Chapter Text
Liam’s worked the arrow about three quarters of the way out of his thigh when it occurs to him this might be why more werewolves don’t go into academia.
See, number two advice when going through the archives (number one being, “don’t get lost, or your bones become part of the collection”) is “Always have a spotter when you’re on the ladder.” Liam ignored this advice and the ladder slipped when he was about twenty feet off the ground. Which wasn’t a problem for him, entering the fifteenth year of his membership to the werewolf club, who could simply catch himself using those retractable claws of his. The problem happened when one of his colleagues, (Charlie, the observant little bastard) found the claw marks, traced them back to Liam, and called his buddies in the “secret society of academics who are aware the supernatural exists and are upset about it” who called the nearest hunters and by the end of the day, Liam’s got an arrow, now seven eighths of the way out of his thigh.
Only an academic would see claw marks and immediately think “werewolf,” Liam reasons. Because academics believe in fairytales, and they have nothing better to do. He’d lost the hunters by crawling into the sewers. Except, now he’s in the sewers. He hasn’t visited the sewers since he left Beacon Hills. The sights and smells are about as pleasant as he remembers.
He works the arrow’s final eighth through, the fletching widening the wound considerably on its way out. That’s going to slow him down. Normally he’d snap it in half but it’s got some kind of reinforced steel core to it. Hunters keep getting smarter, and werewolves keep suffering from old-dog-new-trick syndrome.
Adding to his trouble is the poison. Wolfsbane, the quality kind. This is a shit way to die, Liam thinks. Dying alone at the ripe old age of thirty. In the sewers, no less. He thought his fighting days were behind him, and he got close to normal, since he left for college. He was tired, you see. After they beat Monroe. And he ran pretty far, all the way to London (shut up, don’t say it) and didn’t look back and Scott, to his credit, never asked him to. Mason, always the braver of the two of them, stayed in the fight and as far as Liam knows, he’s still in it now.
The truth is, if he did die alone in the sewers at the ripe old age of thirty, there’s no one on this continent who’d give a damn. No one to tell his family back home.
That’s why you’re not gonna die here, you little shit. You’re gonna find a way out, you always have.
Running underground to lick his wounds. That’s what an animal would do. A human would go toward civilization, if he needed help. But Liam acted on instinct (So did Brett). And that’s what the hunters counted on. And after about half a mile of Liam lugging himself through the London sewers, that’s how they find him.
When the laser sights train on him, he scrounges up the last strength he has.
Alright you fucks, he thinks. Come and get me. .
.-
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Theo thinks bitterly, he’s rolled into mine strapped to a gurney and drugged up to his eyeballs .
“Hey!” Theo’s used to working underground, but he nearly slips on the wet concrete running after Liam Dunbar. Just like old times. “Charlie, what the hell are you bringing into my lab?”
“The Doc wants to start testing on live subjects.” Charlie is a genius, but he’s a rat. And a teacher’s pet. A lot like Theo was, in his younger days.
“I thought London eradicated its werewolf population.” The tunnels they work in are old Dread Doctor hideouts, early days work of theirs, late 18th century, up to maybe the 1920s. London is great for parascience; it’s like a cesspool of all things morbid, mystical, and arcane. But it’s bad for werewolves. Apparently no one told Liam that.
“We did,” Charlie wheels Liam past about a dozen more people: lab coats, hired guns, a tech fixing the lights (with the amount of leakage in this place, if the wires get loose, they’d all be toast. Literally.) They all stop and stare. All of them have heard stories about werewolves, most of them haven’t seen one in the flesh. “This one must be a transplant. An American Werewolf in —“
“Don’t say it.” Theo catalogs Liam’s injuries while following Charlie into the operating theater, no more than some plastic sheeting separating one section of tunnel from the next. It’s a labyrinth, down here. Three bullets, One arrow shaft, and at least five tranqs. It took a lot to take him down. But he’s mostly healed, and he’ll be waking up any second.
Charlie turns his back on Theo, to prep a syringe. “We’re supposed to keep him sedated, until the Doc --” Theo interrupts him by clocking him in the back of the head. Charlie goes down in an instant.
“ Finally, ” Theo mutters under his breath.
And now they’re alone. And the whole of this shit show starts to sink in. Five years of undercover work blown up in five minutes .
“Liam.” Theo undoes the restraints and then slaps him on the cheek a little harder than necessary. “Liam, wake up.” The beta groans in protest, still groggy with tranquilizer and bullet holes.
“Wake up, Dunbar . Don’t make me kiss you.”
That snaps Liam awake, he flails about for a bit before Theo grabs him by the shoulders to keep him still, and suddenly they’re eye to eye, for the first time in more than ten years.
Shit. Theo’s frozen, a second stretching into eternity. He grew up .
“What the hell are you doing here!” Liam hisses, shrugging Theo off.
“Shut up, just shut up and listen,” Theo comes in close, whispering as low as he can. Voices carry, down here. “We have to get you out now, or they’re gonna do worse than kill you, understand?”
Liam’s eyes dart around, rapidly digesting the operating room, the smell of rot, the damp chill, and Theo. Theo most of all. “What - what about you? Are you working for these assholes?”
Yes, and you’re damn lucky for it.
Liam clearly doesn’t see it that way. “Oh my god , do you always have to be doing something evil?”
“You have no idea what I’ve been doing.” That shuts Liam up long enough for Theo to get a word in. “Look, I give up information, I get some in return. That’s the only reason I’m still alive.” They’d have scrapped him for parts when they found him, if he didn’t make himself useful. Unfortunately, he’s used to that.
“What do they want?” Liam has put the judgment aside, for the moment. Theo used to think Scott McCall had infected Liam with his persistent morality. But Liam’s got a hero complex all on his own.
He still can’t answer that question for certain. He starts with what he does know. “The Dread Doctors were around for over two hundred years, and these guys have been following every step. And I’m not working for them, I'm trying to -- I’m trying to slow them down.”
It’s like penicillin. The Doctors wanted to do one thing: Resurrect the Beast, and they had a lot of “happy accidents” along the way, Theo among them . He hopes he gets the point across. An untapped well of horrors beyond our comprehension.
Liam does get it. He’s gone a bit pallid, at the mention of the Dread Doctors. He schools himself with practiced expertise. “Okay,” He says. “Okay, I want to help.”
Not happening. “Yeah, and I want you to live.”
“It’s not your job to protect me.”
And suddenly he’s seventeen years old again, staring down the angriest little beta he’s ever seen, with Gabe’s blood staining the mirror behind him. Why do you keep trying to save me?
They’re not kids anymore. And as much as it pains him to say it, he could use the help. He’s been alone down here. For longer than he’d like to think about.
Fine. “Midnight tonight. Murray’s yard. You know where that is?” Theo asks.
Liam’s lips part in surprise, at Theo relenting so quickly. “I can find it.”
“There’s gonna be a drop, something big, big enough that people at the top are gonna be there.” The chatter’s been vague at best, top secret even for them, and having back-up won’t hurt. “Just don’t get caught,” Theo adds. “Here.” He peels off his lab smock and hands it over to Liam. “You wear this, nobody will make eye contact. You can walk right out of here.”
“Are you gonna be okay?” Liam takes the coat after a moment’s hesitation, uneasy.
I was fine before you came along, Dunbar.
Mostly.
“Go.”
.-
Theo was right, Liam does walk right out of the sewer without a single hitch. Getting out is never that easy. Especially when getting in nearly killed him. They’ll have to pay for that, eventually. Liam’s learned not to trust luck.
He folds Theo’s coat up neatly and sets it on his dresser. His London flat is a reflection of his salary: Minimal and lacking benefits. His second favorite shirt is filled with bullet holes and needle pricks, and his favorite pair of jeans has an arrow hole in the thigh.
Theo Raeken. Saving Liam’s life, again. At this point, he’s stopped keeping score.
When Liam started thinking about leaving, Theo was the first person he told.
“ You could go with me.” That’s what Liam had told him, because he was nineteen and terribly, terribly reckless with his heart.
“ I can’t.” Theo at least had the decency to sound regretful when he said it. “ I’ve got some messes to clean up, and I don’t know how long it’ll take.” But he left Liam with a promise. “ If you call me…I’ll be there.”
Liam never called.
Clearly the “mess” was his time with the Dread Doctors. And trying to clean it up only pulled Theo further into the muck.
You have to pay for everything, eventually.
.-
Murray’s yard is an old abandoned warehouse, perfect for clandestine meetings. Or doing heroin, depending on the kind of night you’re having. The crew from the Ourobos society, as they’ve taken to calling themselves, has pulled their transport vans into the heart of the cavern. Harsh beams from the headlights illuminate their silhouettes. Theo stands in the front of the party with the Doc, and Marlow, the Doc’s bodyguard. They’re keeping him close, since he’s an “asset” who has “experience.” He isn’t sure which part of his experience they’re interested in, but the options aren’t particularly good.
Along with them are 10 of their best gunmen, armed with regular bullets, Theo notes. Their dealings tonight will be with humans. Their company will be arriving soon, he hears the engines of their trucks about a mile out.
No one knows the Doc’s real name. Not even Theo, and he’s looked. What he does know about him is that he’s human, nothing close to the genuine article of Dread Doctor, despite his delusions of grandeur. But even for a human, he’s formidable. His followers aren’t just scared of him, they love him, in a kind of awful way. They believe in what he’s doing: the comprehensive scientific study of all things supernatural, by any means necessary.
Theo trains his hearing, and picks up a familiar sound. Liam’s heartbeat is close by. He focuses on it, uses it to steady his own.
The trucks of the second party begin to rumble in. The Doc looks at his watch. “Right on time,” he mutters. He strides towards his guests as they come to stop and begin to disembark. One of the truck beds has a large wooden crate in the back that the men begin to offload. It must be what all the fuss is about.
It takes four of them to haul the crate over and dump it at the Doc’s feet. The first thing to hit Theo is the smell of urine, sour and old. Then there’s the heartbeat, young, rapid, and deafening.
Oh god. He begins to realize what he should’ve known all along.
There’s something alive in there.
“Well done.” The Doc meets the leader of this new crew, international mercenaries, by the looks of it. If we’ve got this kind of money, we should get a better office.
“Any trouble?” The Doc motions to Marlow, who produces a small mobile and begins to initiate a payment transfer.
“He learned to behave himself,” the other leader gives the crate a sharp kick, for effect. The contents give a startled whimper, audible only to Theo, and probably Liam.
The leader looks to his men. One of them confirms payment. And that’s the end of it. “Pleasure doing business, gentlemen.” He motions to his crew, and they load up and drive off as efficiently as they came.
Marlow checks the crate by peering into one of its…air holes, those must be air holes. “We’re ready to load up,” he confirms.
“Good.” The Doc nods. “One more thing.”
He pulls out a side arm and shoots Theo right in the gut.
The bullet goes right through him and totals one of his kidneys on the way out. Theo drops to his knees and curses. Should’ve seen that coming.
The Doc kneels down next to him, expression one of disappointment. “You think anything happens in my facility that I don’t know about?”
Liam. He knows about Liam. Theo doesn’t give up anything except his mask of arrogance. That armor he keeps polished and ready at all times.
The Doc stands. “We’re taking this one too.”
“He’s given us a lot.” Marlow doesn’t even bother to look at Theo. It’s not concern, he’s acting out of. It’s pure strategy.
“He’ll only get more talkative,” the Doc assures him.
Ah, crap.
Before they can move on him, one of their gunmen hits the concrete with a thunk , out cold.
Perfect timing, Liam.
The other nine open fire, but Liam’s too fast for them. He engages with the ease of a veteran fighter, clearly keeping up his skills even retired as he claims to be. Theo takes this opportunity to go for the Doc, who’s ankles are within perfect slashing distance.
The guy goes down in a pile of blood and sinew, and Theo makes a slash at his neck for good measure. He’s cherishing the look of surprise on that face when another bullet comes flying at him.
“Fall back!” Marlowe yells to the men. He fires at Theo a few more times to draw him off and grabs the Doc, who is trying to hold his windpipe together enough to keep gurgling in air.
In his fight, Liam roars and strikes the barrel of a gun on the attack. The bullet, chambered and fired, whizzes past Liam’s head and zings through the crate.
Oh no.
The men follow orders and retreat with their injured benefactor clinging to life in the back of a van. Theo’s gotten sloppy. He hasn’t had to properly kill anyone in a while.
He winces and prods at the bullet hole leaking through him on both ends. Liam runs to him.
“You okay?” He asks. His eyes are shining with adrenaline. Apparently he hasn’t had a good fight in a while, either.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It was a regular bullet.” He gives the flesh around it a hard squish to encourage it to knit together. And both he and Liam turn, with a sinking dread, to the crate.
“This is gonna suck.”
Liam’s always had a way with words.
.-
Liam approaches the crate carefully, wrinkling his nose. There’s piss and sweat and blood in there. They probably stuck the poor guy in this thing and carted him all the way to London. He registers the pulse, the breathing, and his heart drops to his toes.
“It’s a kid.”
Theo looks at him grimly. “Come on.”
The two of them pry at the front board until the wood gives way, and the contents of the crate come tumbling out.
It is a kid. A boy, no more than 15, in jeans and a blood-smeared T-shirt, with matted dark hair and piercing, eerily familiar green eyes staring up at them. His feet and hands are bound with rope and a healthy amount of duct tape muffles his ragged breath. And the bullet, from earlier, has found a home right between his ribs.
His chemo signals come off him in terrified, exhausted waves and he shakes with pain and dehydration and hypoglycemia. He’s a werewolf, Liam is certain about this. But he’s never seen a werewolf look so utterly…human, before.
Slowly, hands raised in a peace offering, Liam kneels down to his level. The boys eyes dart between Liam and Theo above him, and through the tape, a small whimper escapes him
“Easy, easy. It’s alright.” As careful as Liam is, the boy flinches anyway. Liam reaches around and pulls off the tape. As soon as he can speak, the boy jerks back.
“Stay away from me!”
At least he’s got some fight left in him.
“We’re not gonna hurt you, alright?” Liam waves to Theo, who so far has been standing over the two of them, frozen. Come on man, I need you.
“What’s your name?” he asks, as Theo manages to squat down next to them and assess the best way to undo the kid’s bindings.
It takes him a long moment of consideration. Weighing the pros and cons of trusting these strange people who’ve just cracked him open in the middle of a warehouse. He must realize his options are limited because he swallows the spit in his throat and says, “Eli.”
“We’re gonna get you out of this, Eli,” Liam promises. He hasn’t really figured out how yet, but they will.
Theo untangles Eli from the ropes and notes pointedly, “He’s not healing.”
“What do we do?”
“He’s a natural born, he might still heal like a human. We should get him to a hospital.”
Eli stares at Theo. “How did you —“
“We can talk about that later. Let’s go." Theo hauls Eli up by the shoulders and supports him under the arms.
“Wait wait wait!” He protests. “I can heal it. I think. I’ll figure out how to heal it. Just don’t -- Ow!” Eli stumbles and Liam is quick to his other side to support him.
Liam looks to Theo. Their eyes meet, and a thousand words pass between them in an instant, the main ones being this:
We’re fucked.
.-
Theo remembers the first time he stole a car with Liam. Technically it wasn’t stealing since it was his car, the good old blue Tacoma (that he'd already stolen before getting to Beacon Hills). It was exactly where he’d parked it last, before his ill fated last stand against The Beast that resulted in his internment in a purgatory with the vengeful spirit of his sister. No one had touched it. More likely was that no one had thought about it, or him, for those three months. Except Liam, who decided his best play for stopping the Ghostriders was resurrecting the person who manipulated him into nearly killing his friend.
It still doesn’t make sense, to Theo. Sure, the logic of the plan was sound, kind of, but why Liam had even considered Theo, let alone gone through with bringing him back, is a mystery. Whatever the reason, Theo owes his life to that decision. No matter how far he runs, Theo knows their fates will always be tied together. And that terrifies him.
The car they’ve stolen now to get them and the kid back to civilization is not nearly as roomy as a Tacoma. It’s one of those bullshit british mini coopers. It’s nice if you like driving stick shift, and less nice if you’re bleeding out all over the custom leather.
“Make him hold still!” Theo yells into the backseat when a spasm of pain causes Eli to kick the back of his seat, again.
“Yeah, I know, I know.” Liam’s got Eli by the hand. Inky black rivers of pain run through his veins, but the kid is still not healing.
A bonafide natural-born werewolf. Theo hasn’t seen one of them in…in a long time.
“Okay, who are you people?” Eli asks, and not for the first time.
Theo answers with, “I’m a free-lancer, and he works at a museum.”
“ What?”
They run a little too fast over a speed-bump, and Eli’s clamping down on another yelp. If they take the bullet out, he might bleed to death. But they can’t leave it in. They need a doctor, a real doctor, but if they take him to a hospital and he does kick in his healing, that’ll be a tough one to explain.
“I have an idea,” Eli pants out. “I think I’ll heal if my body thinks I’m dying, really dying.”
“So what’s the idea?” Liam presses.
“You kill me, or, almost kill me, at least, just cut off my windpipe or something.”
Theo glances in the rearview mirror. “That might work, actually.”
Liam gives him a don’t-encourage-him glare. “I’m not gonna suffocate you in the back of a moving car.”
Eli shrugs. “Okay, then let’s pull over.”
Liam splutters helplessly, and Theo has to reign in his laugh. Can't look too soft in front of the new guy. “Works for me.” He pulls them off onto the shoulder. This late at night, there’s almost no other cars around, so hopefully no one will witness their attempted but consensual murder of a minor. In the backseat of a custom ordered mini cooper. Oh Boy.
He powers off the engine and plunges them into darkness. Theo sees the puffs of their breath in the cold night. The windows fog up rapidly. Either out of childish spite or pure delirium, Eli reaches up from where he’s awkwardly twisted in the cramped cabin and uses a crooked arm to draw a smiley face in the condensation. Theo can’t see his face, but he can hear the apprehension in Liam’s heartbeat. He doesn’t want to do this. Even if it might be their only option, he doesn’t want to hurt this kid. Luckily for him, Theo’s always been enough monster for the both of them.
“Help him get outside,” Theo tells him. It’ll be easier to do this with more space.
“I got it, I got it.” As soon as Theo’s out, Eli climbs over the cupholders and pulls himself out the driver’s side door and flops onto the wet grass. Well, that’s one way to exit a two door car. Liam climbs out with more grace, but only slightly.
“We doing this or what?” Eli lies on his back, not caring about the mud in his hair or the dew soaking into his shirt. He’s taking this whole kidnapping thing rather well, all things considered.
“Theo,” Liam catches him by the arm. “If this doesn’t work --”
“I know what I’m doing,” Theo assures him. “Trust me.”
Liam considers that for a moment, and then lets him go. Theo kneels into the wet grass. His own bullet wound has scabbed over by now, but it sends a phantom tremor through his gut.
Eli nods. Theo reaches forward, closes his hands around his throat.
And Eli’s eyes light up with gold.