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The wind whistled through Theo's handmade windchimes, the small bones and metal pieces clinking together as the air flowed through them. It was windier than normal today, something that usually indicated that a storm was coming, and Theo was hard at work preparing his garden for whatever nature had in store. He covered the herbs first, then the vegetables and fruits, and then the speciality plants. His new wolfsbane sprout was coming along nicely, the little flower sticking up out of the dirt. He already had several wolfsbane plants, but he'd found this one on the side of the road the other day and couldn't help but rescue it before a car ran over it or someone stepped on it.
He pulled a couple of sprigs off of his thyme plants and placed them in his basket before he draped the blanket over them, pinning the fabric down with a few heavy rocks to hopefully protect the plants from the heavy wind. With a light huff, he pushed himself up and began walking back to his little house, content to start making dinner.
House was definitely a word for the place in lived in, but another word that described it pretty well was 'hut'. At least, that's what his neighbors called it. The wooden roof was made entirely by hand, along with the walls and the furniture and most of the belongings inside. He'd had some help from one of the nearby supernaturals, a spark named Stiles that was truly the bane of Theo's existence, but talented. He had a particular talent for protection spells and had helped Theo cast one around his little home, a spell to ward off any unwanted intruders.
The blistering wind slammed the door shut behind him and he curled his lip up in annoyance before he adjusted the door, making sure the gust hadn't damaged the wooden slab. Thankfully it hadn't, otherwise that would've been a bitch to replace.
With his basket of herbs hanging from the crook of his arm, he made his way into the kitchen and ducked underneath the flowers and herbs that were hanging from his ceiling to dry. It was easier to gather the items for his spells himself, preferring it too. He was able to get the purest of ingredients if he grew the plants himself instead of relying on the purveyors nearby. The witches in Beacon Hills were weird, to say the least. They always tried to cling onto him and visit him and make friends with him, but he had absolutely no interest in any of them. He was perfectly content to stay in his little hut in the woods, living by himself with nobody to bother him.
Of course, the universe had a sense of humor because as soon as he thought about how much he enjoyed his blissful solitude, he heard a soft knock on his door. He turned to look towards it, confusion written plainly across his face, before he set his basket down onto the counter nearby. The wooden floors creaked slightly as he walked towards the door and then opened it just a crack, his eyes wary as he looked out at the figure. It was a boy, probably not too much older or younger than him. He seemed... Stressed. His nails were picked raw and he was bouncing up and down slightly with nerves, his eyes flicking around his surroundings. Theo stared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, before he spoke.
"What do you want?"
The boy immediately jolted about a foot in the air and Theo almost had the urge to laugh at the ridiculousness of the action. He reined it in though, curious as to what the answer would be.
"You're Theo Raeken, right? The Theo Raeken? The Wicked Witch of the Woods?"
Theo's eye twitched at the unfortunately familiar nickname and he grit his teeth, his hand clenching against the doorway.
"Again, I reiterate. What do you want? " Theo asked, his patience wearing thin.
Apparently possessing a shred of common decency, the as-of-yet unknown boy looked somewhat ashamed before he spoke again in a soft, tentative voice.
"I was... Well, I... I was wondering if you might be able to make me a spell," he said, his eyes lifting up slowly.
Every bit of the boy’s body language from the new curl of his shoulders and semi-bowed head spoke of an inherent submission and lack of aggression. The more he kept scrutinizing the person across from him for any sign of malice, the less he found. It was just a common person who had come to purchase a potion, not a reason to raise any alarms or be discourteous. He could deal with one customer before he settled down for the storm.
"Well, first of all, I can't make you a spell, but I can make you a potion. Within reason, of course," he replied, opening up his door to the boy. He watched as the slightly shorter figure walked into his front room and shivered, his thin sweater not doing much to protect him from the cold.
"I need something to help with my anger," he said quietly, his voice trembling at the word 'anger'. Theo looked him up and down curiously and walked around him, his gaze assessing and scrutinizing. There was something... Different about the boy in front of him, but he couldn't put a finger on what it was.
"Like a mood stabilizer? Don't they made regular medicine for that?" Theo asked. The boy tensed at the question and nodded, the movement jerky and uncomfortable.
"They don't... They don't work for me anymore. I... I went through something a while ago and now the medicines don't work on me."
Theo stared across at him and narrowed his eyes. Something happened and now human medicine didn't work.
"Something happened? Can you elaborate?"
He stiffened at the question and bit his lip before his eyes lifted to look over at Theo nervously, like he'd never spoken about this to anyone before.
"My friend Scott, he... I was in danger and he... He saved me, but.. While saving me, he bit me and now I'm..." He turned his eyes down and then clenched them shut as he tried to concentrate. Theo followed his gaze to his hands and watched as five claws began to extend from the nailbeds, his nails turning black and sharp. His eyes widened as he stared at the boy and a single word came to his mind.
Werewolf.
There was a bit of an unspoken rule that different supernatural creatures keep to themselves, the different little factions occasionally volatile. Most of them were relatively alright, but the one species that almost always were the instigators of trouble were the werewolves. The combination of sheer, unbridled power combined with a short, explosive temper was a deadly combination on the best of days, an absolute nightmare on the worst. Theo had met his fair share of wolves over the years, most of them being prickly and stupid, but the boy standing in front of him seemed different somehow. He didn't seem like someone who would fly off the handle at the smallest inconvenience, but then again, he didn't really know him all that well.
"A werewolf?" Theo finished, his eyes sharp and focused on the person in front of him. The other boy nodded jerkily and looked down at the floor in shame.
"I already had problems with my anger before... Everything, but now it's all just... It's a lot and I just need some help. Scott has tried, my brother has tried, but nothing helps. I tried to find an anchor, but I can't and I just... I'm at my last resort," he said, his head turning up to look at Theo earnestly.
"Please help me."
The earnest, honest plea made Theo stiffen and his eyes widened by a hair, his entire being taken aback by the words and the sheer need radiating off of the wolf. He usually would have just shooed him off, maybe directed him to Stiles or one of the other witches nearby, but something about the boy was.. Special.
"How about you start with your name?" Theo said as he walked over to his desk which sat beneath a massive wall of premade potions and vials of ingredients. He sat down on the wooden stool and began to sort through some herbs that were sitting on his desk. There was some awkward shuffling behind him before the boy finally answered.
"Liam. Liam Dunbar."
The name was more than a little familiar and had his brows ever so slightly crawling up his forehead. Curiously, he looked Liam up and down. He matched the descriptions well enough and seemed the right age. Eyes slightly alight, he turned towards the werewolf, one hand flat on his desk while the other sat on his hip.
"Liam Dunbar, like the little brother of Isaac Lahey? The one that's a lacrosse prodigy?"
The wolf’s face turned a bright red at the words and he shakily nodded, his teeth digging into his bottom lip briefly. "I don't know about prodigy , but I'm okay."
"Not according to your brother.” With a soft snort, Theo turned back to his ingredients, pulling out a tiny rose branch from a glass jar. “He raves about you every time he gets a chance."
There were glimpses of curiosity in Liam’s bright eyes as he carefully sat down on the couch and watched. To Theo, mixing potions wasn’t new, but for someone who had just been brought into the supernatural world, it probably looked like proper magic. Which, yes, it was, but to him it was just a normal day.
"How do you know Issa-” Liam shook his head as he stammered over a syllable. “I mean Isaac?"
Theo let out a soft hum as he plucked a few thorns off of the stem and dropped them into an empty jar.
"He's dating my neighbor. The two of them are suited for each other, both annoying as fuck. He's good at lifting stuff though, he helped me with my back shed."
The beta seemed to relax against the cushions, briefly looking down at them with the same sort of curious wonder. It had Theo’s chest puffing up a little with pride, the cushions handmade similarly to everything else in the little cabin.
"Yeah, Stiles is the emissary for Scott, my friend's, pack. He's cool once you get to know him. He keeps wanting me to call him Uncle Stiles though," Liam replied, his nose scrunching up slightly. The words caused Theo to chuckle and he finished plucking the thorns off of the dried plant, setting the rest of it aside for later.
"Yeah, that sounds like him. Irritating, loud, nonsensical."
He swirled the thorns around in the container, counting to five and then reversing direction. At the next count of five, he turned to look back at Liam, his hand continuing to casually swirl the bottle back in the other direction.
"You're nineteen, right? Need to make sure I have enough thorns."
Liam paused for a second, his eyes wandering down to the bottle, before nodding.
"Yeah, turned nineteen a couple of weeks ago."
With a matching nod that was twice the speed and half the duration, Theo turned around again. He set the bottle back down onto the surface of the desk, hesitating for a singular second to make sure it wouldn’t tip before he pulled out a vial of a shimmery blue liquid about the size of his middle finger.
"So, tell me about your anger.”
Liam's body stiffened at the question, and Theo started to mentally kick himself in the shins. Maybe it was a little presumptuous, but the kid had come knocking on his door out of the blue, and there were many different types of anger. The bases for potions that dealt with emotions were much the same by category, but the different flavors so to speak of the emotions were what defined how targeted he could make something. Knowing exactly what sort the werewolf was trying to quell meant he could make something all the more effective for him.
“Did it start getting bad when you were turned?" he asked, trying for something of a softer tone to encourage the younger supernatural.
While he was visibly still tense, there was a heaviness in Liam’s breathing and how his brows were furrowed that said he was trying to figure out how much he should reveal. Being the less than patient person that he was, Theo was inclined to push and poke, needing the answer before he did much more to the potion.
But for once, he simply sat in the silence, waiting and mostly content with it.
"I…” Liam’s fingers wrapped around themselves in a truly painful looking way as he fidgeted. “I got diagnosed with an anger disorder when I was younger and I managed it with medicine, but after I got turned, none of it worked anymore. It was like my body metabolized it too fast for it to work."
For a teenager, his voice was relatively soothing, if Theo was being honest. And the way he phrased things, the nervousness in each word as if he expected perceptions of him to change with each one, was a sorrowful sort of endearing.
He poured the shimmery liquid into the bottle and then had moved on to a sprig of lavender. Carefully, he slid his fingers across the stem, removing all of the petals in one smooth movement, and let them fall into the jar, the little purple flowers mixing in with the blue liquid and the rose thorns.
"I've heard of that before. It takes some adjustment, especially right when you're newly bitten."
"Yeah, it's been... It's been rough. My mom still doesn't know, I haven't been able to tell her. I finally told my best friend, and he was cool about it, but telling my mom is scarier. I just... I don't know what she'll do or how she'll respond. I don't want her to look at me like I'm some kind of monster, you know? I mean, I know I'm a werewolf and that I kind of turn into a monster on the full moons, but... Yeah, you know."
As he pulled out a bag of handpicked chamomile petals and leaves, Theo couldn't help but chuckle.
"Can't say I know exactly how you feel, but I know how scary it is to be different," he said as he began to slowly grind up the chamomile leaves and flowers.
He wasn't lying, he did know how difficult it was. When his powers began to manifest, his parents had been absolutely disgusted with him. The only person who ever accepted him and loved him was his sister, Tara, and when she died in a freak accident, he had nobody. No one. His parents blamed him for her death, spread rumors around town that he'd been the one that killed her, and that was what caused him to run away from home at fourteen and never look back.
"It feels really isolating. Like you don't know if you are a monster or not," he said quietly, musing out loud as he focused on pouring the exact amount of now-powdered chamomile into the jar.
Behind him, Liam was staring at his back, eyes wide with understanding. The werewolf nodded and turned his eyes back down to his feet.
“Yeah, exactly."
It took a few more minutes — maybe ten or maybe twenty, he had a tendency to lose track of time when he worked — before Theo was finished. He added some Valerian root, two freshly ground vanilla beans, and a heavy helping of dandelion amongst a few other ingredients to the vial, stirring it as he went.
When the last bits of plant matter dissolved, he stood up and gave it a few last swirls, double checking how the mixture moved. It looked textbook enough that he nodded, satisfied that ought to do the job.
"One small sip a day is all you need. It tastes like ass, but it'll help.” He turned and held the relatively large jar out to the werewolf. “You'll need another dose in a couple of months, so just head back over here when you run out," he continued, leaning back against his desk.
Liam reached forward and took the jar gingerly, cradling it carefully so that he wouldn't drop it accidentally. He stared down at it with wide eyes and then turned his gaze up to look at Theo. The expression on his face was so damn earnest and it made Theo's heart skip a fucking beat.
"Thank you, I... I really appreciate it," he said. His eyes widened after a second and he fumbled in his pocket for a moment before he pulled out his wallet. Theo waved his hand when the item was pulled out and, with a little spark of light, the object was back in Liam's pocket.
"Don't worry about it. Consider it a trade, you can tell your brother that he still owes me the money for that stamina potion he ordered for the week-long sex session he wanted to try with Stiles."
The werewolf’s nose wrinkled immediately and his face twisted with disgust, the sight of it somewhat... Cute.
"I'll try to never think about that mental image again, but... Thank you, Theo. Really ."
The witch stared up at Liam and their eyes met solidly for the first time. It was weird, but in an oddly wonderful way. Looking into those bright blue eyes, it almost felt like Theo was taking a breath of air after being trapped underwater, like he could finally breathe. His heart stuttered again and he didn't know how long they stared at each other before he tore his gaze away and walked towards the door, holding it open for Liam.
"I'll see you around, Little Wolf."