Work Text:
"Mobius?" He looks up, pulled abruptly from the file he was reading, one of the few he gets assigned these days working as an analyst part-time.
Casey's standing awkwardly at Mobius's table when he looks up. "Hm?" He prompts.
"Who are you... talking to?" Casey asks, stilted, and Mobius pauses. Now that he registered it, he had been mumbling to himself while he worked, but that wasn't exactly unusual. He'd always grumbled about this and that while he did things. He liked to think it was part of his charm.
So, Mobius waves him off. "Ah, I was just talkin' to myself while I worked through this. Don't worry yourself about it, Case."
Casey's quiet for a moment. "For some reason I thought you were talking to..." Casey trails off, looking away sheepishly. "Nevermind."
They both know what the end of that sentence was going to be.
---
Mobius talks to him.
He talks to him a lot.
It's silly. Stupid, even. But he knows that Loki's out there, in the middle of everything, and he might just be listening.
The least he could do at the end of it all is keep him company.
So, Mobius talks.
Every night, he sits down at his dining table in a house that is more familiar than it has any right to be, and he talks. About small, meaningless things, just passing the time.
He talks to Loki about his visits back to the TVA to meet his quota and catch up with their friends, and how it's much more difficult than he thought it would be to raise his two strangely mischievous children. He found a timeline where these boys' Don had died, and while he might not be the father these boys once had, he and the boys know that, he likes to think he's doing well.
He talks to Loki about Casey's recent interest in writing, and how O.B. is helping him learn how to tell a compelling story.
He tells Loki when he finally caves and gets his son a dog. (He couldn't quite handle the idea of keeping a snake around. For multiple reasons.) It's a midsized fluffy thing, and it makes both his sons laugh so happily that he gets misty-eyed at the sound.
He tells Loki about B-15, and her struggles to find a name that she likes better than her identification. He tells Loki when one day, Casey suggests they just call her Bea, and she decides she likes that.
He tells Loki about what he ate for lunch that day. About his sons' escapades and how much it reminds him of Loki's memories of his and Thor's childhood.
He doesn't know if Loki's listening. But he allows himself to hope.
---
Loki listens. He doesn't have much else to do. Even if he did, Mobius's quiet conversation is something he wouldn't trade for anything.
At first it's tinged with uncertainty, unused to the lack of a response, but Loki watches it become a routine. He sits at his old wooden table in quiet grief, tracing the dips and grooves of the wood as he recounts his day, despite the fact that Loki's seen all of it. He appreciates it anyways. He responds sometimes, despite knowing Mobius won't hear it.
He especially appreciates the recounting of how their shared friends are doing, as the TVA is the only place he can't lay his eyes upon.
Mobius's sons are all too endearing, and Loki attaches himself to them like a leech, taking great excitement in watching them get into trouble. One memorable time, that excitement is abruptly replaced with panic when one of them accidentally sets fire to his brother's jacket. Luckily, they're a clever two, and the boy rushes to grab the hose laying a few meters away as the other strips his jacket off in panic. It's put out quickly, and the two of them exchange hushed whispers as they both agree to put the jacket in the dumpster and never tell their father about this. Loki has the strangest feeling that he'll find out anyway.
It's a strange notion, the concept of fate.
Loki tends to think he's spent his whole life going against it. After all, why else would every single one of his plans fail, every single one of his ideas lead to his own destruction, every one of his attempts to love become a mess of death, desperation, and sorrow?
Still yet, he thinks that in terms of fate, perhaps this is his. Sitting raw and broken and alone on a throne he'd tried so hard to obtain but never wanted.
He wonders what Mobius's opinions on fate are. He wonders if he'll ever be able to ask him.
He doubts it.
But, like fate, hope is a funny thing. It's hard to leave behind in the rush of everything. It's hard to let go of.
And it's painful to watch Mobius be drained of it, it's painful to watch Mobius change and grow and become someone apart from Loki, because Loki should be there. And he isn't.
Perhaps it's like this: Two puzzle pieces are created for each other and then separated. They're put into different puzzles, and their shapes mold and bend to the new environment. By the time they make it back to one another, they cannot fit together anymore, too changed, too much time passed.
Maybe it's foolish to think they might ever find their way back to each other.
Maybe it's foolish to compare people to puzzle pieces.
Maybe Loki is just exceedingly terrible at metaphors.
It wouldn't be the first time.