Theo doesn't really want to budge.

Matt tries harder!

… Well, he's probably not going to pull hard enough to pull Theo over, because Theo is good at staying up, but he's also probably not going to pull hard enough to make Theo budge in the direction of the door.

Maybe a little. Not much.

(Nngh.)

"What if Matt were carrying you?" he wonders.

Theo looks at Matt somewhat suspiciously.

"I can probably lift you," he says, eyeing Theo. "Not like you'd be that heavy."

… Theo nods.

So Matt picks him up! Then walks closer to the house.

Theo feels a little undignified being carried like this.

He feels worse when Matt starts moving, and– after a couple of steps tells him to stop and put him down then runs back away from the house a bit.

"Why did you do what he told you to do?" he asks Matt.

Matt looks at Sadde. Thinks for a moment. "Didn't want to cause him undue harm?" Pause. "We can do it again–?"

Theo shudders just a little. Again.

"Was it harming you, Theo?"

"No, not– it's just, like, ugh." He thinks a moment. "Like, I don't know if this applies to you, but when you were younger if you were told off by a teacher it'd be horrible for the sake of there being disapproval from a teacher? Like that except the disapproval is 'you really should not be anywhere near this house, really nowhere near, why are you getting closer' and internal."

"...not with teachers but with mom, yeah, I get that. If you don't wanna do it we don't need to."

"– I don't know, maybe it'll snap if I get close enough and be okay, or it'll just stay at a constant level or something." He rubs at his eye a bit. "Should probably try it again."

"Go ahead, then."

Whee, picked up by Matt again. (Eugh.)

Yup! And then slowly brought closer to the house. And then a bit quicker, 'cause there's no point prolonging the suffering, and then he'll just keep going.

Well, it acts like expected at first, with him just being sort of not inclined to go towards the door, and then it gets worse, like before, and then he says that Matt should probably put him down—

— Matt ignores this.

And then they get closer and they're still a few meters away from the door and Theo is really kinda suggesting that Matt should probably put him down now.

(He doesn't. He almost does one time but then remembers that, like, that's not the goal here. Stupid sway.)

Theo starts poking Matt. To get him to put him down. Because like, Theo doesn't want to hurt him.

(There is an implied threat-or-prediction here.)

And one of the sets of steps and smells in the background gets close enough to ask, "Is there something you want to tell me, Sadde?"