Work Text:
The first time Mobius pushed up the cuffs of his shirt while they were working together in the archives, Loki caught sight of something that swiftly obsessed them. The marks on Mobius’s wrist weren’t a mystery to Loki, at least not in what they spelled out: scars like that were the language of despair, testament to pain that couldn’t be endured without some terrible facsimile of relief, familiar to Loki even if their own glamoured skin wouldn’t hold that scar for more than a dozen years at most. The scars weren’t the mystery, Mobius was the mystery, because the man seemed so unruffled, so unruffleable, so sure of his purpose and so devoted to it that Loki couldn’t imagine him driven to lengths like that. It was Mobius’s job to protect the Sacred Timeline; the thought of him taking himself out of it entirely was almost inconceivable.
What Sylvie told them on Lamentis suddenly contextualized the scars that Loki had spent so much time pondering: Mobius hadn’t always been a time analyst, and at some point before he’d become a Variant and got himself snatched into the ranks of the TVA, he’d been the sort of person who had succumbed to such melancholy. Weirdly, knowing that only made Loki more fond of him, and they’d already been shocked by the depths of their fondness for the only one who truly thought they could be better than they were.
By the time Mobius believed Loki about him and every other TVA employee being a Variant, he was pruned before either of them had a chance to question what that meant for him specifically. Watching him vanish from existence, Loki felt the pain they saw on Mobius’s face the instant before he disappeared themself, felt like they were being hollowed out, eaten away like acid had leaked out from their broken heart to erode their flesh and empty out their skin, but they were still here, still occupying space, still breathing though that inhale sounded more like a sob.
Manacled but not immobilized, Loki raked a thumbnail across the thin skin of their left wrist and thought about Mobius and his scars, Mobius removed from the Sacred Timeline at his trusted friend's hand when he’d survived trying to take himself out of it, Loki left on a Sacred Timeline that no longer held the one person they cared to keep it sacred with, or for.
[ ]
The next time Loki caught sight of Mobius, climbing out of a car in the Void, it felt like all that hollow space inside them was flooded to the brim with sunshine to spite the cloudy nothingness all around them, joy filling them that couldn’t be dimmed by the dark circumstances their unlikely cadre were knee-deep in here at the end of all things. They regrouped with the handful of Lokis working with them, all putting their heads together to come up with a plan that could only be devised by the devious mind of Loki reflected back through itself into exponentially more chaos.
While they were all resting after a tentative plan had been reached, Sylvie gave Loki a nudge toward Mobius. “Go talk to him,” she said quietly. “Before we walk into the next calamity, and you lose your chance forever." She went inside the ramshackle shelter to talk to the older and younger Lokis, leaving the Loki who wasn’t sure how to refer to themself and the unceremoniously fired time analyst alone together outside.
Mobius was standing off at the top of the ridge with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the husks of Alioth's prior meals and rocking from heel to toe; he went up on his toes when Loki came up behind him and put a hand low on his back, sinking back to flat feet when he realized just which of the Lokis in their strange company was touching him: the one whose touch he welcomed. "Hey," he said, turning to meet Loki’s eyes with that bright clever gaze that had charmed Loki so thoroughly lit up to see them there.
"I thought I watched you die," Loki said, and swore internally at how desperate their voice sounded, how bald and inelegant their words, but kept the wince off their face, at least.
"Sorry," Mobius said, and sounded genuinely regretful, not like he was just saying it. "I thought I was gonna have to watch you die, and… I couldn't do it, this time. Not when it was you."
"That's a selfish way to frame the most selfless thing anyone's ever done for me," Loki said, wrapping their fingers around Mobius's left wrist to pull his hand out of his pocket so they could hold it. "I can't stand the thought of a timeline without you in it," they added, leaning into the painful honesty instead of trying to avoid it, now that it was a pain they'd endured and had relieved with the undeniable fact of Mobius’s continued existence, tangible and real and there.
"I can't stand how many timelines I took you out of," Mobius said ruefully, and nodded toward where Sylvie and the other Lokis were conversing. "I recognize the little guy. Poor kid stabbed Thor as a prank and killed him by accident… he stabbed two Minutemen when they went to bring him in."
"I didn't," Loki said, voice low and intent. "I didn't lose my brother. Or my mother. Or my sorry excuse for a father. You showed me how they fell on the Sacred Timeline, but I didn't suffer their loss myself. You…” They looked down and intertwined their fingers with Mobius’s. “...you're the first person I’ve loved I thought I lost like that,” they said, not daring to blink lest the tears collecting in their eyes escape to trail down their face.
"Oh," Mobius said, and then his eyes widened. “Oh.” He squeezed Loki’s fingers gently and added, “Usually when people say ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ they don’t mean ‘I’m sorry for being your loss.’”
“Well, don’t do it again.” Mobius’s fingers were so warm between Loki’s, and they brought up their other hand to clasp his between theirs, but their eyes were on Mobius’s face and the smile that broke across it when Loki added, “Whatever we face after this… we’re better together.”
“Better together, or better off together?” Mobius asked, but didn’t wait for a reply. “Either way, I agree.” He covered Loki’s hand with his, their layered hands the most significant point in the entire Void beyond time, an unprecedented connection that neither of them realized could smash the entire multiverse wide open. “I’ll try not to die if you’ll try not to die,” he quipped with a crooked smile.
“...you have tried to die,” Loki said, and couldn’t repress the wince at their words this time, but went on anyways. “As have I.” They turned their clasped hands over until the faint lines of Mobius’s scars were just visible in the cuff of his shirt, the sight that squeezed their heart so tightly.
“I don’t remember, you know. Trying to… trying to end myself. But I saw you try more than once, and it broke my heart,” Mobius confessed, that smile fading at the memory he did retain.
“We both lived to now, though, and I intend to live with you well beyond this point, Mobius. Let’s not just try not to die… I’ll try to live if you’ll try to live.”
“Deal,” Mobius said immediately, and shook Loki’s hand to seal it. When Loki lifted their hands and pressed their lips to the back of Mobius’s, the faded remnant of that crooked smile widened into something bright enough to light up the Void. “So… you’re definitely coming with me, then? Back to the TVA?”
“I did tell you that I was going to burn that place to the ground, didn’t I?” Loki reminded him, an answering smile on their lips with the keen edge of their former bloodthirsty chaos to it at the thought of what they would do together. “Better to do it with your hand on the torch as well. Share the blame… and the satisfaction.” Their voice dropped to a purr on the last words.
When Mobius leaned closer to them like he couldn’t help himself, Loki gave into the urge to close the distance between them and catch his mouth with their own, all of the fear and the sorrow that had eaten away at them transmuted into the desire for fire: flames of revenge and flames of passion, burning away the past and all its despair, destroying the time-out-of-time that brought them together under such false pretenses without any idea of how true the bond they’d create would be.
“You lit the fire, Loki, I’m just carrying your flame.” Mobius didn’t move away, mustache brushing against Loki’s lips as he murmured. “But we can share the blame if we spread it together.” There was mischief in his eyes, bright and eager, drawing Loki in with a delicate mixture of familiarity and novelty: the chaos Loki knew so well filtered through eyes that were still as kind and wise as the first time Loki had looked at Mobius and realized they would do anything to earn his affection.
“Fire-bearer is a noble role. It suits you,” Loki said, trying not to shiver with delight to have Mobius speak his willingness to hold Loki’s fire in pursuit of destruction that would free not only the two of them, not only the Lokis caught captive in the tyranny of the Sacred Timeline, but the entire multiverse, should they succeed. There was nothing to be done but to kiss him again, then again, then once more for luck.
“Hey, lovebirds,” Sylvie called, startling them away from each other’s mouths but not out of each other’s grip, “time’s flying, we doing this or what?” When Loki looked over at her, she spread her hands and added, “you’ve got the TemPad, go on your honeymoon before your rampage if you want, but I’d rather not stay here any longer!”
“Apocalypse honeymoon,” Loki murmured thoughtfully, and turned an inquisitive look on Mobius, who looked more intrigued by the idea than Loki had expected he might.
“Tempting,” Mobius breathed, and added with a half-smile, “but I think we should save our celebration for after our victory, don’t you?”
Loki thought about it for a moment— none of them knew what would happen when the TVA met its ignoble end, for all they knew there might not be an after— but there was no thought more galvanizing as a reason to live than the reward of Mobius in their arms after the chaos settled. “Oh, all right. For you, I’ll delay pleasure for pandemonium,” they said playfully, and let go of his hands so they could cup his face and kiss him one last time, a promise to be redeemed once they’d made their escape into whenever they’d be at peace to explore each other’s familiar flaws and utter uniqueness with all the time in the world to spend in the loving discovery. “Think about where you want to go while we raze the place,” they added, and plucked the TemPad out of Mobius’s pocket.
“I know just the place already,” Mobius said without hesitation, and wrapped his hand around Loki’s wrist to pause them in dialing their destination. “Don’t forget to say goodbye.”
“Good luck, Sylvie,” Loki said, heartfelt and vehement when they added, “Kill the bastard and enjoy doing it.”
“That’s the plan,” Sylvie said cheekily. “You have fun raining death and destruction on the apparatus while I cut off the head of the beast, huh?”
“We’ll do our best,” Mobius said. “Take care, Sylvie.”
“You too, Mobius. And if we don’t meet again…” She hesitated for a moment before going on, “I’m glad to have known the both of you. Can’t say I liked the circumstances, but… I liked you.”
“Sorry about… everything,” Mobius said. “I hope you get the vengeance you deserve.”
“Likewise,” Sylvie said, and waved them off. “Go do your thing. We’ve got our plan to enact here as soon as you’re clear.”
Mobius let go of Loki’s wrist but moved his hand to their back instead, watching them set the TemPad. As the portal manifested, they both took a deep breath and then stepped through.
Whatever would happen, would happen. But it would happen to them together, and that was what mattered now.