Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are certain catastrophic worries that are always present in a dull way, but wear most on your mind when evidence of them is shoved right in front of your face. Like environmental disasters. Or economic crises. Or poorly maintained health. Theo Raeken is one of these things.  

Here, spit out from the earth like a foul-tasting thing, Theo becomes more spectacle than boy, walking symbol of a past apocalypse. A receptacle for suspicious glances and sneers when they think he’s not looking, or the occasional fist. A bad omen to those who don’t want him around. 

Maybe that’s everyone. He hears the phrase send him back more often than his own name, these days. It’d make for a halfway-decent moniker—Theo “Send Him Back” Raeken—if the words didn’t make him go dull-eyed and lead-tongued. Names shouldn’t do that, he thinks. 

But Theo, in all of his haggard glory, survives the slippery threats of a permanent return to the underground prison by sheer will. So, somewhere inside of him there must be a resilient being, he thinks. Somewhere in the hollowness of him, between the skin and bones and contraband-heart pumping nothing but despondency through his veins, there is something that wants him to live. Or maybe it just doesn't know how to let him die.

From one crisis to another there’s nothing to report beyond a change in foe. The end of the world hasn’t yet come, but he thinks that Scott sometimes still gets that worried look whenever Theo’s around. The same expression that takes root in the rest of the pack’s faces, just in different forms. Stiles’s dubious glare, Malia’s scowl, the muted fear in Corey’s eyes, Mason’s restrained grimace, Lydia’s tacit avoidance. 

He thinks there should be more of something in Liam’s gaze. More anger. Or distrust. Contempt, even. But there’s nothing beyond begrudging acceptance. It’s comforting, almost. Maybe that’s where the beta’s power lies. He doesn’t need to feel much other than their shared fellowship-by-necessity. The sword’s in his possession somewhere. Metal shards awaiting reassembly on the off-chance that Theo remembers how to be bad. 

Remembers how to be. 

The pack isn’t looking after Theo. Blind-eyed to his roadside rest-stops. To the persistent caffeine tremor in his hands. To the clothes he rewears as many times as possible before scrounging up enough change for the laundromat. They’re just looking at him—

(Not seeing, just looking. Something that requires no careful consideration or guileless perception. Snapshot glances, hasty judgment. Deputies rapping knuckles against his windows at night and continuing down the road to find their next traffic infraction before he’s even blinked the glare of their flashlight out of his eyes. People don’t like to look too long at pitiful things.)

—that’s their responsibility. 

That’s Liam’s responsibility, he reminds himself. To stare at Theo and make sure he does no more harm (to others, not to himself). To stare with those eyes that are blue in a way Theo can’t comprehend. Blue in the way of pretty, transcendent things. Blue in a way that Theo can only reduce to the alchemical terms he was raised with. Burning sulfur. Blue like that. 

There wasn’t much color down below. Not in his former laboratory home nor the hell handcrafted (hand, grafted) just for him. Only the deep, arterial red of his insides going outside. He’d forgotten about such bright things. His mind used to be one of them. 

If he was rotting down there like Liam says he was, then Theo wonders what the fuck it is that he's doing up here. 

But he has a muscle memory mouth. It cracks witty remarks and snarls mean things while his mind quietly splinters and caves in on itself. Theo thinks that may be the only thing that prevents them (meaning everyone, meaning Liam) from looking too hard, stops them from trying to gaze beyond this well-practiced imitation of a person. Stops them from trying to see. 

To notice the evidence, the presence of these involuntary, unpracticed happenings—the dark circles stamped beneath Theo’s eyes, the ribs he can feel beneath his fingertips, the pile of blankets and pillows on his backseat—would wear too much on the pack members’ minds. His existence is heavy enough in the midst of a war. They shouldn't have to worry about the spectacle boy sticking a knife in their backs just to then keel over and die himself. So he takes up a hobby of lightening loads. Call it martyrdom. Call it self-sacrifice. Call it trying to get someone (meaning Liam) to see him, maybe. 

This is a type of being, he thinks. Being for someone. There’s purpose in that. There’s something equally worth dying and living for in that.

Theo’s probably blowing these things out of proportion: his and Liam’s synchronicity, the ease of their togetherness, the way the beta slumps into the passenger seat like it was made for him—

(He almost says it then, after the zoo. After Mykonos. Theo nearly blurts out the truth. This is my home, you are sitting in it. Just turn around. There’s my bed. Do you see it now? Me? Am I bad, still? Or am I better like this, tired and hungry and lost and alone? ) 

—the sweet, syrupy scent of Liam’s relief when Theo yanks him into the elevator. That wide-eyed, grateful stare when Liam asks, “What are you doing here?” 

Being spectacle-me. Being a sight for sulfur-flame eyes. Theo thinks. Being me for you.  

“I was just asking myself the same thing,” is what spews forth from his muscle memory mouth instead. 

Theo’s hand shakes when he swipes it through his hair, and that is something he doesn’t want Liam to see. Not here, not now. Not when the beta needs to be convinced that he’s been provided with a reliable partner that’ll give him a shot at making it out alive; not a malnourished, sleep-deprived counterfeit copy that’s caffeine crashing from his gas-station coffee dinner and blinking away the spots dancing across his vision. 

It’s selfish, it’s reckless. This deceit. Like convincing Liam he’s going into battle with a sword when he’s really been granted a butter knife. 

His mind lapses, unfamiliar tongue says, “Look, I’m not dying for you.” 

There’s that look, the slight recoil. The one Theo never wanted to see on Liam’s face, the one of instinctual worry that the pack always regards him with. It’s a split-second doubt, where Liam remembers who Theo is and what Theo has done—and maybe this is the closest Liam’s come to seeing him but he’s still just fucking looking—and all Theo can be is an everpresent worry. A permanent liability.  

“I’m not dying for you either.” 

A pause. There’s an addendum. Theo's glad for it. 

“But, I will fight with you.” 

“Okay,” Theo says. He says it himself. Not his mouth, removed from his own volition. That means something, he thinks. “Let’s fight.” 

Butter knife boy holds his own pretty well. Dull blades can still cut, and there’s strength in trying. This is what they do, he and Liam. They try, together. Turn their insides out. Meet the world at all its hard places, pick up the slack for each other. Go down together when their well of trying has run dry. 

Theo thinks he has a little left in him. Can’t let it go to waste. He stands, staggering forward. 

Pale, shaky kid bleeds out on the hospital floor and it’s not Theo this time. He hand-picks this pain, idly wonders if this is the inverse of his prior trail of destruction. Spectacle boy’s heart leaves chest, spectacle boy leaves ground, spectacle boy’s mind leaves his body, his senses of self and dignity leave too, so spectacle boy takes his bad hands—

(Hands that have made mistakes, hands that have thrust through bodies and stolen things he couldn’t replace. Stolen power, trust, hope. Stolen life.) 

—and makes an ache disappear. His vision blurs and he’ll pretend it's tears and not a side-effect of the leaking, unhealing wound on his shoulder. 

(This, another involuntary, unpracticed happening. His body has had a lot of these, lately. That’s how catastrophes occur, right? A small accumulation of happenings that turn into one great, big happening. Like induced earthquakes. Theo’s began with that tectonic shift of his return to this world.)

He’s just dizzy with grief, is all. Grief for this kid that he can see. Actually see. 

Theo is being watched, looked at. Feels weighty gazes on the back of his head the whole time. But Gabe’s pulse is waning beneath his fingertips and Theo’s pain only grows and he doesn’t know if it’s physical or symbolic, and his natural disaster self is coming undone. He doesn't know what he’ll be if he’s not a walking warning anymore. 

That resilient thing inside of him wants to retire, and Theo thinks he’ll let it. Now that he’s heard the words you lost and now that everyone’s heaving sighs of relief, make-believing that there isn’t a dead teenager on the floor in front of them. Now that Liam isn’t looking at him anymore, now that he doesn’t need to. It's not like the beta owes him perception. It's just, Theo is half-convinced that he's only held together by the expectations in the gazes of those around him. 

Standing is a chore. Making it down the long stretch of hallway to the elevator, even moreso. He thinks he gets away unseen for once, no eyes on him. Nothing sulfurous. Maybe they’ll catch the trail of blood announcing his departure sometime later when they’re done celebrating a war won. He can’t help but leave ominous traces of himself wherever he goes. 

He thinks he might catch a faint call of his name but it doesn't sound like "send him back" so it's hard for him to recognize. He drags himself into the elevator anyway. 

There’s a warped, nebulous version of his own reflection on the inside of the metal doors. The abstract concept of himself. Theo doesn’t see any resemblance. 

He’s more body than boy, more wound than spectacle hidden here behind the bullet-ridden elevator doors he stared at not long ago. He wasn’t alone then, wasn’t jelly-limbed and sinking to the vinyl floor, jabbing at buttons with blood-slicked fingers and hoping he hits the one that goes to the parking garage. Spectacle boy is alone now. He tells himself this does not bother him. 

The elevator descends. Theo’s eyes flutter shut. He goes with it.

Chapter Text

It only takes one glance at the disoriented, fear-hazed expression on Theo’s dirt-smudged face for Liam to realize that bringing the chimera back was a mistake. He says where’s my sister like a sob is caught in his throat, snarls I’m gonna kill you, too, I’m gonna kill all of you like he’s trying to remember the person he was months ago when they trapped him underground. Liam wishes he could believe the threat, though. Wishes there was more conviction in Theo’s words. Maybe then it’d be easier to agree with Hayden’s suggestion of send him back. And everyone else’s after that.  

But knee-jerk threats laced with terror fall short of their intended effect. I’m gonna kill all of you, doesn’t really work, isn’t believable. Not when Theo’s trembling and panting and has tears welling up in his eyes. Not when Liam scents the utter desperation rolling off the arm he’s got pressed against Liam’s trachea. Not when Theo sags, shuts down, can only stare blankly when Liam holds the sword in front of his face. (Maybe some knee-jerk threats do work.)

If once underground creates this broken boy then Liam doesn’t want to know what twice might do. 

Theo, freshly unearthed, coated in a layer of dirt and sweat and anxiety, had said, “There’s nothing worse than what I’ve been through.” 

Both an accusation and an admission in those words, and still, Liam doesn’t think he’ll ever forget them. So, he’ll relent. So he’ll admit to himself: it’s not that bringing Theo back was a mistake. Sending him there in the first place was. Breaking the sword is an easy decision. Breaking the sword is a relief. Breaking the sword is the closest Liam’s gotten to righting a wrong, and even then he’s got a long ways to go. He’s carrying around a guilty conscience like a backpack these days. 

But to see Theo here, in his return—a feeble, despondent rendering of the person he was before—Liam is confronted by the aftershocks of their own actions. The pack’s. Their desperate, peace-keeping decision that carried along negative, violent side effects. Side effects in the form of the boy they obliterated. 

We did this, Liam thinks. We did this to him.  

Put the ghosts in his eyes and instinctual fear in his heart, reduced him to this blank mask of a boy. 

No. 

I did this. He’s my responsibility. 

Accountability leaves a sour taste on his tongue. It’s not nearly as unpleasant at the scent of Theo’s own constant half-concealed distress, like he’s trying to numb his own pain. Not to keep himself sane, but to keep the pack members from picking up on it.

Maybe Liam’s reading too much into these infrequent moments when Theo slips out of his habitual stoicism. And maybe he’s grateful for the chimera’s attempts at reinstating normalcy in their banter. The way he makes snide remarks. Purposely rubs Liam the wrong way— 

(Liam’s not sure he can think of it like that. Rubbing him the wrong way. Not when his stomach flutters with something light even when he’s leveling a glare at the chimera. Not when he insisted to Scott that he and Theo need to be paired together on missions under the guise of Theo being his responsibility, when really he just...wanted to spend more time with him, maybe. See him for who he is when they’re on the same side. Or when they don’t have to choose sides at all.) 

—and bares teeth. Only then can Liam pretend that he’s not in the company of a catastrophe. A ticking time bomb set to implode.

Are they lucky, the pack? That they won’t have to experience the collateral damage? Or is this act of feigned ignorance, to sit back and watch as Theo collapses in on himself after helping everyone else, crueler than anything he has ever done to them?

Theo killed Scott. Theo wanted Liam to kill him first. There’s no pretty way to remember these things. Theo did bad things and he came back all fucked up and dead behind the eyes and now, in the wake of these incidents, Liam has finally learned to feel something other than disdain for him. But Scott doesn’t regret it. And Stiles doesn’t have any remorse. And Malia shows no signs of shame. And maybe, just maybe, no one besides Liam gets pangs of self-condemnation for what they allowed to happen to Theo. Liam never knew that empathy could be an act of disobedience.

Liam notices small things that are probably bigger than he’d like to believe. The thousand-yard stare Theo’s got whenever he’s not actively putting on his snarky asshole facade or throwing himself into the line of fire. His tendency to disappear, only to return by necessity. The bed in the form of a backseat. Leather mattress shrouded by thin blankets—

(He noticed it first after the zoo. After Mykonos. When Theo dropped him off at home and bled out all of his residual bravado the moment Liam stepped outside of the passenger seat. White-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and a tight smirk on his face as he offered an unnaturally polite goodbye. He drove off before Liam could ask about the motel room he’s made of his truck.)

—and a few yellowing pillows that fell behind the driver’s seat. Liam doesn’t know what to say about them. 

It scares him, he thinks. To have to admit to his own cruelty. To consider the fists he hurled in Theo’s direction, the malicious words spat at him, and most of all the thoughtless threats to send Theo back. 

(It scares him even more to think that keeping Theo here like this, surrounded by people who hate him and leashed by the knowledge of being Liam’s responsibility, is just as cruel. He doesn’t know how to fix it.) 

Liam is staring down certain death in the hospital when a seismic shift happens. Theo tugging him backwards into the elevator, into the shelter of him. 

“What are you doing here?” Liam gasps. And, why do you keep trying to save me? I couldn’t do the same for you. Never even tried.  

“I was just asking myself the same thing,” Theo replies. 

Theo’s hand trembles when he swipes it through his hair. Liam doesn’t know what it means. He’s all wide-eyed and panting, like he’s considering the catastrophe he just saved Liam from. Like he’s considering himself as something other than a burden for once. 

“Look,” Theo says, that mask of stoicism settling over his face. “I’m not dying for you.” 

Liam falters, recoils. Because the thought that Theo would’ve considered dying for him in the first place is all out of sorts. Unfitting. Not when Liam’s been reckless in his handling of the chimera, not when Liam’s treated him like a thing to be handled instead of a person. 

“I’m not dying for you either,” Liam grunts. 

He can’t be there for Theo if he’s dead and there’s nothing noble in that. He can’t leave Theo behind with all the sharp edges of this place. This is what Liam tells himself. They’re saying these words for each other, not to each other. 

“But, I will fight with you.” 

“Okay,” Theo exhales, relief in his voice. They know how to do this, together. “Let’s fight.” 

The elevator opens. This part needs no words. Liam thinks he and Theo have always been better at communicating this way, with their bodies. With the way their bodies turn into safeguards for each other. Maneuver themselves in tandem, silent understanding that I am a weapon for you while you are a shield for me and vice versa.  

There’s no disaster in this. Not on their end. Little wounds—Liam’s limp from the bullet lodged in his leg, or the way Theo clutches his shoulder—but something they can recover from. 

Theo stumbles forward. Doesn’t stop to rest when Liam does. He’s walking towards the unrecoverable thing sitting at the end of the hallway trying to put pressure on the places he’s hemorrhaging from. Gabe doesn’t have enough hands for this. He doesn’t have enough time for this. 

Liam says to Monroe over the walkie talkie, “You lost.” 

He tries not to think about the other losses that come along with it. 

Theo stoops downward, a clumsy motion. Takes the human’s wrist in his own and procures his pain. The pain of the dying boy that Liam wanted to kill, that Theo talked him out of killing. The dying boy that wanted to kill Liam. 

He’s too good, Liam thinks. He’s good and we never wanted to see it because we only ever chose to see him in the circumstances that made him bad.  

Theo sways when he stands, when Gabe’s not looking at him, not looking at anything anymore. Liam thought they were safe. That the worst was over, but there’s some unspoken devastation in the sight of Theo’s receding form stumbling away from the rest of them. He’s still bleeding. He shouldn’t still be bleeding. He shouldn’t look as bad off as the corpse he walked away from. Liam calls out after him, he does. But Theo disappears the same way he always does whenever disasters end, like he cannot bear to exist outside of them.  

Everyone remaining tries to tie up loose ends, find some reconciliation. Clean up post-crisis. 

Melissa attempts to stop Liam from limping past her, from following the blood trail down the empty corridor, to the elevator, toward wherever Theo had fled to. Says she needs to treat the gunshot wound in his leg, the one attempting to heal itself around the bullet making a home inside the muscle. Liam wonders, but can’t bring himself to ask why she didn’t offer the same for Theo. When he stood—

(After showing compassion they didn’t think he was capable of. The kind of deed, the kind of kind deed, that doesn’t align with the collective image they have of Theo in their heads.)

—and staggered out of their sight. 

Liam follows bloody shoeprints down the hall. The elevator takes too long to come, just Liam left with his silent theories of how far Theo could’ve gotten in the time it took for Liam to chase after him. 

But there are certain calamities that come as no surprise. Calamities that seem so inevitable in hindsight that you’re sure you should’ve predicted their happening. Theo is one of them. Here, as the sight that welcomes Liam as soon as the elevator doors part. His limp body propped against the interior wall of the elevator, pale skin in stark contrast to the dark blood seeping into his t-shirt. The stain spreads, Theo remains unmoving. 

Liam steps inside the elevator. Presses the close-door button because he doesn’t want anyone else to see this. Whatever this is. Liam feels like he’s the only one who should bear witness. He’s my responsibility. He’s my right hand in all our battles. He’s my...something. Someone. Someone I should’ve protected. Taken better care of. He’s…

So still. So silent. Theo shouldn’t be like this, Liam thinks. 

Liam stretches out a hand. Makes contact with the shoulder that isn’t the source of the red seeping into Theo’s shirt, spreading outward from the epicenter of Theo’s being. Hasn’t even managed to utter Theo’s name before the chimera jerks awake. And he’s not looking at Liam but at his hand. He won’t stop staring at his hand. The one on his uninjured shoulder. And Liam would summon up some modicum of relief to note that the pulse beneath his fingertips is strong—

(Fast and erratic, but strong. Not weak, not like Theo looks. Not thready like Theo’s voice was when he told Malia ages okay, it’s okay, you don’t have to stop. Liam still doesn't know why he said that. He wishes he hadn’t heard it in the first place.)

—but the scent of Theo’s alarm is too cutting, even in the midst of all the metallic smells in the elevator. 

“Theo?”

“M’fine. Just thought…” he trails off, gaze tracking the runoff of his shoulder wound. His eyes deaden. Liam doesn’t want to look at him anymore. 

“You were somewhere else for a second,” the beta finishes for Theo. In a bad dream. Maybe this isn’t much better. The chimera nods, stilted and jerky. 

With a sigh, Liam turns around and hits the emergency stop button on the elevator. There’s a small, crackly bleat of an alarm from the interior speaker system before the sound defaults once again to silence. Just Theo and Liam, motionless. 

Theo quirks a brow, says, “You’re trapping us in here.”

Liam slides down the wall to sit beside him. 

“I’m keeping everyone else out, too,” he murmurs. 

“You said it yourself, Monroe lost,” Theo points out. “You don’t have to hide. You’re safe now.”

Liam frowns. “But I don’t think you are.” 

There’s an edge of fear that cuts through some of the bleakness in Theo’s gaze and Liam knows his words caused this. Too haphazard in his approach at trying to fix this thing between them. Theo’s got that ghost-look in his eyes, words like send him back and the memory of a sword with a metallic gleam similar to the elevator they’re sitting in probably flitting into his mind. 

Telling Theo he’s not safe wasn’t the way to go, probably. Liam tries again. 

“You’re...not a responsibility, Theo. You’re a person,” he remarks, inept with words with more meaning than the half-serious insults they normally toss at each other. “And I’m sorry for not treating you like one. I’m sorry that I, that we—” 

“S’fine. You don’t have to do all this,” Theo interrupts, waving a dismissive hand. Liam doesn’t miss his wince when it drops back limply into his lap. “In fact, I’d rather you didn't. Don’t gotta get all sappy and apologetic with me. Shit’s over.”

Liam has this unrelenting, selfish inclination. Wants Theo to yell at him. Get angry. Do something other than be this detached and uncaring and compliant. Passivity doesn’t suit him. 

There’s still too many things that he has to say and most of them start with I’m so sorry. And Liam wonders if that’s more self-serving than anything. Asking for forgiveness doesn’t solve problems, just absolves his own guilt. 

“Did you lock us inside an elevator together just so I can sit here and watch you think?” 

Liam’s eyes dart over to Theo. To the minutiae of his face: his sickly pallor, the circles beneath his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks, the dullness in his gaze. 

Guilt twists in his gut like a knife. He turns the blade on the chimera. 

“You were passed out when I got in here, I don’t think you have any fucking room to complain about the fact that I’m trying to make sure you’re not dying,” Liam snaps. Regrets his tone, the delivery, the moment the statement leaves his mouth.

“I’m fine,” Theo mumbles after a moment of fraught silence. “It’s healing.”

Liam spares a glance toward the scabby entry wound in the side of his shoulder. Still slick and glistening, an open wound. 

He sighs, “No it’s not, it’s just not bleeding much anymore.” 

“Same thing,” Theo mutters. “How’s yours?” 

He seems eager to shift the topic of conversation away from himself, nodding his head in the direction of Liam’s calf. 

Liam flexes his foot and grimaces at that pain that shoots up his leg. 

“Stupid thing’s still in there,” he huffs out. It's nearly healed over, though.  

Theo hums. He leans nearer, pulling Liam’s leg into his lap. He’s gentle with this, clinical precision. Claws probe the edge of the wound, and in one swift, careful movement—shaky hands, and all—scoop the bullet out. Little metallic clink it makes when it hits the vinyl. Liam forgets to notice the pain, too busy staring at the furrow of concentration between Theo’s brows. 

“Better?” Theo murmurs, hazy softness in the gaze he returns to Liam. 

Liam swallows thickly, offers a terse nod. “Yours?” 

He draws closer, fingers ghosting around the edge of Theo’s shoulder. 

“Don’t,” Theo grunts with a tiredness he doesn’t bother concealing in his voice. “Leave it. Don’t want it to start bleeding again.” 

Unspoken ending to that sentence: it might not heal. 

He still looks worse for the wear. Pale and drawn. Like he’s on the verge of another involuntary nap in the elevator. 

“But the bullet—”

“Leave it,” Theo repeats, pleading edge to his voice. Weakly swats Liam’s hands away when he tries to leech pain instead. 

Liam’s jaw clicks shut. He nods. Something to be dealt with later, another loose end to tie. Liam thinks Theo might be made up of a bunch of detached strings right now. The chimera’s eyes flutter shut, and the tense set of his jaw is the only thing that lets Liam know he didn’t pass out again. 

“We...just won a war against our entire town,” Liam says. 

A quiet sigh. 

“Yep.”

“We won because we worked together,” he continues, “We protected each other.” 

Theo cracks an eye open, suspicious glint in the bleary gaze he trains on Liam beside him. 

“We won because we trusted each other, because we cared about each other and—”

“Liam.” 

It’s a warning. Tread lightly, rocky terrain ahead. 

Liam asks, “Why are you still trying to fight?” 

(He already knows the answer to this question. Because Theo doesn’t know how not to. Because they never gave him any other opportunity. He’s only safe around them in the unsafe moments. It’s unfair, this dynamic they’ve created.) 

“Aren’t you tired?” he presses. 

Theo lets out a long, heavy exhale, drawing his lower lip between his teeth. Grey eyes open, unguarded. Unmasked. 

“Yeah. I am.” 

Liam thinks it might be the first honest thing Theo’s said in a while. Relief unfurls in his chest, and an urge to protect surges behind it.

The chimera continues, “We’re gonna be here for a while. Til someone gets an override key or figures out another way to—” 

“You can rest, Theo,” Liam interrupts, voice gentle. 

It’s been a while since he’s done that, Liam thinks. Knows. Been a while since he’s been something other than watched in only the wrong ways. 

The chimera sags, invisible tension bleeding out from his posture. This part needs no words. Liam melding his body into Theo’s, turning himself into safeguard and shelter. Theo maneuvers himself carefully, face tight as he attempts not to jostle his shoulder. Sliding lower until his head hovers above Liam’s lap. The beta offers a short nod, and Theo finishes the motion, sinking into the warmth of him. 

“Stop staring at me,” Theo grumbles once he’s settled, not even bothering to open his eyes. 

“Sorry,” Liam breathes. He pauses, eyes tracing over the growing slackness in Theo’s features. 

It seems sacrilegious to try and talk now. About everything. But Liam knows once these doors open Theo will leave toward somewhere he won’t want Liam to follow. And he can’t let Theo leave alone. Not like before. 

He slides a tentative hand down into the disheveled strands of Theo’s hair, blunt nails scratching lightly at the chimera’s scalp. Trying to forge some sort of comfort for Theo, taking pain along with it. Theo doesn’t say anything, but his lack of protest is telling. 

Liam says, “I don’t have any Greek myths I can use for this situation to impress you. To tell you that I'm sorry. To explain why I think you deserve better than sleeping in the back of your truck. Why you shouldn’t have to suffer alone. To—” 

“Prometheus,” Theo mumbles, exhaling beneath the pull of Liam taking his pain. “Just his punishment, though. I’m no hero.” 

An endlessly regenerating liver picked at and eaten by eagles. An ongoing cycle of torture. Liam’s hand falters, but he forces himself to continue carding through Theo’s hair. 

“Where your pack sent me—” 

He cuts himself off, doesn’t finish that sentence. Theo’s voice is strained, choking on a memory. He keeps his eyes shut, Liam doesn’t want to know what they’d look like if they were to meet his gaze right now. 

“Not eagles though, my sister. And not my liver, her heart. It wouldn’t stop.” 

Something mournful in Theo’s tone, even while half-awake. Liam wants to put an end to it. This spilling out of all his bad things without anyone to help with the clean up. 

“Can I be Heracles?” Liam asks. 

(Will you let me help you? Will you let me free you? Even if I don’t deserve to?) 

“You already are, Liam,” Theo answers. Like a sigh. Like a secret. Like a prayer. 

Liam sits with that. Stares ahead at the warped reflection of the two of them. The way their forms bleed into one another. Amorphous, endlessly intertwined. He thinks that hope doesn’t have to be a clear-cut thing. Sometimes it’s murky around the edges.