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

[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."

[favoriteanalyst]

"Yeah? Okay, that's a plan. We'll keep an eye out for ne'er-do-wells and pickpockets and the like and just...take in Kirkwall at night. And I'll do my best to keep you from mentally running off somewhere to get trampled under a train of wagons."

[icasm]

"I appreciate it," Loki admits. They don't have much food to finish, thankfully, because now that the suggestion has been made he is itching to go outside. Something something not being able to wait for a thing to happen and being incredibly impulsive.

"I promise I'm not always so... morose." Loki shakes his head a little. "Sometimes I'm even fun, can you believe that?"

[favoriteanalyst]

"You? Fun?" Mobius grins. While he hasn't personally witnessed it much save for some fun side conversations over the crystal, he can see it. "I get the feeling your brand of fun doesn't always align with everyone else. But I absolutely believe you can be fun."

[icasm]

"Oh?" He smirks, a little, clearing his plate after a moment. Mobius can elaborate on that or not as he chooses, Loki won't press (this time). Instead he gets out coins to pay, once he's done, and gestures towards Mobius with a nod. "Ready to head out?"

[favoriteanalyst]

He definitely can elaborate, but he won't, at the moment. He kind of likes this tease now, or likes to see it as a tease. All that's left to do is drain the rest of his tankard and offer up his arm on their way out. "No plans on where to head to, so if you know a spot you want to go, or just want to wander aimlessly in circles, or just stand by the docks for the sea breeze..."

[icasm]

That's nice, isn't it? The offered arm. Loki takes it after the barest of hesitations, a smile playing at his lips. "Well. I think a lot of that depends on if you'd rather spend the time between now and dawn back at the Gallows or in Hightown. There's a guest room, if that changes your consideration at all." There's a non-zero chance that Sylvie will knock on the door at some ungodly hour, but that's a risk Loki is willing to take.

[favoriteanalyst]

"And is that where you would want me to be, the guest room?"

Kissing is still not out of the question, though he wonders if it wouldn't be better if Loki was a little more stable and sure of himself and where they stand with each other first. The outside air, downright cold in comparison to the warm tavern, is bracing. Maybe it'll put thoughts of just which bed he could end up in on the backburner.

"Can I ask, and this isn't a judgement thing--is there a line for you anywhere, between friends and bedmates?"

[icasm]

"Oh, definitely not." He just thought it was polite to offer, after all. "However, I wouldn't want you to feel pressured."

Loki considers Mobius' second question for a moment, in the relative quiet of Kirkwall at night. "There are some friends I would not sleep with, I think." Abby is the first one that comes to mind. "But that is more about what I understand their tastes to be, than about myself."

[favoriteanalyst]

"So there isn't really a line," Mobius concludes. It's good to know, actually. Means no expectations of anything more, means intimacy won't make the friendship go screwy. "Is it a way to express yourself? Your love, in a way? Or am I reading too deep into that?" Some people just be horny all the time.

[icasm]

"I suppose not." Has he really thought about it? Not really. Sex has been such a natural part of his life for so long.

But Mobius' other question gives him pause. Once he would have said no, and been fine with that answer. Now? "I think you're on to something, perhaps." A shrug. "It's different, here." He weighs and measures who he sleeps with against how others might feel about it, which is not a familiar activity.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Lotta things different here, I imagine." They stroll down the street, arm in arm. He has no destination and should really decide if he's going to go back to the Gallows or stick around. Even if all they do is talk, because Loki is fascinating.

"I don't get around as much as I used to." Different to move to a city where no one knows you, where you have to find whatever honest work comes by to get by day to day. Different without the security of a sure bed and sure meals, with known entities. With convenient nooks and crannies to get something quick done, breathless laughter and muted moans.

Hm. Which frankly, Riftwatch and the Gallows can provide. Even if he's not as young as he once was. But also there are people in relationships here, so. That's something to be aware of.

[icasm]

Loki takes a breath, nods. "Things become both simplified and utterly complicated in a war effort. In a place where people are being pressed toward, due to external factors, and the fact that many of us can't leave or imagine being able to do so."

He gestures with his free hand. "For me, there has not been the need to remain in one place for so long in years and years. Now there are people that I consider close, whose opinions on my behavior matter. Also new. So I, too, don't 'get around' as much as I used to."