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In the shade of a towering oak tree, on a thriving timeline, staring at a lawn that should have been his but wasn't, Mobius M. Mobius was having a crisis.
"I might just wait here for a little bit. Let time pass," he told Sylvie. He said it to himself as much as to her.
But as soon as her hand left his shoulder and the orange time door blinked shut and Mobius was left alone, 'letting time pass' felt simultaneously impossible and the only thing he was capable of doing.
His grief was so big he couldn't turn around to face it. The space around him ached in the absence of who should have been there. Mobius had spent months with Loki beside him, partners in life and time, and the absence of him was like the loss of a limb. He kept reaching for it(him), every time he wanted to laugh or huff casual words or hear the sarcastic quips he had come to know like his own breath, but it was gone and all he could hear was the phantom voice of all he had lost, mocking him from the dregs of his memories. He had lost too much. His old grizzled bones were tired, from living and from hurting, and on some level, he just wanted to collapse beneath this giant tree and just let the ground overtake him.
All of the things they had missed. All of the things Mobius had lost. All of the things he hadn't told Loki because he had been so distracted. The careless touches and affection that would stay unaddressed, hiding in the past.
Loki had been the center of Mobius's life for so long. And they were the best years of my life, Mobius thought. Loki had made Mobius's clouded nights worth it when he was simply watching Loki's life on screen, and his sky had cleared entirely the first time they met. Like the fog of his tedious life just rolled away at first sight of the stars that were Loki.
Mobius swore he could feel the god laughing at him from somewhere, despite the dimensions and epochs between them.
"Seriously?" He knew Loki was thinking, a little self-pleased grin on his face.
Mobius bit back a smile and turned his head to escape a judgmental gaze that wasn't there. "That was bad," he huffed, settling his hands on his hips. "That was so bad. Forget I said that."
Of course, Loki didn't answer.
Of course, he didn't answer.
Mobius could have had a thousand conversations with Loki in his head, but they were fake. He was gone. And now, Mobius was rotting with the knowledge that he would never have the chance to tell Loki how much he mattered to him.
Mattered- mattered wasn't big enough.
He wasn't sure there even was a big enough word.
Indispensable, maybe. Or predominant.
Loki's vocab had been too damn big.
Mobius felt like all he had done this past week was scold himself. He had been too slow, cowardly, and frankly exhausted to reach for Loki like he should have. Back when there was still time left. Before he had squandered it all. Back when life and time had felt like a waterfall he had to shy away from to keep from getting drowned, but it had dried up so damn quickly. He had just kept thinking that surely, later, they would have time. There would be time when the world wasn't ending and every moment wasn't terrifying and dire.
Mobius had this aching laughter at the irony of it. After years of executing people for the TVA, he of all people should have known that 'later' was never guaranteed. But he hadn't. And now any shot at life with Loki was gone. Time had become a gorgeous tapestry since it had been rewoven from the solid rope it used to be, yet Mobius felt lost in it even though he knew it was his Loki holding the strings.
His Loki. Always his Loki, his variant.
Until he wasn't.
"I'm so sorry," Mobius whispered. The words seeped out of him and seemed to thin his blood. But it didn't even matter how much they hurt. They were empty in the deaf air. They would never get home, because Loki was eons away, beautifully holding together time and space like he was meant to. Mobius was bone-tired and yet all he wanted to do was move to the one place in the entire universe he couldn't.
But I am happy for him, Mobius forced himself to think. His thoughts groaned, more like.
He was truly happy for Loki.
He had to really fight himself to think it, yeah, but it was true. Mobius was glad, because he had watched every second of Loki's story, and yet this ending took the cake because he had written it.
Selfishly, Mobius wanted Loki back. But he wouldn't trade a single moment of what had happened.
For anything, he told himself. Even for another shot at life with Loki and everything they had missed.
Because Loki had succeeded in his glorious purpose and there was nothing in any world that was more important than that.
Mobius was not a super-being or god or anything near it. He was thousands of years old, sure, but his life had been made up of profoundly mundane experiences all in the name of some fake glorious purpose. He might as well have been in his early 20s. Fresh out of the school system, with the world laid bare at his feet. Given to him by the one person he would have wanted to share it with.
He had access to all of it now. And it should have been exciting, and parts of him were excited. But whenever he thought past today- hell, whenever he even thought of even moving from this patch of grass or looking at something other than this house (his house, part of him screeched hysterically)- his stomach dropped out from under him.
"One step at a time," Sylvie had told him. With her settled life as a world-class McDonald's worker, Mobius guessed she was the poster child for how to create a fitting life for yourself. But her sage advice was easier in principle than in practice. It all was so daunting.
Where did he want to go? What did he want to do? What did he want to see? What didn't he want to see? He wanted to see it all. He wanted to go back to the World Fair (scratch that, he wanted to go to all the World Fairs) and eat more sweet kettle corn and marvel at the inventions of regular people like him. He wanted to sit in a cafe in 18th-century Paris with a plate of toasted croissants and warm biscuits and watch the world go by. He wanted to board a ship as a pirate and sail the Caribbean, stretching his tanned skin like the sash he would hang around his waist and a smile over parched lips. He wanted to snatch one of those gorgeous mechanical beauties in the garage and finally ride it like a triumphant sea god.
But when he thought of actually taking steps to make any of those things happen, he was paralyzed. His entire existence had been controlled up until a week ago- Mobius M. Mobius was a lie, and for the first time, he knew it. Hell, he was an echo of his own life.
It wasn't the radio silence from Loki that scared him, or the heartache. It wasn't even the grief. He hurt over Loki, yeah- he was freaking crashing and burning with pain over him- but Loki had found what he was meant to do and there was rightful acceptance and peace in that even if it hurt.
No. Mobius was scared because now it was his turn.
He had to find purpose for his life; he had to make everything worth it by building a life worth living. He had to push forward and forge a new path into the wide openness around him. And he had to do it while carrying the mistakes of his past, the great missing of him and Loki, and what could have been. Mobius knew those memories would always be there, trailing him in the shadows of horns.
Like horns. A dry laugh heaved its way from his throat. He sounded like a lovelorn 15-year-old.
God, this existential crisis was making him melodramatic.
Mobius crossed his arms and huffed, leaning his head back. He needed to breathe. He was running himself in circles. He peeled his eyes open and dug down deep, anchoring his feet to the ground, and he sucked in the biggest breath he could, filling his lungs as far as they would go. He let it go in one fell swoop.
It was enough, in this moment, to be standing here on the timeline with no agenda and nothing to do but breathe. Enjoying the weight of his own breath. Taking in the sky. The great branches of the oak sprawled above him, all funky green leaves and delicate patterns tracing over the sky.
It's a marvel I'm even here, he thought.
Mobius knew he was going to be okay. His complaints were juvenile and his life was just beginning, opening like a chrysanthemum in spring, or something. He had the time and space to do whatever he wanted now, as much as it terrified him. Time was passing. He was free.
He could, in this moment, breathe.
Hold on, Mobius thought. Even better.
He could, in all moments, breathe.
The thought dropped like a heavy weight from his head and thumped to the ground below, sinking away into the dirt.
Mobius would have a future. Soon Someday, he would take a step away from this patch of grass he was currently rooted to. Someday, he would move from here and stop watching this house that could have been and was his but wasn't, and he would go and find his own home. But for now, Mobius was just going to stand here, and let time pass.