Sense of a Foreshortened Future : THIAM

Banality of Evil

They left early. Liam had expected to be excited that they were basically halfway done, but as he drove the truck South, a pit formed in his stomach. He was doing his best to ignore the unopened text from Scott, which is why he had offered to drive in the first place. It was probably asking him how he was. A loaded question after their last real conversation.

Liam knew Scott was still hoping he'd say yes to supernatural therapy. But all Liam could think about was how Scott must have known Theo was homeless. It was a truth that had slowly crept up on him. If Chris knew and John knew, Melissa had to know. Between those three, there was no way Scott didn't know.

The more he thought about it, a lot of the pack probably knew. Liam felt sick to his stomach thinking about everyone who knew, but didn't do anything. They were supposed to help people, not abandon them.

He cringed when his phone buzzed from the cup holders between them. Theo sent a glance down at the phone, then to Liam.

"Don't wanna talk to Scott?" He asked.

"Not today." Liam said with a clenched jaw, "Do you know what the lab we're going to is like?" Liam asked, hoping Theo would drop it.

"Think of it like a greenhouse." Theo explained vaguely waving his hands in the air.

"Have you been to this one?" This should have been something Liam was asking from the beginning, but for some reason he'd assumed Theo had been to all of them. That would have been pretty hard to do, though.

"Once, for about three months when I was studying under the Geneticist." Theo said. It took Liam aback for a moment. Theo had the horrible habit of saying incredibly insane things in a very casual way. What had the Geneticists been teaching him?

"What were you doing there?" Liam asked. The Doctors mentoring Theo was something he'd never really considered. Whenever he thought of the Doctors, or Theo's time with them, he imagined vague evil activities occurring—not school.

"She wanted to understand why chimaras were resistant to wolfsbane and mountain ash. They hadn't done that on purpose with me, and it was a trait that was present in about half the other chimeras. It's really useful, so she wanted to know why it happened." He'd expected Theo to end it there, but he took a breath to continue, "Really, we just grew a lot of plants and studied cross strains and how they reacted with different supernatural and chimera DNA. It was actually pretty cool." Theo explained. He shifted in his seat and winced a bit. His leg was finishing healing, which was another reason Liam was driving.

"The Geneticist was a woman?" Liam asked dumbly.

"That's all you got from that?"

"Weird plant science doesn't sound too out of place for the Doctors." Liam said. He'd seen a bit of it in the other labs, many pots with dead and shriveled wolfsbane and mistletoe.

"But a woman does?" Theo asked with a raised brow.

"Majority of people who try to kill us are either genderless or are men, so I just kinda figured." Liam shrugged. Theo laughed a little and shook his head.

He was definitely going down the road slower than he needed to, but it was hard to see with the snow on the ground. Whatever tiny town they were in obviously didn't have a way to clear the roads, but luckily not many other people were driving. Theo's directions led them straight to a seemingly forgotten road that had a trailer at the end.

Theo ignored the small trailer they'd pulled up in front of. He walked straight past the old, run down home and into the trees behind it. Liam figured it must have been where Theo lived while he was there with the Genetisict. Must have been an upgrade from creepy underground rooms.