𝗜t stopped raining.
He didn't know when the downpour decided to come to a halt, or why—all he knew was that he was staring at the names carved in stone, dried to his undershirt, he'd been sitting here that long. The service ended a while ago, hours, if he really racked his brain for an answer, and in all that time, he couldn't find motivation within himself to get up.
Mason gripped the middle of the metal flask he'd tucked into his suit jacket before the funerals this morning, tempting himself to swallow the vodka he'd graciously poured. But as his eyes followed the glint of sunshine across the open lid, the pieces of rays that had snuck out from behind the clouds, he couldn't force his hand to bring it to his lips.
A piece of him knew what it meant to fall down the spinning rabbit hole that was drowning his feelings in the bottom of a glass—he remembered just what it was like to feel nothing for days only to be slapped in the face by everything he'd been suppressing. Vomit all over his shirt, feelings splattered against the gravel, mixed with the food he barely ate—it was a terrifying memory.
Ignoring the devil on his shoulder, he latched the cap back on and put it next to him, replacing the gap in his hands with the slight chill that came with hooking them around his shins. He submerged his head between his knees and allowed the wind to float across the skin of his neck, pretending that it was a mystical version of the first friend he ever really had.
"I miss you," he whispered to no one.
Losing Isaac only reminded him how alone he truly was. Sure, he had his adoptive brothers and Rayne, as well as the secondary team, but none of them were shoulders he had built the premise of his life on. That day, the one from the dream—it was the first time he ever recognized himself as a person and not just another burden, another mouth to feed, another loser with a last name that meant nothing more than American documentation.
He was completely and utterly alone.
"Why'd you do it?" he felt his tears in his throat before they touched his face, "—why did you save me instead of yourself? Do you think I am grateful for that? Did you really think that your life was somehow less valuable than mine?"
Mason shook his head, contemplating a drink again.
"—it doesn't make any sense."
He lifted his chin just enough that his kneecaps were digging into his cheekbones and his hair was acting as a half-wet shield to the reality before him. Through curtains of sheath black, he glanced at the tombstone and felt his emotions dampen his clothing. If he had just remained conscious after getting shot—if he had just fucking listened to Kai when he told him to put on the damn vest—
A slick inhale dried the roof of his mouth as he felt the weight of his sling tucked away in his pocket. He'd tried obnoxiously hard to prove to his siblings that he didn't need it anymore, that it was just a nuisance at this point, so much so that he didn't wear it all day, but just before Rayne left, she knelt and placed it in his hands, begging him to put it on.
Injuries this, injuries that.
If he had just been smart enough to keep himself out of the line of fire, he wouldn't have to wear the damn thing to support his shoulder. If he had just paid attention to the mission instead of letting his emotional high get the better of him, maybe Isaac would still be alive.
Little did everyone know, he kept it off because he liked the pain—it reminded him that his best friend killed himself, in fewer words, to make sure his lungs continued to fill with air, to make sure that the scrap piece of heart behind his ribcage would beat for a long time after his own stopped.
There's still someone to live for.
The words he misinterpreted the day he passed away, the ones that didn't belong in the dream, haunted him to his core. He couldn't understand them—he couldn't wrap his head around the basic thought process behind them. Didn't he know?—there is no one without him.
"Fucking asshole," he spoke to the grave.
Who did he think he was?—what kind of biblical being did he transform into right before dying practically in his hand? Who told him that it was perfectly reasonable to tell the boy he basically raised himself some jack-shit version of gospel rather than to phone a goddamn friend for help?
"Did you want to die? Is that it? Was there a piece of you that just decided to give up that day?—was there something inside of you that mattered more to your self-mantra than it did the consequences of your actions? Did you even think about how I would feel, seeing you dead next to me, my wound magically patched up?"
Mason shook his head against his pants, not even bothering to complain to himself over the roughness of the stitching and fabric. His eyes, likely red-rimmed and sore, deserved to be mishandled—they didn't deserve to see when Isaac's no longer had life behind them.
Something festered in his system the more his thoughts rambled on without him. The more his vision stayed stuck to the hunk of rock before him, the more his eyebrows dipped and the sadness he'd been feeling all day morphed into a kind of anger that no one should have to experience.
What nobody told him?—throughout the five stages of grief, anger, and bargaining were like oil and water—impossible to mix, but pointless to try separating. There was no grief without anger, and there was no solution to his problems with the bargain of his life for Isaac's.
"I fucking hate you!"
His voice reached an octave louder than he could muster all day as his fist wrapped around the sleek silver of the flask; without even thinking, blinking, or breathing, the chunk of metal slammed against the grave and burst open, splashing vodka down his name, seeping into the dirt below.
"I'd like it if you didn't damage my son's grave not four hours after he was buried."
In a flash, he pulled his arm out of his jacket and slid on the sling so quickly, a person without a trained eye wouldn't have seen it. Brushing off his pants with his good hand, he stood up and turned, facing the woman whose voice just spooked him out of his feelings.
"Mrs. Mikelson!" he squeaked, "I thought you left for New York!"
"I should've," she replied, tired, "But I wanted some alone time with my son before I left since there wasn't a moment during the service I was given any."
Mason forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat as he took in her frayed curls and dropping eyes. Not only had she lost her son and daughter-in-law at the same time, but not three months prior, her husband bit the bullet while investigating a warehouse surrounding the same people.
Guilt ate his insides as he watched her pass by him and placed the flowers cocooned in her arms as if it was a newborn baby before their names. Tears threatened to spill while his eyes followed the path her hands took; slowly patting the crinkling wrapper down in a way that would smooth it out—whilst fully knowing that her goal was unachievable.
"I'm sorry," he finally pushed out, "I didn't mean to hog the service—I just really loved your son."
"Did you love him, or were you in love with him?"
"I'm sorry?" he repeated, this time in a different tone.
There were only a handful of times he got to meet Isaac's mother in person, mostly because she was in New York working on her upscaled fashion line, but none of the times in the past, had she ever insinuated that there was something else going on between them.
Frankly, the thought disgusted him.
"Never mind that," she shook her head, turning toward him, "That was inappropriate of me."
Feeling less than, and minimized, he just lightly replied with his own head nod and tucked his hands into his pockets, not making eye contact with her anymore. Some of it was because he couldn't stand looking at a person who believed he stole her son with something trivial like romantic feelings, but mostly because those melted, chocolate eyes of hers were too familiar to cope with.
"During the ceremony," she started again, "—you mentioned something."
"What was that?"
"You said—it should've been me—what did you mean?"
Courage poured through his bones as he managed to lift his head back into the air, giving her the attention she clearly seemed to need.
"I—" his words caught.
"I'm sorry," she shakily waved a nonchalant hand in the air, "I'm just curious. The autopsy report didn't give anything more than a description of what killed him, and Emmet is refusing to give me details because he doesn't think I can handle it," she wrung her fingers out on her purse handles, "But he was my son—my only baby; could you please tell me?"
Mason lolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth, under his lips, just above the flatness of his teeth as he once more tore his eyesight away from the older woman in front of him, and stared at the dirt. Even then, he was reminded of those gleaming eyes belonging to his best friend—no matter where he looked, he would see Isaac in everything.
But, against his better judgment, he opened his mouth and told her what she wanted to hear.
"After Taryn was killed, Isaac kind of went insane. Since the two of us were partnered up, I followed him into the back of the warehouse, even though I knew I didn't have the proper gear to back him up," Mason toed the rim of his shoe as he listened to nothing but the wind and the sick sound of his own voice, "—halfway through, I was shot in the stomach and taken out. Isaac found me, but it was almost too late. I had lost so much blood at that point from the added effect of the sprinkles, that I was basically a lost cause."
He looked up, thinking that she needed his eyes on her for the duration of this conversation, as it was a hard one, but as they angled to her cheeks, he shot them right back down, immensely terrified at the lack of humanism behind them.
"But Isaac never gave up on me, not even after I passed out. Instead of leaving me there to die, he made the stupid observation that his injuries were worse than mine, and so rather than tending to his—helping himself—he used his body as a shield for the explosion behind us, and patched me up. By the time he finished, there was no saving him, and I was good enough to make it to a hospital."
The air, despite the month, grew cold between them.
The confidence he had just a few minutes ago had been skating across thin ice, and he had plummeted not three strides into his journey. Thankfully, the ground was not but four inches from where the end of his razor blades were, but the slice, the cut, the sound they made once they connected with the pavement was so ear-splitting, he snapped his head up fast, not realizing the real situation.
"I'm so sorry—"
Mason's words were cut off as her hand connected with his cheek, slapping him so hard, he stumbled to the ground, landing on his knees. He barely had time to process what the hell was happening, he barely had time to widen his eyes at her violent actions before her purse was raining down on his head with impossibly hard hits.
"You idiot boy! It should've been you!—my son shouldn't have sacrificed his life for the likes of you! What do you have to offer? What is so special about your petty little life that makes you more necessary to live than him?! What is it?!"
Didn't she know?
Without realizing it, he had used the arm stuck in the sling to defend against her anger. Every time the snake skin slammed into his injured shoulder, he winced. It felt as if all of the blood under his skin was rushing to the area of demise, completely and entirely ripping him to shreds.
He couldn't contain himself.
Mental and physical pain opened him like a chasm in the floor.
There's nothing.
"I hate you! I hate you so much! I can't even look at you!—you're just a pathetic, ugly little piece of scum that had no business infiltrating my son's heart! You had no right to take him from me because you weren't capable of putting someone else besides yourself first!"
Mason let out howls of agony as she dropped the purse in front of him and yanked his chin up. The feeling, the overwhelming amount of pressure on his shoulders seemed to dissipate at the reflex of her bare palm ripping against the flesh of his cheek—over and over—rubbed raw with redness and tenderness—he let her beat him into fucking submission.
"I'm sorry," he cried, falling in defeat at her feet, "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I'M SORRY!"
His voice failed him in every way it possibly could—the burden of this life he shouldn't be living became his anchor. The continuous smacks, now directed at the back of his head, landed so beautifully painful against his skull, that he wrapped his hands at the base of her shins, begging at this point.
"Please—please forgive me."
"How dare you!—"
He braced himself for another slap; he waited for the repercussions of his stupid fucking plead, one he did without even thinking, but it never came. His sobs hooked in his esophagus as he slowly balanced his body weight on his knees and rose into an equally submissive position of being on all fours, butt sitting on his ankles.
"Do not," Rueben's face was dangerously protective, "—lay another hand on my brother."
Isaac's mother ground her teeth against one another, not letting up. He watched with fear as her wrist struggled against the death-hold grip Rueben's palm had on it as she attempted to lower it in his direction once again—he almost wanted to shout at him to let go, to let her lay it on him.
"What is it with you boys and putting yourselves on the line for the lost puppy of the Torres clan?"
"What is it with you adults and always putting the odd one out down to clarify your own feelings? If you knew the first thing about your son, as you so claim, then you know that this was the only outcome that would ever come to pass. Isaac loved him—they were inseparable—he was always going to choose Mason!"
He must have loosened his grip during his counterargument because she ripped her wrist from his grasp and rubbed the aching area with her fingers on her other hand. For a second, he thought she was going to apologize to him when her head tilted in his direction once more—he spotted a flash of hurt in her eyes, but just as quickly as it came, it left. A blink and it was all over.
"Don't let me catch you here again," she growled at him, "Or I'll do more than just slap you around."
With nothing more than a huff of anger, she turned swiftly on the heel of her foot and departed from the graveyard, not looking back at them once. Mason, finally caving in, voiced a breath of agony as he slid down into the dirt, collapsing into a ball.
Rueben was next to him in an instant, soothing his back with a gentle massage.
"You should've just let her hit me," he spoke quietly, "I deserve it."
"No, you don't. No one does."
"She's grieving—I was her outlet."
"Dead son or not, she doesn't see either of us walking around beating on others for having a dead brother, now does she? There's a fine line between mourning and being disrespectful, and that was nothing short of the latter. Your life means so much to me and so many others—Isaac wouldn't have accepted his mother's actions, and he sure as hell wouldn't want you wasting the second chance he gave you by laying in the dirt and wallowing."
Mason pulled his face out of the self-made prison he didn't know he made with his arms.
"You really mean that?"
Rueben's green eyes beamed at him in a way that his voice didn't reach. Hidden in the corners of his soul, when he stared at him, disregarding his smudged outfit and bloody nose, there was nothing but pride for his existence shining back. Just like it was all those years ago—he wrapped his arm around his shoulder, helped him to his feet, and let him know that there was never going to be a life without him.
More blurriness covered the bouts of his vision as he glanced at the one person who was always there, lingering in the shadows, popping out whenever he needed him. It took this moment and this one alone for him to realize how unappreciative he had been toward his adoptive brother. Three weeks of time he didn't have with Isaac—and he treated him like a wall, preferring Rayne over him because she was new and he was old.
He convinced himself that he wanted her around because she never said anything to him, nothing at all, just let him be in silence, but that wasn't the truth. Reality was, his love for Rueben overpowered every rational thought in his brain. Losing Isaac all but destroyed him—he thought that keeping his oldest brother at an arm's length would lessen the pain he felt toward him if these same events were to repeat themselves in the future—after all, he wasn't totally healed from the poison.
But if this made him realize anything, it was that he needed to keep those he loved the most, closest to his heart. Being without Isaac was debilitating, he knew that much, but ignoring Rueben and their relationship for a reason that was intangible, since he was still here, was a pain much worse.
If he left right now, he'd spend the rest of his life regretting every breath.
"Thank you," Mason's cheeks tinged pink.
"You're welcome—now let's get you home," he said softly.
"Yeah, let's," he nodded, "There's something I've been meaning to give you."
"Oh yeah?" Rueben gazed at him, "What's that?"
Mason's sadness clouded his senses as he recalled the mess he'd made in Isaac's room the moment he was discharged from the hospital. He ended up ripping open his bullet wound stitches and had to go back for emergency replacements after he was calm enough to be sedated, but he wouldn't have changed his actions.
Not after what he found.
Everyone thought his hands were muddy from the dirt toss, but that wasn't it.
—he'd simply buried something in Taryn's grave that was meant for her eyes only.
"Isaac left us letters."