Work Text:
"Every time I pin down what I think I want it slips away"
A gunshot rang out. The final ghoul fell from the elevator doors, allowing them to slide closed. Stephen dropped the gun, lying cramped on the cold floor of the elevator.
A burning pain shot through his arm and he clutched his shoulder. He attempted to stop the bleeding, but it wasn't like it mattered, not with the blood pooling beneath him. He'd already lost so much blood from his other wounds that it wouldn't have made a difference either way.
He shouldn't have blown their cover. He shouldn't have retaliated against the bikers. He shouldn't have fired that shot...but he did. For some stupid reason he did. It wasn't even like his attempt to "save the mall" did anything. In doing what he thought was righteous, he had made a fatal mistake. He'd grown too possessive of something that wasn't his.
Maybe if he hadn't bothered, he'd be back up there with Fran instead of bleeding out in an elevator...
"The ghost slips away"
His body felt heavy and his vision blurred, the fluorescent lights almost painful. Was this the end? This wasn't how he'd pictured death. He'd pictured himself dying in his sleep or something, anything less horrible than this, but he supposed nothing had gone to plan recently.
He didn't want to die here. He couldn't die here. Not before he and Fran went to Canada. Not before Fran had her baby. Not before he got to settle down with her. His idealised view of the life he should have had was crushed. It would never happen.
He mourned only what could have been.
"I told you I would return, when the robin makes his nest"
Stephen thought of Fran. He had promised her he would come back. That he'd be fine. That he wouldn't do anything stupid.
He hoped she'd forgive him for lying.
He wasn't coming back, no matter how much he wished to. He couldn't even stand up, never mind stumble his way back "home". Whatever home was.
He wanted home to be a nice house in a quiet neighborhood. He imagined green grass and white picket fences. A quiet bedroom with a cot next to it.
Instead, home was a series of beige rooms full of boxes and stolen furniture. Though, he would give anything to be back there now.
"But I ain't never comin' back"
He thought of his unborn child. Brought into such a horrible world without a father. And Fran, without support to raise that child.
He would have been a father.
His eyes began to sting, but not from the buzzing lights. His vision blurred even further.
He wanted to see Fran. To hold her and apologise for being so awful these past few weeks. To tell her how much he loved her. He knew he never could, but it didn't halt his yearning.
Guilt crushed him. He would trade the world just to be able to say sorry.
He felt the end coming and whispered a plea for forgiveness that would never be answered. His grip on his shoulder loosened.
"I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry"