Minor warning: Though this is mostly innocent, Thor does have a few somewhat inappropriate thoughts about his extremely underage brother, just so you know. This is adult Thor with the brought back from Hel child Loki of mcu.

2.

A thousand Halloweens since then, a thousand and more late October nights, passing, storing up memories like the leaves against the sidewalk. Those memories of the early Halloweens clinging, precious dusted ivy in the mind, sparkling with the sheen of childhood in all its glimmering colour, as real as a movie captured in the mind.

A thousand tricks, a thousand treats, Loki remembered the one more, Thor the other. Over the years the tricks had taken over and the memory of candied treats had become a poisoned dream on the god of evil's tongue.

And then he had died and Thor, always so persistent, so unwilling to let him go, had brought him back. The adult brain in the child Loki was now remembered, remembered things a child should not as well, but with new eyes he revelled in the colour of the burnished gold and red of the year, smelled toffee apple and cider with a new nose to delight, heard the chatter of the children on Midgard as they stopped pretending to be anything other than the demon that lurked inside.

Loki watched and smiled, thinking of the parents who indulged all they saw of a time of pretence and make believe, never knowing that their children were never more real than they were on this night. Sometimes, on the edge of the brain the god of evil perked his head up again, determined to throw sour apples into the chain of thought. But the boy was strong and he kept him at bay.

The boy was strong enough to become what he wanted to be, and if there was one thing he was good at it was pretending, pretending to be what he saw himself as until it became the only truth. He remembered and with the remembering came an eagerness that took him from his position of watchfulness to the banquet hall of Asgard, where the warriors celebrated the season in the style that had suited them for millennia.

Thor felt old, watching it, older than he ever had; a feeling that had been creeping up on him more and more with Loki's return in this form. He had thought for so long that Loki had only ever remained that child that he had forgotten, unimagined, how strange it could be to have him back like this. So many thoughts he needed to push so fiercely own, so many times he caught Loki watching him with crafty eyes that remembered the acts of a body both his own and no longer his own. He stood in the shadows of the great hall and watched as though from far away until it seemed one of the shadows spoke to him;

"This is my spot" it said and he started to see Loki looking up at him with impish eyes and a trick-or-treat grin.

"Loki" he breathed out from the startled jump he manfully restrained himself from – "What are you doing here."

"Apparently, brother, you have forgotten what day it is" Loki chirped – "I had to come and enlighten you."

"Of course I had not forgotten! One does not forget All Hallows eve."

"No but apparently you've forgotten something much more fun." He paused, waiting for Thor not to catch on –

"Halloween? The Midgardian plague of candy and pumpkins? Extortion and threatening strangers?"

"Loki –" Thor scowled as he worked this through in his head – "Are you trying to ask me to take you trick of treating?"

"I thought you might accompany me, not take me. I'm not a kid Thor."

"Yes you are and I am too old for such games."

"No you're not" Loki wailed – "Please brother? It's no fun on my own, there's such a fine line between creepy and creepy. Come on –" he produced a plastic pumpkin bowl - Thor could only wonder from where – and waved it in Thor's face – "See brother? The carven squash!"

Thor looked down at the eager, earnest little face, that remembered so well and treasured so plainly the memory, looked into the bright glittering eyes and upturned smile and laughed, incapable of denying such a face.

"Oh very well" he sighed, tolerantly – "Get a costume though or we will not look strange."

"You always look strange" Loki stuck his tongue out and with a bang and cloud of smoke for effect appeared before Thor dressed as a werewolf with oversized paws –

"Remember?" He asked and Thor smiled, not without a slight pang to the heart for the children they had been. He clapped Loki on the shoulder and it was all Loki could do to keep from falling over before he led Thor almost skipping over the rainbow bridge in excitement.

Thor meant to hang back at a discreet distance whilst Loki proffered his receptacle at strangers in the singular Midgardian manner of the season, but he found himself remembering, almost as though this ritual were a magic of its own in this season of magic, a spell that made him a child again even without a change of form and he hung close behind Loki, being often mistaken for a parent. On hearing Loki so frequently and with such unhidden pride correct them and introduce him as his brother his heart, so often sore these days, swelled with a love it could and could not name.

Some hundred houses, some half hundred treats, so many altercations as to acceptable tricks ("No Loki, decapitation is not an acceptable trick – no Loki you may not turn their cat into a horse – yes, of course we all love horses but the good people of Midgard have not the room for them in their homes – no Loki you may not make their houses bigger on the inside –" and so it went on.) Some hours later, with both Loki and his bowl full of candy they returned to Asgard, Loki alternately giggling and complaining that he felt sick. Those feet that yet remembered took them back to Thor's room, where Loki curled himself up solidly in Thor's lap in spite of all objection to pop candy into his face with sticky fingers. Somewhere in the midst of a lengthy, excitable and sleepy tirade he fell asleep heavily, head on Thor's chest.

Thor wished he could be half as comfortable as Loki seemed to be, but he kissed the dark head and held the little creature in his arms where he wished only to keep him until Ragnarok and beyond. Pale hands and dark hair and sweeties shone in the fire's glow and all of life and youth and worth were here and Thor felt it like the sweetest trick of all and ached for love and remembered.

And outside the wind blew promise and threats for the coming year, treats to be taken and tricks to be played, and the leaves piled up at the castle walls, russet and gold and burnished bronze, whispers of memories yet to be made and a golden, crackling happiness yet to come.

-x-

Quick note: this is un beta'd as my beta is as busy this week as I am (half term, too much work, moving house on Friday) – and also not insane like I am and trying to write fic at the same time. Therefore this is probably full of mistakes and I apologise, normal service will resume next week!

And that's the innocent chapters over. For your Halloween treat on Friday, teenage Loki will both trick and treat Thor in some truly wonderful ways. You're welcome. :-)

Also: HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :-)

As a gift please share this mental image I have of kid Loki dressed as a pumpkin with a little orange cap on his head. I nearly wrote it, but it was too cute not to share! :-)