More warnings! Contains graphic non – con torture and horrible sex, cause I'm on a roll now. Please do not read if this will upset you – I am not kidding!

Avoid or enjoy! (I won't judge!) :-)

It is a wonder to Thor that today, for all its awfulness, does not threaten to be, or somehow feel at all, like the worst day of his life. He still reserves that right for the day he was captured, or perhaps a day yet to come. Still, today is not that day. It occurs to him with no small amount of satisfaction that Loki really cannot hurt him half as much as he can Loki. That in spite of everything, the hatred boiling in him now at least feels better than the indifference he has laboured under these past few months.

He does not let them drag him up the incline as he suspects Loki would like, instead walking with his head held high again – now that he does not have to be looking at him. Loki has already stormed on ahead in a shimmering white and green maelstrom of rage. Unwise though it is, Thor is tempted to laugh at the tempestuousness of the snake's emotions, slithering so blatantly to him, just beneath that perfect skin – and how easily he can see through him. Loki is like broken glass, he thinks; see-through but jagged, all too capable of cutting ad drawing blood. But beautiful; oh yes, with a fragile, heart-breaking beauty that glitters in the sunlight.

When they reach the courtyard Loki is already standing there bristling, still too angry to speak. He points imperiously to the central pillar against which Thor is now unceremoniously flung. He refuses to make a sound as his face is crushed up against the (curiously pleasant) cold marble and he finds himself staring up close at the dried blood in the cracks that tells him he is far from the first to be thrown into this position.

He cannot see behind him but hears a sharp click of the fingers that can only be Loki, footsteps approaching and the stroke of the bullwhip like a serpent slithering down his spine and a whisper like a lover's in his ear –

"You belong to me, slave, and you will learn it as you will learn manners." Thor entirely refuses to react, Loki's breath like a kiss against his face and then terribly his kiss like poison branding into the back of his neck.

Loki turns, not quite sure why he did that and hands the whip to his chief servant snapping –

"Am I expected to flog my own slaves now? Do it – and make it good."

Thor grits his teeth, wishing there was something better to focus his gaze on than the dried blood in the marble cracks, grim rivers in a pale desert. But his resolve proves unnecessary for the servant is clearly half hearted in following such orders for though the first lash stings he is easily able to bear it in silence.

He bears them all in silence, five, ten, twenty, forehead on cool marble, chained hands interlocking fingers tight. A grunt at the cracking of the lash across and across the back but nothing more until Loki is as infuriated as Thor could ever have wished.

"Give me that!" he hears him snap as the lashing subsides. Out of the corner of his eye Thor sees a servant girl crouched in a courtyard corner watching him with dark eyes full of fear and sympathy. Somehow this is worse than pain, worse than indignity – the fact that once again it is all being observed. And the sympathyis the worst of all that has happened yet. He looks back at the dried brown streaking the white.

"You'll be next!" Loki is berating his servant – "By all the gods how many times? If he's not bleeding you're doing it wrong!"

He hears Loki stride back and forth and feels wicked fingernails against his stinging but as yet unbroken skin –

"Barely a mark –" he hears Loki mutter, disgustedly – "Show them how it's done –" and gods Loki may be small but he is viciously strong, for the next lash whistles through the air and slices into his skin, burning like acid. He screams in spite of all his intentions otherwise, mortified to hear Loki's instant hiss of gratification. He does not stop – not longer than to let the stinging dull to a vicious throb then slams in with the next lash with impeccably awful timing. Thor screams. He screams himself hoarse and then more until it feels like his throat is bleeding. Loki is an absolute fucking expertat this, each lash curling just enough around to lick his ribs, chest and hips like tongues of fire.

Loki for his part watches the arc of the whip and the crimson stripes it paints across his golden canvas that it is so nearly a shame to ruin. He grins, his cock unspeakably hard and with just one more thing needed to guarantee satisfaction –

"Who do you belong to, slave?" he barks.

Thor will not. Damn it. He clenches down on the pain with which his head already swims. Still standing. Damn it all. Still standing.

"My. Self." He grits out. The pleasure of defiance and of hearing Loki growl only gets him through the nest three lashes. By the eighth he is on his knees at last, shaking, his face treacherously wet.

"Who. Do you belong to?"

"No man." He knows it is the final stand now, but he will make it even from his knees. The final lash crashes across his back and it feels like it will surely rip the skin from his flesh. Loki, the tyrant, his damnation and his demon, kneels then in front of him, gentle fingers raising Thor's tear stained face to look up at him, pouting tenderly in a mad, sweet whisper –

"Who do you belong to?"

And he cannot, simply cannot take another lash, nor permit himself the mercy of fainting.

"You," he groans brokenly, Loki forcing his gaze to his face – "You. Master."His lip curls around the word in anger but it seems to suffice for now for Loki smiles, smiles beatifically, for all the world like a god of beneficence. So happy, like a child's, that innocent smile of positive joy. So beautiful, Thor thinks wretchedly, dear gods so beautiful. He has never in his life felt so utterly undone and confused.

He wonders if it is just the pain or something worse. Looking into those silvery glittering

eyes, he is lost from all reason. What the hell is this? he thinks feverishly, feeling himself

floating somewhere on the border between hysterical laughter and tears. Loki presses a gentle hand to his face and he shudders, both disgusted and horrifically grateful for the softness of the touch.

Loki rises and Thor is horrified to find himself distraught with wanting him to stay. But he does not go, more is the real pity. He stands for a moment, hands on hips, looking down at his damaged but no –he thinks – not quite broken toy; looks down and then kicks him, with savage grace in his already bruised ribs. Thor crumples, too winded to shout out the blinding pain of it, stars firing behind the eyes, an explosion in the brain. Loki does not give him time to curl up with the pain before dragging him back onto his knees by the hair, his tortured back screaming at the strain.

It is hopeless, illogical and useless to offer up such automatic silent prayer as gods, please no –for surely any gods that are watching must condone his disgrace. The fault is brief and fleeting, discarded as the waste of time it is and he feels Loki's cock against his blood – slicked backside with all the horror of inevitability. He succeeds – barely – in not screaming when Loki's blood soaked fingers force their way into him but not when he then follows this mercilessly with his cock. At least screaming scrunches his eyes up so as not to have to witness anybody's damnable sympathy. Funny, the sort of thing you think of in these moments.

For Loki the intensity is no less, except that for him it is a blinding, angry and white hot bliss. He rams into Thor brutally in his own stubborn silence, as much as for Thor's pain and degradation as for his own pleasure, although the one is undeniably immensely heightened by the other. His snarls heaved out in silence he braces himself using Thor's hair as though it were reigns on an unbroken horse – not eager to stain himself with the mess of blood he has made of his back. Yet it is unavoidable and more, when at the point of orgasm, coming deep into that tight, unwilling body with a final brutal thrust, the temptation is too much and he rips his nails down across the torn skin, catching his fingertips in the cuts the whip has made. The earth – shattering pleasure throws his head back to the sky, Thor's screams deafening and glorious as a call to war in the ears.

When he feels his knees capable Loki rises and Thor falls, only just conscious, on the ground. Loki looks down at himself, wondering why he does not feel as good as he should - the blood stains on his hands and tunic swim before his eyes and he feels dizzy himself. It cannot be remorse, for he does not remember that feeling, but he feels curiously sick and then – when the sickness has swum on by – feels nothing. Nothing at all. And frighteningly detached from his own self.

"Take it away and clean it," he hears himself say, as if from far away – "Bring it back when it looks nicer and clean this courtyard - and get me a bath."

_x_

Ten minutes later in the pleasantly tepid water of the bath Loki feels no closer to having got back to himself. He cannot understand or account for this curious feeling of sadness, of feeling lost.Of not knowing who he is. How can he, when there is also this strange feeling bubbling in him as though he would like to say sorry –to a slave.It is unprecedented, tilting his world completely off – kilter. Like down an incline that never ends, the surfaces around him rushing at impossible angles. He wants to be made still. He wants, alarmingly, for the slave to make him still, kiss him, rock him like a child and tell him it's all alright.

Alone in a silver bath in the beautiful room of a palatial house he suddenly feels terrifyingly small. Twisted and ugly. Like he has not felt since – anything he could wish to remember. He scoops water in his hands to splash himself and wash the strangeness all away. Looking down he sees the water, pink and threaded with red. It brings him back to himself with a sickening slamming rush and he is horrible,he sees, vile and disgusting. He starts to shake, wishing he could get away from the repulsive thing in here, in this very bath with him. But he cannot. He never has been able to. It hates him, claws at him, repels him, is him – and nothing to be done about it.

In the cold pink water he wraps his arms around himself and cries bitterly, shaking and heaving until everything stings and aches.

Later he stands by the window in a sweet evening breeze, towel around him, eyes cooled with ice water until they feel normal again and no longer sting when Thor is brought back to him. Coolly he informs him that he will be put into his service like any common household slave until his next appearance in the arena in six days' time.

It's to be a fight until somebody is dead this time, between Thor, The Archer and the one they call The Hulk.

_x_

Avengers arena – showdown in the next chapter! Meanwhile please feel free to feel very confused about whether or not you like this Loki….he's certainly not worked it out yet!

For anyone who's interested my beloved is illustrating this fic at enemiesbrotherslovers on tumblr!

So far there's a Thor and a Loki and they're in the process of doing a nsfw illustration for this chapter! :-)