Archive of Our Own

It’s a pretty normal Tuesday evening, all things considered. At least until Liam gets home from lacrosse practice to find a half-dead chimera bleeding out on his bedroom carpet.

Prior to finding him flat on his back and thoroughly perforated, Liam’s last glimpse of Theo was nine days ago. They’d been at Scott’s house for a pack meeting, Liam wedged on the couch between Alec and Mason and Theo in his usual spot: glued to the far wall with his arms folded across his chest. It wasn’t a particularly uplifting meeting to begin with. Argent announced that Monroe’s trail had gone cold across the Oregon border. Tension spiked. Things devolved. Liam was there, and he isn’t even really sure how it happened.

He is, however, sure how it ended.

Malia threw a punch, or maybe two. Snarled, You’re not pack, and, You think being here will make us trust you? and, If you ever hurt any of them again, I’ll kill you myself. Scott placed himself firmly between Malia and Theo’s bodies, a faint glimmer of red in his eyes, but the damage had already been done.

Theo bared his teeth, Liam’s least favorite of his smiles - the meanest and the fakest one, the one he plasters on when he’s been hurt badly and wants to pretend that he’s fine. Good to know where I stand, he said, and then he strode out of the house, hands shoved in the pockets of his denim jacket and a deliberately infuriating slouch to his walk.

Liam followed him. He made it out the front door and into the flickering, yellow-dim porchlight before Theo looked over his shoulder and snapped, Don’t follow me. Leave me the fuck alone. Startled by the venom in his tone, Liam stumbled to a halt, watched Theo haul himself up and into his truck, and silently let him go.

I don’t even get why he comes to these, Stiles hissed when Liam reentered the living room.

He’s trying to help, Nolan pointed out, a little sharply.

He could help by putting himself back in the ground, Malia suggested, and the pack meeting was pretty much a lost cause from there.

The plain truth of it is that Liam doesn’t understand why Theo’s still around either. It’s been months since the hospital, months since Theo admitted to Liam that he’d been on his way out of Beacon Hills when Scott called about the hunters. Since then, Theo’s been hanging around the periphery of Liam’s life like a phantom. He helps with pack stuff. He has some sort of weird pseudo-internship with Deaton at the clinic. He laughs at Liam’s jokes and kicks his ass at video games and drives him, Mason, Corey, Nolan, and Alec to coffee every Friday after classes. And then, just when Liam’s starting to get used to him - starting to save memes specifically to show him, starting to miss him when he’s not around - he disappears again, fades like an old photograph.

It’s been radio silence for the nine days since the meeting. Liam’s called and texted a few times - he thinks some of the other younger pack members have, too - but he hasn’t heard anything back. Mason’s been saying to give Theo space, but Liam’s not really wired for cool consideration. He’s considered every imaginable option multiple times. Theo’s sulking in the preserve. Theo’s left Beacon Hills for good. Theo’s joined up with Monroe to form some kind of nightmarish super-evil chimera-hunter dream-team. Theo’s dead somewhere in a ditch.

Apparently that last one is a little more accurate than Liam would’ve liked.

Now, Liam drops to his knees at Theo’s side before he can even really process what he’s looking at, hands hovering ineffectually over Theo’s abdomen. He can see at least four slash marks in Theo’s t-shirt, maybe five, and there’s a frankly alarming amount of blood seeping out from under Theo’s hands. That’s all bad enough, but Liam’s way more worried about the look on his face: distant, foggy, eyes half-lidded and lips smeared a vivid and gruesome scarlet.

Liam’s never seen him like this before. Liam’s never seen him anything other than sharp-eyed and watchful, body simmering with tension just below the surface, like he’s waiting for something none of the rest of them can see.

“Shit,” Liam hears himself say. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Sorry,” Theo tells him, through gritted teeth. “Sorry, m’sorry. Didn’t know where else to go.” For a second, Liam thinks his voice is syrup-thick and slurring because of the pain, but then he thrashes over onto his side and spits a mouthful of blackish blood onto the floor.

“Oh, my God,” Liam says. He grabs Theo by the shoulders and gently guides him down onto his back again. He tries to tug his shirt up, one hand pressed flat against Theo’s lower belly to keep him still, but the blood’s adhered the fabric to the skin. Liam gives up and tears the shirt open down the middle, whispering, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” as he yanks it aside.

Uncovered, Theo’s torso is a mess of unnaturally blackened stab wounds, each one surrounded by a latticework of bruise-colored veins. There’s a particularly heinous gash, close to his heart. It couldn’t have missed the aorta by more than an inch.

Liam stares at it.

Any closer and that would’ve killed him, he realizes. He would be dead.

“Fuck,” he whispers, out loud, and Theo huffs out a breath that might be a laugh.

“S’bad, huh?” he says, quietly. Less of a question, more of an invitation to commiserate. In the same tone as one might say, Awful weather today, huh? or, Man, rough season for the Dodgers, huh?

“It’s - I don’t know, Theo. It looks bad,” Liam admits. “What did they get you with?”

Theo hums wordlessly, his eyes slipping mostly closed. A spike of panic jolts up Liam’s spine and buries itself like a bullet in the base of his brain.

“Hey,” Liam says, shaking Theo’s shoulder a little. “Theo, stay with me. I need you for this. Is it wolfsbane? The normal stuff?”

Theo’s eyelids flicker. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah, think so. Not yellow. Not mistletoe.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Liam says. He’s never been particularly religious, but he sends a fervent, thankful prayer to whatever deity has the unenviable job of watching over supernatural teenage boys. He unfolds himself from Theo’s side and launches himself at his desk, yanking the drawer open and pulling out the BIC lighter and test tube of wolfsbane that Derek gave him months ago. He crawls back to Theo’s side, dumps the wolfsbane out and onto the floor, grabs a handful, and flicks the lighter open.

“Sorry about this,” he tells Theo, and begins.

Liam’s expecting him to scream, to sob, to jerk away from Liam’s touch. Burning out wolfsbane is one of the worst physical sensations Liam’s ever experienced, and he’s never seen anyone react to it with anything other than unequivocal, acute pain. But Theo just lies there, perfectly still, his jawline tight, his breathing only the slightest bit unsteady. Almost like he’s in bed, trying to mimic sleep, or - or.

Like he’s on an operating table.

Liam’s stomach catapults up his esophagus and into his mouth. He has to dig his fingernails into his palm to keep from being sick.

It’s not like he’s never thought about what Theo’s been through. He has thought about it - extensively, actually. Recently, his worst nightmares aren’t even his nightmares; they’re faded, twisted things tinged with Theo’s screams and the stench of his blood. But somehow, between Theo’s time in Hell and everything with his sister and his apparent resentment toward his own beating heart, it’s been easy to lose track of the atrocities he’d spent nearly a decade trapped in the sewer system with.

Liam closes a hand around Theo’s wrist and draws out some of his pain. The rush of agony that hits him is nearly unbearable. He releases the touch before it drags him under, panting.

“Theo,” he whispers. It’s the only thing he can think of to say.

“Don't be mad,” Theo pleads, and Liam doesn't think he's speaking to him anymore. His eyes are round, frantic, locked on something Liam can't see. “I'm sorry. I wasn’t fast enough. I can do better. Don't be mad at me.”

Liam freezes, hands sticky with Theo’s blood, lighter clutched like a weapon in his white-knuckled hand.

Theo's still mumbling, but Liam is -

Liam is sitting on a hospital bed with a busted ankle, looking up at his dad. He’s realizing with dawning horror that it's only his first day at BHHS and he's already ruined everything irrevocably. Just like he ruined everything at Devenford, with his old team, with Brett. He's curling his fists into the fabric of his shirt, mouth tasting coppery-sharp with humiliation and regret. He's asking, Are you mad at me? but what he really means is, Am I broken? Can I be fixed? Can you really love someone who’s rigged to explode? Don’t you get tired of the shrapnel?

Liam’s never really said this out loud, but by the time Scott turned him, he’d already felt like a monster for years. He looked in the mirror with glowing eyes and jagged fangs and saw something he'd believed was already there - something vicious and ugly and capable only of violence.

You're not a monster. You're like me, Scott told him, and he'd meant the werewolf thing, but Liam had heard something else: that, like Scott, he was capable of choosing gentleness, kindness, forgiveness. Even if it sometimes felt like he wasn't. That outstretched hand, that connection, that understanding - that’s what gave Liam the stability and the strength to come to terms with his IED, to find healthy and productive ways to work through it.

Two sentences. That’s all it took.

Theo heaves a little gasping breath in his arms, close to a sob. Liam looks down at him and thinks, fiercely:

You're not a monster. You're like me.

It’s a bad time to have a revelation. Theo’s forehead is covered with sweat and his heartbeat is becoming disconcertingly irregular. Liam shakes himself a little and keeps working.

“If you die, I swear I’m bringing you back and breaking your nose again,” Liam snarls.

Burning the wolfsbane out of Theo’s system takes maybe fifteen minutes, but, to Liam, it feels like an hour. For a long, horrible moment, just Liam is treating the last wound, Theo sucks in a harrowing, ragged breath and his heartbeat stumbles to a stop. 

Panic-as-nausea claws its way through Liam’s stomach and up into his chest cavity, his own heart staggering to a halt, as if in sympathy. His brain is spinning in circles, trying to cobble together the steps to hands-only CPR from that seminar the school made them take.

Thankfully, miraculously, Theo’s heart restarts on its own a second later. He sucks in a sharp breath, eyes flying open, pupils ringed with gold.

Liam gasps and falls backwards onto his ass, chest heaving. He’s bitten through his lip at some point; it’s already healed, but his mouth tastes tangy and sharp with blood.

“Theo,” Liam chokes. “Theo. Theo, please-”

Theo looks at him, and reaches out with one hand. Bumps his fingertips over Liam’s knuckles. Ridiculously, he mumbles, “’M okay.” Like a liar.

Still, he’s breathing. His heart’s beating. Relief socks Liam in the gut, bare-knuckled. He has to take a moment to compose himself before he can bring himself to speak again.

“You’re definitely not okay. We have to get you to the hospital, like, yesterday. You need - I don’t know, stitches or surgery or something- ”

Theo's hand clamps down around Liam's. His fingers tighten, hard enough that Liam winces a little, but Theo doesn’t seem to be doing it on purpose. His eyes are wide and unfocused and glassy when he spits out, “Please. Please don't take me there. I can't go back there. I can't-”

“Theo, don't be an idiot, you need a doctor,” Liam says, and Theo full-body flinches.

“I can’t. Please,” he repeats, very quietly, and that’s when Liam gets it.

Theo was eight and sick when the Dread Doctors first found him. He’d probably been to the hospital before. He’d probably known to trust what doctors told him - as authority figures, as adults, as medical professionals. He probably hadn’t known to be frightened until it was too late.

And then everything with Tara, and the morgue…

Liam thinks he’d probably have an issue with hospitals, too.

“But you,” he begins, helplessly. He knows that Theo is in no shape to give him a proper answer to the questions at the tip of his tongue, but he can’t help trying to ask them, anyway. “The hospital… the morgue… You came back for me - you kept coming back for me-”

“’Cause it’s you,” Theo pants, his voice a little fuzzy around the edges, his fingers icy against Liam’s open palm. “It’s you, Liam.”

Simple. Easy.

It’s you. Something Theo would never say under normal circumstances but something Liam knows, at the molecular level, that he means.

Liam stares at him, stunned speechless, for a long second. He can feel his heartbeat in his mouth, can feel tears starting to sting at the backs of his eyes. Then he gets to his feet, hands shaking a little, and goes into the bathroom to hunt for bandages.

This part is easier: Theo allows Liam to prop him up against the wall while Liam cleans and dresses his wounds. He takes a rag from the hallway linen closet and wets it, carefully wipes the blood off Theo’s chest and hands. By the time he’s finished with the bandages, Theo’s healing has begun to restart, and the very edges of the shallowest gashes are starting to inch back together. Liam leans back to inspect his handiwork with a critical eye. It looks about as good as Liam is capable of, he thinks. Deaton or Melissa would’ve done a better job, but neither of them are teenagers currently getting a C in biology, so.

Theo’s eyelids have completely closed now, so Liam slides one arm around his back and one under his knees, lifting him up in one fluid movement. Werewolf strength might as well be good for something, Liam thinks, if it also has to get them riddled like Swiss cheese on a near-weekly basis. He carries Theo over to his bed and sets him down. Theo’s brow creases unhappily when Liam takes his hands away.

An involuntary response, Liam thinks. Just instinct. Though he does feel a weird pang of happiness over it, just for a fraction of a second.

After washing his hands and trying to scrub at least some of the carnage off the floor, Liam sits down next to Theo on the bed, hip to hip. Theo lets out a little sigh, barely audible even with Liam’s enhanced hearing.

“Radio silence for over a week, and this is how you come back, huh?” Liam asks him, his tone a little softer than he’d been aiming for. “You’re such a fucking drama queen.”

Before he really knows what he's doing, Liam's hand is reaching out, fingertips skating along Theo's temple, carefully brushing a lock of hair out of Theo's face. He looks - young, like this. Calm. Face relaxed and open, eyelashes long against his cheekbones, petal-pink lips parted on a sigh. Startlingly lovely. A painting, a sculpture, crafted with adoring and reverent hands.

Liam takes an unsteady breath and jerks his hand away from Theo's face, cheeks burning.

It's not like Liam hasn't been aware from the beginning that Theo is, objectively speaking, smoking hot. He's always been beautiful, but beautiful in the way of a predator; he wears his crooked grin and sea-glass eyes and swimsuit-model body the way a poisonous animal wears its technicolor skin. His pretty face and his perfect hands and his broad shoulders are both temptation and warning. Look and look and look, but touch and you'll be rewarded only with fangs in your jugular and a set of claws between your ribs.

Liam looks. And looks and looks. Theo's nose wrinkles, briefly, in his sleep. He smells like distress for a moment, until Liam touches his fingertips to his cheek and it passes.

Liam's instincts must be broken. He used to look at Theo and feel the right things: suspicion, anger, fear, mistrust. Now he's a confusing and infuriating mess of want and frustration and regret and tenderness and -

And.

And.

The last thing. The thing he can't quite bring himself to name. The thing he's hurtling towards, barreling into, like an out-of-control satellite on a collision-course towards earth. The impact inevitable as gravity.

Theo turns his face, still sleeping, to press more firmly against Liam's hand where it touches his cheek.

Liam thinks, This is going to kill me.

And then he thinks, I'm going to let it.

With the extent of his wounds and the smell of his exhaustion hanging thick in the air, Liam expects Theo to sleep until morning, easily. Instead, he wakes up screaming after less than ninety minutes.

Liam jerks and drops his phone, still open to his text thread with Mason. Theo is choking out breath after staccato breath, his hands scrabbling uselessly at his chest. He’s muttering something again, rapid-fire and almost too low to be comprehensible. Liam catches a few things. Just Tara, and please, and I’m sorry.

“Theo?” Liam says. And then, “Fuck, Theo, hey-”

Liam is no stranger to nightmares, but this is something different. Theo’s just… somewhere else. His eyes are fixed on something above him, something that looks to Liam like empty air. He reeks of fear, sour and cloying, like rotting citrus.

And his claws are out, and alarmingly close to punching holes in his own sternum.

“Theo,” Liam says again, more urgently this time. What’s the protocol for stuff like this? You’re not supposed to wake someone up from a nightmare, right? Well, what about - whatever this is? A panic attack? A traumatic episode? A flashback?

Liam doesn’t think Theo will respond to, hey, can you stop trying to disembowel yourself for a second while I Google what to do in this scenario? So he sticks with what he does best and goes off instinct: he grabs Theo’s wrists and drags his hands away from his chest, lowering himself to stare directly into Theo’s eyes. Theo blinks rapidly, his hands twitching under Liam’s touch, eyes scanning rapid-fire across Liam’s face.

“Hey, good, there you are. Breathe with me, Theo, okay? In - one, two, three, four. Out - one, two, three, four. Are you breathing?”

For a long second, Theo just stares at him. And then, slowly, his claws begin to retract. He takes in a deep, shuddering breath, in time with Liam, and releases it when Liam does.

“Good,” Liam says. “Again.”

He takes Theo’s right hand - human fingers, sweaty palms - and presses it flat against his own chest. Keeps breathing, steady, his eyes locked on Theo’s. Theo’s fingers flex a little against Liam’s pec, and a tiny shiver issues down Liam’s spine.

“In - one, two, three, four. Out - one, two, three, four.”

Theo’s eyebrows furrow, his heartbeat slowing, the fear in his scent fading away. He hesitates for a second, then leans forward, drops his head to rest his forehead against Liam’s shoulder. “’S this okay?” he rasps.

“Yeah,” Liam whispers. “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, and it feels like he’s asking about something else, something bigger.

“Yes,” Liam says, immediately, and he means it. He is sure. About this - about all of it.

They sit like that for a long minute. Then Theo turns his face, hesitantly, to press against Liam’s throat. He breathes in deeply against Liam’s skin, his nose skimming lightly across the juncture of Liam’s jaw. His eyelashes brush the soft spot below Liam’s ear. Liam’s whole body feels electric, like a single live nerve ending.

“It’s okay,” Liam whispers again. “You’re okay.”

Theo breathes out against the place where Liam’s throat meets his clavicle and nods.

This is the part where Liam expects him to tear himself away, say something smarmy and mean, snap the dented pieces of his armor back into place. It’s what he always does after he allows Liam a little too close, touches him a little too gently, looks at him a little too long. Instead, though, his body goes soft and pliant against Liam’s, and Liam listens as his heartbeat finally slows and he drops into sleep.

Liam closes his eyes and wonders when, exactly, the violence inside Theo transmuted into this .

Gingerly, slowly, he lowers both of them back onto the bed, careful to keep Theo tucked against him. Theo mumbles something, and for a second Liam worries he might be dreaming again, but it’s just - Liam’s name. Once, twice.

“Yeah, I’m here. Goodnight, Theo,” Liam whispers, and then he curls his arms around Theo’s shoulders and presses his face into Theo’s hair. Breathes him in.

To Liam, Theo’s always smelled a little like cut grass and fresh earth and morning sunlight after a frost. Running water, new growth. Like the indistinct moment just between seasons, like winter fading into spring.

Soap. It’s nice, it smells good, Liam had told Stiles about Theo’s scent, the night that they followed Theo to the bridge where Tara died. God, why is he remembering this now? Oh, fuck, Theo was probably listening to them that entire time. Was he also listening when Liam fell into the hole? Is it possible to retroactively die of sheer embarrassment? Theo was sitting there plotting his hostile takeover and Liam was thinking about how nice he smelled and how his lips were sort of the perfect shape for lips to be and how his eyes kind of looked like storm clouds over the ocean and-

Theo makes a soft sound in his arms, almost too quiet to catch.

Liam wrestles his stupid brain into submission and presses his eyes closed, waits for sleep to take him.

It doesn’t actually take all that long, all things considered.

That night, Liam’s dreams are warm and tinged with gold, suggestions of half-formed images that slip between his fingers before he can grasp them. At some point, he thinks he hears Theo whisper thanks against his temple, thinks he feels Theo’s fingers card firmly but gently through his hair. But when he finally wakes up, early-morning sunlight dripping through his window, Theo’s gone. The only signs he was ever there are the axe-murder bloodstains on Liam’s carpet and the torn, discarded remnants of his ruined t-shirt.

Also, one of Liam’s hoodies is missing. Theo must’ve taken it. Something to wear, Liam thinks. That’s all. He tries not to let himself think too hard about it.

Liam’s standing next to his locker painstakingly composing a text to Scott - debating whether or not the fifth ‘Theo Raeken is a fucking idiot’ is a little bit overkill - when the pack group chat pings with a notification.

Fearless Leader: pack meeting tonight, my place, 8pm. be careful today. watch each other’s backs.

There’s half a minute’s pause, and then another message comes through:

Fearless Leader: liam, theo says thanks for the loaner. he said you’d know what he meant.

This is, admittedly, a bit of a surprise. Liam’s always kind of assumed it would take a life-or-death situation for Theo to go to Scott about something of his own volition. To be fair, though, this had come uncomfortably close to life-or-death. And, unless Theo engaged in a little light murder while actively bleeding to death, whoever stabbed him is still out there.

Liam texts back the middle finger emoji and goes to class, even though his entire body is itching for him to run the couple miles to Scott’s house right now, get his hands on Theo right now. After spending the night wrapped up in him, the lack of proximity chafes. He feels it acutely, the absence, a constant buzz of static electricity underneath his skin.

He drops into his seat next to Corey, twists his fingers into the hem of his shirt. His skin still smells a little bit like Theo. That’ll have to do for now.

“Hey,” Corey says, spinning in his seat to look at him. He’s holding his phone, squinting at the group chat in a mixture of puzzlement and concern. “What’s this about?”

“Hunters in town, probably,” Liam tells him.

Corey’s eyebrows shoot up. “Shit. Just a guess, or-?”

“It’s just a guess for the most part but I, uh. Sorta spent yesterday evening trying to keep Theo from bleeding out on my duvet. I’m just assuming it was hunters, since he wasn’t exactly in a condition to tell me.”

Corey’s face does this complicated little skip, ticking rapid-fire from worry to anger to guilt and back to worry. It would be hard to parse for anyone outside of the pack. As it is, Liam just winces a little, sympathetically.

“He’s…?,” Corey begins, delicate.

“He’s okay,” Liam confirms. “I mean, I think so, anyway. He was gone before I woke up this morning.”

Corey makes a throat-clearing noise that sounds suspiciously like coward.  

Mason drops into the seat behind Liam, sliding his own phone across the desk in Liam’s direction. “Liam Eugene Dunbar. Care to share what exactly Scott means by ‘loaner’ in this text?”

Liam, quite against his will, feels the back of his neck turning red.

“I don’t know. Doesn’t mean anything to me,” he says primly, turning to grab his textbook and notepad out of his bag.

Corey and Mason exchange pointed looks. They’re so unspeakably terrible to spend time with. Liam needs better friends. Maybe if he flees to London, Jackson and Ethan will let him crash on their couch.

“That was so suspicious,” Mason informs him. “Like, you realize how suspicious that was.”

“No, I don’t,” Liam says, too defensively. “It was perfectly normal. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Corey lifts a silent, extremely judgemental eyebrow. It reminds Liam suddenly and jarringly of Theo.

Mason leans back in his chair, making a show of thinking it through. “Let’s see. Loaner… loaner… Not a car, obviously. What, did he borrow your clothes or something?”

Liam makes a strangled little sound that approximates hgngk.

“Oh, my God, ” Mason and Corey say, in perfect unison.

“I hate you two,” Liam tells them balefully.

“Hey, guys,” Alec says, entering the classroom at a jog and half-tumbling into his seat, behind Corey. He drops his textbook onto his desk and wrinkles his nose. “Liam, dude. Why do you reek of Theo?”

Liam drops his head onto the desk, hard enough to leave a tiny dent in the plastic.

When Liam, Mason, and Corey walk into Scott’s house that night, they find the rest of the McCall pack already assembled. Theo’s standing in an uncharacteristically central location, one hip leaning up against the dining room table. He’s changed into a dark green henley. Liam is swamped by a weird mix of disappointment and relief that he’s not still wearing his sweatshirt.

Theo’s eyes flick to Liam as he walks in. Just briefly, just long enough to catch and drag against Liam’s own. There’s something cracked-open about his expression, disconcertingly and uncharacteristically vulnerable. Then his mouth tightens a little and he looks away, back to Scott.

“Not sure why we needed to call the whole cavalry for this,” he says. “Probably could’ve been an email.”

“Agree to disagree,” Scott tells him, pleasantly. “Since everyone’s here, though, we can get started. Chris, any updates?”

Argent nods. “We cleared out the hideout this morning after Theo reported in. Sheriff made five arrests. That sound right to you?” he asks Theo.

“Yeah,” Theo says, expressionless. “Five’s right.”

“Five hunters,” Nolan says, slowly. “And you escaped. On your own. Without any help.”

Theo shrugs with one shoulder. “They forgot I could cross mountain ash. Obviously we’re not talking about the Hunters of the Year, here. Not exactly the best and brightest.”

“They were good enough to stab you nine times,” Liam snaps. His hands are shaking again, just a little.

Theo goes still. For the first time since they arrived, he turns his body fully to face Liam. It’s so odd to see him like this, after last night - on his feet, face perfectly composed, hair neat and brushed-back, clothing immaculate.

“It’s no big deal,” Theo tells him, a barely-noticeable mixture of exasperation and confusion creeping into his tone. “I’m fine now. So-”

“Fine,” Liam echoes, clenching his fists so hard his joints audibly crack. “Fine? Theo, your heart stopped. I almost - you almost - I thought you were going to die, you fucking asshole.”

There is a collective intake of breath that passes around the room, person-to-person, like a whisper. Even Stiles and Malia look shaken, discomfited. Alec’s eyes are glassy, like he might start to cry.

“Jesus,” Mason mutters.

Scott rubs a hand across his face, eyes closed, mouth tight. He looks so much older than nineteen, like carrying the weight of this town has physically aged him. Liam doesn’t like seeing him like this. He’s been so profoundly larger than life for so long, in Liam’s mind, it’s hard to imagine things like this wearing on him. Liam knows they do, though. Scott’s a true alpha and one of the best men Liam knows, but he’s still human, after all. Like all of them.

“Theo,” Scott begins, in his alright-I’m-being-the-alpha-now tone. Liam dreads that tone. It makes him feel like he’s a little kid getting reprimanded by his mom again.

Theo cuts him off, something urgent in his voice and the stiff set of his shoulders. “Look, I know that makes it sound really bad, but you don’t have to worry. I swear I didn’t tell them anything. I wouldn’t tell them anything.”

Scott blinks, off-kilter. “I know that. We know that, Theo. We didn’t think you would. That’s not - that’s really not the issue, here.”

Theo’s eyebrows fold together in the center. He looks out of his depth so rarely, the expression is almost foreign on his face.

“What’s the issue, then? Why are you guys upset?” he asks. The words sink in the air around them like a heavy stone through water.

The worst part is that he means them. 

Liam’s patience frays and snaps. He stalks across the room, plants himself in front of Theo, faces inches apart. He curls his fingers into the fabric of Theo’s shirt: something to do with his hands that doesn’t involve aggravated assault.

“The issue is that you almost died. On my floor. In my arms. You think I give a shit about intel, Theo? We almost lost you.”

Theo’s eyes, locked on Liam’s, have gone very wide indeed. His chemosignals, usually a carefully-constructed blank slate, have started to dip into noticeable discomfort.

He says, very softly, like it’s been startled out of him: “Liam.”

Scott’s hand closes on Liam’s shoulder and draws him away, gently. The distance translates in Liam’s stomach as nausea, but he lets himself be pulled. Releases his grip on Theo’s shirt with the reluctance of a drowning man releasing a lifeline.

“Theo,” Scott says, quietly. “I think I’ve made a mistake, somehow. I want you to know that you’re valued here. Your safety matters to us, beyond you not giving our information out to hunters. Not just to Liam, although obviously it is important to him. It matters to all of us.”

Liam feels his ears turning scarlet, but Theo mercifully lets him off the hook with only a slightly lifted eyebrow. He looks past Liam and Scott, directs his gaze at Malia and Stiles, who are hovering a few feet behind Scott. A challenge, maybe - or a plea. Liam isn’t exactly sure.

Stiles’ mouth twists, but before he has time to say anything, Malia cuts him off.

“You hurt the people I love most,” she announces, tone as blunt and straightforward as always. “I have the right to hate you a little for that.”

Theo’s nodding, as if this statement is objectively correct - as if it makes perfect sense to him, as if he feels the same way himself.

But then Malia continues. “But you helped save Stiles. And Liam. And all of us, I guess. So I don’t want hunters to stab you. And I don’t want you to bleed out and die at Liam’s house. Don’t do it again.”

There’s a ringing sort of silence following this proclamation. Theo opens his mouth, and then closes it. He looks to Stiles, slowly.

Scott steps over to Stiles and nudges him a little, elbow against elbow. Stiles leans into it, like he’s bracing himself against Scott’s arm.

“Yeah,” Stiles finally says. He exhales loudly, then gestures a little wildly at Malia. “You know. What she said. Seconded. Ditto.”

Scott beams at him, and Stiles ducks his head a little, scowling.

“Theo, I can’t tell you what’s right for you,” Scott says, gently, “but you have a place in this pack, if you want it. And if you need help, you can come to us. To any of us. You don’t have to keep going it alone.”

Theo looks like he’d looked on Liam’s floor last night - dazed, frightened, not completely sure he’s going to make it out of this alive. It’s an unpleasant thing to witness, even for a second time. Liam’s heart is hummingbird-fast in his chest, his instincts screaming at him to protect, defend, comfort, save.

“That-” Theo says, slowly. “That’s not-”

There’s movement to Liam’s left; he’s so on-edge that he almost moves instinctively to block whoever it is, but the shape resolves itself into Corey, so he grinds to a halt. Corey meets his eyes, very briefly, and nods. Thank you, that look says. Trust me.

He stops about a foot in front of Theo, looking him dead in the eyes. Hands balled into fists, chin lifted, shoulders squared.

“Everything you’ve done - to me, to Liam, to Scott, to Josh and Tracy - was because you wanted a pack. Because you spent ten years alone and powerless and you didn’t want to be either of those things anymore. So don’t be, Theo. You don’t have to be.”

Liam sees the moment it becomes too much. Theo’s face shudders, flickers. He takes a stumbling step back, then spins on his heel and strides out of the room. No affected slouch this time, no hands in his pockets. He flees like he’s haunted; like the air in the room has become poison; like he’s worried that if he doesn’t get out right now, he’s going to collapse in front of all of them. A citadel destroyed, Troy sacked and burning. Theo’s ironclad defenses ravaged, by the simple act of Corey telling him he doesn’t have to be alone.

“Liam,” Scott starts, but Liam doesn’t need the prompt. He’s following him out of the room immediately, grabbing his coat out of Mason’s hands.

“Good luck, loverboy!” Corey shouts, behind him. Nolan and Alec make completely contextually-inappropriate whooping sounds. Mason slowly shakes his head and fights off a grin, but he does lift a fist for Liam to knock his knuckles against. Liam flips them all off without turning around and sprints out of the McCall house.

As the door’s closing behind him, he hears Stiles say, “I don’t know, Scotty, I think that went pretty well. Yeah? No?”

Theo’s already halfway into his truck by the time Liam skids off the porch and into the driveway. He half-vaults over the hood of Stiles’ Jeep to get around to the other side of the truck, swinging himself up and into the passenger’s seat at lightning speed. Coach should’ve seen that; he probably beat his own sprint record.

He slams the door shut behind him, like punctuation at the end of the sentence, and settles in.

Theo finishes lowering himself into the driver’s side and tells him, flatly, “No.”

“No?” Liam repeats.

“No, we’re not doing this right now. No, get out of my truck. No, fuck off and leave me alone. Take your pick,” Theo snarls, but Liam’s learned his lesson.

“Not sure if you remember this, but last time I fucked off and left you alone, you disappeared for a week and then bled all over my bedroom,” Liam says pointedly, reaching over to fasten his own seatbelt. Theo won’t kick him out of the truck, but he will make this difficult. That’s okay, though, Liam thinks. He’s in this, now. For the long haul. For forever, if possible.

“Sorry,” Theo says. “I’ll try to change things up. Maybe I can make it two weeks, this time?”

Liam stares at him in silence.

Theo sends him a withering look.

Liam can’t help it. He smiles back, genuinely. He hears the minute hiccup in Theo’s breathing in response, and smiles even wider.

“You are the bane of my existence,” Theo mutters, shoving the keys in the ignition and turning the engine on rather viciously.

This is capitulation, and Liam recognizes it immediately. He drums happily on his knees. “Great. Where are we going?” he asks.

“Home,” Theo snarls, and then seems to deeply regret it. Too late, Liam thinks. It’s already there, hanging in the air, between them.

“Okay,” Liam says, gentler, but still smiling. “Home, then.”

They’re silent on the drive from Scott’s to Liam’s, Theo clearly teetering on the razor’s edge of a full nervous breakdown. Liam waits him out, sitting patiently, not wanting to push too hard. Theo’s eyes remain unwaveringly fixed on the road until he pulls up to the curb outside the Dunbar-Geyer house and puts the truck into park.

When Liam doesn’t move to leave, Theo lifts an eyebrow and finally turns to look at him, his features arranged in a precise and studied mask of polite disinterest. “Did you need help with the seatbelt or something? I know they can be difficult for children.”

Liam rolls his eyes. “Ha-ha. Super funny. Yeah, I know, I’m a little baby. Two years younger. You all are so burdened with babysitting. Et cetera.”

“Is it that you’re worried about the big jump down from the truck? It’s okay, Liam, I think even your legs are long enough to reach.”

“Followed by a short joke, wow. Playing all the hits tonight, huh?”

Theo flashes his teeth, just a hint of unnatural sharpness to his canines. “Get out of my truck, Dunbar.”

“No,” Liam says, smiling sweetly. If Theo’s resorting to threats of violence, then he really knows he’s lost.

“Why are you like this?” Theo seethes, neatly proving Liam’s theory of the case.

“Communication is key to a healthy relationship,” Liam lilts, reaching across Theo to yank the keys out of the truck’s ignition and toss them into the cupholder. “So let’s communicate.”

“We’re not in a relationship,” Theo points out, matching Liam’s saccharine tone. “You almost die eight times a week, and I drag you into elevators. That’s not a relationship, junior.”

“It could be. If you wanted it to be.”

Theo’s scent goes wonky. A little sweet and sharp, like mint. Liam doesn’t think he’s ever smelled it on Theo before, but it’s nice.

“That’s not funny,” Theo says, his hands clenching on the steering wheel.

“It wasn’t a joke,” Liam says. “Theo, seriously. How have you been through the worst shit out of, like, anyone I know and you’re still scared of talking about your feelings? Just talk to me.”

Theo tells him, very earnestly, “I’d quite literally rather bleed out on your smelly rug again.”

Liam folds his arms across his chest and squares his jaw, eyes fixed obstinately on Theo’s face.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Theo says, and his voice is sharp, but Liam is slowly getting better at this whole werewolf thing. He hears the way Theo’s heart stutters on the words. More importantly, he hears the way Theo lets him hear it, as if he’s saying, I don’t know if I’m doing this right but I swear I’m trying.

That’s an opening. Liam’s not going to let it pass him by.

“You were dying,” Liam informs him firmly. Theo scoffs, dismissive, but Liam keeps talking, just a little louder this time: “You were dying, and you came to me. Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to die and I needed help, genius,” Theo says, discomfort dripping from him: the tension in his jaw, the set to his shoulders, the way his fingers flex on the steering wheel. He’s not lying, exactly, but Liam is getting better and better at reading when Theo’s leaving something unsaid. It’s a little obvious, honestly.

“And, what, you thought I was a better option than Deaton? Derek? Melissa? Theo, last week you watched me cut myself twice trying to open a can of soup. I’m not exactly Beacon Hills’ finest when it comes to first aid.”

“I didn’t,” Theo begins, his eyebrows furrowed, a bitter note of distress creeping into his scent. “That’s not - I don’t know. I just didn’t think of them. What does it matter?”

“You didn’t think of them,” Liam repeats. “You thought of me. While you were dying, you thought of me. Theo-”

“Don’t, ” Theo hisses, finally jerking his head around to meet Liam’s gaze. He’s snarling a little, teeth bared, but still blunt. Human. “You don’t have to tell me. We don’t have to talk about it. I already know it’s stupid.”

“What is?” Liam asks. When Theo goes to turn his head, Liam’s hands shoot out to cup his jawline, hold him in place. Theo could break the grip, if he really wanted to. Instead, his whole body goes still, his eyes wide and round and the precise opaque gray of the predawn sky. “What’s stupid, Theo?”

“How I feel about you,” Theo whispers, and he shudders when Liam’s thumb begins to make a gentle circle against his cheekbone. “Liam, why are you doing this?”

“I wanted to be sure about where you’re at,” Liam says, “before I did this.”

And then he leans across the truck’s console and kisses Theo on the mouth.

Theo freezes in obvious panic, so Liam gives him a second, keeping the kiss simple: just pressure, lips against lips, warm and soft and closed. His hands slide along Theo’s cheekbones and up, into his hair. Liam curls his fingers and tips his chin a little, adjusts the angle ever-so-slightly, and Theo’s heartbeat kickstarts in his chest and then roars to life. Theo makes a soft, frantic little noise and - oh, starts kissing back, open palm sliding fever-hot against the nape of Liam’s neck, lips moving desperately against Liam’s own.

Theo kisses Liam like he’ll never get this chance again, like his world begins and ends with Liam’s mouth and hands and tongue. He kisses like he’s wanted this for a geologic age. Liam hums in encouragement and parts his lips. Theo licks into his mouth, a sound in his throat halfway between purr and growl. The noise Theo makes when Liam sucks on his tongue transfigures into pure heat in the pit of Liam’s stomach. Theo’s fingers dig into Liam’s hair, his other hand coming up to press, open and burning, against Liam’s jaw.

Liam knows, intellectually, kissing the breath out of Theo’s mouth is not a substitution for a proper conversation. The console’s also digging into his hip and the angle’s becoming a little uncomfortable, so he carefully pulls back, just an inch or two, hands still buried in Theo’s hair. He idly wishes their first kiss had been somewhere a little more romantic, but it’s frankly fitting it’d be in the front seat of Theo’s goddamn truck.

Theo pants against Liam’s lips, his eyes still pressed tightly closed, and Liam’s chest floods with warmth - a sudden and devastating tsunami of affection for the boy in front of him, who survived the Dread Doctors and Hell and Monroe and himself. Who spent the last year throwing himself bodily between Liam and danger over and over again. Who stopped Liam from killing Nolan, cleaned the blood off Liam’s still-healing hands while he was out cold.

Liam’s never thanked him for that. He’s never been able to find the words to.

He carefully, gently kisses the corner of Theo’s mouth, more cheek than lips. This, apparently, is what finally knocks Theo back to himself; he reels away from Liam, eyes snapping open.

“Why’d you do that?” Theo demands, his voice uncannily flat. The remnants of his shattered armor, hastily shoved back into place. Liam wonders how much kissing it’ll take for him to lower his defenses completely. He thinks he’d like to find out.

“Because I want to,” Liam says, like it’s obvious. “Because I’ve wanted to.”

“No, you haven’t,” Theo says, immediately. He blinks, frowns. Scrunches his nose up, like he’s trying to reason through a particularly difficult math problem. “You - that’s not - what?”

“I have, dude. For ages,” Liam tells him. “Since the first time you dragged me into the elevator, probably. Maybe sooner. Maybe the whole time. I’m not sure. The early stuff got a little mixed up with the whole murdering-Scott thing and all that. I definitely thought about it a couple times, though. Like that time with Hayden in the hallway. I’m telling you this in confidence, by the way, and if Mason and Corey ever find out, I’m denying all of it.”

Throughout this monologue, Theo sits and gapes at him in utter silence. Liam pauses for breath, and then adds, “So, anyway. Yeah. We could pause this and just go back to kissing, if you want. I was having a nice time. And, I guess I could be wrong, but it seemed like you were, too, so…”

“What?” Theo repeats, looking poleaxed. And then, his voice breaking a little: “Liam, did you seriously just stick your tongue down my throat and then call me dude?”

Liam stops, considers this, and then bursts into laughter.

“Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry,” he says.

Theo’s staring at him like he’s gone completely off the deep end, but his mouth is ticking slowly up in the corner. “Ridiculous,” he says again, and this time he can’t even manage the sharp tone he’d struck before. It’s just soft, quiet, colored by the unshakable, rock-steady affection that Liam has come to think of as uniquely Theo.

“I love you, Theo,” Liam tells him, swallowing down the rest of his laughter. This part’s important; he wants to do it right. “I like spending time with you, and kicking your ass at video games, and eating pizza with you on the couch. I like when you come to my lacrosse games, and when you hang out with us after class, and the shape your mouth makes when you’re correcting my French. I like when you’re near me. I know you don’t believe it yet, but I’d clean your blood off my goddamn carpet every fucking night if it meant you were coming back to me. I’m serious, Theo. I want you, however you’ll have me.”

“However I’ll have-” Theo repeats, his voice a little too high, before cutting himself off and starting over. “Liam. I killed your alpha. I tried to destroy your pack. I hurt you, over and over, on purpose.”

“And would you now?” Liam asks. “Hurt me, I mean.”

“I mean, maybe! I’m not a good person, Liam. You don’t know whether I’d-”

Liam says, fiercely, “Theo. Would you hurt me?”

Theo’s fists close in his lap. “No,” he mutters. “I wouldn’t.”

“If it made you into an alpha, would you hurt me?”

“No.”

“If it made you super strong and powerful, would you hurt me? Like, the strongest and most powerful person ever?”

“No, I wouldn’t, but-”

“If Monroe held a gun to your head and told you that you had to, would you hurt me?”

“Liam-”

“Theo Raeken, exactly what would make you hurt me?”

“Nothing!” Theo shouts. “Nothing. Fuck, Liam. Nothing.”

There’s a moment of silence in the truck, broken only by Theo’s loud, shuddering breathing and their beating hearts. Theo’s eyes are wide, his brain visibly churning. Liam thinks maybe even Theo didn’t realize the answer to that question before he’d said it.

Liam reaches over and takes Theo’s hands. Gently tugs at his fingers until Theo releases his fists, opens his palms. Liam smooths his fingertips along Theo’s fingers, across his palm, along the soft underside of his wrist.

“Scott’s a good alpha. He’s taught me a lot,” Liam says, tracing his thumb along Theo’s lifeline. “But the most important thing I’ve learned from him is that people are capable of change. That if they’re willing to change, to choose kindness, then they’re worthy of a second chance. That doesn’t only apply to people like Peter and Chris, Theo. It applies to you, too. You’re not a monster. You’re just a person. And I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.”

Theo’s hands spasm in his grasp, but he doesn’t pull away.

“How?” Theo asks, quietly. Fervently. Like a prayer.

“Easy,” Liam tells him, smiling. “I listened. You kept telling me you were sorry, that you’d changed. Once I realized that, it was simple.”

“I didn’t… I’ve never said-”

“I’m not dying for you,” Liam quotes, and Theo, incredibly, turns scarlet. “Oh, my God, are you blushing?”

“When I said you’re the bane of my existence, I really meant it,” Theo says, but he’s folding his fingers between Liam’s, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. He smells - even better than usual, somehow. Calm, settled. Mint-sweet. Liam’s no good at this whole werewolf thing, but he thinks it might be the smell of hope. He wants Theo to smell like that forever.

“I don’t know how to do that,” Theo admits. “Forgive. Not like you and Scott and the rest of the pack. I don’t know if I’m a good person. I don’t feel like a good person. Honestly, I feel like shit, most of the time.”

“There aren’t good people,” Liam says. “Nobody’s only good or only bad. There are just people who try to do good things or don’t. And you get to decide that for yourself.”

Theo shifts a little, rubs his temple against Liam’s. A profoundly canine gesture of affection; Liam is definitely going to tease him about it later, when it isn’t making him shiver down to the tips of his toes. “When did you get wise, Dunbar?” he asks, voice a little hoarse.

“Somewhere between the ghost cowboys and the genocidal guidance counselor and the were-Nazi, I guess,” Liam says. 

Theo laughs, from the chest, his eyes scrunched into little half-moons, his shoulders trembling just a little. It’s maybe the third time Liam’s seen him do anything to express amusement other than roll his eyes and smirk. Warm down to his bone marrow, Liam turns his face into Theo’s neck and presses his lips there, swallows the sound, tucks this memory tight into his chest.

“Don’t get stabbed again,” Liam tells him fiercely.

Theo huffs. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try not to, Liam.”

“Good. I really liked that carpet,” Liam says, and he lifts his face to kiss Theo’s mouth again, press his lips to the curve of Theo’s smile.

“I don’t know that I can be good for you,” Theo whispers. “But I know I wanna try.”

Liam beams and says, “Because you love me?”

And Theo says, “Yeah, Liam. Because of that.”

Outside of Theo’s truck, there’s a war and a hateful ex-guidance counselor and an untold number of hunters with weapons they won’t hesitate to use again. In here, though, there’s just this:

Liam, seventeen and in love, pressing his palm against the steady drumbeat of Theo’s living heart.