Because Sif Needs a Good Brain Melting

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Thor left Odin's chambers feeling as if he had been punched in the gut. Worse than that, actually. A simple punch could take a man's breath away, but he'd be able to steady himself quickly and continue to fight. The reality that his father had laid upon him still had him reeling, feeling as if his heart had become unsteady and his lungs had forgotten how to hold air.

Odin had tried to warn him, had asked him three times if he was certain he wanted the full truth. And while Thor was glad that he had stood his ground and maintained his angry demand to know what it was that had driven his brother over the edge... it didn't make things any easier on the other side.

I'm not your brother. I never was.

It had hurt then. Now it had become a sensation suspiciously like agony, because he had some small sense of what had been running through his brother's mind.

And even in the space of his own head, Thor refused to call Loki anything but brother. Even now.

He made his way to the common room they had all often shared after battles or adventures, not because he was seeking out company, but because his feet carried him that way. It was a place of happiness and comfort. But it was still no small relief when he looked inside and discovered it empty. He loved his friends, but now was the time for thinking, something he had always left to Loki before. Only now, he needed to learn to chew things over on his own, and it was a difficult, unpleasant task.

He walked over to the firepit and sat at its edge, arms propped on his knees, hands loose.

This was the time that Loki would come walking softly up and ask what troubled him, he told himself. This was when his brother would fill his head with words and all sorts of queer notions, and whether it turned out to be a trick or a genuine idea, either way it would be interesting. Any time now, there would be the swish of a heavy cloak, the creak of leather boots as Loki sat next to him...

Aside from the crackle of the fire, there was only silence. And, Thor told himself sternly, there would only ever be that silence from now on.

He put his face in his hands.