Our Brothers

Sam Winchester had met angels and demons and everything in between. He had died and come back to life. He had relived the same day over a hundred damn times. He had endured shootouts, been attacked by a possessed lamp, and been forced to watch four freaking hours of Doctor Sexy, M.D with Dean's running commentary. In summary, Sam Winchester had survived a lot of horrible, soul-crushing and miserable situations. And he liked to think that he had come out of them okay, a better hunter, if not necessarily a better person.

Sam Winchester had heard a lot about destiny. All his life he had listened to his father preach about it. His teenage years had been focused on bucking that fate and going his own way, forcing himself into a life that had never really been his to begin with and out of a life that would eventually reach its slimy tentacles out and suck him right back in. And these past few years with Dean, well that was all about destiny. Fate and death and stupid goddamn loyalty. And yeah, Sam had made some pretty stupid-ass decisions these past few years. Decisions he regretted.

But somehow he didn't really think pushing a mop through a cell block in an alternate reality was really a fitting punishment for his crimes. Yes, it was boring and tedious and made his mind wander onto grandiose topics such as crime and punishment and fate and destiny, but somehow it just seemed… anticlimactic. How the hell had he gone from being 'Sam Winchester: that guy destined to be the Devil's meat-suit' to 'Sam Winchester: that guy destined to push a mop in S.H.I.E.L.D's prison block for all eternity'? Oh wait, right, he tangled with the Trickster. While Dean wasn't around. Man, his brother was going to kill him after he got out of this reality.

Running a hand down his face and wondering how the Trickster hand managed to find a universe in which the Avengers was a real thing, Sam picked up his bucket and walked down the stainless steel corridor. The sound of a voice whistling the tune to 'Cellblock Tango' from the musical 'Chicago' caught his attention. Slowing to a stop, Sam peered into the dark recesses of a high-security cell. It had been empty the day before… but this was S.H.I.E.L.D., and they were in the middle of an alien invasion. No cell stayed empty long.

For a strange moment, Sam thought the cell really was empty and the cleaning chemicals had addled his brain. Then out of the shadows a pale, deathly white face materialized in front of him. Despite his years dealing with the bizarre, strange and downright freakish, Sam still squeaked like a girl and jumped a foot backward. The pale, empty eyes in that paper-white face crinkled at the corners as the pale man's mouth curled into a sneering smile. A dry, raspy chuckle trickled from his lips as he regarded the Winchester sprawled on the floor.

"Have they brought me a new toy?" the man; or perhaps 'the alien' was more accurate. Sam knew that here, like back home, nothing was as it seemed.

"Uh, hi," for lack of a better plan, Sam decided being straightforward was the best idea, "I'm Sam Winchester. I'm the janitor."

The pale not-man looked bored, "I am Loki and you are not very interesting." There was a pause as the two regarded each other. Loki broke the silence suddenly, "And you are a terrible liar, Sam Winchester. Perhaps you will be more interesting than I thought."

Sam sighed. He hated, hated, hated omnipotent, omniscient beings. Especially ones named Loki. A Loki had gotten him stranded here, after all. But he decided to play the game anyway, sitting up and crossing his legs he said, "I have secrets, what's your excuse?"

Another dry chuckle spilled from Loki's narrow, pale lips. "I have no secrets. I'm an open book, can't you see?" he waggled his dark eyebrows in a way eerily reminiscent of the Loki back home.

Sam tipped his head to the side and regarded the alien before him. "No, I've heard about you. And there is a lot you're not telling anyone."

"And how have you heard of me?" Loki asked with a nod of his dark-haired head and a grandiose hand-flourish.

Sam shrugged, "Agents talk. Avengers talk. You know, I'm that guy in the movie. The one who's there to make the crow scenes seem bigger and to make the background interesting."

"And what does that mean?" Loki asked with an indulgent sneer.

"That I know everything," Sam informed him, voice matter-of-fact.

"And what do you know janitor-boy?" Loki asked, voice sing-song and vaguely bored.

Sam shrugged and met Loki's eyes for the first time. Speaking clearly, staring into those dark, bottomless voids, enunciating every word, Sam declared, "You're not a bad person."

"How would you know?" Loki challenged, a tiny smirk twisting the corners of his mouth upwards.

Looking away, up and off into the distance, not really seeing the alien before him, instead watching a black Chevy Impala in his mind's eye as it drove away, Sam answered honestly, "Because we're alike. Both fighting to be good."

Loki pulled back slightly, smirk dropping from his face like a shed snakeskin. His expression closed off, everything about it speaking of a creature drawing back in on itself. "For what reason?" he asked, voice chill.

"Our brothers," Sam told him simply, more certain of this answer than he had been of anything else in his life.

Loki said nothing. He stood there, a dark shape accented only by his own pale face in the glass, watching as Sam slowly stood, gathered up his cleaning materials and walked away. Sam was whistling 'Cellblock Tango'.

A tiny smile twitched at the corner of Loki's face as if not quite sure if it was welcome there anymore. And for some reason that stupid human song 'Carry On My Wayward Son' was stuck in his head. Growling in frustration, Loki slammed a fist against the glass, hand going flat so his palm rested against the cool surface at the last second. The gesture didn't even make a sound. The barrier didn't shiver. Nothing moved in this place. Except for Loki. A tiny, jagged something in the center of his being shifted ever so slightly back to where it had been years ago in Asgard, when he was still just Odin's wayward son.

Damn these humans. Loki didn't want to feel.

Author's Note: So, I love Loki, and Supernatural plus Avengers-verse is amazing. Basically this fic came into being because someone awesome on Facebook posted something about a conversation between Loki and Sam Winchester and I felt the need to make a ficlet. So, here it is. I hope no one is too OOC, I tried to keep it all in character…

Anywho, please REVIEW! I want to hear from people!