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ᴀɢᴇɴᴛ ᴍᴏʙɪᴜs (

timedoor) wrote in

valloic,
@ 2022-02-02 13:35:00

Mobius & Loki

WHAT: Loki decides to get in touch with the Frost Giant form
WHERE: Outside their cottage
WHEN: January, a somewhat snowy day
WARNINGS: SCHMOOP? Also snek Loki
ART CREDIT: Boop
STATUS: Complete

He had never really explored these powers before. They had felt dirty to him in a way that he couldn’t fully describe to himself.

It had been uncharacteristically quiet around Vallo lately. Not necessarily a bad quiet, but it seemed that the human’s holiday season had given them all something of a reprieve after the little side-adventure some of them had taken to the television. It had settled him into something of a routine - he had his classes at the University and then his time at home was usually taken up by Mobius or tending to Sleipnir and Firehooves. He had never known just how much work horses needed until he hadn’t had stablehands to do it for him, unfortunately, but he found that he didn’t really mind the oddly peaceful life they’d carved out for themselves here.

He was surprised when it started snowing, though. It usually rained with how close they were to the coast but when he returned to the university that afternoon the ground was covered in a thick blanket of snow with Sleipnir pawing at it curiously and Loki watched with raised eyebrows as he lowered himself to roll in it, scoffing softly. It was cold, but- it didn’t have to be. It wasn’t as though anybody would see him here other than Mobius, after all, so Loki shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the stable door, trudging out to an empty patch of grass by their cottage as he let the cold sink into him and take over him, skin slowly turning from a cold-flushed pink to that deep, etched blue as he picked up a handful of snow, forming it into a dagger of ice with a flick of his hand that aimed it at a nearby fencepost, smirking a little as it hit his target.

He had never really explored these powers before. They had felt dirty to him in a way that he couldn’t fully describe to himself and he found that with his own inherent seidr and the freedom of the space, he could just- create, starting off with somewhat crude structures that morphed to something more elegant as he continued, humming to himself as he drew the moisture of the snow up into a statue that vaguely resembled Mobius. Vaguely. Perhaps more of a human figure in a suit, really.

The snow was beautiful, really - delicate white sugar sand, almost, or a blanket covering the ground. Mobius thought it looked pretty picturesque from the vantage point of the cottage - it was also cold, yes, but cozy inside. Warm and snug and, armed with blankets and a cup of coffee, it didn't actually inspire Mobius to want to go out much but, well - Loki was out there and Mobius wanted to check on the horses too. He was soft enough to invite them inside the cottage itself even though they were fine in the stables with their winter horse coats and a steady supply of grain and hay to keep the internal fires nice and stoked.

But he was curious why Loki was still out there (playing in the snow by himself?) so Mobius slipped his coat on and headed in the direction of where his trickster partner had gone - the snow looked like silvery beads on his jacket and the air wasn't so cold that it felt like tiny pins in his face. More like brisk, as if he'd just eaten a York peppermint patty.

"What are you - " He paused, noticing all the ice creations Loki had made, and stepped closer to the statue that was supposed to be him. It made Mobius chuckle. "Does this me have a moustache too - oh."

Sorry, it just took him a second to notice Loki was blue.

Loki probably should have expected Mobius to come out too but as it was, he had been taken by surprise enough that he jumped as though he’d been caught stealing, a deep blue flush creeping up his cheeks as he glanced between his partner and the ice sculpture. “Ah, I was just- seeing what I could do, I suppose,” he gestured vaguely to the ice Mobius in front of him, frowning a little. It did have a moustache - or, it was supposed to, but Loki had never proclaimed himself an artist and he could honestly say it only very vaguely resembled him if you squinted at the two of them next to each other, which Loki was currently doing.

He was very much attempting to be nonchalant about the whole… blue thing. Mobius hadn’t complained about it when he’d been stuck like this and it wasn’t as though anybody was going to appear and point at him in horror after how things had gone when magic had started to fade. “Are you joining me?”

“I like it,” Mobius chuckled - he also felt his cheeks warm as he observed the statue, which was a sweet gesture the more he thought about it. Also the fact that Loki was out here practicing with the cold and the snow and ice seemed like a big deal - especially after he’d grown up being taught to hate and fear what he was. To put on a mask, to find one that fit - the more masks he tried on, the more bitter he seemed to become. Mobius wanted him to let go of all of that - and to only be himself. At the time of his death, he seemed to have accepted his heritage, at least - but now he had the chance to really figure out what it meant for him. To, say, create ice sculptures or snow people. “Yeah, I’m joining you.”

Then he stepped closer to Loki, feeling the chill emanating off of him, kind of like standing next to a glass windowpane during the winter - it was similar to when he didn’t have any control over it but now he did and he was choosing to sort of explore this. Mobius was equal parts elated and curious - definitely curious. “Can I touch you?” he asked, reaching for Loki’s face with a tentative hand - but he paused before actually getting a chance to run his thumb along the sharp plane of his cheekbone.

It was the eyes too. They looked like glittering rubies - they drew him in.

Loki moved back a little when Mobius asked to touch him, concerned as he’d been before about the thought of giving him some kind of horrendous frostbite - it did hit him a moment later, though. Last time he’d looked like this, it had been due to a lack of magic. This time, Loki had all of his powers - and then some, with how much he’d been practising. A green shimmer ran over the length of his body, down to his fingers and through his hair and then Loki leant forwards, carefully letting his skin brush against Mobius.

He was cold to the touch, comparatively, but not freezing to the point of physical pain, and Loki grinned a little. “You’re warm,” he marvelled, tipping his head into the length of his hand and lifting his own to press it a little more firmly against his face. “Very warm, in fact. I hadn’t quite realised just how much of a difference there was,” and Mobius wasn’t looking at him with any level of disgust or unhappiness, more… curiosity, than anything else. Interest, even. “It didn’t really snow on Asgard. Not like this, in any case - Jotunheim, certainly, but I never really had the opportunity to explore that,” it was much more of a biting cold there, too. This was cold, but without the harsh wind chill and freezing sensation of loneliness, with towering ice stacks and cliffs of harsh, jagged rock. This was their home.

Mobius felt warm and Loki was chilly, of course - but not to the point where fingers were freezing into sticks and snapping off, so Mobius would take it. Both hands came up to cradle Loki’s face, thumbs gliding along his cheekbones and the loop-di-swoop of the markings on his skin - over his cheeks and then Mobius brushed his fingertips over Loki’s forehead too, following the path of those markings as well.

“Jeg elsker deg. You’re beautiful, you know,” he said with a grin, and he leaned up slightly to close the distance between them and kiss Loki while cupping his cheek; Mobius kissed him soundly, deep as the sea they lived by and with enough conviction to get his toes curling in his boots. “You always are - “ His other hand pressed flat against Loki’s chest, where his heart beat. “It always gets me.”

Definitely cold too, but kissing him felt refreshing - it was a jolt, an invigorating wakeup and sensation of coming alive again. “The research side of me was curious about Asgard, when I was with the TVA,” he murmured. For instance, if there was an abundance of snow (apparently not), if the planet itself was even too small for axial tilt seasons, how the temperature varied, and so forth. “Everything was really made of gold there?”

“I love you too,” Loki murmured, even if he rolled his eyes at the compliment that Mobius gave him. It probably didn’t carry much weight, considering the way he was pressing into his hands not unlike the way a cat might when deciding that affection was acceptable in that moment. “Hm. I wouldn’t say everything was made of gold, but the palace certainly was. I had a very gold-coloured childhood, but there were also just- normal buildings as well,” he offered a little shrug and turned slightly, not quite enough to break free of Mobius’ warm hands.

He raised one of his own, snow and ice gathering on the ground and carving itself into a shape that was achingly familiar to Loki, a miniature of Asgard in its own right. “Of course, the palace itself is here in Vallo,” he murmured, squinting a little as he concentrated of the details of windows and the Bifrost gate, delicate, perfect replicas of ice. It came easier to him than attempting to sculpt a person did, at least. “I- tend the plants there. We could go.”

Since he was always willing to pet Lokitty (in actual cat form or otherwise), Mobius obliged - he tucked his arms around Loki’s waist and nudged his nose (crooked as ever) against his very blue cheek, watching him as he constructed his ice sculptures from thin air, using the chill of winter. “A gold-colored childhood,” he snorted in amusement. “I saw some of it. Most of it.” Love breathed into the walls of the palace, anyway - the good parts and the bad parts. Not everything was gold either, no - blackened wood and sturdy metal, most of what Loki seemed to have was strong and elegant and beautiful, much like how he was himself.

The tip of Mobius’s nose was cold but that still wasn’t stopping him from bestowing affection - likely he was warm in comparison to Loki anyway. “We can go whenever you want,” he agreed. “I talked to Torunn about some of the plants there but I know it’s mostly your thing.”

Probably due to Frigga’s influence - maybe she taught her son some nature magic too. Mobius knew Loki’s emotions about Frigga were complicated though, and he had trouble navigating all of that without drowning; he’d do what he could to be supportive, like always.

“Partially strange, partially sweet,” Loki commented on the state of Mobius watching his childhood. He wondered what he thought, sometimes - he was sure he would tell him precisely what he’d thought at Loki’s various exploits over the years, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know all of the answers. Pretending he had some secrets left to share with Mobius was a nice lie, after all. “It isn’t quite my palace, but would it be terrible to fulfil some of the wishes I had of sneaking around the halls with somebody I shouldn’t be?” he smirked as he looked down at Mobius, raising a hand to run it through his hair.

He could picture it now, honestly. There were plenty of dark corridors and nooks and crannies in the palace - he had explored a few but rough fumbles in the dark with random visitors didn’t quite live up to the romances he read about hurried kisses and stolen moments in hallways. “I feel like it might be rude, considering it isn’t my palace.”

Partially strange, partially sweet probably described a lot of their courtship, to be honest. “Well, no one needs to know,” Mobius pointed out, stepping back a little to assess the condition of the winter wonderland that had cushioned the ground - if it would be the right kind for packing actual snowballs. He scooped some up and he didn’t have gloves on but that was alright - he could deal with red and chapped hands for a little bit, for the sake of recreating whimsy.

Or what he believed to be whimsy - his memories had slotted back into place but a lot of it was still kind of fuzzy; the equivalent of a thousand years later, he didn’t have a perfect grasp of his childhood and what he did recall? He hadn’t come from a cold climate. The only winter shoes he had were flip-flops, for the beach.

Playfully, he tossed the snowball at Loki. “If you have a palace groping fantasy, I’m happy to help fulfil that for you.” Oh, sure, he was pretty certain it had happened for Loki before - Mobius had seen him fight, he’d seen Loki dance, had seen him fuck (though granted, a lot of that was time to take a soda break while he left the reels playing). But there was something different about experiencing that with someone you cared about, or at least that was what he assumed.

“You make a fair point, but it’s much classier than a palace groping fantasy. I’m a prince, after all,” Loki frowned a little when he backed away, looking very much like he was considering yanking Mobius back in to pay attention to him. “What are you doing?” although it very quickly became clear what Mobius intended to do, something which caused Loki to raise an eyebrow. Considering the lack of snow on Asgard, he hadn’t had much experience in playing in the snow - their few visits to Jotunheim tended to be for the purposes of battle, although he had occasionally taken to waking Thor up with snow dumped on his face, often to hilarious results.

He sidestepped the snowball that was tossed at him, scooping up some snow in his hands and forming it into a ball with a raised eyebrow. “I’ve seen people do this in the city and I can’t say I understand why, considering how much humans tend to complain about the cold. Doesn’t it just make you more cold and wet?” he could at least understand building a snowman but snowballs seemed more of the prank-variety ‘shoving snow down somebody’s shirt’.

Here he thought Loki would turn the tossed snowball into a snow dagger or something, all with the flick of his wrist - though it was actually adorable how clueless he was (as a Frost Giant) about how people 'typically' played in the snow. Mobius didn't really know much more, after all (they hadn't experienced the changing of seasons in the TVA) but he had read books. Seen movies. Observed other people too, yes.

"Well, you can warm me up when we get inside - by telling me more about your palace groping fantasies, Your Highness," Mobius replied with a shark's tooth grin. Or there were other ways to warm up - he wasn't picky, and if it involved being close then he would take it.

Being close to Loki was one of his favorite things - even now, he moved back in to kiss him sweetly and give him the attention he wanted (which Mobius was always happy to do, except when he didn't do it on purpose just to rile him - one of these days he was going to do an experiment about whether or not he could get Loki so worked up that when he finally did allow for release, he caused an earthquake. Were the legends true?). Sweet kisses and a little nip at this lower lip -

And Mobius smashed a snowball into his lover's hair. You're welcome.

Loki would have never admitted to the noise that he made at the snowball-to-the-head situation, an indignant squawk that was quickly followed by grabbing Mobius so that he could shove him into the nearest snowdrift available, which just so happened to be one that he made himself and one that was conveniently right behind him. “That- you absolute arsehole,” the snow had already frozen in his hair, giving it an appearance that was somewhere between ‘Jack Nicholson in the Shining’ and from the right angle in the sunlight, perhaps pleasantly glittering.

“I should leave you like that,” he scoffed, folding his arms across his chest as he looked down at Mobius with a raised eyebrow, although he was surprised to note that even the snow running down his back didn’t feel cold. He could tell it was there, but it was a very… normal temperature, all things considered. It must have been cold for it to have snowed this much, but Loki was growing hesitantly more comfortable with it, as time went on.

No need to admit to the squawk, Mobius's ears worked just fine and he heard it - it made him laugh, a clear ringing sound, and he thought Loki looked adorable with crazy hair that sparkled like white stars in a night sky, considering the dark shade. "Aw, honey," he drawled, breathless, and he moved to clamber to his feet - first by grabbing hold of Loki so Mobius could use him as a crutch to stand since he was content to be a godly unmoving statue out here, pouting.

Speaking of that. "You're beautiful when you pout too," he added, moving in close to press chilly lips to Loki's cheek, along one of the markings. "Come inside with me? I'm cold now."

After being pushed into a snowbank, yes, that's what happened.

"Don't honey me," Loki scoffed, although it was a testament to how much he really did love Mobius that he allowed himself to be used as a handhold for getting up and out of the pile he'd been shoved in, one hand sliding up to casually toy with his hair when he came closer. Exception to the rule - that could be one of Mobius' aliases, honestly. He was perhaps one of the only people who could get away with any of this.

"I suppose I could be convinced. It's not that much of a bother to me, honestly. It just feels like a slightly cool autumn evening," he tucked a strand of hair behind his ears and opted into a form that would much better be able to make use of the warmth, until Mobius doubtless tempted him with something else. He shifted to lean on him, transforming in a green shimmer into a deep viridian-scaled snake, looping comfortably around Mobius' shoulders with a little flicker of his tongue, looking a little more insistently towards the cottage. Perhaps he could have warmed them with magic, but this was far more fun.

Loki as a snake was one of Mobius’s favorite forms - actually, he loved all of them. But only the snake could slither across his abdomen in the morning (and tickling, gods, that tickled) - or there’d be an even smaller snake occasionally hiding in Mobius’s pocket when the world became too much; the former analyst was familiar with that too.

His scales were as green as the purest jade around, and Mobius reached up to run his finger along the coolness - and if he scritched in between Loki’s snake eyes, well, that may have been a thing too. But technically Mobius’s hands were freezing (and red because of the lack of gloves and the snow) so he shoved them into his coat pockets for the short trek back to the cottage.

Yeah, some heat would be nice. He shook the snow off his boots before he opened the door to let them back in, and decided he was making coffee spiked with booze - plus if Loki wanted to do more slithering on him, Mobius was fine with that too. But first? “...elskan mín,” he purred sweetly, hand coming up to let the snake he was hosting coil around his arm more before giving him a kiss on the head.

So adorable. Loki could definitely stay like that for as long as he wanted - though for sure he’d accidentally tempt another form at some point. Lady Loki, most likely. Then he’d test his earthquake theory because he was a diligent researcher, yes. For science.

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