Celdria (Thank you so much! :) ), smiling-is-my-favorite-pastime (Thanks a lot! I take it as a compliment ;) ), Guest (Haha, thanks :) ), Kenizz (Thank you for reviewing :) ), DarkSkyDepth (Thank you! Here it is), Clint Barton-Loki's Butt Warmer (Thanks!), elite prime (Thank you! Enjoy.), Aquarinus (Thank you for your wonderful comment!), Prince Of Pariahs (Thanks! Yeah, I understand your feelings :) ), THORKISUPPORT (So true. Thanks!), Nachtmensch (Danke schön! :) ), salenastarzz (Thanks for finding time to read and review :) ), HappyHateDay (Yes, I know, I've made things rather confusing, but that was my intention :). Thank you!), Ginsekatze (Thank you so much! And here's the next chapter; I hope you're going to like it.), addicted2sasunaru (Thank you very much for your kind words! :) ), GrimCharmer (Enjoy! ;) ), Guest (Thanks! That was very flattering. Alas, I'm neither a medic, nor a boxer. I used to train with boxers during the renovation of the fitness club I usually visit. That was a great experience :) ).
A/N: Not as long as the previous chapter, but I hope it's okay.
8. Play With Me
~oOo~
He had three days before the next fight, and it was great, because he was still healing after the previous one, so it was good to have a couple of days to rest.
In good spirits he returned from the training session and the good, relaxing massage session that made the stiffness leave his body.
" '...Because Harthacnut had died leaving no heirs. Some modern scientists suggest that he had a stroke, but others think that he had been gravely ill for a while and his death had been expected...' Poor thing was so young," Ingibjörg shook her head, turning the page of the book she was reading, still not noticing that Thor had returned. He smiled, rolling his eyes. This trip to Denmark had inspired the nurse to pull up her Danish, because she thought she had started forgetting it. So now she was reading and translating some books on the history of Denmark, and especially books about the Danish royalty. Ingibjörg usually read aloud, as if reading for Loki, though with some comments of her own; just her thoughts mumbled aloud (which, as Thor knew, would've annoyed his little brother greatly). She was convinced that somewhere inside his mind Loki could partly perceive speech and tactile senses. Thor hoped that she was right. At least, he felt less stupid for talking to Loki all the time; he felt less like he was doing it only for his own comfort.
"Oh, you're back," Ingibjörg snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Uh-huh. What have you been doing?" he smiled back, taking his coat off.
"Nothing in particular. At first we went for a long walk in the park, then we ate and took our medication. And after that we've been reading this amazing book."
"I see," Thor said softly and rubbed his brother's shoulder affectionately, with a sad smile looking down at the boy in the armchair.
The very next night his hazy dreams were once again troubled by Loki's cries. His Loki was calling for him and Thor didn't know what to do. The feeling of helplessness was devastating. The dream was very blurred and he couldn't see anything clearly, but he was slightly aware that he was running somewhere with a strong feeling that he'd got lost and didn't know where to go. He didn't even know where he was, could hardly see anything. The confusion was overwhelming. But he kept hearing Loki calling his name.
For the second time during this night Thor woke up, covered in cold sweat, his heart felt like it was about to burst, beating too fast and too hard. This time he didn't remember having any dreams or hearing Loki crying for him, so he didn't know what had shocked his subconsciousness so hard. His eyes immediately darted towards the second bed in the bedroom, Loki's bed, separated from Thor's by the bedside table.
...And his heart seemed to have stopped for a couple of moments and sank, because the bed was empty. He almost flinched as he saw something out of the corner of his eye and turned his face to whatever had startled him. Loki was standing in front of a wall motionlessly, like a statue. Thor sighed and got up. It had happened several times before, though Loki usually stopped like this in the middle of a room or a corridor, sometimes in complete darkness, which, as Thor had already learned, didn't bother him at all anymore, just like everything else. It surprised the blond that the younger youth never once had upturned anything or hurt himself by colliding with something. It seemed like he was carefully avoiding all the obstacles, moving slowly and absent-mindedly before freezing on his tracks. It was a mystery what was going on to that not properly functioning brain of his.
As Thor turned on the light and approached his brother, he took a moment to watch the blank, pale face in front of the wall. He found nothing unusual in the vacant expression, no sign of emotion, so he wrapped one arm around the narrow shoulders and led Loki back to his bed, finding no resistance, as usual. He made the younger one lie down, covered him with a blanket and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at the empty, green, blinking from time to time, eyes. Could Loki see anything strange? Could he think of something troubling? What could possibly wake him up some nights, making him go somewhere only to stop and stand there for a long time before he was taken back to bed usually by Thor, but sometimes by Frigga back at home. Doctors took this information into consideration, but advised not to pay much attention to it, unless Loki was reacting at any extrinsic stimuli. But what if Loki reacted at something from within? What if he was suffering somehow? Thor felt uneasy at the thought, and two deep, vertical wrinkles between his eyebrows seemed to have frozen on his face. He gently pressed his lips against Loki's temple and came back into his own bed. It took him almost two hours to fall asleep again.
But in the morning he felt like his nerves were frazzled. He hadn't been crying for quite a while, but this morning he broke down, whilst taking a shower. Why had it happened to them? Why? More than anything else in the world he wanted to see his brother smiling at him again, to hear him talking to him, teasing him, grumbling at him; to have a happy, complete family again. He wanted them to go to cinema together or to a skating-rink; or anywhere Loki would've wanted to go. Thor wanted to spoil and to pamper his little brother. He wanted to see Loki jealous when some girl tried to get Thor's attention, and Loki would make sure she would just leave and stay away, either because Loki had outwitted her somehow and manipulated her into leaving Thor alone, or showing his difficult nature; sometimes too difficult for some people to endure. And Thor wouldn't even be able to get angry at his brother's terrible behaviour. He wanted to see how serious Loki looked when he was studying. He wanted Loki's antics. He just wanted Loki back... Was it too much to ask?!
Already almost calm, with a big towel around his waist he came back into the room and approached Loki, who was sitting in the armchair, where Thor had left him. Looking at the pale face, he ran his fingers through the dark hair, gently tugging at the strands that were slightly curled at the ends.
"I'm here, I'm with you... But where are you? Why don't you give me a sign that you're here in this shell. Just a tiny sign... Just something for me to hold onto. I need it so much," he begged, almost whispering. But, of course, nothing happened, and the face he loved so dearly remained blank. Thor should've long stopped believing in miracles.
He was just sitting there silently in front of Loki for some time before Ingibjörg entered the room after knocking several times. Noticing his sorrow since the moment she'd entered, she tried to cheer him up a little, but he was inconsolable and hardly even talked to her before leaving for his training session. She sighed, following him with her eyes and then returned to her duties, withdrawing the medication from the small vial with a syringe; this medication had to be administered each morning, but had been having no real effect so far, other than something insignificant that didn't even last, which she knew wasn't a good sign.
~oOo~
The next night brought him another nightmare. The dream began, as usual, on the upper floor of the hospital (he absolutely had no idea why he usually started there). It was darker than usual. Once again he opened the double door on the first floor and entered the gloomy corridor. Tonight it looked even worse, but otherwise was the same shabby and unpleasant place. Everything felt pretty realistic, though; he was very aware of himself and his surroundings.
After some time of aimless wandering, he, for some reason, decided to enter one of the rooms. And, immediately, there was a feeling of déjà vu that made his breath hitch inside his chest and made him stop on his tracks, as he saw the other door inside the room. Slowly and uncertainly, he entered the next room just to see the chair lying on the floor and the small, rectangular window, covered with the rusty wire netting high above the floor. The feeling of déjà vu and uneasiness became unbearable. He had been here before... He had fallen from this chair together with panicked Loki. The chair hadn't been moved since then. The creature... Thor remembered everything now and couldn't move for some time in shock. But then he picked the chair up, placed it in the upright position and stepped up onto it to see what was going on behind the window. He hoped he wasn't going to face the ugly creature looking at him from the other side of the netting. But actually there was nothing at all behind it, as if it had never led outside or had been bricked up after the last time Thor had been here.
Confused, he stepped down on the floor and wondered what he was doing here and where he should go. But, first of all, he wanted to find Loki, though it had never been really possible before. Loki appeared randomly and Thor usually found him absolutely accidentally. During some times that Thor had visited this place he hadn't seen his little brother at all in this thrice cursed hospital, even though he'd always felt Loki's presence here. This thought made a strange idea cross his mind: what if he tried to use his relatively newly acquired empathy and make it work for him? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine where he should go to find Loki. When after a while he felt that it was working, he smiled to himself. He let the feeling guide him and slowly followed to where the feeling of Loki's presence was stronger. It was absolutely similar to the game 'Hot and Cold', only instead of verbal hints from somebody who had hidden a treasure, Thor was receiving such hints in the form of senses, and, of course, 'cold' and 'hot' were figurative terms, just like in that game.
It was incredible! He felt like an excited child that understood how a puzzle was done. He often stopped and closed his eyes to make sure he was moving in the right direction, letting the empathy become his main sense for a few moments before opening his eyes and moving further. He tried not to think about any dark creatures that could take advantage of his vulnerability right now if they were anywhere near him, but, for some reason, he doubted it. However, Loki wasn't far, undoubtedly... 'Warm...' he was sensing Loki's fear and was moving in the direction of its source almost blindly. 'Warmer... Warmer... Hot... Hotter... Burning...'
His disappointment was almost devastating as he opened his eyes and found himself in front of the damned double door with those fucking round windows! He hated this place! It had traumatised Loki somehow, traumatised him so much that the feeling of his terror remained here like the stuffy air in a room that couldn't be ventilated. How was he supposed to use his empathy, in order to find Loki, if the place itself contained a lot of Loki's emotions (even though, most of them were weak) that distracted Thor and led him the wrong ways, making his amazing, precious gift completely useless? But he had no choice; he had to try again. What else was here for him to do? He was tired of the pointless wandering.
'Cold... Colder...' he sighed and stopped somewhere in the endless corridor, feeling stupid now, his excitement was long gone. Perhaps, time didn't matter in this place, but it felt like he'd spent many hours here. 'Loki, where are you?..'
Eventually, he started feeling it again, finding the invisible thread that was leading him either to Loki, or to some place where his emotions were concentrated. He hoped for the former. The feeling brought him into one of the rooms with another door. He opened it and found one more room with the similar door, and when he opened it he stopped on his tracks, finding himself in the mirror image of that gloomy corridor, only all the doors here were situated on the other side. Where the hell was he?! It was unthinkable... However, he kept feeling Loki's presence, and the feeling was stronger here... Unless he was going to get to the double door, only in this particular corridor this time, because it was so similar to the one he'd come from. He really hoped it wouldn't happen.
When he reached one of the rooms that, as he could feel, was nearly vibrating with Loki's presence, he was both anxious and hopeful. He even stopped with his hand on the door handle for a moment to try to prepare himself for anything he would see inside. As he entered, he sighed in relief, because his Loki was there. The younger one flinched and looked in his direction, but Thor had a strong feeling that Loki was somehow looking through him. It wasn't surprising, because the younger teen often looked like he couldn't really see Thor in this odd place. The blond wondered if Loki could simply feel his presence without seeing him; or maybe, if he saw Thor sometimes, he saw him as some weak entity, an apparition. Why else the younger of the two of them was looking his way, but didn't look like he was seeing him?
Nevertheless, Loki was never scared of him, even when Thor managed to touch him; and he wasn't scared at the moment either. The opened door was possibly making him nervous though. Thor closed it, just in case, and Loki seemingly relaxed.
It was good that everything here felt so real this time, unlike some other times, because Thor could feel, see and think much clearer than during some other times he'd been here. He could notice much more and he could analyse the situation. He could also remember some previous visits, especially the one with the monster. However he couldn't really tell if some of his visits had been dreams; or if all of them had been dreams... Or none of them. On the other hand, he wasn't sure he'd ever had a dream in his life in which he was able to actually realise that it was just a dream before he woke up.
Right now it didn't bother him too much. Dreams or not, he wanted to do something for Loki, who was sitting near the cracked, dirty wall, looking like he was listening to any noise. He was hiding, it was obvious...
"Loki, tell me what to do. Tell me how to help you," Thor said softly, squatting down in front of Loki to be able to look right into the green eyes. There was no answer. Thor touched the pale face of his brother, but the reaction was almost non-existent. The skin was slightly warm and the blond couldn't help but enjoy the moment.
He decided to just sit and wait for whatever was going to happen (if anything was going to happen at all).
He didn't have to wait long though. Loki's face suddenly became even paler and his eyes widened.
"What? What is it?" the older of the two asked in confusion. Slowly, his little brother stood up on his unsteady legs. Thor noticed that the boy's knees were shaking. He stood up as well and looked in the direction of the door, where Loki was looking, obviously frightened. But nothing happened so far. Uncertainly, Loki approached the door and opened it. Thor followed him. The younger one looked around. The corridor was empty and, moving as quietly as he could, he went down the corridor, frequently looking back with a haunted look. To Thor all of it didn't make sense until he started wondering if Loki could simply feel that something bad was getting closer, and he was just trying to escape before that something had a chance to get any closer to him.
Very soon his suspicions were proved to be terrifyingly correct when he saw that his little brother stiffened and looked back as if he was looking in the face of his own death. Thor forced himself to look back as well and for a moment he stopped moving and breathing when he saw the ugly creature looking back at them from around the corner. That same creature...
He had a feeling that the monster was looking specifically at Loki, and the blond hated it! Its 'eye', that thick, bright orange dot in the middle of the creature's face became even brighter, and the monster started moving out from around the corner. Thor could hear its breathing; it sounded a little laboured and wheezing, but it didn't seem to bother the creature at all, so it was possibly normal for it to make such noises whilst breathing. But he didn't have enough time to scrutinise the ugly thing. It started moving towards them unhurriedly, which, Thor had to admit, was very intimidating. The stench of smoke was sickening now. Once again, Thor paid attention to the dark-grey, thick smoke curling very close to the creature's body, obscuring it, but allowing to see the shape of the ugly body very clearly. The thinner smoke was everywhere around the monster and was stretching behind the creature as it was moving. Thor was distracted by the scared whimper that he'd heard behind his back. He turned to his brother, whom he had probably never seen this frightened. Loki was hyperventilating, scared so much that it seemed he was about to die from fear. Slowly he started moving back. Thor, in order to not lose sight of him again, followed.
"You! Stay away from him!" he growled at the creature, but it didn't pay attention to him. It wanted his brother... Before Thor knew it, Loki grabbed his both hands and pulled him into one of the rooms. The blond couldn't believe it and held his breath for a few seconds in astonishment, because it was the first time Loki had acknowledged his presence here in this dark place since the time Thor had started visiting it. For some reason, the wide, green eyes kept looking somewhere past Thor, but his smaller, paler hands kept holding onto Thor's, and he was tugging the older young man after himself. The blond didn't protest and just followed, still shocked at being finally somewhat noticed by his younger brother, who looked scared out of his mind right now.
As he was too busy looking down at the scared face in front of him, it took him time to recognise the room. It was one of the two connected rooms that led to the other, similar corridor, from which Thor had come here. While Loki kept tugging him inside the next room, the blond was trying to make sense of what was going on. It looked like his brother had been trying to hide himself from that ugly thing all the time. Perhaps, Loki could feel its presence, to some extent, and he knew if it was close. When he had been looking through that window last time Thor had had a chance to get close to him, Loki had been simply watching the monster to make sure the creature had been really there, outside the building, so it wouldn't sneak up on him, taking him unawares. Back then it hadn't worked very well, for some reason, but now Loki had obviously sensed the monster sooner.
Thor hated the creature with passion. It terrified Loki and paralysed him with fear. And via his empathy Thor knew that the creature had already hurt his brother before, and it had hurt him severely. Suddenly, one of their conversations surfaced in Thor's mind. He remembered the dream (had it been a dream?) where they had been talking contentedly about something and then his little brother's expression had become sad and he'd said... He'd said: "...It doesn't let me go...". Thor gasped quietly at the memory.
"Loki, you said it didn't let you go. Was that it?" he asked anxiously. "Were you talking about that creature out there? Please, tell me!" he begged. Loki kept looking somewhere past Thor, into the emptiness, hardly reacting at the question, though a couple of times his scared eyes briefly stopped at Thor's face.
And then everything was suddenly gone, and Thor opened his eyes waking up in his bed. Affected by the dream, he quickly got up and went to Loki's bed. His muscles protested slightly at being bothered this soon after sleep. Loki was sleeping, breathing calmly, and nothing looked unusual. Thor was trying to calm down as his brain was accepting the fact that this was the reality, not what he'd seen a couple of minutes ago. It had been just a dream, no matter how real it had looked and felt.
Something was seriously wrong with him if his mind kept producing something that gruesome. It also couldn't be normal that his dreams were this connected to each other. Maybe he needed help... Maybe after the competition he would have to visit a doctor. Any psychologist would easily explain his dreams by his sadness and hurt because of what had happened to Loki, by Thor's refusal to accept that it had happened to the person he loved so much; and, of course, by his feeling of helplessness, because his mind kept creating situations where he was trying to save his dream Loki. It was a great explanation, absolutely logical, and, of course, he would hear it from a doctor, who couldn't and wouldn't tell Thor anything he didn't know already; and Thor would be angry about it, because he wouldn't get any real help other than useless words! They would never even start to really understand what Loki meant to him. They would definitely try to convince him to let go of the situation and accept the fact that he could do nothing to save his little brother and that Loki's healing didn't depend on him. But he would never be able to accept it even if it was really driving him insane. He was a fighter, for fuck's sake! He was used to fighting as long as he remembered himself.
For Loki he would fight right up to his dying breath. He would fight even for the Loki in his dreams and even if it cost Thor his sanity. Maybe if he saved that dream Loki, helped him to get out of that cursed place, away from that fucking creature, Thor himself would feel better and would simply stop seeing those dreams? It was worth trying; of course, if he would get to that place again in one of his next dreams. Somehow he didn't even doubt that he would. To hell logic, to hell sanity and common sense... Fighting for an illusion, fighting for nothing was better than a helpless, pathetic resignation.
"I have no idea what's going on," he murmured, gently playing with a dark strand of Loki's hair between his fingers.