**A/N: This chapter deals heavily with trauma, abuse, and depression. I want to say that the trauma involved is personal to me and it isn't healthy. That's part of the point. If you're sensitive to these topics, please keep this warning in mind before continuing on.

[Third Person]

Everything moved in stood still for a moment. Loki held a bitter strained breath in his weakened lungs as he fought to make a sound. Crimson eyes frayed as they locked onto the motionless body resting under Hanna's boot. The cracking and snapping of bones under an oppressive weight rang in his head like a siren. She didn't twitch. She didn't thrash in pain. Time must have froze because she didn't move at all.
"I'm sorry about your toy, Loki, but you know how weak they are on this planet," Hanna grimaced as she removed her boot from Elaina's back, pushing her over to the side.
She could've been sleeping, if not for the steady trickle of red that escaped the corner of her lips. He swore he heard her heart still beating, stronger than ever, until he realized that it was loud drumming of blood rushing to his ears as his chest sang the tumultuous song of rage. He felt a shiver wither down his spine. Red hot irons steeling his back as he managed to hold himself straight.
Blood seeped from his battered wrists, streaming in thin lines down his stiffened arms. He slowly wrapped his hands around the chains, gripping the cold jagged metal in a tight grip. He needed the pain. Shredded iron dug into his palms, reminding him he was still here. This was real.
"Bring her back," Loki whispered.
"I beg your pardon?" the witch sauntered to the Jotun prince, cuff a hand around her ear.
"Bring her back!" he roared. Every pin and needle drove deeper into his belly as he body tensed with searing hot rage. The pain only fueled him further. His eyes smoldered with a crimson glow as his skin continued to darken. The white ridges of his heritage ever prominent against his sapphire flesh.
"Now, son of Asgard," Hanna teased, tracing a blood coated finger over the firm white arch above his brow, "why would I do that?" She glared at him between twin slits. Hard onyx sclerae with a thin ring of vermillion red around a wide black pupil. Most would tremble with fear, but not Loki. Not now. Not anymore.
"I'll give you whatever you want, just don't let her die," he growled.
"The sword?" she beckoned.
"Fuck the sword," Loki cursed within the confines of his own mind. "Whatever you want. I'll conjure it, just save her!" he cried.
The agent twisted her wrist, circling her hand in a strange pattern. The chains around his wrists loosened just enough to let Loki fall to the ground on his tired and battered knees. He heaved a clot of blood from his throat, splattering more ichor on the cold grey concrete. Loki's lapis wrists were blotched with violet bruises and slick with thick bemired blood. Jagged teeth-like marks marred his sweat and gore stained skin. Covered in lacerations, bruises, and sores, the azure prince sat beside Elaina's inanimate husk. The physical pain hardly matched the biting grip inside his chest.
He brushed a lock of auburn hair from her face, cupping her head, and resting it on his lap. There was a low thrum as he passed his thumb across her temple. A slow ebbing pulse. Barely a pulse, really, a deathly still echo of a life that was steadily slipping away.
"The sword," Hanna reminded with a hiss. "Clocks ticking." The hag click her tongue and snapped her fingers. The horribly slow pulse barely resonating against his hands now throbbed within his skull like a hammer pounding away at his sanity.
Bum...bum...bum...bum...
Each passing minute it delayed further. "Fuck..." Loki cursed in his head. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
He curled a battered arm around Elaina and held her close to his chest, hoping to merge their heart beats. If he could just give her a little bit of his vitality, maybe everything would be okay. She was so cold. The deathlike chill even punctured his thick Jotun flesh.
The golden blade of Laevateinn entered his mind. Loki forced himself to concentrate on it and not the frail listless body withering in his arms. His fingers slipped into her messy hair, trying to remember the feeling of lacquered Asgardian leather settling into his palm. His grip tensing around the metal base. How it hummed with his magic. The magic he shared with his mother. Frigga.
She was so cold.
Loki toiled between the sword, Elaina, and the memories of his mother, both happy and tragic. Her praising smile whenever he successfully completely a spell. The day he conjured a crude imitation of himself, making it dance so she would laugh. His heart ached remembering her laugh.
Bum...bum...bum...bum...bum...bum...
The hammer wailed against his fragmenting psyche as it drummed on. Slower, yet more powerful with each blow.
"Fuck," Loki hissed under his breath. "Please, I'm begging you," he pleaded, to what, he wasn't sure. The hag? Elaina? Laevateinn? Frigga? The universe and its twisted sense of justice? It didn't matter. He was on his knees and imploring anything that would listen, but his prayers fell on deft ears, and the body resting on his lap had stopped breathing.

[Elaina's POV]

I forgot how beautiful his songs were. He strummed his callused fingers along the taut steel strings as the divine melody reverberated through the amplifier. It was a haunting melody. Chords overlapping in high and low pitches, turning the small messy bedroom into an echoing cavern of music.
I rested against the headboard, nose deep in the creased pages of an old book. Occasionally, I'd peer over the cover and watch him play. His messy midnight locks slipping over his sharp handsome face as he swayed to the music. He closed his eyes as his fingers danced along the guitar. Low evocative hums rattling in his throat.
Loki sat shirtless on the ground, only wearing dark plaid flannel pajama pants that hung deliciously off his chiseled hips. The gold sunburst guitar resting against his pale muscular chest. The lustred sheen of post-sex sweat cooling on his skin.
Eventually, I closed my book, resting my head on my bare knees, and listened lovingly to his song. Quietly, I hummed along with him. Not loud enough to interrupt, but enough to harmonize.
"If you keep staring at me like that-" Loki began.
"You can't even see me," I interrupted me.
"I can feel you. Glaring at me with those lustful eyes. You're practically screaming for me to come over there and ravish you again," he smirked. He kept his eyes closed and continued to strum, humming a pretty harmony. I buried my face in my knees and grinned gleefully to myself. Warmth rose from depths of my stomach and filled my chest with a light and fluttering joy. The song lingered like a breeze in the air, coiling around me in a soft calescent symphony.
"Can you still feel me?" I asked.
Loki pondered for a second, humming thoughtfully in a hushed purr. "Yes," he replied with a devious smile in his caroling voice. The strumming stopped. I heard his guitar settle against its stand as the amp switched off with an electronic flick.
Peeking one eye open, I caught him stretching a long slender arm across the bed before crawling over the covers, prowling like an animal about sink its teeth into its prey. I closed my eye, concealing my smile before he could pounce. "No hiding now, little bunny," he growled.
Gently, Loki pressed hands into my shoulders and pushed me down. I sprawled out limply, no urge to fight. Legs parting as he stirred between my thighs and hovered over my body. Wearing nothing but underwear and a large black t-shirt, there was very little fabric veiling the heat emanating from my eager flesh. His feathery lips urged delicately against my neck. A temperate gasp slipped from my throat, followed back a shy giggle.
"You best tell me to stop," he implored, trailing his kiss to my collarbone.
"Or what?" I larked.
Loki nipped the skin he just kissed, making me yip like a small animal. A proud grin spread along his lips. "Or I'll make sure you're very late for work." His threat rang like a nectarous promise.
"Work?" I questioned, savoring the pleasant flutter his kiss sent rippling in my stomach.
"Mhm," he hummed.
"Well, I quit," I smirked. I trailed my fingers into his shaggy raven mane, ushering his kiss deeper.
"Quit?"
"Mhm. Just now. I quit. It'll take a miracle to move me from this bed," I sighed happily. Loki's cold skin abated the fervent heat that pulsed through my veins. His lips quailing the rampant throbbing along my throat. His hot breath brushed across my sensitive skin, making me shudder as he sighed irately.
"As wonderful as this is," he pitched the nape of my neck between his teeth sending a shock of pleasure over my nerves, "one of us needs to be responsible."
"That's not fair, this whole thing was your idea," I insisted, cradling his head as he pulled himself away.
"You said you needed a miracle. Call this a divine intervention," he muttered. Loki peered at me with his steely blue eyes, piercing through my defenses. It was near impossible to oppose him, especially when he was right. Hands pinned on either side of my head, he leaned in for one last kiss before scooping me into his arms and carrying me bridal style off of the bed. I whined as I burrowed my face into his neck. The fragrant scent of coffee and citrus tickled my senses as I inhaled the chill emitting from his.
He placed me down in front of the off-white wooden door of the bathroom. I glared at it. Something vile radiated under the cracks. The darkness looming beneath the opening felt bitter and troubled. Hairs rose on the edge of my skin. I backed up into Loki's chest. His arms curled around my waist. "You're shivering," he mentioned.
My nerves trembled uneasily. Hands shaking as I stared at the polished brass doorknob. I didn't want to touch it. I didn't want to open this door. It went far beyond not wanting to go to work. Even beyond lustful and romantic urges. Something evil lurked inside. I could feel the air began to sour in my lungs. "I'm scared," I admitted. Loki tightened his hold.
"You can always stay with me," a whisper jarred my ear. The voice was rasping like a low rattle echoing into a damp pit. Sorrow latent in his call. Not Loki. A slick warmth pressed against my back. I could taste pennies on the back of my tongue as I inhaled the dense scarlet miasma that permeated from him.
"Andy," I grieved. Air thickened in my lungs as I heaved a heavy sigh. My lip trembled. Eyes burned as I tried to hold back tears. "Please, stop," I begged.
"No," he grumbled. "Not after what you did."
Thorns pierced my heart as icy barbed steel dressed itself around it, squeezing as Andy's grip tightened. "It wasn't my fault," I whispered weakly. Uncertainty strained my voice. I felt his nails dig into my skin. Thick coagulated blood ran down the back of my shirt, tumbling down my spine with a cruel warmth.
"It was always your fault. I took your suffering so that you could live. Was my sacrifice worth it?" he hissed pitilessly.
"You're hurting me," I sobbed. Tears coursed down my cheeks as his nails dug deeper, breaking the supple wall of flesh around my arm. "Andy, stop," I pled through troubled gasps.
"Stop bitching. I'm barely touching you." His nails sank deeper, pulling blood from my veins. Tighter, he locked his arms around me and dissolved my body deeper into his. I felt sick. Acid boiled in my stomach as spiders crawled up the base of my neck.
I wanted to run. Down the hall and out of the house. Run until my knees buckled under the weight and even then, I'd keep running. So why weren't my legs moving? I tried to pry my feet from the floor, but I was rooted into the carpet. One arm bent around my waist, his other hand latched around my throat, fingers restricting my airway. I gasped and wheezed as tears poured from my eyes. "Why do you always cry when you're in trouble? You're like a baby. Do you think I'll feel sorry for you?" Andy's voice deepened to a monstrous growl. His voice like venom. "You can't even look at me."
Guilt burned like salt in my wounds. I winced in pain, unable to cry or scream. "Please," I wheezed. A small trickle of air slipped down my throat as I panted desperately. "I'm sorry," I wept.
"Say it to my face," his demand overlapped with a chatter of rasping voices. Andy released me only to force me against the bathroom door. Cackling thundered from the other side. I closed my eyes as he turned me to face him. I couldn't bare the sight. The gore. The blood. The gaping wound where his face use to be. I knew it all too well. I did my best to scribble it out of my mind, but it was still there. Even with my eyes sealed shut.
He slammed a fist against the door, landing on the other side of my head. "I'm sorry," I echoed on a cry.
"Look at me!" the voices screamed as wailing cachinnation resounded from the bathroom. "Look at me!" he chanted.
The heavy darkness slinked from below the door like smoke. It coiled around my feet as skeletal fingers circling my ankles. Andy and his choral of voices continued to chant. Each tolling like a church bell ringing against my brain. I flinched as his fit hit the door. I heard the splitting of wood as he cracked the panel. The howling laughter grew louder as malevolent force thrashed in tandem with Andy's fury. His sickening breath hit my face. The copper scent of blood mixed with rot. I could see it in my head. The gnarled wound. The near-black blood oozing down his neck and soaking into his Crystal Castles shirt. I could see it so clearly, so why was I afraid to look at him?
I hesitantly opened one eye. The slamming stopped. The laughter halted and Andy went quiet. He wasn't a scary crimson haze anymore. A scribbled out portrait in my head. He wasn't even the gruesome horror I imagined. He was just Andy. Hot whiskey-colored eyes set inside round doe-shaped sockets. His tight thin lips and high cheekbones were shrouded by full chestnut colored beard. His hair was a shaggy mess of matching curls, disheveled from tossing and turning in his sleep. Tuffs of dark brown hair poked out of his shirt. No blood. No gore. Just him panting heavily in the hallway.
"Andy," I sniffled. I touched his face, slipping a finger through the tight wiry curls of his beard. He was always so warm. All that hair and hot blood. He felt like a furnace. He placed a rough callused hand over mine. These hands he used to choke me, smack me, beat me, and silence me when I screamed too loud. Why were they so comforting now? I couldn't stop myself from crying. Somehow, seeing his face was worse than the nightmare I created. I could still feel the jagged steel coiling around my heart. Turning, tightening with every second. "I'm so sorry," I bawled.
He pulled three deep breaths into his lungs, scanning my face. With his thumb, he pushed away a stray tear. He shook his head as a solemn expression marred his face. "I'm glad it was you," Andy exclaimed. He kissed the scar across my wrist. A weight eased from my chest. As I reached the peak of my mountain of sins. He squeezed my hand gently, almost lovingly. "It's going to hurt, Lainey. A lot."
Lainey. I almost forgot he called me that. I hated that name. It didn't fit me at all, but that didn't stop him. I used to call him Drew in response, but I stopped once he snapped at me.
"I know," I sighed through a trembling breath. I held the putrid air in my lungs as it toiled, burning the tissue inside my chest. I had to hold it down. I couldn't face whatever waited behind the door with tears streaming down my face. "I'm stronger now," I nodded, roughly believing it. It was enough to crack a smile on Andy's face.
"Does he make you happy?" he asked. I nodded, biting my lip to fend off the onslaught of tears that stung my eyes. "Good," Andy sighed. There was pain in his voice. A purposeful pain. A pain that he had to swallow in order to move forward. If he were alive, it could've been the first step at getting better. "I'm sorry, Lainey. I'm so sorry," he began to sob. His tears fell into my hand.
"I know," I smiled weakly. He kissed my wrist one more time before departing down the hallway, back into his room. The door closed softly. I waited a moment, preparing the loud bang.
It never came. Muffled chords strummed from a guitar, echoing down the hall. His haunting refrain costing over the eerie breeze. Bump rose along my skin as the smoke beneath door continued to spiral up my legs, pulling gently, urging me to move forward. Either I could open the door and step inside or get dragged by a dark force.
My hand quaked as it lingered over the door knob. A biting chill struck my veins. Her laughter surfaced again. A weathered boastful cackle from behind the door. I dripped the handled. The chill melted as hot iron spikes pierced my spine, wedging between the vertebrae. I tried to scream, but my voice froze in my throat. A bone-shattering pain trembled throughout my body. I turned the knob. The irons drove deep as if being beat by hammers. The pain pushed me forward. I stumbled into the darkness.
A frigid wave of icy water toppled over me, pulling me back under the freezing violent current. Ice pierced my skin like broken glass. As I struggled to swim, the fiery stakes thrashed deeper into my spine, paralyzing my limbs. I fell still, being taken by the harsh waters. Dragged each direction, stabbed over and over by the sharp cold until I could move again.
Above the inky black surface was a small pinprick of white. The tiniest dot of light, like a the most distance of stars, twinkling mockingly in the sky. I reached my hand for it, cupping nothing but slushing water and needles. Deeper, the searing ache wedged with another throw of hammers. I choked on the air that sat in my lungs. Putrid bile ran over my tongue as the breath escaped my throat.
Despite the pain and flailing, I kept my eyes on the star. Kicking when I could. Determined to reach it.
A witch's cackle tolled blithely with the current. Crashing against my ears. Wiggling into my brain like a parasitic song. I kicked and pulled through pain, fighting for that star. My star. It twinkled for me, not to mock me. It called to me. It wept for me and my ache.
I heard the crack before I felt it. It felt familiar in a way. My spine shattered as my hand broke the surface. My star was less of a glittering puncture in the sky and more of a blazing sun. I could just feel its warmth bathe my fingers as my body went numb.

[Third Person]

A scream erupted from his throat. A gut wrenching, earth-shattering cry of pain and yearning that called from the darkest depths of his core. Loki held the still body in his arm, pulling her close to his chest. His heart ached with every beat that didn't echo within her. Maybe if he just held her closer-held her tighter-she wouldn't slip away. The small fizzling ember inside could grow with the right care. Loki clung to that belief. He had to.
He balled his hand into a fist. Blackened nails burrowing into the rough blue flesh of his palms. In that moment, nothing else in the room existed. Just him, her, and the fading pulse inside her chest.
Loki thought he could here distant droning of a low hum beneath him, but it was lost to the sound of blood rushing to his ears. Fury and heartache burned in his veins.
Blood welled from the punctures in his palms. He didn't even notice the pain. Resting his head on top of Elaina's, he rocked her slowly in his arms. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he muttered quietly.
Heavy boots clamored against the stone floor, shattering the tranquil silence. Hanna stood in front of the couple, tapping her toe, and crossing her arms. "Are those...real tears?" she sneered, "My, how the mighty fall."
Loki pressed his lips to Elaina's forehead before setting her body to the side. He carried her to a clean spot. No blood or stains on the floor. Propping her against a dusty old filing cabinet, he placed his hand over her eyes. For a self-moment, he was happy that she couldn't see what he was about to do. All the rage that bored into his veins ignited as he heard the hag chuckle darkly to herself.
He stared at his lapis hands. Black nails and white ridges curved over his skin. The mark of the Jotun. The traits of a monster. His fingers curled back into his palms, knuckles cracking as they tightened. He was what nightmares were built from. Primal fear and spilt blood. The growling shadows on a cold winter's night. Fiery red eyes that loom in the darkness as they hide in their beds. Deadly blue flesh, rough and strong as worked leather. A monster...he thought as he rose to his feet. In this form he stood an extra foot and a half tall, rising over eight feet. Hanna looked like a child in comparison.
"I'm giving you a final courtesy to say your last words, witch," Loki seethed through fanged teeth.
She laughed, crossing her arms, and rolling her neck. "I believe the time for words is over, Jotun," Hanna scoffed. In a flourish of arms and magic light, she produced an iron barbed whip. She cracked it against the open air. The sound made Thor, the unconscious Asgardian, yelp in fear as he sprang to a light stage of consciousness. Peering out a wounded eye, he could only vaguely distinguish two blurry figures before faltering again.
In one quick motion, Loki gripped the agent's neck. It was thin and frail as a twig within his monstrous grasp. She laughed as he squeezed. A swift flex of his fingers and her neck snapped to the side. She fell silent. A round broken bone jotting awkwardly through her skin as her eyes went dim. The long unyielding stare of a soul departing. He dropped the lifeless husk carelessly. She hit the ground like a sack of rocks, limbs folding and bending like a discarded marionette. "That was too easy," Loki proclaimed.
The air was still thick with stink of death and rotten magic. The decaying sour taste defiling his senses as he inhaled and released. A low distant hum still quivered under the stone beneath his feet. Her vile presence lingered long after the body stopped twitching.
Loki placed his heel on Hanna's chest, pressing only a fraction of his weight into the hollow cavity. It was enough to crack her sternum like glass. "Stop toying with me!" the Jotun shouted, pushing his heel deeper. He felt her ribs shatter before kicking her away. She tumbled like a ragdoll before crashing into a cement wall.
Crack. Snap. Pop. Loki heard the sound of bones breaking and mending in the shadow where Hanna's body lied. Her arms bend backwards, elbow folding the wrong way and twisting back into place. Crack. Her shoulder dislocated with a revolting crunch before popping back in only to rend once more. Each limb moved of their own accord like tentacles made of crackling bones. Her hand slammed against the concrete as she threw a leg over her shoulder, unhinged, and shattering laws of human anatomy. Hanna slithered to her feet. Contorted and broken. She snapped each limb back into place. The crunching and reassembling of bone and muscle would've made a lesser man wrench.
The last was the prominent bend in her neck. Snap. Hanna briskly flipped her head to the other side. Craning her neck, she sighed pleasantly, before picking up her serrated whip. "You know, you're only hurting the girl. Punishing her for a crime she didn't commit. Depleting any semblance of life, she so desperately has clang onto all these weeks," Hanna clicked her tongue behind her teeth. "She's been fighting so hard to keep the little shred of humanity I've allowed. You should feel her despair. Her anguish as it's snuffed out by a savage monster like you," she stifled a heinous giggle. The iron fall of her weapon scraping the ground.
Anger resonated in the giant like tremor. His icy veins were awash with sweltering heat as he gnashed his sharpened teeth. A low growl hummed in his throat. He could snap her neck again. Pulverize every bone with his bare hands. He could shatter her skull like a precious vase a hundred times, but would it matter? Would the hag keep reanimating the corpse long after death? Would she channel her corruption into a new host?
Loki darted an eye to Elaina then to Thor. He wasn't sure which host scared him more.
The Illerhag cracked her whip. The rusty iron cracker licked his chest with a harsh snap but didn't break skin. "Come on, Loki. Show me what the All-Father taught you," the hag teased. She reeled her arm back and flicked another lashing at him.
Loki blocked it, the barbed fall looping around his arm. Each spike imbedded into his flesh. He winced in pain, but managed to grasp it in his hand, tugging it out of her grasp. Hanna snapped her fingers and the spines burrowed deeper, tearing his skin like paper. Crimson leaked from the wounds. The whip constringed around his arm, tightening like a vice.
Pain circulated into rage within him. The gnawing agony quickly melting into a molten savagery as he ripped spines from his muscle. Loki gripped the polished wooden handle. He imagined smooth glossy black leather in his hand. The cold enchanted metal humming below the grip.
Down in the earth something drummed, like a violent procession marching to the surface. Loki froze. Time really did stand still. "Come to me," he thought. Like a rousing light, magic surged from his core. A warm emerald glow emanated from his fingertips, swirling over the handle of the witch's whip, and wrapping up his arm. The wood trembled. A familiar rush of magic vibrated ferociously as his fingers tightened. The handle cracked, revealing something more. As the wood fell away, lacquered leather slipped into Loki's grasp. "Come to me," he prayed once more.
Iron chains and rusty spikes scattered to the ground as a long, sturdy, gilded blade materialized in its stead. Loki's hand filled with the comforting glow of Aesir magic. His magic. The enchantments he learned from his mother.
Laevateinn.