Work Text:
Liam:
Come round.
As soon as Theo got that message he scrambled from the back seat of his car to the front, immediately starting driving. Not because he cared or anything. Definitely not. The hunters might be back, and that’s why he needed to rush.
He arrived at the house in record time, and rang the bell. Surprisingly, Liam’s mom opened the door; Theo hadn’t expected her to be home.
“Hi Theo.” she smiled warmly.
“Hi Jenna.” he returned the smile.
“Liam’s upstairs if you want to head on up.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Theo headed up the stairs, hearing Liam’s heart hammering more than usual. When he arrived at Liam’s bedroom door, he stopped.
Should he knock? He’d never knocked before, but then Liam’s door had never been shut before.
Before he could make a decision, the door swung open, revealing Liam, who was breathing heavily. He stormed back into his room, and buried himself underneath the covers of his bed.
Ok, this was bad. Liam never ignored Theo. And he didn’t know what to do. Not that he’d ever admit that of course, he’d got very good at improvising during his time with the dread doctors.
The sharp stench of anger and pain wafting from the lump on the bed was almost unbearable; Theo had rarely smelt any chemosignals that strong. Something was seriously wrong.
And Theo was definitely worried now.
What was he supposed to do?
Tentatively, he stepped into the room, taking the seat on the bed and placing a hand on the Liam-shaped lump.
“Liam? What’s wrong?”
An angry grunt answered him.
“Hey, c’mon, tell me.”
The grunt became a sob and, hold on…. oh.
Liam was crying.
Why was Liam crying?
Liam never cried.
“Woah, Liam, hey. What’s going on?”
The smaller boy just curled up into a ball under the covers.
Right then, time for drastic measures.
Theo grabbed the dark green duvet and pulled. Liam snarled and tried to fight back, but Theo kept yanking in a way that was reminiscent of the way Scott had once done, though that seemed like a lifetime ago.
Liam to the floor in a tussle of blankets, but, instead of getting back up like he usually would, he stayed in a heap, staring at the carpet. Theo knelt down in front of him, attempting eye contact.
“What’s going on?”
The broken look that met him made Theo’s heart break.
“You’re homeless.”
Oh.
Oh shit.
How did Liam know that? Nobody knew that. He’d kept the secret pretty well, if he did say so himself.
“Liam, it’s fine, it’s not a big deal.”
Liam sobbed again. Wrong answer then. Great. Theo had absolutely no clue how to deal with this situation.
“It’s all my fault!” Liam wailed.
What the fuck.
How could him being homeless possibly be Liam’s fault. And why was he so upset about Theo being homeless?
“How could it possibly be your fault?”
Liam stood up now, pacing like his wolf was coming to the surface. Theo watched his chest with trepidation as it began to shake with deep, ragged breaths.
“I brought you back. I forced you to fight with us, for us. You gave us everything while we gave you nothing. None of us even thought about the fact that you’d lost everything. And you say that’s ok! That it’s not my fault! How could that possibly be ok?”
Liam ended his rant to glare at Theo, before shoving him and squeezing himself in the corner between his wardrobe and his wall, knees up to his chest.
This was really, really bad.
Theo knelt down in front of Liam’s shaking body, simultaneously giving him space and some level of comfort.
“Liam. We can talk about this later, but right now you need to breathe, okay?”
The younger boy’s eyes remained glazed over and he gave no sign that he’d even heard Theo’s words. His breaths seemed to quicken, until Theo was sure he was going to faint.
Okay, this was definitely a panic attack.
But how did he fix that?
Theo had only ever seen Liam have a panic attack once, and Mason had been the one to bring him out of it. Except Mason wasn’t here now, and Theo didn’t want to ruin his date with Corey by not being able to handle this.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Theo moved his hand towards Liam, letting him track his movements. He shuffled closer and took Liam’s wrist in a firm grip, bringing his hand closer to his, no, Tara’s heart.
Of course, he knew Liam could hear his heartbeat anyway, but Mason had once told him that Liam needed something to focus on when he got like this.
“Feel that Liam? Just focus on that.”
Theo couldn’t bring himself to ask him to focus on the one thing that had caused so much chaos and pain. Liam’s eyes still flitted around the room, but occasionally drifted over to where his hand was being held over Theo’s chest. In any other situation, he’d make a joke, but his silence only terrified Theo more.
What about a distraction? That could work, right?
“You’ll never guess what happened at the animal clinic today. This morning a hedgehog had babies, and they were so unbelievably tiny. They’re born blind and deaf you know, and with no hair. Then, by this afternoon, they’d already got spines, and they were white! They take a few days to harden, though. And, common misconception, you shouldn’t give them milk ‘cause they’re lactose intolerant.”
As Theo rambled, Liam’s breathing slowly evened out. He inched out of the corner, never losing contact with Theo, and lay his head in his lap. Theo, of course, began carding his fingers through Liam’s hair and kept talking about hedgehogs.
“Baby ones are called hoglets and they’re usually born in litters of four to six. There were five in this one, but we haven’t named them yet. I thought you’d like to help with that.”
Liam sniffled. “Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re moving in with us.”
Theo froze, and now it was his turn to panic. “What?”
Liam nodded, the exhaustion clearly getting to him now. “Mhm. Already asked mom so you can’t argue.”
“Liam, no, I… I can’t.”
All of a sudden, Jenna appeared at the door, like she’d been summoned.
“Oh yes you can. And I’ve already got the spare room ready, so it’s too late to argue. Don’t worry, we can help you customise it later.”
Theo sighed. There was no arguing with Jenna Geyer when she had her mind set on something.
Jenna smiled, partly out of relief. She hadn’t expected it’d be that easy.
“Excellent. I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready to get the stuff out your car.”
Theo looked back down at Liam as she clattered down the stairs.
“On one condition.”
Liam sat up, panic flaring in his eyes again. “What?”
“Say it wasn’t your fault.”
“Oh.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “Liam.”
“Okay, okay, it wasn’t my fault. Happy?”
“Hmmm.”
“What now! You know for someone who loves to act all mysterious, you’re really not very good at it.”
Theo gasped in mock horror. “How dare you!”
Liam laughed. “C’mon, we don’t want to keep my mom waiting, otherwise she’ll break into your car herself.”
“Ugh, fineee.”