OBLIVION [Thomesa]

nine

"Teresa,"

he breathed, the word twisted in his lips.
Her lip twitched.
Was that supposed to be a smile?
"Hi, Tom."
Her voice shook.
She was holding back a scream.
Her fingers flew to her lips to hide their trembling,
and it left streaks of scarlet against her mouth.
Scarlet against her bloodless lips,
like a red rose full of life,
blooming against the deathly cold purity of snow.
Her hair stuck to her cheeks,
wet with tears and sweat and blood.
Crimson droplets dripped from her slender fingers as she clutched at her wounded leg.

The bones of her entire upper leg were crushed by fallen steel,
her thigh pinned by the sharp edge of the shrapnel.
All of these horrors had existed in Thomas's nightmares.
It could still be a dream, perhaps.
All but her eyes.
Thomas could never have imagined that look
in her eyes.
Her innocent and
blue
beautiful and
tortured
eyes.
"Thomas."
And suddenly Gally was in the camera's view.
"I thought you wouldn't answer."
His fingers were twisting through her hair,
sliding down her neck,
caressing her bare shoulder.
"You look awful -
have you been getting enough sleep?"
Teresa shivered beneath his touch,
and her eyes flashed.
But she made no move to stop it.
"Damn you.
Get away from her, you son of a - "

"Thomas," she breathed desperately.
And they both swallowed their words to hear hers.
"I m-m-made,"
the words caught in her hoarse throat,
and came out broken.
"I made you promise. That y-you wouldn't f-forget m-m-"
the paused again, stabling herself,
biting her shaking lips.
"Me. I take back your oath."
Gally's eyes squinted in glee, and Thomas's eyes widened in horror.

"Sweetheart, no."
"No no no no no . . . "
He stumbled to the screen,
his shaking fingers pressing against the glass
stroking her tortured face.
"It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay."
He promised he would never lie to her.
"I will find you - I will find you -
you're going to be okay - "
"GALLY I'M GOING TO KILL YOU - "
"I love you," she whispered.
"Please be okay."
"How extremely touching," Gally relished,
breaking her pinkie behind the camera to keep her from speaking further.
"Here she is, dying herself because of you -
and she tries to save you from guilt?
She knows that you are guilty. She knows you are and should be guilty."
Gally paused.
"You know that you are guilty, don't you?"
Thomas's tongue rolled and unrolled in his mouth,
his anguished eyes raking across her abused form.
Yes.
Yes,
he knew that he was guilty.
"I swear, Gally.
If you touch her - "
He sounded like a child.
Like an orphan watching his parents fall to their death
unable to stop it.
"I will kill you."
Unable to save them.
"She is such a pretty thing,
it's no wonder you fell in live with her, boy.
Certainly idiotic, though. Especially if you loved her.

But, of course,
perhaps I am once again underestimating you.
Perhaps you never loved her.
Was that all a lie, child?
Surely you wouldn't put her in line of such dangerous fire,
if you had truly ever cared at all about her.
I know you have a brain somewhere under all that hair gel,
though you do a damn good show of hiding it."
Thomas snarled, his hands taut and white against the scarlet tainted screen.
Her blood was on the lens of the camera.
He grasped at her slender, bruised, and bloodied form
as if he could rip her from the nightmare
and pull her into his arms.
There was nothing he wouldn't do to pull her into his arms.
"Shame, she doesn't scream like a good girl should.
She doesn't cry quite right either.
See how she bites her cheek trying to be strong for you?"
He curled two fingers around her chin,
stroking fondly at her cheek.
"But every girl has a breaking point, Thomas.
How long do you think this strength will last?
A week?
A day?
An hour?"
Raven was yelling,
Cyborg was swearing,
and Beastboy was silently crying from the hall.
Thomas couldn't hear.
Only her. Only her as she pleaded.
"Thomas," she whispered,
crying, sobbing silently.
"Please . . . End the transmission.
You should not have to watch this - "

"Hush, princess," Gally whispered. "Let's give your boy a scream to keep him up tonight."

And his boot stepped down hard on the shrapnel pinning her leg,
like a foot driving a shovel into earth.
His heel twisted hard,
digging the edge further into her mangled skin.
Every nerve in Thomas's body simultaneously screamed at once.
And then he heard her.
"STOP!
Gally - STOP!"
Thomas fell to his knees,
and he roared louder than the entire crowd of children had screamed
when his parents splattered on the concrete below him that night.
Gally's foot lifted,
and he nonchalantly stepped away from her leg.
She ripped herself back and forth,
her hair sprawling over her face,
fluttering from her shattered sobs
and strangled moan
"Why, Thomas? Why should I stop?" Gally whispered. "Why do you care?"
"I'm doing this for you, after all. Only for you.
I certainly don't take much pleasure in hurting a beautiful, distressed girl.
No, no, no -
it serves a purpose.
Does it bother you, child?
Does this - "
he kicked Teresa in her ribs,
and there was a grotesque snap -
"Bother you?
"Does it make you thirst for my blood?"
"End the . . . Transmission . . . "
Thomas was enraged
and so helpless
so scared
and so pained.
He couldn't end it.

What if he killed her as soon as the camera was off?

What if this was the last time he'd ever see her?
What if Gally would tell him how to save her?
What if him continuing to watch was truly
the only reason Gally was hurting her at all?
"Would you murder me for this, Thomas?
Do you feel the hatred,
the anger,
the pain yet? Or must I show you one more time?"
He slammed his heel down on the shrapnel once more,
and Teresa shrieked,
thrashing like a scarlet scarf caught in a storm.
Her eyes rolled back in her head,
and she screamed,
begging -
"Get away from her!
Please - please -
what do you want? Gally!
WHAT DO YOU WANT?!
I'll do anything!
Just - STOP HURTING HER!"
Thomas clutched at his face,
nails clawing at his cheeks.
"I know you will do anything, Thomas.
And, in time,
there are several things I may ask of you.
But for now? - "
His voice lowered into a relishing growl.
"I just want to see you suffer."
Gally just wanted to see him suffer.
No other reason. Other than him.
There was nothing he could say,
nothing that he could do.
Thomas couldn't even die for her.
Gally cocked his head mockingly,
before crouching down to Teresa,
twisting her hair in his fingers -
"Do be a dear,
and tell Thomas how much you want him to save you?"
Beg him?
Tell him you love him again? It could be the last."
Gally broke another of her fingers from outside the cameras view,
for extra motivation.
Teresa's eyes reeled,
her mouth opening and closing like a strangled fish -
fighting to stay silent as her thumb now snapped.
"Please? It's all so very touching."
"Gally - Gally - "
Thomas whispered his voice giving out.
"Please - I'm begging you -
Stop this!"
Gally laughed coldly.
"Ah, Thomas, you insolent child.
You call that begging?"
His dark eye gleamed gold.
"I'll teach you how to beg."
And then the words were consumed by the worst scream yet,
and a spout of blood as the writhing Teresa,
caused the metal to gouge her muscle.
But Thomas was already collapsing,
fainting from shock from pain and from horror -
a dense fog closed over his eyes and ears -
and he saw only Teresa's tortured face,
contorted in a bloodcurdling scream.
And he only knew that it was his fault.
He scream went on and on until it gurgled and cut off with a choked cough.
Gally's eye gleamed. "Nice talking to you, dear boy."
Raven swore.

And then the screen exploded.

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