ɑgɛɳt ɱѳɓiuร (jetskiing) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-03-03 08:23:00 |
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So much for a quiet cocktail lounge kind of vibe but then again, in medieval times, that seemed like an impossible dream - rough, dirty, and seedy appeared to be the name of the game; it wasn’t that bad but then again, Mobius wasn’t sure what the sliding scale was here or how he should measure ‘bad.’ He just knew that the inside of the place smelled like stale ale, spillage that hadn’t been cleaned yet, and body odor - long and wooden tables and benches, low-hanging lanterns and candle flames flickering like fireflies in the distance, though he was going to assume that since it also doubled as an Inn that it was relatively well-kept. Patrons weren’t prone to finding hair in their beds or their drinks? Guess Mobius would see for sure. The smell hit him first, however, and at least the second thing to hit him wasn’t someone’s fist (though he gathered that happened a lot here too). He was trying to save the bar fights for later in the week or not at all - because he was tired, and had no idea about where to start at trying to process what happened last week with his variant. The same variant who he wasn’t sure actually reset or not, and the thought of dooming a version of him to certain death made his stomach feel like knife-throwing acrobats were doing flips within. At least he had enough gold to buy a mug of ale. That helped. And he had magic too, but that was a whole other bag of worms. It was weird to try to figure that out - less weird than having to wear light armor with all sorts of new buckles and bells and whistles; his blood was contained inside his body, that was a bonus. But gods. “I’d say I need a vacation but I’m afraid of what that might mean,” he quipped dryly, hands around the mug he was clutching like a lifeline. “So how did last week end for you? Because for me it’s still got me in kind of a dark place and I’m not sure what to do about it.” Besides drink, clearly. Sharon had sensed that. She couldn't really say how she'd sensed it, maybe it was being asked to go get a drink first thing upon arriving … well wherever it was they'd arrived. It felt a little like Aragorn might be lurking in the corner (and sorry, Mobius, but if Sharon actually saw a Viggo Mortensen look alike in the corner, then a girl has to try) but for now she was trying to get a handle on everything. Thankfully she hadn't woken up smaller, like Bucky had, or with horns, like Julia clearly had. She looked like herself. Slightly different clothing, but not so different that she couldn't vibe with it. It felt as if she had decided to go undercover at a ren faire, and it wasn't unlike what she might have chosen if she had decided such a thing, so it could be worse. She considered the ale that she'd gotten with a sniff, and it smelled normal and the mug looked clean. She'd take it. "It might be possible that this is the idea of vacation for Delerth, so pull out the sunscreen and the lawn chairs." Sharon took a sip. She was still not sure what to think about last week. Her conversations with the other Mobius had left her thoughtful, because maybe as bewildering as the idea of coming face to face with someone completely different from you, was knowing that a version of you wasn't very different at all. She shook her head. "Thoughtful," she sighed. "This tavern kind of feels like the sort of place to spill dark secrets, and ale feels like the prerequisite we both have. So…" It was an invitation of sorts, if he wanted to talk about it. Did Mobius want to talk about it? Well. He supposed he did - he was a big proponent of not bottling everything up to the point where the emotional turmoil started to resemble rivers in a storm, just pouring down into a ravine and flooding everything. Then it got messy. And everyone knew there was enough mess in their lives from week to week - didn’t help that they never really got a chance to figure out what the latest Derleth Experiment meant for them, before being forced to move on to something else. And Loki had been right before - if nothing mattered, it was difficult to stay ‘on course,’ so to speak. Mobius was trying to make it matter- to find meaning in all of this, somewhere. “I had to kill him,” he said, officially opening the gates of this conversation. “My variant, I mean. I felt like shit about it. Especially because - I think he was ready for me to do it.” Why would he sort of welcome the sting and bite of a pruning stick disintegration? Mobius only had time to speculate. But his variant didn’t really know peace at all - and at the very least, an hour or so of it when there was just nothing was better than constantly feeling like you didn’t matter to anyone, because ‘ruthless’ was a compliment in Dark Derleth and sentiment had no place there at all. He also had to keep in mind that variant Mobius was him and he felt what he felt, to some degree - and he seemed fond of Sharon. Mobius was still considering that a lot too. It made this conversation feel welcome and easier, at least. Sharon tapped a finger against the top of her mug of ale. "I'm sorry you got stuck in that situation," she frowned slightly. She was no stranger to do what you had to do in a situation, but she hadn't had to kill her variant. Maybe they were both too pragmatic for that sort of thing, and, well, her variant hadn't been an Infinity Stone with whatever levels of crazy that brought with it. "I talked to him, you know. The other you. One of those times you were messing about the lab, he popped in - literally. But I don't think he wanted to hurt me, and I don't think he was even distracting me from anything, we just talked. I think he might have been lonely." Which when she thought about it, made some sense. Perhaps also there was an edge of it that she even got. It was how she'd felt before Bucky and Sam had come along sometimes, and maybe sometimes still did. But Bucky and Sam had come along, and then she'd been here, and she and Bucky had been pushed together any number of times, including, it seemed, now in the new dormitory, and she didn't hate it. “I’m sure he was - lonely, I mean,” Mobius’s brow furrowed, and he wished it didn’t have to be that way. But it was. He’d been lonely for a lot of his existence - empty, in a way. Like he’d wake up from some unremembered dream in his drab TVA apartment and just feel so hollow and nothing would fill it. Because it would be like lighting a match and letting it burn for a few seconds before extinguishing; nothing stayed. Nothing was permanent, and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what made him feel that way. Though for variant Mobius, he had a feeling he knew. “Guess having a shit ton of power doesn’t always cure the void in your life - any void,” he chuckled humorlessly, lifting the mug of ale to take a sip - it was pretty good, but then again, he wasn’t an alcohol expert. Still, it was interesting - malted with barley and bittered with a mixture of herbs that were probably grown right here, a recipe passed down. Family secrets in this tavern. Right here in the flesh. No doubt people would take this chance to stock up on booze for campus, however. “I hope they’ll all be okay somehow on that campus. What about you? Any existential crises about seeing your other self?” he asked. "I hardly saw my other self, other than when she came over to 'help' which might have been just an excuse to tag me," Sharon mused with a self-effacing laugh, but it sat a little bitterly, and it wasn't honest to say that she'd had no existential crisis in the week. She breathed in, took a sip from the mug and sat it back down. They would have to figure out how to take some of this - well maybe not exactly this, but something like - back to campus. "He seemed to know her though. Said we were a lot alike, which…" She fell silent, trailing off, because she couldn't argue with it. She hadn't seen enough of her other self to argue with it. She was pragmatic, and she wasn't interested in getting caught up in heroics. Loyal to people she cared about? Sure. And she was willing to put herself at risk for that, but she'd seen too many organizations fall apart, too many groups of people fall apart - and the other Delerth had certainly reminded of the worst of things during the blip. Power certainly wasn't a substitute for companionship, for feeling a part of something, and too much of it could leave you alone in a completely different way. She suspected that the other Mobius understood that too. Sharon shook her head. "You did what you had to do, Mobius, and I know emotions don't take directions from the head, but you shouldn't feel bad about it. You protected yourself, our campus. Sometimes the only choices are bad, so you take the best of the two options and you survive. For better or worse, and I can't honestly say that it's for better, I'm sure they'll all have survived on their campus too." The magic that Mobius felt simmering beneath his skin was familiar, in a way - almost too familiar. Like there was a method to the madness, there was order and efficiency and a lock into a key - it all made sense somehow, and if he didn’t consider it too much maybe he might even think he was born for this. It was comforting and reassuring in the way the chime of a clock happened to be, the deep timbre of a church bell, a sense of permanence. Peace. Even though he was aware the feeling wouldn’t be permanent. Not much in Derleth was. He glanced up at Sharon, fellow magic user - hers was different, yet it was still a commonality. The tie that binds. “You did what you had to do as well,” he said. “Not just with this, but - everything. Maybe you and your variant are a lot alike, but so what? You operated outside a broken system. You don’t dance to anyone else’s tune. I don’t - think I or anyone is in a place to judge you for that. Not when the people you thought you could trust only proved they were spineless.” And that was a sad fact. So no, he didn’t think there was much of a difference between her and her variant and he didn’t judge. Not this Sharon, not any Sharon, dropped on her ass by the ‘superheroes’ in the equation - no, you move meant something entirely different for her these days. No second chances with her, only consequences - he didn’t think that was too far-fetched of an idea. Sharon glanced sharply upwards. Perhaps she should have realized he knew more than he'd ever let on. After all, from what she understood of his background, it made sense, but it still wasn't something that she'd consciously thought about. She reached for the mug, and pulled it towards her, two hands cupped around it without actually lifting it to her lips. Her magic sat differently, like something she'd sought, proven herself worthy of, and perhaps something that came with strings attached. But it was there, and she could feel it, even if she hadn't spent much time exploring exactly what it could do. "I sometimes wonder what my Aunt Peggy would say," she admitted softly. "Not that she wasn't one to work outside the system if she thought it was the right thing, but…" The right thing maybe felt like the difference there. Sharon wasn't always certain that she could in good conscience consider every move she'd made a 'right thing', a necessary one? Maybe. Arguably. She wasn't Steve. Or Sam, for that matter. "It might be possible to get lost in all the could have beens," she looked over at him again, but this time with a small smile on her lips. "I'm not sure the other versions of us had many - if any - people they could trust. It does tend to drive you differently. But damn if that desire isn't still there, even if you can't find a place to hold it." “People let you down,” Mobius said, and that was true - everything about the system had failed Sharon. Everything about heroics had failed her - she stuck her neck out for people who ultimately didn’t seem to give a damn about her and, yeah, that definitely meant ending up with some lasting scars. “But I know what you mean. I get lost in the could-have-been’s as well. Especially because all it took was that one moment, the nexus event - where I was pulled off my jetski or whatever it was,” he huffed a laugh. “Then, boom. Variant. Made someone else’s puppet.” He wanted to know who he was - where he had come from, what kind of person he had been. Mobius didn’t think it mattered so much in the scheme of things but it would just be nice to know. Closure, in a way he had never achieved before. “And I don’t know if it makes a difference but you can trust me,” he added. “I think other you trusted me - or he trusted her. Both? Maybe it’s always going to be that way. Some things...just are.” Like that, perhaps. But you needed people you could trust either way - a sense of psychological safety was important, and he didn’t believe that from an interrogator’s perspective either. Mobius believed it from the perspective of someone who was innately understanding and compassionate at his core. Sharon shifted, because people did let you down, and it was uncomfortably true. It was perhaps a sign of the fact that she did trust Mobius that she didn't immediately deflect the discomfort away to create another topic of conversation, pretending that it wasn't uncomfortable when it was. And Sharon didn't really know why, but he gave off the aura of someone who could be trusted. "You know, you saying so, doesn't necessarily mean that you can be," she returned, a quiet push back, but there was a smile on her lips so perhaps not a very firm one. "But I think you're right about the other us. I got… that feeling when I spoke with him. Perhaps all the more unusual when you consider that I don't feel that many of us in that other campus trusted very far." She bit at the inside of her lip, thoughtful. She had been let down, and it had hardened her, but she didn't think she was irretrievably hard yet. She couldn't speak for the other her. When she'd reached a hand out to touch the other Mobius, it had felt to her that he'd not been expecting it. It wasn't something that she suspected other her had ever done. Which, in all honesty she wasn't still quite certain why she had done it, because it wasn't as if she had a touching sort of relationship with this Mobius. She didn't do touching generally, unless it was her week to keep Milo. But staring at the strangely Tesseract defined face - it had simply felt like something he'd needed and she'd offered a touch of humanity. It occurred to her that she was just staring at him now, so she shook it off and reached for the ale. "People will let you down, and yet, if you don't allow them in sometimes, you end up with a tremendous amount of power, and still a completely empty void," she stated, thinking of what Mobius had said earlier. That his variant had been ready for Mobius to end him. "Without some connection, what's the point?" Which still hit a little too close to home for Sharon's comfort. Mobius supposed that was true. You could also still be surrounded by plenty of people, physically, but still feel the need for a specific sort of intimate connection - and he knew what it was like to not get that. To be searching for it. He felt the disappointment of his variant and how it rolled off of him in nearly tangible waves - maybe the other Mobius wasn’t even hoping to come back. Because loneliness built on itself like a wave until it inevitably crashed - he had a feeling he saw the crash in real time. “I guess that’s the risk of letting people in,” he mused. “I’m willing to take the risk though, in this case.” Because as much as he assured Sharon that she could trust him (she could - guess he would have to prove it to her, and do a good job of it) he also trusted her - extending that was just as important. Wow, this talk got deep. But he sort of expected it to - even if they didn’t have to linger on it. He reached over, fingertips tapping her hand as he turned his palm up; his skin glowed, almost, but not in that blue infinity stone sort of way. Brassy, like when the sunlight hit gold at exactly the right moment. “You want to go outside and throw some spells around?” he asked. Mobius was pretty sure his magic was mostly defensive - protection vibes, that sort of thing. But he might see if he could summon a golem or something too. For fun. Sharon glanced down at the touch, unexpected, and reminding her of the other Mobius, except that unlike the coolness of the Tesseract, this was all warmth. In a way it felt like a visual confirmation of the difference between the two variants. One cold, pulled in, and requiring you to handle with care if you didn't want them to break, and another all warmth, expanding out, welcoming others to take a chance. She shook her head, a smile forming on her lips. Maybe she needed to put a little more distance between herself and alternate Delerth her, and she suspected that it started with something like this: a little bit of trust, judiciously offered. "It's always better to know what skills you have at your disposal should a situation come up." There was a heartbeat where she hesitated, and then she reached over and took the extended hand, palm to palm. There was magic there. It tingled with possibility and yes maybe a little risk too. She'd always felt that magic held possibility and danger in equal measure: The outcome always depended on how you used it. |