(AN: To get to the funny stuff first, scroll down to the 1st break (after this one), go up a few lines, and look for "Snotra.")

To My Brother, Thor, Whom I Slept With:

Great Aunt Snotra's Funeral

"Cruelty?" Loki repeated incredulously, cutting him off. "You, who abandoned me on Svartalfheim after I saved your useless hide, and your precious Jane Foster – twice? And you speak to me of cruelty?"

He was snarling now, beyond reason and blinded by hurt as he continued his rant, hissing, "You, who sit there from your throne of righteous indignation, accusing me of deceit and cruelty! Oh no, brother," he cried, "you will not lay my so-called sins at my feet, when you could have known the truth all along, had you thought to take my body with you instead of leaving my corpse to rot – why are you laughing?"

Thor's shoulders were shaking in helpless mirth, but there was an undertone of hysteria to his laughter that kept Loki from killing him outright. With inordinate effort, he forced himself to harness his wrath and began to pace the length of the room, furiously waiting for the buffoon to cease his idiotic guffawing.

"Have you not been listening to yourself, cow?" Thor exclaimed when he could speak again. "Shouting at me over my lack of sentiment because I did not immediately construct a pyre and send you off properly, never mind that we were in the midst of battle?"

At the word 'sentiment,' Loki came to an abrupt halt, stiffening.

"You never held the remains of the dead in such high esteem before," Thor continued pointedly from behind him. "Or do you not remember Great Aunt Snotra's funeral?"

"Yes, I remember," Loki snapped without turning around, "and it's not sentiment, it's principle. Besides," he added in a derisive mutter, "Great Aunt Snotra always found reason to box our ears whenever she watched us as children."

He heard Thor burst into laughter again. This time, however, his brother's chuckling seemed to come from a place of genuine amusement rather than sorrow. "Indeed she did," he agreed, a smile in his voice, "which is why you sent her off to Valhalla with earlobes that stretched down to her knees."

"I thought it a vast improvement," Loki sniffed, wholly unapologetic. "It distracted the eye from her face."

He was trying his best to stay angry, but the rage that had set his blood to boiling had started to dampen, and a faint smile touched his mouth as he remembered that night…

Thor and he, no more than six or seven years old, standing in the crowd with their parents as the flaming pyre slipped over the edge of Franang's Falls. Each boy was determined to outdo the other in looking as mournful as possible, all the while trying to contain their sniggers whenever someone commented about the unusual flesh-colored bow that had been tied under Great-Aunt Snotra's chin.

"She was truly a credit to her name," one pompous dignitary remarked, dabbing at his eyes, "for whom better than the Goddess of Prudence to go to her eternal rest with naught but a modest ribbon about her neck?"

"Behave!" Frigga whispered sharply when a strangled snort escaped Thor, then glared warning daggers at Loki, who was turning purple in his efforts to stifle his own laughter.

The truth behind Great Aunt Snotra's curious funeral trimmings came to light later that evening. Both princes were thrashed soundly and sent to bed without supper, whereupon (at his brother's suggestion) Loki began trying to grow a second nose on Thor's face – practice, Thor explained, for any other upcoming funerals for relatives they did not particularly like. Loki was fairly successful at casting the spell, and laughed until he cried when Thor stuck drawing pencils up all three nostrils and proceeded to chase him around their bedchamber.

A sleep-deprived Odin stormed through the door in the midst of this game, roaring oaths and making promises of a second thrashing. The boys froze in terror as their father silently took in the scene before him – Loki, bare-chested and clinging halfway up the bedpost in an attempt to avoid Thor, who had been trying to write swear words on Loki's skin using his new nasal appendages – and then looked at each other in amazement when he promptly marched right back out again.

Their mother made an appearance soon after, her countenance more curious than angry, and exhibited a reaction similar to the Allfather's (by this time Thor had swapped the pencils for lit candlesticks and was dodging Loki's carefully-aimed mouthfuls of water). Heeding her maternal instincts, she returned several minutes later to douse the curtains, which had caught fire; yanked Loki's shirt back over his head and furiously ordered them both to go to sleep that instant.

(Thor and Loki never knew, but after marching out of their chamber, Frigga spent the next half-hour venting her frustration to Odin about his sons. Her husband reasonably pointed out that scorched window dressings were hardly worth complaining about, especially in light of the midnight escapades that had transpired the previous week, which started when Thor stole a bag of chewing tobacco from a guard, and ended with Loki somehow not only convincing him to eat every last piece but then wash it all down with Frigga's best cologne – the younger prince of Asgard earned his name of Silvertongue at a very tender age.)

Under the baleful eyes of Huginn and Munnin, Thor and Loki spent the rest of that night whispering under the blankets, having lengthy discussions about whether three nostrils were better than two, what Father might look like with a nose in place of his eye patch, and whether the punishment they'd receive if Loki were able to pull off such a feat would be worth the trouble. They decided that, yes, it most certainly would be worth it, and drifted off to sleep, Thor snoring lightly with one arm and one leg sprawled over Loki. Despite the heavy weight across his chest and legs, Loki slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that his brother would always keep him safe.

When the princes came down to breakfast the following morning (the elder with a sore red nose, and the younger's cheek still bearing the smudged remnants of drawing pencil), Odin gravely informed his sons that they were expressly forbidden from attending funerals again until they were of age – but were now old enough to have separate bedchambers.

That's all, folks! Please let me know if you liked it. And, if you did, go to my author page and take a gander at "You've Got Sucker's Luck," my Loki fic-in-progress from whence this one-shot came. I think that was bad grammar but it's two AM which is the wrathkitty rambling hour where I talk about ponies and hanging clauses.

Random stuff (see above about 2 AM): The Norse Goddess of Prudence really was named Snotra. The title is a twist on Bill Cosby's "To my brother, Russell, whom I slept with." Huginn are Muginn are Odin's ravens. Thor's questionable choices in midnight snacks is based on my husband, who at the age of 3 ate a container of dipping tobacco, followed by an Aqua Velva chaser. This is the tip of the iceberg in the number of how-the-f*ck-did-you-survive-to-adulthood stories his parents have told me about raising him (there is a reason we don't have kids yet. I would end up like Frigga, except with less impressive hair and no semi-rational spouse to keep me grounded when my own little Loki and Thor are setting things on fire after face-planting into a kerosene heater [another true story]). Suffice to say I have a WEALTH of material that could easily be translated into more misadventures of 6-year-old Loki and Thor, AKA Frigga and Odin debate the merits of eating their young. If you're interested, PM me or leave a review saying as much…if there are enough requests then I'm happy to keep adding to this fic.

Anyway. Go look at You've Got Sucker's Luck - if anything to just see Loki's reaction to trying a caramel macchiato. (Hint: He's not going to be getting a Starbucks loyalty card anytime soon)