Chapter Text
Something has been bugging the shit out of Liam since the Jólakötturinn exploded out of existence, leaving behind enormous hairballs and the vague smell of a litter box in dire need of scooping.
“Some help here, guys?” Mason says from his spot seated on the concrete floor, using a brush to sweep mountain ash into a dustpan. Corey holds a glass jar steady as Mason empties the pan into the container. “I’d like to get home before the sun rises.”
The warehouse is temperature controlled, but a December chill creeps across the cement floor. Alec and Nolan linger over Alec’s cell phone in one corner of the open, well-lit room, snickering. An occasional high-pitched meow echoes from the speaker, bouncing off the metal industrial shelves lining the walls. Cat videos? If Liam never sees another feline, it will be too soon. “We’re busy decompressing,” Alec tells Mason. “Coping mechanisms are healthy. And besides, Liam and I can’t touch that stuff. Theo should clean it.”
“Yeah,” Nolan echos. “Theo’s werewolf-lite. Or werecoyote-lite. Whichever.”
“There’s nothing lightweight about these boxes, asswipes!” Theo calls from across the warehouse where he stacks toppled plastic-wrapped wooden pallets. The box contents jingle like Santa’s sleigh bells. “Make yourselves useful or I’ll throw a few at your worthless heads.” A fine sheen of sweat glistens on Theo’s brow under the flickering fluorescent lights. Large hairballs roll under his high top Converse sneakers like tumbleweeds. Liam shudders.
Sensing Liam's stare on the back of his neck, Theo throws a menacing glance in Liam’s direction. Liam finds himself drowning in the unique blue of Theo’s eyes. They’re not the twinkling, merry color attributed to American’s less terrifying Christmas myth: Theo’s eyes are cold steel, an ocean during a storm. Did they contain this much fire and brimstone before his hellish imprisonment, Liam wonders.
“What’s your problem?” Liam replies to Theo’s question with furrowed brows. What is his problem? Theo eye-rolls and turns away, hefting another upturned box. “I’m not actually threatening them. Do they look scared?”
Oh . Maybe that’s what’s bugging Liam? Alec, Nolan, Corey, and Mason have their backs to Theo, a subconscious sign of trust. It took Alec the shortest time to adjust to Theo since he’d missed the being-evil-going-to-hell-coming-back-a-little-less-evil drama. Corey took the longest because he’d experienced Theo’s ruthlessness first hand. But now Corey plucks cat fur out of mountain ash, not paying Theo an ounce of attention. Does his pack’s blind trust in a former enemy set off Liam’s second-rate alpha instincts?
Corey’s nose scrunches in distaste, and he flicks a strand away. “Ugh. That was a whisker.”
Theo rights the last box and sits on top of it, wiping the sweat off his face with grimy hands and drying them on the thighs of his jeans. Several days of dark scruff overtakes his jaw, surrounds his full lower lips and his crimped, slightly thinner top one. From the opposite corner, a strange guttural yowl that sounds like the words “my butthole” has Alec and Nolan howling with laughter. “I can’t believe you find cats humorous after what we saw tonight.” Theo grimaces. “And Nolan? Doesn’t your mom own a cat?”
“Hey!” Alec says, looking away from the phone and gracing the room with his undivided attention. “Leave Mr. Bigglesworth out of this.” Nolan’s mother took Alec in, appreciating another man in the house and the discount Alec’s cashier job at the food market got them on groceries. Having lived in pet-free apartments his whole life, Alec bonded with their Birman immediately. “What would you know about cats, anyway?”
“Ah, plenty. I used to own a cat. And if I still owned one, I’d seriously reconsider letting it sleep in my bed tonight.”
Nolan locks the phone screen and peers at Theo. “Wait. The Doctors kept a cat?”
“Don’t forget the Dread,” Alec says. “They’re not actual doctors.”
“They were,” Mason chimes in from the floor. “Well, we’re positive the Surgeon was. We found Marcel’s military records, and he served as a surgeon-major to a regiment during the Seven Years’ War. We’re reasonably confident about the Geneticist and the Pathologist, what with the experiments on fetuses during World War Two. Right, Corey?”
Mason’s grotesque history lesson won’t sidetrack Nolan. “So, the Dread Doctors owned a cat? Please tell me they didn’t keep it in the green serum tank.”
“Der Sol-CAT!” Alec giggles when Nolan mimes throwing up.
Mason and Corey stop gathering up mountain ash and study Theo, awaiting his answer. Theo hops from his box seat, kicks away an old, stray wool sock on the floor, and strolls around the crate until it’s between him and the rest of the room. He leans his elbows against it, shoulders relaxed and face serene, a perfect picture of ease.
There’s none of the hissing and snarling Liam saw earlier. Puffed up body, bared teeth, arched back: absent, but Liam recognizes a cornered animal when he sees it. Nobody’s afraid of Theo anymore. But Theo’s still wary. Of what—who?— Liam isn’t sure.
If Scott were here, he’d have the answer. Well, more likely Stiles would know, but he’d tell Scott, and Liam would remain in the dark.
“Those psychopaths never owned a cat, idiot,” Theo scoffs. “I had one as a kid. Her long hair triggered my asthma, so we re-homed her.” His gaze softens at the edges, and the corners of Theo’s mouth twitch. “Athena. She was a calico. I gave her to a third grade classmate, but I can’t recall who.” Theo stares off the side for a beat, eyes unfocused, then shrugs. “Stiles would remember.”
Stiles would also know why Theo’s quiet speech leaves Liam more unbalanced than ever.
Alec nudges Nolan. “Proper Doctors.”
Nolan smirks back at Alec. “Yeah, a bunch of miracle workers who cured Theo’s asthma!” And the two start howling again, Corey and Mason yelling for help cleaning so they can go home and sleep. Everyone misses Theo’s eyes and mouth tightening like a bottle cap, preventing any more secrets from spilling. Everyone but Liam.
A deep, audible breath leaves Theo’s lungs. He fixes his gaze on Liam, placid mask affixed to his features, but the hastily cobbled cracks are discernible now. Liam can’t unsee them. His controlled expression, his stillness, aren’t supernatural. They’re unnatural ; one of the many things the Doctors got wrong in their quest to engineer the perfect host. “Need help with anything else?” Theo’s voice is deep and rich, but devoid of emotion.
Mason mumbles, “At least one of you could hold the damn dustpan.”
Liam sways from foot to foot. I need help with everything . “Ah, no. I think… We’ve got it from here.”
“Great.” Theo straightens, makes a show of arching his back, stretching out his limbs, and zipping his hoodie. “Until next time. And if next time features another giant, vicious child-eating monster cat, call someone else.”
Then Theo retreats, but the uneasy feeling that Liam is missing something lingers.
“That was weird back there, right?” Liam voices from the rear seat of Mason’s Camry as they re-enter the Beacon Hills city limit. His fingers pick at the seam in the upholstery. “You guys thought that was weird?”
“In general?” Corey asks. “Yeah, sure. No one expects to see a Jólakötturinn outside Iceland. But in the scheme of supernatural shit in Beacon Hills? Not so weird.”
“No,” Liam says, exasperated. “Not the Yule Cat. I’m talking about Theo.”
Mason meets Liam’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “You say jump; Theo grumbles but inevitably asks how high. It's been this way since Scott went off to college. What’s peculiar about tonight?”
“I don’t know! Something seems off . Like how no one fears him anymore, not even Nolan.”
“That’s good, right?” Mason asks. “Theo’s our ally. With Stiles, Lydia, Scott, and Malia out of town, we need help.”
“Yeah, it’s great.” Liam breaks eye contact to stare out the window at the passing trees. “The Jólakötturinn came to the warehouse when Theo was the bait, but not when we used Alec three nights ago. Why?”
Corey twists in his seat, observing him through the gap under the raised headrest. “Alec was always a long shot. The only reason we tried him first was because he’s the youngest pack member.”
“Yeah, and it failed. So why’d Theo work? He’s two years older than us!”
Mason and Corey exchange glances over the center console, their silence speaking volumes. “Stop that,” Liam hisses. “I hate when you guys do that.”
“It’s just…” Mason snags Liam’s eye again in the mirror. “We figured you understood why Theo worked.”
Liam throws up his hands in the confined space, wrist smacking against the headliner. “Theo was doing what he always does. Being the bait.”
Mason and Corey peek at each other, eyebrows moving in mute communication. Liam growls. “Well… There’s this… Theo’s a prime example—”
“We guessed Theo would work because of what Martin Teicher found,” Mason finishes for his boyfriend.
“Who’s Martin Teicher? Did we go to high school with him or something?”
“No, Liam,” Mason answers with a small smile. “He’s a professor at Harvard.”
Corey lights up like a Christmas Tree. “Teicher led a groundbreaking study a few years back that found the volumes of three important areas of the hippocampus shrink by over six percent in people exposed to maltreatment. Super fascinating. It’s one of the key translational neuroscience discoveries of the 20th century.”
Liam blinks. “Huh?”
“Abuse hinders a survivors' brain development,” Mason translates, voice pitched low and melancholy; even with werewolf hearing, Liam struggles to discern the words over the hum of car tires. “In the legends, the Jólakötturinn targets children who haven’t received a new article of clothing. The Doctors stunted Theo’s emotional growth when they took him. When you asked him to be the bait, we thought you realized—”
“Theo didn’t have a childhood.” Guilty pressure roils in Liam’s belly.
“He had at least part of one. Stiles and Scott can attest to that,” Corey says, trying to lessen the blow. It doesn’t work.
“And a calico cat named Athena.” Liam’s heart aches. Why hasn’t he previously considered Theo’s upbringing? He’d focused on the crap Theo put them through, and when the older pack members left for college, Liam had been so absorbed in his new leadership role he’d never spared a thought for Theo’s troubled history.
“When a Yule Cat showed up in California, we predicted the customs of our culture would be followed.” Corey unbuckles his seat belt as they pull up in front of his dark-windowed house. Mason cuts the engine and the headlights. Corey’s parents mostly ignore their son’s existence, but there’s no point inviting attention, especially when they reek of cat pee. “In our state you’re considered a child up through the age of seventeen.”
“Theo never got to be a teenager, and has no family to give him gifts. So, in conclusion, the perfect target for the Jólakötturinn,” Mason finishes.
Liam moans, collapsing across Mason’s back seat like a fainting Victorian maid. “I’m a terrible alpha.”
“You’re not, ” Mason and Corey insist in unison.
“And technically,” Mason continues, “since Theo’s not part of the pack, you’re not his alpha.”
Should he be? Liam asks himself as Mason kisses Corey goodnight. Scott left Liam in charge. Did his temporary leadership role extend to inviting Theo into their pack, with or without Scott’s approval? What if Theo doesn’t want to join? What if he wants—needs—something else? What if what if what if?
“I recognize that face.” Mason pulls away from the curb.
“You can’t even see me back here.”
“I don’t need to see you; I know you like the back of my hand. We can’t fix everything, Liam. You can’t fix everyone. Scott told you that before he left for college.”
“Yeah, but we try.” His determination increases with each passing mile marker. “We don’t give up. That’s who we are.”
Mason flips on the blinker. “We don’t give up when it’s someone innocent; when it’s someone alone. When it’s one of our friends.”
Liam sits up, eyes on the route unfolding ahead. “Theo’s my friend.”
There’s a belligerent hint of alpha command in his voice, but Mason doesn’t call him on it. He just laughs and asks, “Does Theo know that?”
He will soon.