The first few days, Loki wasn't even entirely sure Thor was serious. I mean, really. Sticking him in a cell while he was still convalescing from the impalement? That was just plain rude! He could barely stand, let alone maneuver around a cell.
At first, he could amuse himself by irritating the healers who came to tend to his wound. Screaming in agony while not really in any pain at all, making it look like he'd somehow defied their orders, and begun walking around, when he was still technically too weak to even sit up, criticizing their work, although he couldn't do any better himself, and they both knew it. Things like that kept him from going entirely insane with tedium.
After they left for the last time, it was far quieter, far more maddening. The guards paced their rounds, and that was the only difference in scenery. He stumbled around in endless circles for days, not daring to touch the very last shipment of books Frig – his mother had sent him, for fear of breaking down in grief, and humiliating himself.
He already got that enough from the nightmares. Waking up in the middle of the night in a panic, heart racing as you're drenched in sweat is never a good thing. Think how much worse it would be, if you had Einherjar laughing at you for being a "weak, pampered little princeling," and threatening all sorts of horrible things to you to show you what real pain felt like.
About two weeks after the healers had departed, Loki began to wonder if Thor had any intentions of paying him another visit, now that he'd proved he could do something right, and had almost sacrificed his life in doing so. He'd saved his mortal wench, after all. That had to count for something in the Thunderer's mind, right?
Still, the window to freedom remained brother-less.
Perhaps he was busy rebuilding, or something. Then again, a tiny seed of doubt planted itself in Loki's mind, when he recalled that Thor hadn't come to visit him, before until he had use of Loki. Maybe… that had been the last he'd seen of Thor?
No.
It couldn't be.
Thor wouldn't give up on him.
(That hope no longer exists to protect you.)
Right?
Two months rolled by, and the Einherjar began standing before his cell, and taunting him as a fallen princeling and a monster. He tried to pretend it hurt less than it did, and finally buried his mind in the books to drown out the taunts.
Frigga had written little notes in the margins, and had highlighted bits she thought he might find interesting, and he had to read with his back to the screen, or else they would see his tears.
The cell was intended to weaken his sedir, and after six months, he wasn't even able to uphold a glamour, anymore. Not even the one that concealed his true skin.
At that point, the guards stopped taunting him, and simply stared in horror.
He didn't know which was worse. He didn't notice when they stopped bothering to bring him food, only when the hunger pangs began, and his queries as to where his meals had been delayed to were met with laughter. Once, one of them informed him that in order to obtain food, he must first become a species that deserved it. He never asked again.
After two months of ignoring his reflection, that would be nine months after the elvish invasion, he accidentally caught full sight of his face in the mirror. He was hideous, and it brought back too many memories, so he smashed the mirror on the floor.
No one replaced it, like the last time.
No one even swept it up, and the shards of glass lay on the floor, until Loki used his hands (he had no broom, and the shards lodged themselves in his fingers) to sweep it into a tidy corner.
At ten months, the hunger had dulled to a constant ache he could easily ignore, unless he was asleep, when his mind cheerfully supplied him with visions of candies, and roast beef, and warm, plump peaches. At least it was better than the nightmares.
Then again, the guards basically never even showed up, anymore, and when they did, they only spared him a glance.
Only a glance.
Why couldn't someone acknowledge his existence? Had those up on top entirely given up on him? Did Thor even remember him?
Was Thor real?
Of course Thor was real. He was a fool to doubt the existence of the golden prince. Surely his mind hadn't conjured up his life before.
…Right?
One year, and he realized he was sleeping more than awake. Again, (Or, maybe, still?) he was too weak to walk, and lay limply in his bed, his eyes glazed as he attempted to piece reality from the fiction his brain had made. He'd always had an overactive imagination, and now it was backfiring on him.
What was he in here for, again?
The silence was driving him mad, but he had not the strength to break it himself, so he simply lay there, in desperate need of a wash, thinner than he had realized a person could even be, and wondered if the voices outside his cell were his imagination.
At eighteen months, he fell asleep.
Then, and only then, did Thor come down to see him.
At first, the Thunderer thought him dead, and, heart in his mouth, rushed to find his weak, erratic pulse.
He lived, but only barely.
Loki had not been forgotten. Far from it, actually. Thor had been trying to find every excuse to let their father allow him back. He was forbidden from visiting, under threat of disownment, but the very moment he had been crowned king, and Odin had stepped down for a nice, long vacation in Vanaheim, Thor had rushed to the dungeons to find his baby brother.
His baby brother, who was alive.
Whose heart was beating.
Who, one day, would awake, and Thor would beg his forgiveness.
I don't even know, I was just tired.
TheOnlyHuman.