closed | date but not date-date (UNLESS...)

[favoriteanalyst]

WHO: Loki, Mobius
WHAT: Dinner and a drink, with some odd canon update shenaniganry
WHEN: a wednesday in early drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall, evening, a tavern called ~The Innocent Magpie~
NOTES: after this conversation

It's fine. It's all fine. Nothing Loki has said about himself, and nothing Sylvie has said about him, will deter Mobius from making good on Loki's offer of food and drink. Even if, in all technicality, it had been Mobius' idea first for the vague flirtation around the bonfire.

He hasn't spoken to Provost Stark about the events that had been described. It's tempting. He might have to, just to get another perspective on the whole thing. But he tries not to let it bother him. Whatever happens to their enemy, he knows that Loki is making a conscious choice to be better. And if he can't give someone a chance, then...what's the point?

It does amuse him that he keeps getting drinks with people with no real effort involved. Though perhaps Loki and Sylvie have...similar tastes? Astarion mostly just wanted to suss him out and not say no to a free drink. However he feels now is anyone's guess. He arrives at the ferry dock at the Gallows right around the appointed time. He can see the boat on its way, and he's eager to meet up with Loki.

Who doesn't show. And doesn't show. And doesn't show. He's willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but once the ferry arrives, he boards reluctantly and takes out his crystal.

"Ferry's leaving in a second. Where are you at?"

Comments

[icasm]

Loki has rarely had sex get in the way of most anything, but he's been a hedonist and a ho for a long time already.

"No. I..." He shakes his head, takes another drink. "My self destructive tendencies lean more toward dark rooms and ignoring the world for the day."

[favoriteanalyst]

"And drinking by yourself around the fire." Or maybe that was special circumstances. Suggesting one burn symbols of their fears and failures was sure to bring out some melancholy. "Mine tend to manifest as ignoring myself for the sake of others."

[icasm]

Loki makes a sound of consideration. "I'm a big fan of taking care of one's self. You can't fill others from an empty vessel, yes?" Isn't that how the saying goes? "So try not to burn the candle at both ends, not even for Riftwatch."

[favoriteanalyst]

"Hasn't been a problem here so far. But if I were being petty and contrary, I'd say an empty vessel can be filled from others." A shrug, a smirk. "I try to be aware of myself. It's come to my attention that I'm good at listening to people and sometimes even doling out advice. I guess that's not surprising. I like watching people. Picking up on the things they don't say."

[icasm]

"Well, the best I am at filling others in a non-intimate way would come from having the means to care for them." A shrug. Take that how you will, Mobius. "If I asked you what you've picked up from me, the things I haven't said, what would you tell me?"

[favoriteanalyst]

He will take that and definitely just. Look at him. He's halfway pulled his tankard to his mouth and now it just hovers in the air while he parses what is obviously the most important part of all that out of the words.

"And what about filling others in an intimate way?" He can't keep himself from breaking into a laugh at the end, face crinkling before drowning the sound in a drink.

He doesn't, y'know. Expect a response to that. Because that's just him being a little shit. But also pointing out how Loki specifically phrased that in a deliberate manner that he caught.

"And since you asked so directly, I won't tell you anything at all. I like saving my observations for when I think they'll be most effective. But I will say you're surprisingly open. You don't hide much. Unless I'm just special like that."

[icasm]

Loki raises his eyebrows and smirks, but says nothing. He knows how he phrased things, it was even on purpose!

His expression falls, just slightly, when Mobius says that he won't tell Loki what he's picked up from interacting with and watching him. And then he rolls his eyes a little, because he doesn't know if that's because of the standing friendship he has with a Mobius variant, because he's trying to be less... duplicitous in general, or some combination of both. "I think you're special like that."

[favoriteanalyst]

"No I'm not, but it's kind of you to say."

Loki's a little disappointed. Huh. Did he really actually want to know? Or is he just not used to being told no? Mobius leans back a little and drums his fingers on the tabletop.

"I think there isn't much I could say that would surprise you. You seem uniquely aware of yourself in a way a lot of people aren't. And like I said, at least with me, you're pretty open. I could tell you about how you're sad and anxious, that you desperately want people to like you but can't commit to it because you don't like yourself and aren't sure you're worth the attention. But that wouldn't come as a shock to you. You were someone different before you ended up here. And you've realized that maybe you don't want to be that person anymore. So you're trying to figure out who you are here, which can't be easy. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for? You've practically said it all before anyway."

[icasm]

It is primarily being unused to being told 'no', honestly. But also he did really want to know. Is incurably curious about what other people think of him, or perceive of him.

The answer Mobius does give him is interesting. Not surprising, exactly, but he was warned of that and Loki isn't thrilled to be told by anyone, least of all Mobius that he doesn't like himself... he doesn't, but do other people really need to know that?

"Not really," is his answer to Mobius' question and then, in a fit of... petulance? Reluctance? He simply leaves it there. "But it's fine."

[favoriteanalyst]

There's a furrow and a stare, a slow blink. Not unlike a cat himself at times. And then, a small 'ah'. "You don't like being defied. You don't like that I didn't capitulate and give you what you wanted." He waggles a fork at Loki, smirking. "Royal god isn't always gonna get what he asks for." For all that he pouts like a teenager, seems put out like he was expecting. That the initial refusal caught him off guard.

[icasm]

"Show me someone who claims enjoyment of being defied, as you put it, and I'll show you an active liar." Of course he doesn't like that he didn't get what he wanted! But he's trying not to be a huge dick about it. "Yes, yes, because of free will and all of those good things, I know." Eyeroll again. "I'm not holding it against you."

[favoriteanalyst]

"Look, the fact of the matter is that I can see others. Better than most. But I have to be careful with what I say about what I see. Learned that pretty quickly." Learned a lot of things quick when he was young and steadfast and determined as an initiate. "I don't just tell people what I see to their face the second I see it unless I'm making a point."

[icasm]

Loki frowns. It makes sense, sure, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. "Well." He doesn't have anything to argue against that with, either, other than the insistence that he asked, so.

"Do you think that's really fair?" He waves a hand as soon as the words exit his mouth; that's not a just sort of question, he realizes. "Nevermind. It is how you are, and I am not interested in changing you, it's just..." A sigh. "I always want to know what people think of me, what they see. You're more observant than most. So of course I'm interested in what you have to say. But if you'd rather hold back until you can teach me a lesson, I suppose there's nothing to be done for it."

[favoriteanalyst]

"Is that what you think I'm doing, just--saving up observations until you mess up along the line, and then I swoop in and tell you something and teach you a life lesson? You think I'm being petty?" He's not hurt, just trying to suss out what about this is tripping Loki up so much.

He holds both hands in front of him, a motion for each side. "What someone sees," one hand, "and what someone thinks about you," the other, "are different matters entirely." He pulls his hands apart at that, set on either side of the dish and then some. "If you want to know what someone thinks about you, that's what you ask. That's taking the whole of the interactions plus what's seen and making some judgements."

And then his hands go flat on the tabletop. "So then the question you ask becomes what I think of you, and I think the fact that I'm having dinner with you says a lot, doesn't it?"

[icasm]

"Not petty, exactly." A sigh. He feels like he's misstepped massively, and keeps doing it, and for what? Why? Because he feels so highly insecure about his place amongst others?

Well. Yes.

He frowns at his drink and takes another swallow of it. Tries to collect his mind around what Mobius is telling him, see past his own fears, and just listen. It's harder than he'd like to admit. "The fact that I haven't run you off my with incessant neediness and bad moods that you've endured in the short amount of time we've known each other says a lot about you, I think, and mostly poor things about me." Still.

[favoriteanalyst]

"One bad mood and no neediness. Loki," he says with a sigh that seems long-suffering in spite of, again, the short amount of time they've known each other, "you want me to judge you so badly. I don't think you're sure whether you want your own negative views to be validated or contradicted, but you want to gather enough to convince yourself of being right or wrong either way. And it might never be enough. You're gonna run into people that don't like you no matter what you do. And you're gonna run into people that love you and everything you are. I like you. Enough that you haven't run me off despite your best effort. Is that okay?"

[icasm]

Is that okay? Loki isn't sure, in this moment. He wishes he were drunker, or perhaps more sober, or alone? No, not really. He doesn't actually wish he were alone. He wishes it were easy, this idea of liking himself, of seeing himself worthy of friendships and complicated relationships. He frowns, sighs, and traces a circle into the wood grain of the tabletop with his fingertip.

"It isn't not okay." He looks at Mobius. "Your friendship is important to me. I won't throw that away. But I haven't had many reasons to believe my negative views of myself could be contradicted and still remain in the realm of reality."

[favoriteanalyst]

"I was kinda hoping for a little more than 'it isn't not okay'." So. That stings just a little. That Loki isn't even sure if it's okay that Mobius likes him enough to be around him. And then turns around and says their friendship is important. Even knowing that it's about Loki and his self-image more than anything else.

"For whatever it's worth, you didn't somehow scheme this all up and cunningly and maliciously tricked me into being your friend."

[icasm]

"I'm not sure if I should hate myself or not for thinking it was a real possibility that I had schemed all this up," he admits sullenly, but then shakes his head. "You like me. That's more than just 'isn't not okay', and I'm sorry if I don't seem..." A sigh. "I had a friend like you, and I lost him, and I suppose I'm just afraid of it happening again as cosmic punishment for all the shit I've done to people who weren't deserving of it, so I'm jumping at shadows."

[favoriteanalyst]

"Depending on the belief system, you don't usually get punished until after you die, so I don't think the cosmos is punishing you into having some shitty, karmic bad luck. You got burned, now you're warier. That's a pretty normal reaction. And I could apologize for being a reminder, but I'm not him, and I can't do anything about who and what I am. You just have to work at being the kind of person you want to be and to not beat yourself up over the pitfalls. Not an easy task for anyone even without the kind of baggage you carry around."

[icasm]

"Depending on the belief system, I will either disappear from this reality and cease to be, or die here." Loki raises his eyebrows and tilts his head a little. "The version of me who lost a friend like you still continues on, and I am here... a variant of a variant. It's all very..." He sighs. "It feels impossible, I suppose is my point. The knowing, and the not knowing. Working towards being something better when I've been something worse for centuries, and never feeling certain that I've actually made better decisions."

[favoriteanalyst]

Mobius holds out a hand like he can physically pause Loki. "These are some very big, very deep topics that I find to be deeply fascinating, and your situation is a pretty unique version of fucked up. So I don't mean to sound belittling when I say: that's life."

Okay, maybe there's no way to say that without sounding belittling or dismissive. "I mean the knowing and the not knowing, the trying to change and never knowing if your choices are the right ones. If you take away your specific context, that's really just life and everyone just trying to make the right choices, stumbling around in the dark, looking for the light, never knowing if anything's actually right until you get there, finally." He chews on his lip for a moment and takes a breath--and lets it go again, resting his hand on Loki's arm instead of continuing on.

[icasm]

There are a lot of things Loki could say to any of that. Does anyone ever really know if they're a good person? Does it matter, if that certainty only lies in death and the hereafter? He's not sure he likes that idea, but he has no reason to believe that Mobius is being anything less than honest with him.

The hand on his arm breaks his brain out of its self-despising neverending spiral of doubt. He blinks at it, sighs, nods. "You're probably right." Mobius has, most likely, spent more time thinking about these things than Loki has, certainly.

With his other hand he takes another drink.

[favoriteanalyst]

"I might be right," he says gently, "and I might be full of shit. But all any of us can do is what we think is best and see how it all shakes out. And I don't want to see you spin in circles until you've dug yourself into a deep hole."

Basically: we're allowed to have fun and think of happier things on a date instead of spiral into impossible existential crisis.

"When we're done here, you wanna go somewhere, take a walk? It's chilly yet, but some fresh air and clear skies might be just what we need." So long as he catches the last ferry back to the Gallows. Or...knows to say he'll be gone the night. One of the two.

[icasm]

"But I'm so good at that," Loki jokes a little, smiling a little self-depreciatingly. He knows he gets stuck in spirals of negative emotions, he's at least that self-aware.

At the mention of a walk Loki raises his eyebrows and nods. "That sounds like a good idea, honestly."