Broken Family Tree

9 - Treatment

Malia and Derek were both confused now. Malia had seen how the liquid had stopped Thomas's small muscle spasms earlier this morning, so that stuff couldn't be bad. Right?

"What's wrong?" Derek said.

"How many times a month do you take this?!" Deaton ignored Derek's question, shoving the flask into the younger werewolf's face in a desperate panic. Said werewolf reeled back, bewildered by his sudden change in emotions.

"'A month'?" Thomas repeated. "I take it two or three times a week. If I don't take it, I start feeling weak and I lose control of my body."

The other three souls were staring at him in different ways: one in slowly rising panic, another in dawning realization, and the other in horrified amazement. However, all three had come to the same base conclusion: he was addicted to his homemade remedy, whatever it was. But that last mystery was about to be solved.

"That's called withdrawal, you imbecile! What you've been making isn't 'medicine'—it's a dangerously potent adrenaline boost! What plants have you been using to make this?!" Deaton nearly shouted, shocking Malia and Derek to their cores. In all the time they had known him, they had never seen him get so expressively angry, much less blatantly insult one of his own patients. This must be very serious for Deaton to lose his composure like this. Derek quickly went over to the bag, pulling out the small herb bundle he spotted earlier. He almost tossed it to the doctor who was looking more and more anxious by the second. And in the second it took for him to lay his eyes on the plants, he stared both in wonder and fear, his blood running cold. The three were-creatures could have sworn they saw his face drain of blood. There was no doubt in Malia's and Derek's minds that there was something very dangerous about what Thomas had made and was consuming, because Deaton looked something they had never seen before—

He looked terrified.

In a flash, Deaton sprung into action: first, he grabbed the two vials on the table and dumped the three's contents down the drain (it took all of the other two's strength to hold an indignant Thomas down and keep him from killing Deaton—and even then, they were struggling); next, he grabbed the bundle of plants, wrapped them in dressing, soaked them in some chemical and lit the whole thing on fire, dropping it into the sink (Deaton did get some moderate scratches on his back for that and Derek got a hard jab to his ribs as Thomas became livid and tried to escape their grip, and it took Malia physically standing between him and the doctor for him to not attack); and lastly, Deaton grabbed a full syringe of his strongest sedative, usually used for surgeries, and plunged the needle into the raging werewolf's neck, swiftly emptying the tube and praying that it would knock him out quickly. At the feel of the needle's contents flowing into his body, Thomas roared and grabbed Deaton's neck, both men falling to the floor, Malia almost crushed between them and the syringe shattering somewhere away from them.

The grip on the doctor's neck was tight and Derek and Malia feared he was going to crush his throat in his bare hands, their pleas for him to let go falling on deaf ears. Soon after, however, they saw Thomas's body relax and, not a few seconds later, collapse on top of Deaton, who was gasping for breath like a dying man—which, for a moment, the conscious were-creatures thought he was. Additionally, once Thomas was out cold, his scent became known and Derek and Malia now understood why he kept suppressing it—the foul smell hit them both like a semi truck and nearly made them vomit. Derek lugged the unbelievably heavy young man off of Deaton and Malia helped him up, steadying him as he continued to breathe and placing one hand gently on his throat, taking his pain away.

"Deaton, what the hell happened?!" Derek hissed through his teeth, grunting as he positioned the unconscious Thomas in a sitting position on the floor against the cabinet. "I kind of understand the dumping the...whatever witchcraft he had brewed...and burning the plants, extreme as it was, but why'd you drug him?"