Growing Sideways

lost and found

When he starts crawling his way up through the earth, hands grasping for purchase on the dirt surrounding him, he thinks it's a more fucked up version of the nightmare he's been living in for the last few months. Years? It feels like a lifetime. Endless loops of having his sister's heart ripped out of his chest, over and over and over again. It's hard to remember.

Thinks he lost count around the 246th time, his eyes opening, lungs gasping for air, acceptance settling into his bones. The knowledge that this is never going to end, the knowledge that he deserves this. He deserves all of it.

The 246th time where he lay steady in the cold locker in the morgue, accepting his fate, waiting for the sound of his sister's voice calling for him. Always calling for him. Always coming back to claim what he stole. 

It always ends the same way, his sister's ghost ripping open the door, dragging him away, him giving in, the air leaving his lungs as a hand reaches inside of his chest, cold fingers wrapping around a beating heart, silent tears falling as his lifeline is ripped from his chest. His eyes close, opening again two seconds later, the cycle going in an endless loop.

He stopped looking for a way out however many deaths ago, running makes it worse.

Theo's just feeling a little numb to it now, barely registering the fact that he isn't hearing his sister's voice calling for him. He's walking aimlessly through the hallway, nothing but the sound of his own labored breathing and stolen heart thumping steadily in his chest. He barely notices the fact that there's a new light flooding in, an itch growing beneath his skin.

He wonders distantly, dumbly, if this means he's died enough times for it to be over. For him to finally move on from here. Or if this just means he's going to be tortured by a new ghost, someone else from his past. Maybe Tara got tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Wonders what ghost is going to rip him apart this time, what kind of torture he's going to be subjected to for the next lifetime.

All of his wondering flies out the window when he realizes the emergency room doors aren't locked anymore. He squashes whatever pitiful hope decides to crawl its way into his chest, refusing to believe this could be over. That he would be deserving of anything other than a life of torture.

He wraps a steady hand against the steel handle of the door, holding his breath, closing his eyes tight and pushes.

The door opens.

When Theo comes back from hell he doesn't really come back .

He thinks most of him was left down there with his sister, pieces of him left behind with every last breath. He can't look in the mirror anymore, doesn't recognize the boy looking back.

He's jumpier than usual, always on high alert, hands having a constant shake to them. If the pack is noticing anything they keep it to themselves. Probably just assuming it's another manipulation tactic.

Except it's not. It's Hell-boy, Recently-raised-from-the-dead-boy, Big-bad-Chimera-of-death, Theo Raeken struggling to exist in a world that doesn't want him here. Struggling to exist inside of a body that doesn't feel like his own, skin that feels too tight over his bones, hands that do nothing but hurt, and take . Eyes that hold nothing but a far off look, shoulders that sag with the weight of regret and fear.

This isn't his body anymore. He doesn't know if it ever was.

He was taught early on that he never had a choice in the matter, if someone wanted something of his, they were going to have it, no permission needed.

Sometimes he can still feel the cold metal of the operating table on his back, the phantom touch of unkind hands grasping on his insides, voices that are cold and void of any emotion telling him to be still and stop crying .