

Loki does not concur. Instead, he says, deadly calm, “What is going on?”

“Block Halloween party theme is superheroes,” Mobius explains. “We’re all headed to the Jones’ after putting in an hour or two at home so the kids can come round for their candy.” He sniffs, “Well, some kids. The boys claim that now they’re fifteen they’re simply far too mature for trick or treating, so they’re off to the party early to hang with Elliot.”

“And the costume choices?” Loki interrogates, a glint in his eyes that spells only trouble, as he runs them from Mobius’ head to his toes and then back up.

“They said they were too old to dress up as well. But the Joneses are sticklers for it and there is a competition. So, they let me choose for them.”

Loki looks like he could raze a city but Mobius kind of likes him like that.

After double checking that the boys are long gone, he ducks forward, aiming for Loki’s lips.

He’s stopped by a hand firmly planted in the center of his chest.

“Absolutely not,” Loki hisses, doesn’t even relent in the face of Mobius’ pout, “I am not kissing you while you’re dressed as my brother.”

“Your loss,” Mobius tells him, pleased as punch. “You could have turned all the lights off, pretended we weren’t home, and taken me to bed. But I guess instead we’ll hand out candy to this lot.” Mobius nods to the hordes of costumed children starting to emerge from houses all around.

And so, the God of Stories spends an hour standing on Mobius’ doorstep and responding to cries of “Trick or Treat?!”. From time to time, if the parents aren’t looking and the kids are small enough, he lets a bit of green magic dance around his fingers as he pops a piece of candy into their bags after they’ve sung their song or told their joke.

Before Loki has to leave and Mobius heads off to find out if the Jones’ house is still standing, Mobius claps a hand over Loki’s eyes and drags him into a kiss.

Time, Mobius discovers, moves a lot faster when you’re spending it, rather than letting it pass.

“I can’t believe it,” Mobius says, to Loki in the seat beside his. “How are they at this stage? It feels like it was just yesterday they were in diapers and now look at them.”

Because Mobius can’t bring himself to even glance away from the raised platform where the principal is calling out names, lest he miss his pair, he hears, rather than sees, Loki’s eye roll in the fond exasperation of his tone as he says, “You can’t remember them in diapers.”

Mobius pretends he hasn’t spoken. “How did they get so big? They’re taller than me now, you know?”

“That’s not particularly impressive or surprising,” Loki states. “You’re distinctly average in height.”

“Oh hush, you,” Mobius chides him, “You’re just smug that they’re still littler than you, lanky.”

“I thought my lankiness was coming in handy, but if it is unappreciated…” Loki says, teasingly threatening, but entirely ineffective as he doesn’t so much as lower Mobius’ phone one millimeter from where he’s holding it up in front of his face to film the proceedings over the head of the woman in the row in front.

When the principal calls first Kevin and then Sean up to make their walk, Mobius puts a hand on Loki’s knee. He expects, if Loki wasn’t using both hands to keep the phone perfectly level, that Loki would take it, interlock their fingers, and squeeze.

“You should be so proud,” Loki says, soft, but still audible over the applause of the surrounding parents and guardians, friends and family, of the graduating class.

“I am,” Mobius says.

He feels a touch a fraud over it. He isn’t truly the man who raised these boys for the first two thirds of their lives. But he has been the one keeping them in two whole pieces, save a broken arm, a couple of broken toes, and one cut that needed stitches, for the past six years. They’re his, his boys, in a way he couldn’t have anticipated, and he is so very proud of the men they are becoming.

“They’re going to be thrilled you made it,” Mobius says, eyes tracking Sean as he leaves the stage and returns to his seat, the next graduate following in his footsteps.

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Loki says, like it’s no big deal at all that he’s back a week earlier than he should be, like he hasn’t made his burden harder to bear by choosing to be here.

“Oh, so you’ll come back early for them but not for little old me,” Mobius teases, even though it’s patently false and they both know it.

Loki gives a soft snort.

“I guess you can only stomach so much of me. Need all the time you can get to recover from my presence enough to suffer it again,” Mobius laments.

“I would need to be gone for more than a couple of months for that,” Loki says, teasing.

“A month,” Mobius corrects, “You’re usually gone a month.”

“Ah,” Loki says, “Yes, a month.”

Mobius frowns, twists to look at him, the final few walking students forgotten. He knows that time doesn’t really pass at the end of time — the clue is in the name — but Loki has spoken before about it still feeling to him like it does. Though, maybe it’s not the same as for Mobius. “Does it not feel like a month on your end?” he asks, curious, confused.

Loki doesn’t respond but shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

“How long is it for you, Loki?” Mobius says, serious now, Loki’s evasiveness a bad omen.

Loki turns off the recording and settles the phone in his lap. Buying time. Eventually, as the principal starts his closing speech, he says, “Longer than for you. But I’m not human, it’s different for me. And besides, I did near three centuries away before — I’m practiced.”

The excuses, the platitudes, make bile rise in Mobius’ throat. How did he never think to ask about this before? How can he have gone so long not knowing how long Loki has gone? “How long, Loki? How long has it been since you started up there?”

Loki looks at him and sadness stretches ceaseless in his eyes. “A millennium.”

The boys leave for college, and just like that, Mobius is alone again.

He knows they’ll be home every holiday, even some weekends given they’re in-state and he’s sure they’re going to want the services of dad, especially when they have exams, but, for now, the house is infinitely quieter, emptier, without them.

“You could get a cat,” Kevin suggests, when Mobius tells them as much on the second of their weekly — for the moment; Mobius is already dreading the time it starts to slip — video calls.

“Or that snake we always wanted,” Sean adds from out of frame. The boys are in his dorm and he’s folding his laundry as they chat. Miracles do happen.

“Or why can’t Loki just move in?” Kevin says, peers at him through the camera.

Mobius feels himself go red. “You know he works abroad.”

Kevin scoffs. “It’s 2028, Dad. If his company can’t get with the times and let him work from home, he needs to quit and get a better job. Doesn’t he work in time management or something? There must be other firms he could move to.”

“Well,” Mobius says, falsely casual, “Even if he could work remotely, why would he live with me?”

“Come off it, Dad,” Sean calls, full of exasperation. “We know he’s your boyfriend. We don’t care. Frankly, it’s weird that you still haven’t told us.”

It’s true, they haven’t told the boys. Mobius might have, would have, if things had been different. It’s hard enough to explain to your kids that you’re dating, without having to explain that the person you’re dating is a god from another planet who once tried to take over Earth and who you helped to save the multiverse with and who now resides out of time watching over said multiverse. Oh, and by the way, I’m not exactly the same old dad you’ve always had and I can’t remember the day you were born or even your twelfth birthday.

No thanks.

“How… how did you know?” Mobius asks, figuring there is no point in denying it, not wanting to.

Kevin rolls his eyes so hard they get stuck. Then Mobius realizes that’s just the shitty dorm wifi causing the picture to freeze when it starts again and he sees Kevin has thrown himself backwards on his brother’s bed in defeat and Sean is leaning into frame one eyebrow raised sky high.

“Are you serious?” Sean says, disbelieving. “You were different from the moment you met him.”

“How do you mean?” Mobius asks, genuinely wondering.

“You started acting funny,” Sean explains, slow, over-patient, like Mobius is five, “And then a couple of months later you had him round for dinner. Told us he was a friend.”

And it’s odd, strange, a little humorous in that it’s not exactly untrue that Loki is the reason, from the boys’ perspective, ‘Don’ was suddenly just a bit different.

Mobius lets out a shaky chuckle, but it seems this isn’t the beginning and the end of his sons’ reasoning.

“And you’re so sappy around each other,” Sean continues. “Always smiling and teasing and looking disgustingly lovesick. I actually could never, I’d be humiliated if it was me.”

“I am humiliated,” Kevin adds from where he’s lying with an arm thrown over his face, as if he needs a barrier to block out his father’s stupidity. “Just being associated with you.”

“Oh, har har,” Mobius says, feeling an uncontrollable smile bloom on his face. “Your dear old dad is embarrassing, what a hardship.”

Kevin sits up suddenly. “It’s gross, Dad,” he explains. “You could at least tone it down when we’re in the room.”

Mobius, who has never so much as held Loki’s hand in the presence of his sons, feels this an unfair request. “I haven’t done anything,” he protests.

Kevin scrunches his nose but there’s a grin hiding in his overly disgusted expression, as Sean says, “Your face does plenty.”

Loki materializes across the room and Mobius has to school his expression to keep his face from doing exactly what Sean is accusing him of.

He bites his lip, makes himself look back down at the screen instead of watching Loki prop the long line of himself against the doorframe.

“And Loki only ever calls you that weird pet name,” Kevin points out. “Mobius.”

At that Mobius has to laugh out loud.

The boys seem to take this as him laughing at their evidence, finding it wanting, and launch into a full stream of all the reasons it is soooo obvious, Dad that he and Loki are together.

“You drop everything you’re doing to hang out with him, you even let us off from homework once when he showed up,” Sean points out.

“You’re positively miserable when he leaves,” Kevin states, smirking.

“Like a bride whose husband has gone off to sea,” Sean concurs.

“I know I’ve heard you talking to him late at night, don’t even try to deny it.”

“He lets us do whatever we want when he visits. Even back when it must have been super annoying.”

“Exactly. You think he really cared that much about Roblox or Fortnite?”

“Once, he lay down beside the ramp and let us jump our bikes over him.”

“Yeah, and another time he showed us how to make a mini flamethrower.”

“And remember when he let us bleach his hair?”

“He’s totally gone on you, Dad, otherwise why would he put up with us?”

“He’s very fond of you,” Mobius argues back at that, eyes lifting briefly to meet Loki’s over the rim of the laptop.

On screen, Sean nods, accepting.

Kevin says, “Well, yeah,” but then goes on: “But he even eats that gross pie you make. No one is putting that in their mouth unless they’re in love with you.”

Mobius thinks his heart is about three times the size it was before and has tears of mirth in his eyes by the point the boys sign off to ‘go study’, which Mobius takes as code for ‘attend a rager’.

He looks at Loki, watching him from across the room, with his arms folded over his chest, the muscles in his biceps stretching the fabric of his shirt, his head cocked to one side, a tendon in his throat standing out, biteable.

“Is my pie really that bad?” Mobius asks.

Loki smiles, says, not in the least bit apologetic, “Yes, it is. I think we need to accept that nothing is ever going to best the automat’s key lime. And settle for the apple at Rose’s Cafe.”

Mobius sighs, dramatically, and slumps back on the couch. But, truly, it’s a good moment. The boys know about him and Loki and they don’t care, they even seem supportive in a decidedly long-suffering way. And Mobius no longer needs to spend hours upon hours in the kitchen making pie crusts and scroll a million infuriatingly diary-like recipes to try and figure out what went wrong with the filling.

Loki crosses the room to him, lifts the laptop from his lap and sets it aside, replaces it with himself, seated straddled over top of Mobius’ thighs, knees pressed to the couch cushion on either side of Mobius’ hips, and drapes his arms around Mobius’ neck.

“I’m sorry, love,” Loki says, sounding not a bit, and kisses him.

Mobius may be living alone again, but there is at least the silver lining that they don’t need to relocate from the couch to make out in private. 

Time passes. As is its wont.

The boys finish their first year of college, then their second, and Mobius adapts. He’s done it before; he can do it again.

He gets promoted to manager at Piranha Powersports — hah, take that, Hector.

He starts volunteering at the library — the next one over, since it’s still too risky to go back to their local — happy to shelve books and read to kids for a couple of hours a week.

He plants flowers in the beds outside now they’re less at risk of attack by the twin terrors, and finds a disturbing number of action figures buried there, some in tiny cardboard coffins.

Loki comes and Loki goes, like clockwork. A clock that Mobius wishes could tick with more frequency than it does, but such are the losses in life.

They’re balanced out by the wins. Mostly.

Mobius is choosing to take how easy it is for him to rake leaves off the lawn without tripping over a bike wheel or a football or a child as a win, even if it’s a bit of a loss too.

But Mobius had a productive day at work and a lovely dinner from a new recipe book he is trying — no broccoli in sight — and it’s a balmy evening, the heat of summer waning but just about hanging on, the cold of winter not yet rearing its head, and the sun is on its way down, painting the sky peach and pastel pink.

He breathes easy.

He’s not sure what makes him look up from the pile of leaves he’s accumulating. There’s no sound, save the breeze in the leaves on the trees and crunch of the rake brushing those on the ground. But he feels… watched, and when he straightens, there is someone standing across the street, staring at him.

It’s Loki.

He’s back again much earlier than Mobius expected.

The boys recently celebrated their 21^st birthday. Mobius had seen neither hide nor hair of them on the day — a Friday, so they’d really partied it up — and on the Saturday they’d been good for nothing but watching movies in bed and chasing painkillers with cool glasses of water. But on the Sunday, they’d come home so that he could take them out for dinner. The timing had meant an extra early visit for Loki, so much so that he had warned that it would likely be longer than normal before he could visit again.

It’s barely been three weeks since. Mobius has the silly wish that he’s made it back early to steal the kiss he didn’t get, because the boys were already heckling them over Mobius feeding Loki a taste of his meal off his fork and the pair of them holding hands under the table.

Mobius has called out to him, “Loki!” and raised his hand to wave before it registers.

It’s Loki, but there’s something off about him, something that has the hair on the back of Mobius’ neck rising, unease curling in his gut.

Mobius was an expert on Lokis and over the past decade he has become something of an extra special expert on his Loki.

This is not his Loki.

He’s absolutely identical to him in appearance, of that Mobius is sure, down to the number of hairs on his head and the shade of blue-green of his eyes and the length of his stride as he approaches.

When he opens his mouth and says, “Mobius,” it’s the same voice, identical fond inflection.

But Mobius knows, down to his bones, this is not his Loki.

“You’re not him.”

The Loki beams at him. “Indeed, I am not.” Then his smile dims, turning wistful. “And you’re not him,” he says, “But I wanted to see you anyway.”

And with that, Mobius knows who this is. “You’re my variant’s Loki,” he says. “The variant who split when I rejoined the timeline.”

The Loki inclines his head, confirming. “Very good. You’re just as astute as him.”

Mobius smiles. It’s nice to get a compliment from a Loki, even if it means more coming from his own one. It still feels uncanny to look at this Loki, but the unease in his stomach has settled, he doesn’t think he means any harm.

“What can I do for you?” Mobius asks, and for some reason, that seems to amuse him.

He laughs, and it’s a matching sound to his Loki’s, but it doesn’t warm Mobius the same. “I’m not here because I need something. Your counterpart changed me, my whole life. He was the best part of me. You, Mobius, you’ve done plenty for me.”

“Then why are you here?” Mobius asks.

“There’s something, I think, that I can do for you,” the Loki says. “And I wanted to see you beforehand.”

Mobius spreads his arms. “Well, you’ve seen me, what do you think?” Mobius feels the banter is not quite balanced as it should be, but it’s similar enough that he finds his footing easy.

The Loki smirks. “Do you know, you look better without that mustache?”

Mobius doesn’t even have to put on the affronted gasp. “You take that back!”

The Loki grins, wicked, then slides his hands into his pockets, takes a step back, and Mobius knows that stance.

“You’re leaving?” Mobius frowns. This has been a most peculiar interaction. Par for the course where Lokis are concerned.

He nods.

“You’re not going to elaborate on that something you can do for me?”

The Loki smirks. “No, I don’t think I am.” Typical trickster.

“I have a question, before you go,” Mobius tells him.

“Ask away,” the Loki says, benevolent.

“You said ‘was’,” Mobius points out, but gentle; he thinks he knows the answer he’s going to get. “About my variant. What happened to him?”

The Loki closes his eyes and, somehow, even though they’re the same, each and every fleck exact, with them closed, he looks even more like Mobius’ Loki.

“He lived a long, happy life. We had a long, happy life, together. But, you’re human — you couldn’t live forever.”

When the Loki opens his eyes, Mobius understands what is different. His Loki doesn’t know the kind of grief this one does. Not yet.

A full week goes by to make it a month since Mobius’ Loki came for the boys’ birthday. And that’s fine.

Then another passes. That’s fine too, Loki thought he’d be later this time, though Mobius hoped he might manage to stick to the usual schedule, especially considering the strange visit from the other Loki.

Once it hits six weeks, Mobius feels back at the start, when Loki was first visiting him and he would count days and stress if Loki was away longer than expected. He can feel himself on edge at all moments of every day, and at nights he struggles to sleep — when he does it’s fitful or full of dreams, nightmares, of never seeing Loki again.

The seven-week mark comes and goes and nothing. His worry grows and grows. He had been so sure the other Loki was benign, but Mobius has been out of the variant game for a long time, maybe he’s lost his touch.

It’s two days off eight weeks and he’s carrying a pile of fresh laundry — that he had robotically loaded out of the hamper, into the washer, out of the washer, into the dryer, out of the dryer, into his arms, mind elsewhere — down the hall to put away when Loki appears.

Mobius feels it happen, the air moving behind him with his arrival, and he turns on the spot, the clean clothes falling in a pile at his feet.

It’s his Loki.

He darts toward him, strewing socks and shirts with his steps, grabs for him.

Loki reaches for him too, and he kisses him, but it’s different. Normally all their kisses have an edge of urgency, the knowledge that Loki cannot stay impossible to get away from, making all touch a little frantic, imbuing all interactions with the sense of impending loss.

This kiss is languorous, drawn-out, indulgent, like Loki has all the time in the world.

When Mobius tries to pull away to get a good look at him, to ask him if everything is alright, Loki tugs him back in, seals their mouths together again. He gets his tongue in Mobius’ mouth but doesn’t immediately tangle it with his, instead strokes it along the roof of Mobius’ mouth, slow. He sucks Mobius’ bottom lip between his but doesn’t nip it with his teeth, doesn’t turn the kiss biting.

When Loki does eventually pull back Mobius feels weak-kneed, lightheaded, breathless, a little euphoric with it.

“Loki, what–” Mobius tries to ask, but his blood is pumping syrupy slow and it makes his tongue heavy, stupid and kiss-drunk.

“He’s taking it on,” Loki says, and his smile is huge, full of teeth. But his eyes are shiny, full of tears.

Their glisten gets Mobius’ anxiety spiking.

“Loki,” he says, gripping at his arms. “What do you mean? Who’s doing what? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Mobius, nothing’s wrong at all.” And Loki sounds happy, but his voice is shaking all the same and, when he blinks, his tears spill. 

Mobius takes his face in his hands, says, “Then what are these all about, darling?” and thumbs away the wet tracks on his cheeks.

Loki swallows, his throat bobbing. “It’s over,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “He’s going to do it for me.”

“Who?” Mobius asks, but he already knows. The other Loki. His other self’s Loki.

“He came to see you,” Loki says, confirming it, “And then he came to me, said he’d take over. Said it was the least he could do. That what I had done made it such that your variant found him, that they got to be together. And so, in return, he said he’d make it so we can be together.”

“You mean, you don’t have to go back?” Mobius asks, hope rising so fast he feels sick with it, fear that it’s too good to be true, that he’s somehow misunderstanding, mixed in.

But Loki smiles even wider, cries even harder, Mobius palms soaked with it, and says, “I don’t have to go back. I’ve shown him what to do, handed over care to him.”

“And you don’t need to go to the TVA?” Mobius asks, “Or visit Sylvie? Or be anywhere else? I have my tempad if you need it? I don’t know if– do your powers still–”

But Loki is griping his face back and, when Loki starts wiping at his cheeks, he realizes that he must be crying too.

“I don’t need to go anywhere,” Loki says. “I’ve already been to the TVA, just briefly, to fill them in on what’s happened. I’d like to go back for a proper visit later. I thought you’d want to come with me, and to go see Sylvie too, but there’s no rush. We don’t need to go now. I don’t want to be anywhere but with you now.”

Loki stops, seems to reconsider, then says, “Though maybe the boys could come round this weekend? Do you think we could lure them away from the delights of college if we tell them I’m moving in and pretend we need help?”

Mobius feels him still under his hands, and then Loki asks, suddenly tentative, uncertain, “That’s if– if it’s alright for me to stay?”

Mobius could laugh at that — the idea of Loki staying not being alright is the most absurd thing he has ever heard. It’s only the one thing Mobius has wanted since he discovered he could want things for himself. Instead of laughing, he tips his forehead to rest against Loki’s, says, “Of course, you can stay. I want you to stay always.”

Loki nods and nods, forehead shifting against Mobius’. “Always,” he vows.

Always.

Loki is right that they don’t need to rush. If he’s staying — and he is — then they don’t need to do anything right now except be together.

Maybe tomorrow they can call the boys to ask about their weekend plans and possibly derail them. Or maybe Mobius can leave it till the weekend itself to call and, if the boys are busy, they’ll go see Sylvie instead. Or maybe visit the TVA; it’s been so long since Mobius saw his old colleagues and he is constantly craving the pie. Or maybe Mobius could take Loki to the garden center, show him what he’s planning to get for his — their — garden. Or maybe they could get lunch at Rose’s, there’s some new pastries on the menu he wants Loki to try. Or maybe they can watch the entirety of a movie together, never possible before. Or maybe they won’t get out of bed for a whole week, even just sleeping beside one another a novelty yet to be explored.

Or maybe they’ll do it all.

After all, they’ve got time.