Being human again sucks. This whole 'second chance' thing is more frustrating than anything.
Especially when certain 'all powerful' ghosts start asking you for favours to deal with other time headaches!
It's not worth it. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake.
Yet apparently this other 'headache' knows a thing or two about being a useless, broken reflection of something better.
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It's Invisobang season once again and I've teamed up with @cookietastic this year! Make sure you check out the amazing cover they did for this fic!
You can read the first chapter below or here on A03
Okay, so he might have done a little grand theft body on an unspeakably powerful ghost, broke time so badly that an entire timeline got rewritten and managed to get a stupid old man to feel bad enough to get him a new, living body- but that didn’t mean he owed anyone a favour.
Certainly not the ghost whose body and powers he borrowed for a little bit. That was his own fault. If he could see all of time, he had no excuse to not see that whole little incident coming!
Yet here he was anyway. Scowling at his too scrawny arms instead of the purple cloaked ghost. Sure, ignoring the guy who literally just stopped all of time around you wouldn’t accomplish anything- but he was stuck in this stupid kid body again. He was allowed to be petty. He was owed it.
“We can theoretically wait forever, if that is what you want.” Clockwork’s statement did nothing to improve his mood.
“Seems like a waste of your powers.”
“In comparison to the rips and tears across time, this doesn’t even register.”
Clockwork just loved to be infuriating, didn’t he? Why couldn’t he just get a hint and go away? Show off. It wasn’t like the time powers were that impressive anyway. More painful and disorienting.
Waiting out a literal master of time did seem pretty impossible though. He only had so much patience for this. “Okay! Fine! What do you want?”
Clockwork’s smirk was so smug that it made Phantom want to punch it right off his face. “I have a job you are well suited for. Before you start yelling, it is a paid sort of job. I am not expecting your help for nothing in return.”
Phantom let out a mutter, he was going to instantly say no to being a free time monkey. So of course Clockwork wouldn’t even let him do that. Future looking cheater of a ghost. “Like you’d pay in anything useful.”
“I could move time more swiftly on that new human body of yours. I’ve heard you are not pleased about being sixteen again?”
The perfect sort of bribe. So this job had to be super unfair, or impossible, or some trick to get him disposed of yet again. “So what if I’m not? If you actually cared you’d just help instead of taunting me.”
“I can only use my powers so sparingly. However, if you solved a problem I was unable to resolve, I can easily justify why you should be able to make use of the time I did not use.”
Or age him into being totally dead. That seemed like a Clockwork thing to do. Meddler. “If you need some hero, why aren’t you bothering Danny?”
“Danny wouldn’t have the right skills for this.”
Ah. “So you want someone dead? Need some temporal attack dog?”
The look wasn’t disgust. Yet Clockwork dared to look concerned about his completely reasonable assumption. “No. I would not ask that of you.”
“Like I have skills Danny doesn’t that aren’t murder related?” He rolled his eyes as his scowl deepened. Half of his abilities didn’t work quite right after getting this new body. He felt as weak as he looked lately, and having some time ghost mock him about it was not appreciated.
“You might think you don’t, but you do. You’ve experienced more.”
“Experienced a lot of revenge, sure. But you aren’t looking for those skills, apparently.”
“What it’s like to lose everything. What can happen if you choose to lash out just to feel something. What does not help fill a void.”
If Clockwork was trying to play therapist he was going to throw something. “Knowing how that feels doesn’t actually do anything!”
“Would you recommend desperately fleeing your feelings and drowning them in the blood of a world you feel abandoned you?”
Phantom wished he could scowl even deeper. “Well no. It didn’t work.”
“Then your experience has given you a perspective not many will have.” Clockwork’s tone was strangely warm, and it made his skin itch. “All I am asking is for you to talk to someone. Even if they do not listen to you, your part of the deal will be done.”
That sounded way too generous. Maybe Clockwork figured out he was the worst at this convincing thing. “Still sounds like a pipsqueak job.”
“You have more in common with them than Danny does. He wouldn’t understand like you might.”
Clockwork better not be on some redeeming time criminals kick. Or you know what? Sure! Whatever! The weird ghost could have a hobby so long as he didn’t get dragged into it. “That’s it? No extra gotcha at the end?”
“Yes. Their temporal prison is giving me quite the migraine, if you talked them into getting out of it I’ll be quite grateful.”
A prisoner? Clockwork wanted to get someone out of a time prison? Well that explained things, he was practically an expert at that now. So why dress it up like talking is the important part? “One jailbreak for one ticket to twenty years old? That’s your deal?”
“You get your ‘ticket’ even if you cannot do the jailbreak part. I just need you to try to get them to think about leaving.” Clockwork stated again, a hint of exhaustion escaping as if repeating himself was difficult.
Which sounded like a lie. Better to just assume it was. “Fine. Deal. But you better not think I’ll just be your gopher again!”
“This way, then.” Clockwork’s arm swept out from his cloak as a slowly swirling portal appeared, a strange grey tint making it hard to tell it was meant to be blue.
“So how do I make a portal back when I’m done?” He scowled, the time master knew he couldn’t rip his own way back anymore.
“I will when you ask. Or when it sounds like you require one.”
“Anyone tell you that you’re a creepy stalker, Clockwork?”
The non committal shrug he got in return didn’t tell him much, but he didn’t want to admit he was afraid. If this was a trap, and it reeked of one, he didn’t have any real ability to get out of it. Sure he could curse Clockwork about it, but that wouldn’t free him if he was walking into a new prison.
So just in case this portal he was walking into was just a big trap he kept one arm back as he walked, flipping Clockwork the bird the whole way through.
So i quit my job due to a variety of reasons and i started the email with "unfortunately, i am tendering my resignation". My dad suggested i find an alternative to the word "unfortunately" so i went on a thesaurus website and spent 20 minutes laughing at the idea of "tragically, i am resigning"
I can't believe I'm saying this, but the idea refuses to leave me: Much Ado About Nothing lokius AU.
Hear me out:
Loki is Beatrice. Mobius is Benedick. They've been known to be the Masters of Bickering since anyone can remember. Everybody likes Mobius but thinks Loki is too prickly for their own good. Nobody else dares to try and get close to Loki bc they're constantly ranting about how love and trust is for children and dogs. Everyone is also deeply impressed that Mobius can hold his own in a battle of wits with Loki and can talk to them for more than five minutes without getting stabbed. There's a lot of unresolved sexual tension.
After Loki's BFF Sylvie and B-15 fall in love, all of their friends and family decide that this whole love stuff is great and they definitely should try and get Loki and Mobius to hook up. So they scheme and through the power of Rumors convince Loki that Mobius is in love with them and Mobius that Loki is in love with him. They super fall for it and in the process actually fall for each other.
There's other plot related drama, but the main points are:
A.) the eavesdropping scene bc that's the best part of the whole play and I need Mobius being so Shook by the thought of Loki liking him that he ends up with paint all over his face a la the David Tennant production.
B.) Loki and Mobius fall head over heels extremely quickly and with extreme hilarity because they're a couple of useless gays. Also Mobius tries to write a sonnet bc hes Sappy like that.
I love that argument I’m having with myself of “Well, you can get through this without having to take the meds. So you should. Even if it’s not comfortable.” And then the @evieoh part of my brain yells from the background, “But why the hell should you have to put up with that?! There’s no good reason to stop yourself from feeling better, you idiot.”
