Archive of Our Own

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. It was a phrase Mobius heard most of his life, and one he’d parroted to his parishioners from time to time when they sought out his guidance. It wasn’t strictly a religious turn of phrase, but Mobius had liked it all the same. It sat well, felt relatable in a way that sometimes bible verses didn’t.

He was struck with just how true that was as he was tied down on the altar staring up at the face of the woman he’d been called to help barely six months ago.

She smirked with satisfaction as the creatures who appeared to work for her somehow made quick work of Mobius’s bindings. Her eyes were almost wild with anticipation and echoed how self-satisfied she was with his circumstances. He hadn’t had a good look at the design that was etched into the stone beneath his back, but he didn’t think it meant anything good.

He could pray. He should pray. If this was going the way he suspected it was, he wasn’t much longer for this world and it was probably a good idea to say some holy words on his way out.

Instead, the thing he said quietly under his breath was, “Loki.”

It had been late spring when he’d first met the demon. He’d gotten an unusual request from a new resident in town, Rebecca Tourminet. She was a lovely woman who Mobius had been informed by all the nosy old ladies who attended his church was single and from a good family. She had inherited an old family property - one that hadn’t been used in generations but was well maintained - and had called on the Reverend to help her rid the mansion of an unusual sort of pest.

“A demon?” he said, trying to keep the absolute disbelief out of his voice and attempting to keep his face somewhat neutral and empathetic.

“I’m afraid so.” Rebecca had smiled demurely. “I thought the old family stories were just that. Stories. Some silly thing we passed down so no one would live here. I thought maybe there was a tax reason.” She chuckled and Mobious went along with it. “But yeah, no. He’s here. He’s been messing with things, and frankly, I just want him gone. So if you could, I don’t know, do some chants or swing some incense.”

Mobius took a slow, deep inhale and asked, “Mind showing me where he is?”

“The library,” Rebecca replied without a single bit of hesitation, then turned and waved for Mobius to follow. She only brought him as far as the library doors, then gestured for him to enter. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Rebecca walked away leaving him alone.

He rolled his eyes and strode further into the room, fully expecting to see a squatter he would try and convince to leave on his own.

What he saw was, in fact, a demon.

Sitting in one of the highest back chairs, the demon appeared for all the world like a king reading on his throne. One leg crossed over the other, book in his lap cradled in the dip of the demon’s long skirt, chin propped against a hand and no visible mouth to speak of. He was blue with purple lines that reminded Mobius of bioluminescence. Not a color scheme he’d thought a demon would have, but then again up to a few seconds ago Mobius wasn’t entirely sure he’d believed they were an actual thing. He had imagined there would be horns, though maybe not ones as large or oddly elegant as those adorning this demon’s head. The red in the demon's eyes matched the detailing in his tunic as well as the cape that fell over the arm of the chair, and his hair was long and pitch black.

Mobius knew his gut reaction should have been horror and disgust in equal measure. This was an agent of Satan, evil incarnate, what he and so many other clergymen were supposed to keep at bay. This was danger in its most pure form. Enough that the part of his brain that was all about self-preservation had triggered warning bells all throughout his body that he should keep away.

And yet.

And yet, evil incarnate appeared to be simply enjoying a lovely afternoon reading…. Well, it was hard to tell, but as Mobius crept closer he could see the words were in English and he thought he caught the line, I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation, before the demon turned the page.

“At least you’re near the end of the book,” he said, surprisingly calm as he put his hands on his hips to stop the tremble. “I’d hate to tell you you need to leave right in the middle of it.”

“What makes you think I’m going to leave?” the demon asked, his voice a deep, rich timber beneath a foreboding echo. It was also seductive, which had Mobius question if the shiver that raced down his spine was fear or attraction.

“Well, I’m hoping all I’m going to have to do is ask really nicely and you’ll do it. Because, I mean, I don’t know Miss Tourminut, but I’m told she’s nice, and I’d like for her to continue to have faith.”

The demon looked up then, his red eyes meeting Mobius’s.

“Who?”

Mobius gestured with his thumb over his shoulder at the door.

“Rebecca,” he clarified.

The demon huffed, shook his head, but said nothing more about her. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at Mobius.

“Are you trying to win her favor?” the demon asked curiously after glancing Mobius over. “A little wife to set a good example to your flock?”

Mobius snorted.

“She’s not my type,” he retorted.

“Why?” the demon asked, voice darkening a hair. “Why is it that she is not ‘your type’? I thought your God asked you to have love and respect for all living beings?”

“He does,” Mobius agreed with a nod. “But she’s a she, which last I checked doesn’t float my boat. And I checked as recently as last night when I had a date with a guy I met online. Didn’t go well. Part of me wants to say, ‘Don’t put a picture of yourself with the collar on, Mobius,’ but it’ll come up eventually and I’d rather have to deal with someone who only wanted to meet me because of it rather than feel like I’ve made a connection with someone who decides they can’t date a Reverend.”

The demon narrowed his eyes while a shadow of a smirk formed where his mouth should be as he seemed to look at Mobius anew.

“I thought that was a sin?” 

“Depends on who you ask,” Mobius replied. 

The demon tilted his head back, keeping Mobius in his sight.

“You’re not at all what I expected when she said she was going to bring in a holy man.”

“And what did you expect?”

“A stuffy old human who would shout nonsense and expect me to disappear in a puff of smoke.”

Mobius pursed his lips. “I mean, I could shout facts about jet skis at ya. I’ve been told that’s a bunch of nonsense before by those who don’t know of that beautiful unity between form and function.” 

The demon stared at him utterly gobsmacked before closing the book in his lap with the hand that was holding it, and setting it down on the seat as he rose up from the chair. 

He was a lot taller than Mobius expected. So much so that he had to look up at him as he inched closer, though at least he didn’t feel trapped or caged.

“Loki,” The demon said.

“Sorry?” Mobius repeated.

“My name. It’s Loki.”

“Okay, Loki,” Mobius said softly. “You mind leaving Rebecca’s house?”

Loki narrowed his eyes again as he asked, “Are you going to banish me from returning? Bless the place so no evil may enter?”

“Not if you just play nice and leave.”

Loki smirked before he disappeared in a puff of smoke, putting an end to a situation Mobius began to think was nothing more than a weird fever dream he had in the middle of the day.

Though come to think of it, Loki probably had the right idea. Mobius probably should have blessed the mansion, said a few prayers, and really doused the place in holiness. Maybe then he wouldn’t be in this situation.

He could have sworn on multiple occasions in the days that followed that someone was watching him. Mobius had never been a paranoid sort so to suddenly feel like there were eyes on him when he was not performing his role for the church was disconcerting, to say the least.

He felt them as he approached the bakery section of his favorite grocery store to grab a key lime pie. It was one of the few indulgences he allowed himself on his meager salary, and only two a month at most. That feeling of being watch practically intensified as he neared the display just as a rather harried-looking baker came out with her arms full of pie boxes.

“Need a hand?” he asked, moving to help her even before she responded.

“Think I got it,” she replied as she slowly sat the boxes down on the display. Pies safely set down, she huffed and turned to Mobius while shaking her head. “For some reason, the person on night shift made an insane amount of these things. Was told by management to mark them buy one get two free.”

Mobius whistled low and long.

“That’s a great bargain. Too bad these things don’t freeze well.”

“Yeah, and they don’t last long,” the baker replied before being called away.

Mobius watched her go before looking back at the pies. It would be stupid not to buy all three, but there was no way he could eat all of them before they went bad. He picked up three of them, put them in his cart, and figured he’d just give them away. The feeling of being watched followed him all through the rest of his trip, through the register, and out to the parking lot.

“Reverend!” Gloria, a parishioner of his, got his attention. The old woman beamed at him as she approached with her arms open.

“Hey, Mrs. Wilson, how’s it going?” he replied as he leaned into the embrace, using his bags as a buffer as he knew she would be a bit enthusiastic otherwise. 

“Just getting something for the lady's social tonight. Normally I bake something, but I ran out of time.”

“Well, here,” he said, shifting back so he could reach into the bag in his hand and pull out the spare pies. “They had a deal you really couldn’t pass up, and I can’t eat all this pie, so here.”

“Oh, bless you, Reverend,” she enthused.

“That’s supposed to be my line,” he said with a chuckle. “Anyway, I gotta get home. I’ll see you at service tomorrow.”

As Mobius headed to his car, the feeling of being watched intensified, but he glanced around the parking lot and didn’t see anyone.

It continued as the week ticked on, but wasn’t as prominent again until he was out for an evening walk. The days were getting longer and warmer, and Mobius found more peace on those evening strolls than he sometimes found in church. More connected God, he supposed. It’s also how he always came up with the best sermons, so he figured it was a double-win scenario. 

He passed a stranger as he turned a corner, giving him a smile and a polite, “Evening.” He was just a few feet around the corner when he noticed something on the sidewalk. Frowning, Mobius got closer to it, knelt down, and picked it up.

It was money. A lot of money in a money clip with nothing to indicate who it belonged to. But it had to belong to the man he passed, right? But he couldn’t just go up to him and ask if he dropped it because there was really no way to say for sure one way or another if he was being truthful.

Mobius got to his feet, putting the wad of cash in his pocket. As he did, he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise but he chalked it up to nerves.

Turning on his heel, he rounded the corner and noticed the guy at the other end of the road.

“Gonna have to hoof it,” Mobius said to himself before taking off into a run, hoping to catch the guy before he crossed. “Hey!” He shouted. When he got no response he called another, “Hey!”

The guy turned around, looking curiously and a bit worried as Mobius started to slow down, panting the whole time.

“You drop something?” Mobius asked, resisting the urge to put his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. 

The man arched a brow, and Mobius could tell he was about to say no when suddenly he stopped. The man reached into his pant pocket, and panic instantly took over. As Mobius managed to catch his breath, the man started to pat himself down more furiously, cursing under his breath.

“Hold on,” Mobius said, gesturing for the man to stop before reaching into his pocket and pulling out the cash.

“Did you find it? It’s like, five-“

“Maybe not announce it,” Mobius cautioned him. “What’s the clip look like?”

The man blinked. “Plain. Steel.”

Mobius handed him the wad.

“Maybe don’t put it in your pockets. Or if you do, keep a hand on it.”

“God, I can’t thank you enough. Here,” the man said as he opened the clip, beginning to count out bills. “I can’t give you much.”

“Don’t give me any of it.” Mobius waved him off. “It’s yours.”

“But you-”

“You wanna pay me back? Make sure not to drop it again, alright?” He grinned and said, “Enjoy your night,” before he continued past the man in the direction of home. He had enough exercise for the night he decided and found something about the experience mildly unsettling.

Just like the grocery store, he felt like he was being watched. Mobius glanced around as he headed back to the rectory, but like before he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. 

He couldn’t shake it, and it had him on edge as he entered the rectory. After toeing off his shoes, Mobius paced back and forth a moment before ultimately deciding he should make himself a cocoa. With determined strides, he headed into the kitchen.

Only to find Loki standing by the sink with his arms crossed.

“Son of a-”

“My, my, Reverend. That’s not the way a man of the cloth should speak.”

Loki’s voice snapped Mobius’s wits back into place as he realized there was no foreboding echo wrapped around the words. It had him stop and really look at Loki, noticing that the glowing purple was no longer adorning his blue skin. In fact, now that Mobius wasn’t distracted by it, he could see Loki had a distinct mouth. Or maybe he gave himself one.

“You look different,” he observed aloud, deciding he wasn’t about to get into his admittedly bad habit of cursing. 

Loki shrugged.

“I saw no point in forcing you to endure my more demonic form.”

“Isn’t that a little undemonic? Aren’t you supposed to instill a healthy dose of fear in me?”

“I do what I want,” Loki replied. “And what I want is to find out what makes Reverend Mobius Donaldson tick. I find I tend to get better results in this form.”

“Huh, alright,” Mobius replied with a furrowed brow. He stepped up to the counter that Loki was perched in front of and flipped on the electric kettle. “Why do you want to know what makes me tick?”

“Because you’re not like any holy man I’ve ever encountered,” Loki replied, turning to face Mobius. “You make no sense to me. The number of temptations you’ve resisted is frankly staggering.”

“What temptations?” Mobius asked incredulously as he got down his favorite mug and plucked a hot cocoa packet from the bowl on the counter. 

“Well, what sort of demon would I be if I didn’t sprinkle a few of them in your path? The man who dropped the money, for one.”

“How on Earth was that a temptation?”

“He was a long way off, wasn’t he?” Loki replied. “And you didn’t see him drop it, it could have been anyone’s. And, I believe, there are more than a few things around your little abode that could use some repairs. I know you’ve had more cold showers than hot ones in the last few weeks, and I know it wasn’t by choice. So you can imagine how irritating it was for me to have you not only call out more than once but chase after. Then not even accept the award!”

“I don’t need a prize for doing the right thing,” Mobius grinned as the kettle clicked off at his preferred temperature. Giving the cocoa packet a little shake, Mobius looked at Loki. “You said temptations. That implies more than one.”

“The pies.” Loki gave an irritated sigh. “I’ve seen the way you savored the slices you allow yourself. It’s damn near erotic, Reverend.”

“So you thought, what? Gluttony?” Mobius smirked as he tore open the hot cocoa packet and dumped it in the mug. “What was wrath? My parking space?”

Mobius didn’t think demons could blush, but the faint purple glow starting under Loki’s skin was probably as close as he would get.

“I’ve seen many humans succumb to wrath over such incidents.”

“Well, I’ve had a lot of people steal my parking space over the years. I learned to just go with it.” 

The kettle beeped, and Mobius picked it up to slowly pour the hot water over the powder in his mug. Once he added the appropriate amount of liquid, he set the kettle down, picked up his little frother, and plunged it into the liquid.

“So you said you wanted to learn what makes me tick, but you already seem to know a lot about me.”

“Only what I’ve gleaned from watching you so far,” Loki replied with narrowed eyes. “Admittedly, souls don’t normally interest me. I get enough of them to satisfy, and there’s usually nothing interesting about them. Yours, though. Yours I find a proper challenge for once.”

“So you’re going to try and steal my soul, are you?” Mobius asked, a mix of amused and maybe a bit worried.

“Make no mistake, Reverend. I not only do what I want, but I get what I want as well. I will have your soul, I can promise you that.”

Loki was surprisingly good at keeping his promises. He did get Mobius’s soul in the end, though he sometimes wondered if maybe it had always been Loki’s anyway. Born to love a demon even as he found a calling to serve God. 

It became a game. Loki would send temptations Mobius’s way, and Mobius would take great pleasure in not only averting them but trying to guess which sin Loki would theme it around. He may not have been a Catholic clergyman, but Mobius was familiar with the theology and he wasn’t about to ruin Loki’s mischief.

Pride and envy Mobius only counted once each. Mobius ruined sloth for Loki by reminding him that even God took a day of rest, and no one said he couldn’t just lay about in bed with a book or a magazine for most of the day. 

Greed was only tried from different angles a couple of times before Loki seemed to give up. Gluttony was amusingly tried in excess. The grocery store Mobius favored seemed to be regularly overstocked in all his favorites, so much so he felt the need to change shops once in a while just so Loki’s mischief didn’t accidentally lead it to closing down.

The number of minor irritations Mobius experienced certainly grew as the weeks turned into months, but he managed to weather them all. Loki would pop in once or twice a week, complain about Mobius’s stellar control, and from there they would somehow move on to different branches of conversation. 

They got to know one another. Loki was a fixture in Mobius’s life to the point that he would call the demon his friend. Enough so that he brought him up in conversation.

“So who is this guy?” Verity asked curiously as they shared a drink in a pub. “And do I get to meet him?”

“I don’t think you wanna do that,” Mobius replied with a wry grin, knowing Verity would certainly lose it if she saw the demon in the flesh. 

“I dunno,” she replied before taking a sip of her beer. “He must be something with the way you’ve turned down the frankly insane number of guys who’ve approached you these last few months.”

Mobius chuckled and ducked his head, feigning bashfulness when he was really trying to figure it out.

Verity was right, there had been quite a few fellas sidling up to Old Mobius and asking to buy him a drink, or for his phone number. Some were quite forward, others more demure. There were a few bad, cheesy pickup lines and a couple of blunt comments Mobius would rather not think about. For the most part, Mobius ignored it, and he certainly didn’t mention it to Loki because it felt wrong somehow.

“Speaking of,” Verity said before letting out a wistful sigh. “I’m just gonna see how Casey and OB are doing,” she added as she got up and began to head off to where their friends were occupying a pool table.

Mobius took a drink to prepare himself for whoever came up to him, only to nearly choke when a gorgeous guy sat down in the seat Verity just left.

He smiled coyly before he leaned into Mobius’s space.

“You’ve not had this reaction before,” he said, bringing Mobius’s brain to a halt.

He knew that voice.

“Loki?”

“All the men I’ve put in your path, and not once have you ever been so beside yourself. Had I known I’d get this reaction—”

“Whoa, wait. Hold on. I’m… processing.” Mobius closed his eyes to help said processing. “Why are you here?”

“I was beginning to think maybe you lied about your leanings,” Loki said, though in Mobius’s mind, he was his normal blue self, casually leaning on the bar top, hands flapping elegantly as he spoke. “So I thought I would see if I would garner the same sort of dismissal as all the others Reverend Mobius deigned to be uninteresting.”

Mobius opened his eyes, meeting green eyes that should have been red. 

“You didn’t think I would know it was you?” Mobius asked curiously.

 Though he could admit, there was nothing about the way Loki looked now that would have made him immediately recognize him had he not spoken. The only thing that was the same was Loki’s hair. At a stretch, there was an amulet laying against his chest that sort of looked like the detailing of his tunic in miniature. 

Loki shrugged.

“You aren’t the first mortal who piqued my interest for the way they did not seem to fear me. More so as you’re a holy man who didn’t immediately try to exorcise me.”

“I mean, technically I did the exorcism that was asked of me. Miss Tourminut said she wanted you gone. You left.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed.

“I did,” he agreed. “Did she mention why I was here in the first place? Why it was that I was haunting her home so to speak?”

“No,” Mobius replied with a shake of his head. “She didn’t give me the details, but I also didn’t ask.”

“Hmm,” Loki hummed. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter, then, does it?” He grinned. He glanced at the drink in Mobius’s hand and said, “I’m somehow not at all surprised you’re a beer man.”

“And what do demons drink? Whiskey? Gin? Moonshine?”

“A decent wine if one’s on offer,” Loki replied.

Mobius pursed his lips and nodded once before flagging down the bartender. 

“Hey, can I get another drink and a glass of the best wine you have?”

The bartender nodded before heading off, and Mobius turned back to Loki in time to see the genuine surprise before he masked it into indifference.

They closed out the bar, though Mobius hadn’t intended to keep Loki or himself there that long. He’d blushed furiously when his friends made a scene before they left, all of them believing that his string of strange attention finally yielded someone who had an interest in. 

Which wasn’t exactly a lie, it was just not one he wanted to acknowledge. Love was not a sin, so it wasn’t his soul he worried for. It was his heart. And not because he didn’t think Loki was incapable of love, but because Mobius believed that Loki just didn’t love him.

“I made a horrible mistake having you get rid of Loki for me,” Rebecca said as demons tightened the bindings on Mobius’s hands and feet. 

“I dunno, he’s a bit of a talker,” Mobius said as he glanced down his body while wriggling about, trying to loosen the bindings keeping him on the altar. His head was pounding from where he was knocked out, and he could still feel the warm, sticky blood from the wound covering the left side of his forehead. “Talky, talky,” he added, voice straining with the effort to get free.

“Oh, but it was. See, I didn’t know how important he was. I thought he was just a lesser demon my family had an obsession with. I mean—” She gestured to the altar, then to the window which Mobius could see matched Loki’s colors and the design of his tunic. “But it turns out he’s a sort of prince of Hell. Did you know there were Kingdoms? Or Princedoms, anyway.”

“I’m guessing that’s a rhetorical question as part of your villainous monologue,” Mobius quipped before giving up his struggle against the bindings. It wasn’t doing him any good.

“I don’t know the full story, it’s been lost to time, but someone in my family’s lineage made a deal with him and didn’t see it through. You break a deal with a regular demon, that’s bad. You break a deal with a prince of hell?” She chuckled mirthlessly, shaking her head. “Your whole bloodline pays the price. Generations cursed to be damned.” 

Rebecca lifted her hand where Mobius could see the beautifully crafted dagger she’d been holding since he was dragged half-conscious into the room by the demons who grabbed him before he entered his home. She tilted it, allowing it to catch the light of the full moon shining through the window, lighting the altar far more than all the candles in the room did. She then brought it to her arm, wedged it under her sleeve, and sliced upward.

On her left forearm, Loki’s design was branded into her skin.

“I was born with this. Everyone in my family is. No one could figure out how to break the curse. ‘On the eve this curse was placed, when the moon is at its brightest phase, give me one who brings balance to a chaotic heart, not purely pure, but not solely dark.’ That was the only clue we had. We got the moon thing, that was obvious. And the eve, well, that took some narrowing down, but we managed to find the date eventually. It’s this part. This part no one knew what to do with. Is it a not-quite virgin? Was it something else? But the balance to a chaotic heart? I admit, even I didn’t know what that was. Not until I started watching you.”

Mobius’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“So it wasn’t Loki watching me before?” he said, his disappointment coming through a bit too strongly if Rebecca’s grin meant anything.

“He was probably watching you, too,” She placated. “Especially since he ended up taking such an interest in you. I wondered how it was that a demon could enter the house of a clergyman without bursting into flames. But then, not purely pure.”

Rebecca snapped her fingers, and the demons gleefully backed away, a thrum of anticipation echoing through the dozen or so that were there. She then moved around the altar to stand with her back to the window, and began to chant.

Mobius knew Latin, of course. But, admittedly, he was never as fluent as he liked to be and the pounding of his head made it hard to translate on the fly. The gist he gathered, though, was basically something along the lines of his blood for hers, his soul for hers, his life, well… it was a trade, which didn’t bode well for him. 

Sure enough, on one of the subsequent verses, Rebecca brought the dagger to Mobius’s arm and sliced. It stung - burned a bit - but the worst was feeling his blood start to ooze out and there being nothing he could do about it. Worse, she moved around the altar and sliced again on his other arm.

His head didn’t hurt so much anymore but now it swam in a new, unpleasant way. The world was getting fuzzy at the edges, and he knew he wasn’t going to be conscious for long.

“Loki,” he said again. “Sorry.”

The night before Mobius was taken, Loki had popped into the living room while Mobius was drafting a sermon. He hadn’t been particularly dedicated, his mind wandering off to the very demon who appeared between one blink and the next. Normally he would muster through with the object of his thoughts now nearby but Loki appeared - if not guilty - then at least more reflective.

Mobius waited him out, as normally Loki tended to speak first. But after a couple of minutes passed with the demon saying nothing at all, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Loki didn’t look at him but he lifted his chin.

“A demon by nature is inherently evil,” Loki replied.

“That’s not how I see it,” Mobius replied, setting the pencil in his hand down on the mostly empty page.

Loki huffed, “Of course, you don’t. I’m starting to believe you would look at the devil himself and tell him he's just misunderstood.”

“Well, he did start out as an angel. Just had a bad go of it, a string of bad luck.”

“He fell.”

“He did,” Mobius acknowledged. “And then he became the king of Hell. Which, if God didn’t want it to be, it wouldn’t have been.”

“So you’re saying he was destined to be evil?” Loki looked at him, angry and wounded.

“No.” Mobius shook his head. “No, I think… I think he did a thing he shouldn’t have - the rebellion. And his punishment was being cast into Hell. But the devil is just a guy with a job that happens to not be all that nice, ya know? Doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. And if you don’t do right by others in this life, who better to go to than the guy who didn’t do right in heaven. I dunno, maybe I’m too much of an optimist here, but I think you have to have been a really rotten person to spend forever in Hell. It’s why I don’t preach about eternal damnation. I don’t know if it is. And besides, no one’s perfect.”

Loki tilted his head thoughtfully at Mobius.

“No one bad is ever truly bad. And no one good is ever truly good.”

“Exactly,” Mobius grinned. 

“Thank you,” Loki said, with the utmost sincerity.

“What for?”

“For seeing things that way. For seeing me that way.”

There were shrieks. Inhuman ones as well as one distinctly human. There was a familiar cadence laced with a foreboding that Mobius’s soul did not react to in the way it should have. Where fear should have washed over him with every threat, every promise of destruction that voice uttered, there was only euphoria. 

One single thought flitted through Mobius’s mind before he fell back into darkness.

He came.

“… bious? ”

Why did it smell like rotting plants? Not just that, but like something was caught on fire, and… maybe barbecue? Under all that was something familiar, something Mobius hadn’t noticed was missing but grateful it was there. 

“… end Mobius?”

A touch on his shoulder. Light, barely there. Like whoever was touching him couldn’t help themself. Cooler than normal, with a slight dig and press of something sharp. 

He knew that touch. He knew that voice. If Mobius could only get his eyes open.

“Reverend Mobius?”

Come on, old man, open your eyes. You’re scaring the demon.

It was insanely difficult, but Mobius managed to open his eyes a crack and his vision filled with Loki. Before he blinked, Loki was at his most demonic. When Mobius was able to keep his eyes open for longer, the form he was most familiar with was what Loki presented. There was a light behind him, almost but not quite haloing the demon.

It meant Mobius almost didn’t catch the fear in the demon’s eyes, the way they shined as if this prince of Hell was nearly shedding tears for a measly human.

“Loki?” Mobius reached for him, wanting to touch, to comfort.

Loki took his hand and gently set it back down on the altar, though he didn’t take it away, letting his touch linger even as Mobius realized he couldn’t quite feel it.

“Don’t move,” Loki admonished gently. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Right. Rebecca slit his wrists. It was a wonder Mobius even managed to come to in the first place.

“Your people are on their way. So please rest.”

“’Kay,” he said, closing his eyes but remaining conscious. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Loki replied. His claws combed through Mobius’s hair, brushing it away from where he knew there was a head wound. But the touch  lingered, Loki offering him comfort. “What matters is that you live.”

Mobius didn’t know how what happened to him was explained to emergency personnel. He was questioned by the police at the hospital only once, and all he could glean from them was that they suspected foul play but had no idea who had done it or why. They only asked if Mobius had any idea where Rebecca was during everything, but since he didn’t really know, Mobius didn’t technically lie when he said he wasn’t sure.

He remained in the hospital for a few days and then was released. Someone in his congregation sent word out that he was hurt, and he found his services for the following week to be covered by an apprentice from another church. 

Verity brought him home, made sure he was comfortable, stayed far longer than she should have. Once she was satisfied he wasn’t going to do anything to put himself at risk, she left him with a promise to check in on him soon.

As soon as she was gone, Loki appeared.

“You been here this whole time?” Mobius asked, even as he knew the answer. 

“I’ve followed you from the hospital,” Loki said, confirming Mobius’s suspicions. He crossed the room, then kneeled in front of Mobius where he’d been propped on the couch surrounded by cushions and blankets. 

Loki’s hand reached hesitantly for Mobius, landing on his chest over his heart. He closed his eyes, his whole demeanor shifting at once from something almost formal to relieved. Mobius covered Loki’s hand where it rested on his chest, his other threading through the strands of Loki’s hair at the base of his neck.

“I know you’re mortal. I know this is not your eternal life, but if she had ended yours sooner than it was meant to, I’d have returned to Hell to make her and every one of her ancestors suffer further than they already are.”

“Rebecca’s dead, then?”

Loki’s eyes snapped open, and with every word, his features melted into his more demonic form.

“Killing her was a mercy.”

Mobius nodded, not agreeing but understanding. He flexed the fingers in Loki’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.

“You called for me,” Loki said, meeting Mobius’s eyes again.

“I did.”

“Why?”

Mobius took a deep breath through his nose, debated if it was worth showing all his cards, and then decided that losing Loki now would be a lesser pain than never knowing.

“Guess when a guy is on his death bed - or slab - he kinda wants to look in the eyes of the being he loves.”

Loki turned his head away from Mobius’s hand.

“You’re meant to love all things,” he said, before trying to pull his hand off Mobius’s chest.

Mobius, instead, held it in place as firmly as his injured body would allow.

“Might be true, but Loki….” Mobius put all he was feeling into the demon’s name, causing Loki to turn back to him. Mobius melted at the vulnerability in those red eyes and couldn’t resist leaning in.

Loki didn’t have a mouth when Mobius put his lips to where they should be. But within seconds his kiss was being returned with barely restrained amorousness.

“While I live, I’ll serve God,” Mobius said as he pulled back, lingering in Loki’s space. “But I think we both know who I belong to heart and soul.”

“You’re damning yourself,” Loki reminded him, sounding like he was begging Mobius both to reconsider and swear it all at once.

“If I get eternity with you, that’s Heaven, not Hell.”

Loki’s sighed shuddered against Mobius’s lips as he mirrored Mobius’s hold.

“Then eternity - and me - you shall have.”