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Liam never expected the worst phone call, or rather, worst voicemail of his life to come to him in a grocery store parking lot, but that just goes to show, one never really knows when everything will change.
“Huh, I have a voicemail from Scott,” Liam said as he got into the passenger’s side of Mason’s car. “My phone didn’t ring, must not have had service in the store.”
“Weird, some places are strange dead zones.” Mason shrugged, loading the groceries into the car as Liam raised the phone to his ear, the color draining from his face almost immediately.
“Hi, Liam...it’s Scott. Look, we’re at the Animal Clinic...it’s Theo. It’s bad. It’s really bad. If you want to say goodbye, just...get here as soon as you can.”
“What...Liam, what is it?” Mason asked, noticing the rapid change in his friend’s demeanor.
“It’s Theo,” he said softly. “We have to get to the animal clinic now.”
“Yeah, of course.” Mason got in the car, heading towards the animal clinic at full speed. “What did Scott say?”
“He said something happened to Theo, and if...if I want to say goodbye to get there as soon as I can.”
“Oh...no...Liam…”
“Don’t.” Liam gulped, trying to bite back tears and panic.
“How long has it been since you even spoke to Theo?”
“I...just a couple of days,” the 24 year old replied.
“Wait, what I didn’t...I didn’t know you were talking again.”
“Yeah, we...had plans to meet on Saturday, to talk things over.” His voice caught, and Mason reached out with one hand, patting that of his best friend.
“It’ll be okay,” Mason said softly.
“I...I don’t think it will be,” he said, the words barely getting out as he struggled to breathe, struggled to keep his human form.
It wasn’t far between the store and the clinic, and before Mason even fully parked the car, Liam was out of it, running in to the closed clinic.
“Where is he? What happened?” Liam shouted.
“A hunter.” Scott came into the lobby immediately to head Liam off. “He’s been shot with some...sort of hybrid, some sort of rare wolfsbane.”
“Deaton can help him, right?” Liam asked, looking up at Scott, knowing the answer already as he looked into the face of his alpha.
“Liam, I’m sorry. It’s not something we’ve ever seen before, and it’s working quickly.”
“No.” LIam gulped, his whole body shaking. “No! You can save him, there has to be a way!”
“Liam,” Scott put his hand on his beta’s shoulder. “I know that you and Theo have a complicated relationship, and I know that things are-”
“You don’t know shit about how things are right now,” Liam growled.
“You’re right, I’m sorry, but...Liam, if you want to see him, you need to calm down and do it now, I don’t think...there’s not much time.”
“Fine.” Liam took the deepest breath that his body would allow and followed Scott back into a room.
Deaton was pulling something out of a storage locker, Corey and Lydia were whispering in the corner, and on the examination table lay Theo. His clothes were torn, and he was writhing, though his eyes were closed.
“Go,” Scott said softly, gently nudging Liam.
Liam walked up to him.
“Can I touch him?” he asked, looking over at Deaton.
“You can.” Deaton nodded.
“Will he hear me if I talk to him?”
“Honestly? I can’t say for sure,” he said softly. “But it can’t hurt to try.”
Liam didn’t need to ask if Theo was in pain. He could see it in the way the other man’s body was moving. He reached out, taking his hand, his initial instinct to take the other’s pain kicking in. The second he did, he cried out himself. It was like nothing he had ever felt, and he knew without a doubt that this pain could only mean one thing.
Theo was dying, and there was nothing that Liam could do except for try and take as much of the pain as he could before it was too late.
“Theo,” he breathed, wincing through the pain and the tears fighting their way to his eyes. “It’s me, Liam. I...god, I don’t...I never stopped. God, I never stopped loving you, okay? I need you to know that before you go. I never stopped. Even when we fought, even when we were broken up, it was always you, it was always going to be you.”
As he spoke, tears slid down his cheeks. The pain was incredible, but he refused to let go, syphoning more and more of it into his own veins as he looked down. Theo’s body began to still, meaning that it was working, at least some of the unimaginable pain was leaving him, but it didn’t matter.
“I love you,” Liam whispered, the words barely making it out of his lips around the tears. “I love you, and I am so, so sorry.”
“Liam, stop.” Scott reached out. “You’re taking too much.”
“Don’t touch me.” Liam pulled away from Scott, refusing to let go of Theo’s hand.
The last thing Liam remembered before passing out was whispering “I love you” over and over again as he took more pain than his body could handle.
***
When Liam woke up, he wasn’t at the clinic anymore, but in his own bed, in his own apartment. At first, the thought crossed his mind that it had all been a dream, but when he sat up to see Corey, Mason, and Scott all standing in his room, he knew.
“Is he…” he looked at Scott, once again, already knowing the answer.
“I’m sorry, Liam.” Scott sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling Liam into a tight hug.
“No.” Liam buried his face in Scott’s neck, going boneless, sobbing as Scott held him close. “No, this can’t...that can’t be real! We were going to fix things! We were fixing things!”
“I’m so sorry, Liam.” Mason came over, joining the hug, enveloping Liam in a Mason/Scott sandwich.
Mason looked up at Corey, gesturing for him to join the hug, but Corey, tears in his eyes, shook his head, turning from the room, leaving Liam with his alpha and his best friend.
They stayed like that for hours, Liam sobbing against the two of them while they rubbed his back, biting back the words “It’s okay,” because they knew that it wasn’t. How could it be alright?
For the last six years, Liam and Theo had had the most turbulent, passionate, on again/off again relationship. They would be together, they would be so in love, they would fight, they would break up, but they would still be in love, and every time they got back together, it worked for just a little longer than the time before. There was love there, love like no one in the pack had ever seen. It was true, and visceral, and so intense that it scared both Liam and Theo - scared them away from each at times.
They hadn’t been public with their relationship, but they had never had to be. Everyone that mattered knew that what they had was something that you didn’t mess with, and even though they had been young, that they had never managed to sit down and figure out what kind of future they wanted, they had always planned to have one.
Together.
That future was gone now, and as Liam tried to let that sink in, his body rejecting it in the form of tears, all that his pack could do was their very best to comfort him.
It didn’t feel like enough.
It wasn’t enough.
“What if he didn’t know?” Liam sobbed into Scott’s shoulder. “What if he didn’t know how much I loved him? I...we fought, the last time we spoke we fought. I mean we texted, we were going to meet up, but the last time I saw him, we fought.”
“He knew,” Scott said softly. “I promise you he knew, even if he couldn’t hear you today-”
“I need to believe that he heard me,” Liam said. “I need to believe that the last words he heard me say were how much he meant to me, and not that he needed to grow up.”
“I’m sure he heard you,” Scott said. “And even if he didn’t-”
“He knew.”
Liam looked up to see Corey standing in the doorway.
“He knew, Liam. He knew.” Corey reached up, wiping his own eyes.
In the years past, Corey and Theo had grown close, talking, spending time together, even when Liam and Theo were on the outs. If anyone knew what Theo had been thinking, well, it was Corey.
“Do...do you know that for sure?”
“Mhmm.” Corey nodded. “I talked to him yesterday, and you...he said he was…I...are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Yes!” Liam cried through a strangled sob.
“He...he was excited,” Corey said, his voice small. “He was excited to meet up with you, to talk things over, he...wanted to fix things, he said that from your texts alone he could tell that you did too, and...and he knew, Liam, I just now that he did. I’m so sorry.” Corey turned to leave.
“Stay,” Liam said through his own tears. “Please.”
“Are...you sure?” Corey asked.
Liam just nodded, and Mason reached out for his boyfriend, pulling him into the embrace.
***
After a few hours, Mason and Corey, at Scott’s behest, left to get food, but more, they left so that Scott could talk to Liam.
“I can’t...believe this is happening,” Liam gulped. “I don’t know how there are still tears left, I feel like I can’t stop, I’m so sorry, Scott.”
“You have nothing, nothing to be sorry for, Liam,” Scott said softly, rubbing Liam’s back as he did so.
“I just...I thought...I know things weren’t always good, but I genuinely thought we were going to end up together, I know that we were, and it’s not fair!” Liam’s eyes flashed yellow, but only for a second. “It was too soon, and it’s not fucking fair, we were going to fix things! It was all going to be okay, and now...now I’ll never know!”
“But you do know,” Scott offered. “You know the most important thing, Liam. You know that he loved you, and you know that he knew you loved him, too.”
“But we were supposed to have forever, Scott! Or at least...at least more time.”
“I know.” Scott nodded. “I...I know better than anyone, Liam, I know exactly what this feels like, and that may not be what you want to hear right now, but you will get through this. It won’t be easy, and you may well never stop missing him, but in time, you will have days where you don’t, even if it’s just for a little while. You’ll have days when you’re happy, you’ll have days when you see something, and it makes you think of him, and instead of that breaking your heart, it will make you happy for what you had with him at all.Those days may not come soon, but they will come, Liam.”
Liam wanted to argue. He wanted to scream at Scott that nothing would ever be alright again, but he couldn’t. He was out of energy, he was out of breath, and he knew that Scott was right. Scott had been through this, almost this very thing. He knew what it was like to lose the person that he had thought he would end his days with. He knew what it was like to have to fight through that every single day.
He knew what it was like to have the love of his life die right in front of him, and know there was nothing that he could do but let them know how much he cared before it was too late.
Liam slumped. He curled up on his bed, a pillow pulled against his body.
“My heart is broken,” he whispered. “And I feel...terrible. For fighting with him, for saying what I did. For not...not loving him enough while he was here.”
Scott lay down next to him, ever so gently resting his hand on Liam’s shoulder.
“You loved him so much, Liam. No one could have loved him more or given him more than you did.”
“It’s never going to feel that way,” Liam whispered, his voice small.
“I know.” Scott squeezed Liam’s shoulder gently. “I wish that I could tell you otherwise, but…”
“You know,” Liam said softly, tears still spilling down his cheeks.
“I know.” Scott confirmed.
“Does it get better?” Liam asked, turning to look at his Alpha.
“Yes.” Scott nodded. “But not...not all the way.”
“No.” Liam gulped, reaching up, wiping a tear from his eye. “I didn’t think so.”
“When you love someone that hard, you love them forever,” Scott said softly. “It’s not always a bad thing, though.”
“I don’t...I don’t regret loving him,” Liam said softly. “Even with how much it hurts, I just wish there had been more time, I just wish we hadn’t wasted so much of it.”
“But there’s nothing you can do about it, Liam, and I know...I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy to see it that way, I just want you to try, alright? To try and enjoy the time that you had, rather than beat yourself up for the time that you didn’t.”
“I’ll try.” Liam gulped, trying to breathe against his own grief. “But I’m still going to spend the rest of my life loving him.”
“And that’s okay,” Scott promised. “Just...make sure that it’s not the only thing you do.”
Liam nodded, no words left in him as he scooted forwards, once again burying himself against Scott’s chest. Nothing felt like it was ever going to be okay again. He felt like his entire world was crumbling down around him, and he didn’t have the energy to fight it, not right now...but he didn’t have to. He had Scott, he had Mason, he had Corey, he had the rest of his pack, and definitely not today, or the next day, or even the next week, but eventually, things would start to even out again, they would have to.
But Theo Raeken would always be with him, and some part of Liam’s heart would always ache for him.