Chapter Text
Mason refused to feel guilty.
Really, he did. He had no reason to regret anything he’d said to Theo, but he had to admit that Theo’s uncharacteristic silence as they shuffled through the sewers was—unsettling, to say the least.
It probably didn’t have anything to do with him, Mason reasoned. Theo, like the rest of them, had so much more on his plate than a few harsh truths from Mason. And yet, he couldn’t miss the way Theo’s hands kept twitching, like they wanted to shake but were being held still by Theo’s will alone, and the glares Theo occasionally aimed down at them as if they’d betrayed him.
You can’t take pain if you don’t care.
Theo had failed to take Mason’s pain, something Mason was reminded of with each step that jarred his still-healing bullet wound, but Mason didn’t know what to make of the fact that Theo had tried in the first place. It wasn’t as though Mason would have expected it from him; Mason had, in fact, thought he was going to kill Mason himself when Theo lunged at him earlier, didn’t realize until they were on the ground that Theo had knocked him out of Aaron’s path.
You can’t take pain if you don’t care, but Mason couldn’t get the image of Theo’s stricken expression when he realized it wasn’t working out of his head. For a borderline sociopath, he had definitely looked like he cared more than he let on.
But Theo had fooled them before, so Mason refused to feel guilty.
And yet—
Get up, I can’t leave you.
Theo didn’t give a damn about him, Mason was sure of it. Why would he risk letting Aaron—the thing that used to be Aaron—escape just to get Mason out of there?
It had to be some sort of trick, or a ploy to gain back the trust he had forfeited.
He barely realized they had reached the ladder that would lead them back aboveground until Theo took one appraising glance at Mason, sighed as though all the world’s burdens fell squarely on his shoulders, and crouched, cupping his hands over one knee.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mason asked, too bewildered to be hostile.
“You reopened your wound,” Theo said curtly. “This’ll be easier if you let me give you a boost.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, and pushed past Theo to step onto the ladder.
“Great, there’s two of them,” Theo muttered, the echo of the tunnels ensuring that even Mason’s human ears picked up on it, but Mason ignored him.
Unfortunately, his bandaged side protested within seconds of attempting to climb to the next rung, and he groaned involuntarily.
“Need a hand?”
Theo’s tone was so pointed that Mason wanted to refuse again on principle, but there was no way he was making it out of there in a reasonable amount of time without assistance.
“Fine,” he snapped, and stepped down into the cradle of Theo’s palms. Theo gave him a second to steady himself, then pushed slowly upward until Mason’s grasping hands could reach one of the higher rungs.
“Do not,” Mason said, straining for air and fumbling for the next rung, “say I told you so.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Theo said, tersely, but stepped onto the lower rungs to help push Mason upwards again with a hand to the bottom of Mason’s sneaker when he lifted his foot.
They made it out like that, Mason catching his breath next to the sewer cap while Theo leaped up in one smooth motion.
Show-off, Mason thought, bitterly.
“We have to get moving,” Theo said, after a brief handful of seconds he apparently deemed long enough for them to recover. “Aaron’s going after his other half.”
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?” Mason snapped, residual fear and adrenaline taking over. “I told you not to fight him! You gave him exactly what he wanted!”
“What, I should’ve just let him attack us?” Theo shot back. “In case you forgot, you don’t heal.”
“Don’t act like you were—protecting me, or something,” he hissed. “You attacked him because you wanted to, because it’s who you are.”
Theo’s face, hard with anger, shuttered so completely it almost gave Mason whiplash, and Mason—
Mason still refused to feel guilty, but he could acknowledge that, while probably true, the accusation wasn’t entirely reasonable. They had both felt the Anuk-ite’s influence down there, and having Aaron in such close proximity had only made it worse.
And Theo had saved Mason before things really went to shit, selfish motivations notwithstanding.
He opened his mouth, trying to come up with something that wasn’t an apology but would help smooth over the tension—for his own sake, if nothing else—but Theo spoke before he could figure out what to say.
“Let’s go,” he said, face and voice studiously blank, completely devoid of emotion, nothing like when he tried and failed to take Mason’s pain. “He’s heading toward the high school.”
He offered Mason a hand up, but refused to meet his eyes.
Mason swallowed and took it.
The drive to Beacon High was tense, silent, and riddled with egregious traffic violations that had Mason gripping at the door handle, but for all Theo’s speeding, they didn’t make it in time.
They intercepted Scott, Liam, and Lydia in the parking lot. Theo parked haphazardly and jumped out of the truck, leaving Mason to scramble to follow when the others came stumbling out of the front doors.
Liam was a mess, clothes and hair disheveled, and Scott’s hands were covered in blood. Lydia was as flawlessly put together as always, but even from a distance, even to Mason’s human eyes, she looked shaken.
“It was Quinn,” Liam blurted as Mason and Theo reached them. “They merged, I couldn’t stop them.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Liam,” Scott said, with the resigned air of someone who had repeated this several times already. “You guys okay?”
Before either of them could say anything, Lydia, who had been eyeing them critically, said, “Mason, you’re limping.”
Liam’s gaze snapped to him, eyes wide and afraid.
“Where are you hurt?” he demanded. “Was it Aaron?”
“I’m fine,” Mason said hurriedly. “Just tore a few of my stitches, I think.”
Liam glanced at Theo, and Mason was almost relieved at the indication that his best friend still distrusted Theo enough to consider Theo a potential perpetrator of any harm to Mason. He opened his mouth to explain—as much as he disliked Theo, he wasn’t going to let him take the fall for something that, for once, hadn’t actually been his fault—before he realized Theo was nodding back at Liam, and Liam relaxed.
Liam wasn’t eyeing Theo with suspicion, he was looking to him for confirmation that Mason wasn’t underselling his injuries, and that brought Mason right back to the other accusation he’d hurled at Theo, before Aaron even showed up.
It doesn’t matter who forgets. I won’t.
Because Mason knew Liam, had grown up with him, attached at the hip more often than not, knew him almost better than he knew himself some days. He knew Liam to his core, so it hadn’t taken long for him to realize that Liam was, against all reason, warming up to Theo, was starting to trust him, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
It had been obvious in the animal clinic, crowded around the exam table covered in maps of the Armory, when Liam volunteered himself to create a diversion and named Theo as his partner in the same breath. No hesitation, just a questioning look in Theo’s direction that Theo answered with a nod of acquiescence.
Obvious, when Mason met them at the zoo and offered to come with them, and Liam deferred to Theo with a glance over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, letting Theo make the call.
Obvious when Liam came barreling into his hospital room after Mason’s parents had left, apologies and threats of vengeance spilling from his lips faster than Mason could keep up with. Mason had eventually managed to reassure him that there was nothing Liam could have done to prevent it, but he couldn’t resist assuaging his curiosity as to why Liam and Theo hadn’t made it back to Scott’s house. Liam blushed, looked down at his hands in his lap, and quietly admitted that Theo had had to knock him out and cart him out of there before he killed Nolan, his expression flickering between shame, confusion, and something softer.
So, no, Mason wouldn’t be forgetting who Theo was any time soon. He had been there in that library. He wasn’t capable of forgetting, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t, no matter how common an occurrence Theo’s presence was becoming.
I saw what you did, Mason had told Theo, down in the tunnels, but he had also seen what Liam did, had seen him wolfed-out on top of Scott, arm raised to make a killing blow. He had seen what happened the last time Liam let Theo in.
As he was so clearly doing again.
“The Anuk-ite turned them to stone with a glance,” Lydia said, drawing Mason from his disbelieving reverie. “We can’t look at it.”
“So, what, we fight blind?” Theo asked, skeptically, before his expression cleared. “Deucalion.”
He said the name like it tasted bitter on his tongue, but Mason was still stuck on the whole hunters turned to stone thing.
“It turned them to stone?” he said. “That’s not—that’s not even possible, scientifically. I mean, that’s altering their atomic makeup, it goes against all the—”
“Not the time, dude,” Liam said, and offered an apologetic grimace when Mason looked at him. “You can take a look if you want.”
He gestured toward the school behind him, and Mason moved without thinking, only to be drawn up short by a stabbing pain in his side.
Bullet wounds, he decided, pressing a hand to the spot and wincing, were more irritating than action movies would have him believe.
“Oh, shit, right,” Liam said. “We should get you to a doctor.”
Theo snorted.
Mason made it two steps to Lydia’s car, Liam supporting him—because like hell was he riding in Theo’s truck again—when a coyote careened into the parking lot and promptly shifted into an entirely naked Malia.
Mason averted his eyes, and at his side, Liam yelped and squeezed his eyes shut, covering them with his free hand for good measure. Scott let out a squeak, Theo didn’t react at all, and Lydia just sighed and said, “Malia, we talked about this.”
She strode over to her car, reached into the backseat, and handed Malia a set of clothes.
“It’s gone,” Malia said. “I couldn’t catch a scent anywhere. It’s like it doesn’t have one.” A pause, and then, “You can look now, you weirdos.”
Mason risked a cautious glance, relaxing when he saw that she was, in fact, clothed.
Scott was still a little red in the face, but he said, “We should all go home, rest up for the night. We’ll figure out what to do about the Anuk-ite in the morning. And Mason, we need to get you to the hospital, make sure you’re okay.”
The problem with this perfectly reasonable plan, Mason quickly realized, was that there weren’t enough cars.
Lydia and Malia had already climbed into Lydia’s car, Malia claiming the passenger seat, Scott poised to join them in the back with one hand on the door handle. Because Scott and Liam had apparently walked—or, more likely, run—to school from the clinic like the idiot werewolves they were, that left Mason with few choices, all equally unpleasant:
1. He and Liam could try to squeeze into Lydia’s backseat with Scott, likely aggravating his already-aching bullet wound. Not workable.
2. He could let Liam ride with Scott and the others, thus condemning himself to another solitary ride with Theo. Mason would rather walk himself to the hospital, thanks.
3. He could join Scott in Lydia’s backseat, leaving Theo to drive Liam home. Alone. Not on Mason’s watch, absolutely not.
4. He could follow his dumbass of a best friend to Theo’s truck, which Liam had already started toward without hesitation. Jesus Christ.
Liam had evidently expected Mason to ride with the others, because he did a double take and rushed back to his side when he noticed Mason reluctantly heading toward him and, by extension, Theo.
“Sorry, Mase, I thought you’d go with Lydia,” he said, steadying him with one hand on Mason’s elbow and the other on his back.
“More room in the truck,” Mason said, by way of explanation, and Liam let him get away with it.
Liam got him situated in the backseat, fretting over him until Theo huffed a laugh, at which point Liam snatched his hands away from Mason’s seatbelt and glared halfheartedly.
He still hopped into the passenger seat without complaint, though, and drummed his fingers against the seat while Theo started the engine.
Mason was exhausted and sore, the adrenaline fading now that he was—relatively—safe and had confirmed that his friends were, too. He rested his head against the window, gazing outside just long enough to confirm that Theo was, in fact, taking them to the hospital before he let his eyes slip shut.
He wouldn’t fall asleep, not with his abdomen aching so badly, but he could rest his eyes for a little while.
Theo drove much more sedately, this time, for which Mason was drowsily grateful. He’d suffered the sharp turns and hard braking earlier because he understood the urgency of the situation, but now he just wanted to rest without his head slamming against the window every ten seconds.
Liam was still drumming his fingers against the leather of the front bench seat. Mason found the noise almost soothing, so of course Theo had to ruin it by opening his mouth.
“What is it?” he asked, tone softer than Mason would have expected.
“I’m fine,” Liam said wearily, and Mason thought back to Theo, in the tunnels, Great, there’s two of them. “I’m not the one who got hurt.”
His words were hushed, and Mason realized that Liam thought he was asleep. He kept his eyes closed, trying to breathe deeply and evenly.
He wanted to know how Theo had managed to win back some fragile bit of Liam’s trust, strengthening every day.
“You’re fidgeting,” Theo said, and the drumming of Liam’s fingers stopped abruptly. “What happened back there?”
“Nothing,” Liam insisted, but it was weak even to Mason’s human ears, and Liam only made it another two seconds before he sighed. “Just—I was too late. I should’ve chased her right away, but I was—”
Afraid, Mason thought, and Theo echoed the word aloud.
“Afraid.” Theo was still speaking more softly than Mason had thought him capable of, and there was no reproach in his tone when he said, “That’s what it does, Liam.”
“I know that,” Liam shot back, but there was no real heat to it. Then, deflated, “I thought if I stayed scared, I’d get angry enough to stop them. One emotion at a time, right?”
Mason had no idea what he was talking about, but Theo clearly did.
“Your anger makes you strong,” Theo said. “Not invincible.”
The truck was quiet for a few moments, Liam tapping at the seat a few times before he seemed to catch himself, and then Theo sighed.
“I tried to fight Aaron in the tunnels,” he offered quietly. “Didn’t go so well for me, either. That’s how he found Quinn, they shared each other’s injuries. Stop beating yourself up over it.”
Mason expected Liam to explode at Theo for all but admitting he’d escalated the situation, but Liam just let out a huff that could almost be mistaken for a laugh.
“At least I’m not the only one who got his ass kicked,” he said, sounding lighter. Still weary, but lighter.
“Guess so.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes, Mason stewing silently in disbelief over the entirety of that strange conversation. If that was how Theo was with Liam all the time, he had either retained his acting skills from before his time in the skinwalker prison or he was being genuine, which was unthinkable. Theo didn’t have a genuine bone in his body, Mason knew that, but he still couldn’t wrap his head around the patient way he had talked Liam out of his own head.
It was Liam who broke the silence, this time. “You won’t believe who the phone belonged to.”
“Try me.”
“Mrs. Finch,” Liam said, and Mason couldn’t stop the choked noise from escaping. Liam’s head whipped around, but Theo kept his eyes on the road. Mason remembered, far too late, that Theo was a master at reading scents and heartbeats. He had probably known Mason was awake the entire time.
He tried to convince himself that this was proof that Theo was manipulating them, that his uncharacteristic kindness had been for Mason’s benefit, but Mason was a logical person. Liam hadn’t seemed surprised at all by Theo’s behavior, which meant this couldn’t be the first time they’d interacted like that, and Theo could easily have feigned surprise when he choked if he was just trying to win Mason over.
More likely, Theo just hadn’t cared that Mason was listening, which was one more bit of confusion to add to the puzzle Mason was assembling.
“Your biology teacher,” Theo said slowly, “is a werewolf.”
Liam narrowed his eyes at Mason over the back of his seat, then twisted around to face forward again. “An Alpha.”
“And she didn’t do anything when those idiots were attacking you.”
Theo didn’t sound surprised, but his voice was cold enough to send a shiver down Mason’s spine.
“I’m definitely still reporting that, by the way,” Mason said quickly. “That was, like, such a fireable offense.”
“She did just lose her whole pack and her daughter,” Liam said, because Liam was good and forgiving, but Mason had had to watch as Nolan and Gabe beat him half to death while Mrs. Finch stood by, so he was absolutely still reporting her.
Theo met his eyes in the rear view like he knew what Mason was thinking. Like he approved.
It turned Mason’s stomach a little, but he decided he was alright with agreeing with Theo on this one.
Twice in one day. Mason must be losing his mind.
When they reached the hospital, Theo pulled wordlessly into the emergency room parking zone, parking much more neatly than he had at the high school. Liam helped Mason down from the backseat, leaving him to lean against the side of the truck while he circled around and tapped at the driver’s side window until Theo lowered it.
Mason eavesdropped shamelessly, not bothering to be subtle about it. Theo had known he was awake in the truck and hadn’t seemed bothered, so what use was there in trying to hide it now?
“…not to look at it,” Liam was saying.
“I’m not an idiot, Liam,” Theo said, amused. “I think I can manage.”
“Right,” Liam said, but didn’t move.
“You gonna need a ride home?”
Mason was less surprised by the offer than he would have been twenty minutes ago, less surprised than he’d like to be.
“Nah, I’ll catch a ride with my stepdad,” Liam said. “Night.”
“Night, Liam,” Theo said, still sounding amused, and then Liam was finally returning to Mason’s side to help him into the ER.
Mason glanced over his shoulder, when they reached the doors, and saw Theo still parked there, unmoving.
He didn’t pull away until the doors closed behind them.
“What’s your deal with him?” Mason asked, incredulous.
“What deal?” Liam said immediately. “There is no deal. He’s just—useful. Sometimes.”
As a triage nurse approached them, eyeing Liam with undisguised suspicion, Mason watched Liam’s face color, fingers twitching restlessly against his thigh.
Oh.
He needed to tell Corey everything. Then he realized he had yet to call Corey to fill him in on the absolute insanity of the past twelve hours and reassure him of his continued survival, and he said, “Oh, shit,” quite loudly, just as the nurse reached them.
Liam stared at him. The nurse stared at him. A girl two seats away, eyes damp and cradling her visibly broken arm against her chest, stared at him.
All Mason could think to say was, “Corey’s gonna kill me.”