Fix You (Loki Romance)

Chapter 23

Day... Twenty-two?

The memories and nightmares had melded together. Loki had begun refusing food and water but the wine helped him sleep so he always accepted it when The Other offered. Every day his wounds were tended to but every day Thanos reopened them. The Other began packing them with herbs to keep infection away. Loki idly wondered where he got them.

But now sleep was just as much the enemy. There was so winning against the terror. If he remained awake, bugs crawled across his vision and shadows lurked in the corner of his eye. Hands suddenly gripped him and sickly warm, dead fingers crept into his wounds to make him arch away in sudden pain. If he slept, Ebony's memories deteriorated from blissful paradise to the sounds of torture and the scent of blood and bodies.

It rained again. Loki struggled against his bonds, hearing the panicked cries of a horse in the distance. But no one came to take him to the sounds. No one came to tell him that the sounds were in his head.

Everyone was gone. The only thing he knew to be a lie was his own memory of how he got here and the dreams that haunted him in wakefulness. But even those were hard to dismiss as hallucinations.

The Other didn't speak to him anymore. He came in silence, mended Loki's wounds, silently snuck bread into his hands, and left. Loki threw the bread to the creature that waited in the corner whenever the servant came. Eating would only prolong his life here.

The servant had suffered for his insolence and insistence on helping Loki when he ran to Sleipnir. Loki had woken just before a dream turned to horror. He had listened to Thanos' shouting and the sounds of a body being impacted. It sounded right outside, as if Thanos wanted him to know what allying with his servant had brought. But there were no screams or pleas or apologies. The Other had limped back into his duties without a word. His swollen eyes had looked at Loki with no change in sympathy or concern.

"What's the sky like on Asgard?" She asked.

He wrapped his arms around her, enjoying her warmth. "The most beautiful sky there is. I could sit and stare at it forever and never grow tired." He liked to watch the moons rise and the sky darken from up on one of the roofs of a tower. It was quiet up there and there was no one to disturb him.

She turned to speak to him but there was a loud clang, as if something mechanical downstairs had just broken. He held up a hand, frowning and listening. It came again, this time by his arms. He looked around. The tiles of the roof began to shift and Loki turned to catch Ebony but she was gone. He scrambled for purchase, feeling the gutter give way under his feet.

As he slid over the edge, he looked down to see an array of beady yellow eyes blinking up at him. He screamed.

The shackles released all at once as soon as Loki woke. He plummeted to the floor with a cut off cry. Immediately, the beast was on him. It pinned him with a huge paw in the center of his back, directly on his wounds. Sniffing curiously, it investigated the herbs on his cuts and the blood that was probably still dried in his skin.

Loki lifted his head to scream. Wriggling until the beast lifted its paw, Loki scrambled on hands and knees to the door.

He yanked the door knob but it wouldn't budge. Jamming his shoulder against it, he felt it jolt. "Help!" He shouted.

The beast sniffed his leg, its warm nose brushing the skin. Movement stopped for all of thirty seconds before a deep, rumbling growl resonated through the room. Loki beat the door. The beast leapt on him, its teeth sinking into his other leg.

His mouth opened but there was too much pain to push yet another scream from his lungs. He sank into the floor, feeling the beast's poison seep into his veins as his blood poured out. He lifted a weak hand to try and crawl away but it fell uselessly on the stones. The teeth clamped tighter and began to pull him back towards the corner it slept in. His nails dug into the stones. He stared up at the door but if the death he had hoped for was coming, even like this, he was ready.