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Mobius cracks his neck and sighs.
“Maybe, you should go to bed, sweetheart,” Loki says, looking up from the file in front of him.
“And leave you alone with the variant of your old paramour? Sure.”
Loki cocks an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of Circe. I haven’t met her for at least 500 years.” He shakes his head and chuckles to himself. Mobius has seen him with several variants of his exes. He’d never been like this before. Until this moment, Loki wasn’t even aware that Mobius was capable of jealousy.
“I was thinking about taking her out to that little restaurant we’ve been to when we had this case in Athens,” he says, grinning, curious about how his partner might react.
Mobius keeps his hands busy, eyes flickering through the room. “That’s our restaurant,” he grinds out. Loki’s smirk slips off his face. Mobius sounds hurt, and that’s not what he wanted to achieve. Truly not.
“It was a joke, sweetheart. I’d never… Did I do something wrong?”
Mobius gets up, his chair screeching over the floor. “Nah. Have fun with her.” He walks past Loki without the usual peck on his cheek, and it takes Loki a long moment to process that he’s truly planning to leave without the by now familiar gesture.
With a few long strides, he reaches his boyfriend. “Hey,” he says, cupping his shoulder. “Talk to me.”
Mobius rolls his eyes and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “There’s nothing to say that wouldn’t sound pathetic or needy, and I’m not in the mood for indulging your vanity, Loki.”
The demi-god swallows hard. Mobius barely calls him by his name nowadays. Not when it’s just the two of them. Something is bothering him badly.
“Spit it out,” Loki orders gently.
“I don’t like her, okay?” Mobius groans, clenching his jaw. Loki can see that he only needs one more tiny nudge and he’ll spill.
“Why? She’s a delight! Much nicer than my ex Homusubi, who you liked. And he set the archive on fire.”
“You didn’t call him ‘love’,” Mobius murmurs.
Loki can’t believe his ears. “That’s what this is about?”
“She was the only one you ever called that, and I know it’s stupid, because I have no right to it, but it… it hurts, knowing she meant more to you.”
Loki cups Mobius’ cheeks. “When we got together, you said you didn’t want to hear oaths of love, that I should prove to you how I feel. Remember?”
“I know.”
“Then what changed?”
Mobius runs his hand over Loki’s side. “I don’t know.”
Loki smiles warmly. It doesn’t matter anyway. “I love you,” he says.
“Don’t,” Mobius says. "That’s not...”
“I love you. Circe has nothing on you.”
“Liar,” Mobius says, but a smile is tugging on the corners of his lips.
“She’s history, and you are my future,” Loki says and seals the words with a kiss. Mobius smiles into it.
“I love you, too,” he breathes, relaxing at last.