Chapter Text
Theo wakes up with a start, gasping for breath as he jolts forward to sit up, his hand instantly moves to his chest, gripping his t-shirt into his fist over his fast beating heart as he reminds himself ‘it’s still there, it was just a dream…’ his thoughts trail off as he looks around his surroundings, taking in the bedroom with it’s bare pale blue walls and solid wood floors, reminding himself that he’s back in the real world… back home. ‘Home…’ he thinks of his parents, the ones he hadn’t seen since his childhood, well, since the dread doctors found him and… He stops that train of thought in its tracks as he looks to the clock on his bedside table which reads 02:36 - realising he won’t be getting back to sleep any time soon now, he gets out of bed and goes to the kitchen to get some water.
Turning off the water, he tries to steady the glass in his shaking hand as he sits down at the kitchen table. It’s too quiet he thinks, as images start flashing through his mind of family dinners around an all too similar table, his parents with huge smiles on their faces at the antics of their children, his dad helping him with his homework, him sitting on the floor playing with Tara before everything went wrong for the family ‘Tara…’ That was enough to halt the images flashing through his mind as his eyes close and the all too familiar quiet voice “Ttthhheeeooo…” calls for him. As he opens his eyes again her voice stops, he knows she’s not here, knows that he got out, that he’s all alone in the world now… He sits back in the chair and lets the regret for everything that’s led him to this point wash over him, as the tears start to fall he folds in on himself, folding his arms on the table and resting his head there as he cries. He doesn’t even notice that he falls asleep like that until he wakes in the morning with a sore neck…
Pushing himself up from the table as he rubs his neck, Theo glances around the gloomy looking kitchen, noticing that the blinds still closed as his senses start to return. “Ttthhheeeooo…” he hears Tara calling to him as he stands up.
“No! You’re not real!” he shouts out loud this time as he punches the table hard enough to leave a little dent for emphasis. The resulting pain in his knuckles makes the voice stop. Only then does he hear his alarm clock ringing out from his bedroom, he runs up the stairs to switch it off. Only after it’s been stopped does he notice that it reads 08.00, “great, only Monday and I’m already late!”. He becomes a blur in the room as he drops the clock on the bed, picks up his crumpled clothes that he dropped on the floor last night, dresses and runs out the door to school almost all at once.
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As they walk into the classroom Liam, Hayden and Mason take their seats at the back table in the room, continuing their conversation from the corridor “I just don’t see how he’s all of sudden our problem?” Hayden shrugs as she questions Liam.
He sighs, knowing that they won’t understand his train of thought, before he looks up from his books “We freed him, and like it or not he did help us out…”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make us responsible for him.” Hayden cuts in determinedly, adding “Did you forget everything he did? Why we put him there in the first place?”
Liam explains “No… what I’m saying is when we brought him back you saw what he was like, I mean, I just think that maybe he’s paid for everything he did.” That earns him two sets of widened eyes that are more than ready to argue back with him. He scrambles to continue before they can cut him off “Look, somethings not right with Theo, and I think that maybe… maybe we should check it out. Noshiko told us whatever happened next was our responsibly… I mean what if he goes off the deep end and we stood by and did nothing?”
Mason answers before Hayden can cut in again, trying to find a middle ground to keep everyone happy “I get what you’re saying Liam, I do… but I can’t forget everything that happened either, not what he did to you guys and Corey…” At Liams sigh he leans over the table and puts his hand on his shoulder “Yeah, I get that he also helped us save Corey too, and I’m not saying don’t try to help if you think something’s gonna happen, but remember everything he said and did before, that’s all… If you wanna check it out then you should, but just be careful is all.”
Liam sighs, understanding what his friend is saying “Yeah I know, but you can’t say you haven’t noticed anything weird about him since everything went back to normal.”
The teacher starts calling out the register, effectively ending their conversation for now, everyone present except for Theo, which earns both Hayden and Mason an imploring look from Liam and he mouths across the table ‘see..’. After taking registration she starts to walk around the class explaining what they’ll be doing today “So… this morning we’ll be studying animal biology and anatomy some more…” as half the class groans and she holds her hands up in a surrendering motion as she adds “… wait till you hear me out guys… We’ll be dissecting and practicing removing tissues.” A student asks why, and she starts to explain that they need practical experience to understand the complexity of the task at hand when they’ll be writing about it later, as the door bursts open and Theo bursts through as he adjusts his hoodie. “Nice of you to join us Mr Raeken…” she says in a disapproving tone, and then carries on “…there’s a seat at the back” as she points to the table that Liam, Hayden and Mason are seated around. He mutters an apology for being late and grimaces as he notices who is sitting at the table.
He’s thankful for the teacher not drawing any more attention as she continues talking to the class as he quickly takes the seat next to Liam, although he doesn’t really hear a word of what she’s saying, but it means that the group won’t be able to comment on his lateness, he really can't deal with their snarky comments right now, as he starts to think about last night again. He snaps back to being in the classroom as Hayden stands up abruptly and walks away, noticing one person from each group doing the same, so he assumes its to collect the assignments. “Dude, you ok?” Liam asks as he looks genuinely concerned. Theo tries to force what he hopes is his best poker face as he says “Yeah I’m fine, just slept in.” he knows he fell short though when Liam only nods in response, his expression says more than words ever could, but he thankfully drops the topic as Hayden returns with four silver trays and puts them in the middle of their table.
They each grab one and Theo follows suit, not even noticing what was in them until he sets his down and looks and to see a frog lying on its back. ‘oh no…’ his train of thought is stopped in its tracks as the teacher begins to explain what they’ll be doing in great detail, like he didn’t already know where this was leading. ‘I can do it, it’s just a dead frog… it’s not…’ as his stomach flips when he teachers voice continuing “so pick up your scalpels, cut down and extract the tissues and samples listed your assignment sheets… remember guys, group work. Take a task each.”
Mason takes the sheet and reads “Okay… so… identify sex and sexual organs, lungs, liver, kidney, heart…” ‘…Tthheeoo…’ the room flashes dark for a second and Theo snaps back to look at Mason as the boy continues “…how do we wanna do this?”
Thinking it’ll be the task that stops him having a full blown panic attack in the middle of the class Theo choses identifying the sexual organs task. He dives right in to it, telling himself that if he keeps focusing on the task at hand he won’t need to look up and see what the others chose and see them cutting the poor things heart, he doesn’t think he could see that after seeing Taras heart being pulled out of him and still beating in her hands on repeat.
Liam gives Mason and Hayden a pointed look at the way Theo picks up his scalpel and stabs it into the frog as though it personally attacked him. He looks back to Theo who has stopped moving and is looking down at his hand “Dude, you ok?” he asks aiming for sounding concerned.
Theo flinches a little at his words as though Liam startled him, anyone else would have missed it but thanks to the enhanced senses Liam didn’t. “I’m fine Dunbar, just trying to get on with this.” Theo replies, trying to shrug off the concern.
“You sure?” Liam asks gently trying to prod, he knows theres something more going on here, he’s had the feeling anytime he seen Theo over the summer break but he didn’t want to intrude, and now they’ve been back at school a week and he’s seen the chimera looking slightly more unravelled each day, he’s not going to let it drop. Theo looks up at him and then quickly looks over to Hayden and Mason before returning his eyes to Liam.
An annoyed look crosses his face as he opens his mouth to reply and tell Liam to shut up and drop it, he’s cut off by Hayden sighing loudly and saying “Liam. He’s fine, he just said so. Let it drop” in a tone that left Theo in no doubt that her feelings toward him hadn’t changed even after the help he’d given them with the ghost riders. He looked at Liam while pointing at Hayden with his free hand and said “What she said. I’m fine.” before looking back down to the task at hand and cutting into the frog a little further as a blank look crosses his face. Liam didn’t buy it at all but he wasn’t going to keep pushing Theo in the middle of class.
As Theo pushes the scalpel up the body and he sees the red insides of the animal he feels the all too familiar chill settle over him and Taras voice getting closer as she playfully calls his name “Tttttthhhhheeeooooo” until he could feel the cold of her standing behind him. He starts breathing more quickly as his heart beats faster, as the table in front of his morphs into the metal slab table in the dark morgue he’s been in too many times before ‘no no no no’ Her cold fingers touch his back and he hears her voice whisper his name, becoming louder as it merges with a deeper, louder, and equally familiar voice. He squeezes his eyes shut and opens them to see Liam in front of him looking into his eyes saying “Theo… Theo you ok?”. He take a breath and feels himself grounded in the moment, reminds himself that he’s in class. He opens his mouth to say he’s fine, but he knows he can’t shrug off the concern as easily this time. He turns to look behind him, reassuring himself that Tara isn’t there, ready to rip her heart out of his back. When he turns however he sees a dark shadow standing behind him. He can’t be here, he cant deal with cutting open animals and their organs and the pack that he can never be accepted by. In one swift motion he grabs his bag from the floor, pushing his chair back as he does and runs out of the class to the collective calls of “Theo? Theo1” from both Liam and their teacher…