Chapter Text
Theo had changed since he was released from purgatory? Hell? Living nightmare? He’s not really sure considering he was not dead , just imprisoned in a hellish nightmare. Theo would say, being the only other Latino kid in his class with asthma and heart problems made him the perfect subject for bullying, he would say that it didn’t bother him because while the other kids were learning to spell their names he could already write his in two languages. He would say losing his best friend at five years old to the new boy in class was fine, he didn’t need friends he still had his older sister and she was the only friend he would need. Theo would say having a heart attack at ten years old and being brought back made him funnier, sure he kept seeing creepy undead doctors around even in his waking moments, and when they said his sister would gladly give up her heart for his, he would have refused if they didn’t tell him how scary dying was..Theo didn’t want to die, he never wanted anyone to die, he just wanted to live.
Theo never believed in a higher power or curses, that shit was for the story books, but death seemed to follow him. Tara died, he technically killed her even if he tried to convince himself it was the dread doctors. He knew her death drove his parents apart, his mom started drinking and his father got violent. Theo knew if he didn’t kill his sister that his mom would have never drank herself to death when he was twelve, he knew that if Tara never died his mom would have never died and then his father, filled with guilt and anger would have never shot himself in the head over dinner with Theo, Theo wouldn’t have witnessed three deaths, his own family all before he got to middle school.
The dread doctors came back for Theo the same time child protective services did, a thirteen year old can’t take care of themselves and no one wanted to take in the poor orphan boy from California just yet, so he was placed in a group home. The dread doctors took him from his bed, experimenting on him, wiping his memory till they deemed him perfect. Theo didn’t know what that meant or what they did to him, until he was sixteen, a nice family adopted him right before his sixteenth birthday a mom, a dad, and a daughter. Theo thought for a minute that he would have a chance at a family again, they seemed nice enough, accepting of Theo even if he didn’t feel like he deserved it and maybe, maybe he didn’t because he killed them too…
The end of summer before sophomore year they were driving back from the bay, they had taken Theo and his foster sister there for Theo’s sixteenth birthday, an early present considering his birthday is at the end of September. The day was perfect, almost too perfect Theo should’ve known but just for a second he let himself hope that he could truly have this, that he deserved it, oh how wrong he was. The Bay Area was a four hour drive away from the neighboring town of Beacon Hills that Theo now lived in, His foster parents were taking the dimly lit back roads to avoid traffic, his foster sister Nadia, was sleeping in the back seat, she was a couple years younger than Theo. Theo couldn’t seem to get comfortable enough to sleep, his body had been aching all day dimming to a throbbing ache in his head and jaws, His foster Father said it was probably his wisdom teeth coming in and that they would make him a dentist appointment when they got back home. Theo shifted in his seat silently cracking his knuckles , he felt like he needed to dig his nails into something to dull the ache in his head and jaw.
The thrum of the engine, the dull whining of the rear axle suspension in the old truck felt glass in Theo’s ears, he gasped in pain grabbing at his ears. “Theodore?” His foster mother questioned turning around to face him, Theo looked up and growled at her , claws catching on the old leather seats as his fangs sliced into his lip as he growled again. The car descended into chaos, the memory was a blur for him these days, the echos of screams and the tires screeching as they drove over the cliff. The truck was crushed, totaled. The fire fighters said it was a miracle Theo survived without any injuries, considering he was the only one that did. He remembers sitting in the back of an ambulance staring at himself in the mirrored wall, watching his eyes turn from silvery blue to a glowing yellow catching the glimpse of a dread doctor behind him, Theo punched the metal plate having disappeared by the time anyone turned around to react to the noise.
Theo spent ten years trapped in the bowels of beacon hills being experimented on by the doctors. He was semi grateful that they changed the top half of his body to match how he had felt inside since he was a small child, he guessed there was small glimpses of hope in hell. The shifts got easier, he learned he wasn’t allowed to be afraid that if he was afraid he would get hurt, caged and chained up like a wild animal. He listened to the people of beacon hills lives go on around him, he wondered if anyone ever looked for him or remembered him. He wondered if the cabin he grew up in was still in the reserve just outside of the Hale property, he wondered if the floorboards were still loose in his and Tara’s room. He wondered if anyone was coming to save him or if he would even make it to his eighteenth birthday.
Theo came back from purgatory a little bit different, he got to relive his own guilt over and over again for six months. He knew everything that ever happened to him was his own fault and that he deserved all of it, so why did Liam save him? Sure Theo could be useful but it’s not like they liked him enough to be friends with him, Theo never had those , not really. The first night he was back in the land of the living he spent in the woods, just trying to find the courage to go into his old house. It was still standing just like he remembered it, pushing open the door he felt like the ghost of Tara was gonna pop out any second and remind Theo he wasn’t really free at all, just to kill him all over again. He dug his claws into his ears squeezing his eyes shut, down there if he felt pain the incident would start all over again, he’d start at the beginning it was the same loop over and over again. Theo dug his claws in so deep the blood oozed out of his ears in thick streams staining his worn jacket that he refused to part with, he just couldn’t, it was the only thing left of what he thought would be his happy family. Maybe that’s the animal part of him, the wolf part that longs for a family, a pack..comfort. He opened his eyes seeing the exact same image infront of him, he shuffled through the house, his broken in converse tapping almost silently against the hard floors as he made his was upstairs to his room, it still smelled like him and Tara, the siblings that were inseparable once upon a time.
He shuffled forward towards the corner of the room , they used to hide their most prized possessions there under the loose floorboards. Theo smiled at the memory, it wasn’t like a ten year old and thirteen year old had much in the ways of prized possessions, mostly just Theo’s finger skateboards and Tara’s stuffed animal. Theo swore up and down he was gonna be a professional skateboarder when he got older, he skated all the way up until the car accident. It wasn’t like the dread doctors cared much for his hobbies or social development, he missed a good chuck of school too.
Theo used his claws to lift the floorboards, his stuff was gone probably lost long before he ever had to leave this place but sitting there waiting was Tara’s stuffed coyote that looked more like a wolf. Theo smiled at the irony, “Hey little coywolf, guess us hybrids have to stick together huh” Theo whispered pulling out the soft coywolf stuffie. He brushed the dust off of it gently, for something that Tara slept with every night till she was eight , it was still in perfect condition like it was bought yesterday. She got it as a gift for her fifth birthday at the zoo. Theo sat on the floor looking out the window, holding the stuffie that smelled like home close, he pressed his face into the coywolf’s soft squishy head, the moonlight shining into the old room dimmed slightly by the tree line. Theo let his eyes glow golden, it felt better sometimes just to give into what he was , it took alot to pretend to be fully human especially these days where he felt like everything was piling on and he couldn’t breathe because it was crushing him. Theo sniffled. “It’s okay, I’m a coywolf just like you. We can keep each other company” he squeezed the stuffed animal protectively as he made his way outside. He noticed his father’s old ‘87 blue pickup sitting in the driveway still. Theo ran back into the house yellow eyes scanning the counter tops for the keys. He knew it was a long shot when he climbed into the truck with how long it had been sitting untouched, it took a couple times of Theo turning the key and pumping the gas before the trucks engine turned over and on.
Theo laughed in disbelief tossing his back pack in the back seat, smiling at the stuffed animal in the passenger seat. “We did it” he smiled pulling out of the driveway.