Archive of Our Own

There are only so many parallel universes

that concern us. In one, he isn’t dead.

In another, you drink light with your hands

all winter. There is a universe in which no one is lying

emptied in the street as the gas station burns, a universe

in which our mothers haven’t learned to wrap

their bones in each small grief they’ve found.

There is a universe in which there is no difference

between the past and the ground. Another

where the oceans pull the moon. And so on.

— excerpt of 

“Introduction to 

Quantum Theory”

by Franny Choi

part i. not sylvie

“Look at your eyes, you like her,” Mobius says, huffing a disbelieving laugh. Loki swallows, the movement caught in their throat as they hit the knot swelling there. They’re nearly tempted to ask—question what Mobius is thinking, wonder how he came to such a conclusion. 

Instead, all that comes out is, “What?”

“You like her. Does she like you?” Mobius says, gleeful and pressing as a young student badgering his friend. 

Loki wants to say something, argue against the point. But Mobius has gotten the idea planted in his head, and he won’t believe that it’s untrue simply because Loki says so. Something tells them that they could rip their chest open, let Mobius be eyewitness to the rotting, aching mass of their heart, show that love was an emotion incapable of being produced within them and still Mobius would say it to be a trick, a clever illusion worthy of the nastiest deception. 

“Was she pruned?” Loki asks instead. They clench their hands into fists on their lap. If Mobius cannot be persuaded into the truth, perhaps he can be distracted instead.

“I mean, no wonder you have no clue what caused the Nexus Event,” Mobius continues, talking as if Loki had not asked a question. He laughs again, and something ugly twists low in Loki’s gut. 

Once a Loki, always a Loki. Sylvie renamed herself, grew up far from Asgard without the shadow of another better, stronger sibling always darkening her, instead had the screams of the damned echoing in her ears as she survived in tragedies. She was born a Loki, and a Loki she will always be, no matter her differing upbringing. Not even she can escape this: defeat, distrust, hate. An enemy on every side. The Loki birthright.

She told them once, about a Midgardian story. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” she’d called it.

“The boy is us,” she had said. “Tell enough lies and soon people won’t even believe the truth.”

But what else is a trickster god to do?

“I hate you.” The words ring in the air, nothing but pure silence accompanying them. It takes Loki a long, long moment to realize they are the one who spoke.  It takes only a breath—rattling, aching, squeezed harshly from their lungs—to realize that the words are the furthest thing from the truth. 

Loki is a liar. Mobius has since stopped trusting them or believing a word out of their mouth. 

He will believe these ones. He will believe a lie openly, because it’s one thing that Loki would tell the truth about. Their disdain for humans, however much it has changed in the days here, is a well-known fact.

Loki watches as Mobius’ face goes carefully blank. It’s a dreadful expression, and Loki wants to beg for the anger to return, for the bitterness of whatever convinced him of Loki’s romantic lust for Sylvie. Then, at least, it lit up his eyes. Then, Loki had something to go off of. Now there is nothing but the dark they’ve lived in since birth.

“That’s fine,” Mobius says. It’s almost soft, like he knows. Loki can feel their heart pulsing uncomfortably, swelling and pressing against their ribs. Briefly, head dizzily spinning, Loki thinks their ribs might shatter, shards cutting across the room until every inch is marked or pinned. Another piece of their devastation and sorrow to be marketed as anger.

Loki’s fingers spasm wildly. Disgust and shame bubble on their tongue. Take it back take it back take it back. And they want to, desperately. But the words will not come, and they cannot force themself to admit…admit what? That somewhere between meeting Mobius and the death-scrape of Lamentis, they began to feel something beyond bitter towards him? That they‘ve never known how to apologize, even when they want nothing more?

“I don’t like Sylvie,” Loki manages to choke out. “That’s not—she’s me. I don’t like myself enough to go and fall in love with a different—a different version of me!”

Harsh gasps fall from their lips, nearly panting. Their fingers have clenched tight around their knees, fingers gone bone-white with how little blood is getting to them.

“I don’t like Sylvie,” Loki repeats. One hand unclenches from their knee to rub across the left side of their chest. Their breaths calm, but their shoulders stay drawn and tense. Mobius is tiptoeing too close to a raw, hidden truth and Loki’s fingers itch and burn with the instinct to push and drive him away.

“Okay,” Mobius says. Loki brings their palms to harshly scrub over their thighs, chafing against the rough material of their slacks. “Okay.”

Loki nods, though they’re not at all sure that Mobius believes them. Mobius, who is gazing at them with a soft kind of curiosity. He’s not smiling, but it’s a close thing.

“What?” Loki snaps. 

Mobius shrugs. “I was under the impression that you’re—how did you put it? ‘Burdened by glorious purpose’? Seems like that sort of thing falls in line with thinking yourself to be sort of glorious.”

Loki picks at a stray thread on their pants, completely bewildered. What does that have to do with anything?

“You said that you don’t like yourself enough to love yourself, essentially,” Mobius continues. Loki barely bites their tongue against arguing back that they didn’t say that, actually. “Let’s start there. What’s not to like?”

The little thread snaps as Loki twists and tugs too hard. “What, you don’t remember?” they say bitterly. “I’m destined to cause pain and suffering and death. I’m the monster parents tell their children about! ‘Be in your chambers on time, or Loki will snatch you up in the night.’ You’ve seen my entire life, have you not? Don’t remember that one?”

“I’ve seen it,” Mobius says softly. “But that’s not how I see you.”

“That’s how you said it,” Loki replies. They sink down in their chair and cross their arms. 

“You used to think human lives to be inconsequential.” Mobius spreads his hands. “How do you feel about them now?”

Loki scowls. They don't see how these things are at all tied together, but Mobius has a way of working around the problem until he spirals to the core of it. Rather frustratingly, the tactic works on Loki, even when they’re aware of it happening.

“Fine,” they reply shortly. “Human lives are fine.”

“Still worth less than yours?”

Loki’s scowl deepens. They get it now. Mobius wants to know that, if they hate themself so, do they still think they’re better than a human? 

“Some of them,” Loki mutters. “Some are worth more.”

They will not say who. As long as Mobius is under the impression that Loki hates him—accidental and incorrect as that idea may be—it’s good for Loki. The further they can dissuade Mobius from uncovering the truth the better. Even if it stings and burns like fire on their skin and poison in their mouth, it’s worth it. Mobius is more deserving of a kind lie than a terrible truth. 

“Like who?” Mobius' face is so open. All his edges are soft and delicate like down. He always talks like he already knows the answer, like what Loki’s going to say is predetermined. Perhaps he does know—he’s seen every moment of Loki’s life. It must be easy to guess.

“No one.” Loki’s hands have tightened around their elbows. “Nothing.”

Mobius gazes at them for a moment. Loki shifts under the gaze, their skin crawling. Mobius is only looking at them, but it feels as if they’re being picked apart. 

“Okay,” Mobius says eventually.

“Okay,” Loki repeats shortly.

part ii. the blues

Her skin is blue. A deep, frosty blue. Her nails scrape at the sink as she stares into the mirror, violently red eyes staring back. The spell keeping back this form could only last so long in a place barren of magic. 

Mobius knows. He’s seen every inch of Loki’s life and dissected it, picking apart each piece and handing them to her so he could know why things happened the way they did, why she said that thing, why she hated this person so much. Working the puzzle backward; pulling off each piece individually to understand the whole picture. There is nothing of her past she can keep from him, and she’s sure this is no exception.

Something in her though, buried beneath the stones sitting heavy in her stomach, cries at the thought of making this present rather than past. Her nails scrabble along her arms, leaving long white lines up and down the skin. Her hands are trembling. 

“Loki?” 

Mobius Mobius Mobius.

An ugly keening noise rips from Loki’s throat. She sinks to the bathroom floor. Mobius is just on the other side, waiting. They’re supposed to be heading out with a group of hunters to look for Sylvie. Loki isn’t supposed to be nearly crying on the bathroom floor. It’s not even her bathroom—it’s Mobius’. They’ve built up a tentative trust in the time since Mobius’ accusations about Sylvie and Loki is desperate to keep a grasp on it. She can’t lose it over something like this.

The door handle rattles as Mobius twists it from the other side. It’s not locked.

“Don’t,” Loki gasps. “Don’t come in.”

The door handle stops, and there’s a pregnant pause before Mobius speaks. “Loki, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Loki shouts. Her hands tear at her clothes, as if when she reaches her heart she might be able to pull dregs of magic to the surface. 

She hears Mobius sigh. It’s a soft sound, far from the heavy exhales Loki grew up with. 

“Loki,” Mobius says again. “What’s wrong?”

Something in Loki’s chest cracks. She can feel it oozing, a thick and heavy thing thrusting into and filling her lungs. She chokes on a sob. The door handle rattles as it’s twisted, slow and purposeful. Loki says nothing, and Mobius pushes it open all the way. His face, worry shining in his eyes and a twist at the edge of his mouth, appears in the space between door and frame. 

“Hey, Lo,” Mobius says softly. It’s nearly a whisper, private and intimate in the closed-in air of the room. Loki’s back presses into the edge of the tub as she scoots across the floor. The weight of her despair is cloying and heavy.

Loki doesn’t respond. She fears that, if she speaks, says anything at all, everything she’s kept perfectly pressed down and tucked away will spill through the freshly-formed cracks in her icy exterior. Already she knows her feelings are spread before them both like a feast, lining the table with Mobius at the head.

Mobius sits down beside her, close enough to touch if either of them decide to. Hunger yearns in her skin, the epidermis buzzing and aching for the feel of Mobius against it.

Her stomach is knotted and squirmy, despite. She doesn’t know how to put it to words, to say that her very skin is the problem, that the ache of being even more isolated from everyone else has not yet been soothed in the years since the discovery. Tears stream lazily down her cheeks and she ducks her face to hide them from Mobius.

“You know,” Mobius throws out casually, “my favorite color is blue.”

Loki laughs, sudden and startling. She slides down towards the floor. She has no doubt that it’s a true statement, but a twisting unease wonders that, even if it is true, is Mobius still okay with this? With a monster parading as a god? 

“And uh.” Mobius clears his throat awkwardly and Loki becomes aware of the fact that he’s avoiding looking at her. “Your shirt is open.”

Loki doesn’t currently have breasts—a fact that stems from not having access to her magic and makes her uncomfortable and rather upset—but the smooth plane of her chest is still on display from her earlier panicked actions. She refastens her shirt up crookedly and curls her legs to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Loki murmurs. She rests her folded arms on her knees and her chin atop those. The confession is uncomfortable,  unease worming through her chest and gnawing on her heart.

“For what?”

“We’re supposed to be on a mission right now.” Loki laughs bitterly. “And instead you’re sitting in your bathroom with a blue giant.”

“Hey.” Mobius places a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “I like that blue giant. Maybe I want to be sitting on the bathroom floor with him.”

Loki swallows down her instinct to correct Mobius. She wishes fiercely that she didn’t have to correct him, or anyone else. She can still feel the magic sizzling in her veins, a crackling ever-presence suppressed and bottled, unable to be used for the crushing need to change, form as fluid as movement and thought. Mobius knows, of course he knows, but the sharp blue of her skin is enough. He doesn’t need this too.

“How about some pie?” Mobius suggests. He gently thumbs tears from Loki’s face.

“Key-lime,” Loki murmurs back. She leans into Mobius’ side, letting out a slow breath as she rests her head on his shoulder. Mobius’ arm curls around her in return. Comfort from another is a seldom opportunity, and Loki aches with it.

part iii. heat

Loki’s fingers curl around his cup. It seams into the air, the warmth seeping into his hands through the ceramic. His skin is still blue, Jötunn blood thick in his veins. Mobius says he likes it. 

“This is the good stuff,” Mobius says. He nods, satisfied, after he takes a drink from his own mug. 

Hot chocolate, he had said. Made with milk, not water, for a richer taste. He’d asked if they had it on Asgard. Loki had said no, as they didn’t, but mostly because he knew Mobius would rather see his expression at a first taste rather than one for comparison. 

Loki takes his own sip, the melting cream pressing against his upper lip.

“Good?” Mobius questions. He’s every bit anticipatory, nearly sitting on the edge of his seat. 

“Good,” Loki replies softly. He curls his hands around the mug again. The press of heat against his skin is soothing, a high indulgence. Mobius lips curl up into a smile. Loki finds himself mirroring the expression. 

It’s been long enough since the conversation about Sylvie. Long enough that Loki almost wants to say it. He can feel the words bubbling up, rising from his throat and frothing wickedly across his tongue.

Mobius takes another sip of his cocoa. He licks the excess chocolate from his lips. Loki follows it, lets his eyes trace from the soft arches of Mobius’ lips to the curving smile lines of his cheeks to the crooked slope of his nose. 

Mobius has lived. Loki wants to find every spot where his body showcases it—the soft swell of his stomach, the backs of his hands. Mobius has scars, marks of the escapades he’s been on. Perhaps he’d let Loki touch them, the cool contrast of blue against tan, hear soft rasp his fingertip would make if he ran it along the puckered tissue. 

“It’s soup night,” Mobius comments. “Know that’s something you like.”

Loki grins, just a small bit, as he takes a sip of his cocoa. “It is,” he agrees.

Mobius turns to look at him, and they both laugh. 

I love you. I love you.

The TVA serves little bowls of soup twice a week. Tuesday and Thursday. The most insignificant of the days—not the beginning, middle, or end, but the spaces between. The soups feel like a way of giving meaning to those days, a little treat to entice good will. Mobius always gets both a salad and soup, though more often than not his soup bowl migrates to Loki’s side of the table. Loki rather enjoys the tomato one.

“I don’t understand how you don’t eat these,” Loki says. He spoons more soup into his mouth.  “But more for me, I suppose.” 

Mobius laughs. “I’m fine with just my salad, I guess. Don’t need much more than that.”

It’s a domestic sort of routine they’ve adopted. Sweet and slow. Pleasant, even. It’s softer than anything Loki’s had before. The feeling is strange, distinctly different from everything before, but not unwelcome. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, the weight of everything and what it all means, and Loki can find himself pulling away and sinking back into silence. Mobius always seems to know—know when to give Loki his space, when to push a little harder and draw Loki back out.

Mobius is good at it.

Mobius, who gives Loki all his soups even though… even though…

“You like these,” Loki accuses suddenly. “These soups. When I first got here you said they were a ‘highlight of the week’ but you don’t eat them. But you did, before you saw that I liked them.”

Mobius shrugs, easy grin on his face. The gentle slope of his shoulders shows only relaxation. He expected Loki to find out. 

“You like them,” he parrots, as if that’s any answer.

“You like them too,” Loki argues. “Why am I over here eating all of them?”

The lines of Mobius’ face soften. His smile stays. “I like seeing you enjoy things. Good change of pace.”

Warmth blooms in his gut, spreading outwards through his body like a flower opening in the spring. Loki doesn’t respond. He takes another sip of his soup and smiles. Someday he’ll say it. Admit to Mobius the feelings that have been curling and writhing in him like a snake; restless and trapped and anxious to be free.

A poison-toothed snake, just on the off chance that Loki is wrong. That to Mobius, Loki is only a good friend and the writhing creature’s escape would serve as a bite.

He doesn’t want to be wrong again.

part iv. brutality

Branched Timeline: Durango, Colorado, 2019

In a grave at dawn, there is a girl. Her name is Cassie. She wears a suit and tie. The inscribed name on her tombstone says “Michael.” Her friends come to her funeral and berate the injustice of her parents as they speak loving words.

“You will not see her,” one friend says to the grieving mother. They are reflections of one another, with trembling lips and dead eyes. “You will not go where she’s going.”

They hold their own funeral, those friends, gathered around a rock in Cassie’s favorite spot in the woods, the stone hastily and brutally carved with a knife. Here they speak her name and cry and scream. Not unfair that she died, only, but unfair that she was dishonored in her death. 

Some cultures say there is no worse feat.

Hidden in the shadows, hands clutched with knuckles white, Loki stands. She doesn’t speak, nor does Mobius beside her but they watch the proceedings. Neither of them knew the girl. It doesn’t matter, though, not when she is what Loki was to be. 

The silence between them only lasts so long.

“Sylvie was here,” Mobius says. Loki doesn’t take her eyes off the group of friends, huddled around the rock. She stays silent, silver tongue rotted to lead. “It’s not an apocalypse,” Mobius continues when it becomes clear Loki has nothing to say.

“No,” Loki says. Her voice scrapes in her throat. “They killed her.” 

The parents with Cassie, she means. Whenever Cassie had told them, said “Cassie, not Michael,” they had dug her a grave, mourning the death of someone who still walked. Now, skin cold, she’s forced to lie in it beneath the selfish wants of them. Hastened by the early preparations.

“Why do you think Sylvie cares about that?” Mobius asks. It’s soft, gentle. It’s not meant to be an accusation. It’s not meant to make Loki angry.

“Anyone should care,” Loki spits out harshly. “Whether they are like her parents or her friends, a girl died. That’s important.”

Mobius sets a hand on her shoulder. Loki trembles with suppressing the urge to throw it off. 

“I just meant that she’s on the run and doesn’t know these people, what made her stop here instead of an apocalypse, where we couldn’t trace her?”

“This is personal.” 

Loki’s fingers curl up into fists, nails biting harshly into her palms. The sounds of this place fade away until all he can hear is words from long past, violent whips of Odin’s tongue.

“You are a son!”

“You are prince of Asgard.”

“No son under me will wear a dress.”

He never said “my son.” And never would he have said “my daughter.” Frigga said both—the bare moments of Loki’s peace came from time and conversation with her.

Sylvie must share this, if nothing else. Loki wishes she had asked.

“This is the Loki birthright.” To die. For this shame, if not the numerous others. 

Loki turns away sharply, puts her back to Cassie’s chosen family. She can still hear the bitter words to the mother— “You will not go where she’s going.” A condemnation. A threat.

The time door to the TVA feels like relief. Mobius opens it, the shadows of the woods hiding the shivering orange. The moment Loki passes through, safe in Mobius’ apartment, she collapses to her knees, like a string-cut puppet too long played.

There are no tears. There are no labored breaths. There is only silence. It clouds thick and heavy. It hovers over everything. Within her there is but nothing—a hollow, empty space.

“I’m tired,” she says. The words are edged with the brutal exhaustion that comes from horrors of the mind.

Mobius kneels before her, tilting her head up with gentle hands. Gentle, gentle, gentle. The Mobius adjective. His thumb rubs over the skin of her cheek.

“Wanna take a nap? Or just rest?” Mobius asks.

They’re working. Extended breaks aren’t a thing here. But then: Mobius doesn’t care, and Loki is so, so tired. 

“Rest,” Loki says, because she knows it means Mobius will stay. 

Even curled up on the couch, head tucked on Mobius’ lap, all Loki can see is the dead girl’s grave. They buried her and who she was with it. They buried her and remembered him, a thing of the past long since. 

She thinks of Sylvie again. Wonders if they’re the same, if every Loki has this in common. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But Sylvie’d gone there anyway. To a world still thriving. Put her life on the line to see a girl misremembered. 

“Loki,” Mobius murmurs.

“Don’t.” It’s sharp. Harsh in the way that it falls bitterly from her mouth. “Don’t.”

He doesn’t. Loki can still feel the question, though. The easy reassurance, too, in the way Mobius’ hand cards through her hair, a balm to the sharp bite of fear. 

Mobius knows. He’s always known. He’s seen every bit of Loki’s story, even the pieces and moments that were experienced by another, a version of a life she never lived. But they haven’t spoken of it. 

What would she even say?

Staying trapped in this body is killing me. You’ve seen my past. You know . Every second I spend like this I am suffocated. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mobius says eventually. 

“You can’t know that,” Loki chokes out. 

“Maybe not,” Mobius concedes. “But you can’t know that it won’t.”

Hot tears burn in her lashes. Her throat is thick with them, with the weight of everything seen and done and unsaid. She chokes on the weight of the words cramming her throat and mouth.

“Mobius, I—”

“I know,” Mobius interrupts. He brushes the hair back from Loki’s forehead and tucks it behind her ears. “I know.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Tears slip down her cheeks. She lets them fall. Mobius’ hand continues its path, gently untangling and massaging.

Loki rolls over onto her side, hiding her face in the soft of Mobius’ stomach. Her breath stutters as she inhales. It’s strange, this tender care. Mobius is so easy with it, as though the most natural thing is to hold Loki when she’s sad.

She’s not used to being taken care of. 

It feels nice.

After this, she’ll start using her magic when outside of the TVA to adjust her appearance to her feelings.

part v. you

Branched Timeline: Cleveland, Ohio, 2022.

Loki can feel Mobius’ questioning glance from beside them. They almost want to turn back and return to the TVA. But across the street, through the parted curtains of one of the front windows, Loki can see inside. Colorful fridge magnets, plates of fresh-cut fruit, steaming cups on the counter, books stacked across every available surface. It’s a lived in, well-loved house. 

They can see themself, too. Flitting back and forth in the kitchen, pleased and almost at peace. Mobius walks into view—not the one they’d come here with, another one inside the house. Other-Loki snaps a towel at Other-Mobius as he tries to grab a piece of fruit from one of the plates. 

Loki’s heart aches. They know what this is, now.

Other-Mobius says something that makes Other-Loki laugh and kiss his cheek. Two kids pop into view, messily batting each other aside as they grab for grapes and strawberries. Other-Loki picks up the mugs and hands one to Other-Mobius.

“That’s us,” Mobius says from beside Loki. He doesn’t sound shocked. He sounds simply confused.

“Yes,” Loki says. They swallow thickly, the motion catching in their throat.

“Sylvie was here,” Mobius says. “Why would she have come here?”

Loki lets out a slow breath as they watch Other-Mobius pull Other-Loki into a swinging dance in the kitchen. The pair looks so happy. It’s  them.  And Loki doesn’t know how to have that.

“She’s trying to tell me something,” Loki replies. They tear their eyes away from the window across the street. Looking at Mobius is almost worse.

“Do you think you know what that is?” Mobius asks. He’s open, entirely, eyes honest, the tilt of his mouth betraying his curiosity. His hair has grown out some, just enough to produce a softer look. 

“Yes,” Loki says eventually. They don’t look away. “I do.”

Mobius smiles, like he knows.

Loki turns back to the house then. It’s domestic and suburban. Mundane. It’s the sort of life everyone on a street like this might have. But, in this branch, it’s  theirs.  Somehow, this version of Loki got their wish. And that sliver of hope is enough.

“Let’s get lunch,” Loki says. Back across the street, Other-Loki and Other-Mobius are slow dancing now, swaying to an imaginary song, faces tilted closely together. “I could use a nice salad.”

Mobius knows. Loki’s sure he does. It doesn’t make it any easier of an admission, though. 

They sit together in the lunchroom, legs intertwined beneath the table. Loki works their way slowly through their grilled chicken salad. Neither of them have spoken. It’s not quite uncomfortable, but rather expectant. Silence isn’t Loki’s way of doing things.

“That timeline,” Loki begins, “when do you think it happens?”

Mobius looks up, caught with a bite halfway to his mouth. “There’s no way of knowing. The TVA exists beyond time.”

“Right. Until I started time-slipping here,” Loki points out wryly. 

Mobius rolls his eyes. Loki can tell it’s not anger, just fond exasperation. “When do you think?”

Loki considers it for a long moment, tilting their head to the side. “The future,” he says eventually. “The near future.”