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Theo is two knuckles deep in Liam’s upper back. Digs for gold. Or for what is left of it, shrapnel. They’ve already burned out the wolfsbane, but judging from the sweat on Liam’s neck, it still hurts like hell. He is holding himself together well, though; only hissed at Theo once, when he dug through the first semi-healed layer of muscle fibre underneath Liam’s left shoulder blade.
„I think my finger’s broken, too“, Liam pants now. Holds up his hand to prove a point, and Theo can feel the movement around his own fingertip. He grimaces. Bites away all the mean things he has on his tongue, things like: your fault, should’ve known better, and decides that now is not the time. Sucks the inside of his cheek between his molars. Braces his free hand against Liam’s back to hold him still. Dark veins snake up his arm, neither of them mentions it.
„You’ve had worse.“ His claw meets bone and Liam breathes in through his teeth. Theo feels it in his palm. „Sorry.“ He needs a few more moments to finally get a hold of the last part of the broken bullet case. Cuts his own fingertip open on it, but it comes out as a glittering splinter between his claws. „Alright.“ He reaches over Liam’s shoulder, holds the shrapnel under his nose, then flicks it into the shrubs. Pats Liam on the shoulder with a bloody hand. „That’s it.“ He wipes his fingers on his jeans and starts to peel away the red half-moons under his fingernails. „Well done.“
Liam deflates. „Thanks“, he says, „you too.“ With a low groan, he carefully stretches his arms, flexes the muscles in his back. „Five stars for the surgeon, 10/10 would recommend.“ He moves his head from left to right, as if to test if his body is still working the way it’s supposed to. „Fucking hell.“
„You alright?“, Theo asks. His hands are sticky. Liam doesn’t look alright: dried blood is glued into the hair behind his ear, one collarbone is bruised a greenish black, his back and shoulders are a red mess. He is alive, though. And he looks pissed. Theo can’t help but bite back a grin. A weird, animalistic pride lingers behind his teeth, and it wants out.
„I’m good“, Liam replies, but before he can elaborate, they both cringe at the sound of his muscles knitting themselves back together. „Goddamnit“, Liam mutters. He cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of his mutilated shoulder. „Didn’t think it would go that deep.“
Theo shoots him a glance. „That happens when you try catching military ammunition with your shoulder, idiot.“ It’s meant to sound sarcastic, but it doesn’t, not quite.
Liam shoots him a funny look. „Shut up.“ With a groan, he turns fully back around to face him. A strand of hair falls in his eyes. „It would’ve hit you in the face otherwise.“
Theo grimaces at that. Tries not to think of the way Liam had collided with him when the bullet hit him in the back. „That would’ve sucked.“ Of how he went down, lights out and all. Theo’d almost thought that was it, back there. He feels his eyebrows knitting together.
Liam flicks a pebble at him. „You’re doing the worry-face again.“
„I’m not“, Theo throws the pebble back. But his eyes linger on Liam’s bloodstained neck and shoulder for a moment. „It was a close call, though.“
Liam just shrugs. „You didn’t get hit, mission accomplished.“ The reply comes quick, slips from Liam’s lips like it’s the most normal thing to say, like he doesn’t even want it to mean anything. He has this tender look in his eyes, and Theo has to swallow around the sudden honesty that hangs in the air between them.
He opens his mouth, closes it again, can’t conjure up any words to wiggle himself out of it. Maybe because Liam means it this time, really means it, and doesn’t mean the other thing, I’m not dying for you. Theo has no clue what to do with that. So he stares at his hands, follows the bloodstains in the lines of his palms like they’re a map. Looks back at Liam. „You promised you wouldn’t“, he tries. Stumbles over the words, though. They had never talked about that moment in the elevator, not really. He’d always kind of taken it as that, as a promise, but never asked for confirmation.
Now it’s Liam who looks surprised. „Huh“, he makes. Then bumps their knees together. „Okay. But so did you.“ They exchange a gaze. Theo looks away first. „No dying, either of us“, Liam emphasises, „We’ll make it through, and then this place can kiss our asses.“ He holds up his pinkie. „Promise?“
Theo snorts. „Promise.“ It comes out softer than he wants, despite the condescending half-smile that he feels tugging at his lips. He hooks their fingers together. Take a bullet for a boy, take it out, do it all again. Last week, it’s been Theo who’s had a bullet in his thigh, wolfsbane and all; Liam had to burn it out. „Fuck this place.“
The bitterness is audible, apparently, because Liam lets out a deep sigh. „Yeah.“ He unhooks their fingers, but lets his hand linger on Theo’s thigh. „We could just–“, he makes a vague gesture into the nothingness before them and leans back onto his elbows with a deep sigh, „–leave, you know?“ He lets his head fall back to shake the hair out of his face. The sun draws shadows on the line of his throat.
„We?“, Theo repeats. The word feels like gasoline under his tongue.
Liam’s eyes flutter shut and he lowers himself onto his back. „Yeah, why not?“ Between his outstretched hands, the grass sways in the wind. „Run away together, all romantic and shit.“ Theo lets his eyes follow the sharp edges of the blades from their tips down to the roots, where they disappear between the sensitive skin of Liam’s fingers. Together. He holds onto the word like they’re a charm.
„And go where, exactly?“, he asks. The sunlight paints golden specks on Liam’s jaw, on his cheeks, and Theo’s hands twitch with the non-permission to touch, to follow the light with his fingertips. He rolls onto his back, lets his head drop into the grass next to Liam’s and stares up into the blue above them instead. Tries to convince himself that the clouds are just as interesting as the face of the boy besides him.
Liam lifts a long culm in the air, swirls it around between his fingers. „Maine, maybe.“ He turns to Theo with a lopsided grin and tips it against his forehead. Traces the shape of Theo’s left eyebrow with it. „Or Washington.“ Theo closes his eyes. The weed moves further across his face, lightly, over his cheek bone, his chin, hovers on the corner of his mouth for a moment –„Or just Reno, I don’t care anymore.“– and flutters on. Something in Theo’s stomach does the same. „Just out of here.“
„Maine sounds good“, Theo says. His voice is hoarse. „Sky’s the limit, no?“
Liam huffs out a raspy laugh. „Yup.“ He lets the weed dance over Theo’s neck. „But Maine’s on the other side of the country.“
It tickles. Theo doesn’t care. „Malia made it to France.“ He is afraid that the moment will pass once he opens his eyes. That the tickle will disappear as soon as he acknowledges its presence.
The culm shivers as Liam shifts positions next to him. „Malia has a rich dad, though.“ His voice is closer now, lower. Theo can feel warm breath on his cheek, and he tries with all his might to keep his eyes closed, his breath controlled. Don’t move, he tells himself. Don’t move or the beautiful boy will vanish. The beautiful boy who smells like blood and sweat and spring and new beginnings.
„I have a truck“, Theo breathes into the sun-specked orange behind his eyelids.
„And I don’t even have a license.“, the orange says back. „You’d have to drive the whole way on your own.“ Featherlight touch on the skin between Theo’s jaw and ear. „Plus, it would take ages.“
„We have time.“
Liam hums in agreement. „Maine, then.“ The culm disappears. Is replaced by a callused palm. Warm.
Theo breathes in through his mouth. „What are you doing?“
„Making a map.“ The answer comes quick, lightly. Easily. And Theo wants to grab Liam by the shoulders and shake him and shout this magic is fragile, don’t you dare act all invincible, but there’s a smile beneath Liam’s words, something bright, and so Theo says nothing, instead just forces himself to keep his breathing steady. His heart does a weird little thing, something that feels like dandelions and too much wind, and Liam’s fingers trace his nose, his eyelids, his cheekbone. Make Theo feel like he’s the fragile thing. He’s glad his eyes are closed, because the lump in his throat tastes an awful lot like salt. He wants to open his mouth, shoot Liam a witty retort, something like A map to hell, or what?, but it’s not funny, and his lips aren’t working anyway, so he just breathes out „Why?“
Liam is even closer now. His answer not much more than warm air on Theo’s lips. „I wanna figure you out.“ A hand on Theo’s jaw. Goosebumps on his arms. „Is that okay?“
The question is simple, but Theo’s voice still shakes when he answers: „Yeah.“ Electricity in the air between them. Static under Theo’s skin. All the unsaid things from weeks prior hum and sing and vibrate around them with such force that it’s almost deafening.
Liam breathes out. „Can I…?“
Theo’s heart is in his shoulders. He nods. Once. Anticipation shoots up his body in an electric jolt. He can hear his own pulse thrumming in his head.
Liam breathes in. Dives. Casts lightning where he lands.
His lips are warm. Chapped, but oh so soft. He moves gently, of course he does, and Theo melts into it. Where their bodies meet, he feels something blossom. Liam’s hands slide up Theo’s neck, Theo’s are in Liam’s hair. He doesn’t know how they got there. His face is framed by Liam’s palms, gentle, gentle. Fragile thing. Breathing only doable in tandem, moving only as an entity. Liam breathes out, Theo breathes him in. It feels strange to touch, to be touched like this, all soft and honest, without teeth and fists. The warmth is almost too much. Clinging to it feels like melting.
Theo only realises that he’s crying, when Liam wipes the tears from his temples.
„What’s wrong?“ His voice tender, his hands steady.
Theo scrunches up his nose. „Nothing.“ Don’t let go. You’re so warm and I’ve never been that close to a fire. He breathes in. Blinks against Liam’s light. Stares, probably. „It’s just…“ His voice doesn’t do what he wants it to do, so he just lets his blood-stained hand slide down from Liam’s hair to his cheek, circles his thumb over Liam’s lower lip and lets his own lips follow. Just briefly. Just once more.
Liam’s eyes smile down at him. Theo doesn’t know what to do with his hands anymore.
„It’s what?“, Liam asks.
„Mh“, Theo makes, and Liam touches their foreheads together. Strands of his hair fall into Theo’s eyes. Speaking is hard, like that. „I just didn’t think–“ He needs a moment before he continues. Swallows around the lump in his throat, doesn’t know how to say it, says it anyways: „I didn’t think you’d want this, too.“ The confession sits heavy. His own voice feels like sandpaper on his tongue.
Something around Liam’s eyes changes. He draws away, but only so much that he can scan Theo’s face. His hair is still in Theo’s eyes. „I took a bullet for you, Raeken“, he says. It sounds more fond than mocking. „Don’t act all surprised.“
Theo’s lips curl upwards without his permission. He closes his eyes. „That’s different.“
„It’s really not.“ Liam shifts into a different position, balances his bodyweight on Theo’s chest for a moment. „Feels different, but it’s the same thing.“ The confidence in his voice is almost infectious. Theo opens his mouth to argue, manages a half-hearted „debatable.“ The sun paints orange patterns in his eyelids.
„You just need practice with gentle things“, Liam says.
Theo blinks. Gentle things. It sounds so simple when Liam says it. Like it’s nothing you could burn your fingers on. Something old and mean stirs behind his teeth, something that wants to argue, that doesn’t want easy, familiar throb, something that wants out. Says the boy with anger issues. Learned behaviour, automatic at this point: What do you know of gentle things? Spitting fire can be so easy. Biting it back is much harder, because oh, here it is again, that old familiar feeling: Watch something grow, small and soft and fragile, hold in your palm – and then squeeze, just to see what happens, just to see if it will stay alive this time. Theo doesn’t really know how to keep his hands from cramping in moments like these.
But he tries.
Because something had shifted, a few months ago: It had been a stressful night, blood on Melissas couch, Deaton with a furrowed forehead, Corey and Liam both half-high on pain-killers, bullet holes in everyones’ clothes, the usual stuff. Everyone on edge, everyone a little too tired, so when Scott asked Theo about his broken shoulder, Theo spat back a particularly nasty comment. Scott had just shrugged, too deflated to fight him about it, but Stiles laid bloodshot eyes on Theo, head tilted back in the armchair he was slumped in, almost bored, and said that thing that Theo would roll around in his head for weeks to come: Being mean is easy when all the damage is already done, huh? Translates to: Once a fuck-up, always a fuck-up.
You can’t make worse what has been killed by your hands.
No-one will forgive you.
It had hurt. A lot, actually, although Theo would never admit that out loud.
Before that night, the terrible words had slipped out so easily, years of practice made it feel natural, and unlearning is a tedious endeavour. So Theo had never tried. He thought he’d bargain his way out of Beacon Hills eventually, fuck off to the other side of the country, start over somewhere new, somewhere nobody knows anything about werewolves and chimeras or evil scientists or about Tara Raeken. Burn bridges. Build himself a new life, make a friend or two, maybe, if he manages to keep up the act of being… well, not Theo Raeken. Keep ticking off some sort of fucked up bucket list, because making people dislike him is easier than making amends, even after coming back from underground.
The un-noble goal of ending up completely alone was still better than floating around aimlessly. He knew how it would end. Best case: hated by everyone. Worst case: remembered by no-one.
But when he had repeated Stiles’ words to Liam, weeks later, Liam had only frowned, shrugged it away like it was nothing and said: „Not everything is made of glass, you know?“ Theo hadn’t understood what he meant, so Liam had grown a little red in the face, wrung his hands through the air and eventually said to the ceiling: „Things can grow back together if you let them. But you start stomping every time you see a patch of grass or a… fucking flower or some shit. You don’t have to do that all the time.“
So now, Theo doesn’t stomp. He holds this small fragile living thing called gentleness between his bloody fingers, takes a deep breath and gazes up at that beautiful boy above him. His voice is low when he answers, comes out all wrong, no bite, no bark: „I’m practicing.“
Liam sucks his lower lip between his teeth. „No, I know“, he says, „I know you are. I’ve seen you with Gabe.“
The boy’s name sends a dull phantom pain up Theo’s forearm. He shoots Liam a warning glance, but Liam continues: „You’re good at doing gentle things, that’s not what I meant“, he rolls off of Theo and slumps back into the grass. Their shoulders slot together, arms warm against each other, and when Liam turns his face to Theo, he has to blink the sun out of his lashes. „You really are. But it doesn’t have to involve bullets every single time, you know?“ He looks strangely soft around the edges now, eyes even bluer than usual. „And I don’t mind it, by the way. The practicing.“
Theo looks back. Starts staring again, because he can’t fucking help it. „No?“, he asks.
„No.“ Liam shoves his shoulder against Theo’s. „I’ll practice with you, if you want.“
He says it so casually that Theo almost starts to cry again. He bites his tongue in an effort of choking it down.
Liam notices. He reaches over and trails a thumb over Theo’s cheekbone, gently, gently. Theo can’t help but notice how exposed he feels, deer in headlights. It’s odd, being touched like that, he thinks. Almost like he expects the fingertips to turn into claws every moment now, and if it was anyone but Liam, he would probably roll away, push himself onto his feet and walk away without ever turning back. But it is Liam. And he’s still warm and strong and vibrant, like he’s always been. And maybe, Theo thinks, maybe Liam is right: Maybe it doesn't matter that claws and fingertips are almost the same thing – as long as they’re both his.
So Theo touches back. „I want“, he says. He means it.