Written for the Fluffbruary prompt of dessert. Part Two to follow.
Again, these are silly flash fics, relatively un-edited and just for fun this month. Thank you for reading!
Mobius is on the back deck, taking advantage of a rare sunny spell between thunderstorms, when it happens the first time.
His poor lemonade glass is dethroned with decidedly inglorious purpose, because there's nothing quite like a magical illusion appearing out of thin air on a lazy beachside afternoon to scare the absolute bejeezus out of you.
The beach house really needs some kind of magic-detecting proximity alarm, to at least give him a few seconds' warning. Now that they've actually made contact with Loki in his self-imposed prison and are working on ways to return to the Tree safely, and for longer periods of time, Mobius is finding it harder and harder to be patient and wait through these mandatory reset breaks on the branches. The only saving grace is that Loki now seems more motivated to attempt illusion projection, than he had prior.
Hope does that to you.
But while Mobius definitely doesn't mind Loki popping in more often, it'd put a real big damper on things if he had a heart attack when they're so close to figuring things out, so this is not funny.
To be fair, Loki looks nearly as startled, illusive though he might be at the moment, when Mobius flails ungracefully out of a half-doze and fumbles the glass off the side table while reaching for a non-existent pruning stick.
He hasn't had that reflex triggered in decades. O.B. was right, he does need a break, however brief it might be.
"If I wanted to be stalked in my own house, I'd get a cat," he mutters, reaching down to right the cup. Fortunately, he usually opts for plastic, because this has happened like, five times now, and he does learn from his own mistakes, thank you. The lemonade itself is the only tragedy. He's got to remember to wash that off before it attracts bugs.
Loki snorts, and doesn't even bother to hide his eyeroll. "You are far too soft-hearted to adopt a pet and leave it here on the branches the majority of the time."
"Hmph." Mobius finally removes his sunglasses. "I'm pretty sure a flerken could take care of itself, at least. That might be an option. Anyhow, how's it going? How long's it been for you?"
"A few weeks, I believe. Though I don't think I have the reserve power at present to stay very long."
"Well, I'm glad to see you. How're you holding up?"
"Certainly better than previously," Loki replies, readily enough. He shakes his head. "I still cannot believe you found a way to reach me."
"I can't believe it took us that long," Mobius grumbles. He sits up with a creak of joints, and winces at the sound of something snapping in his vertebrae. Entropy is a pain in the neck, literally.
"It should have been completely impossible."
"What can I say, I like a challenge." Mobius shrugs. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Did you run out of candy or something?"
"No." A disdainful sniff, and Loki fidgets briefly with his sleeve-cuffs. "Maybe."
That's honestly hilarious, if a little unexpected. Mobius tries to hide his amusement, but clearly is not successful, because the illusion scoffs at him and promptly disappears, revenge for having a laugh at his expense.
"All right, consider your feedback noted, your highness," he says to the air, returning to his reclined position on the lounger. "I'll see if we can send you some more variety here soon. But you need to give me some idea of what you like and don't like."
There is no audible response, but when he looks back at his cup, it's sitting on the table once more, refilled and with no dampness on the deck below.
-0-
The next time, it's a few weeks later on Void time, and Mobius is actually on a field op into the last moments before a colossal tsunami wipes out most of this sad little planet in a far-flung galaxy. Hanging back to oversee the operation, because he's going to need to turn these completely over to Casey within the month if he plans to focus on bigger things, and this is one of his last chances to make sure the process is as bug-free as possible.
In this particular case, they are scavenging tools and building materials from the storage units servicing a construction site. The site itself has been long abandoned under the onset of cataclysmic flooding, due to the degradation of the planet's moon orbit; so there shouldn't be anyone around to see them. But just in case, Mobius takes his role as watchdog seriously, to ensure the timeline proceeds exactly as they anticipated while plotting the heist.
There's a brief tingle in the air unrelated to the massive swathes of lightning sheeting through the heavens, and then what seems to be a remarkably solid duplication-cast of Loki appears a few inches from him, looking somewhat mystified.
"Mobius, what are you doing in this branch?"
"Little busy right now," he calls above the wind. "What do you need, Loki?"
"Hmph." As if disbelieving that Mobius does not immediately drop everything and focus upon him, Loki marches over and shoves something into his jacket pocket, then vanishes again with a haughty huff.
That's new.
But they're within five minutes of the redline, so it's not until he gets back to the Void and debriefs, that he remembers to check his pocket. He withdraws the half-dozen objects and one crinkly red wrapper. They glow for a minute in reaction to being handled by him, and then the projections finally disappear in a puff of green smoke, as if emphasizing Loki's wish to see them metaphorically die in a fire.
Apparently gods, or at least frost giants, do not like cinnamon discs. Who knew.
-0-
They also do not like caramels.
Or saltwater taffy.
Or anything else that is exceptionally chewy.
This much, Mobius kind of understands. With both hands fully occupied holding timelines together, if the stuff gets stuck in your teeth there'd be no easy way to get it out again.
He'd thought Loki might appreciate that as a form of low-grade mischief, but being alone for hundreds of years apparently completely erodes your sense of humor.
He marks it off the list, duly admonished.
-0-
"Excuse you," Mobius splutters indignantly, batting the little illusory sugar puffs off of his laptop keyboard, where they'd been unceremoniously dropped. Each bounces once before melting back into the ether. "Circus peanuts are awesome!"
"They are vile." Loki scowls at him, arms crossed and fingers of one hand tapping impatiently on the opposite elbow. "Are you doing this on purpose?"
"It's not my fault you have no taste."
"Taste?!"
Mobius can hear someone on the other end of the call absolutely cackling off-screen, and gestures to it with amused resignation. "Can you maybe not do this while I'm on a call with the war council?"
-0-
Swedish fish are the next to be vetoed, followed shortly by Necco wafers and then by toffee (see the aforementioned teeth issue).
Lemon drops are only 'better than nothing,' peanut brittle gets an ambivalent meh, and sour gummy worms apparently pass muster, because Mobius hears nothing about them. The longevity feature of bubblegum seems somewhat acceptable, as distraction in a pinch.
Jelly beans are a hard pass, but the inherent evil of mixing nasty and nice flavors in the same bag earns a grudging, twenty-minute discourse of interest one lazy night in late summer.
-0-
As the weeks go by, recognizable patterns start to emerge. Just like Mobius had suspected from the start, Loki gravitates toward things with nuts in them, or to fruit-based flavors, which makes sense as those are at least semi-recognizable to someone who grew up on Asgard. Chocolate-covered almonds, in particular, seem to be a hit.
Mobius probably shouldn't be surprised when the most favorable response so far comes in reaction to a small package of allsorts. The wrapper, conspicuously empty of its contents, appears on his dinner tray one evening as he sits alone in the nearly-finished cafeteria, before fading away in a wisp of green a few seconds later.
"You would like black licorice," he mutters, grinning despite himself.
It's shortly after they've managed a rescue mission from the End of Time that Mobius finally makes his first tactical error, and tosses Loki a box of conversation hearts on their way into a council meeting.