Archive of Our Own

“Where are we, again?” Loki asked as the time door closed behind them.

“Amouroyaume 14,” Mobius replied, looking around the planet that the latest disturbance from the timeline was supposedly coming from. 

The air smelled sweet, like flowers and cotton candy. The local flora didn’t look that different than Earth, except the leaves on all the plants were a soft shade of pastel. Be it green, blue, pink, or purple, there wasn’t a single bright or dark shade to be seen. The trunks of the trees were a pale brown, almost a taupe, but were also covered in a soft blue-green moss. 

The whole thing almost hurt the eyes to look at.

Loki inched up beside Mobius, glancing around with a furrowed brow.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this planet before,” he said as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. 

“You just spent the last few years inside a tree made of timelines, when would you have had time to go on a tour of one universe, let alone a multiverse?” Mobius asked, mirroring Loki’s pose as they turned toward each other.

A lot of things happened in those few years, but one thing that absolutely did not happen was Mobius moving on from his feelings for Loki. The god standing on the other side of the airlock doors haunted his nightmares, half of which were just Mobius’s brain reliving the tragic event. The other half, unfortunately, tortured him further by having Mobius snap out of his shocked stupor and beg Loki to come back, plead with him, always resulting in him blurting out that he loved him. And Loki? Those nightmares always had the god cracking a grin before laughing.

When Loki came back to help with a whole thing, Mobius had expected another departure for the End of Time with not much more than an “it was good to see you,” and a clap on the back. That Loki chose to stay had shocked him. That Loki wanted to work with him again kind of scared him.

How long would it be before Mobius said something he shouldn’t? How long did he have before Loki realized Mobius cared for him as much more than a friend, and either go work somewhere else in the TVA, or simply leave?

He tried not to think about it and so shoved the blooming anxiety that frequented their missions together to the deepest crevices of his soul.

“I watched various lives unfold across the timelines. Unfortunately, you lot did not frequent branches enough for my liking, and watching Sylvie wile away her time serving burgers and listening to records grew dull quickly, so I had to find entertainment elsewhere.” Loki replied, glancing around the planet. “I never saw this place through any of the people I observed.

“It smells like an ex-girlfriend of mine,” J-34 said as he passed them, followed by the other few minutemen who accompanied them on this mission. 

Mobius took a deep breath through his nose, then glanced at Loki.

He shrugged.

“It smells like that insipid Midgardian holiday.” He said.

Mobius took another sniff.

“Yeah, I kinda get that. Do you know how many Nexus events landed on that day for people?” He asked as he and Loki began to slowly follow the minutemen down the naturally formed path. Mobius scanned the area, looking for something off, relying on his tempad in his pocket to beep at him when they got closer to the disturbance. 

“Given how many people I would see either get together or split apart because of it, I’m going to guess there were a fair number,” Loki replied.

“The upside was the amount of chocolate and candy I got to grab before we reset the timelines.”

Loki chuckled quietly, the subtle smile brightening his features. Mobius wanted to drink it in, especially after so long without seeing it. 

Instead, he forced himself to look ahead, see what was around them, and try to find a hint of the disturbance that brought them here.

As they continued down the path, the flora got thicker, taller, and more potent in fragrance.

“You know what’s strange about this place?” Loki asked.

“What?’

“We’re the only living creatures here. Unless the flora are the alien species - and they very well could be - there seems to be nothing else. Not an insect, not an avian creature to be found. Just us and the plant life.”

Mobius frowned, then strained to listen for any signs of life. J-34, and another minuteman also seemed to be listening more carefully. 

“Creepy,” Mobius said quietly, glancing up and around, half hoping to catch a pair of beady eyes looking down at them from the branches. “Maybe that’s the disturbance?” 

“Wouldn’t all the tempads have alerted us we were nearby almost as soon as we arrived?” Loki asked. “I think it’s just a case of the planet being uninhabited.

“Mobius, I think it’s this way,” J-34 said, pointing to an offshoot of the path.

Which, Mobius realized, shouldn’t exist if there was no life on the planet to make it. 

“Someone or something has to live here,” He said to Loki as the pair of them made to follow J-34, the other Minutemen carrying on ahead. “Otherwise, we’d have been trying to move through grass and whatever else is growing. The dirt is packed, there’s not even a hint of something trying to grow on this route. Wherever this leads, it’s a pilgrimage of some sort.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Loki agreed. “Something large enough to form it, anyway. And I suppose it’s hardly like we’re being quiet.”

“Exactly, we’ve probably scared off whatever does live here,” Mobius said with a confident nod.

They made a turn, the vegetation thick enough in the area that it was blocking out most of the light from the sun this planet was orbiting. Up ahead, there was a soft pink glow that added to the unsettling atmosphere of this whole place.

A few steps ahead, J-34 paused, then dashed ahead, clearly spotting something.

Mobius and Loki glanced at each other and then hurried to follow, the god with a spell already dancing on his palms as a precaution. 

When they caught up with J-34, he was kneeling next to Stephen Strange.

Strange was slumped against a rock next to one of the plants that glowed that soft pink. It looked vaguely like a miniature cherry blossom tree Mobius had seen on his few missions to Japan in the early TVA days. It was beautiful, made more so by the glow. Some of that super-sweet scent that had permeated the planet was even stronger the closer they got to it.

It was unsettling, and yet Mobius kind of wanted to get closer to it.

“She doesn’t…” Strange started mumbling, snapping Mobius’s attention back to him. “Christine doesn’t.”

“Definitely our disturbance,” Loki said, canceling the spell on his palms.  

Mobius glanced down at Loki’s hands, then met his eye with apprehension.

“Sure that was a good idea?”

Loki shrugged.

“He’s not harmless, but we know he can be reasoned with.”

“The few Stephen Stranges you’ve encountered, sure. Not all of them, though. There’s a few that are considered the most dangerous variants.”

“Minutemen, disturbance located and secured,” J-34 said over the comms.

“He’s not secure,” Mobius pointed out, huffing in frustration. “Seriously, guys, just because he’s an Avenger on some timelines-“

“Mobius, it’s fine,” Loki assured.

“Come on, buddy,” J-34 said as he went to get the possible Sorcerer Supreme to his feet. “Up ya get.”

J-34 wasn’t a big guy. He wasn’t small, either, but Strange was easily bigger than he was. Mobius could see that he had to really dig his feet in, as well as widen his stance, just to get a bit of leverage in getting Strange to his feet.

“J, hold on,” Mobius said as he went to Strange’s side to help him to his feet. As Mobius reached for him, Strange snapped out of his stupor.

“Mobius!” Loki called out as Strange jerked back, arms flailing and hitting the glowing plant.

As heavy, luminescent pollen filled the air, Mobius felt Loki’s arm around him, whether to pull him away or closer in order to shield him, it was hard to tell. The air became too thick to breathe, and the pair of them, J-34, and even Strange, were thrown into a coughing fit. The pollen was sickly sweet on his tongue, and the scent filled his nose almost to the point of choking.

Almost as quickly as it started, it stopped. 

“Everyone alright?” Mobius asked, though he looked to Loki first and foremost.

Loki might have been a touch paler, but it was hard to tell in this low light. He was nodding, brushing his curls from his face with one hand, and glancing Mobius over.

Once he was sure Loki was okay, Mobius glanced J-34 and Strange’s way. Both were still coughing, but J-34 seemed to be at least recovering. Strange, still looking half delirious, hadn’t stopped.

“We should take a small clipping of that back to the TVA,” Loki said. “Just to be sure there aren’t going to be any horrid side effects.”

“Probably a good idea,” Mobius nodded. He turned to J-34 and held out his hand. The minuteman handed him a cylindrical tube that had a special base that allowed OB to get a scan and analyze whatever was contained within it without ever needing to open the container.

Loki produced a dagger, kneeling down and gently cutting a branch of the plant.

“Should you be handling that?” J-34 asked wearily.

“It’s on our clothing, we’ve breathed it in. Whatever it is, we’re already contaminated,” Loki replied before he slipped the sprig into the tube.

“Okay, we return through the decontamination room,” Mobius instructed. “After that, J, get Strange into holding or medic. Loki and I will get this to OB, so we know what we’re dealing with.”

~L~

“Huh, that’s interesting,” OB said as he looked at the data coming up on the computer where he’d plugged the container holding the sprig into.

Loki squinted, but the screen was too far away to read, and even if it weren’t, he had a feeling he wouldn’t understand what he was reading. Botany wasn’t a science he’d become familiar with, no matter how much everyone around the TVA loved to point out how he weaved the timelines into a tree.

It also wasn’t something he learned through watching the timelines all those years. Well, decades for him, possibly centuries, as it became impossible to really know how long he’d sat on the throne at the End of Time, holding the branches and keeping them alive. 

He watched people. Mobius, almost the entire short-lived time he’d been on the timeline, once Loki took his throne. B-15, because she was frequently a visitor either because of Sylvie, Peter, or due to her new position as the head of the TVA. Sylvie, of course, and Thor as well. 

Watching his brother had Loki realize he owed his Thor an apology. Still did, as there didn’t seem to be an appropriate time while saving the Multiverse to say, “I’m sorry I mocked you over a mortal turning you soft. It turns out I was no better than you.”

Though he supposed Mobius wasn’t strictly mortal anymore. But that was beside the point. He, like Thor, met someone not of Asgard while at his worst and found not only a friend, but someone he wanted to spend every waking moment with.

When it had occurred to Loki that he didn’t need to return to the tree after everything was done, he knew without a shadow of a doubt where he wanted to be. Not with his brother in New Asgard, though that was rather tempting. No, Loki wanted to be wherever Mobius was. Even if it was just as friends, even if he spent the rest of eternity carrying around the ache of longing, Loki didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Even now, with his hair still damp from the decontamination shower, and a lingering headache from the saccharine scent that consumed that Norn's forsaken planet.

“What?” Mobius asked OB, tapping his finger nervously on the reception desk.

Loki wanted to cover Mobius’s hand with his own, soothe him. Instead, he balled his hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets.

“Suffocatio Floris,” OB replied. He turned to them, glancing between them. “The Hanahaki bush.”

“Okay,” Mobius said slowly. “Is it poisonous?”

“Not strictly speaking,” OB replied carefully.

“Not strictly?” Loki repeated, bowing his head slightly.

“Well,” OB started thoughtfully. “It brings on Hanahaki disease.”

“That doesn’t sound great,” Mobius said.

“For some people, it isn’t,” OB replied, a hint of a grin coloring his eyes. Loki was familiar with the look; it’s one OB always got when he was about to impart information, regardless of whether that information was good or bad. 

“What are the symptoms?” Loki asked as he leaned toward OB, hand on the desk, fingers spread wide.

“It’s hard to say, it’s different for everyone. But the most common is a tightness in your chest, along with an intense aching sensation.”

“Okay, that doesn’t sound horrible. Well, it does, but that just sounds like something you get from Earth during cold and flu season,” Mobius said with a slight frown, glancing at Loki in solidarity.

“That’s just the start,” OB said with a touch too much enthusiasm. “Within about twenty-four hours, those who get it start coughing up petals that look like those on the plant.”

“Petals?” Loki frowned.

OB perked up.

“Interesting, isn’t it? The petals overtake the respiratory system, essentially drowning the victim in them.”

“What the shit?” Mobius said softly, jaw dropped.

“Is there a cure?” Loki asked tentatively.

OB tilted his head in consideration.

“I suppose that depends on whether or not the person who contracts Hanahaki can make the person they have romantic feelings for return those feelings in twenty-four hours.”

“I’m sorry,” Loki said, with a twitchy, nervous grin. His heart was starting to race, and his palm on the desk was starting to get very sweaty. “What do you mean by returning romantic feelings? How does that fix anything?”

“Hanahaki his also known as the heartbreak disease. If someone who is exposed to it has deep, unrequited feelings of romantic love, then they will contract the disease and die within twenty-four hours.”

Loki stared at OB, already feeling a bit of tightness in his chest. He didn’t dare look at Mobius, couldn’t even shift his eyes in that direction because there was absolutely no way he was going to tip Mobius off that Loki….

There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that Mobius would do everything he could to love Loki like that, even if it was just for a night. He’d seen it often enough on the timelines, fleeting encounters, great loves in a day or two that end and are never rekindled. It didn’t make them less real; they were just bursts. Often between strangers, sometimes between friends. 

He didn’t want a quick flash of romance to save his life. He didn’t want Mobius for a day. It would never be enough. How would he be able to continue existing knowing what it was like to love and be loved only for it to fizzle and burn out when the time passed, and the disease left his system?”

OB looked between them.

“You two don’t have anything to worry about,” OB said confidently.

No, of course not, Loki thought, barely able to take a deep breath. I’ve just been in love with Mobius for centuries, and when I returned from the tree, all I got was a “good to have you back” and a pat on the blasted arm.

That memory alone was enough to bring a gnawing ache to Loki’s chest, so he immediately shoved it from his mind, lest it speed up the disease.

“Right,” Mobius said after far too long. Loki wanted to laugh. It would have come out manic and strained, but it might feel better than this aching in his chest. “Right, yeah, no, of course not.”  

OB continued to look between them.

“Was there anything else?” He asked.

“No, no, we’re fine,” Mobius said. “Thanks for your time, OB, you’re the best. Really, I don’t think we tell you that enough.”

OB glanced between them again and shrugged.

“Okay,” he said, then turned away. He grabbed the container with the specimen, and Loki watched him bring it over to the biohazard waste chute to dispose of it.

Twenty-four hours to live. Less, actually, since it was probably about an hour at minimum since the pollen was released. That, and OB specifically said within, not that it was exactly twenty-four hours. At least the multiverse would survive without him, though that wasn’t as much comfort to Loki as it should have been. 

“I could use some pie,” Mobius said, sounding a touch strained.

“Pie. Yes. That sounds… let’s get pie,” Loki said, turning toward the exit, Mobius doing so as well, both heading for the door.

The automat. Maybe after that, he and Mobius could see New Asgard together, let Loki say goodbye to his brother. From there, if the disease hadn’t progressed, maybe Mobius could at least grant Loki his dying wish of time spent just the two of them, perhaps even sleeping side by side. Maybe he’d even be there when Loki inevitably drowned on the Norn’s forsaken petals.

~M~

Mobius had just wanted some pie before he kicked it. It’s all he wanted, a slice of pie to eat his feelings one last time. Better served with a beautiful god sitting across from him, complaining about the dessert the whole time he ate it. Really, all that, maybe a cup of coffee or a can of Josta, would have let Mobius die a fairly happy man.

They hadn’t even made it to the automat before two minutemen approached them from ahead, another two from behind, and one of them opened a time door that brought them right to the quarantine quarters. There, a team of medics in hazmat suits took a blood sample, slapped a vitals reading patch on them, and then left.

B-15 popped up on the only screen in the room, looking somber.

“Is this really necessary?” Mobius asked.

“TVA rules,” B-15 said apologetically. “Anyone who comes in contact with a deadly pathogen has to be quarantined for at least 48 hours.”

I’m gonna be dead in less than a day, Mobius thought. He sighed, put his hands on his hips, and pointedly did not look at anyone else in the room.

It wasn’t just him and Loki. J-34, as well as a couple of other minutemen who happened to find the same plant species, were all sequestered in the apartment reserved exclusively for when these sorts of things happened. 

There was no door to exit from, and tempads were disabled upon arrival, ensuring no one could escape. There was a small kitchen with a pneumatic tube system for sending food into the place if quarantine went on too long. Two bathrooms, which in some respects was a lot, but depending on what someone was quarantined for, might not be enough. And there were two bedrooms, but each had only two single beds in it. 

Normally, with five of them in need of quarantining, they’d be split into a second apartment so everyone had space to sleep. The fact that it wasn’t seen as a necessity was bleak.

“What about Strange?” Loki asked. “He was more exposed than any of us.”

“He’s in the quarantine chamber in medic, and he’s not looking good. Doc Clock said he’s already coughing up petals.” B-15 replied grimly. She glanced toward J-34 with a hint of regret in her eyes, though Mobius wasn’t sure why the minuteman was being singled out.

“I’m sorry to hear,” Loki replied. “I suppose that means he’d been there longer than we expected.”

“It would seem so. It’s looking more and more like the disturbance is an Avenger going rogue and dying before he’s supposed to.”

“The timelines will course correct,” Loki assured. 

“Anything I can send your way?” B-15 asked. 

“Pie,” Mobius requested without a single second of hesitation. “Might as well send the whole thing, not just a slice.”

B-15 smirked, her amusement a little callous considering it was a last meal type of request.

“I’ll see what I can do,” She said before cutting communication.

“Well,” one of the minutemen said, “I’m going to go take a nap.”

Mobius glanced over to watch them enter one of the bedrooms, shutting the door behind them.

He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do that. Dying in his sleep might be better than whatever hell he was about to go through, but he also didn’t want to miss a second of the last hours of his life.

He looked over at Loki, longing hitting him so hard in the chest he might have accidentally sped up the process.

He could say something, tell Loki he loved him for so long that it was bordering on insanity. Even before they’d met, Mobius was already half in love with the god. Mobius could just tell him right there, risk the inevitable rejection, speeding the process up even more, but he just… couldn’t. Because Loki was his best friend, and he was pretty sure he was Loki’s best friend in return. Mobius wouldn’t put it past him to fake returning his affections in an ill-advised attempt at outsmarting the disease. Though how the disease could be smart enough to know the difference was another thing entirely.

Mobius sighed and turned away, heading into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. At least they put the good ground in the quarantine quarters. If someone was facing a possibility of death, it was nice to know the TVA was at least kind enough to allow them a good cup of Joe before they kicked it.

“This is ridiculous,” Loki complained. “It was a plant. We decontaminated, we’re hardly infectious.”

“Look on the bright side,” J-34 said, sounding like he was moving just a touch further away. “Least those of us who are doomed don’t have to spend the last hours of the day working.”

“Work might be nice right around now,” Mobius said as he went through the ritual of putting ground in the machine and getting it started.

He could feel Loki’s eyes on the back of his neck, but he steadfastly did not turn to acknowledge it. The last thing he needed was for Loki to start digging deep and finding out that he was the reason Mobius was going to die soon.

Okay, not the entire reason, but part of it.

He didn’t want him living with that kind of guilt. 

“Says you,” J-34 retorted. 

“You sound certain this is the end for you,” Loki said, and Mobius could feel the weight of his gaze leaving.

“Persephone in wardrobe. We dated for a time. I fell deep. She didn’t. I’ve still been hoping she’ll change her mind about me, she’s signing marriage paperwork next week. Guy in filing.”

Mobius knew who J-34 was talking about. Persephone was kind of a beacon of light, bright and cheerful, and a bit of a flirt if his interaction with her was anything to go by. She was a sweetheart, and Mobius was sure if she knew what was going on, she’d feel bad for them, but not enough to change her whole life to make an effort to change how she felt about an ex.

“I’m sorry to hear,” Loki said sincerely. “Perhaps you could use the time to negate the effects? Think of reasons why you wouldn’t want to be with her?”

J-34 scoffed.

“Is that what you would do in my shoes? Try to spend your last twenty-something hours getting over someone when you hadn’t been able to in decades?”

Loki chuckled bitterly.

“No, it’s not my plan. If I hadn’t been able to do it in centuries, I doubt I could even begin to in less than a day.”

Mobius frowned, but didn’t turn around, keeping his eyes on the percolating pot.

Get over? Yeah, sure, Mobius knew things with Sylvie weren’t exactly sunshine and rainbows. But he thought that she had at least reciprocated. He even thought it was maybe just a choice they made together to have Loki stay at the TVA while she got to live her life wherever she was off to these days.

There was an odd sort of silence in the room, as though he wasn’t the only one processing Loki’s bad luck in love.

“Huh,” J-34. “Thought… well, what do I know. What about you, kid?”

Mobius did turn, then, having forgotten there was anyone else in the room at all.

“Who, me?” Asked the minuteman who stood awkwardly off to the side. They shuffled around, ducking their head. “I, um… I haven’t met anyone?”

“Is that a question?” J-34 teased, absently rubbing at his sternum.

“Lay off the kid, J. It’s a stressful situation, and sometimes people don’t even realize how deep they’re in it.” Mobius half-scolded, throwing a wink the kid’s way.

“True,” J-34 relented. He sighed heavily. “So, what are we doing to pass the time? I reckon H’s nap is gonna end up being a full sleep cycle. Is there anything to even do in here aside from read?”

~L~

Loki didn’t know what to make of Mobius.

As they, along with J-34 and the other Minuteman, whiled away their time on a board game left over from the TVA of old, the analyst was more reserved than he’d thought. There was something about his demeanor that was niggling at Loki, as though it didn’t quite match up to expectations.

He expected grief to some degree. Loki was dying, as was J-34. Grief seemed inevitable. But there was something more, something that made his sighs heavier and a resignation hang around Mobius’s shoulders that didn’t speak to a man understand there was nothing to be done for his friends. Loki wanted to ask, but doing it while playing Nexus Event - Dangerous Variant Edition seemed in poor taste.

Hours ticked on, J-34 and the other minuteman - who Loki still wasn’t sure what to call - had both retired, the latter taking the same bedroom H-somethingorother retired to when he declared he’d be sleeping through his confinement. It left Loki and Mobius sitting on the sofa in the main space, nothing really to look at except the four walls and each other.

“We could sleep,” Loki offered.

Mobius shook his head.

“I don’t want to sleep away my last hours,” He replied.

Loki frowned.

“Why do you believe these are your last hours?” He asked.

“Because I’ve known I’ve been in love for a while,” Mobius replies in that easy way of his. 

“Have you told them?” Loki asked, already wondering who the fool was who didn’t return Mobius’s affections.

“No,” Mobius replied, shaking his head slowly. He hesitated a moment, then sighed. “I might have, once. Thought to, anyway. But it wouldn’t have made a difference, and I didn’t… I didn’t want anything to be strained between us.”

That only made Loki frown deeper. Clearly, whoever it was who had captured Mobius’s heart had been a friend. B-15 came to mind, but he didn’t think Mobius had ever felt that way toward her. There were certainly no signs of it. 

The more Loki thought about it, the more he realized the only person he’d seen Mobius even come close to flirting with was Renslayer.

Loki straightened in his seat.

Mobius loved Renslayer, and Sylvie had been confident she’d sent the woman to the Void. There certainly wouldn’t have been a way to rectify it, and even if there were? Loki had heard those recordings, had even gleaned enough from all his time slipping that if Renslayer had feelings for anyone, it had been He Who Remains. 

“What about you?” Mobius asked. “Why do you think this is it for you? Way I saw it, you were pretty set up in the romance department.”

Loki chuckled bitterly.

“In love with someone else,” He replied. “I’m not even sure I ever truly stood a chance. They have a history I could never compete with.”

“Well, if we’re gonna go out, nice to go out together, isn’t it?” Mobius asked with a sad sort of grin. “I mean, company’s good, if nothing else.”

“It certainly is,” Loki agreed, taking a moment to drink in the man smiling softly at him. 

How many times, while time slipped, did he just take a moment to look into those eyes? Not once was he ever brave enough to even attempt to express his feelings, even knowing there was a chance that he could reset everything. But every dozen or so attempts, when the failure got to be too much, Loki would turn to Mobius and just stare. He’d drink his fill of those blue eyes that knew him so damn well, even better than Variants of himself. 

A part of him sort of hoped they were the last thing he’d get to see before he succumbed to the disease.

“You know what’s probably stashed in here somewhere?” Mobius said softly as if speaking too loudly would disturb something.

“Mm?” Loki hummed.

“A really good scotch. I mean, if you’re in here with nothing else to do? Someone probably stashed something in here.”

Loki grinned.

“Let’s see what we can find, shall we?”

~M~

Mobius had been right. There was a bottle of scotch in a cupboard over the refrigerator. Actually, there were about a half-dozen bottles, but that was neither here nor there.

Loki got it down, Mobius grabbed them some glasses, and then they took up their spots on the sofa once again. As Loki poured, Mobius found the remote to the screen that B-15 had communicated through earlier. It didn’t offer anything but a view of the TVA as if seen through a window, but it was something more for the pair of them to look at.

As they sipped, soft coughs started to come from J-34’s room. Mobius tried to ignore it, but each one had him going utterly still, heart picking up speed a moment. 

He hadn’t really noticed a persistent tightness, and sometimes when Loki looked at him too long, it was hard to breathe through the longing, so if Mobius had started experiencing symptoms, he couldn’t tell.

J-34 hadn’t said anything when he went to bed. Perhaps it was subtle, then comes on quickly.

More coughing, and Mobius absently reached out toward Loki. He only just realized what he’d done when he felt Loki’s hand brush against his. Fingers curled around one another as Mobius continued to stare at the bedroom door. His grip tightened as it sounded more and more like J-34 was struggling. Then there was the hum of a time door, and shortly after, the coughing stopped. 

“Taken to medic,” Mobius said, voice shaking just a touch.

“It couldn’t have been a day yet,” Loki replied, a slight tremble to his words.

“No. But OB said ‘within twenty-four’, not ‘you have twenty-four hours.’ So it’s plausible that it could happen at any point.” Then, because he had to know, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Loki said quickly. “I think I’ve been fine. You?”

“Same,” Mobius replied, taking a sip of his drink. “Chest gets tight from time to time, but.”

“Breathing is more difficult at the moment, but given what we know he’s going through,” Loki reasoned.

Mobius looked down at the glass in his hand for a beat, then turned to Loki with it raised.

“To J-34,” he toasted.

Loki clinked his glass to Mobius’s, and they drained what was left in their glasses.

Loki reached for the bottle, topping them up.

“What do you wish you could have done?” He asked Mobius as he set the bottle back down.

Kiss you, Mobius’s mind immediately supplied, but thankfully the words didn’t make their way to his lips. The last thing he needed was to make things awkward.

“Ride a jetski,” He said instead. 

“Why didn’t you?” Loki asked curiously. “I know you spent some time seeing Earth, there were plenty of opportunities.”

Mobius shrugged.

“My heart wasn’t in it. I was still grappling with knowing the kinda life I had before all this, where that love for it all came from. I think there was a part of me that was stubborn, too, that wanted to really separate myself from my variant.” He took a sip, relished the burn he couldn’t help, but notice was getting milder. “What about you? What would you have done if you still had time?”

For a moment, Mobius thought Loki’s eyes dropped to his lips, and almost made himself believe that a look of longing crossed the god’s face. But it was wishful thinking, and he licked his lips to clear whatever was probably lingering in order to draw attention.

Loki cleared his throat and glanced away.

“Spent more time with Love,” He said, lifting his glass halfway to his lips before pausing. “She’s unlike any being in the multiverse, and I adore her in ways I can’t quite articulate. Thor is my brother, even if not by blood, but there are still times when I feel removed from him. As though there is a chasm created by Odin that we have yet to fully cross. But with Love, there is a kinship, an understanding. I may never have had children myself. I’m not sure I ever even wanted them, but I wanted to be more involved in her life. I was just too afraid to get too close to anyone outside the TVA.”

“Well, maybe this counts as a battle, and you get to go to Valhalla.”

“Perhaps,” Loki said. “Though if this is considered a battle, I think we’d both find ourselves there.”

“That’d be nice. I’d get to meet your mom.”

“You’ve never met her?”

“No,” Mobius shook his head. “Rarely was I ever the one to go to a timeline when a variant of yours was arrested. And the few times I was, the Queen was never nearby.”

“She’d have adored you,” Loki said, cheeks coloring a touch.

Mobius laughed, face heating up.

He was saved from trying to respond to that by B-15 appearing on the screen. It was certainly sobering.

“J?” Mobius asked.

She nodded grimly.

“Strange passed about fifteen minutes ago. J-34’s X-rays show petals forming in his chest. Medic ran all your blood tests, and OB studied the results. It doesn’t matter what anyone’s feelings are; there’s evidence of infection in the bloodstream.”

“Does that mean OB’s theory was wrong?” Loki asked.

B-15 shook her head. 

“No, he showed me all the blood samples and analysis. It just means that for some people it’s inactive.”

“Lucky them,” Mobius grumbled under his breath.

“How are you guys holding up?” B-15 asked.

“We’re fine,” Loki answered for both of them.

“I’ll keep you posted on J-34’s condition. In the meantime, get some rest.”

B-15’s face disappeared from the screen, the skyline of the TVA appearing once more.

“I don’t think I can,” Mobius said after a beat. “Rest, I mean.”

“So we continue to stay awake,” Loki said, setting his glass on the coffee table. “I wager we have about sixteen hours left. Until then, until one of us starts choking-“

“We’re probably going to need to switch to coffee if we’re going to keep ourselves awake that whole time,” Mobius pointed out.

“Exactly my thoughts,” Loki said, already making his way to the kitchen. “We can resume the drinking when one of us starts to truly feel the effects.”

Mobius watched him over the back of the couch, chest tight with wanting. 

How could Sylvie not love him back? Who was it that won her over in Loki’s place? What Mobius wouldn’t give to have been the one that Loki had wanted. 

He remembered the aftermath of Lamentis, and regret pierced his heart. He’d been so, so jealous. He acted out in ways he couldn’t even begin to atone for, not only for going way out of line, but for allowing his professionalism to be so painfully compromised. 

When Loki came back with a French press from who knew where, as well as two new mugs, Mobius shifted in his seat. He opened his mouth, hesitated.

“Listen. About how I acted. After Roxxcart, before the Void. I just gotta say-“

“You’ve apologized for that already,” Loki interrupted.

“I definitely didn’t,” Mobius replied with a grin.

Loki sat back thoughtfully. He’d never say it aloud, not even knowing he was going to die soon, but Loki was kind of adorable when he got like that.

“You did, but you wouldn’t remember because that moment no longer exists.”

“When you were timeslipping, fixing the loom,” Mobius realized.

Loki nodded.

“What else happened then? You never told me.”

“You want to hear about that? Now?” Loki asked incredulously, a subtle smile brightening his eyes.

“No time like the present,” Mobius countered with a subtle smile of his own.

~L~

Sharing parts of the numerous times he’d looped to save them with Mobius made Loki realize something he probably already knew, but hadn’t needed to face.

He didn’t want Mobius to go before he did.

Loki had to watch him turn to nothing far too many times in the past, and while he knew he’d follow shortly after, he didn’t want one more instance of having Mobius leave him first before he reached the end of his existence.

Maybe it was that realization that had him subconsciously shift closer to Mobius on the sofa, as if being nearer could somehow stop Mobius dying first from happening. Their knees bumped together until one of them shifted their leg, straightening it out. That made the other do the same, and so now, hours later, their legs were as intertwined as possible.

Loki had regaled Mobius with tales from his many loops, trying to focus on the more light-hearted and humorous instances in hindsight. Mobius tried to match him tale for tale, telling Loki about some of the things that happened over his long career at the TVA. 

His face hurt from smiling, and his chest ached in the familiar way it always did in moments like these with Mobius. Knowing it was likely also the disease made it bittersweet, but he supposed it could have been far worse.

Eventually, though, no amount of coffee could fight off the fatigue. The day had been heavy in more than one way, and they were already approaching a day without sleep.

“I wish they’d have at least quarantined in our own places,” Mobius grumbled, glancing longingly at the bedrooms, knowing one was occupied and the other had had J-34 in it before he was taken to medic. The door was still closed, as if he were still behind it, sleeping.

“At least this way we’re together,” Loki said.

“Yeah,” Mobius agreed with a slow blink.

“Mobius,” Loki said, fighting the urge to reach out and touch. “Sleep. Whatever happens, I’ll be here.”

“I’ll sleep if you do,” Mobius argued.

“Okay,” Loki agreed far too easily.

He watched Mobius’s eyes fall shut, head resting against the back of the sofa. Loki burned it into his memory, even if he wasn’t going to carry it with him for long.

Before he knew it, he’d drifted off as well.

~*~

“Hey!”

Loki startled awake, momentarily forgetting where he was.

Mobius looked as momentarily lost as he was, and it took them both a couple of seconds to realize B-15 had woken them up from the screen.

She looked at them with amusement.

“H-55 spiked a fever in the last hour, we just had someone from medic come in and get him,” She told them.

“Is that a symptom?” Loki asked.

“No one’s really sure. It’s a possibility, but because there’s nothing in there to bring it down, they moved him so he could be more closely monitored. Z-3 seems to be alright so far.”

“How’s J-34?” Mobius asked as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.

B-15 turned more solemn.

“He’s not good,” She told them. 

Mobius nodded. There really weren’t any words for what was happening.

“Z-3 knows about H-55, so you won’t have to explain it if he comes out later.” B-15 informed them.

“How long has it been?” Loki asked, even though he didn’t want to know.

“You have about twenty-eight hours left,” she replied.

“Twenty-… I thought-“

Someone entered B-15’s office, interrupting their conversation and pulling her attention. 

“Sorry, guys, I have to see to this,” She said before disconnecting the call.

“What is happening out there, ya think?” Mobius asked as he got up. He groaned, grumbling about his back before slowly half-hobbling to the kitchen.

“Whatever it is, it’s more important than her best analyst and the God of Time being on death row,” Loki retorted.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask. Why don’t you just time slip back? I mean, I went to help J, but you could at least make sure not to step into the cloud radius.”

“I think I would carry it with me,” Loki replied. 

“Shame. Could have at least saved yourself. Not too sure Sylvie’s gonna like the promotion.”

“She’ll deal,” Loki said, barely keeping a leash on his bitterness. 

Mobius stilled for a moment in the kitchen, but then continued with what he was doing, clearly deciding that poking at that wound wasn’t worth it.

“How are you feeling?” He asked Loki instead.

“Sore. Like I slept sitting on a sofa. You?”

Mobius snorted.

“Same. Except I’m not a god, so I’m probably a bit worse off than you are.”

Loki chuckled, glancing back at the screen.

B-15 said they had twenty-eight hours left, but that made absolutely no sense. 

“Why would she say we had twenty-eight hours?” Loki asked aloud.

He heard Mobius make a thoughtful noise before the coffee maker clicked on.

“It’s how long quarantine’s supposed to last,” he replied.

“Yes,” Loki got up, joining Mobius at the counter, leaning back against it so he could face Mobius as the analyst watched the coffee brew. “But OB made it clear we were going to die within twenty-four hours. Even if forty-eight is the typical time kept in quarantine, it’s not how long we have left.”

“True,” Mobius nodded. “Plus, she knows, you know? About how I… she knows. She has to know that I’m a goner.”

“I would say the same goes for me. I remember how she looked at me when… well, it doesn’t matter,” Loki said, recalling far too clearly the apologetic look B-15 had given him after Mobius greeted him with that blasted pat on the arm upon his return from the end of time.

From the corner of his eye, Loki saw Mobius's brow furrow thoughtfully.

“If we have twenty-eight hours of quarantine left, that means it’s been at least twenty hours since exposure. We don’t know how long Strange was on the planet before we arrived, but he died just before J-34 was brought to medic,” Mobius’s eyes snapped to Loki’s, frown deepening. “That was, what? Eight hours ago?”

Loki pursed his lips.

“At least,” He agreed.

“So… I mean, I’m not complaining, because this does not sound like a nice death, but… shouldn’t we have had symptoms by now?”

Loki tilted his head slightly.

“Well, I have… There have been some aches,” he reasoned.

“Well, same,” Mobius gestured, eyes unfocusing a touch. “But J-34 was already rubbing his chest before we even started the game. He was feeling strong effects before the petals started.”

“Right,” Loki glanced at the living room where they’d played, recalling the winces and slight wheezing the minuteman was experiencing. The only wheezing he and Mobius had done had been from too much laughter. “It’s in our blood,” he stated.

“It is. We have it,” Mobius agreed. “So, why hasn’t it started yet?”

That was an excellent question. Loki could breathe just fine. Nothing hurt except, perhaps, his neck being a little stiff, but that was because of the angle he’d ended up sleeping in.

Which left only one of two options: the plant didn’t affect him, or….

“Oh,” Mobius said, looking up at Loki with wide eyes.

Loki looked back, eyes going wide as well.

“Oh,” he agreed.

They stared at one another in shock, the world around them carrying on. Z-3 snored loudly, the coffee maker beeped happily, and soft music Loki hadn’t even noticed until now continued to pipe in from the speakers of the screen.

One of them giggled. It might have been Mobius; it didn’t matter because whoever didn’t giggle first most certainly followed shortly after. Giggles turned to chuckles, chuckles turned to a laugh, the laugh to a roaring guffaw as the dawning realization of how utterly stupid they’d both been came crashing down around them.

Mobius reached for Loki, curling a hand around the back of his neck and bringing the god close, pressing their foreheads together. Loki’s arms went around Mobius’s waist, pulling him closer still, Mobius’s other hand dropping to Loki’s hip.

Their noses brushed as their laughter finally started to die down, then was smothered when lips met in a firm press, finally rendering Loki unable to breathe.

That first, firm kiss melted into a slow, languid thing that allowed Loki to know the taste of Mobius. He luxuriated at the feel of those fingers in his hair, gently tugging every now and then, and the gentle squeeze of the hand on his hip.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Mobius asked softly as the kiss broke, keeping close enough that the words fell from his lips to Loki’s.

“I could ask you the same question,” Loki retorted, shifting one hand to scratch softly at the back of Mobius’s head.

“Sylvie,” Mobius answered easily. “I thought you loved her at almost first sight. I thought I never stood a chance.”

“I was fond and perhaps a touch too attached, but it wasn’t love, not like this,” Loki admitted. “As to why I never said a word… I suppose I just didn’t want to risk losing what we had.”

“Me too.”

Mobius stole another kiss, and Loki let slip a soft moan at the feeling of Mobius’s whiskers against his lip.

A pointed throat clearing broke them apart.

“Sorry,” Z-3 said, trying not to look at them as he inched closer to the coffee pot. “Just wanna get a cup, if that’s, um….”

“Shit, no, sorry. Go for it,” Mobius said, moving out of Loki’s hold and out of the way.

Awkward silence followed as Z-3 did up his cup, grabbed some sort of bread thing from a cupboard, then returned to the room he had been sharing with H-55, closing the door rather pointedly.

“Right, we have to share this place with very thin walls for at least another day,” Mobius said as he rubbed the back of his neck. Loki just took a breath to speak when Mobius said, “We are not using the room J-34 was dying in for anything. Plus, there’s only single beds in there.”

“I was going to suggest we have a quiet breakfast at the table and, perhaps, play another round of that terrible game from last night,” Loki lied.

“Sure you were,” Mobius said. 

“You doubt my intentions?”

“So much,” Mobius said, but it was far too fond, and when Loki’s chest tightened, he knew without a doubt it was only from a swell of affection.