Work Text:
His eyes blink open, even though he doesn’t want them to. His muscles twitch as he fights to keep them still. His body wants to run, to escape, to fight back, but his mind knows it’s no use. She’ll find him anyway. She always does.
Slowly, he rolls over as best he can in the cold metal box that’s become something like home, as morbid as it sounds. He still has to punch the door to get it open, but it’s half-hearted at best. He tried staying inside, once - just to see if he could hide.
She found him anyway.
The door creaks open and he pulls himself out, collapsing onto the floor. He’s exhausted, he doesn’t want to do this anymore. She always finds him, she always takes it back. He’s lost count of how many times, but hasn’t it been enough?
But how many truly is enough? Who decides? Tara? If that’s the case, she may decide “never enough”, and he’ll have to accept that. He deserves no less, after all.
A flicker to his left, and there she is. Theo sighs heavily, weariness weighing down his shoulders. “Tara,” he whispers. She won’t answer, she never does, but he talks anyway. “Bambi, please.”
Tara doesn’t respond, not even a flicker of recognition at the nickname he used to call her. She was his Bambi, and he was her Thumper, and he would give fucking anything to hear her call him that one more time.
Tara doesn’t approach him, not at first, so this time Theo takes a step forward. He reaches up with a shaky hand, an aborted attempt to reach for her, to push her hair back and touch her skin and feel her heartbeat. But it’s not there, he knows it’s not, not with the gaping, dripping, jagged hole in her sternum. No, her pulse isn’t inside her - it’s inside him.
That’s why he’s here, after all.
A deep ache blooms behind his ribs, but when he glances down, Tara’s hands are still at her sides. Guilt, he realizes a moment later. Soul-crushing, all-consuming guilt takes over him, and his knees give out, crashing to the cold tile before Tara’s feet.
Before he can even think about it, Theo’s arms come up and wrap around Tara’s legs. They’re cold, and wet, her jeans soaked with frigid murky river water. He doesn’t care. He rubs his cheek against her thigh and sobs, his whole body wracking with shudders as he struggles to breathe past the crushing weight inside of him.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, gasping and crying loudly. “I’m sorry, Bambi, please, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Sissy, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know, please don’t hate me, I’m sorry-“
His eyes snap open with a gasp as cold, wet fingers slide into his hair. He holds his breath, and for a moment, barely a second, he hopes that he’s finally gotten through, hopes that Tara will hold him and forgive him and everything will be okay. For the first time since he was swallowed by that hole in the ground, he has hope. A flicker, but it feels like an inferno for how badly he’s missed such a feeling.
His head snaps backward painfully, and he meets Tara’s empty gaze as her other hand plunges into his chest, ripping past muscle and bone and cartilage, and pulls his - her - heart out. She lets go of his hair and he falls backwards, choking on blood.
Then his eyes open.
He doesn’t hope again.