Author's Note: Many thanks to those people who Favourited, Followed and in general read my stuff over the past few months. I haven't been particularly diligent on Fanfiction lately (for reasons I probably should stop boring others with), but each little notification I get makes the Loki withdrawal symptoms recede somewhat ^^

I began writing this one-shot last year, so it might seem 'behind the times' compared to what's been happening lately with Marvel. Also, I added to it when I was in varying moods and states of tiredness, so... we'll see how this goes. I hope you like it though, of course :)

It's a short break for Thor and Loki before all that stuff with the Aethr went down. Just a brief gap, but thankfully a hiatus, not a Void.

A white box, barely the size of a child's bedchamber.

One wall of it was a sheet of energy, translucent and burning. This would be the new occupant's only window. Through it, other dungeons cells were visible lining the dark wall nearby like a row of square teeth. They reminded Thor of waiting coffins.

A few pieces of furniture dotted the floor, and a neat pile of a dozen books rested in one corner, giving the room a brief touch of scent – new parchment and musty libraries. But the other three walls were barer than blank paper, and the harsh shade of white was near blinding.

This is good, Thor had told himself. He too ought to understand what the sentence of Asgard's newest condemned criminal will entail.

"A would-be king should not be in a prison cell."

The voice behind him was hushed, but still pointed. It was like listening to someone test a newly honed knife. It made Thor turn around to stand with his back against one of the white walls, Mjolnir planted at his side. Loki stood at the other end of the tiny chamber, free of the chains that Thor knew had adorned him during his trial a day ago. He was still pale and thin, dressed in black as if scraps of the Void still clung to him. Green eyes fixed on blue, and both pairs were bright and unblinking, like planets opposing each other in the night sky.

Why are you here at all? Thor hoped Loki would not ask the obvious. He did not have an answer he could articulate. He did not really know why, as the first sign of sunrise was breathed into the sky, he had descended the gloomy stairwell that ordinarily only convicts and guards would touch. Why he had decided to spend this day with Loki, in his former younger brother's first day in Asgard's dungeon. He knew Odin did not approve, though Frigga did.

"A King mustn't bestow special attention to one prisoner, whether that attention is favourable or not – "

"Son, if you would just speak to each other this one time, before…"

Before what? Thor had wanted to ask. Loki was not sentenced to an execution. The only death now his ex-brother would face would be that of old age. It was oddly peaceful for one who caused as much destruction as Loki had.

"By would-be King do you refer to me or yourself?" Thor asked brusquely. "Though no longer do I care to ask why you fought for a throne so malevolently." He hefted Mjolnir slightly. "But I want to know how the trial went."

Loki began pacing calmly around the cell. His light footsteps left no echoes. "It was short, but longer than necessary. Odin bellowed, of course. Frigga apparently had to poke him towards condemning me here instead of to the axe."

Thor slowly twirled Mjolnir's handle in his palm. "You better not have been discourteous to Mother herself – "

"I save insolence for the All-father" Loki shrugged carelessly. "And he looked like he was too tired to take offence. Fit to fall into the Odinsleep right in the middle of my prosecution. How unfatherly of him."

In a dull gleam of silver, Mjolnir was raised a fraction higher.

"Well, you wanted to know how my trial went. If you don't like it when I tell the truth, you should just ask Odin instead."

After a second, Thor said, "Perhaps. You should know I'm not bound by duty to see you. I have other things to fill my time."

"Ah, of course, it's silly of me to forget. You currently have Nine Realms to pacify, and will soon have Nine Realms turning all their listening ears towards you." Loki's mouth lifted into a smile that made him look hollow. "Or were you just referring to Jane?"

Sensing rising bitterness, Thor narrowed his eyes. The image of Jane gazing at the stars of Yggdrasil by a campfire flitted behind his eyes. The same protectiveness he had felt for her when fighting Loki on the Bifrost was mounting in his chest in response.

"Jane never occupied my time by devastating other worlds so that I must chase her down. She knows how to admire great things without yearning to subjugate them, despite being a lowly, short-lived mortal whom you think yourself above."

The empty smile lingered, unaffected, like someone's forgotten gravestone.

"Hm. That reminds me. Just how will you overcome that gap in time between you both, she being so short-lived?"

Thor automatically tightened his jaw, though it did not really help ward off the ache of the bruise in his chest. "That is really none of your concern now, Loki. You forfeited any right to know such things when you attacked her home realm."

"So I take it you have no right to know the comings and goings of Jotunheim during your rule?"

Thor glared. The memory again drifted past of Jane staring at him from the fireside, questioning him about the Nine Worlds. How fevered she became in the pursuit of knowledge. He said steadily, "No matter how long Jane lives, she could still make a better difference than you did to these realms."

Like heartbeats in a ribcage, their voices reverberated softly in the bare room. Thor felt a measure of grim satisfaction when Loki looked away, at the flickering gold-red wall, like he was casually checking if the view outside had anything new to offer. But the view would never change, and the satisfaction deflated somewhat as Thor watched Loki slowly let go of a silent, tense breath. With a slight curdling of shame, Thor suddenly thought of Frigga's concerned face.

Once Thor left that dungeon, nothing would ever change there for Loki, and Loki would not cause any more change, whether for better or worse. He would not see the sky, be warmed by the sun, be touched by the rain, nor hear a thunderstorm again. Eventually, Loki would lose interest in counting the time that passed him by, and Thor thought again how, whether he liked it or not, he was determined to spend one full day there with Loki, from dawn until night. If only it were something that would gladden Frigga, Thor resolved the rest of the day with his brother (ex-brother only, remember that) would not simmer in more sourness. Loki would have the rest of eternity to sulk alone as he saw fit.

Loki was turning his back to Thor to crouch by the colourful stack of books in the corner, brushing a careful finger along each spine. There was no doubt Frigga had organised for them to be delivered, and Thor wondered which ones she had chosen. He wondered briefly if any of the childhood stories he and Loki used to read together were there.

"What was the last thing she said to you?" Thor asked, more quietly. He watched his brother (he is just Loki, Loki only – ) pause for the faintest second in his inspection, before standing to turn around with another smile, flat like that ocean seen from a distance. The thought of Frigga was suspended in the air between them. Loki would know Thor was no longer referring to Jane.

"Please, don't make this worse."

Indignation at this request made Thor huff a short scoff, temporarily forgetting his recent resolution. "Of all things that you, of all people, can ask for, that – "

Loki tossed the book he had been holding onto the pile in the corner. "I am answering your question, idiot." He snapped. "She said to me before Odin sent her away from the trial, 'Please, don't make this worse.' If you suspect I'm fabricating this, ask her yourself instead of spending your time here with a prisoner who is only a waste of it."

Loki's eyes were now too sharp to meet head-on, so Thor watched his bony fists uncurl slowly, his thin knuckles standing out like scars. Thor took in a breath, but what to say next did not come to him.

He picked up the tattered novel bound in red that his brother (not-brother) had tossed onto the heap, trying to ignore how Loki's eyebrows now crumpled at him for touching his books. Something Thor would not have normally bothered doing, had their fates been radically different from what they were now (if you and he were brothers, you mean, and things were back to before he fell – )

Tales From Worlds Above and Below was a title Thor had not read in an age, but when he mouthed it, the words fell away easily, like they had been waiting.

The pages were velvety with time, and in that little nook inside the opened book, Thor was a child again, in the palace libraries and fingering the bedtime stories that Mother had begun reading each night to he and his little brother. Loki must be somewhere close by with his own thicker novel and waiting to walk with him to wherever next they wanted.

And perhaps, he would think, Loki could get Mother to read us another story tonight.

As he carefully thumbed through the oldest memories, there fell a break between the sheaf of pages, as if someone had bookmarked their favourite legend.

Something sat between the first two pages of the last tale. A folded paper note, aged to the softness of a timid child's smile, and its insides etched with a faded script. Thor recognised the way Loki used to give his capital letters a tiny flourish. He looked up across the cell at Loki, who now had his back to him again and seemed to be organising the books into categories. He pictured this adult version of Loki writing a tiny letter like this.

But he would do no such thing now. Not when this Loki had written more with spilled blood in the past year in place of ink. Thor could only see a small, dark-haired boy with familiar eyes, scrawling with a pen too large for his tiny hands, his forehead creased in concentration. A warm, childish relic like this should crumble to cold ash.

Thor had never seen this note before, though Loki must have tucked it there centuries ago.

Brother, Loki had begun back then.

The note was simple and innocent, just an everyday message from his little brother (still not brother, you say so yourself that you do not think he's really there anymore…). It said something about Mother, something about not reading enough, something naïve that Thor couldn't quite read properly, because it was too faded – Loki's writing had been too light, and too much time had slipped between them.

Thor refolded the leaf of paper along the same creases that Loki had created an age ago in a day when he had wanted Thor to find this message. He hesitated for a moment, before placing the note inside his pocket.

"What do you have there?"

Thor glanced across the chamber, seeing Loki watching his hand that held the note. His eyes looked so worldly and piercing, they could be shards of the mirror Yggdrasil admires itself in (look how much he's changed, you're former brother is – )

"Nothing" Thor inwardly grimaced at the weakness of the lie.

Loki's hard gaze hit Thor's like a punch, and he wondered if Loki would try physically wrenching it from him.

"It was in the book you were holding" Loki said, scrutiny not wavering. "…Did Mother place it there for me?" Then Thor saw a twist of something sad behind the mirror shards, like shadowy creatures swimming below the surface of a clear lake. "Why are you taking it?"

("It's too late. It's too late to stop it"

"No. We can. Together"

"…Sentiment")

"Sentiment" Thor said. "It's an old remnant of my childhood, and Mother was not the one to place it there. It really was not intended for you" he added, somewhat proud he could say this like it was not a lie. He half-hoped Loki would not ask what was on the slip of paper, and fully expected that he would. But to his surprise, after a palpable moment, "of course" was all Loki said. (See, now, even he himself will not revisit a forgotten past – )

Or Loki maybe recognised what the scrap of paper was now. Thor watched him eye Tales From Worlds Above and Below for a while longer, but not harshly. Maybe Loki even wanted him to keep it. The little message finally delivered.

(Don't be silly…)

Night must have fallen by now.

Thor never knew beforehand that the lights in the dungeon chambers were dimmed every twelve hours, matching the patterns of the outer world. In Loki's cell, all the colours were melting into shadow, except for the ever-burning orange pane of energy, a weak substitute for the setting sun. Perhaps, Thor thought, this reminded the inhabitants of the days they were missing.

In the past few hours after pocketing the note, his and Loki's voices had eventually risen again, crowding the tiny room, blistering through innumerable arguments and memories. Like old wounds being picked open one by one, until blood flowed without reserve, until it ran dry. The sound of New York skyscrapers splintering like bones had ricocheted down the dungeon corridor. Jane's gravestone had sat on the periphery of Thor's vision. Frigga's hands were still gently turning the pages of the old books that occupied the corner.

Now, Thor was almost used to the way the chamber made each word echo. His eyes were indifferent to the barrenness whiteness of the walls. As if he and Loki had simply spent a day arguing in Asgard above ground, and this was really Loki's own bedroom if they simply peered close enough.

Now, the fully-fledged nightfall was noiseless. Thor sat by one of the hard walls, which felt like an uncomfortable slab of chilled marble against his back, his cape strewn over the floor around him. Loki was settled on the edge of the bed at the other end of the cell, the darkness masking him so all Thor could make out of his brother's face (Not your brother, he – ) were two black hollows for eyes and a dark blade where his nose cast a shadow.

When Loki broke the silence, Thor could not see his mouth moving in the dark, so it was like hearing a statue speak.

"I haven't yet asked, and you still haven't told me."

Thor still did not have a ready answer for the question he knew was next:

"Why are you here?"

Loki paused, before also asking, "Did Mother tell you to come?"

"She approves." Thor answered shortly. There was a beat as Loki, still motionless, waited for elaboration. "But I chose." He saw the statue turn its head faintly. He could not tell if it was towards or away from him.

"Don't ask me why, Loki," he continued. "Half your adulthood was already spent questioning why I did things without thinking."

"The other half was spent trying to clean up the resulting mess."

"And whose clutter did I have to clean up on Midgard?" Thor narrowed his eyes at the gloom.

Loki ignored the rhetorical question. "And all of childhood was spent trying to do the same." He said, "It never worked. You know I could never comprehend how you could do things the way you did."

There was a strange weight beneath the words I could never. After a while, Thor said to the shadows, "You always thought too much."

Quiet moments in a cell were suffocating. They were so full of their own isolation that they rang with it. Thor remembered how he and Loki as teenagers had been usually incapable of sitting together quietly for long. If Thor had felt too much time was passing without their voices interlaced in conversation, he would try badgering and teasing his little brother until they did. It was some kind of a waste, Thor had thought, to be in each other's company and yet not talk, when surely there was so much to talk about. It was only some centuries ago that Loki had laughed, "Brother, you should realise that silence does not mean distance, when I'm with you."

In the darkness, Mjolnir was starting to feel like a dull weight in his palm. Thor knew he was not really tired when a heaviness started to settle on his shoulders.

"I take it your standing up means you're leaving now."

Thor looked down at the silhouette sitting at the edge of the bed. The light from the red-gold wall barely touched it. (It is time to leave now)

"The Allfather, the Queen and I have things we must attend to." Thor thought the little room still felt strangely suffocating, despite hearing a voice fill it.

To exit the cell, all he had to do was step through the barrier of energy. After Loki's trial, Frigga had told Thor he had been assigned to a chamber that would allow Thor to pass through the barrier as he wished.

He turned his back to leave.

"Thor?"

Behind him, Loki's voice sounded smaller in the dark. Briefly, Thor pictured a familiar, dark-haired child faltering behind him. He blinked the thought away. Fixed on him were two soft green circles visible as he peered over his shoulder (not soft, don't think like that again – ).

"What is it now, Loki?" He cooled his voice, in case his brother should simply decide to slip in a parting venomous comment.

"...Good night, Thor."

It was never his strong point, but Thor tried to stop any hint of surprise from surfacing. Loki was really saying 'goodbye', he realised. Neither of them could rightly say how long it would be before seeing the other again.

His heart suddenly feeling worn, Thor stood there for a few seconds, wordless. His expression was hidden by shadow, so he knew it must eventually appear to Loki that he planned to depart in calm silence. More than likely Loki already expected that.

But eventually, to even Thor's surprise:

"Good night, Loki... Sleep well."

He did not mean for his voice to soften quite so much when he added those last two words.

(Goodbye, Loki. Become used to this)

Thor dragged in a thick, heavy breath. ( – You are not losing anything by leaving this place, you know this, it's not as if a part of your heart is being put away…)

And I have other things to fill my time, don't I?

Just before he left, he thought he had heard Loki say something else. Just one more word after their day of many, but it was too quiet to pass as truly real.

For a moment, he thought he had heard the word "Brother"

Thor tried to make himself wish he hadn't heard anything, as he locked Loki away for good.