Alright. Here's where it gets dicey if you haven't read "Desperado." This anecdote is regarding an event that occurs toward the beginning of "Desperado," in which Sif visits Loki for the first time in prison following the events in the first "Thor" film. Enjoy!

Of Visitors and Time

Her footsteps had faded into oblivion some time ago—Loki wasn't sure how long a time, but, the more he thought about it, the further back in history it seemed. If he really concentrated, it felt like Sif had left him centuries ago. So he tried not to think too intently about it.

Instead, he clung to the memory of her voice. Her face, as beautiful as ever. (He could think things like that now, he reasoned, because he was—for all intents and purposes—a dead man with nothing left to lose.) He had even gotten to touch her. If only for a second. Her skin had been warm, and he refused to let himself forget what it had felt like.

With a sigh, he leaned his head back against the stone wall of his cell, memories of Sif dancing through his head and almost distracting him from the fact that he was in quite an undesirable situation. The dungeon smelled of damp and rot and excrement; the air was clammy enough to invite a chill into the deepest part of even his bones. But Sif had come to visit him, and, despite the hostility of their conversation, he let himself think in the solitude of his own mind that it had been wonderful to see her face.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, thinking about every detail of their encounter. It might have been well into the night before he remembered where he was and why. That felt like swallowing a large ice chunk.

All at once, he wasn't sure he would ever see Sif again. It struck him as odd that the idea sent him into a panic.

He harbored little love for most of the people against whom he had transgressed. As far as he was concerned, Odin and Thor both could pitch themselves off the Bifrost and into the untempered chaos of the galaxy before landing painfully in the realm of Hel, the lady of death. She would welcome them both gladly, and Loki would not even pretend to mourn. As to the Warriors Three…well, he despised them far less, though he hadn't ever missed any of them—nor did he think he ever would. Besides, he knew he could happily live the rest of his days without Volstagg's crude jokes (usually made at Loki's own expense). He certainly wouldn't miss any of the others—Frey, Njord, Bragi, Freyja, Idun, Rani, Heimdall, Sigyn… Actually, the thought of having Sigyn permanently removed from his life was entirely too enticing. If he died without ever seeing her simpering face again, he would at least die in peace.

He avoided thinking about the possibility that he may never again have the opportunity to talk to his mother. Yes, he reminded himself, she wasn't really his mother. But Frigga had never treated him as anything less than a son. As angry as he was with Odin, he simply couldn't loathe Frigga in the same way. And Sif…well, Sif was the only other person he could think of whose presence he feared losing forever.

It had never been clear to him why he cared about Sif in the slightest. She had somehow found a comfortable spot right under his skin—settled in there when she was a child and stayed there ever since. He would have resented anybody else for such a trick, but Sif was not anybody else.

Outside his cell, the guards changed. He wasn't sure if it was noon or midnight. Or possibly dawn or dusk. He had not been paying especially close attention to the rotation of the guards since Sif had visited, but she had come just after the dawn change. He remembered that much, at least.

As the new guard-on-duty circled past his cell while making his mandatory rounds, Loki cleared his throat. The guard turned to him. "Did you need something?"

Loki tried not to bristle at the utter lack of respect being shown to him. Prisoner or not, he was still a prince of Asgard. "I was just wondering if you've got the time," he said, quiet voice carrying through the empty stone corridor.

The guard hesitated. Once he had determined that disclosing the time to a prisoner wouldn't pose any serious danger, he replied, "We just started the midnight rotation."

"Thank you," Loki said, and the guard continued on his way with a curt nod.

Midnight.

Before he did anything else, Loki closed his eyes. He had always had a very accurate sense of directionality, and he hadn't needed a compass to figure out orientation since he was a child. This time, however, finding north was harder. Loki blamed it on the enchanted manacles that stripped him of his magic. After a minute or two, however, he found it. Once he knew which direction he was facing, he imagined the moon's trajectory across the night sky. Then, he opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling of the dungeon and imagining the moon that hung in the sky beyond it. After losing track of time so grievously today, he wanted to account for every minute that passed by following the moon's path and waiting for dawn guard change.

Midnight. How had it gotten to be so late? It certainly hadn't felt like so many hours had passed. He wasn't even tired.

He thought again of his conversation with Sif. It had happened so long ago. Loki didn't want to think of what it meant that he had quite literally spent his entire day thinking about a woman. With a derisive scoff, he imagined what Sigyn would say, had he daydreamed about her for as many hours. Likely something insipid and girlish. He could hear Sigyn's voice in his head: "Oh, Loki dear! How terribly charming of you! I too think about you all day long; sometimes, you even venture into my dreams. This is a sign, don't you see? We're meant for each other!" And she would smile in what she thought was a becoming manner, nearly swooning at the thought that her charming Loki had been thinking about her.

"Oh, I think about you, Sigyn," he muttered to himself. "Just not in the ways you'd hope."

Meanwhile, he hoped and prayed that Sif wouldn't suspect that she had ever been so heavily on his mind. He wasn't sure why, but he knew it would end badly if he let anything slip. He wasn't even sure what this "anything" was. It just seemed strangely imperative—it always had—that Sif never know that he actually cared about her.

He cared about her.

Quickly, before his mind ran away with that notion, he reminded himself not to read too much into it. She was his best friend—at least, she always had been. Of course he cared about her. She also happened to be strikingly beautiful. And perhaps they had shared a kiss or two in their tremendously long lifetimes. So what? There had always been some kind of extenuating circumstance. It wasn't like he cared about her. Yes, she sometimes stunned him with a word or stole the breath from his lungs with a glance. And was it so awful of him to have actually enjoyed their few kisses? The fraction of their touches that had been less than innocent? It wasn't like he was in lov—

Footsteps.

All at once, his careful train of thought fizzed into oblivion as he listened to the footfalls out in the hallway. Any hopes he had vanished almost instantly; the steps were far too heavy to belong to either Sif of Frigga. Instead, he knew exactly who was coming toward his cell, and the realization did nothing to improve his mood.

"Hello, brother."

Damn.

The hulking, blonde-headed figure of Thor stood outside his cell and interrupted Loki's peripheral vision. Loki continued to stare at the place on the ceiling where the moon would be, silently hating Thor and the fact that he had called him 'brother.' Perhaps, he thought, if I don't respond, the lout will go away.

He should have known better. "Are you well?" Thor asked, and Loki fought the urge to roll his eyes. Thor had never respected silence. Even if it was a delicate silence or a comfortable silence, Thor had always felt the need to inject his over-loud, boisterous voice. He saw silence as an invitation for noise—much like he saw peace as an opportunity for war. Such brutishness galled Loki.

"What are you looking at?"

Again, Loki didn't reply. He just ground his teeth subtly, his blood boiling more with ire the longer Thor stood outside his cell. Finally, Thor turned to go, and something occurred to Loki. While Thor would be leaving him alone, it might sting the oaf more if his "brother" spoke to him, but only as a shell of himself. So, Loki rasped out a response: "The moon."

Thor turned back, and Loki tried not to smirk cruelly. "Loki?" he asked. He sounded deeply disturbed by the pitiable sound of Loki's voice. To be fair, Loki mused, his voice really was quite weak. He hadn't been speaking since he had been dumped into the cell, and his talk with Sif earlier had worn his voice down significantly. But he had thrown in a little extra gravel for good measure.

"I am looking at the moon," Loki said again.

Thor followed his gaze. "Loki, I cannot see a thing."

Loki had expected no less and waved the matter away dully. After a long moment, Thor seemed to catch on, however, saying "Oh." Again, Loki narrowly avoided smirking at Thor's stupidity. It was moments like these when Loki wondered how he could have ever believed that someone like Thor was his brother at all. The contrast between them had always been undeniably stark.

When Thor turned away from his cell this time, Loki didn't say anything to stop him.

"Loki."

Damn it, Thor.

Loki looked away from the moon, not forgetting its position, in favor of fussing broodily with his manacles. It had taken him a little time to grow accustomed to having his hands shackled, but now, he had accepted that the enchanted chains were as much a part of him as his hair or his fingernails. Still; that didn't make them comfortable.

"Have they been good to you?" Thor asked, as though he was visiting Loki in a foreign palace. As if Loki was lying on a velvet chaise with some beautiful woman pouring wine into his goblet. Loki repeated the words in his head, the sound of them echoing contemptuously. Really, he wondered, how thick could Thor get?

He cocked an eyebrow at the man outside his cell, slathering sarcasm and disparagement onto the gesture.

"I just meant that—"

Loki rolled his eyes. He didn't want to hear it.

Thor sighed. "Loki, you must cease this stubbornness if you wish your trial to be swift." He spoke with authority, in a tone eerily similar to the one Odin used to adopt whenever Loki misbehaved. The sound of it sent an angry shudder down Loki's back. Before Thor could speak again, Loki looked back at the moon, repossessed by the desire for Thor to leave him in peace.

"Who else has spoken to you of the trial?"

Loki ground his teeth. Would the buffoon never cease to ask inane questions? Truthfully, nobody had spoken to Loki of his trial. Sif had been his only visitor, and they hadn't spoken of the trial at all. But, when Thor started baiting him with names, he inadvertently blinked at Sif's.

"What did she want?" Thor asked.

"Nothing!" Loki hissed. Inside him, everything spat at Thor for simply using Sif's name, much less for asking him to divulge details of their private conversation. Loki wasn't sure why he was being so defensive at the moment, but he nonetheless felt that even the most innocent of discourses between he and Sif were intensely personal and therefore none of Thor's business. Loki closed his eyes, reining in his ever-growing ire. "Why have you come?" he said wearily.

Thor hesitated—and, in that instant, Loki knew he wasn't being entirely truthful when he said, "I couldn't sleep."

Loki looked quizzically at him, inviting the real reason into their conversation, but all Thor said was "I—" and, a few seconds later, he was hurrying back out of the dungeon.

Loki scoffed, leaning his head back against the wall and once more finding the moon. "Imbecile," he muttered.

For several minutes, he sat like this, letting his hatred subside and crystalize, just like it had been doing since he was young. He felt his temper ebb, the searing sensation within him cooling. Except for one thing that refused to be locked away with everything else…

Why had he gotten so defensive when Thor had mentioned Sif?

Like he had been thinking before Thor had interrupted, it wasn't like he was in love with her. They were friends. That was all.

Through his rationality, some miniscule voice in the back of Loki's mind noted that, even if he had once loved her—even if he still did—there was no future for them. There never had been, really. Because, no matter his adopted status, Odin never would have allowed a woman like Sif to be with a Frost Giant. Even the Trickster himself couldn't refute that.

His grip tightened around his chains.

He hated Thor for mentioning Sif. For reminding him that he had no business speaking to her or looking at her or—Odin forbid it—caring about her. Everything he had ever done with Sif and around Sif had been nothing more than glorified infection. Playing together as children…those countless late nights walking back from the library…sparring in the training arena…cutting her hair…

He growled and yanked on his chains, furious. Immense anger tore at him again, and he hated Odin. Hated him for adopting him in the first place. For never quite treating him like a son. For lying to him for his whole life—letting him think he was worthy of the sun and the moon and a woman like Sif. Even within the simple bounds of friendship, Sif deserved better than a piece of Jotunn vermin. And, Loki mused darkly, all he deserved was the point of her glaive, deep in his back. Just like they'd done with all the other Frost Giants.