'I take from you your powers,' the Allfather commands, and there is a solemnity to him that is new and fills Thor with quiet unease.

'Why?' Thor asks, finger reflexively clenching at his side without the reassuring weight of Mjolnir.

'Because I fear you would use them for ill. Because I do not wish for any part of this decision to rest on you.'

'So you have decided?'

'I have.'

Odin looks so deeply grave that Thor is afraid to ask. If it had been anyone else, perhaps he would not have done; perhaps he would have remained content to find out the truth of the matter after the sentence had been served and protest was rendered useless. But he is to be king soon, and kings do not shirk their responsibilities. And it is Loki. It is his brother being sentenced and he does not think anything could be worse than the constant, itching worry.

He asks.

Odin tells him.

He screams.

—

He has every intention of telling Loki, but when he visits his brother in his tower cell, he finds the words wither on his tongue.

The last light of day is still bathing the room, and its golden light turns Loki into something ethereal and alien and Thor wants to keep him like this, always. Here and his and hopelessly beautiful. But no cage will hold Loki forever; he is a creature of air and aspirations, of darkness and dreams. Thor half expects to find his brother gone, slipped away like a shadow, every time he visits.

He'd entertained himself over the months with the idea that Loki chose to stay captive for him. The idea had been a comfort, but now it filled him with a desperate fear and sadness. He wants to ask Loki if he could escape, but he knows he wouldn't be able to hide his anguish if Loki said no. And then his brother would want to know why, and it is too cruel, too impossibly cruel to let Loki know what awaits him in the morning.

'Did you speak to Odin?' Loki asks, with no preamble. And then, almost immediately, 'is it my magic?'

'Perhaps. I do not know. Odin told me nothing.'

Disappointment blossoms like an angry bruise on Loki's face, before fading as he composes himself once more.

'I had thought it would be,' Loki says, his mouth a bitter twist. 'There are those who have counselled him to bind it since my birth.'

'Your magic has been a great help to us in the past,' Thor says emptily. In truth, he does not know if Loki will retain his powers after.

Loki merely curls his lip. They both know that the aid of Loki's magic before has little relevance now Loki has proven the extent of its risk. And Thor has nothing, no words of comfort. He rests his hands on Loki's slim shoulders, breathes in the faint, familiar smell of his brother and tries, desperately to fix this moment forever in his mind.

'I would free you if I could,' it is true. It was not true before this morning. It is urgently true now.

Loki turns into him, slender fingers skimming down his side, resting on his hip. He presses their bodies together, dips his head into Thor's neck. Despite everything, Thor knows that Loki trusts him, that he is perhaps the only person Loki does trust. And he is about to fail him.

'I am so sorry,' he says into his brother's soft, dark hair.

'It is done,' Loki's breath is warm across his skin, 'and there are few things that cannot be regained.'

Loki tilts his head to look at Thor, and his eyes sparkle with dark mischief.

'You are not afraid?'

'No.'

And it feels like something is breaking, feels like something is broken, something deep inside, and vital. He can't, he can't look at his brother, can't tell him that he should be afraid, should be terrified. Thor presses his eyes shut, holds Loki hopelessly against him, and kisses him, kisses him hard enough to bruise. This is it. This kiss will have to keep Thor's heart beating for the next thousand years, and it will notbe enough. Loki is the one, the onlyone, the only thing he knows.

Loki kisses Thor back impossibly gently, his lips as light as a promise.

It feels like dying.

'Brother, we will be together again, I swear it,' Loki's eyes are aglow with a faint fanaticism; he believes entirely in his words. 'Odin has not the strength to imprison me here forever; there is no earthly bind he can place upon my magic that I will not eventually break; and he cannot banish me, for I need not the help of Heimdall to navigate between the Nine Realms.'

True, true. Loki's words are all true, and Thor wishes they were not for then Loki might be punished in one of those ways and not in this. Not for the first time, Thor wishes that Loki were less like himself.

'I will not ask you to break your loyalty to the people of Asgard,' Loki murmurs sweetly, 'I shall find my own path home, and once Odin passes and the powers of king fall to you, there will be none alive with the strength to challenge me.'

True as well. And the horrifying thought comes to Thor that perhaps he is the reason for Loki's punishment. Perhaps Odin fears that once Thor is king, he will love Loki too dearly to restrain him, and Loki will not love Thor dearly enough to stop.

'Brother, do you love me?'

'I will love you until seas submerge all land, until darkness swallows the sun.'

'You did not love me enough to stop, on Midgard.'

'And you did not love me enough to leave me be.'

And, gods, perhaps this is a kindness. Perhaps this is a kindness to them both, a last ditch effort to prevent Thor from killing Loki or Loki from killing Thor.

'Thor,' Loki says, 'trust in me if not yourself. I will find you.'

He is wrong. He is wrong, and Thor does not have the strength to tell him that tomorrow it is not his magic that Odin intends to take, but his mind. That tomorrow evening, Loki will wake in a strange land, among strange people, knowing nothing more of his past than an infant.

'I know,' he says, instead.

Loki kisses him then, and Thor pulls him down onto the bed, loses himself in his brother's body, tries to commit every gasp, and sigh and moan to memory. He stays awake, long after his brother has fallen asleep, stroking his dark hair.

Thor wonders if he'll hunt down this stranger with Loki's face, wonders if their voices will sound alike, wonders if he'd cry out the same things if Thor fucked him.

It would be a pitiable substitution, without Loki's keenness or cunning or caprice.

He wonders if he would take it anyway, hopes Odin will hide his not-brother well enough that he will never have to find out.