WHEN I WAKE UP

The weathered plateau on the clifftop is silent tonight, the ocean far below tranquil, and stars glimmer faintly against dark skies as Loki sits quiet and Thor sits beside him, wishing that the sun were not going to rise.

"I still resent you for it," Thor says. "I truly do."

Loki, running his fingers through the damp grass they're sitting on, glances sideways at Thor. "After all this time, brother, you're still hung up on that throne affair?"

He flashes a teasing smile, and Thor takes a moment, taking him in — the dark hair, the sharp edges of his very young face, the hint of mischief in his eyes that shine rather tired tonight.

"Had you been a tad more perceptive, I might not have usurped your throne, you know?" Loki's voice is light, but there's bitterness in his laughter, and he averts his gaze past the cliff's edge ahead of them, into the darkened horizon. "One day you'll get over it," he says. "Though I can't say I truly regret what I've done, you'll forgive me — you'll see — for all my mischief… and the chaos I've unleashed."

"No," Thor replies and watches Loki's smile falter. "No, that's not what I meant."

"It's not?"

"I don't care about the throne, Loki."

"No doubt."

"I don't… anymore."

Surveying Thor with unconcealed curiosity, Loki leans back on his elbows in the cool grass. He's wearing light armour tonight, though it's been years since their last battle together, and the Earth is at peace and the world back in order.

An order that is cold and painfully empty. Empty of chaos, and of mischief.

"Do tell," Loki murmurs, "what have you found this time to be angry with me for?"

"Your stunt with Thanos."

"Ah," Loki surmises. "That again."

"That again."

"It's been years, I hope you know, long enough that I've lost track of how much time has passed since."

"Two thousand six hundred and eight days."

Loki is silent for a moment, absorbing that. "Seven years...? Quite a while..."

"Mm-hmm," Thor agrees, glancing up at the moon. There are no clouds tonight above them, leaving to shine against dark skies the lights of stars that burned before.

Thor turns to Loki, a dull ache in his chest.

For a long while, silence stretches between them. Loki's expression is even as he regards Thor, but his eyes glisten achingly with things unspoken, words never said.

In the end, Loki smiles, tentatively. "I'm surprised you managed this far."

"I'm surprised too. At times, it feels as though—"

"I meant the counting, Thor."

"Oh."

Loki chuckles, and Thor cannot bring himself to play along and feign laughter.

Maybe he should, he realises while watching Loki's smile ebb, disheartened. Maybe he should have — in the past — laughed off the resentment, let it all pass. Let it all the fuck pass.

Holding back the impulse to squeeze his eyes shut against the sore mess — he's afraid to close his eyes and open them to a world that is empty — Thor lets out a long breath.

It doesn't matter anymore what he did or did not do. The smiles he returned, the ones dismissed. One way or another, it's too late to make amends.

"You shouldn't have done that, Loki — back when we were fighting Thanos — you never should have done it. It was reckless. Foolish."

"It was calculated."

"One hell of a calculation, and it worked out marvellously."

"Worked out accordingly," Loki cuts him off, and the words make Thor's heart clench. "Last I remember, had I acted differently, you'd have died at the hands of Thanos."

"And who died in my place?"

Loki, despite the accusing tone, does not retort. His mouth is pressed to a terse line; his gaze is fierce, his silence — suffocating.

He pulls himself to his feet, and steps closer to the edge of the cliff. "There's no pleasing you, is there?"

Another step, and the toes of his boots are just on the brink as he stares off into the darkened distance. Beyond him, the endless night sky blends into the ocean, the horizon faded, and from far below, at the foot of the steep cliff, the sound of waves shifts steadily, again and again, to a cadence that is almost hypnotic. Being here tonight feels like being at the end of the world — where all colour has run out and all words have lost meaning — and Loki is standing on the very edge of it, and should he miss a step, he'll fall.

He turns to face Thor, and though the chasm is gaping behind him, Loki looks unperturbed. Then again, he knows all about the edge, and the fall.

"It was never your place to protect me," Thor murmurs. "You're my younger brother, Loki. If anything—"

"Since when has that been a rule?" Loki shrugs in feigned indifference. "And if it were, would I abide by it?"

He smiles a bit, and a bit mischievously too, and Thor finds himself speaking the only truth he'd known for certain ever since—

"It should have been the other way around."

"That's a stupid thought, and you don't mean it."

I do. More than anything.

For a while, they are both silent, as Loki regards Thor and Thor regards Loki, calm and unafraid, standing on the brink of the abyss.

He seems younger than Thor recalled. Or perhaps it is Thor who has aged since that godforsaken day, while Loki— Thor rubs a hand over his brow and tries to push away the memory. At times, he wishes he could forget it all, wake up one morning and no longer remember. At times, he's afraid that he might. Details fading into forgetness, gradually and imperceptibly: the edge in Loki's smile, his laughter, his anger, the flicker in his eyes when he's fully unguarded.

I wish it were the other way around.

"It's a stupid thought," Loki repeats; his voice holds no hesitation.

He's surveying Thor attentively where he sits on the cold ground, and there's concern in his eyes, as though he understands Thor's yearning and finds it troubling.

"Tell me about Jane," Loki diverts the train of thought. "How is she?"

"She's fine."

"Still researching wormholes?"

"Still."

"Any… notable progress?"

"I… I'm not sure. I can't say I've been paying attention lately." And lately has been stretching out for a very long while. "I'm having trouble following her." … her and pretty much anyone and anything else, too.

"Well." Loki smiles. "I can't blame you for not keeping up with Jane. You weren't that science savvy to begin with."

That does make Thor smile, a little, and for the first time in years, he remembers how it felt laughing together.

"No, you're right," he admits, plucking a blade of grass from the ground before glancing back up at Loki. "That was your thing."

"Pretty much. I bet if you'd pair her up with me for a research session—"

"You'd drive her insane."

Loki chuckles at that. "I was going to say I'd be helping her make the next breakthrough."

"You're self-assured."

Lifting his chin slightly, Loki flashes a wide smile. "You doubt me, brother?"

"No."

The carefree smile looks good on Loki — Thor missed it; he missed it like hell — and yet his eyes glitter tiredly, and he is very pale, as if all colour is fading, not only from his complexion but from everything else about him too. The break of dawn is moments away, the night sky getting lighter, the glimmer of stars fading into the new day that is upon them.

Thor wishes it need not come.

"Remember you had that phase as a kid, Loki," he finds himself asking, "when you were afraid of Frost Giants?"

"I don't see why you'd bring that up."

"And you feared a big bad Jotun would snatch you out of bed at night?"

Loki gives him a flat look, unamused, and Thor finds himself smiling at the memory, and at Loki's annoyance with it.

"How could you think a Jotun would fit under your bed, anyway?"

Reaching for the sheath on his left hip, Loki pulls out his dagger and studies it, calculating. "Should I challenge you to a duel to redeem my honour, dear brother?"

"And you would ask to stay in my room a while longer," Thor goes on, not minding Loki's empty threat, "because you were scared to return to yours?"

Glancing between his knife and Thor, Loki flashes a sharp smile. "Oh, you're up for a fight, aren't you?"

"And I never said no?"

"All right, where are you heading with this?"

Thor pulls himself to his feet, and steps closer to Loki and the verge of the cliff. "And you always stayed so long that we both fell asleep, and when I woke up in the morning, I would still find you there."

"And tease me about it."

"Yeah," Thor admits. "I did that a lot."

Standing so close to Loki, just within reach, Thor can almost hear his breath. His heartbeat, too. On and on and on, and around them, the world has gone very still. No movement, no sound, not a tremor of the air. Only Loki's steady breathing and the beat of his heart — of both their hearts, pulsing to the same rhythm, almost as one — in the quiet moments before dawn.

The night is calm; the stars still shine. It feels as though the minutes have ceased elapsing and time has come to rest in place. Thor wishes it could turn back.

Two or three minutes, or maybe seven years.

It could have all been so different.

"Can we pretend that's still a thing?" Thor asks.

His question makes Loki frown, rather mistrustful. "The sleepovers? Waking from your sweet dreams to find me dozing in your room?"

"One more time?"

"Why?"

Thor hunches his shoulders against a slight chill. Somehow, the air feels fully quiet and the silence empty and cold.

"Because it's been too long," he answers, and watches Loki blink with a start and his frown melt away in a single second. "And it's not gotten any easier."

"It will; you'll see." Loki's voice is steady, but there's sorrow in his tone, a muted note of it that Thor might have missed another time, and his eyes glisten achingly holding Thor's gaze. "I promise it will."

"And I wish…" Thor leans in, and buries his face in the side of Loki's neck, immersing himself in the imagined warmth.

"It will get easier," Loki assures him, and Thor feels Loki's hand on the back of his head, fingers tangling into his hair.

The touch is steadfast, yet somehow barely there, sliding into unreachable distance, like a memory of an embrace. Or the light of a star that burned before.

"You'll be all right, I promise," Loki says quietly.

"When I wake up, I wish," Thor murmurs, "you would still be here."