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.