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It’s been months.
It’s been months since Monroe and the Anuk-ite, and Stiles still won’t drop it. Liam is sick of it all: the snide, not-so-quiet whispered comments, the outright hostility, the way Theo can’t so much as open his mouth at a pack meeting without Stiles shooting him down and bringing up every crime he ever committed and insisting that none of them should trust a word out of Theo’s mouth.
It had been worse than usual today, when Theo offered an opinion on Monroe’s recent movements around the Washington border. Stiles had snorted, dismissive, which had Liam bristling even before he started talking.
“Yeah, like we’re going to listen to you,” he’d said. “For all we know, you’ve already sold out. Who’s to say you’re not on her side?”
“Stiles,” Scott had interjected, wearily, but Liam beat him to it.
“He’s not working with the hunters,” he had said, trying to keep his voice even. “Besides, he knows Monroe better than you, or Derek. He was here the entire time.”
“Liam, man, are you kidding me?” Stiles asked, incredulous. “You’d really put that past him? Do you not remember—”
“Yeah, I would,” Liam had snapped back. “Lay off.”
“‘Lay off’? Nuh-uh, absolutely not, buddy. I was right about him the first time and I’m right this time, too. Even if he’s not playing double agent, we can’t trust him, Liam.”
“Too bad, because I do,” Liam said, and Theo, next to him, had sucked in a sharp breath, barely audible.
“Jesus Christ, you never learn,” Stiles had muttered, loud enough for even the humans to hear in the tense silence that had fallen over the room. “We should’ve just put him back in the ground where you found him.”
Liam had felt his eyes flare gold. Beside him, Theo was tense but silent in the face of the animosity just like he always was.
“That’s enough,” Scott had said, louder this time. “No one is sending anyone anywhere. Stiles, drop it for now, okay? And Liam, you need to calm down.”
It was Theo’s shoulder brushing against his that had brought Liam back down, and Stiles’s glare had sharpened when he noticed, but Scott redirected the conversation before he could say anything about it.
Liam had all but dragged Theo out of the house when they finished going over their—admittedly uncertain—information and vague plans, herding him toward his truck before Stiles or anyone else could say something to make Liam any more irritated than he already was.
“You should stop picking fights with your pack,” Theo says now, halfway back to Liam’s house, breaking the silence simmering between them. “I don’t need you to defend me.”
“You sure about that?” Liam bites out. “’Cause you sure as hell never bother to.”
Theo sighs, exasperated, like he wishes this conversation wasn’t happening, and it only serves to make Liam angrier. He’s not entirely sure why Theo’s apparent unwillingness to respond to the pack’s hostility pisses him off nearly as much as the hostile behavior itself, in a tangled sort of way, twinges of something like sadness coloring the anger. All he knows is that it does, and Theo’s irritation at being forced to talk about it adds fuel to the fire Stiles had started back at Scott’s house.
Theo opens his mouth, undoubtedly to say something flippant and dismissive, and Liam cuts him off.
“Why don’t you?” He’s still angry, and he knows he sounds it, but he’s also desperate suddenly to know the answer. “You had no trouble explaining yourself while everything was going down with the Dread Doctors and the Beast. You had answers for everything, even after we knew you’d been lying, so what changed, what’s different now that makes you just sit there and take it—”
“Take a guess,” Theo snaps, and then his eyes widen, lips clamping shut like he can take it back. Everything about his expression screams regret, but Liam doesn’t get it, is too distracted by the anger coursing through his veins. He has to pause, rewind, take a breath. He forces his boiling irritation to the side and thinks, because Theo looks like he might be liable to jump out of the truck, moving or not, which means this is important, means Theo had let slip something he hadn’t meant to.
What changed, Liam had asked, between the reveal of Theo’s manipulations and now, between his former willingness to defend his actions and his more recent streak of taking accusations in silence before refocusing the conversation? What has Theo’s lips pursed, face blank, chemosignals wiped clean of emotion?
What’s changed, and then it hits him, and Liam feels all his anger evaporate, dread creeping slowly outward from the pit of his gut.
“The skinwalker prison,” he says, slowly, watching Theo’s face for any crack in his inscrutable facade. He doesn’t outwardly react, but that alone tells Liam he’s right. If he was wildly off track, Theo would have no problem telling him, snapping back in an effort to get Liam to drop the subject.
I think you were rotting down there, Liam had told him, a lifetime ago, in that damned hospital under flickering lights, before they saved each other’s lives for the first time despite their own respective promises to do the opposite. Theo had agreed, and Liam had gone on convinced that Theo’s time underground was some sort of semi-conscious state, suspended between life and death, or maybe just trapped in a pit of some kind. Rotting, like Liam had said, except—
Except Theo had already let it slip, hadn’t he, before Liam made his guess that he’s quickly realizing was a complete understatement, but he’d been so angry with Theo, so distrustful, that he hadn’t cared enough to register what Theo was saying, implying.
What do you think I was doing down there? Just hanging out with my dead sister, having a good time catching up on childhood memories?
“Theo,” Liam says, and his voice is strained enough that Theo actually breaks his self-imposed mandate of avoiding Liam’s eyes at all costs, glancing over at him. “Pull over.”
Whatever Theo sees in Liam’s face is enough for him to silently guide the truck off to the side of the road, parking at the curb of a residential street Liam has driven down dozens of times but couldn’t name even if someone paid him.
Theo looks at him, wary, and the words dry up in Liam’s throat.
“Look,” Theo says, cautious. “Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Liam returns. His voice is still hoarse, quiet. “What…what happened down there?”
Every second that Theo remains silent intensifies the dread suffusing Liam from head to toe. He shifts nervously in his seat, unable to help it, and Theo looks away, glancing somewhere past Liam’s left ear.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, finally.
Liam is about ready to scream. “It does,” he insists, and some unreadable emotion flickers over Theo’s face, there and gone before Liam can try to place it. “If it’s the reason you refuse to defend yourself anymore, it does.”
What he doesn’t say is: It matters anyway. It matters because it’s something that hurts Theo, even months later, even if Liam had been too oblivious and too preoccupied with figuring out their fledgling friendship to notice until now. It matters because Theo matters, has mattered to Liam for longer than he’d been willing to admit.
Theo doesn’t say anything, and Liam loses a little bit more of his mind.
“Theo,” he says, “What happened to you when you were—”
“She took it back,” Theo says, short and tense. “She took it back, and I deserved it. But I’m out now, so it doesn’t matter.”
“She took it back,” Liam repeats. “Your sister? What did she take?”
Then he realizes, and he goes completely still. Theo is back to staring out the windshield, hands clenched into fists in his lap, jaw tight.
“She took…your heart?” Liam says, trying out the words, trying and failing to wrap his mind around it. He feels strangely empty, like he’s been hollowed out in preparation to accept whatever emotion Theo’s response will send through him.
“Her heart,” Theo corrects, sharp, and he finally faces Liam. His face is set in hard, brutal lines, and Liam braces himself. “She would rip it out, and then I’d wake up and she would do it again. Is that what you wanted to hear, Liam? That my dead sister killed me over and over again? That it didn’t matter what I did, she would always find me and I would always end up back in that fucking morgue? That I deserved it? I already know that.” He laughs, bitter, and Liam’s head spins. “Are you happy now?”
Liam is the furthest thing from happy. He’s horrified, dizzy with the knowledge, with knowing that Liam’s pack had sent Theo down there to be—to be tortured, with hearing Theo say I deserved it like it’s a fact, like Liam agrees. Theo looks almost satisfied, dark and mean in a way Liam hasn’t seen on him in months, and Liam hates it, hates that it’s covering up so much pain that Liam can’t really comprehend it, can’t comprehend anything other than—
“How many times?” he manages.
Theo’s brows furrow. “What?”
“How many times did she…” Liam can’t make himself say the words.
Theo’s face goes blank again, the edge of cruelty slipping away, and he averts his gaze.
“I don’t know,” he admits, and Liam had asked, but the answer is somehow worse than he’d been expecting. “I don’t know if time worked differently down there, but—it never took her longer than a couple minutes to find me, and it felt like I woke up again right away, so…”
Dimly, Liam realizes he isn’t breathing, and it’s all he can do to stare at Theo and try to get his lungs to function properly. It would require the kind of math Liam definitely isn’t capable of without a calculator to figure out the exact number, but Theo had been down there for months, and his mental estimation is climbing far, far higher than Liam even wants to imagine.
“That’s why you don’t defend yourself,” he manages, more statement than question. “You think you deserved that.”
Theo lets out a tiny, humorless laugh. “Don’t tell me you disagree.”
Whatever happened to you, you deserved it. Liam had said that, had meant it, and he wants nothing more than to go back in time and punch the Liam who had thrown that in Theo’s face like it was nothing, like he understood even a fraction of what he was saying.
“I do,” he says, fierce with it, needing Theo to believe it, to believe him. “You didn’t deserve that, Theo.”
Theo’s eyes snap back to meet Liam’s, wild, and his sneer is so obviously forced that Liam knows he’s spinning out of control in a way Liam’s never seen him.
“Didn’t I? I let my sister die,” he spits, and it’s clear the words cost him something, but he persists. “I made my first kill when I was thirteen. I killed Josh and Tracy for their powers and would’ve done the same to Mason. I manipulated you,” Theo reminds him, as though Liam is capable of forgetting. “I manipulated all of you. I got you to try to kill Scott, and then I finished the job. I killed Scott and I would’ve killed you, too, if you had killed him first.”
Liam flinches. He can’t help it. He knows all of this, but it still hurts to hear Theo spitting the words out like they taste bitter on his tongue. It reminds him of the cruel truths Theo had flung at him in the sheriff’s station, plucking at all of Liam’s hairpin triggers, winding him up until he ended up on the bathroom floor with a bloody nose courtesy of Liam’s fist. He thinks maybe that’s what Theo is angling for now, but he’s still too horrified by the truth about the skinwalker prison to get angry like Theo seems to want him to.
“I would have killed you,” Theo repeats, resigned, all fire extinguished. “Don’t tell me I didn’t deserve it.”
There’s something about the way he says it, like planning to kill Liam is worse than all his other sins combined, that makes Liam ache, a full-body bruise. It’s enough to get him moving again, robotically undoing his seatbelt. Theo slowly mimics him, body lined with tension, like he thinks Liam might be gearing up to take a swing at him.
He doesn’t even try to assume a defensive position, just watches Liam, weary.
“You killed Josh and Tracy,” Liam agrees, and it’s Theo’s turn to flinch. “You would’ve killed Mason for the Beast’s power. You killed Scott.” He has to pause, then, swallows hard before he continues. “You would’ve killed me.”
Theo’s breath hitches minutely.
“You would’ve killed me,” he repeats, just like Theo had. “And you didn’t deserve that.”
“Liam,” Theo says, a little helplessly. “Don’t—”
“I’m not done,” Liam interrupts. “You didn’t deserve that, not when Scott’s—when we’ve—let everyone else who’s hurt us walk away free. Peter didn’t have to pay for his second chance or even his third, and he’s a full-grown man. You shouldn’t have had to, either.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Theo says. “None of them did what I did.”
“Yeah, and none of them were brainwashed as children,” Liam snaps. “If it’s not the same thing, it’s only because you should’ve been given more of a chance, not less.”
“I wasn’t fucking brainwashed, Liam.” Theo’s getting a little heated again. “I made my own choices.”
“You were nine,” Liam says. “And the Dread Doctors were, like, two hundred and fifty. That’s definitely brainwashing, dude.”
“Stop excusing me—”
“I’m not,” Liam insists. “I’m not excusing any of it. I hated you for what you did to me, to the pack, and I didn’t think I would ever forgive you, but things are different now. You’re different now.”
Liam doesn’t actually think Theo is breathing. He hopes he doesn’t pass out, because then Liam would have to drive them back to his house, and Theo would freak out upon waking to find out that Liam had driven his precious truck.
“I forgive you, Theo,” he says. “You did some horrible things, but none of it justifies what you went through down there. It was hypocritical as hell to send you there, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Theo rasps. “Don’t apologize to me, Liam, I don’t—”
Liam claps a hand over Theo’s mouth. Theo’s eyes go wide, but he stops talking.
He can feel the warmth of Theo’s skin—his lips—against his palm, his shaky breaths washing over his knuckles. It’s distracting, to say the least, but this is important, so he powers through.
“You don’t have to believe me right away,” Liam tells him. “But it’s the truth. You didn’t deserve it, and I’m sorry that it happened, and I’m sorry that I never asked before.”
He waits until he’s reasonably sure the words have sunk in, Theo’s eyes wide and almost desperate on Liam’s, before he drops his hand.
“Even if you think that,” Theo says, quiet, like keeping his volume low will take the sting out of it, “Stiles is still right. You’d have to be crazy to trust me.”
Liam wants, badly, to shake him. “Would you hurt me now?”
Theo gives him a flat look. “You shouldn’t just take my word for it, Liam.”
“Would you?” Liam presses, and Theo sighs.
“No.”
“Would you hurt me to save yourself?”
“Liam—”
“Just answer the question,” he says, sharper than he meant to.
“No,” Theo snaps. “No, okay, I wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean a fucking thi—”
“It does,” Liam says. “It means that I trust you.”
Theo laughs, mildly incredulous, and his voice is disbelieving when he says, “Did you not hear a word I said?”
Instead of answering this frankly ridiculous question, Liam grabs Theo’s wrist. If Theo was any less in control of his shift, he would stab his own claws into Theo’s skin to trigger Theo’s into coming out, but Theo has never once let his control slip, so this will have to suffice. Theo stares at the point of contact, visibly taken aback, as Liam draws Theo’s hand up to his throat.
Then he tilts his chin, exposing his neck, and Theo jerks, trying to yank his hand back, but Liam has always been stronger than him, and he grips his wrist tighter, refusing to let him retract his arm.
“I trust you,” he repeats, and Theo’s arm, still struggling, goes lax in Liam’s grip. “You’re not going to hurt me and we both know it, so just—stop being stupid.”
Theo’s stare is heartbreakingly disbelieving for several seconds before it shifts into some sort of wonder, and Liam hears the faint sound of Theo’s claws growing out, and he lets go of Theo’s wrist, keeping his head tilted, neck vulnerable.
Theo brushes the very tips of his claws against the skin there, so carefully that Liam shivers, the feeling of vulnerability steepening. He’s not afraid of Theo, hasn’t been for a long time, but the sensation is new and strange and Theo’s touch is light enough to make Liam want to tip his head even further, give him more room to send unfamiliar little shivers along his skin. He resists, because he still has some dignity left, but the desire is there and strong and unignorable.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Theo says, low and almost awed. Liam thinks maybe he didn’t fully realize it until now. “I won’t.”
“I know,” Liam says, and Theo lifts his head to meet Liam’s eyes. He holds his gaze for one second, two, before he gives a tiny nod and withdraws his hand, claws tucked away in a heartbeat.
Liam tilts his chin back down, feeling suddenly awkward as the heaviness of the moment dissipates. He’s glad—more than glad—that he got through to Theo even a little bit, but he hadn’t exactly been planning to have this conversation tonight or ever, really, and he doesn’t quite know where to go from here.
He knows, in the back of his mind where he shoves all his half-formed thoughts to reside until he’s ready to deal with them, where he wants to go from here, but he just barely managed to convince Theo that he trusts him, so he highly doubts Theo is ready to accept any kind of overtures in that department. He files the sense memory of Theo’s mouth and claws against his skin away in that same back corner to be revisited at some later date and nods, decisive.
“Ready to go?” he asks, deliberately light. Theo shakes his head, a small laugh falling from his lips, and Liam can’t help but smile in return.
“You’re the one who made me pull over to have a talk about feelings,” Theo reminds him, mock-disgusted, and reaches down to shift gears.
“Yeah, well,” Liam says, and doesn’t follow it up with anything. This isn’t the end of the conversation, he knows; he still has to convince Theo, really convince him, that he didn’t deserve what had happened to him underground, still has to find a way to get Stiles off his case for good, still has to tell Scott that, no, Theo doesn’t know he’s part of the pack, so Scott should really do something to change that.
And he really, really has to find a way to destroy Kira’s sword once and for all, so neither Stiles nor anybody else can even consider sending Theo back to that nightmarish hellscape.
He’ll save a piece, though, he decides, as Theo pulls back onto the street and flicks his blinker on to take the next left. Just one, so Theo will have it, so he can keep it or hide it or destroy it, so he can know with absolute certainty that it can never be used against him again.
For now, though, this is enough: the way Theo is infinitesimally more settled than he had been after the meeting. This is enough: the fading tingling sensation along the side of his neck, where Theo’s sharp, capable, dangerous claws had brushed along his skin so delicately Liam can’t describe it as anything but reverent.
This is enough: Theo next to him, knowing Liam trusts him, a step closer to believing he deserves it. Theo next to him, period, like he has been since the war.
Theo, glancing over at him, sensing his attention. He smiles, small, helpless, and Theo’s lips twitch up in response before he returns his attention to driving.
It’s enough. For now, it’s enough.