I blame the people in the Lokius discord server for reminding me to finish this one. Originally started as a cut scene from one of the longer stories, just polished up a bit here to fit vaguely in the late timeline of my AU.

The strangest part of this new TVA, in Mobius' opinion, is what the agents now call 'night mode.'

Whereas the central TVA works around the clock (though not quite as unreasonably, anymore), and there is no discernable change between the shifts, this still-growing secondary hub has clearly delineated 'day' and 'night' hours. This is partly because the Void does have slight variance in the amount of light it receives, so it falls into a delineation of gray and darker gray and really dark gray, an atmospheric change which naturally lends itself to a certain repetitive cycle.

It is also because they are attempting a whole lot of new things here, and some of them can be accomplished better in silence. Workers have the choice of which shift to take, now, where there was only rigid pre-assignation, in the Before. Most of them choose the normal daytime working shift, but the more introverted, particularly the analysts and observation teams, prefer the quieter, less crowded option; and it seems to have worked well so far, all around.

O.B. tends to bounce back and forth, depending on what needs done and how social he's feeling that particular day. Mobius himself is officially slated for the daytime shift, but invariably ends up working overlaps and sometimes parts of both, based on the job at the time.

But recently, he's really tried to keep to those daytime hours, because the structure of it seems to help him, mentally. And now that Loki has been retrieved from the End of Time, those off-duty hours aren't as lonely as they were for so many years. It's not a hardship anymore to spend a day off, now; whereas before there were only his thoughts for company, and pretty depressing company it was.

However, old habits die very hard, and it's not uncommon for him to still be working late, particularly now that he has a completed office in the Void hub, it having been finished just before they set out to bring Loki back in earnest. It's an upgrade from his little cubicle in the central TVA, that's for sure, despite the fact that he'd been very insistent on it being pretty spartan, because that's just unnecessary and undeserved.

The architects had patiently listened to his admittedly lengthy rant about the subject, reassured him that it had been heard, and then promptly ignored him and did their own thing, giving him something far nicer than he was expecting.

He can't even really be mad about it, because he loves that it's a living testament to free will. That kind of blatant disobedience from orders would've gotten you pruned in the old days, and the change is beautiful.

The office is admittedly beautiful, too. They forewent windows in the office wing completely, because Mobius has read way too much about glass reflections being used as gateways for Dark Magic, and he's not taking any chances in this place, not if he intends to allow low-level magic usage. But despite that natural light, the office is open and airy, and certainly a drastic difference from an analyst's cubicle. Painted in a more soothing shade of gray and white with green accents, like the rest of this new TVA, it makes a nice change from the warm but somewhat dingy-looking orange and beige palette of the original TVA.

Casey did a much better job listening to what Mobius wanted by way of furniture than the architects did, so the plain, humble little desk and bookshelves are more in line with his style than the office itself. Casey even threw a few paintings of oceanscapes on the walls, to add a little color and personality, and Mobius actually likes them.

It had taken him a full two weeks to learn how to fully use the more modern computer system and connected devices O.B. installed, and he still mourns the death of the more familiar analog model – but it's certainly faster and more efficient, and anything that would speed up the timeline of their progress here is only a net positive; so he has to just let the wheels of progress turn how they may. His sole concession to the Old Ways is a little pop of color in the form of an orange hourglass he brought with him from his desk at the Central TVA.

Being able to watch the physical passage of Time grain by grain, calm and relentless and reliable, is a soothing habit, and one he isn't going to completely give up in favor of fancy atomic clocks and synchronized networks.

And he has to admit, it is much more pleasant to work in an office, instead of just taking work home with him like he used to, whether that was to his little Central apartment, the new living quarters, or the beach house. Tonight, he's not working on anything super stress-inducing, just a bunch of file notation he wants to finish before the week ends tomorrow.

He's just flipped the hourglass for the third time and opened the last file, trying to decipher what on earth he meant by this illegible scribbling two days ago, when the lights suddenly flicker. Not a particularly unusual occurrence here in the Void, but it usually happens during the daytime, when every generator is in use; it shouldn't be happening now, if there's no storm outside. But almost on the heels of the momentary outage, something sweeps the building in what feels like a mild shockwave. The pen sitting in the metal tray on his desk rattles for a moment. The hourglass shivers, the stream of sand wobbling within its glass confines before resuming its inexorable, slow cascade.

Ten confused seconds later, his tablet screen lights up with an incoming call from O.B.

"Go ahead," Mobius sighs, settling back in the chair to brace himself. "What was it."

"I was about to ask you," O.B. replies, brow wrinkling in puzzlement as he pushes his glasses up his nose. "I'm not even on-site right now, but the monitoring software says something just set off the dampener alarm."

"Magic?"

"I don't know anything else it could be." O.B. glances to the side again, and shrugs. "Yeah, it has to be, I think. We aren't using anything right now with an energy signature that looks like that. Is Loki doing some kind of spellwork in the vaults or something?"

"I didn't think so, he said he was going to bed a couple of hours ago," Mobius says, frowning. "And he doesn't rest enough as it is, so I didn't question it. But I'll go see. If it's not him, I'll call you back. Could be someone testing the perimeter defenses from a distance."

O.B. nods readily. "Okay. I'll be up for another two hours here at Central, I can come back if you need me."

"I'm sure it's nothing, but I'll let you know if there's a problem. Thanks, O.B."

The screen goes dark again, and Mobius sighs, slipping a sticker note onto the folder so that he knows which file still needs done in the morning. He's in the middle of scribbling a note to that effect when there's a sharp pop of displaced air, and out of nowhere Loki appears right in front of his desk, a wild flail of long black-pajama-clad limbs and abject confusion.

He nearly gives Mobius a heart attack.

"I've told you not to do that!" He exhales in a rush, and then rolls his desk chair back into position, having been propelled backward a few inches at the jumpscare.

"I…" Loki inhales raggedly and then straightens to look up at him, eyes wild under a curtain of tousled hair. "I did not intend to do that."

"Wait, really?" He gets up and moves around the desk, moving cautiously, as if approaching a frightened animal. "Was that power surge you, a minute ago?"

"I…I can only assume it was," is the almost confused reply. "I don't know. I was asleep, Mobius. I don't know. That's never happened before."

That's a little alarming, but makes more sense. Mobius has worked with the Nightmare Department often enough to know magic-users can cast spells or conjure in their sleep; and particularly when emotionally distressed. It's rare, but it happens. And Loki now has access to more magical power than Mobus has ever seen, without artificial aid like an Infinity Stone, and still probably has not dealt with the long-term effects of his solitary vigil at the end of Time.

"Well, that's why we have a dampener threshold, just in case. No harm done." The words sound much calmer than he actually feels. He's close enough now to get a good look, and Loki's look is…not good, to say the least.

Mobius wishes he didn't know what this particular god looks like scared, but he does.

"Are you okay?" he asks, because that's more important than problem-solving right now.

"I…" Loki looks around, and only then seems to fully realize his location. "How did I get here?"

"It looked like time-slipping to me," Mobius answers cautiously. "Or, I guess space-slipping, not time-slipping, since you moved in linear space, lateral time. Maybe just uncontrolled teleporting?"

"I've not done that since I was a child," Loki mutters. His cheeks flush in obvious embarrassment.

"Well, it's probably not as abnormal as it sounds. Humans sleepwalk at all ages, but we don't have any other method of transportation. Much less an instinctual one, like magic."

Loki's furrowed brow clears slightly, though he remains obviously mortified. A tinge of fear still lurks in his eyes, but is rapidly fading. "Regardless. I must apologize for interrupting your work," he finally says, glancing again around the room. "This is incredibly embarrassing."

"I mean, if you're gonna do it, I'd rather you end up safe here with me than getting dropped in an apocalypse or something."

"Indeed." The end of the word shakes a little bit, just barely noticeable. "But you're right. It does not feel like time-slipping, rather something more instinctual like spatial translocation."

The fact that that unconscious travel ended him here, has all kinds of implications that can wait for daylight consideration for both of them.

"So…" Mobius leans back against the desk, arms folded and ankles crossed. "Are you still having trouble sleeping? I thought we finally got that sorted last week."

"Sleeping is no longer the problem," Loki mutters, barely audible. He tugs almost absently at the sleeve-cuffs of those ridiculously bougie silk pajamas he insists upon wearing.

Ah. "So it's the dreaming," Mobius says, and the quick, almost frantic darting glance tells him he's right. "You're sleeping well enough that you're hitting REM sleep now, so you're dreaming again."

"Yes." Loki sighs. "I have always been a lucid dreamer, however. It is nothing new."

"I'm guessing some of the material is new, though. And you have a hell of a lot of it to sort through."

An exhausted sigh. "Perhaps."

"You know how dreams work, from our end – right?"

"Yes." Half-hidden by his hair, Loki's eyes land everywhere but Mobius' face. "Nearly all of them are visions of ourselves in our variant branches."

"I'm kind of surprised you actually dream that way, since you have the power to jump branches at will when you're awake. Dreamwalking's a nasty business, magically induced or otherwise." Mobius shudders. "'S why I've always given the Nightmare Department a wide berth if I could. I've seen things that really spooked me. People don't come back quite the same as they went in there."

"Understandable." Loki rakes a hand roughly through his hair, and then seeing the limb is trembling slightly, locks both hands behind his back in an affected air of nonchalance. "I suppose a true analyst would be carefully documenting the visions, in the event my branch variants encounter their own versions of He Who Remains."

"The boys in NTD could use dream-trigger technology to do that," Mobius confirms with a slow frown. "I'm not gonna lie, though, it gives me the creeps. And we have no idea if it would even work on you. Besides," he adds, in a gentler tone. "You don't look like you're raring to go rewatch whatever you just saw."

A horrible, almost choked laugh, and Loki scrubs angrily at his eyes with the heels of both hands. "Perhaps you're right. This place holds too many nightmares already," he finally murmurs, exhaling slowly. "They are inescapable at this point. One would think I had seen all the horror there was to see, over the centuries. Both here and at the End of Time."

Mobius doesn't know exactly what to say to that; because yeah, you would think so. But that's not how the brain works, not even for a god.

Loki shivers, as if feeling an invisible chill slowly creeping over him. "I have held the timelines in my hands. I have seen all that was, and is, and will be; concurrently and separately. I have spent centuries in time loops, circling to the end of all things and back to the beginning. Nothing about the TVA, Past or Present, should be sufficient to disturb me anymore."

"I don't think we really get a say in what we're instinctually afraid of," Mobius finally offers gently. "Gods or humans, none of us are as brave as we say we are, when it all comes down to it. And you've seen things, endured things, that would give me nightmares for decades. Talk about a trial by fire."

"And the worlds shall end in fire and ice," Loki murmurs, distantly. His hands still cover his eyes, as he clearly fights his way back from whatever specter had haunted this night.

Mobius ignores the way the hair on the back of his neck stands up at that eerie pronouncement. He can only hope it was poetic, not prophetic.

But there is a more immediate problem, and an easy solution to it. He unfolds his arms, and then after a brief hesitation closes the gap between them and pulls Loki into a firm, unyielding hug.

The muffled squawk of protest is hilarious, but also…really kind of sad. Because if Mobius were any less familiar with the situation or the star of that situation, he knows Loki would probably jump off a bridge before actually asking for any kind of comfort, physical or otherwise. Odin had done an excellent job of training his sons to believe any emotion other than arrogance was a dangerous liability. The TVA had done the same to Mobius, and no matter how far they've come, those core lessons are not easily unlearned, for either of them.

But he will not consciously continue the mistakes of Time Past; and judging from the entire lack of fight in Loki's posture as he fairly melts into the contact, hands now firmly tangled in Mobius' jacket, he is likely is of the same mind, even if he'd walk through fire rather than admit it.

"You want to talk about it?" Mobius asks gently, after a moment.

A convulsive shudder. "Not particularly."

"Do you need to?"

A low, very wet-sounding chuckle. "Let us just say that you and I do not quite have the same rapport in every branch, apparently. To say nothing of everyone else."

Mobius sighs, even if that is basically to be expected. The worst nightmares are the ones that could be real, in another lifetime, another timeline. "Yeah, that's the thing about free will. Means there's infinite combinations possible, and not all of them are something good."

Loki's hands tighten slightly, and then release in a slow and probably deliberate gesture.

"You can always go back to TVA Central to sleep, you know," Mobius adds. "The way Time stops there, and with the magic block – you probably wouldn't dream." Loki hums in acknowledgment. "Other than that, I'm guessing it'll just take a while to sort through everything you've seen."

"I suppose so."

"For what it's worth - I'm like, 99% sure we pruned a branch once where you were an actual pussycat. So there's all kinds of just plain weird variants out there for you to dream about, once you work your way through the nasty ones."

This time, the laugh is real, and comes from deep within the chest. "You're joking."

"I swear I'm not. Big green eyes, shaggy black fur, serious attitude problem and perpetually sharp claws? Totally a Loki." He waits a beat for comedic emphasis, and then adds, "Thor was a golden retriever. You were both adopted in that branch, by a couple in Toronto."

Loki snorts at that, and finally steps back to look at him. "Thank you," he says simply, almost shyly.

Mobius returns the smile, and nods toward the low-slung sofa at the front of the small office. "You want to chance an encore performance?"

Loki glances self-consciously at the door. "I should go. I've disturbed your work enough for one night."

"I needed the distraction, anyway, my eyes aren't as young as they used to be." Mobius shrugs easily and gestures back at the desk. "I have like, thirty minutes left here if you want to just hang around until I'm done. I'll walk you back to the living quarters."

"Such a gentleman you are," Loki murmurs, even as he flops ungracefully down on the furniture in a sprawled position on his front, arms folded under his head, and closes his eyes again. He doesn't even stir when Mobius takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over him.

Mobius does feel kind of bad that there's no pillow or blanket, or in fact any other more personalized comforts, here in this still shiny-new office, but that too is a problem for tomorrow, and maybe to just delegate to one of the more annoying architects. For now, there is only the skritch of an analyst's pencil, and a silent mellowing of tension into something more soothing.

"You should know, because I don't believe I ever told you," Loki's low voice, already thick with sleep, breaks the silence some minutes later, a mere breath in the stillness. "It was always you."

"Hmm?" Mobius belatedly registers the words, and stops writing for a second, looking up. "What was?"

"The key," Loku mumbles, clearly well along the path of drifting off. "To the timeslipping. I was always trying to find my way back. To you. It was always you."

"I'm glad," he says softly, although he suspects Loki is already asleep. That I could help, and that you found your way back. And that we found a way to you when you couldn't.

A hum of acknowledgment, and then after a few moments, only the sound of quiet, restful breathing.

Mobius flips the hourglass again, and watches the time pass.