The ache is just too much.

Theo crawls, quite literally, out of his bed. His joints scream as he crosses the floor on his hands and knees, pulling himself to his feet by the edge of his desk.

But it’s the ache in his chest, the call that echoes through his heart over and over yet remaining unanswered, that does him in.

He’s starved. Beyond starved. He feels like an animal locked in a cage, allowing the craving to fester and ferment, until now when it’s become so much that he’s surprised he isn’t foaming at the mouth. He can’t breathe, or sleep, or eat. He just stews, and waits for the moment he can have some relief.

He tried to ignore the bond. He tried to resist the curse placed upon him. But now, as he stands on the fine line between sanity and going off the rails, he knows it’s a war he has lost so finely.

He conjures his Patronus, and directs his message to his other half.

“You’re being pulled from your assignment. Return to me. Now.”