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Liam is pretty sure that he just might have dodged the nefarious effects of the dogroot powder he inhaled in last night’s skirmish with the hunters before Corey knocked him out of the way. He beelined for Mason’s car as soon as the battle had wound down, waving off Scott’s solicitous warning that the dogroot might dampen his werewolf powers for some time, and once he was dropped off back at his house he stomped up to the stairs to his room and flopped facedown on his bed and promptly conked out.
Since then, he hasn’t really felt any symptoms of anything out of the ordinary--just his usual grogginess and foul mood at having to wake up early for school again, because of course the hunters wouldn’t have the common decency to hold off on their bigoted and homicidal tendencies until the weekend--but then again, he’s been pretty sure about a number of things in the past that he turned out being flat-out wrong about.
(No, Mason, he doesn’t want to talk about it.)
(He’s lost enough bets over his unerring ‘pretty sure’ gut feelings in the past, thank you very much.)
So Liam makes it to school just fine, his dad dropping him off in the morning on one of those rare days when their schedules coincide, and he manages through trigonometry and biology at half past ass o’clock with minimal grumbling.
It’s only when he gets to lunch period in the cafeteria, weaving in and out of the throng of chattering teenagers, that he starts to feel a twinge at the back of his head that he hasn’t felt in a long while. He shakes it off, heads toward his table with Mason and Corey, and decides that an hour of submitting himself to the mindless buzz of the two boys’ voices in impassioned debate over the merits of beet juice for hair dye can take his mind off things and allow his body to relax from all of last night’s pent-up adrenaline.
At some point during Mason’s insistent scroll through Pinterest on his phone to prove to his boyfriend why beet juice can, in fact, be effective in tinting Corey’s hair, Liam drops his head into his forearm on the table with his mouthful of fries still half-chewed between his teeth and lets out a soft groan.
Mason cuts himself off immediately to turn to Liam. “Li?”
Li waves his free hand dismissively in the vague direction of his lunchmates. “Jus’ tired.”
“I bet,” Corey says sympathetically. “Didn’t sleep? Or is it the...y’know…” He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial tone that only supernaturals would be able to hear. “...The effects of the dogroot?”
“Huh?” Liam says. He rolls his head in the opposite direction to squint at Corey, who’s a mildly blurry outline against the ceiling lights.
“The powder,” Corey says a little louder.
Liam scoffs, pushing out a puff of air between his teeth. “’M fine. Stop worrying.”
Mason reaches forward to grab the rest of Liam’s fries and shove them in his mouth. Liam takes about three times longer than normal to react, and even then, all he can come up with is a scowl and a pinched mouth at his abomination of a best friend.
“Dude. My dude,” says Mason. “You are out of it.”
“Yeah, well...everybody’s being so loud,” Liam moans into the sleeve of his hoodie.
Something shifts in Mason’s demeanor then, and he stops fucking around with Liam’s fries and uses the back of his hand instead to press against the small space of Liam’s forehead that is exposed between his sleeve and his messy bangs.
“You’re clammy as fuck,” Mason declares. “I think you should go home.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Fine enough to take that test in world lit next period?” Corey asks.
Liam takes a pause to process that, then lets out another throaty sigh. “...Shit. I forgot about that.”
“So go to the nurse and get excused, and go home. D’you need a ride?” asks Mason.
Liam starts to shake his head, then stops and nods instead. “I’ll text him.”
Mason’s and Corey’s brows lift like twins. Liam scowls at them, thinking they’re a useless pair of buffoons full of conspiratorial and all-knowing bullshit.
“Okay, man, you do that,” says Mason. “Please go home and glare at your pillow instead.”
----
Liam considers lying to Theo about why he needs a ride home in the middle of the day. He also considers telling him the truth, but he fully realizes that that would make him look like either a wuss, an idiot, or both, and he definitely doesn’t need Theo stocking up on more embarrassing knowledge about him as ammunition in their (undoubtedly numerous) future squabbles. So Liam does the absolutely responsible, intelligent and sensible thing to do, and he makes up a baldfaced lie.
L: I might have come in contact with something hazardous during dissection lab today and I’m getting sent home
L: Pick me up pls?
Theo opens the text messages right away and leaves them on read. Liam isn’t particularly concerned, because that must mean the chimera is already on his way.
Liam squints at the screen one more time and then lets his phone clatter to the asphalt between his feet. He bends over and buries his head in the space between his knees, interlocking his fingers at the back of his skull and squeezing over his ears with his forearms. It helps, marginally, but the sun is high in the sky and every crunch and scuff of feet against the pavement from a few hundred feet away is coming back to him like chalkboard scratches amplified. He probably moans into his knees a couple times, cursing the throbbing that’s gotten worse and spread from the base of his skull toward the right side of his face, but at least no one is around to judge him.
Or so he thinks.
Truck tires rumble up in front of him. A door clicks open, and frayed Converse hit the ground, make their way over to him and pause in front of him.
“Well, you look like shit,” Theo says above him.
Liam mumbles something suspiciously like fuck off.
Theo sighs. “C’mon. Do you prefer to be carried bridal or fireman style?”
Liam untangles himself, scoops up his phone and backpack, and has an inch of coherence left to fix Theo with a special glare as he totters to his feet and tosses himself and his stuff into Theo’s open passenger seat. Theo doesn’t let him close the door, but does it himself. Liam huffs, gathering his backpack onto his lap and looping his arms around it, because it’s a pretty discreet and convenient pillow for when the waves of pain radiating through his brain get a little too much.
Theo reappears a moment later and hops into the driver’s seat, slamming the door after him. Liam barely suppresses his flinch. Theo notices, though--damn him and his insufferable super spy instincts--and his mouth presses into a line before he switches off the staticky radio to let the cabin fall into a more comfortable silence.
Liam doesn’t realize they’ve been driving past so many blocks without saying anything, when Theo finally clears his throat. Liam’s been doing that a lot today--spacing out, losing time, failing to keep track of what’s going on.
“So. What’s this biohazard you got exposed to?”
Liam wonders if it’s worth responding. He grunts.
“...What were you guys dissecting?”
Liam opens his mouth, either to let another dumbass lie tumble out or to blurt out the truth, or maybe to just tell Theo very creatively and repetitively to fuck off, but then they run over a speed bump that Liam wasn’t anticipating and his vision lurches. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, hoping he doesn’t look as green as he feels.
“Riveting story,” Theo comments.
Liam keeps forcing deep breaths in and out through his nostrils. He’s familiar with Theo’s scent filling every corner of his truck, clings to it, in fact, when his wolf seeks safety and stability, but right now there’s a million other things crowding out his comfort smell and Liam feels dizzy and unmoored. The truck curves around a bend, and Liam’s eyes fly open and he thinks he might actually lose it right then and there.
“Stop, stop, slow down, stop driving,” Liam gasps out.
Theo has the presence of mind not to slam on the brakes, but he still swerves into the shoulder of the road and comes to a rough halt, throwing the gear shift into park as he says, “What? What? Why?”
Liam blinks again. “My head.” Exasperatingly on cue, the pain doubles like a sledgehammer, and the vision in his right eye whites out.
Fucking superb.
“I know, dumbass, that’s why I’m taking you home,” Theo says.
“Just--gimme a minute, okay?” Liam digs the heel of his palm into his eye, as if doing that has ever helped him one bit in the past. His eyeball just tingles and his lid feels all red and twitchy all over, and nope, the right side of his brain just feels like a giant spasm and he still can’t see.
“Gah. Shit. Fine.” Liam gives one last futile rub at his eye and explains, “Can’t really see out of my eye.”
The annoyance on Theo’s face morphs rapidly into disbelief. “Excuse me, you can’t what now.”
Liam slaps the dashboard, as he is wont to do when his mouth is too slow and Theo needs to get driving again. “This is normal. Just go, please.”
Theo’s voice pitches up. “This is normal? Liam, you’re going blind in one--”
“Migraines,” Liam grits out. “Please, for the love of G-d, stop talking, you’re actually drilling my skull in two.”
Theo promptly snaps his mouth shut. Liam can practically feel the waves of frustration and unspoken harangues rolling off him--he doesn’t need chemosignals to read the tautness in Theo’s shoulders and mouth--but Theo just jerks his head away and shifts the truck back into drive to merge onto the main road.
He notably takes the extra three blocks around the back of Liam’s subdivision to avoid the speed table on Douglas Road in the front.
----
Liam barely registers the sound of Theo yanking the passenger door open. He’s curled over his backpack in his lap, counting his shallow breaths. He drifts back briefly toward reality when the back of Theo’s hand gives his shoulder a light smack.
“Your seatbelt.”
After the ridiculously long pause it takes Liam to process those two words, he complies.
“Under no circumstances are you hurling in my truck,” Theo threatens him, as Liam slithers sideways off the passenger seat. “We’re getting you inside, and then you can hurl in your three-piece Pottery Barn vases, I don’t fucking care.”
Liam is half-blind and incoherent from the ice pick in his head, but he is irrefutably proud of the tight-lipped glare he serves Theo.
“Liam,” Theo stresses. “Get up and get out of my truck.”
To his credit, Liam tries. He really does. He makes it through one wobbly step out of Theo’s truck before he pitches forward and he sees the gravel rushing perilously up at him. Theo’s quicker than a thought and he loops his entire arm around the space between Liam’s chest and stomach to catch him and hold him in place.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Theo swears. He kicks the truck door closed, grabs the backpack from Liam’s hold and physically heaves Liam’s weight into his side to haul him up the porch and toward the front door.
“Key?”
Liam grunts. Theo’s voice is nice. The air isn’t so pungent and laden with noise here.
“Liam, your key.”
“Oh. Front pocket.”
“Which one--never mind.” Theo digs around in Liam’s left pocket first, then his right, and after much difficulty extracts the ridiculous Baby Yoda keychain from the depths of Liam’s jeans.
They stumble inside, somehow, and there in the foyer Theo is presented with another debacle. The stairs.
“Liam.” Theo pinches the other boy’s stomach, his arms never having loosened their hold on Liam’s torso. “Bed or couch?”
“Bed.”
“No. Couch.”
“Bed.”
“You’re not making it up those stairs. Couch.”
“Why did you even fucking ask?”
“For somebody who’s about to spew their guts all over their mom’s cherry hardwood floors, you’re so fucking mouthy,” Theo complains.
Liam just continues to glower up at him, and he’s showing some real dedication to it, too, considering that he has to crane his neck up and to the side at the most uncomfortable angle ever to maintain eye contact with Theo, and even then, Theo can practically see and feel where Liam’s right eye is spasming periodically. For all intents and purposes, Liam shouldn’t be able to still pour so much venom into one look at him when he simultaneously looks so damn pathetic.
“Fine,” Theo presses out through a gusty sigh. “Are you at least gonna keep it in if I take you upstairs?”
Liam grunts, presumably in the affirmative.
“Don’t you dare puke while we’re going up, I swear to G-d, Liam. I am not taking responsibility for you ruining your own carpet.”
And with that, he drops Liam’s backpack on the floor at the side of the foyer and moves them toward the stairs.
It’s slow going, and honestly Theo is a bit worried about the rapidly increasing thrum of Liam’s pulse that he can not only hear but also feel under his finger pads where he’s gripping Liam’s arm slung over his shoulder. After a few more steps, Liam’s heart rate suddenly spikes, and Theo pauses before Liam can even gasp out that they need to stop.
Theo is practically taut with anxiety by this point, but he’s got a reputation to maintain and the emotional bandwidth of a shoelace, so the solicitous line he decides to go with is: “Don’t you dare puke now. We’re halfway there.”
“I c’n make it,” Liam insists.
Theo rolls his eyes. He detangles Liam’s arm from around his shoulder, earning a noise of confusion from the werewolf, and then swiftly loops his arms under Liam’s knees and back and sweeps him up firmly and fluidly.
It’s a testament to how out of it Liam is that he doesn’t even protest or snark at Theo for the bridal carry. Theo ascends the remaining stairs as smoothly as he can, toes Liam’s bedroom door open, and lowers Liam onto the mattress, moving his hand up from Liam’s back to his nape to make sure his head doesn’t loll back or his neck doesn’t crack as he sets him down.
Liam sinks down into the welcoming softness with a sigh.
Theo casts about for some supplies and grabs a crumpled-up plastic Macy’s bag from Liam’s desk and the wastebasket by the door. He shakes the bag open and hooks it around the edges of the basket, then waves it by the head of Liam’s bed to get the other boy’s attention. “Here. Look. If you need to throw up, use this.”
Liam nods faintly in assent.
Theo nudges Liam’s knee with his knuckle. “Take off your shoes.”
“...In a minute,” Liam says, which tells Theo that he’s never going to do it himself.
So Theo, out of the ever-loving and eternally exasperated kindness of his stolen heart, bends down and wrestles Liam’s sneakers off his feet for him. And while he’s at it, he rolls Liam to the side so he can tug the duvet free, then rolls Liam back and tucks the blanket up high over his chest. Liam will probably not be the most comfortable napping in his jeans and hoodie, but hey, Theo is already dealing with a whiney and half-blind dumbass who doesn’t know when to admit he actually needs help. The emotional upheaval of having to undress Liam himself can be spared for another day.
“Thanks,” Liam mutters.
Theo huffs by way of response. “Why are you getting migraines?”
“I dunno. Used to get them when I was younger.” Liam speaks with his eyes closed. “Before the bite.”
“You didn’t get exposed to a hazardous worm, did you?” Theo says drily. “It was the dogroot.”
Somehow, even behind closed eyelids, Liam manages to project that he’s glaring lava-hot daggers in Theo’s direction. “You and Scott need to stop fucking gossiping about me. And turn off the light, please.”
Theo raises a brow at him. “That would be the sun.”
“Turn it off.”
“You’re a dumbass.”
“You’re a jackass.”
“I hope you go mute as well as blind.” Theo stalks over to Liam’s unnecessarily numerous windows and jerks the blinds and curtains closed with a rasp.
“Go away.”
“With pleasure.”
And with that, Theo whirls and stomps back down the stairs to do the million other things he could be spending his time doing instead of taking care of Liam Dunbar and his stupid migraine and his stupid pouty face.
Namely, yanking the cupboards open downstairs to scrounge around for a pan and frying some eggs.
----
The tuft of Liam's hair shifts up as his head lifts from the covers, smelling the aroma of the plate in Theo's hand. Liam sticks out a hand from under the blanket and waves it around, making grabby motions, before he suddenly stills.
"Uh," he says, and Theo already doesn't like the sound of that.
"Uh?" Theo parrots. "Uh what?"
"You made eggs? I can't eat that."
"Excuse me, you love eggs."
"Yeah, now. But human me was allergic to them."
Theo thumps the plate down on the nightstand with a long-suffering groan. From the look on Liam's pained face when he peels back the duvet to look up at Theo, he's just as upset about this as the chimera who cooked them.
"Who's even allergic to eggs?" Theo demands. Liam offers a helpless little shrug and shakes his head, then winces at the sudden movement. Theo flops on the edge of the bed and nudges Liam with his knuckle. "Okay, that's it. Tell me all your pre-wolf allergies. What else can't you eat?"
"Peanut butter," Liam says immediately. Regretfully. "Anything peanut, really. Pine--the kind that you find in like, off-brand bandaids and stuff. Uh. Obviously, the migraines. High blood pressure. Early-onset osteoarthritis."
"Jesus Christ," Theo mutters.
Liam eyes him with one lid popped open and the other closed. "I thought you knew this already. Didn't you, like, spend weeks doing your evil research on us?"
"Yeah, trying to work out the mechanisms of your inner turmoil, not snooping in your medical charts," Theo snaps.
“Sorry,” Liam says, shrinking in on himself and looking marginally mollified for once. Theo looks at him, bewildered, but then Liam goes on: “I didn’t know you were making eggs. I couldn’t smell them.”
Honestly, Theo isn’t even that upset about the eggs, because he could always eat them himself. He doesn’t tell Liam this, though. “What about your hearing?”
“It’s, like. Sensory overload but human edition.” Liam shuts his eyes again and goes to rub at his right eye with the heel of his palm, but Theo leans forward and captures Liam’s wrist before he can do more damage to the blinded eye.
“Stop that,” Theo says gruffly.
“I can’t see,” says Liam.
“I know.”
“It’s annoying.”
“I know.” Theo surprises Liam then, surprises himself, even, when he leans even closer into Liam’s space where Liam is supporting his weight on his elbows, and Theo brushes his free thumb over the dip in the skin below Liam’s right eyelid. The boy’s eyes spasm open.
“What are you doing?” says Liam.
Theo lies, “Nothing.” Because Liam’s gaze is locked with Theo’s, disconcerting in how comfortable it feels in its sudden intensity, but Liam can’t see out of his right eye and everything must be fuzzy around the edges, so he doesn’t catch the vines of black slipping up Theo’s forearm from his fingers where they press against Liam’s skin.
He siphons Liam’s pain slowly, subtly, but then he almost gets knocked back by the echo of the slicing pain in Liam’s head because he wasn’t quite expecting the intensity. The wince that Theo is unable to mask gives it all away completely.
“Don’t do that,” Liam says. He wraps one hand around Theo’s wrist to tug it away. But he’s human, fully human now compared to Theo’s chimera strength, and for once in his life Theo has the upper hand on him and Liam can do nothing to stop his stupid, irritating selflessness.
“Stop that,” Liam tries again, echoing Theo’s earlier command. “You’re just gonna hurt yourself.”
Theo’s eyes had fallen to the shape of Liam’s mouth around those surprising words. He flicks his gaze back up from beneath his hooded brow, and he arches a single brow at Liam as if to say, that’s the whole point of this exercise, Dunbar.
“I can sleep this off,” Liam insists. “No need to keep doing that.”
“Yeah, well. I wasted twenty minutes making eggs for you because they’re your favorite and then it turns out you can’t actually eat them, so excuse me for trying to just speed up the process here and make this less miserable on myself.”
Liam must indeed be losing his sense of hearing, too, because apparently all he gets out of that entire statement is, “You remembered that eggs are my favorite?”
The sheer idiocy of Liam Eugene Dunbar is too much for Theo. So much so that he unconsciously pulls back for a bit, his fingertips slipping from the curve of Liam’s cheekbone and he stops siphoning Liam’s pain, though the other boy still keeps a firm grasp on Theo’s wrist in the air between them.
“Yeah,” Theo admits, and he doesn’t like how honest the rasp of his voice sounds. “I also remembered that your favorite pastime is being a self-sacrificial moron during battles.”
“I wasn’t being a self-sacrificial moron--” Liam cuts himself off as another flash of pain creases his face.
Theo wastes no time in pressing Liam back down against the mattress and resuming his touch over the right side of Liam’s face so he can leech out the remaining pain. Deciding that his angle is more uncomfortable like this, Theo lowers himself, too, so that his upper body is hovering over Liam’s and his weight is braced by a hand beside Liam’s head.
Liam gulps up at him.
“You’re right,” Theo says around a teasing smile. “You were probably being a self-sacrificial asshat, but I wasn’t there to tell the difference.” The mirth drops from his visage. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
Liam’s mouth sets in a firm line. “Not your fault Argent had us split up.”
“I’m also sorry you can’t eat eggs right now.”
Now Liam just looks done with his shit. “Is that all you do nowadays? Apologize for everything that’s not your fault?”
That brings the smirk back in full force to Theo’s face. “I’m sorry you’re such an insufferable shit.”
“As soon as I’m wolfed up again, you’re so dead,” Liam growls.
“Cool,” Theo says nonchalantly. He leans down, closer than ever, challenging Liam with the tangle of their breaths. “Shall we set an alarm? How many hours?”
Liam frowns at the reminder of exactly what Theo’s doing for him and how long it’s going to take. “Uh, you’re gonna be waiting for a while. These things used to last like a day for me.” He pauses. “Well, I guess evening, now.”
Theo hums. “Guess I better get comfortable, then.” He drops his weight onto his elbow and rolls to the side so he’s half-pressed against Liam’s torso through the covers. Momentarily he draws his hand back from Liam’s eyelid so he can shift into a better position. Then he slides his right arm under Liam’s neck so he can cradle his head better that way, and he pushes it gently toward his shoulder while threading his fingers through the messy waves of Liam’s hair to reconnect with the skin there and watch the dark veins flow up toward his elbow again.
Liam sighs, a sound of pure relief and contentment now, and he doesn’t bother hiding how he burrows a little deeper into Theo’s touch and inhales the scent of his hoodie.
Some minutes pass, and then Liam’s hand comes up on Theo’s chest to tap him there with a finger.
“Mm?” Theo mumbles.
“My vision’s back,” Liam says quietly.
Theo draws back a bit to study Liam’s face, to check for himself. He nods. “Good.”
Something about his lilting tone makes Liam’s eyebrows scrunch up. “...Good?”
“Yeah, good. Because I wanted you to be able to see with both eyes for this.” And Theo reaches out with his free hand to catch the edge of Liam’s chin under a finger and tip it up to let their gazes tangle together. Theo doesn’t need supernatural hearing to sense the hitch of Liam’s breath in the back of his throat. His own pulse is singing, furious and high-pitched, even though this is definitely not the first time he’s done what he’s about to do with Liam.
Liam seems to grow impatient with the pause between them. He makes the decision for Theo and simply shifts forward to press his warm lips to Theo’s.
Their eyes flutter shut in tandem to immerse themselves in the stutter of their heartbeats and the gentle, insistent tugging of teeth on lips and they kiss and breathe and keep on kissing.
Theo pulls back to shoot him a soft grin. “Now look what you’ve done, exposing me to a biological hazard.”
Liam serves him his best flat-eyed, supremely unimpressed look. “I hate you.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. You can tell me all about it when you wake up.” And still smiling, toothy and smug like only he can pull off, Theo tugs Liam’s head back down to his shoulder and rubs soothing circles into his temple until his werewolf goes boneless in his arms in a peaceful sleep.