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Air was rushing by, a frigid thing that wrapped around his throat and was steadily closing in.
Mobius opened his eyes, shadows blurring together until they sharpened to the solid beige of the ceiling. The room was perfectly warm, pillow soft and fluffed and a blanket thrown over his feet from when he had first fallen asleep. Moonlight flitted across the ceiling, distorting the shadows that they dipped down the walls, inching closer, reaching. He closed his eyes.
One.
Two.
Three.
He kept them pressed shut, feeling the edges of skin pull taunt.
Four.
Five.
Six.
His eyes snapped open.
The shadows were still and the air too still and stifling. Mobius licked his lips, wincing at the dryness of the tiny cracks on his skin.
It reminded him of before- a vague sense of what was, when he was an agent of the TVA. The days stretched and he couldn’t seem to keep track of them anymore. Not that he had a reason to. The flow of time was a mystery he wasn't privy to; it was whatever it wished to be, wherever, whenever. And now his back ached when he turned and there were wrinkles lining his fingers when he held his hands to his face. There was also stubble lining his chin, he couldn't remember where he'd left the razor last- on the sink? in the cabinets? Was it charged?
Time had marked Mobius and he couldn’t escape.
He had tried to, though. Once.
The scene replayed in his head, haunting and callous, taunts curving through his blood and seeping out of his skin- surrounding and ever present.
It, as he deemed to think of the event, hoping if it was relegated to something insignificant, then his stomach would stop churning and squeezing, was a few years after he decided to stay in the timeline he made a home in and something had ached in him, tore him from what he knew and thought he wanted.
So he went to another timeline.
It was a light press on the top button on the TemPad, after all. One he’d done on a night when there was a shimmer of green in his peripheral and a barely there skim of slender fingers over his shoulders. Mobius remembered gasping, the empty bottle loosely grasped in his fingers falling to the floor, tumbling across as he turned around in hopes there would be someone there- he couldn’t bring himself to hope too much, to be looking for only one person. There was nothing there.
Except his TemPad, the one thing that gave him choice.
Mobius wanted that choice again, ignoring the anticipation crawling across his skin, as he lunged for the device in a quick motion, cradling it close to his chest. His fingers didn’t tremble when he entered the numbers, but he kept his eyes shut.
It was achingly familiar when he opened them to a timeline he knew from dreams.
He was Don with two sons and worked in a jet-ski shop. It was simple, the more he watched himself- his variant- Don, that wasn't him, he had to remind himself- go about his life.
He had children. No. A variant of his had children. His variant was happy with his children… two blurbs with names he could feel make home at the back of throat. They existed like strangers passing by on the street.
Mobius knew they weren’t his , never was and never would be but he wanted. So desperately. He yearned- chest empty and gaping as if grasping for some semblance of life to bleed into him from memories that weren’t his but could’ve been.
Desperate for the warmth Don had, that he should’ve had, he'd followed the man. Never close that he would be spotted but close enough that he knew Don kept a stubble, [ ] wanted to be like his father, liked carrots and green vegetables and [ ] liked building things, had won an art contest.
Desperate, he approached Don one afternoon with his hat pulled low. Sirens were blaring. One moment he was outside and the next, he was staring seemingly at a mirror. It was wrong. A mirror with laugh lines and flecks of gray splotched across black strands of hair. So very wrong for Mobius to be here. There were splinters of ice digging into his chest.
Mobius wiped his palms across his pants. Don smiled at him.
Don was explaining the ongoings of the store but it was deaf to him. He watched the familiar face of his pull and move, lips stretching, eyes crinkling. He couldn’t stop staring at the laugh lines.
Mobius wanted. That should've been him. Why couldn't it be his? The life Don lived should've been his. He could step in, become Don. He stepped closer, the TemPad shifting against his leg in his pocket
Loki. The TVA. Mobius wanted to go back. He was selfishly happy then. Maybe he could be happy if he was Don. All he needed to do was take the man’s place, maybe give Don his life. Don complained about wishing to relax- maybe that’s what it was. And Don was partly him, they were variants of each other so Mobius deserved to be happy. He could be happy as Don was. It was all ‘maybe’s and ‘what if’s but all Mobius needed was one step closer, press the button again on his TemPad and begin anew.
Mobius stepped closer.
The timeline was in shambles, branches growing and collapsing in on themselves. All he needed to do was close a hand around Don’s arm, press the button on the TemPad, tug and he could have a life here. This would be his.
“Dad!” A figure brushed against his leg, racing past. Another trailed behind, side stepping him entirely.
Mobius blinked.
He watched Don turn to his children as they ran towards him, the door swinging shut behind them. At the easy way they leaned into him, their touches casual and familiar.
“Sorry, these are my sons.” Don laughed, arm curled around their shoulders as he tugged them closer.
He couldn't take Don’s life when…at the end of it all, Mobius was a variant of Don. It would never be his.
And he had tried. That was all he could do. Try and keep trying and keep trying because maybe, for once, it would work. It might’ve worked.
The click of the TemPad against his finger was a welcome release to the torment, even as it continued to stick with him.
Mobius sighed, slowly becoming aware of the stickiness pasting his lashes together. Once he would’ve gotten rid of Don and he…Mobius tried to deny he wouldn’t have been happier. Maybe now it would be different. Right now, instead of laying in a bed wide awake staring at the ceiling, he might've been in another bed, maybe still staring at the ceiling. But the next door down would be family. The thought built to dreams he had on nights he fully slept through. They would go to the park, movies, eat fast food, [] would take [] fries…A strangled laugh choked past his clenched teeth- he couldn't even remember their names. They were Don’s children. Not his, never his.
Mobius scrambled to grasp the sheets, pulling them tight as to ground himself and tether himself to his choice. It was easy to wish and follow.
The images flashed before his eyes, taunting as the sound of children gleefully laughing echoed amidst the screech of cutlery against each other.
Tomorrow, Mobius knew he would wake up with tear tracks dried along his cheek and a throbbing head but for now he could think of when he, Mobius M. Mobius, was happy. If he thought hard enough, he might actually be happy, even if it was for a little bit.
When he considered his time with Renslayer and B-15, Mobius thought himself happiest with Loki. Chasing Loki variants through timelines as they wrecked havoc. Filling out reports in the library as Loki quietly complained yet his elegant handwriting was a contrast to Mobius’ scratches scattered in the necessary lines. As far as Mobius could seem to remember, it was all Loki by his side, unrelenting and always.
Loki, who had fulfilled his glorious purpose.
Loki, who had become the God of Time.
Loki, who had smiled at him with haunted eyes and a lightness to his shoulders. Mobius had an idea of what had happened, of the lengths Loki had pulled and stretched himself through time just so the multiverse would survive in coherence. He remembered a fleeting conversation that felt out of place in his memories, hazy around the edges as if it had forced itself in, tattered edges spilling out.
Selfishly, Mobius wondered what if Loki had stayed.
For everything Loki had done, Mobius despised the part of himself that wanted an alternative to seeing that sad smile and feeling as if he was in constant replay. They would have all died- they did at some point Mobius knows, but they would’ve been lost to time as the branches collapsed in on itself until there was no more.
Mobius sighed, forcefully relaxing onto the pillow to release the tension in his muscles. His head was pounding, senses heightened to every rustle of curtains and wisps of air cutting through when he closed his eyes.
He had lived years without Loki’s presence, what was a few more? If he remembered what it was like, maybe that couldn't be an issue but all he could feel were fingers calloused from gripping daggers, swords and pens across his cheeks, wiping tears away and trailing touches in their tracks.
Mobius opened his eyes to a shimmer of green fading away.
Bastard
, he thought, eyes slipping shut with a soft smile, tear tracks smudged and drying on the curve of his cheeks as his fingers loosened their grip after a gentle touch swept across his knuckles.