Chapter Text
The first time Liam notices anything at all, it's entirely an accident.
The sun bears down on the pack, spread out around the newly-refurbished Hale house. There had been loose plans for a pack meeting that had very quickly fallen to the wayside, even after Scott had managed to pull off a small miracle in getting each and every one of them together in the first place, going so far as to offer bribes (“You get what? ” He had squawked when Malia proudly stated that she had dibs on driving the Jeep whenever she was in town. Liam wasn't that bad a driver, not anymore).
Before anyone had so much as taken a seat, and in a move that took absolutely no one by surprise, Stiles and Jackson had started bickering.
It was as though three years hadn't passed since they had left Beacon Hills High, without a single beat Stiles' hands became more and more animated while Jackson teased; issuing childish challenges that led them straight outside, with Liam and the other younger members following after them in order to watch the carnage unfold.
What was initially a simple bet, essentially a ridiculous ‘anything you can do, I can do better’, quickly turned into a rough and dirty game of lacrosse by the porch, with Lydia and Mason watching on, heckling and swapping notes. Comically, they made a point of pantomime whispering ideas for cheating to each other, waiting to see which supernatural being wasn't too caught in the tunnel vision of competition to pick up on the tips.
(It was Corey — of course it was Corey — the only one who didn't block out everything else around himself, who caught on)
Eventually, the sun setting and air cooling down around them, and with Jackson's tail whipping and coiling around a flailing Stiles, everyone finally begins to wilt and disperse, only vaguely unsettled. It's only then, that they realise how little they've managed to do.
Making the promise to return with water, Liam heads inside to the kitchen, where those who immediately deemed themselves too mature to participate in the first place had gathered to discuss things that seemed to hold actual importance.
Derek looked as though he wanted to rip Peter's head from his neck, but Liam wasn't entirely sure that it was anything different than usual. Only that he felt the need to keep his distance and remain uninvolved, if at all possible. It seemed safer. Of everyone they had fostered in, he was still unsure that Peter wasn't planning something at any one point in time, or at least keeping an idea in his back pocket, just in case. Even against Scott's insistence that he had mellowed out, now; that he was just… intense. Liam felt a little off-put by his presence.
Melissa ruffles his hair as he passes and only offers a wink when he yelps in response, trying to duck away and earning a snorted laugh from Jackson, who had filtered in, apparently now also above his own behaviour, muttering ‘childish’ and ‘puerile’ under his breath.
Liam makes it past them all, happy for the quiet, for once. Happy to bask in it all.
He feels so content, in a way that he just couldn't otherwise simulate, when they were spread out across the country and spanning across oceans.
It was still surreal, that people he really barely knew, werewolves like Ethan, were just family; or something equally as strong; without question. They settled into a place carved into his heart, and it was as though it had always been there for them, like filling in a gap. It was what he had been waiting for, without even knowing.
It felt right.
He goes to where Argent and Theo are standing, seemingly discussing the possibility of trading information with neighbouring packs.
“Not everyone is as friendly as the werewolves we've met,” Theo presses when he approaches. “And I'm not talking about them refusing, I'm talking about getting our throats slashed for being on their territory.”
Liam means only to reach above Theo's head and pull a glass from the cabinet, but something in him swells when he hears them; knowing just how difficult Theo had found it to win Chris over, and for just how long he had tried. He'd spent a year biting his tongue and doing exactly as he was told, knowing that the hunter always kept a wary eye on him, regardless of how often Liam fought that he had proved himself, hasn't he?
He feels a rush of something.
Pride? Affection?
“And you, Liam? You think it's not worth the risk?”
Sometimes Liam wondered if Chris only ever asked for opinions when he already made up his mind about what the right answer was; as though it were really just a test. Wanting to prove a point.
Liam usually agreed with him, regardless, but that was neither here nor there.
As he lowers himself from his toes to the balls of his feet and turns, thinking over his opinion, he curls his free hand around the back of Theo's neck, just short of throwing an arm around him, and presses the length of their sides together, without a thought.
Later, he could blame the heady intoxication of pack and togetherness.
If it were Mason, or anyone, it wouldn't have been a thing, right?
“We've got connections, right? Have we tried going through them, first? Like a messenger?”
It's not until he's finished speaking that Liam realises anything is amiss. He feels, more than sees, the way that Theo has gone still under his hand; rigidly so. He hadn't moved to reciprocate any action, or to breathe at all, it seemed.
Argent’s only indication that he finds anything at all about it peculiar is a quirked brow.
Liam's brow furrows deeper, and he can't help but wonder if he's said the wrong thing.
“I mean,” He says quickly, “I agree with Theo. We can't just barge in. But, I don't know, maybe spread the word and see who comes?”
His eyes flick over to the chimera momentarily, and he can't help but to knead in his fingers just once as an apology, or, as something of a reassurance, maybe, before moving away entirely, stepping towards the island bench and sink.
He misses half of Chris's reply, when he notices the subtle exhale that Theo finally releases.
* * *
Liam feels it all. Everything. He grasps it close and holds on to it all until it festers and rusts beneath his skin.
Feels too much; too inherently; too deeply. It was almost something that he took for granted, now. Almost. Everything that he felt seemed to linger and scream out from within him for everyone to know. Days, months — years of phantoms etching their way across his limbs and carving their place in his ribs.
He could no longer tell if it was just something that plagued him, or his own inability to let go; another part of the I.E.D. that simmered like a flame around his core.
Regardless; it's always there.
He still feels the swollen, pulsating ache of a black eye, and he still feels the shock of his father’s fist that had preceded it. He still feels, even more viscerally, the searing burn of pain that came with the truth of it: that in the end he was the one who fucking left them. There was no spiteful satisfaction; no relief. No weight behind the small victory.
Just a gaping void.
He doesn’t remember any of it ⸺ not his episodes, and especially not the things his father had done — but he feels everything like it was just another of many open wounds.
He still feels glass embedded in bloody knuckles; doesn’t have any recollection of smashing his coach’s car, but he still remembers the shudder of his own thoughts. The stupid, stupid, just stupid way he had somehow believed he could fit in; the way he had so readily believed in the sincerity of Brett’s smiles before. More than anything else, he remembered the way it hadn’t been so much about Coach at all, even if it was his car.
(It was lacrosse balls belting into him; it was the sneer on Brett’s face when he had just tried to explain; it was the way the team wouldn’t even go as far as to make eye contact with him)
Liam’s body is a map of ghosts and the marks they left on him. Bite marks and claws and bruising fingers marking their place.
His father.
Brett.
Even Scott's fangs had their own place.
If Liam is the scars, then Theo is the war; the hurricane and the chaos of it all blasting through a battlefield and leaving it upended.
At least, he thinks so ⸺ because try as he might, Liam can’t feel the echo of any lingering wounds, can’t feel anything but his own indignation as a reminder of everything that had happened. But he feels so familiar; as though Theo was made up of the same ether and gristle. Just, adjacent.
But even after the zoo, in place of a heavily broken nose, he remembers the swelling feeling of finally having a grasp on the emotions flaring within him.
It's only when he realises that it's different, the way that he is with Theo, that there are no lingering wounds beneath his skin, that he also realises that he can't remember ever reaching out to clasp a hand over his shoulder or hugging him in celebration when things went right, for a change. He remembers standing close enough to feel the heat of him, visceral, but never the affection. There were no fist bumps, no gentle hands on his skin.
Was that something Theo even wanted?
(And how was it somehow not news that it was something Liam, himself, wanted?)
As far as Liam was aware, Theo was always placing himself in the corner of a room, watching everything from a distance; keeping himself at an arm’s length from everybody around them.
He was pack — he was.
But had he shown him as much? He wasn't sure.
It was possibly a huge mistake, to upset the easy camaraderie they had found; the way that they had become partners and friends and something he couldn't quite explain out loud when comparing it to his friendships with the others; but what else could Liam do? He had to know why everything was different.
He had to know if it was all in his mind — if he was wasting time and energy thinking about something he had made up on his own. Why were there no obvious markers of Theo across his skin? And, more importantly, why did he want there to be?
Did Theo have any way of remembering him?
Did he hate the very thought of Liam's hands on him, enough to hold his breath and shudder when they left?
After the day at the Hale house, his mind couldn't stop circling around two ideas, entirely preoccupied.
Firstly, what was it about his touch that had made Theo almost recoil?
And secondly, for all the time that they now spent attached at the hip, how had he not noticed the barrier of space between them?
(The question he wouldn't go as far as to ask himself; if he hadn't really offered him touch, why did the idea of not being able to hurt so deeply?)
* * *
“Have you noticed anything strange about Theo, lately?”
Corey snorts, but Mason hushes him, brushing a hand through his hair.
“Theo's strange at least sixty-five percent of the time, you're going to have to be more specific,” He says, grinning down where Corey's head is pillowed in his lap.
Liam frowns, wondering, is he? Theo was just Theo. He would have noticed if Theo was being strange, or off.
“Just… distant. I don't know.”
“You think he's doing something suspicious?” Corey says, concern weaving through his voice, and Liam immediately wonders if he had made a mistake in even asking; should have just tried to figure it out himself.
“No! No, of course not,” Liam insists, admonishing, finds that he feels immediately defensive on the chimera's behalf. “Not like that. You know he's not like that.”
He knew how far Theo had come, to build their trust; how hard he had fought for the pack in order to prove himself.
Theo, who volunteered for every dangerous mission and trained and kept himself up at night, trying to think of anything helpful to offer; any knowledge that they could use.
It had been years.
Mason and Corey have, at the very least, enough awareness to appear sheepish.
“You're right,” Mason concedes, after a pause. “He's not. That wasn't fair of us.”
“I'm just worried that something's happened and he won't say anything,” Liam admits. “Like maybe he got hurt? The last time you touched him… was he weird?”
The two exchange another look that Liam can't quite decipher. It wasn't uncommon for them to engage in their own silent conversations, but it never usually bothered him. Then again, Liam was never usually itching so desperately for an answer to a problem he couldn't solve, wound up and already feeling prickly and guarded. He couldn’t admit it, but it felt personal; it wasn’t as though he were asking about the latest creature to wander into town, following the nemeton’s call. It was Theo.
It only takes a moment before Mason answers, but Liam still feels himself growing more frustrated.
“I… don't know. I don't know when that was. So, not really,” He answers.
“What?”
“Me neither,” Corey adds. “But it's Theo. He's not exactly the most affectionate guy, right?”
Liam frowns. He has the distinct feeling settling in his gut, that the pieces were all right there before him, but he just couldn't put them together. He knew that it took a lot for Theo to be soft and open with anyone, but that didn't mean anything, did it?
“Maybe that's it.” Mason proposes, as though Liam had any idea what he was talking about.
His look must say it all; because Mason continues.
“You know, he's just… It's not him, or what he's like with us, right?”
Liam rolls with it, unsure, “... Uh, I guess?”
“So maybe it's just something that makes him uncomfortable. Or something he hasn't had enough to know how to handle. I wouldn’t hug him like I’d hug you. And if we wouldn’t, and he spends more time with us than anyone else, the other’s really wouldn’t be doing it either, would they?”
The more that Liam thinks it over, the more his mind wanders back over the time they had all spent around each one another, the more it just seems to break him apart. His throat goes dry, hands tearing uselessly at a blade of grass.
“You don't think he's hurt or in pain, you think he just doesn't know how to take being touched?”
Mason shrugs.
“Maybe it's a choice, maybe he doesn't like it? Or maybe isn’t and it's strange for him.”
“If you think about it,” Corey interjects, “How old was he when the Dread Doctors happened? Eight? What's his life been like since then? Can't imagine it was hugs and roses and singing Kumbaya...”
“Yeah,” Liam replies, and it’s all that he can really manage, having retreated deep enough into his own head that everything else is easily drowned out. He doesn’t notice the reprimanding looks that the other two shoot each other, or the way that Mason bats at Corey’s shoulder.
“I’m sure he’s fine, Liam,” Corey’s voice is gentle, but Liam just hums, far away.
He flops back onto the ground, throwing away the shredded grass.
Had he really been so oblivious? Had he not noticed that there was something missing; that there was still a barrier between Theo and the rest of the pack — a very real and very physical one? For every night that Theo had crashed at his house when he was still just a kid and Theo still lived in his truck; for every battle they had faced and won together; for all that Theo had been the one person he turned to when panicking over colleges and his own failure; had there really been nothing?
He thought, really, that there was no one more important to him than Theo. That the way his jumping nerves seemed to settle around him and the way that they always just seemed to understand the way that the other worked, fundamentally, he thought that it might have been something that felt special; hoped that it had been the same for the other boy.
Had he been entirely wrong?
“I have to go,” He announces without fanfare, getting up without so much as bothering to brush off his jeans, and making his way towards the park’s exit.
He absolutely wished that he had been able to drown out Mason’s long-suffering sigh.
* * *
Liam wallows over it for a full day, blank and restless.
He had fought against himself, eventually managed to decide that it wasn’t the best idea — to brashly find his way to Theo the same way that he would run headfirst into a fight.
It was personal development.
It still itched at him, made him feel fretful as he waited it out, hoped it would calm within him, rather than rumbling like a storm that threatened to break.
Unfortunately, Liam had never been so lucky.
When he finds himself outside Theo’s house, on the outskirts of Beacon Hills, he second-guesses everything that had been running through his mind.
Was he projecting, because it bothered him not to know what Theo’s fingers felt like, skimming across his skin? Because he was now consumed with the thought of what it might feel like for Theo’s hand to dig into his waist?
(Because he wondered what it might be like, to get his lips on the spot of Theo’s neck where he saw his pulse stuttering, and it was almost foolish how not-new that urge was for him.)
His cheeks flush before he even steps up to the door.
“Jesus, just come in already,” He hears Theo say from inside, can almost hear the eye roll that accompanies the words.
When he steps in and moves through the hallway, he fights to remain normal; to act as though he hadn’t spent the last few days obsessing over the idea that they had all neglected Theo’s need for something as simple as touch, and the very opposing idea that Theo despised the very notion of touch or hands on him so much that he flinched away and they had never noticed.
He’d been rehearsing a speech in his head, not wanting to hurt him unintentionally or make it awkward between them, but all it amounted to was a floundering apology and a series of questions that sounded half interrogation, half intervention. He had thought, in the end, that it would just have to do, means to say it all as soon as he sees Theo’s face, before he had the chance to interrupt. Just get everything that had been worrying at his brain into the open air between them. That was the plan.
Stupid.
Theo is once more in the kitchen, poring over a map of the state, full of circled locations and scrawled notes that Liam can’t interpret.
For all the well-intentioned plans he had entered with, he remains silent, leaning against the doorframe and just watching, trying to puzzle it all out.
“Guess you’re done ignoring all my texts, then?” Theo states, more than questions, and Liam’s not quite sure how to respond; just folds his arms over himself and ignores the way the pink tinge of his cheeks only brightens.
“I, uh…”
“You’re not gonna tell me why, are you?”
Theo looks up, then, and Liam knows that the mirth he sees there is only supposed to disguise the part of him that was genuinely worried, thinking that Liam actually meant to and wanted to stay away.
“I didn’t mean to, really,” He says, “I’m sorry, I just had a lot going on in my head.”
The other boy frowns, “You okay?” The chimera’s concern would have endeared him if he hadn’t spent most of his waking hours worrying over him and thinking that he had perhaps made a mess of their entire friendship; if it hadn’t been Theo himself who had been running through Liam’s mind and causing havoc.
He murmurs something noncommittal and moves, stepping in beside him at the dining table to look over the map — his other frenzied plans all but forgotten. It was almost laughable, how quickly he softened around him, put at ease by Theo’s steady presence. He hesitated with the word anchor, heavy as it was, though it was an obvious conclusion. Neither of them had broached the topic in a long time; just found themselves content with the way things were.
Liam could pretend all he wanted that he had simply matured.
“What’s this?” He asks, hand smoothing over the large poster.
Theo hesitates.
“It’s everywhere I was with the… where I was, before,” He’s quiet as he speaks. “Trying to match places up with possible packs, in case I’m the one that goes.”
Liam frowns, wondering just why Argent would have asked this of him, after so much time. He was sure that they had already gone over the places Theo had been, had rehashed it enough that Chris would likely know it just as well. He wonders why he thought it had been a good idea to go over it all alone.
And then he remembers the unopened texts, the ones he had very knowingly ignored.
“I’m sorry,” Liam breathes. “I would have been here… should have been.”
Theo shrugs a shoulder, as though Liam wasn’t entirely aware that it was all part of what haunted him.
Liam gulps, lets his hand wander over to settle across Theo’s before he could convince himself that it was a mistake; that everything he thought had been made up in his own mind over the previous few days.
He feels a vague amount of shame when he realises that he wouldn’t have reached out, before. That even though he thought so often about what it could be like, to do so without reservation, he would have assumed that Theo had himself handled; he wouldn’t have looked for the excuse, even when he wanted to.
Watching out of the corner of his eye, he sees Theo’s eyes flutter closed, and sees him suck in a shuddering breath, and Liam decides that he might just hate himself.
“I’m sorry,” He repeats, though he’s not sure that Theo even understands why he’s apologising at all. Experimentally, he strokes his thumb over the flat of his hand. “Is this okay?”
It seems to throw him. Usually so unflappable, Theo’s eyes flick down to their hands quickly before coming right back up.
“It’s fine?” He mutters, catching Liam’s eye before pulling his hand out and away. “I’m fine, what’s up with you? You’re making a big deal.”
Stubbornly, he thinks to himself, maybe it should be. He knows Theo’s ticks, has spent enough time with him to know when something makes him nervous — notices the flex of his wrist and the way the scent of emotion that always read distinctly Theo (... to him, at least) mutes out, hidden. The way he seemed to prepare to protect himself.
Liam immediately knew he wouldn't be ready to talk about; the touch thing — there was no way that he wouldn't simply deny that he had a problem in the first place. He wasn't sure how he hadn't anticipated that Theo would just find himself feeling ambushed by such an observation.
Even if he had now all but confirmed that there was something concrete to his earlier worries, without Theo even knowing, he’d only given Liam more reason for concern. But also something more to more to go off than a sneaking suspicion, at least.
“There’s no reason you should have to prove yourself,” He says, instead, because it was an argument they had already had a hundred times over. It was somehow easier to stomach. “We’ve done this before, we’ve gone over all this. Chris knows.”
“Maybe I missed something, I—”
“You're torturing yourself.”
Theo stops; purses his lips.
You’re enough, Liam wants to shout. Wants to barrel into him and shake him; wants to shake himself for not connecting the dots sooner; for not understanding how Theo could feel as though he wasn’t a part of the pack in the same way that the others were when he was so incredibly essential. He was vital.
But how could he have known, when they hadn’t made an effort to show him? To prove it?
“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Theo insists. “What are you doing? Just let me do what I have to do, Liam, and then we can go watch Transformers or whatever you’re here to do.”
Liam feels it all rising within him; every running frustration, every unspeakable emotion.
“I’m not here to—just, ugh —Theo… you don’t have to do anything. We know how it’ll end anyway, don’t we? You’ll go off volunteering even after making some list; even though you’ve met these packs before and you know you’ll put yourself in their firing line. Even though Chris already knows which ones you met. You don’t have to.”
Theo snorts, incredulous, “And what? Let the others do it? Let you go instead and tell everyone I have to look out for my own skin? Like I can just do that. You know that’s not an option.”
“It is. You can.”
Liam’s not quite sure what to do. For all that he had planned, he knows that there was nothing he could say, then and there, that could make the chimera see. Desperation starts to lick at his bones, the fear that Theo could simply panic and shut himself off even further.
“Theo,” He starts, stepping forward and into his space again.
“Liam,” Theo mirrors, but it sounds like a warning, the edge of a growl.
Whether it was ever a good idea or not, listening to directives had never been one of Liam’s strong suits, no matter who or where they were coming from.
“Scent me.”
“I… what?” If nothing else, his frantic scramble to think of something tangible had at least managed to shock the taller boy out of whatever impassive crater he had been really to dive into.
“Scent me,” Liam repeats, taking a final step closer until they were standing toe to toe, and he could feel the heat of Theo’s raggedly-rising chest before his own.
He tilts his neck, exposing himself; the most vulnerable move he could think of.
Theo looked as though he were about to argue the point and refuse, but Liam instead watches through his own hooded eyelids as his mouth promptly snaps shut. His eyes boring a hole where his vein stretches, jackrabbiting pulse perfectly framed.
He doesn’t allow himself to stop and think what a terrible idea it likely was. He had to prove a point, and that was something he would never allow himself to back away from; really wasn’t sure it was even possible, at his very core. He had to make Theo see.
Perhaps he could have stopped to take into account the thrum that ran through his veins whenever the chimera got close enough, or the way that he imagined Theo’s fingers digging into his scalp and running over bare skin when he was alone, or even simply his own hypothesis that touch might be too much.
(And perhaps, it was just the case for the both of them. Too much.)
But he didn’t.
Theo swallows thickly, but he doesn’t move away. His hands tremble — with what, Liam isn’t sure — but he comes to rest them on Liam’s hips.
“C’mon,” Liam urges, a rush going through him when the only answer is a rumble through the other boy’s chest.
“Shut up,” Theo commands, pushing Liam until his back hit the wall with a soft ‘oof’. “You don’t know what you’ve done; what you’re doing.”
Defiantly, Liam only angles his neck further.
He feels hot breath against his skin, first. He closes his eyes against it, in anticipation, just as he feels the tip of Theo’s neck finally glance over the dip of his collarbone.
The noise that he hears, vibrating against him, is wounded; half a wolf-like whine.
His hand trails up to the back of Theo’s neck, far more purposeful than it had been before — on another day, in a different kitchen. His short nails rake up into Theo’s hairline before tracing back down, urging him in closer to his own neck. “Please,” He tries, again.
It’s then, after what must be an eternity, that he finally seems to let go.
The feeling of his nose and his mouth pressing against him, dragging against his skin has Liam’s knees buckling, held up only by Theo’s hands on his hips, pushing him into the wall.
“Do you get it?” Liam asks, softly, while he still has his wits about him, his hands running up through waves of hair. “I smell like you.”
Pack, he tries to say. Yours.
Theo just about sobs.
It’s not that he expected a response; it’s not that he even had the wherewithal to truly comprehend anything that was happening, but when he feels teeth nipping at and grazing at the juncture of his neck, Liam loses himself to it; hips bucking and fingers gripping tight, his own unintelligible noises leaving his lips without permission.
Hips press against his own, bracketing him in and announcing to the both of them just how hot and hard and aching he was beneath his jeans, just as Theo’s lips trail further up his neck.
“Jesus, Theo,” He moans, hands clinging on as though he depended upon it, and maybe he did. He wanted him closer; wanted to get to the hem of Theo’s shirt and his own; wanted so much.
But something about the sound of his own name seems to send a shock through the chimera, without Liam realising; dousing him with cold water, because Theo tears himself away.
He looks crazed. Cheeks flushed, hair messed up and breath dragging painfully out of him, but…
“Theo—”
“Get out.”
Liam’s eyes widen, planted against the wall as he is, confused by the icy tone. “What?”
“How much clearer do I have to be? Fucking — just, god — get out.”
“Wait, please, would you talk to me? Theo, please? We can forget it; we can pretend nothing happened, if that’s what you want?”
Theo’s eyes glow bright and golden, and he speaks around long fangs.
“Don’t make me say it again, Liam. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
“Okay!” He concedes. “Okay. Theo. I’m so sorry I fucked up. I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Just, please, call me if you need to. Any time. Whenever... When you're ready. I’ll answer.”
No, he wants to say. No, please. Not like this. If he wasn't entirely thrown; if he didn't feel as though everything within him was scrambling to rearrange around this reality — around the truth that so easily found it's place; a repeated mantra of Theo.
Theo turns away, without any hint of a response, gripping the countertop in his rapidly transforming hands. Liam feels the well of tears in the corners of his eyes; unable to believe that he had managed to mess it all up so thoroughly and completely. Not just the night and whatever he thought he could somehow accomplish, but the foundation of their friendship at the very core of it all.
With a final look at the hunched and heaving line of Theo’s back, Liam turns and leaves.
Climbing into the heap of junk he calls a car, every single nerve and limb and muscle feeling drained, he sends out three texts with shaking hands.
So much for not acting brashly.
TO: SCOOT.
scott. pls go to theo’s. i ducked up. help him.
TO: THE WOLF WHO LIVED
i’m so fkn sorry. i wanted you to know how much you mean to me. you’re my best friend.
i don’t want to lose you. i don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen. but we can.