Shadows and Lies

Chapter 6

Chapter 6
Loki woke up in terrible pain.
It had been a few days since Thor captured him and took him back to Asgard, Loki had left Nidavellir with many very serious injuries, but he'd been able to stay relatively comfortable because of all the pain meds the healers had him on.
But when he woke up in the middle of the night one night he was in horrible, unbearable pain; his arm that was in a sling ached terribly, his head felt like it was being split, his side stung from the burns he'd received, his wrist and ankles were sore from being chained in place, but the most prominent pain was in his leg, which had been broken in several places. He felt dizzy with the intense, agonizing pain he was feeling in that leg, he knew that the injury was bad, his femur was split in half and his shin was shattered to pieces, but up until now he had only gotten a taste of that pain. Now though, it seemed he was left to feel every bit of it.
"Hey.." he looked around the room, it was empty, no one was there to make sure nothing happened to him. Of course not, he was a criminal, why would anyone bother staying up all night to tend to him?
"Hey! Someone get in here!" He shouted demandingly. But no one came.
As he continued to wake up the pain just got worse, it was starting to worry him substantially, he couldn't handle this if it kept getting worse, already he felt nauseous from the amount of pain he was in.
He laid flat on his back and tried to focus on breathing, he'd been tortured before, he knew how to focus on things other than his physical pain.
Nothing helped though, he felt like his leg was being broken all over again, slowly and painfully.
"Where is everyone?!" He shouted, someone had to hear him, there were guards right outside, probably ten or eleven of them, someone would hear him. Though he was starting to doubt that they'd come in to help even if they did hear him. He needs to figure out how to help himself.
He turned his head to where the monitors and dials were set up next to his bed. He could see the controls that's Thor had tampered with the first day he was there, the controls that gave Loki the pain medication. It had been turned off completely.
"Wh-" he tried to sit up more to see it better, but when he moved he felt an intense surge of pain hit his leg and run through his entire body, he immediately fell back screaming in agony. He took a few deep breaths, bit his lip, and pushed himself to sit up again. He screamed in his throat, but he bit down on his lip to keep the volume down.
He was able to sit up, but by now the room was spinning, he thought he might be being sent into shock from the torment he was suffering, or maybe he was just going to faint. He wanted to avoid both.
"Stay awake...." he told himself, trying to breathe.
He now had another problem; he was chained up. He couldn't reach out to the dials even though they were well within arms reach. The only limb that wasn't chained was his left arm, but it was in a sling and was still recovering from being ripped out of its socket.
"I think four days is enough time for you" Loki said to himself as he leaned his head down and tried to unfasten the sling with his mouth. He was able to loosen the sling and pull his arm out, but it just fell by his side.
Now his shoulder ached as well. Not nearly as bad as his leg, but sharp pain spread through his shoulder, neck, and chest.
He took a few more deep breaths, he needed to reach for the dial, that was it. But it seemed like such a difficult task right now.
He clenched his jaw again and forced his arm up, the sharp pain got more intense, between the pain from his leg and now the pain from his shoulder, he was starting to see spots, passing out was a strong possibility now.
His hand was inches from the dial, he forced his arm to work through the pain, but beads of sweat were trickling down his face now, the effort it took to do something so simple was infuriating.
He screamed in his throat as he reached further, the tip of his fingers touched the dial but he couldn't turn it, and as soon as he reached out another few inches his body betrayed him; his shoulder wasn't yet strong enough to lift the weight of his arm, so his arm dropped back at the side of the bed.
Loki shouted curses in frustration and anguish. His pain had actually overridden his rage now, he was so desperate to find some form of relief form this agony that he wasn't even thinking about who did this to him or how he'd get revenge. He was so miserable that the only thought in his mind was getting his arm to reach the dial.
He tried again, it was even harder and more painful this time, every nerve in his body was begging him to stop. He cried out in agony again as he started reaching once more, but he was interrupted when the door opened and Thor walked in.
"Thor" for the first time in several years Loki was actually pleased to see his brother. He dropped his arm back and stopped trying to move it.
"Loki what are you doing?" Thor was a bit confused, the guards had come and woken him up because Loki was 'making a scene'. He'd expected to come in and see Loki fighting the healers and trying to escape again. He was ready to be annoyed and mad at Loki for being stupid, but instead he walked in to see Loki's arm hanging limp at his side and loki looking like he was suffering immensely.
"Help me" loki said. He was in so much pain and he was so desperate to make it stop that he dropped his act of arrogance toward Thor. He needed Thor's help and he didn't care that he was admitting it.
"Loki what are you doing?" Thor rushed over and helped Loki get his arm back into the sling where it should be.
"Turn it back on" Loki said "please, just turn it back on, I don't know if this is punishment or revenge but I'll do whatever you want, I don't care, just turn it back on" he pleaded, making Thor way more concerned than he was before. If Loki was begging then something was seriously, seriously wrong.
"Loki I don't know what-" he looked at the dials where Loki had been trying to reach when he walked in. "I didn't tell them to do this" he told Loki. As much of a headache as Loki was, he would never have turned off the medication and left Loki alone like that. Yes he threatened to turn it off if Loki didn't cooperate, but just leaving loki in this kind of misery and pain would just be needles and cruel torture.
"Well if you didn't then who did?" Loki snapped. Though his tone was less bitter and angry, and more pained and frustrated.
"It doesn't matter, I'll go get the healers to take care of it. Just stay here and stay still" Thor instructed, leaving the room again to get the healers.  Loki laid back and waited. He was still in horrible pain, but at least now he knew someone was coming to fix it.
After a minute Thor came back with a few of the healers, they looked less concerned about Loki's comfort than Thor was.
"We had to turn it off for tonight" one of the healers said.
"Why?" Thor asked.
"It's not safe to have him on such powerful drugs for so long. These drugs can be highly addictive" she explained.
"I'm a mass murderer, a serial killer, and a traitor to Asgard, and you're worried about me becoming an addict?" Loki chimed in. He really didn't care about safety, he wanted the medication turned back on.
"There are other health risks. Those medications are only supposed to be used during the actual surgery, he can't stay on them" she told Thor, ignoring Loki's addition to the conversation. Thor looked over to Loki, he didn't want to abandon him like this, especially not now. Loki had finally dropped his pride, even if it was just a moment of weakness, he had practically begged Thor for help, he couldn't just do nothing.
"We'll is there anything you can give him to take the edge off? It can't just be an all-or-nothing situation." Thor said. If this was a normal patient they would've given him another kind of drug.
"Give me a minute, I'll get him something that he can take orally" she said, then turned to the other healers "make sure his arm is okay and go ahead an check his leg as well" She Instructed. Thor told them that Loki had been struggling to move when he walked in.
The healer made sure Loki's arm hadn't been damaged further, and thankfully Thor had come in in time to prevent any further tearing in the shoulder, so he was fine. When she went to check his leg Thor was unpleasantly shocked. When she removed the bandages to clean the wound, Thor had to look away for a second. Yes it was closed up and stitched,  but it was swollen pretty badly, the skin surrounding the wound was red from irritation, and when she trickled some cleansing liquid on the wound, Loki tensed and the wound foamed as it was disinfected. It was intense, thor knew that the bone was split in half beneath the stitches, he wondered how long loki had been awake without anything to dull that kind of pain, how long he'd been laying alone in misery.
The healer re-closed the bandages as the other healer was walking back in.
"He needs to take one of these every six hours. He'll still feel it, but the pain won't be as bad" she said, giving Thor a bottle of some huge pills that Loki had to take. Thor took them from her.
"Thank you. And next time you decide to change or remove his medication you need to let me know. I don't know how long he was without it, but with that kind of injury he can't just be left alone" he told her. He knew they did it on purpose, they didn't like Loki and they didn't want to help him, and he didn't think that was unreasonable, but they still had to do their jobs, and they needed to follow his orders, and his orders were to bring loki back up to health.
"Yes sir" the healer said with a bow as they all left.
Thor went to Loki and unchained Lokis right wrist.
"What are you doing?" Loki asked. Thor gave Loki one of the pills and put a glass of water next to him.
"Just take the pill" Thor told him. Loki didn't argue, he happily put the pill in his mouth and gulped down some water to swallow it. It took a minute, but his pain started to dull slightly. It didn't disappear, but it wasn't nearly as bad. When Loki swallowed the pill Thor put the cuff back around Loki's wrist, but it was much looser now so it didn't continue to eat away at his skin.
"Try to sleep, I'll be back in the morning" Thor said as he got up to leave. "You know, it might not kill you to say thank you" he added, but he wasn't surprised by Loki's response of silence. Loki just tightened his jaw and avoided eye contact. It was fine though, Thor left and went back to his room to sleep, he felt like he'd achieved a small victory, he and Loki had had a conversation and had been in the same room for more than ten minuets and neither of them wanted to kill the other. Progress was being made.