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Later Theo would blame it on the flickering lights in the hospital. The smell of blood swirling around him that nearly covered the sharp lingering odor of power, fight and fear. Blame it on the fight to not die in the place of his nightmares one more time. The exhausted drain that always came after a good long fight. Getting too comfortable with having someone to fight with, someone who would watch his back despite what he had done.
Or maybe he would blame it on too many nights trying to get comfortable in cold seats not meant for sleeping on for weeks, with nothing but nightmares chasing him from the limbo. Too many days spent with nothing to do but be forced to relive memories over and over again while hunger twisted his stomach in knots.
Whatever it was, when he looked over at the human dragging himself along the floor, blood pouring down his chest and leaving a trail on the ground, for a long second he didn't see the young man.
Instead, he saw long dark hair on a narrow face that use to smile but was now a frozen blank.
Pain flared in his shoulder as his body tried to knit itself unsuccessfully around jagged metal pieces still jammed into his flesh and he flinched, fingers tightening around his bicep. When he blinked and refocused on the scene in front of him as the kid tried to pull himself up the wall, the image was gone.
Gritting his teeth, Theo pushed himself to his feet as Gabe pulled himself up onto the wall of refrigerators and looked up at them all. "It hurts," Pain, disbelief, confusion and a plea for someone to do something all wrapped up into those two words. "It hurts."
Help me, Theo. Help me.
Theo didn’t really believe it was Tara’s voice whispering in his ear. Not his real sister. She may have been able to reach him in whatever hell the Skinwalkers had sent him to but there was no way she could reach him here. No way that he could ever deserve to still hear her voice.
Still... maybe there was one more thing he could offer her on this side of life.
He pushed off the pillar with his good shoulder and strode forward, noting how no one seemed to make any move to stop him. Stepping around the blood on the floor was more a matter of habit than any real need, his focus on the faltering heartbeat in front of him. Of the hiccup in it's rhythm, a skip in the beat that spoke of a broken organ struggling against the inevitable. The bleeding in Theo’s shoulder had slowed down to an insignificant sluggish, but the the flow from Gabe’s chest never slowed. Carefully, not even sure what he was doing but following a thin line of instinct that had been alive ever since he came back, Theo knelt down and gently picked up Gabe’s arm.
It was different this time. This time it wasn’t a desperate attempt to get someone moving so they could leave the place that screamed fear into his mind in an uncontrolled way he had never felt before, where he kept grabbing at Mason’s pain but couldn’t seem to touch it. This time, as he took a breath to center himself he realized where he had gone wrong. He had tried to take the pain like Deucalion had taught him to take power. The grabbing, digging, ripping, absorbing type of action. Instead, he realized, all he had to do was... acknowledge the pain and suddenly he could draw it towards him.
Theo was pretty sure this wasn’t the same caring that Mason had alluded to. There was no real care that he had towards Gabe. The younger kid got what he had coming from running in a pack the likes of Monroe and the hunters. Of having no regret on the choices and actions he did. Just like Theo had. And just like Theo, Gabe had been used. Willingly, but still... used. And discarded when no longer needed.
Failure. Theo Raeken.
Hot pain flared to life across his chest, both inside and outside, as the black veins flowed up his elbow. Theo never flinched. It wasn’t any more than what the Dread Doctors would do to him. It certainly was nothing compared to what his sister must have felt, slowly freezing. Had she still been even a little alive when they took her heart out?
The black lines seemed to thicken at that thought, at one of the memories that he had never allowed himself to feel before. He kept his eyes locked on Gabe’s, seeing the visible relief go through the dying boy. “Is it hurt anymore?” He asked through the pain.
"No," Gabe blinked sluggishly. His heart was no longer frantically beating away like a caged bird, the hiccups in it less noticeable.
"Good."
And then, just like his sister, Gabe exhaled his last breath. But unlike his sister, no one would tear out vital organs. And most likely someone, somewhere would morn for the life lost. Releasing a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, Theo gently laid the still arm back down onto the now lifeless body.
He knew he didn’t deserve it, knew that taking any amount of pain was a pebble in the ocean of wrongs and chaos he had left in his wake. But maybe... maybe he could at least remember what it was like to be human again. Liam had given him a second chance after all. Even if it had been in the role of an expendable pawn, it had been more than what he had deserved. It would be irresponsible to throw it away and make the werewolf look foolish.
And then, if he ever met his sister again he would know what to do. He would know how to finally take her pain and give her the relief that she deserved.
Because it seemed like he was still human, after all.