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Theo doesn’t make it a habit to show up back at the Dunbar-Geyer house in wolf form, but on this particular night he’s ravenous and not a little bit incoherent, and he thinks if he tries to focus too hard one more time on the glow of the living room lamp through the window, he’ll keel over.
He’s been out longer this evening than he usually is on his weekend patrols. Granted, he gets to stay out a little later than the weekday curfew on account of there being no school the following day, but he’s often loath to spend more time in the Preserve than necessary when he could be curled up at home next to Liam on the couch laughing at the next terrible episode of that cheesy firefighter show he keeps insisting that they watch together.
Regret briefly flashes through him at the realization that Liam could’ve been waiting up for him to come home at his usual time for their TV and popcorn together. He doesn’t have many seconds to consider what kind of excuse he’ll come up with for standing Liam up, though—at least an excuse that isn’t too close to the embarrassing truth—because then the front storm door is creaking open and Liam himself is peeking his tousled head out.
“Theo!” he hisses into the night air. Theo trots up the steps, guided only by Liam’s cantering heartbeat and his quickened breathing. Then his vision wavers and his paws give out. He narrowly misses flopping to the side on the concrete if not for Liam lunging forward at the last second to catch him by the scruff of his neck and burying his warm fingers in the fur.
“Jesus, you’re freezing,” Liam whispers. He rubs his palms absently back and forth across Theo’s neck. Theo will later on deny that a pitiful whine escapes him, but at present he’s a little too woozy to be concerned with his dignity.
Liam aborts any further heroic attempt by Theo to make his own way into the house by picking Theo up bodily around the middle and hoisting him in his arms. Liam just manages to keep the storm door from slamming shut by sticking out a socked foot to slow its trajectory. The last thing Theo registers is the rhythmic whine of the hinges as Liam shuts both doors behind him, and then he’s out.
He comes to some soupy and indeterminate stretch of time later. The stench of burnt wolfsbane hits his nose first, and ever-alert, he peels his other senses as he works to keep his heart rate down and his eyes closed.
He takes stock of his surroundings. There’s something boiling on the stove—the burbling sound is not so far away, so he must be lying down on the longer couch that’s closer to the kitchen—and the TV is turned down low, not quite on mute, but soft enough that the buzz of interference overlays the muffled dialogue of some sitcom. Friends, maybe, he thinks. And then an itch on his lower back alerts him to the fact that he’s shifted back to human form, and he’s practically naked under the warmth of a light fleece blanket drenched in the scent of Liam.
“Hey, you,” Liam murmurs. “Feel like opening your eyes yet, or you wanna pretend to sleep a little longer?”
That drives Theo to pop open first his left eye, then his right. Liam’s face is bent over him, upside down, and Theo can make out the flecks of silver in his blue eyes that mark when he’s tamping down his worry.
Theo figures there’s no use pretending ignorance when the lecture is inevitable. He clears his throat. “Burned it all out?” he asks, throat all scratchy.
Liam huffs in the affirmative. “Be glad I forgot to put the batteries back into the smoke alarm last time.”
Theo hums and groans. He shifts some on the couch, seeking a more comfortable position, and Liam helps him by pulling him up so Theo’s head rests in the warmth of his lap. “Last time?” says Theo. “That was ages ago.”
Liam fixes him with a stern eye. “Yeah, and yet here you are, still having not learned your lesson.”
Theo scoffs. “I had it handled. I was gonna shift back and come in through the back door to grab the lighter and burn it out myself.”
“Oh, really.” Liam looks unimpressed. “Would that have been before or after you collapsed in my arms in full wolf form? Which, by the way—what the hell? Where are your clothes? And your truck?”
Theo shakes his head. “Don’t know. I kinda—panicked.” His gaze dips down at the murmured confession. “Stepped into the trap in wolf form and I had to shift back to human to pry it open to get my leg out, but…I could heal and move faster shifting back to wolf. And…I guess my first instinct was to find my way home first.”
His voice trails off at the last bit, but if the way Liam’s fingers press against his forehead and card gently through his hair is anything to go by, his boyfriend heard every last word.
“It’s okay,” Liam mumbles at last. “We’ll go back and find everything tomorrow. I just—” He sighs. “I wish you would’ve let me come.”
“You had practice.”
“Doesn’t matter. I would have come.”
“S’dangerous.”
“All the more reason for me to be there. We watch out for each other.”
“I got experience at this. You—”
“—are the acting alpha while everybody’s gone,” Liam finishes for him softly. “Theo. It’s my job, too. You can’t shield me from everything.” The fingers working through Theo’s hair are gentle, so gentle, that Theo thinks it isn’t fair how Liam is able to unravel him from the center out in the blink of an eye. Not when nobody else is able to get to him like this.
Theo chances a look up at Liam. Liam stares right back at him, his gaze softened but no less resolute. Theo swallows. “Better me than you,” is what he decides to say in the end.
“Better us together than you alone,” Liam counters.
And Theo doesn’t know what to say to that. I know that in my head but my stolen heart won’t get with the program, he could say. Or Give me time. I’ll unlearn all my bad habits eventually. Just give me time.
He’s saved by the shuffle of David thumping down the stairs in his bathrobe, apparently in search of a midnight pick-me-up. The man pauses in the hallway between the landing and the kitchen and peers through the dim light at the two boys on the couch.
“Liam,” he says mildly. “Is Theo naked under that blanket?”
Liam’s hand slips down from Theo’s hair to grab the edge of the blanket and surreptitiously tuck it higher over his obviously bare chest. “Maybe.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Theo says with a casual wave.
David takes a tentative sniff of the air. “You mean, it’s not that you were injured while you were out and my son had to perform impromptu surgery on you? Sure, if you’d prefer that I think you boys were having sex instead on the family couch.”
“Dad!” Liam squeaks, scandalized.
Theo sighs. “Guess the impromptu surgery assumption was better.” He makes a grabby motion for Liam’s hand to return to its soothing ministrations through his hair.
Liam is audibly grimacing above him. “...At least the stains on the couch come from blood?”
David pinches the bridge of his nose. “Blood…not blood…guess I gotta be resigned to the fact that having a teenage werewolf for a son means seeing an abundance of all kinds of bodily fluids.”
Liam squawks loudly again in protest while Theo erupts into a shameless guffaw in his lap.