mobius & hugh
day four | the lab | low
â none that I can think of
The DVD case that Hugh held in his hand reminded him of junior high. Plastic, obviously burned on a computer, the way his name was hand written across the front of it in a handwriting that if he hadn't known better would certainly have felt like he'd written it himself.
And Hugh supposed he didn't know that he didn't.
That was the thing about Delerth, he'd listened to people talk about different variants and different realities, and even seen and talked to a version of himself for whom life had gone quite differently, and perhaps this video had been labeled by another variant of himself. Although he couldn't imagine how, or why.
The whole thing felt like a romantic comedy, beautifully filmed, a snapshot of two people connecting over music and through movement, and exactly the sort of film that Hugh would hold up as his favorite. Except that in this particular case the two people were him and his wife, although she hadn't been then. But that had been the weekend, the weekend he'd decided it was only her. The weekend he'd known that he wanted to propose. And seeing it again had just - he missed her.
But how all of this would have ended up on a DVD that looked like it had been burned a decade before any of it would have happened, with his name on it. Well, he supposed that was part of the mystery of Delerth.
Armitage Hall always made him feel like he was back at UW, but it was where Mobius had his equipment, and Hugh had decided he'd take it by and let him look at it anyway. He didn't know what else to do with it.
He rapped his knuckles against the doorframe and poked his head in. "Mobius?"
Mobius had been in the lab for awhile - he had a lot of data to look at and a lot of input to sort through; the frequencies emitting from the various pieces of media brought to him vibrated, oscillated, further showing that everything was constantly in motion. Everything in the universe, absolutely everything - but some aspects were higher frequencies than others, and it seemed like these treasures showing home, in whatever capacity, were rife with intricacies. Reminded him of a spiderâs web, almost - there were all these paths, all these potentials that could branch like lung bronchioles.
He aimed to find one they could lock in on. Somehow. And he felt they were pretty close.
Still wearing simple black pants and an equally simple shirt, that olive-toned one with âFlorida Originalâ scrawled on there (his favorite souvenir from the Disney week, even if he hadnât been there - but he just liked the shirt, was all), he glanced up from the screen he was hunched over with a furrowed brow, calculating in his head and moving those numbers at lightning speed, when he heard the knock.
âHey kiddo,â he called back, the nickname slipping out easily - it was one he bestowed upon both Hugh and Eliot and, strangely, no one else. Just them. And while he didnât understand it, he decided not to question it. âCome on in and pull up a patch of lab. Howâs it going?â
Hugh stepped in, glancing around the lab, as he did so.It could have been intimidating, all of the tech equipment, screens, the like - it was closer to the sort of thing his father did day in and day out than anything Hugh had ever been good at and he'd always felt that lack when he was younger. It could have pulled up a feeling that he should be trying to do something here, be useful in some way or another - actually useful, not just throw dance parties and film nights - but maybe it was partially Mobius, or maybe it was just Delerth with its superheroes and magicians with whom Hugh could never have hoped to keep up with so far as usefulness went, somehow tiptoeing in amongst all this tech didn't really conjure any feeling of not having done enough. He'd take it, he supposed.
Hugh hadn't volunteered to help with any of the stuff around solving the question of Delerth. Maybe because it just felt like there were people here who were so much better at that type of question. But that didn't mean he didn't know that it was happening. And when Hugh had actually found something tangible it had felt obvious to come find Mobius and see if it would help. It was the smallest of things, but maybe it would.
He trailed his fingers along the back of a chair lightly before he straightened his shoulders and stepped forward to offer Mobius the plastic CD case with the DVD inside.
"It's been playing in the theater all week, at least I assume this is the same thing. I found it this morning. You said you were scanning things?"
âThat I am,â Mobius nodded, taking the CD case. âEvery piece of media I can scan, whether itâs a book or a DVD or what - it helps, since Iâm compiling data.â He had a whole team to help him out as well, and they were all doing a pretty good job with it - he really felt as if theyâd all made excellent progress and he just knew, deep in his bones, that theyâd be on to something good here. Very soon.
Or at least, he wasnât going to think otherwise - because continuing with this timeloop bullshit was going to drive them all insane. Maybe even force them all into becoming their counterparts - the ones who were too tired to give any fucks about morality. Mobius knew heâd never be Mr. Tesseract, not really - but he could see himself spiraling into something as despondent, similar places his other self had dwelled within.
He grabbed the TemPad, and another makeshift scanner cobbled together from Hoth tech, and booted them up so he could take readings from Hughâs CD. âThanks for bringing it by. Did you watch it already? If so, I hope it wasnât too rough.â Mobius was sympathetic when he said that - his own DVD hadnât been awful, but. For others, it was a different sort of emotional journey.
Hugh handed it over, and then stuck his hands in the pockets of well-tailored wool trousers. He supposed he could be grateful that heâd worn a decent outfit to the theatre that night. Even if it hadnât been what he was wearing upon arrival, the trousers were in his backpack every week and there were enough decent shirts in the theatre to mean that Hugh didnât hate his clothing options even if he did miss his closet.
He took a step over and settled down in a wooden chair with wheels that probably had been in the lab since mid-century or before. âWhat are you looking for with all of it?â
âAh - I didnât know you were married,â Mobius smiled, holding what looked like a sad gun over the CD - it was a scanner gun though, like something youâd use for a price check or to scan barcode inventory in an office or something, but it was a piece that heâd and a couple others had put together after Hoth. Which had been kind of a gold mine of parts and a lot of it was junk, sure, but there were some useful gems in it all as well - if you knew what the various bits and bobs actually did (and Rey seemed to have been scavenging for awhile). âI can imagine that it feels a little bittersweet to see her though, after so long. Time passes weirdly here.â
The machines next to him also hummed, the TemPad screen glowing in its fuzzy and granular kind of way - it didnât play video very well, but it did read timelines and other charts and graphs; frequencies too, and he could also use it to draw holographic pictures. âBasically each piece people bring me has a lot of juice from whatever timeline the piece came from,â he said. âI take that and read it, and it helps me nudge us toward what will hopefully be our own Derleth timeline thatâs steady - something outside the loop, which will break so weâre not resetting every week. We need something steady and weâve been trying to find that for awhile now - so Iâm using what I can to put us on course.â
Including these DVDs, and it seemed to be working. âThink of these pieces of media like little compasses.â
Hugh twisted one of the rings on his hand while he watched what Mobius was doing and listened feeling more and more - well, maybe stupid wasn't the right word, but the stuff that Mobius was talking about was so far over his head. And maybe part of that was because this whole time travel thing at home tended to be relegated to like, DeLoreans and 88 miles per hour, not loops and timelines. But he thought he understood, somewhat. And the idea of not being in a loop, not waking up at the start of every week not knowing what he'd be waking up to or where? That was something Hugh could get on board with. Like, nearly every week he was glad he'd had a couple of anxiety pills in his backpack, because fuck.
"So you're trying to write our own timeline?" He asked. But compasses. "Or find it?"
âFind it,â Mobius clarified. âWriting a timeline is very...not my jurisdiction. It was what the guy did, the guy who created the TVA - he was able to travel so far into the future and absorb that knowledge, enough to go back and manipulate things enough to where he was controlling the flow and putting the chess pieces where he wanted them.â He laid the path and his pawns walked upon it, no? Mobius had so many regrets about that, it wasnât even funny. There likely wasnât enough therapy in the world to untangle that game of catâs cradle, but anyway.
He squinted, powder blue eyes thoughtful and clearly there were plenty of calculations going on behind them as he observed the readings being picked up and data input - heâd go through all of it later, however. Not now. Because Hugh didnât want to sit here forever - and he probably wanted his DVD back as well.
âSo tell me about your wife?â he asked then, glancing up with a kind smile. âSheâs fire and spice and what else? How did you meet?â He also did enjoy a good love story.
The notion of finding or writing a timeline, either one, was so far outside of anything Hugh could have even imagined possible, that they might have been filed under the same category of impossible, but he supposed when Mobius put it out like that, manipulation and chess pieces, finding something sounded better. But the description⊠Hugh watched Mobius for a second before following up: "The TVA was where you were before?"
Marceline though, and love stories generally, Hugh knew both pretty damn well. "At a nightclub on her 21st birthday. Her friend had dumped her for dick, so she came home with me." The memory brought a smile to his lips. "And the next morning I realized she lived out of the city, out on a farm and so I offered her a ride home, and gave her my number, which I didn't normally do with people I hooked up with in night clubs, but there was something about her, I guess. We were friends with benefits for years, I dated some people, and I finally got my shit together and realized maybe committing was worth it."
He shook his head. "We're like the two most opposite people you can imagine, she wears flannels and black ripped up jeans, and I'm," Hugh waved a hand at his perfectly tailored trousers and leather oxfords. "She grew up on a farm, and I love the city. She hates sitting still, but she's showed up for every show I've done in the past few years. And this past summer at home I got muddy as fuck and ruined a $150 pair of jeans saving her cows from drowning. So I'm pretty sure it's true love."
True love that wasn't there, though, and Hugh had never been particularly good at being alone. But Delerth had at least kept him distracted from that fact most of the time, until it popped this memory back on a big screen in technicolor with surround sound - metaphorically speaking anyway. "I suppose on the bright side, I've got more than just the pictures of her that were on my phone now."
Like he told Loki, having those pieces of home were probably important to some - for others, they wanted to take a baseball bat to the television and Mobius didnât judge anyone either way. Though for Hugh, it sounded like having that DVD was a positive thing - a little piece of his home, connected to someone he cared deeply about. That was nice to see.
âYou saved her cows from drowning, huh? Yeah, thatâs pretty heroic,â he laughed, making a new notes on the TemPad - his project files were stored here so he always made sure to document everything; it was also backed up to the computers on campus as well, in case he suddenly disappeared (he hoped not, but you never knew). âNot always an expert on true love - but it sounds like you two are a good match. Glad you have this to look back on and remember the good times with her.â
He plunked the DVD back into its casing. âBut yeah, uh - the TVA was where I was before. For a really long time. Iâm happy to be out of it and figuring out who I am without being under their control.â
Hugh laughed and sat up. "You know, I feel as if when you repeat it back to me I have severely overstated the usefulness I provided in that particular moment, but I did ruin a pair of jeans trying to get cows out of a flooded field in the middle of a rainstorm while the creek was definitely still rising, so points for intent, maybe." It wasn't the worst memory either, that weekend had been a lot. He'd met her family, and it was the first time really after they'd defined their relationship that he'd had to grapple seriously with just how different their worlds were and begin to answer the question of if he could fit in with hers.
He shook it off and considered. "So all this timeline stuff isn't really new to you? I mean, this stuff is, but you're familiar with the ideas and vibrations?" Vibrations didn't feel like the right word, but Hugh couldn't remember what was the right word. "What do you think the timeline would look like? The one we find? Will it beâŠ" Home didn't feel like the right word, exactly, because what was home for Hugh felt like it wouldn't be home for others. Vax's home was far different than his. Loki's would have been too. So, he supposed it might become home - whatever it looked like. "I guess, we wouldn't have to worry about resetting every week? is mostly what I'm asking."
Frequences was the word there, most likely, but vibrations worked too. Same thing, right? Sort of? âItâs not new to me,â Mobius confirmed. âWhen I worked for the TVA we were tasked with protecting the Sacred Timeline - that included studying it, looking for any branches, and stopping them before they unraveled completely. Branches were inevitable, of course, but now I know why specifically the organizationâs creator wanted to keep everything nice and pruned. To prevent certain variants of himself from coming into power,â Mobius shrugged.
Apparently that had happened anyway, when Sylvie drove the knife blade home - chaos broke free and there was nothing to be done about it besides ride the tsunami to its inevitable conclusion.
âResetting every week is what Iâm trying to stop too - the people working with me are trying to stop it too. It...wears on you. On all of us.â A combination of magic and science seemed to be doing the job - people had different things to add to the table and it wasnât all reliant on just one person. He was glad for that.
Hugh thought of his variant, the one heâd met when there was a second Delerth. He didn't think that heâd been so much seeking power as just desperate. But maybe there was a certain amount of seeking power that was a desperation. Control was kind of power, and pruning out variants before they could do something unwanted felt like the ultimate control play.
âWhat happened to branches? You donât think weâre all ⊠you know pruned variants or something do you?â He frowned slightly. âWhat happens if people get hurt wherever we end up? If we donât reset? I know there are things at home, but somehow getting potentially killed by a giant eye monster feels more likely here than a car accident at home, you know?â
Those were some interesting philosophical questions. Hugh seemed the philosophical sort though - he was an actor, an artist, and likely deeply soulful. Mobius appreciated that - it was a contrast from his more scientific side, the side that liked to analyze charts and graphs and crack the hard to crack cases; this particular case - the Derleth experiment - had been one of the hardest cases to crack yet. A true challenge.
âThe branch would break off when it was blown apart by a reset charge - then sent to someplace called the Void at the End of Time,â he explained. âWhile there were a lot of similarities here, we have a Void for example, I believe people coming and going so often shows that itâs more like...an experiment gone wrong instead of anything deliberate. Or at least, thatâs what Iâve sort of sussed out - there are a lot of unanswered questions,â he said, stroking his chin, fingers swiping over the mustache thoughtfully.
"I guess that makes sense," Hugh nodded. It was really strange to think about being part of an experiment that had gone wrong, just whisked, for no particular reason to this place that was at first glance half-way normal, but not remotely normal once you got into the details of it.
"I mean, I got cocky when I had magic I guess, but I think I'm just thinking that so many of the things I've seen here - do not exist where I'm from and I certainly wouldn't be able to handle them. And there are so many here⊠Well I don't think even if Vax manages to teach me to be amazing with a sword that I should be doing a lot of defending." He took the CD case back and stood up. "I guess I'll just keep playing the hero on stage, where it's safe," he gave Mobius a wry grin.
âPlus a hero with cows - gotta keep them safe too,â Mobius returned with a laugh, also standing so he could walk Hugh out. âThereâs lots of ways to be a hero. I donât think you have to worry about not fitting the bill.â
And if anyone took issue with that, heâd be glad to show them the error of their ways - Mobius was also someone who didnât possess flashy, fancy powers but he still found some way to make a difference regardless, not to mention standing up for his principles. It took a lot of strength to do that, to do what was right even when it was hard. So did he think Hugh and his cow rescue was heroic? Definitely.
âThanks for coming by,â he made sure to say. âGood luck with the swordfighting too. Let me know how it goes.â Heâd be curious, and hopefully theyâd catch up soon. Amidst all the other calamity of their lives, it might just be nice.
âOh god just please donât think of me forever after as the Cow Guy,â Hugh laughed in return. He wasnât always convinced. For all heâd taken it in stride he hated feeling like he needed to be protected, but most of the time, nearly anyone would be better at heroics than him.
âI will though,â Hugh grinned. The sword had been something he hadnât expected to keep from that week as a half-elf but he didnât hate that he had. And he thought, maybe, that he was getting a little bit better anyway. âGood luck with finding the timeline. Let me know if I can help?â It seemed unlikely, but who knew. Maybe Mobius would need an actor, dancer, entertainer at some point in the research. Delerth offered up stranger notions weekly.