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As Liam ducks down below the concrete barrier, he wonders where exactly he went wrong. Logically, he knows it was when he went to investigate the sound outside his hospital room. Subjectively, he thinks it might’ve been a while before that. He can’t bring himself to believe that one little action lead to this—to watered down soda cups, and shitty motel rooms, and taking trips for hours at a time only to get shot at.
Theo, who’s braced up against the half wall beside him—who’s there because he always is—lifts his head up at an angle to scan the area behind them. Liam’s eyes trace the line of his jaw, sharp but soft, and he wants to sink his claws into it. To hook his finger in at the back where the chimera always grinds it, and feel the skin split under his fingers until his chin. He swears it’s romantic.
When he was with Hayden, he was what one would call typically romantic. He kissed her softly, and he walked her to class, and he held her corpse with the horror and sadness and guilt of Achilles, all the usual stuff. With Theo, he wants to push him against a wall and tear his throat out, to sink his fanged teeth into his thighs until he has to spit up the blood, to bite his tongue and then Theo’s and feel the blood mix together in their mouths. He doesn’t know if he hates Theo or is hopelessly in love with Theo because of this, he just knows he wants.
Then Theo moves back down, drags his shoulders and plants himself on the ground, and Liam remembers that the chimera's skin isn’t his to take between his teeth. And that most people don’t want to hook their jaw into someone they think they’re in love with. So he swallows the thickness in his throat and asks, “are they still there?”
Theo shakes his head. Liam lets his muscles relax as much as his adrenaline-riddled body will allow, watching Theo follow shortly after. Secretly, he suspects all of the chimeras' remaining stiffness is on purpose—that Theo could simply pass out anywhere if he chose too. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t. Well, he does know, but Liam thinks Theo should be allowed to drop out whenever he chooses too. One of those imaginary small mercies he puts into the ‘complaints for the universe’ box he has in his head. Most of them are about his friends.
Theo looks him up and down, brows furrowed in worry. It’s not a good look for him. He hates all of Theo’s scared looks, though. Well, actually—he does think Theo would look good in that state if it were Liam causing it. He thinks Theo would look amazing with his eyes slightly wide, and his breathing faster than it needs to be, if he were responsible for it. But that’s one of those thoughts he tries not to touch—and anyway, he doesn’t like it now, so it doesn’t matter.
Theo’s searching eyes snag on his stomach, right below his last rib bones. As if on cue, that part of his body lights up in pain, echoing up the side of his entire torso. When he looks down, he’s greeted with the sight of his shirt soaked in blood, some of it even sliding down his torso and forming a small puddle in front of him.
If you went back in time and asked Liam what he thought the hardest part of war was, he would’ve said loss, but that would not have included clothing.
The hole itself isn’t that bad—as much as a bullet hole can be okay. He knows it didn’t hit any vital organs. Otherwise, the bleeding is sluggish, but he doesn’t think it’s because he’s about to bleed out. Annoying, but not mortal.
He lets out a little huff, letting his head roll back against the stone behind him. He turns to look at Theo, who’s still looking at him with the corners of his mouth pointed down. “Shit, Li,” he mutters, reaching out with hands that are left hovering between them once he thinks better of it.
It’s like he thinks Liam’s going to bite. He might, honestly. Control is an intangible ideal, an affect few and far between these days.
“It’s fine.” He grunts out. He shifts himself up to get more comfortable, feeling the way the skin around the crater is both pulling together and moving apart while he goes. Cleaving itself, like magnets on opposite poles, or water on the beach. He looks at Theo again. Cleaving, like the ground before and after he released the traitor from his cage.
The traitor. The animal who tore apart his pack, who tried to convince him to kill his alpha, who Liam would’ve given anything to watch be torn apart; the first chimera that played god and watched it all come crashing down on him. Theo. The boy he spends more days with than without, who’s the only person besides his life long best friend that knows how to pull him out of his anger, who he’d like to put his hands on and see how long it lasts before he pulls away; his Theo, who doesn’t sleep and can’t accept good things and is hovering in front of Liam like he wants to help but he doesn’t know how.
His Theo, who wants to help. They’re not even the same person anymore.
It’s nice, if not complicated. Nothings been uncomplicated since halfway through his freshman year though, and unfortunately for him, Theo’s one of those few things that’s actually worth it. Wow, he thinks, and then gross.
So he shifts again, brushes some of his hair out of his face. Then he says, “it’s not bad—not wolfsbane. Just inconvenient.” Theo’s eyes remain on his chest while he speaks. Liam’s not sure if he’s checking his heartbeat, or just watching the blood slowly ooze to the floor, but he doesn’t blame him either way.
Sometimes Liam wonders if Theo thinks about him in the same way. If he thinks they’re another version of Lucy and Mina from Dracula, or Romeo and Mercutio—a theoretical romance that will never come to pass before one of them does. Unfulfilled lovers steeped in tragedy. But he’s almost certain Theo isn’t as dramatic—or simply as odd—as Liam is. If it were his lycanthropy making him as feral as he is, then Theo wouldn’t be like that. He’d be the calmer one, which appears to be a staple in their dynamic.
He would like to see Theo feral, he determines. The closest he’s gotten was when they were in the tunnels, but that memory is so stepped in the sadness of what he knows now he can’t even enjoy it. That wasn’t proper feral, more so desperation. Once again Liam is blocked from enjoying that idea by posteriori knowledge, and he thinks hindsight might be twenty-twenty simply because everything else is pointless.
Now though, staring at Theo staring at him, he thinks it would be a sight to behold. The chimera operating without restraint—godless and full of unquellable energy—might make him something of a god himself. Liam, blonde and angry and someone people think is worth death, is typically typecast as Achilles in most of his relationships, but he thinks it might be comforting to be Patroclus. Thinks there could be solace in knowing in your final moments someone will come commit genocide in your name, give up everything they could’ve had out of fury for you.
Maybe that makes him a bad person. Truthfully, he’s just tired of people trying to sacrifice themselves for him.
He looks into Theo’s eyes of green sage and thinks he can see his body reflected in them.
He’s tired of people trying and dying in general.
“Do we need to take the bullet out?” Theo asks. Liam gives him an aborted shrug, which confirms that the answer to that question is definitely. He pushes himself off the floor to sit up, palms flat on concrete and now edged with his blood.
He flicks out his claws to pull out the bullet, but Theo grabs his wrist out of the air. Theo’s skin is cold against his, which is so obviously cliche he almost laughs, but it’s frustratingly comforting too given how he always runs hot. Then Theo gently lowers his hand back to the ground, palm now face up, and shakes his head. “You’re injured, you’re going to mess it up.” The subtext is obvious. Let me do it.
He wonders what would happen if he told Theo no. It’s not an olive branch—they’ve evolved way past that—but it’s something. Something he can’t place his finger on, but it feels important. After he wonders what would happen if he told Theo no, he realizes he’d never find out. So Liam nods, shifts his open wound closer to the chimera's hands, and watches the surprise float across his face before he shoves it down again. It’s almost invisible, but they spend so much time together he doesn’t have to look.
He doesn’t know if two supernatural creatures spending almost all their time together makes them psychic, but it would be cool. Although, actually—he thinks blankly—he does know. Anchors.
Theo’s claws reflect the lights of the signs surrounding them when they extend. Liam’s heartbeat stutters and Theo looks up at him through his eyebrows now furrowed with uncertainty. He wants to reach up and smooth out the wrinkle with the pad of his thumb, or tell him that he totally misinterpreted his heart skipping, but he can’t do either of those things, so instead he just nods with all his exhausted conviction.
He doesn’t want a bullet in his body, if nothing else. He’s already got something close enough as is.
Clawed hands slowly make their way over to that side of Liam’s stomach while he tries to focus on his breathing. It’s not steady though, it’s ragged and inconsistent with how he’s trying to force it. When Theo’s claws first pierce his skin, his hands clench as his side’s before he can stop it. Theo breathes out roughly, mumbles apologizes that are so earnest it makes him uncomfortable.
He shifts his attention towards Theo’s heartbeat instead. The chimera has to lean over him some to get to his wound, so his loose blue shirt is hanging down from his chest, but Liam puts his eyes on where his heart would be and listens to the steady thumping.
He’d noticed on a stakeout once that after the dread doctors were gone, Theo had started to dress a lot more comfortably than he had before. At the time Theo was wearing one of his favorite hoodies—a green one with a coyote logo for some national park he’d likely thrifted—a jean jacket that was a little too big, and some jeans. It was hard to imagine that was the same guy who’d previously shown up to school in polos and leather jackets, but it’s clear that this is the chimera's preferred style. It suits him, Liam had decided then. Being comfortable suits him.
The focus held on Theo’s heartbeat only breaks when the chimera pulls back, and he starts to feel his insides pull themselves back together while his outer layers of skin finish what they started.
He’d been so distracted by Theo’s heart he barely even noticed it happening. Anchors, his brain echos, and he wants to tell it to shut up because he already knows, dammit.
Next to him, Theo’s chest heaves with his breathing, and he follows his eyeline to where he's staring at the bullet clutched between his claws. Liam’s personally more distracted by the sight of his blood all over Theo’s hand. It makes something curl low in his stomach, and he wonders what he would look like licking it off his fingers. His heart stutters then, and Theo finally breaks his gaze to look over, concerned. He figures he should quit while he’s ahead, so he waves him off.
Theo shrugs, with the corners of his mouth ticked up, and Liam wonders if braining himself on this block of concrete would make everything that just happened sort of pointless. “Do you want this bullet?” Theo asks, like that’s a normal question. It might be for him. Liam purses his lips, pretending to consider. “Absolutely not. Do you keep yours?” He replies, phrasing the question as both genuine and mocking. Theo had told him once he was the only person he knew who could do that, and it almost sounded like a compliment.
The chimera rolls his eyes in lieu of responding, and then opts to throw the projectile at him, splattering blood on his shirt. Sometimes Liam finds it hard to believe this guy was ever scary to anyone. It’s a nice thought, actually, since it feels like a step in the right direction. If only he wasn’t an asshole.
He scoffs offendedly at the needless violence, but Theo just stares him down. “As if that shirt wasn’t already ruined.” He counters, like Liam’s being ridiculous.
He is, but it’s still rude.
Before he can respond, Theo pulls himself up off the ground—balancing with his hand on the barrier behind them. It leaves a thin red handprint in its place, and he realizes that means he’ll be here forever, if only a little. He's in a lot of places. The only one that matters to him is the one where the rest of his body can follow. Hopefully one that has all the love he can fill it with.
Theo reaches a hand down once he rights himself. The lights from the city ghost across his face and dip the tips of his hair in a white and blue glow. He’s never looked holy to Liam, but he thinks he looks something like a savior. Someone magical, with his feet firmly on the ground. Someone Liam could love.
“I don’t want to get my hands dirty.” He complains, though it’s only half hearted. Theo sighs down at him, so fond it almost makes him turn away. “Liam,” he says, “it’s your blood.” It is. Theo’s hand is gross and red, but he reaches up and grabs it anyway.
After he gets on his feet, he notices that there’s a pit of hunger growing in his stomach. He wonders if they have a frozen yogurt place around here. He looks around at the places near them, but all he sees is open signs and street lights and his puddle of blood. Really gross, he thinks. That’s when he realizes Theo has already started to walk, and is leaving him behind.
“Jerk.” He says when he catches up. It doesn’t take too long for their steps to get in sync—their hearts too. Theo shrugs, pulling his phone out of his pocket and having to hold down the buttons on the sides to get it to open since it ‘died’ a long time ago. It’s surprisingly mundane for two guys walking around covered in blood. After he finds out where their hotel is relative to them, he slips it back into his pocket.
Then he turns to Liam. “Do you think they have a fro-yo place around here? I’m starving.” He says. Liam feels a smile split across his face like a kid on Christmas. Anchors, he figures, or maybe just two weirdos.
He doesn’t care as long as they’re together. “I was just thinking that!” He exclaims, and Theo smiles softly back at him.
Liam wants to kiss him. Nothing more, nothing less.