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“Okay, come on, how do you expect me to believe he still got in?”
Liam bites his lip to suppress a snicker as Theo throws his hands up in the air next to him on the couch. “He’s invisible, dude. Of course he’d get in.”
Theo shoots him the stink eye. “He’s invisible, not incorporeal. The home alarm system may not detect his motion from the change in light, but he’d still make some fucking noise.”
“He’s invisible,” Liam stresses, like reiterating himself solves the argument at all.
(He’s got a rather bad habit of thinking so.)
“Okay, sure, he’s invisible through some fancy mumbo-jumbo parascience, but you expect me to believe all that helped him suddenly become the world’s quietest lockpicker and burglar ever?”
“Your fancy mambo-jumbo parascience made you so un-fucking-believably annoying, so I’ll believe anything,” Liam mutters.
The way Theo arches a judgmental brow at him is practically audible.
“Really, Liam?” Theo challenges him. “Really? Out of literally everything else you could’ve gone for, you’re criticizing how annoying I am?”
Liam sniffs and points out, “Your coyote also makes you make these weird ass--nests or whatever in your bed, but hey, at least that’s something you can’t actually control.”
“Oh, so now you’re not only insulting my irresistible charm, you’re also insinuating that I have no control over my annoying factor.”
“Actually, that’s probably giving you too much credit. I bet you do know how to control it and you just dial it up to eleven around me.”
“Didn’t realize you thought of yourself so special, darling,” Theo drawls, slouching back in the crack in the couch cushions and crossing his hands over his stomach with a self-satisfied smirk.
Liam opens and shuts his mouth, teeth clacking around a half-formed argument. Then he lunges for the gigantic Tupperware bowl of popcorn between them, scoops up a handful and mashes it against Theo’s face.
“Ow--fuck, Liam--what the--”
“Oops,” says Liam. It’s his turn to smirk in the dark. “Was just being a good friend and trying to aim for your mouth.”
“Yeah, well, your aim fucking sucks,” Theo grumbles, scraping bits of the crumbly buttered mess from his chin and shirt and jeans. “No wonder you haven’t gotten laid in a year.”
The way Liam’s heart lurches and his heartbeat races for the hills is probably (definitely) not lost on either of them. “Shut up,” Liam mutters. His cheeks feel like twin bonfires. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
“And now we missed half the exciting bits,” Theo says, like it’s Liam’s fault that the movie got interrupted to begin with.
Liam snatches the remote from him to rewind back to the invisible man breaking into his ex’s friend’s house or whatever it was that so offended Theo in the first place that they got into this mess. On one hand, he hopes Theo doesn’t end up spreading too much butter across the couch cushions that Jenna will inevitably notice come morning. But on the other hand, just for that annoying sex comment he really hopes Theo finds bits of popcorn in his fucking armpits even after tomorrow.
Despite their little tiff, they settle back against each other easily enough to enjoy the rest of the film. Liam isn’t one for horror when he’s alone--hell, he isn’t one for horror, period, given that his memories of the Berserkers alone provide enough of a private reel to set to the Jaws soundtrack for nightmare material--but he does enjoy the occasional scary movie when he’s got somebody to laugh along with at the glaring plot holes or the characters’ baldfaced idiocy. That someone is usually Mason, but with the Hewitts out of town the week before Halloween, Liam decided that his next victim would be Theo. And, well, Theo hadn’t exactly made any strenuous objections when Liam dragged him away from his calculus homework and insisted that Halloween movies were as good a place as any to continue the Pop Culture Education of Theo Raeken.
Notwithstanding Theo’s initial eye-rolling and indulgent smirks at the TV screen, Liam does notice Theo growing quieter as the film progresses. Theo has commandeered the popcorn bowl and nestled it in his own lap, on the excuse that Liam lost popcorn holding rights after his stunt earlier, so Liam has casually pressed up against Theo’s bicep and side with privileged access to the thrum of his pulse and his heart rate. Liam reaches out now, slowly, cautiously, to try to tag the source of Theo’s silence. His breathing is steady and measured as ever. Theo does tend to let down his guard more often around Liam these days--having spent months now in the Dunbar-Geyer household--but Liam is still left wondering how deeply Theo’s training from the Doctors is ingrained into him, that his first instinct would still be to control his physiological tics than to give them free rein.
Liam’s thoughts eventually drift away from his more serious pondering. Until, that is, Theo’s breath hitches ever so slightly, and really, Liam wouldn’t even have caught it with his supernatural hearing if not for the fact that his right ear is mushed up against the round of Theo’s shoulder, and his line of sight lets him glimpse Theo’s hand curling into a claw in the popcorn bowl in his lap.
Onscreen, the female protagonist has warily decided that whatever noise woke her up was a figment of her paranoia. She goes to snatch up the blanket that was dragged off her in bed, but just as she tugs at it, the invisible man clamps down on it with a foot. The woman freezes and gulps. Step after step, the invisible man’s footprints tread closer and closer to her, eating up the distance over the rumpled blanket between them, and the woman gives a sharp, knee-jerking gasp.
The rest of the action of the scene goes by in a flurry. The woman’s friend wakes up, the other occupants in the house come rushing in, and the scene cuts to a montage of the protagonist spiraling as she sees her ex’s wet footprints on the bathroom tiles, the imprint of his body on the armchair, anywhere and everywhere in her consciousness that she once thought to be a safe place.
An audible spasm of Theo’s throat snaps Liam back to the present. Without the chimera’s running snarky commentary on the movie, he’d gotten absorbed in the action, only to come back down to reality to see the muscle ticking in the side of Theo’s jaw and his eyes glinting with an unnaturally bright light in the shifting shadows cast by the screen on his face.
“Theo…?”
“Bathroom,” Theo says quickly. Firmly. He bolts to his feet and speedwalks to the bathroom. Not the guest one on the first floor, but one of the ensuite ones all the way upstairs. Liam sits there in his dimple in the couch, stunned by the speed of events, as Theo’s footsteps thump up the stairs and he traces Theo’s galloping heartbeat just as loudly as the click of the bathroom door that follows. It’s likely that Theo didn’t mean to shut the door that loudly, and the fact that he did has Liam frowning in confusion.
After a second of indecision, Liam mutes the movie and peels himself off the sofa to go after the chimera.
He’s more than a little alarmed when he tries the bathroom door handle and finds it locked.
“Theo?” he tries again.
“I’m fine,” comes Theo’s muffled voice through the door.
“I didn’t even ask,” Liam jests gently, then scrunches up his face against the wall in a wince at his permanent foot-in-mouth syndrome.
There’s a pause. Liam tries not to listen in--really, he does--but there’s no missing the rattle of breath hauled in by force through Theo’s lungs. Then, in a shaky tone but attempting levity: “Well, guess I saved you the trouble, then.” Another pause before Theo tacks on, “Really. I’m fine. Go back down.”
Theo turns on the tap then, and the gush of water almost drowns out his uneven heartbeat and the first sound of him retching. Liam is overcome with a sudden cocktail of worry and irritation. Smart motherfucker always knowing what Liam’s doing and staying one step ahead of him.
“Theo,” Liam tries again. He raps his knuckles on the door. “C’mon, let me in.”
Predictably, Theo pretends not to hear him.
Liam takes to slapping his open palm against the wood. “Theo, I’m serious, I’m coming in one way or another. Do you really want me to break down this g-ddamn door and have to explain it to Mom and Dad?”
Apart from the rush of water draining into the sink, there’s only silence in reply to Liam’s threat. Liam shifts from foot to foot, biting his lip. “...Theo?” he tries one last time in little more than a whisper.
There’s the rattle of the toilet paper being unrolled from its holder on the wall. Liam drops his forehead against the door with a thunk and a sigh, knowing too well what that succession of sounds means. Sure enough, his suspicions are confirmed when Theo flushes the toilet and then makes no other move around the bathroom.
Seems like it’ll be a waiting game, then. Loath as Liam is to actually break down a door in a house that his parents have worked too hard to pay for, there’s no way he’s just turning around and leaving Theo to spiral on his own now. He turns and slides down to his butt to rest his back against the door, and he draws his knees to his chin and curls his arms around them.
After what seems to be an interminable stretch of time, Liam catches the rustle of Theo’s clothing as the chimera gathers himself up from where he must have been slumped over the toilet, and then makes his way over to the door. Liam swallows and asks, closing his eyes, “You doing okay in there?”
The door thunks with the weight of Theo’s body as he settles on the other side. “Never better,” Theo rasps, and it’s easy to imagine the shape of his ironic little smirk around the lie.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” says Theo. “Your popcorn must’ve given me food poisoning.”
Liam has to tamp down the flare of anger at the tone of flippancy and sort through his emotions, file them away, pick out the one that burns brightest among them now: anxiety. “I call bullshit,” is Liam’s soft reply.
“Your movie was so idiotic it gave me fucking acid reflux,” Theo tries again.
Liam bites his lip. He wonders if Theo needs this, the endless push and pull before he can wrap his mind around answering a straightforward question about his wellbeing.
If he does, well--then okay, Liam will play.
“The movie being idiotic is half the fun of it,” he says.
Theo grunts, “Never even asked to be dragged into watching a stupid horror movie.”
Ah. So the movie being horror might have a tiny bit to do with this. “You never told me you don’t like horror.”
“I don’t dislike horror. I--” Theo stops, then never starts up again to finish his thought.
“This would be a lot easier face-to-face,” Liam says quietly.
Theo doesn’t say anything for a long time. Liam starts to worry at the back of his mind that maybe Theo started ruminating that statement for too long and straight-up fell asleep on the bathroom tiles with his back to the door, but then suddenly Theo’s heart rate picks up again ever so slightly and there’s a clamber of movement and then the door is being unlocked and yanked open behind Liam. Liam yelps and barely catches himself as he goes tumbling backward into the bathroom.
Liam raises his eyes to meet Theo’s upside down as the chimera stares down at him with a sheen over his gaze. It turns out that it was Theo’s socked feet that broke the impact of Liam’s skull against the floor. Liam swallows and opens his mouth, probably going for a casual hey, or even a lame what’s up, but what comes out instead is, “You’re shaking.”
Theo is. He’s got one hand still wrapped around the door handle, tightening now so the skin stretches white over his knuckles, but the other hand hanging loosely at his side is trembling.
“Terribly sorry about that,” Theo snarks, but there’s no more bite left to it.
Liam reaches up and wraps his hands around Theo’s ankles. He tugs. “C’mon, come over here and talk to me.”
Theo detaches his hand from the handle with a sigh and bends down to raise Liam up by his armpits. Liam reaches over to shut off the bathroom light, and they’re plunged into the cool-bathed gloom of Liam’s room. Liam shuffles over to his bed and plops down, and without hesitation now, Theo follows, settling cautiously on the mattress a few inches away from Liam’s knee.
“I’m sorry about the horror movies,” Liam offers sincerely. “I would’ve steered clear of them if I’d known.”
“Like I said. I’m not really bothered by horror,” says Theo. “I think it’s pretty hilarious, actually.”
“Okay,” Liam says slowly. “So what bothered you this time?”
“Just--” Theo’s eyes flick up toward Liam’s and then back down again, tracing indiscernible patterns in the threads of his jeans. “Just the plotline, I guess.”
Liam hums. “The plotline. Hm. Okay. We’re gonna need to be a little more specific than that.”
The look Theo throws him would appear to be full of irritation on the surface, but Liam knows him well enough by now to be able to peel back the layers and see the undercurrent of gentle panic underneath. Theo’s heart begins to thump unevenly again.
“Hey,” Liam says. “Hey, hey.” He shifts forward to twist his fingers around the rip in the knee of Theo’s jeans. “It’s okay. Take your time.”
“Christ,” Theo mutters, squeezing his eyes shut. It sounds like he’s clenched his teeth together. “Jesus, I’m fine, I’m not gonna be a wuss about this.”
“You’re not being a wuss,” says Liam. “If ever, you’re being a rock-headed moron to even think that, but given your whole--well, everything, I’m letting it slide.”
The corner of Theo’s mouth twitches in what should be mirth but turns bitter with the contortion of the rest of his face. Theo finally seems to find refuge as he buries his face in his hands, elbows braced against his knees, and he mumbles, “He wouldn’t let her go. He was always there in his life, watching her every move. Even when she--even when she almost died making her escape, and she was so sure that he’d died, there were pictures, Liam, fucking pictures, he still found a way to haunt her and drive her crazy with the memories of everything he’d put her through.”
Liam sits in silence. The movement of his fingers against the bare strip of skin at Theo’s knee has stilled. Theo breathes, heavy and shaky through the space between his fingers, and his shoulders heave and droop with the effort of it all.
“The Dread Doctors,” Liam finally says, in epiphany.
Theo gives a half-crazed, mirthless little laugh at that. One that shifts into a choking, dry sob.
Liam doesn’t know what to do. He hadn’t really known what to do when Mason described the horror of the skinless flesh of the Anuk-ite behind his eyelids, or when Mason went glassy-eyed for the first time at the passing mention of the Beast after the whole battle with Sebastian was over. He’d just offered a clumsy fuck, that was really rough, man, and then orchestrated getting as much ice cream and other comfort foods into Mason as he could over the next week. For someone who sure does talk a lot, Liam’s pretty fucking terrible at offering meaningful words of comfort.
So he does what he does best, and he rolls away slightly on his hip to reach over to the pile of pillows and sheets at the opposite corner of his bed, and he digs through it until he draws out what he’s looking for. He rolls back toward Theo and taps on the chimera’s thigh.
The suddenness of the movement is enough to jerk Theo out of his stupor. He lifts his face from his hands--moonlight catching on the gleam of moisture not quite wiped away there--and he stares in consternation at the stuffed animal in Liam’s outstretched hands.
“What,” he says slowly, “am I supposed to be looking at here?”
“A...porcupine?”
Theo’s brow furrows. “...And this is relevant how?”
“Just--take it.” Liam thrusts the stuffed toy into Theo’s hands and forces the chimera’s fingers to actually curl around the animal’s rounded ear and stubby little paws. “This is Pudgy the Porcupine,” he says gravely. “One of the oldest pals I’ve had since elementary school. He’s--well, he’s seen a lot with me.” Liam makes a vague gesture. “He’s been there through the nightmares and stuff. The episodes and blow-ups, too.”
Theo’s mouth parts as he looks down at Pudgy in his lap. He doesn’t say anything for some time. Then he says, “You know this is a hedgehog, right?”
The laugh knocks itself out of Liam’s ribs with such unexpected force that his face cracks open painfully with a grin. “You just have to go and ruin a moment, don’t you?”
“Not my fault I’m so ahead of you in biology.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, Pudgy the Hedgehog just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?”
“Pudgy,” Theo says, looking like he’s gearing up for another insult, but he abruptly stops and looks back down again at the stuffed animal. He’s running a finger now with almost unconscious tenderness down the front of Pudgy’s smooth, honey-cream stomach. He clears his throat and breathes. “Um. Hi, Pudgy.”
Liam bites his lip and watches to see what Theo will do next. When Theo looks up at him from underneath a hooded brow, Liam scoots forward and grabs Pudgy’s front paws with his hands. He makes Pudgy wave up at Theo. Pitching up his voice, Liam says, “Hi, Theo.”
Theo’s nose wrinkles in that vexingly adorable way that he’s completely unaware of. “Ew, what is that voice?”
“It’s my Pudgy voice,” Liam goes on, undeterred. “You really are a super fucking annoying chimera, aren’t you?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Theo huffs. “Bullying me with a ball of polyester? Really?”
“Hey,” Liam says, switching back to his normal voice. “Whatever works to get that smile back on your face.”
“I’m not smiling.” Theo is so smiling.
“You’re so smiling.”
“I am a terrifying psychopath.”
“Yeah, ’cause you pour your cereal first before your milk and you brush your teeth walking up and down the hallway,” Liam says cheerily. “I know all your secrets now, Theo Raeken.”
Theo heaves a put-upon sigh. “Will you be at least a little less smug about this if we go back down and watch our movie now?”
“Nope. Also, we’re not watching Invisible Man anymore.”
“What? No, but you wanted to--”
“Theo, you puked up Mom’s amazing pot roast because that movie was triggering. We are not watching it again. We’re watching something else.”
“Okay…” Theo says warily. “What do you suggest?”
“It’s your turn to choose.”
Theo considers that for a moment. He sneaks a glance down at Pudgy. “What do you think, Pudge?” And then without waiting for Liam to do the Pudgy voice, Theo pitches up his own tone and wiggles Pudgy’s snout as he says, “I don’t know, Theo, I think Liam owes you for this one. I think Liam should let you watch the movie you’ve been asking so long to see.”
When Theo turns back to Liam, he’s serving Theo a flat look. “No,” says Liam.
“But, but--Theo didn’t have a childhood,” Pudgy-Theo says, turning to Liam and lifting his snout imploringly to the werewolf.
“Ugh,” Liam groans. “Ugh. Fuck. Fucking fuck. Why did I ever decide to trust you with Pudgy.”
“It’s my irresistible charm,” Theo reminds him around a smirk that looks much more at home now on his face. “C’mon. I know you’ve seen The Mummy a gazillion times, but I haven’t ever seen it before.”
Liam makes the mistake of meeting Theo’s eyes, glistening like seafoam in the moonlight, and he softens without a fight. “Okay. Okay, yeah, we’re watching The Mummy. You better prepare yourself, ’cause I’m popping more popcorn and shoving it down your throat if you make one more asinine comment about my sex life.”
Theo’s mouth lifts up in a self-satisfied grin. “Why? You afraid I’ll proposition you next?”
“Theo!” Liam shrieks. He makes a show of clapping his hands over Pudgy’s ears. “Not in front of Pudgy!”
“Oh, I guess it’s okay if he’s out of the room, then?”
“Un-fucking-believable,” Liam grouses, getting up off the bed to stalk toward the door and head back downstairs. But not before he grabs Theo by the wrist and tugs him along after him, because no way is this conversation done, and by no means is he letting Theo wriggle out of this one before the night is over.