Sir Saladvocate - Lokius

🥑 I am not one and simple, but complex and many.

"Cows, actually. Space cows," Mobius corrects, and, for a moment, he is believed. "No, I'm kidding. Every week, we send someone to a gas station in 2002 to pick some up. Usually B-15. Don't ask why, but she likes going. My guess is it's because there's a good-looking and slightly-androgynous cashier there every time. It's why we never switch places." He stands up reluctantly, nudging his chair back towards the desk. "Although I can't really blame her much; if a good-looking and slightly-androgynous person showed up in my life, I'd probably start cheating at my job a bit, too."

The thing is that Mobius has begun to do this already, because it has indeed happened—Loki is standing right in front of him, is he not?—which they both sheepishly come to terms with simultaneously as Mobius scrambles to evade this with a new topic.

"I, uh... suppose you want me to see this salad?" he guesses, his hands in his pockets as he rocks back on his heels. Loki, still processing the entire previous information-and-implication dump, pauses for a moment before turning and silently leading the way to the kitchen which he is not allowed inside. He's begun to notice how few punishments he's received thus far for doing such things. He begins to suspect that rules here aren't truly so important.

There's a large serving bowl of leafy greens with a caesar dressing on the nearest counter, which Loki motions to disinterestedly.

"Questionable as per my usual," he presents, and Mobius peers in at the salad.

"Wow, Loki; that looks almost edible," he compliments, which gives the god enough enthusiasm to fuel his useless ego once more.

"This one truly is better than the last one," Loki claims with absolutely no evidence, grabbing a fork after opening six drawers in search of one. "See? I'm eating it freely." He takes a bite and only winces a little bit, taking more and holding the fork out to the man that's supposed to be interrogating him instead of... whatever the hell this is. "Try it."

Mobius finds that he has some difficulty getting food in his mouth when he isn't the one feeding himself. As he bends over to aim, he keeps having to move again and mirror the utensil that he doesn't even control. He tries three times before complaining about it. He is a strong believer in the three-strike rule.

"You know, it's really difficult to maneuver when you keep moving the fork," he says, which unsurprisingly gets a very unhelpful response in return.

"I'm not moving the fork," Loki says, which is an asshole way to react, especially because it's blatantly untrue.

"Okay, well, every time I get my head in the right direction, I have to adjust again," Mobius argues. "Also, you just put so much salad on that I don't think it'll fit in my mouth anyway."

"Oh, be grateful, Mobius. I'm feeding you," Loki replies as another effort is made at bobbing down to reach the fork. Loki this time moves his hand as far to the right as it can go.

Mobius gives him a look of dull ire.

"That's moving the fork," says Loki. This, understandably to him, is the last straw.

"Hey. Give me that—" Mobius begins, hurrying forward and reaching for the fork. But, taking this as an opportunity, Loki stuffs the salad straight into Mobius' mouth, enjoying his look of intense irritation as a result.

"Ah," Loki remarks as he takes the fork back and turns to set it next to the sink for whoever comes in next to be irritated by. "That worked out... decently, actually."

"And the dressing is definitely stale," Mobius coughs as he goes to grab some water to wash it all down. "Throw all that out right now."

Loki looks like a dejected pet. "Oh... all of them?"

Mobius becomes familiarized with the feeling of impending doom. "What?"

Loki purses his lips for a moment. "It was a big bottle of dressing," he explains, wondering whether or not he should even be revealing this at all. "I made nine batches."

Loki opens the refrigerator to reveal eight more large bowls of greens that are likely just as inedible as the first. It's a miracle the kitchen staff haven't happened across it yet. They'd prune him on the spot due to a mere feeling of violation.

"N—" Mobius does a double-take as he counts the bowls. "Nine. Nine? Where did you even get all the lettuce?"

Loki does not say anything. He stares blankly back.

"Where did you get all the lettuce, Loki?" Mobius demands now, his tone flatter and more urgently driven.

Loki takes a breath. "I asked Cassandra to get some." This wasn't true. B-15 asked Cassandra, who happened to be the receptionist she meant when she said she had to pull some strings. Receptionists at the TVA, it seems, are a lot more accommodating than the TVA itself.

"Who's Cassandra?"

"'Who's Cassandra?'" Loki exclaims in bewilderment. "You talk to her constantly. She's the tall woman at the front desk. The blonde one."

Mobius gazes off at the wall. "Blonde... front desk... tall...?"

"She's painfully uninteresting."

"Ah, yeah, Cassandra, okay," Mobius replies, finally putting a name to the face. "You asked her to get all that lettuce?"

"I kept underestimating and sending her back," Loki admits casually. The refrigerator door starts to beep to remind him to close it, but he merely leans on its open frame and smiles.

"And she agreed?" asks Mobius.

"Eight more times, yeah."

"Willingly?"

"Spitefully," Loki corrects. "The last three trips weren't very fruitful; the first was a bag of spinach, which progressed to raw cabbage, which progressed to a bag of raked oak leaves from New York in the autumn of 1978. All in separate bowls, I assure you." He points to a flaky brown one on the bottom. "That's the spinach, actually. The oak leaves are behind it. I had to sort of shove them all in there. Didn't quite fit."

"Man, just..." Mobius sighs and motions to the still-beeping refrigerator. "Just throw the whole TVA away."

"I'm trying to," Loki says subtly through his teeth.

"What was that?" asks Mobius, who heard it perfectly.

"Nothing," Loki smiles. "Enjoy your salad." He walks away from the refrigerator, leaving the door wide open and still beeping as usual.

Mobius glowers. "I told you to throw it all away."

"You throw it away," Loki complains, trying to leave before he's forced into dealing with his own repercussions. "It's yours. It's a gift."

"Why?" Mobius challenges. "This compensation of making me worse versions of the first salad is far more counterproductive than just apologizing for ruining it to begin with. You know you can stop making me salad at any time."

"And you can stop following me around, and bantering, and participating, and caring, as well," Loki offers lightly. "But... here you are."

He pulls open the door. Mobius has nothing to say.

"I'm gonna leave them in there," Loki decides aloud. "Perhaps Cassandra will try the blasphemous cabbage batch by accident."

Loki leaves the room, not announcing where it is that he's leaving to, but this is barely concerning anymore. Everyone who is aware of this is used to it by now. Mobius considers throwing the six pounds of wasted salad away, but he does the bare minimum and closes the refrigerator door instead. They don't pay him enough to clean up after the god of mischief. They do, however, pay him enough to save energy, and to keep himself from being driven insane by beeping.

He also puts the fork into the sink.

By the time he leaves, B-15 has made her way back with the key to the kitchen doors. Peeking around the corner to watch Mobius head away to his other duties, she sneaks back to close everything up, locking the handles as if they had never been opened at all.