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Loki’s body was warm as he pressed needily against his, pinning Mobius against the wall and licking into his open mouth as if he belonged in it. At the moment, it was hard to argue that he didn’t.
Mobius tilted his head further to the side, a hand roaming up to tangle in Loki’s curls as he kissed him hungrily, taking his bottom lip between his teeth and biting down gently. An eager noise rose from the back of his throat before he had the sense to stop it, heat blooming under his cheeks and creeping all the way down to his chest.
Their lips parted in a wet smack, sharing heavy breaths as they took a second to recover, Loki’s eyes half-lidded and pupils blown wide as he stared down at him in a way that made Mobius’s heart flutter wildly.
He had pulled Mobius into this empty break room, practically vibrating with anxiety, telling him that he needed to be as close as possible so that he might never lose him again. Of course, Mobius didn’t complain. He couldn’t. He was the one that initiated the kiss in the first place.
It had only been a day since they fixed Loki’s timeslipping, and he could still see the tension strung solidly into the muscles of Loki’s shoulders. Loki needed this break; he needed someone to be close with, someone to take away all those grueling troubles, if only for a moment. Mobius needed this, too. He had almost lost Loki, permanently at that. Seeing him in pain and slipping around through time uncontrollably worried him stiff, stacking stress onto his own shoulders. It wouldn’t hurt to loosen up for a little while, surely.
Mobius wrapped his hands around Loki’s waist and pulled him impossibly closer. Loki bent down and kissed him again, slowly, tenderly, their lips slick against one another. Mobius slid his mouth open, Loki’s tongue hot as it fought its way in, erotic in a way that made him ache.
Loki pressed his hips flush against Mobius’s, and he could feel him there, hard in his trousers. Mobius registered his own lust, a familiar fiery weight settling deep into his crotch. He rocked his hips and Loki moaned, breathy and aroused and entirely too perfect.
Mobius trailed a hand downward, to where Loki’s dress shirt tucked into his pants. He gripped the fabric there and pulled it out, sliding his hand up below the newly freed shirt, across the warm skin of Loki’s ribs.
He stopped, however, when Loki broke the kiss and flinched away with a sharp hiss, a clear look of pain lacing his features. Mobius scrunched his brow and studied him, cheeks flushed but eyes tight, skittering away when he tried to meet them.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Mobius said, his voice soft.
“It’s nothing,” Loki said breathily, leaning back in to resume the kiss.
Mobius hummed in protest, but Loki was tenaciously stubborn, as always. Experimentally, he poked Loki firmly in the same spot on his ribs.
Loki jerked back with a hitched breath, his face spasming in pain. “You did that on purpose,” he whined.
“You’re in pain,” Mobius said. “Let me see.”
Loki stepped back and rubbed grumpily at where Mobius poked him, looking especially amusing with his hair sticking up and half of his shirt untucked, face still red as a cherry.
“I told you, it’s nothing,” Loki said. “Hardly a cause for such concern.”
“Yeah, sure,” Mobius said. “You always say that, then you conk right out as soon as you’re alone.”
Loki sputtered inelegantly. “I do not conk out, that’s such a graceless way of putting it—“
“I’ve seen you do it like six times,” Mobius interrupted, a traitorous smirk crossing his lips. “Remember that one time during the banquet? After you had just returned from a hunt?”
(That was one of the first tapes Mobius had watched, back when he was newly piecing together the intricacies of how Loki behaved.
He had sustained a minor wound, but it got infected, and one thing eventually led to another. He ended up having to be rushed to the healers after he had fainted of fever in the banquet hall.)
Loki scrunched his face. “Point taken.”
Mobius quirked a brow. “Good,” he said. “We don’t want something like that happening again, so tell me what’s hurting you.”
Loki sighed dramatically and pressed his lips into a pale line, yanking the rest of his shirt out of his pants and pulling it up to reveal his chest.
Mobius wrinkled his nose sympathetically and hissed through his teeth at the sight; a large, splotchy bruise covering the expanse of Loki’s left side, starting just below his nipple and ending near his navel. He ghosted his fingertips over the swollen skin, noting the way Loki shivered under his touch.
“Yep, that’s bruised, alright,” Mobius said, drawing back. “When did this happen?”
“I suspect when I collided with you after being pulled from the loom,” Loki said, pulling his shirt back down.
Mobius hummed thoughtfully. Of course, he thought. It made sense for Loki to sustain an injury and not himself, seeing as he was wearing essentially fifteen layers of protection atop his own chest.
“You don’t think you broke a rib, do you?” he said.
“I’m not sure,” Loki said. “It’s very sore either way.”
Nodding, Mobius swiftly made up his mind. “Tuck your shirt back in, I’m taking you to my apartment.”
He watched as Loki’s brow furrowed deeply, clearly considering his words for a moment. He shook his head and opened his mouth to decline, but Mobius cut him off before he could speak.
“Nope. Don’t wanna hear it. You need to rest, and I don’t care if you don’t deem it necessary, or whatever,” he said. “You’ve likely got a broken rib or two, and I’ll be damned if I let you waltz around ignoring it.”
Loki worked his jaw, clenching and unclenching it a few times. “Fine,” he said, at length.
Mobius picked his coat up off the chair he had draped it over and put it on. Loki hastily shoved his shirt back into his pants, slipping his own blazer onto his shoulders. His cheeks were still dusted with a pink flush, and his hair was wild and messy.
“Fix your hair,” Mobius said. “You look like you just blew in from a hurricane.”
“That’s your fault, mind you,” Loki grumbled, smoothing his hair down with his hands.
Mobius eyed his still obvious erection and felt a small pang of guilt. He supposed he’d have to answer to a sexually frustrated god in the near future, but he didn’t mind the thought. His apartment was a far better environment than this break room, anyway, especially when it came to Loki. He was known to be very loud.
Shoving those thoughts down in favor of suppressing his own arousal, Mobius strode out of the break room and to the nearest elevator, Loki following closely behind.
The elevator car arrived with a ding and the pair stepped inside, the doors closing behind them.
“Mi casa es su casa,” Mobius said when the door to his apartment swung open, revealing the dark living room. “Make yourself at home. Kick your feet up, relax. Hell, take a bath if you want, as long as you’re resting.”
He flipped the lights on and toed his shoes off next to the door, padding over to the kitchen to fill himself a glass of water. Loki wandered into the living room, kicking his own shoes off and sagging heavily onto Mobius’s couch with a groan, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
Mobius filled another glass and placed it on the coffee table in front of Loki. He cracked his eyes open and eyed the glass, eventually leaning forwards and picking it up to take a few scant sips.
Mobius watched him with his hands placed on his hips, chewing on the inside of his lip. “Let me see that bruise again,” he said.
Loki obediently slipped his coat off and draped it over the armrest of the couch, then tugged his dress shirt out of his pants and rolled it up.
The bruise was still nasty, purple and even yellow in some spots, the skin around his ribs swollen and puffy. Mobius clicked his tongue and inhaled softly.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and bet that something’s broken in there,” he said. “Let’s get you some ice to get that swelling down. Do me a favor and lose the shirt.”
“Very bold of you, Mobius,” Loki said, meeting his eye suggestively and twisting his tie undone.
“Your tongue was in my mouth not even ten minutes ago, I think we’re way past trying to seduce each other,” Mobius said. “Enough teasing and more cooperation, capiche?”
“That’s hardly fair,” Loki said, a smirk curling his lips. “You know, it was very disappointing being left up in the air back there.”
“I’m well aware. We’ll have plenty of time to pick back up later, after you heal,” Mobius said, rolling his eyes playfully.
Loki inhaled, likely to begin complaining, but his face twisted in pain, then into a scowl. “I suppose that’s reasonable,” he said. “To a degree.”
Mobius shot him a stern look then ventured back into his small kitchen. He grabbed a ziplock bag out of a drawer, then opened the freezer and filled the bag with a decent amount of ice cubes. Grabbing a few paper towels as he left, he strode back into the living room and handed a newly shirtless Loki the towels and ice.
“Keep a couple towels on there below the ice, I don’t want you burning yourself,” Mobius said.
Loki pursed his lips and placed the towels on his skin, then pressed the bag of ice against it. He hissed inwardly through his teeth, his brows knitted together in pain.
“Is it too cold?” Mobius said.
“No, it’s just— very sensitive,” Loki said. “Unfortunate. Not to mention annoying.”
“It’s a small price to pay for fixing your timeslipping, though,” Mobius said.
Loki nodded slowly, his expression souring. Mobius took a seat on the couch next to him, kicking his feet up on the coffee table.
He noticed Loki slump back and close his eyes, but he chose to keep his own open. Someone needed to keep track of the time, anyway. In the silence, he couldn’t help but to think back to the loom, to that desperation, that heart-stopping feeling that Loki wasn’t going to make it.
He twisted his head and stared at Loki, his chest bruised and battered, but still rising and falling, face slack and relaxed in the comfort of his living room. You both made it, his brain told him. He’s alive and he’s yours.
Loki cracked his eyes open and met his gaze, and Mobius shied away, heat rising to his cheeks.
“Recovery will have to wait if you keep staring at me like that, Mobius,” Loki purred.
“Nope,” Mobius said. “R&R comes first, you know that.”
“This is terribly pedestrian,” Loki said grumpily.
“Well, I’m sorry, your highness, but I’m not encouraging your ardent desire to exacerbate your problems,” Mobius said.
He leaned forwards and picked up a file from the coffee table. Distraction, yes, that always worked. It was a detailed account as to what happened in the void, and seeing as Mobius was one of the sole survivors of the realm to make it back to the TVA, he had to write the whole thing. He’d have to get Loki’s story regarding the enchanting of Alioth, however.
Sliding the pen out from where it was clipped to the file, he picked up where he left off. Loki observed him silently for several moments before relaxing once again.
Mobius absorbed himself in the file, and only took a break when he heard Loki’s breaths drift off into faint snores. He spared a glance at him, lips parted slightly and head lolled back against the back of the couch. Mobius smiled softly to himself and continued writing in the file, the sound of pen scribbling on paper accompanying Loki’s breathing as the only sounds in the small apartment.
Some indeterminate amount of time passed before he felt Loki shift, turning closer to him to lay his head on his shoulder. Mobius’s breath froze in his lungs, not daring to move as Loki made himself comfortable against him.
He blinked several times in rapid succession, staring down at the crown of Loki’s dark curls, his body warm against him and chest rising with steady breaths. Somehow, this soft intimacy made his heart race faster than during their passionate kissing in the break room.
A smile stretched across his lips as he studied Loki, committing every little detail into his mind so that he may never forget the image before him.
He sighed softly and placed the file to the side, leaning his head against Loki’s and allowing his eyes to fall shut.
Perhaps it could wait, if only for a little while.