Salon buddies for @favoriteanalyst

[cuttingremark]

It started about a few months ago. Loki needed to relax after making the mistake of spending his winter holidays with his 'family' (which ended in another spectacular fight with Odin that resulted in one broken window and a lost snow globe Loki has thrown through said broken window), but his normal esthetician was booked solid for the next year and couldn't fit him in outside of his own pre-scheduled appointments no matter how much money he offered to throw at her. Wanda was the best in the city, probably the whole country, so it made sense, but there's still the issue of Loki needing something to relieve his tension so he didn't strangle his paralegals. The thought crossed his mind of setting up a tindr profile for a quick fuck, but he isn't in law school anymore and that was just a disaster waiting to happen.



Wanda saves him from making a bad decision by texting him the information for another technician she helped train. She claims he's new, but very talented, which he figures will do in a pinch. The link she sent him takes him to a rather outdated looking webpage for the "TVA Salon and Spa", an older establishment that apparently started in the 50's as a barber shop, but recent made the jump to full salon under new management. Despite the clunky UI, he's able to schedule an appointment for a basic manicure the very next day with the young man Wanda had told him about.

Casey is a nice young man. Not anywhere as skilled as Wanda, but his nails come out looking acceptable with their basic black polish and the hand massage he gets to begin with is utterly divine. He doesn't go into detail about his family problems, but the other gets the gist that the holidays were strained and is more than willing to play the oh-so-important role of listening ear even if his platitudes do ring a little hollow.

When the appointment is over, Casey hands him a card for a free deep conditioning treatment or 30 minute shoulder massage.

"These are really just for family and friends," he explains, "but you really seem like you need something to help you relax." He thinks about declining, but decides it isn't polite and takes the card anyway before handing the young man a $400 tip.

The stern looking woman at the front desk gives him a serious look as Casey nearly passes out in the background. "I'm going to be checking those to make sure they're real."

"But of course, I would expect nothing less." His usual winning smile does nothing to lighten her glare as she rings him out. She asks if he wants to use the card to schedule something today. Why not? It's a charming establishment and he has some free time coming up.

The masseuse the card is good for, Bee, is apparently booked solid for the next month, but the stylist, Mobius, just had a cancellation in the following week that fit perfectly in his schedule.

That appointment was the beginning of the end for Loki.

So in he walks six months later, having ditched his normal high-end stylist for a middle-aged man who looks like he works in a cubicle rather than a up-and-coming salon. It isn't his normally scheduled appointment, but his cases have been crazy and Thor just left for his "journey of self-discovery" aka backpacking across Europe, so all of Odin's attention is now on his youngest.

Joy.

If Loki were the sentimental type, he'd think it a shame that the lobby area of a salon is more comfortable for him than his childhood home.

Comments

[favoriteanalyst]

"You filmed yourself multiple times and some of them got out and caused a scandal." Wine? Wine. Wine drink. Yes. "Okay. You do not fuck around when it comes to scandals."

[cuttingremark]

"Only two got out," Loki says with a mock defensive tone.

It had been a while since he had talked about any of his misadventures with someone, and Mobius' reactions do not disappoint.

"That's nothing. There was the time Odin had to fly to Italy to bail me out of jail after I got caught up in an underground sex club bust."

[favoriteanalyst]

"You made that up. You just made that one up. There is no way. That didn't happen."

[cuttingremark]

"If you speak Italian we can Google the article that ran in the papers. It was part of the restaurant La Rosa del Mare, maybe 12 years ago?" Loki smirks into his glass of wine.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Oh yeah," he snorts, "I definitely speak Italian. Majored in it. I definitely know how to read an Italian article on a--sex club dungeon? How did you get from this to being a layer?"

[cuttingremark]

"No, the dungeon is here in New York. That one's perfectly legal." Is Loki joking? It's a little hard to tell.

"I had a year off between my 3rd and 4th year in uni." Loki doesn't grow melancholy, but his smile does drop somewhat. "Spent a couple of months in rehab, took some time to think about my future. I knew I didn't want to do something expected of me, but still something...impressive. Lawyer seemed like a good fit."

[favoriteanalyst]

"Rehab for the...sex, drugs, rock and roll? Sounds like you were quite the party animal." There are stories there. Clearly. But only if Loki wants to share them. "You definitely shouldn't tell me for legal reasons, but do you still get up to some shenanigans?"

[cuttingremark]

"All of my shenanigans are had in moderation now, and completely legal in the states and or territories they occur in." Loki sits back in his seat, considering Mobius.

"It doesn't bother you, does it? The fact that I went to rehab."

[favoriteanalyst]

"No, of course not. If it helped you, I'm glad for it." God knows if Loki were a sex tape making and drug abusing wild child, they would probably not be on a date right now. "Was it that bad?"

[cuttingremark]

"The bender I went on to get there or the rehab itself?" Loki asks felicitously. "I don't remember a lot of what happened got get me there. It was bad enough for Odin to threaten to cut me off if I didn't go, which I couldn't really afford back then. The facility itself was nice, gave me the space I needed to focus no ways to annoy Odin that didn't also kill me."

Loki lets out a sigh. This has gotten far heavier than he would have liked. "I haven't spoken of this to anyone in a very long time."

[favoriteanalyst]

"It's okay. You don't have to answer any of my questions. You can go back to horrifying-slash-regaling me with more tales of your past scandals or...anything else." He shakes his head. "You don't have to tell me your life story. I want this to be fun for us."

[cuttingremark]

Tension Loki didn't even realize he was holding eases out of his shoulders. What he said was true what he said about not having any shame, but for some reason he really, really cares what Mobius thinks of him. Best to get the worst of it out in the open before they got in too deep.

"How about you? What sort of shenanigans did you get up to in your younger years?"

[favoriteanalyst]

He leans back and spreads his hands. "I was never important enough for scandals. No sex clubs, but clubs, sure, when I was younger and more spry. I've tested my fair share of possibly less than entirely legal substances. Could roll a joint quick as you please. Nothing exciting."

[cuttingremark]

"Did you always want to be a hairdresser?" While Loki is very glad Mobius is in his chosen field (it's likely they wouldn't have met otherwise), he doesn't exactly strike him as the type to be excited by doing someone else's hair. If he'd met the man on the street he probably would have assumed he was some sort of office worker.

[favoriteanalyst]

"God no. I just kinda fell into it. You still have to go to beautician school, but I stumbled in on some basic cheap weeklong intro course someone was running out of their shop when I had nothing better to do and just...decided why not?" A shrug. "I love it now, though. It's really satisfying, and I still get to talk to people, meet them, make friends, be up and about, do plenty with my hands, it's creative, it's sometimes lucrative, and it beats the hell out of retail, even if I am still occasionally hawking products at people."

[cuttingremark]

"It's good you enjoy it, even if it wasn't your original plan. Did you have a plan before? Some sort of dream career?"

[favoriteanalyst]

He laughs a bit, as dinner is served hot and scrumptious. "I had," with some hesitation, and a broad wave of a hand, "something like a dream, yeah. I wanted to be a therapist of sorts, or a social worker, or something like that. Psychologist, maybe. Help people with their personal issues. I probably could've gone to community college for a two-year in that, worked the whole time to help pay it off, but then I would've had to do more schooling from there, depending on what I wanted."

A shrug, mild. It's all far in the past now. "Frankly, I don't think I ever really knew what I wanted beyond the vague idea of helping people. Things didn't turn out that way. But I'm here now. Came a long way. And I'm in a pretty good place." He motions between the two of them. "Helping out anyway, even just by talking."

[cuttingremark]

The food is fantastic, but is always is in these sort of hole-in-the-wall restaurants. It's upscale, but not tiny-food-reservations-out-a-year upscale. Word of mouth upscale. The kind that somehow turn a profit despite never appearing in any food review or spending a dime on advertising.

"For what it's worth, I think you would have been a fantastic therapist," Loki says, twirling his pasta expertly. "But I'm glad you aren't."

[favoriteanalyst]

"When you get a good rapport with someone, I think people use some of their...service people, I guess you could say, as impromptu therapists. Your hair stylists, masseuse, if you've got a regular to do your nails--obviously in this example I'm just talking about the salon, but anyone you don't necessarily have a friendship with but also spend a lot of time with. A safe place to vent or get some friendly but not too involved advice."

[cuttingremark]

"You are very good at both giving advise and a listening ear." God knows Loki had bitched about family drama to him enough times. It's one of the reasons he tips so well. No matter what these people make, it would never enough to put up with everything people put on them.

[favoriteanalyst]

He smiles. "I probably could've been a therapist. But hey, if I had been, I probably wouldn't have met you. And that would've been a real shame." It hasn't been a sore spot for a long while now, and he's more able to look at the missed dream more wistfully than anything.

"Did you have plans when you were young about what you wanted to do?" Before the...everything else.

[cuttingremark]

"It was expected that I would get a few degrees, act as his political and campaign advisor. But that wasn't so much my plan as it was the one laid out for me. I went along with it for a time." He hums, thinking. "You know, I don't think I did have a plan of my own. Even when I figured out I didn't want to follow Odin's path, it was more a nebulous 'something else.' I didn't even think of being a lawyer until rehab."

[favoriteanalyst]

"And what inspired the lawyer change? You could've been a doctor, or go into business, or something else that gets big bucks, notoriety, and is still impressive. Too much legal trouble and you wanted to pay it back?"

[cuttingremark]

"I don't think I'd make a good doctor, having the life of another human in my hands is a bit much for me. Business is a bit too close to politics, wouldn't have been a big enough statement. I did think about teaching briefly, but I don't have the patience for that and it pays shit." The goal had been to become independent, after all.

"After I returned to school an acquaintance was having issues with the university that I helped resolve by simply reading their contracts and a few bylaws. It was fun, so I did a bit more research and found that law was a viable path for me."

[favoriteanalyst]

"You could read well and see the loopholes." Mobius smriks. "Yeah, then you're perfect for a lawyer. I'm glad it's fun; god knows I couldn't do it." Well. Maybe. He could maybe possibly do it. But would he want to?

"Technically speaking, in a sense, you do have peoples' lives in your hand. It's just not actually a life and death thing at that point."