Disclaimer: I don't own Thor, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to Marvel and their respective creators. I only own any original characters that I choose to include, as well as any original plot ideas.

Chapter 16: Chewing Bottles

The leaves had changed color, the air grown chill, and, once again, Loki found himself silently enduring the raucous noise caused by Thor and friends in the dining hall. At more than one point he had complained, received snide remarks that, if he didn't like it, he should just get up and leave. But he liked that idea far less, having slipped away into the room to get away from the lot of them in the first place. If anyone should have walked out, or have been kicked out the window as he would swear that Fandral had suggested, it should have been them.

His text on the history of the Nine Realms had since been found and repaired, though there was left a distinct hole through the front cover from where it had been hooked on a fishing pole not four days prior. Loki had purposely allowed it to stay so that, if the need ever came again, he could physically show Thor that his foolishness had a destructive pattern: Damaging his things.

Sif had glared at him for the majority of the hour, her dark eyes seeming to narrow further each time he chanced to look up. Clearly, Thor's pleading had done nothing to satisfy her temper, nor that of the others. Then again, Loki hadn't even bothered to apologize following their little spat in the garden. And, for good measure, he wouldn't. Save on very rare occasion, those saved only for his mother and brother, Loki wasn't a man to apologize for anything. Period.

The prince shut his book, placed it on the chair beside him as he leaned on an elbow, stared at Thor and Volstagg as they threw together plates of meat and insisted that Fandral give them a countdown with which to start their competition. The warrior's glove hit the table, and the two hovered above the dishes, scarfing down everything and anything that they had covered in gravy. Loki smirked, almost hoping that one of them would accidentally bite down on a chicken bone and bring the whole race to an abrupt halt. But they didn't stop, didn't seem the least bit fazed by the bones, and set about throwing them off to the side as they pressed on. One of Thor's skid across the table and landed in front of Loki, and he made a face and grabbed a napkin, taking the thing and wrapping it up with a mental note to properly throw it out later.

They didn't last five minutes before falling back into their chairs, groaning and shoving the plates away. Loki smiled and sidled up beside Thor.

"You know," he said, patting his brother on the arm, "If anyone ever dared to open the two of you up, all they'd find is meat."

The thunderer gagged and doubled over in his chair, caused Loki to jump up into his, and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Volstagg got to his feet and ran, faster than anyone would have guessed, to the window, leaned out, and vomited into the bushes below. Loki made a face, pinched his nose and sat on the side of the table as he scooted away. The servants hurried in through the doors then, each with a steaming bucket of water and rags as Fandral made a sound of absolute disgust and moved to the curved couches surrounding the fire pit to distance himself. Loki had never been particularly sympathetic to the plights of the palace help, but staring at the floor and seeing all the garbage Thor had shoved down his gullet, he immediately felt a pang of pity for the poor women who would have to clean that up.

Disgusting.

Almost instantly following the thought, Thor scurried away from the table with a glass of water, and slapped Volstagg on the back. He took half the liquid into his mouth before handing it to the warrior, sloshed it around in his mouth, and leaned over to spit out the window. Loki stuck out his tongue. Any sensible person knew that, after vomiting, you weren't supposed to just rinse your mouth out with water, but with ale or something that had enough bite to rid your tongue of the taste.

The bearded man followed Thor's example, and placed the glass back onto the table.

"We are never doing that again," he said, and Sif laughed loudly.

Loki stared at her, knew that if he'd mentioned anything of the sort, she'd have seen fit to correct him, if not clock him the way she so dearly wanted to. The trickster didn't see Thor skirt about the edge of the room, creep up behind him and clap a hand over his mouth. Loki squirmed, shouts muffled by Thor's fingers as the servants hurried back out of the room, leaving the floor clean and graced with a shocking scent of lemon. Still rather acidic, but preferable to that of partially digested meats.

"Who's up for another game?" Thor bellowed, and Loki managed to twist out of his grasp only to slip on the still wet floor.

He fell back, caught hold of the table by the tips of his fingers and pulled himself back up. The next rung down on the ladder, next to watching a man vomit, was to fall right where that not so lovely little collection had been. It didn't matter if the slab of floor had been polished with soap and crisp, clean sunshine for three days. Loki was not going to sit on it.

"No," Loki told him, standing straight again. "You are not playing another round, Thor."

From across the room, Sif folded her arms and sneered at him, began to circle the table as though she could intimidate him.

"And who gave you the authority to decide?" she snapped, challenging him with her eyes. "Who died and made you king?"

Loki was prepared to give her a biting retort when Thor moved him off to the side, laid his hands flat on the table and stared back at the woman.

"There are no kings here," he said firmly, and her expression seemed to fade. "Only friends. And that is all there will ever be."

It was satisfying to hear Thor defend him, though unnecessary. He could hold his own, even with Sif. He wasn't the sobbing little coward he'd been as a child. Still, Loki bit his tongue and forced himself not to smile, nodded only as his brother turned to look to him for a sign of agreement.

"What game?" Loki asked, feeling anxiety pool in his gut. They would either end up outdoors to hunt down rabbits or pheasants, or sit around making stupid faces. Perhaps not the last one, but he couldn't think of anything else that Thor would insist they do. He was a very physical person, after all. "Not chasing butterflies, I wager."

Thor laughed, clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to send the trickster to the floor. "Drink and be merry!"

# - # - # - #

The bottles had been brought out nearly three hours before, and now lay scattered across the table and rolling about on the floor, even falling from hands as they hung limp in their seats. His brother hated things like this, which was exactly why Thor had proposed it. Loki needed to calm down for once, thoroughly enjoy himself and forget about all the cares of the world. They were still young, had their whole lives ahead of them, and he needed to learn that before he ended up a stiff old man with a huge chip on his shoulder. Though Loki had protested, Thor had won out, and now smiled lazily at his brother who lay wide-eyed and dazed on the few steps that led to the balcony.

He didn't bother to glance at the others, for they were giggling among themselves, hiccuping and speaking in ways that didn't make even the slightest bit of sense. Fandral said something about his horse, which easily turned into a snort and a comment about how he had nearly fallen off the roof of the palace an hour before. Clearly, the blond man had not simply had a few drinks. He had taken the liberty of completely marinatinghimself in liquor. Sif was loud and happy as a woman her age ought to have been, and had not a thought in her head as she snickered at everything the others said. Volstagg slumped over and tried to grab an apple from the basket, missing the whole thing by wide margins each time. And Hogun, strangely enough, had a ridiculous smile plastered to his usually stoic face.

They all laughed, slapped each other and teetered to the floor, shouting that they could be run over by a band of horses and not feel a damn thing.

Thor smiled, knelt on the floor beside his brother who had somehow managed to remove one of his bracers and grind his teeth into the leather. He blinked several times, eyes unfocused though Thor sat only a foot away, and stared at him with a heavy rose color on his pale face. Loki groaned.

"Do you hear them?" he said, and Thor frowned.

"Them?"

Loki nodded slowly, and the thunderer thought that he might actually fall through the floor. "The birds," his brother told him, as though Thor were crazy for not knowing what he was talking about. "Don't you hear them singing?"

Thor laughed loudly, the sort of laugh that would have been labeled as easily disturbing were the lot of them not incredibly drunk.

"You are the only man who can conjure the sound of birds in his head when drunk."

The trickster frowned, tried several times to sit up before giving in and lying back down. "What the hell is wrong with me?"

Thor snorted. "You're drunk." He smiled, stretched his hands out in front of him for fear that he might topple over. "Although, with the way you are, no one can quite know what really goes on in that rat maze of your brain, Brother."

He stopped, tried to steady himself and realized that what he had just said didn't make any sense at all.

Leaning forward, Thor's forehead touched the floor and he spread out, felt his brother's fingers curl into his hair and pull. Probably a bit of simple payback for calling his brain a rat maze. They hadn't fought at all, Loki and their friends. They'd actually managed to sit at table with one another for hours now, play by the rules of his silly game and actually enjoy themselves without even a thought of past wrongs. That was good enough for now, but Thor would have to do better the next time. Ensure that they kept on that way and forgave each other.

Loki tugged on his hair again, but he did nothing, just let his cheek lay against the cool stone of the floor, and shut his eyes.

This was one day out of the rest of their lives, and if his plan was going to work, Thor knew he'd have to do better.