Chapter Text
As the bus grew closer to the enlistment office with every passing streetlight, Liam Dunbar couldn’t drag his eyes away from his phone screen for more than a few seconds at a time. For the sake of his pride, he reasoned that he was just eagerly counting each minute until he could get a fresh start—and not hoping with every fiber of his being that he would see Theo’s name appear there like it had every day for the last two years.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expect if Theo did contact him, though. A text, asking him to stay? A call, telling him that he actually gave half a shit whether or not Liam was in his life? It was wishful thinking like that, that got Liam into this mess in the first place.
Theo had told him since the beginning what they were: friends with benefits. They could talk, laugh, drink, smoke—but every time Liam thought they might’ve been getting closer to something real, Theo would pull back. He wasn’t interested in feelings or relationships or anything even remotely genuine. Theo Raeken had two modes: charismatic manipulator, and rich playboy. Everyone knew that, including Liam—but that was what love did. It made you delusional. It made you think you could change people.
Liam was an idiot. There was no other way to say it—only an idiot would believe that Theo even had a heart to care about anyone with. Liam could have sworn he’d seen the look in his eyes countless times during their meetups—that affectionate, hopeful, awed gleam that meant Theo loved him, too—but he was wrong.
Maybe he’d wanted to see it so badly that he created the whole thing in his head—which was even more humiliating than falling for him in the first place. And then he had the bright idea to confront him about it, as if that weren’t one of the worst ideas Liam had ever come up with.
A nauseating sense of dread filled Liam’s stomach and began climbing up his throat as he neared the Beacon Hills Baseball Field dugout, where he’d texted Theo to meet him. He almost couldn’t believe he was doing this, but he needed to know. After two years, he deserved to know.
“If I knew you were gonna take your sweet ass time getting here, I would’ve picked up something to eat,” Theo said in lieu of a greeting. He was seated open-legged on the metal bench, leaned back against the chainlink cage covering the dugout. His short hair was gelled back the way it always was and the moonlight practically made his white button-up shirt glow in the darkness. The strong scent of cigarette smoke hanging in the air suggested that Theo had already lit one up while he waited, but that didn’t stop him from placing another one between his lips and bringing the bright flame of his lighter to the tip.
Liam almost wanted to ask for a drag just to settle his nerves, but he didn’t trust himself to not fall into Theo’s arms if he got too close.
“I gotta admit, I was glad you texted,” Theo continued, the smoke spilling from his mouth as he spoke. “Today was a bitch—I could really go for some stress relief.”
“I—” Liam tried, but his words got caught in his throat. He swallowed a couple times, and then said, “I need you to tell me what we are.”
Theo rolled his eyes, his entire head following the motion until he was looking out at the field instead of Liam. “God, this again?”
“I know you care about me—I can see it. It’s in your eyes and the way you act with me. When you drop this whole asshole bullshit and laugh and talk and… you wouldn’t do that if you didn’t care about me.”
“I don’t know what you think you see—but me being friendly with you shouldn’t be very surprising. Laughing and talking isn’t all that special. That shit just happens when you hang out as often as we do.”
“I know you well enough to know that that’s not true. Not for you.”
“If you think I’m gonna give you some sort of gay love confession right now, then you obviously don’t know me at all,” Theo snapped, his eyes hard and guarded when they finally reached Liam’s again. “You knew what this would be when we started it—and if you couldn’t handle it, then you shouldn’t have lied and said you could.”
Liam sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and pinched it between his teeth, the pain distracting him just enough to keep his tears at bay. He was so stupid to come here, so dumb to even hope for anything more from Theo. He didn’t really expect to get a confession out of him, but part of him sorta thought he might.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Liam said softly, averting his eyes down to the dirt ground.
“Why do you gotta make everything difficult by being such a girl all the time?”
Liam shrugged. “Just because you’re allergic to emotions doesn’t mean everyone is.”
“Jesus fuck, Liam.”
Theo pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed at his eyes with his pointer finger and thumb for a moment, before looking back over at him. He tapped rhythmically against his black jeans, softly scratching the fabric with his nails every time he made contact with his thigh. Theo wasn’t generally a fidgeter, unless he was nervous—so Liam knew he was right. Theo might not have loved him enough to admit it, but he cared enough that the conversation was making him feel uncomfortable. Liam thought he should’ve felt some sort of happiness about that, but it only made him more frustrated.
“I shouldn’t have met up with you tonight,” Liam told him.
The muscles in Theo’s jaws clenched, before relaxing as he gave a playful grin. “But then I wouldn’t have been able to see you in that flannel I love so much. You know I can’t resist you in it.”
Liam shook his head. “Cut it out, Theo—I’m done.”
Theo let out a brief huff that Liam assumed was supposed to be a laugh, but there was no humor in it. For the first time, Liam thought he might’ve seen a flash of uncertainty in Theo’s eyes—a lapse in that carefully-crafted confidence he was so known for.
“I’m enlisting. Active duty army. I’m gonna do it tomorrow morning.”
“What?” Theo froze, the color draining from his face. “The army? I know you’re impulsive as shit, but that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth. You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“What—are you trying to get yourself blown up?”
“Protecting my country seems like a better use of my time than sticking around this town doing fuck all.”
Theo’s eyes glanced almost frantically around the dugout, looking anywhere except at Liam. “What do you want me to say? Tell you not to go? Beg you to stay? You know me better than that. If you wanna do something stupid, that’s on you.”
If their roles were reversed, Liam would’ve done just about anything to keep Theo around.
“I’m just saying goodbye as a courtesy,” Liam whispered through the lump in his throat. “I figured I owed you that much—but honestly… I guess it doesn’t really matter. We don’t owe each other anything, right?”
Liam didn’t wait for Theo to respond before turning away and heading towards the exit of the dugout. If he waited any longer, he might’ve done something awful, like going in for a last kiss. He didn’t know if he’d be able to walk away, if he did that.
“Don’t,” Theo said softly, the word barely ghosting out of him on a breath.
Liam paused, but didn’t dare look back. “Don’t what, Theo?”
When Theo didn’t say anything further, Liam stepped out onto the field, leaving two years of his life behind in the dugout.
If Liam weren’t so busy reliving the heartbreak and frustration of his meeting with Theo, he might’ve noticed the semi truck barreling towards his bus. But as it was, he couldn’t pull himself from thoughts of warm green eyes and secret dugout rendezvous until the collision threw everything into a blur as the bus rolled and Liam’s head smashed into the glass of his window—quickly knocking him into unconsciousness.
***
When Liam finally managed to wade out of the darkness, he wasn’t so sure he was awake. Mainly because laying on an operating table in front of him, surrounded by fast-moving doctors and flashes of surgical equipment, was himself.
“You can get closer, if you want. If you can handle it,” a teasing voice beside him said, and he flinched as his head swiveled to face the teenage girl suddenly standing beside him. She had curled blonde hair and deep red lips that stood out almost mesmerizingly against her pale skin. “It’s weird, huh? Seeing your insides.”
The body on the table, his body, had the abdomen completely cut open and on display—which Liam really never wanted to see. The girl didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, though, as she made her way over to the table.
“Who are you?” Liam asked, choosing to focus on the girl instead of his body. The leather jacket and distressed blue jeans that clung to her were less unnerving, and Liam had the almost comical realization that his brother Stiles owned the same pair of cheetah print heels. He’d worn them to a drag night the weekend prior.
“Erica,” she said simply. “That glass shard is literally stabbing your kidney. Healing from that would probably be a bitch.”
“Erica,” Liam repeated dumbly. Her name didn’t ring any bells, and it certainly didn’t tell him why she was there, staring at his unconscious body.
“I’m an angel,” she said, finally turning back towards him. “A guardian angel, actually. You’re dying, Liam, and I’m here to help you figure out your next step.”
Liam probably should have been more focused on the fact that this was real, that he was dying , but all that came out of his mouth was, “There’s no way you’re an angel.”
“Yeah, I was pretty surprised, too. The Big Guy has a surprisingly subpar screening process for guardian angels. I had no prior experience, but here I am.”
“I-I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“I don’t really understand the angel network, either.”
Liam’s eyebrows furrowed. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Oh. Well I already told you, babe: you’re dying. There isn’t a whole lot to it.” Erica shrugged, then gave him a wide, almost mischievous smile as she approached him. “I have some good news for you, though: you don’t have to die today! Not many people get this option, so you should consider yourself lucky. But with those genetics, you already knew you were a lucky bastard, huh? Look at those baby blues.”
“This makes literally no sense.”
Erica groaned dramatically. “Do you need me to spell it out for you? You. Don’t. Have. To. Die. Today. You can live. Continue breathing. See another sunrise. Experience another—“
“I know what living is,” he sharply cut her off as he willed away the annoyance quickly building in his chest.
“You have a choice. You can choose to fight, to recover, to keep going. Or you can choose to let go, and let that heart monitor flatline.”
Liam knew he should have been grateful. He should’ve been thrilled at the option of a second chance—relieved, even. But he wasn’t.
“Is it bad that I don’t really want to?” Liam whispered, then clarified, “Live, I mean.”
Erica shook her head. “No. But twenty’s pretty damn young to call it quits.”
“Yeah,” Liam sighed. “Living is just…”
“A bitch sometimes?”
“Most of the time, lately.”
“I get it,” Erica told him, with an honesty in her voice that made Liam believe she really might. “What about your family? Friends? Romances? Surely a guy like you would have a lover?”
“My mom died when I was little. I don’t even remember her anymore,” Liam admitted with a pang of guilt. “My dad and brothers have each other. My friends would be fine without me. I haven’t been around much, since I’ve been spending all my time with a guy I stupidly fell in love with—who clearly only ever saw me as a fuck buddy.”
He didn’t have anything holding him in Beacon Hills—he didn’t have anything holding him anywhere. Jordan was a beloved deputy of the town, Stiles was finishing his criminology degree and going into FBI training that summer, and Liam had spent the last two years with a temper that repeatedly got him fired from minimum wage jobs and into countless stupid fights. He caused more trouble for his dad than even Stiles had—which was really saying something.
Erica sighed. “I don’t think that’s true, Liam.”
“I would know.”
“This isn’t a decision you can go back on,” she stressed. “When you choose to live or die, that’s it. This isn’t the time to be impulsive or think with your broken heart.”
“I’m s—“
“Walk with me,” she quickly interrupted him. “I’ve got a few minutes before I go back to work so just… come for a walk with me, before you decide.”
“A walk?” Liam asked.
“Yeah, like, with your legs. One foot in front of the other.”
“I know how to walk,” Liam grumbled as he followed her towards the door of the operating room.
“Great, then let’s go.”
Liam had spent a decent amount of time in the hospital over the course of his life, so he was pretty certain that there should’ve been a hallway outside the door. Instead, he was met by grey skies and a familiar field of yellowing grass.
“The cemetery?” Liam recognized, looking around. He hadn’t gone there as often as he should have—as often as his brothers and father had. “Why are we here?”
“This is a week in the future, from when you died,” Erica said, then pointed a red manicured fingernail in the direction behind him. “This is your funeral.”
And that, it was.
There were only a handful of people there, which wasn’t surprising. Liam had more enemies than friends, and his dad wasn’t one to like acquaintances around during sensitive moments. His family was kneeled down in front of his gravestone—which stood beside his mother’s in a way that made Liam a bit uneasy. He’d always expected his dad to be there one day.
Standing a few feet away, Derek, Lydia, Malia, Mason, and Corey were lined up with their heads bowed.
“That guy looks sketchy,” Erica noticed, directing Liam’s attention to a hooded figure briskly walking past the field. The man glanced over towards the field for a moment—just long enough for Liam to catch sight of his piercing green eyes.
“It’s Theo,” Liam said, “The dude I was talking about earlier.”
“Let’s follow him,” Erica declared, just before breaking into a run in his direction.
Liam chased after her. “ Why?”
“All those crying people are not passing my personal vibe check.”
“It’s a funeral!”
“People die every day!” Erica laughed loudly, and Liam wasn’t sure why, but he found himself laughing, too. “And hey, this Theo guy seems like the kinda dude who would make life interesting. I want some cool stuff to happen before I gotta go back to work.”
“Interesting” —Liam scoffed— “is definitely one way to describe Theo.”
They came to a slow stop as they rounded the corner onto Woodbine Lane, and found Theo messing with the knob on the Stilinski’s front door.
“Is he…” Liam trailed off as he watched Theo pull a small metal tool from his pocket and easily pick the lock. “He’s breaking into my house.”
“While your family is at your funeral, no less.” Erica shook her head. “You really know how to pick ‘em.”
“Tell me about it.”
Erica and Liam bolted after him as he entered the house and sprinted up the stairs. Theo made a beeline straight to Liam’s room, before stopping so abruptly that the two followers nearly rammed into him.
Liam wasn’t even sure if Theo was breathing as he stared at Liam’s bed, frozen. After what felt like an eternity, Theo hesitantly moved forward and sat on the comforter. With shaking fingers, he brushed his hand across the worn pillow and let out a slow, controlled sigh.
“What’s he doing?” Liam wondered.
“Don’t ask me, you’re the one who’s been with him for a couple years.”
A red piece of fabric poking out from under Liam’s dresser caught Theo’s attention, and he reached out to pick it up. It was the flannel Liam had worn to confront Theo the night before—or, a week ago, if this was the future. Liam must’ve thrown it on the ground when he’d gotten home.
Theo brought the clothing up to his face and inhaled deeply, seeming to sink down into the bed as the scent filled his nose. He held the breath for a moment, as if maybe the smell would settle into his senses permanently if he gave it enough time, then let it go in a steady exhale.
“Fuck you, Liam,” Theo mumbled, before bunching up the flannel in his fist and swiftly exiting the room—going right through Erica and Liam on his way out, much to the latter’s horror.
Liam turned around and tried to follow him—but as soon as he stepped through the doorway, he was no longer in his house.