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Chapter Text

The orange hue of the rising sun was barely peeking over the horizon when Loki began his walk down to the beach. He was only halfway to the water before a lifeguard jogged up to him, “Beach opens in half an hour, I’m gonna have to ask y-”

“I have a pass, I’m from the marine lab up the road, I’m just here to collect water samples,” Loki interrupted, flashing the laminated piece of paper attached to his satchel.

“My boss didn’t tell me about any special passes.”

“And mine didn’t tell me I’d run into ocean patrol, guess we’re both in the same boat on that one. Now can I please get my water samples?”

The grey-haired man chuckled, “same boat, nice one!”
Loki rolled his eyes and continued his march down to the water.
The lifeguard jogged after him, “Okay, pun not intended, but seriously, you need to wait ‘till we open, my boss is gonna kill me if she sees-”

“Then don’t let her see!” Loki interrupted again, “The longer we bicker, the longer I’ll be here, just let me collect my samples and I’ll be out of here.”

The shorter man sighed as they both reached the water’s edge, “Fine, but only this once; my name is Mobius, by the way,” he stuck out his hand.

“Odd name… mine’s Loki,” the darker-haired man said, without looking up from where he was gathering his water samples.
Mobius retracted his hand awkwardly, “I’d say of the two of us, you have the odd name.”

“It’s Norse.”

“Oh, mine is… I don’t know what mine is.”

Loki finished closing off the test tubes and carefully placing them back in his satchel before turning to Mobius, “See? Already done; and your boss,” he motioned to the empty sand around them, “nowhere to be seen.”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess you were right.”

The pair headed back up the beach, Mobius almost jogging to keep up with Loki’s long strides.
“So you said you worked for the marine lab, are you guys the ones that come out here and release seals and stuff sometimes?”

“Sea lions, and yes, we occasionally do releases.”

“How come I’ve never seen you out here before then?”

“I’m relatively new to the lab.”

“You’re not very friendly are you?”

“I can be plenty friendly when I want to, now is not one of those times.”

“Hm, well, this is as far as I can go while on duty,” the pair had reached the end of the sand and the start of the boardwalk, “see you around!”

“Yeah, see you around I guess,” Loki echoed, continuing on his way.

He glanced back to see Mobius still standing there, waving at him. Loki rolled his eyes and waved halfheartedly back.

~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~ 

Loki arrived back at the lab a bit later than expected, and his supervisor, Sylvie, was less than impressed.

“That took a while.”

“Yeah, some guard at the beach tried kicking me off,” Loki said, taking the samples out of his satchel and hanging the latter off his chair.

“Did you show them the pass?”

“Yeah, he let me through, but “only this time”.”

Loki began setting the samples up for testing as Sylvie grabbed her phone.

“I’ll call the head guard, did you catch the guy's name?”

“Mobius, that’s all.”

She nodded and began to dial the number, “Would you mind going to uncover the turtle’s pools?”

“Not at all,” Loki replied.

As he walked out to the pools, he tested Mobius’ name on his tongue again. As obnoxious as the man had been, he had a sort of charm to him that something in Loki couldn’t let
go off… maybe he’d volunteer to collect samples more often.

Chapter Text

Luckily for Loki, he’d be seeing Mobius again sooner than anticipated.

He and Sylvie arrived at the lab at the same time the next day, setting their belongings down as they prepared for the day ahead.

“Did you ask your brother about helping with the release today?”

Loki slowly looked up at Sylvie, “What relea- oh. Today is Wednesday isn’t it?”
Sylvie sighed, “Yes, today is Wednesday, we’re releasing the two sea lion pups, remember?”

“Now I do,” he replied, checking his watch, “Thor’s usually done with the morning surf by 9, I’ll call him then?”
“I guess that’ll have to do.”

“Sorry, forgot Casey was out of town.”

“You’re fine, we’ll just have to push the release back a little bit.”

Loki racked his brain for someone else who could help, however, being new to the area resulted in him not knowing anyone outside of work and-

“Wait, I might know someone I could get to help.”

Sylvie looked at him skeptically.

“I’ll just… I’ll be right back,” he flashed her a slight smile and ran out the door.

~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~

By the time he reached the beach, he had worked up a slight sweat and was very out of breath.

“I swear by the Norns if you aren’t here…” he muttered under his breath, scanning the beach.

He was about to give up when he spotted Mobius strolling down the sand a ways away.

Loki smiled and started after the man, quickly catching up to him.

Mobius looked both surprised and delighted to lay eyes on the disheveled, raven-haired man.

“Sorry about yesterday, my boss let me know about you guys and your fancy passes.”

“It’s fine, really, but do you think you could repay me with a favor? We need help moving a few sea lion pups, our other guy is out of town and I forgot to call my brother before he went surfing, and,” he paused to catch his breath, “we just need a bit of help with the heavy lifting.”

Mobius’ existing smile grew even wider, “That sounds awesome! The boss said to lend a hand if you guys ever needed it, so, what do I need to do?”

“Great, just follow me,” Loki replied, heading back up the beach and towards the lab.

Ever the sociable one, Mobius talked the entire walk to the lab. Loki was mostly tolerable of it, answering the man’s questions and nodding along to anything else Mobius had to say.

Sylvie was pleased with the extra set of hands and quickly introduced herself to Loki’s companion.

“Sylvie, I own the lab,” she said, giving Mobius a sort of half nod before going back to gathering the things needed for the pups.

“Mobius, I just got assigned to the stretch of beach down the street.”

“You’re the one that gave Loki a hard time yesterday?”

Mobius rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled nervously, “Yeah, sorry about that, but this is me repaying you guys for the hassle!”

Sylvie entertained him with a sliver of a smile, “Loki’ll show you what we need to be loaded into the truck, then we’ll get the pups and go before the beaches get crowded.”

“Aye ma’am,” Mobius replied, mock saluting her.

Loki rolled his eyes, “Just follow me.”

Mobius followed him back to the supply closet and stood in the doorway as Loki searched for the light switch. The light flicked on and Loki began rooting through the closet. Pulling out two large dog crates, he turned and handed them to Mobius, “Go out the back door and put these next to the biggest pool on the left.”

“You got it, Lokes!”

“Don’t call me that,” Loki was quick to shoot back.

“Sheesh, okey dokey, I’ll be right back.”

Mobius was quick to return empty-handed.

“Now, I’m going to go uncover the pools, here’s a key to the fridge room,” Loki said, handing Mobius a key attached to a larger key ring, “On the top shelf at the very left, there’s a relatively large container of chopped up fish bits. Get it and bring it back to the pools.”

“And the fridge room is…”

“Around the corner, second room on the right,” Loki pointed in the direction.

“See ya in a sec!” Mobius exclaimed before jogging off.

“That man has too much energy this early…” Loki mumbled to himself.

~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~-~~~

By the time they coaxed the sea lions into the crates, loaded them onto the truck, and drove down to the beach, they were a bit behind, but not terribly off schedule.

Mobius asked ample questions about the creatures, eager to learn about them. Sylvie and Loki were less eager to teach him, but they entertained his curiosities regardless.

As they were carrying the pups down to the beach, Sylvie and Loki with one crate and Mobius with another, the latter asked,

“So, what are their names?”

“We tend not to name them; prevents emotional attachment,” Loki replied.

“Well, that’s no fun… I’m gonna name this one Mobius Jr.” he said, peeking into the crate.

Mobius Jr. barked at him.

“See, he likes it!”

Loki ducked his head to hide his smile, and Sylvie just sighed.

“And the other one will be… Loki Jr.”

Mobius said as they set the crates down near the edge of the water.

“Very original, Mobius Sr.,” Loki teased in a monotone voice.

“Thank you, thank you.”

“Could you two stop flirting? We’re already behind.”

“We’re not-“

“I’m just-“

The two stuttered over each other, Loki blushing to the tops of his ears and Mobius still stumbling over his words.

“I’ll just-“ Loki ducked down to unlock Loki Jr.’s crate.

“Yeah, I’ll do that too,” Mobius said, avoiding eye contact and unlocking Mobius Jr.’s.

“On the count of three,” Sylvie stated, ignoring their fumbling.

On three, the men opened the crates and the pups poked their heads out. The two seemingly inspected the beach before stepping out and making their way into the water.

“Bye juniors!” Mobius waves at the sea lions before looking back and catching a sliver of Loki’s smile.

Sylvie clapped her hands together and looked at the two men, “Job well done boys, Mobius, we got it from here.”

“Thanks for the help,” Loki said.

“No problem! This was fun!”

Sylvie and Loki picked up a crate each and began walking back up the beach.

“Oh, and I almost forgot,” Sylvie said, turning around to face Mobius, “Loki gets tea from the cafe on 5th and Boardwalk every Sunday morning around 9. Meet him there.”

“Wait, what?”

Mobius stood there dumbfounded while Sylvie turned back around and continued on her way.

“Sylvie!” Loki hissed angrily, “You can’t just set me up on dates like that!”

“Whoever said it was a date?” Sylvie smirked.

“I really do loathe you sometimes,” he sighed.

“You two obviously have eyes for each other, you’re both just too blind to see it. I just helped you two along a little.”

“You’re lucky my hands are full,” Loki snapped back.

However, no matter how discordant he seemed, Sunday couldn’t come quick enough for the dark-haired marine biologist.