"See you in Hel, monster."
Loki can't believe he's really going to die. The knife has pierced his flesh, however, and he can feel the life draining out of him. For once it's not a trick, it's real, the Trickster is dying. He barely has the energy or time to apologise to Thor, but he manages it. Repeatedly. Loki repeats the words over and over again until Thor's warm voice interrupts him, reassures him, and then...
"I'll tell father what you did here today."
But that's not why, and Loki has to tell Thor that, he has to let him know. It takes him a few seconds to summon the strength, but he manages it.
"I didn't do it for him..."
The truth at last.
And now it's cold. Death is very cold, Loki thinks distantly. Loki has never been warm, he supposes it's his Jotun blood that's responsible for that, but now he's freezing. It's not the harsh wind ripping across the arid land that's causing it though, Loki can feel the last of his life leaving him. His vision is fading, emerald eyes are dimming, Thor's voice is quieting, until everything leaves.
It's dark, black. There is nothing, no cold, no warmth, not a breath of wind, no touch, no scents, not a single sound.
And then, suddenly, there is heat, there is fire, there are chains. There is no escape. Even for a trickster such as Loki.
It hurts. Death hurts. A lot more than Dean could have predicted. What's worse is, it is ugly. Hell hounds are ugly sons of bitches.
That's the last coherent thought Dean Winchester has in a long time.
The pain is overwhelming, he can't fight back his yells, his screams, his sobbing. They tear at his arms, his legs, his back. His skin is shredded, ripped.
They take their time, the bastards.
Until, there is one final slash. One final gouge that ends it. Across his chest, over his heart. And then, Dean is gone.
There is no blackness for Dean, no brief reprieve, no minuscule break from the pain.
He is thrown from one Hell right into the next.
All around him is fire and ash, the screams of the tortured and the laughs of the torturers. There are chains in his flesh, hanging him above his pit. His personal Hell. His reality, for a long time.
Loki grows tired of the screams, he never screams. The Trickster is silent, always, deathly silent. No matter the torture, Loki has already endured far worse in his own mind.
They tell him, every day (or is it night?) they tell him that he could end this, all he has to do is take up the knife.
Every time he remains silent, it is his weapon, his shield. If he is silent they can gain nothing from him. If he is silent they can only torture his body, not his mind.
Instead Loki thinks, best he can. There are times when he even sleeps, he becomes so disembodied that he can barely feel the pain anymore.
When he sleeps, Loki can pry at the minds of those around him. It is a momentary release, he can see the memories of those like him. He doesn't look at their thoughts, they are all the same.
There is one mind, one soul, that particularly interests him.
Dean Winchester, the name means little, but he is different. The Righteous Man, they call him. He has been here longer than Loki, nearing thirty years.
Every day they ask him too, if he will take up the knife, each time he refuses. But for different reasons than Loki. The Righteous Man lives up to his title, the Trickster lives up to his.
Loki thinks, he plans, he plots. He knows there will be a way out, an escape. Somewhere. Somehow. Loki is never trapped for long.
These thoughts, these plans, these plots, they keep him sane. They keep him alert. They keep him from accepting the knife.
If he accepts the knife he has lost.
Loki doesn't lose.
He wishes they would stop. Sometimes they do. Sometimes Dean wakes up in a motel room, crappy as always, and Sam is in the bed next to him. He's so relieved he cries, but when he gets up, when he tries to reach Sam, the chains return. They bind him to his bed, he calls to Sam, he shouts, he screams. But he brother is deaf to his cries, he is blind to the sight of Dean, so close to him.
It is the worst Hell they can think of for him.
Well, it's one of them.
Sometimes Sam's torturing him, sometimes it's Bobby, or John, Mary, Ellen, Ash, Jo, Cassie. Dean begs them to stop, they don't.
The rest of the time it's Alastair. Or himself. Dean has been tortured by himself with black eyes more times than he can count.
Sometimes though, sometimes, he can escape. He can close his eyes and, if he tries hard enough, he can dream. He only has the one dream. An emerald-eyes man, they never talk, not once, but they relish each other's company. They don't talk, but their minds meet.
If Dean wasn't in Hell, he'd think he was crazy for meeting minds with a Norse god.
He doesn't complain.
They keep asking him if he will take up the knife.
He refuses. Colourfully, tiredly, but he refuses.
Until one day. Until one day when he couldn't take it any more. It was too much. All of it. He wasn't going to escape, Sam hadn't broken him out. Sam was never going to break him out.
Dean accepts the knife.
On that day, the whole of Hell cheers.
On that day, the whole of Heaven sobs.
On that day, the Trickster finally breaks his silence.
Loki laughs. He has his way out. Now, all he must do is be patient.
They come in hordes, in droves, in legions. The light-wielders. The angels.
They lay siege to Hell, all of them, they slaughter the demons. All for one man, the Righteous Man.
Dean doesn't know who the Righteous Man is, that is, not until they come for him.
One of them grabs him by the shoulders, wrenches him from the rack, and lifts him upwards, out. Away from the flames, away from the heat, away from the screams, from the blood.
Dean Winchester is free.
Dean Winchester is saved.
The distraction is perfect, it is exactly what he needs. Loki takes advantage of the chaos, he slips free of his chains, they could never hold him with such simple things as chains. Once he's out of the chains, off the rack, escape is a simple matter.
Even in Hel there are back ways, unknown routes, hidden passages, and Loki finds them with ease.
He escaped.
He is free.
He won.
They both did. Both of them won, both escaped, both lived.
They still remember too, the two of them.
And their minds still meet, not always, but regularly, and they find the same refuge within each other that they did in Hell.
Dean never told anyone, not Sam, Cas or anyone else. But he thinks Cas knows, he thinks the angel knows something. Because although he and the angel share a profound bond, Cas knows there is another bond, something deeper, stronger, older.
Loki never told anyone, even when he revealed himself to not be Odin, he never told Thor, Sif, the Warriors Three or any of the others.
It was easier to allow them to think he had merely tricked them again, that he had lived up to his title. Simpler than the alternative, admitting that he had melded his mind with a human.
The two would never meet in person, Loki would never return to Earth, Dean would certainly never go to Asgard. Despite the times and the galaxies and the universes between them, the bond between minds stayed strong, and when their minds meet, it lightens their burdens, eases their stress, and eases their pain.
The two would never meet in person, they would never need to.