When the Chitauri returns for a final time, Loki expects another broken finger. He can't seem to muster the strength to care. One hand already lays mangled and useless in his lap, and when he looks down at it he thinks distantly that maybe he ought to feel sick or scared… but he doesn't. He doesn't feel anything except a nagging ache that seems to exist only to remind him that there's still life in him somewhere.
He can find the strength to smile a red-toothed smile, though, and something that passes for a laugh bursts out of his mouth. The accompanying spray of blood is caught by his muzzle. Here we are again. They call this déjà vu in Midgard. He even deigns to straighten the fingers of the hand that's still shackled above him, to make it easier for the Chitauri to decide which one it wants to break… but when the robed, thick-fingered hand of his tormentor reaches out, it is to open the cuff around Loki's wrist and remove the muzzle from his face.
Strange. He wonders if this is the end.
There's blood smeared across his chin, around his mouth. He can feel it now. Dimly, he thinks that he must look terrible, but then the Chitauri hauls him up to his feet, jerking his broken fingers so that red lines of pain sear across his mind and he forgets what he was thinking about before.
The very act of standing seems to have drained him of all his energy. Leaning against his captor for support is abhorrent, but he just can't stand on his own. His armour weighs him down terribly. It registers in his head that he wasn't wearing armour until some time in the last few seconds, and he wonders what the occasion is—which makes him laugh, a terrible, wheezing noise that leaves him doubled over and clinging to the Chitauri's robes with his good hand, lest he fall.
His lungs are on fire.
When he is recovered, he straightens slowly, laboriously… and sees Thor.
That, he decides, doesn't make sense. Thor didn't come back. He remembers, he remembers, Thor promised he would return with an army and then he didn't come back at all. A hallucination, then, a fever dream birthed by a mind poised constantly on the brink, ready to snap at the next provocation… a mind that knows it's time to die soon.
Still, Loki is pleased. He's missed Thor, through all this. It's nice to see him again before the end, even if it's not really him.
He realises after a second that his dream-Thor is talking.
"You'll get the Tesseract after you release him," he's saying, and Loki is puzzled. His bemusement, however, does not last long.
"Release him?" the Chitauri repeats. It laughs. Loki is vaguely disgusted by the noise. "As you wish."
While he is still trying to make sense of the situation, the haze he's been stumbling through for the last day lifts suddenly as a knife slides between his ribs without warning or fanfare.
It hurts, but it's a different kind of hurt to all the rest, an ache that's warm and almost pleasant, burning in his chest and throat the way air does after a long run, an exertion.
Still, his eyes widen and he drops to his knees, and suddenly his mouth is full of blood. He coughs, spits, but there's so much…
From a hundred, hundred miles away, he hears Thor screaming. When he looks up and his wide eyes meet with his brother's and all he sees there is hideous, terrible anguish, he is reminded of the last time their eyes met like this with Loki falling, fading…
There seem to be Chitauri everywhere. Where did they come from? Were they here the whole time? Thor is swamped. It makes Loki a little angry—mine, you can't… only me—but emotions don't seem to make much sense any more. Nothing does. All he can really comprehend is the red taste of blood, and the terrible cold.
He falls back and the blood pools in his throat and he can't breathe. Someone is making awful, guttering noises and he supposes it must be him, like a candle flame drowning in its own molten wax.
The last thing he sees before he slips under is the stars and their perfect geometry, their heartbreaking beauty. Some far-away part of him feels the faint trace of a tear rolling through all the grime and blood on his face… and then there's nothing.
At last.
A/N: I am a bad person. Just literally terrible right through to my core. I can't take it back, I can only apologise for what I've done (and also for the way every chapter gets shorter than the last).
