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Liam didn’t think it would end like this.
He’d thought Theo was improving. He’d thought Theo was telling the truth, when he said he didn’t want power, when he said he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He thought - he thought -
He didn’t understand the cold gaze that stared down at him, behind a flock of armed hunters, muscular arms folded over his chest, a gun holster at his hip.
“Theo?” Liam knew all of his emotions were broadcast across his expression, broken open and vulnerable in his confusion as he shifted his body in front of Mason and Corey, blue irises flickering from the rifles pointed at them, to the chimera watching them with a half-smirk, eyes blank of any emotion. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Liam’s heart hurt at the lazy, dismissive tone, Theo’s expression almost bored, and Mason’s hand tightened on his elbow. “Monroe gave me a better offer. She promised me a pack, and immunity, if I… help her out a little.”
Corey’s breathing picked up, the scent of panic filling Liam’s nostrils, but the young werewolf could only stare, uncomprehending, at the way Theo’s features contorted into something akin to pity, as condescending as the way he continued, “You didn’t really think I actually care about your pack, did you, Liam? You put me in hell. Why would I be loyal to you?”
Each word felt like claws carving into his ribcage, a lump rising in his throat, his stomach churning with head-pounding nausea.
“I knew it,” Mason spat. “I knew you were fucking lying to us. I’m going to kill you.”
“Very threatening.” Theo’s look was deadpan. “Now, as nice as this chat was-“
A hand grabbed the back of Liam’s grey hoodie, and the three of them tumbled to the ground, flurries of bullets echoing off the surrounding pine trees right as Corey pulled them into the realm of invisibility, the world wavering like a mirage around them as the other chimera hissed, “Get up, get up,” under his breath over the sound of gunshots.
Stumbling to their feet, and grasping onto some part of Corey with one hand, the trio ran.
They ran, until the edges of the preserve faded into worn buildings and quiet streets, panting for air, muscles protesting with every limping movement, Liam’s legs wobbling, buckling under his weight, knees hitting the ground hard enough to bruise.
“ Fuck ,” Mason wheezed out.
Liam stared at the cracked concrete beneath his body.
~
Scott’s house was chaos.
“I told you, didn’t I?” Stiles shouted at Scott. “I fucking told you not to trust him, and now look where we are!”
The alpha himself had to leave to answer his phone, at one point, citing that it was from Deaton, about the situation with Monroe, and if it was possible, he looked even more resigned when he returned, taking the verbal abuse with a bowed head and a small grimace.
Liam sat on the ground, where he’d curled up on his arrival and refused to move thereafter, bundled into an embrace between Lydia and Melissa McCall with a navy blue blanket tucked over his shoulders.
“It wasn’t Scott’s fault.” The crags of Chris Argent’s expression were cold and weary, his hand rubbing over his grey-speckled beard. “We all thought he changed. Especially since -“
He cut himself off and snatched a furtive glance at the young werewolf with his face buried into Lydia’s shoulder, the young woman stroking down his back with a few soothing murmurs, and the former hunter let out a long sigh. “I thought the kid might have some good left in him.”
“We never should have brought him back,” Corey said from his place on the couch, staring at his hands, even as his boyfriend gently wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “This never would have happened if we just - if we just -“
Alec looked almost as confused and despondent as Liam, his quiet murmur of, “I thought Theo was nice,” only eliciting a furious snarl from Malia, who paced the living room, eyes flashing an unnatural, electric blue.
“I’ll kill him.” She sounded dead serious, her extended claws cutting into the skin of her palms. “I’ll kill him and make him wish we left him in the skinwalker prison.”
With the high tornado of emotions, and the snap of tension like firecrackers, hot and bitter and sour and ashy, nobody heard Liam’s barely audible, wavering, “I don’t understand,” until Scott’s entire back went stiff, his face contorting with pain as he turned to his first beta and knelt in front of him.
“There isn’t anything to understand, Liam.” The alpha’s jaw tensed when the young werewolf peeked out of Lydia’s embrace, flushed cheeks shining with tears. “Theo… he made his choice. It’s not your fault.”
He only got a wobbling lower lip in response, and, gently, Scott pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry, Liam. I’m so sorry.”
~
As soon as Theo made it back to his truck, he called Scott.
The alpha - once he picked up - didn’t speak for a moment, before picking his words carefully enough that Theo took the signal to stay quiet.
“Hey, Deaton. “
Code: I’m with the pack. “Just give me a second -“
Footsteps echoed through the microphone, followed by the slamming of a door, the click of a lock. “Okay. I’m in my room, it’s soundproof.”
“Keep your fucking puppies away from the preserve,” Theo finally snarled into his phone. He clutched the leather of his steering wheel so tight he thought it might break under his grip, his stolen heart still pounding against his chest as he struggled to keep his breathing under control. “Do you know what kind of bullshit I had to make up to explain why they escaped? They could have died.”
“I know.” He sounded so weary, so resigned, and a frustrated sigh ratted through the microphone. “Fuck, Theo, I know.”
Oh.
The pack knew. They told him.
Theo let his eyelids fall shut, and a shaky exhale left his parted lips, squeezing his steering wheel with his free hand, fingers trembling against the fragile remnants of his will. The alpha continued with a nervous, “Theo, maybe I should -“
“Scott.” The chimera managed to keep his voice steady. “You can’t tell them. If you do, all of this will go to waste. Do you understand?”
“I just -“ Scott swallowed audibly, and, softer, almost pained, “Liam isn’t taking it well, Theo.”
Theo knew he wouldn’t. That was why Scott, Derek, Deaton, and him had constructed their plan the way they did.
He’d been the one to suggest it. Standing around the circular table in Scott’s living room, documents, newspapers, and maps splayed out across the mahogany wood, arms folded over his chest.
“No, Theo,” Scott snapped. “You’re not going in there. Monroe will kill you.”
“Would you rather she kill the rest of your pack?” Theo struggled to keep himself from snarling at the alpha werewolf, fangs and all. “You said it yourself, they have no social hierarchy, except for Monroe, at the top. If I kill her, their structure will collapse.”
“She’s surrounded by guards at all times.” Derek’s voice was quiet, his eyes boring into the chimera in front of him. “You won’t make it out alive.”
“I don’t need to.” Theo’s expression was unyielding, loose strands of dark hair curling at his temples and framing the hard set of his features.
Scott tried to talk him out of it, tried to reason his way around a different plan, but, at the sight of Doctor Deaton’s grim frown, and Derek’s bowed head, lips pursed, the alpha fell back into a nearby chair, resignation and grief filling his scent.
“You’re sure I can’t tell the pack?” he finally asked.
“No.”
Derek was the one to voice his dissent aloud, his head still bowed, displeasure radiating from him like a space heater. “The reaction, if Theo truly betrayed us - they can’t fake that. Monroe would catch onto it instantly.”
Silence.
“The puppies will be upset.” Scott swallowed, hard.
“I know.”
That was the part that hurt Theo the most. Knowing the pain he would cause the younger members of the pack, to Liam -
He dug his nails into the meat of his forearm.
There was no other viable option.
Deaton blew out an exhale.
“Alright, Mr. Raeken. Since you intimately understand how to run an operation like this, we are at your command.”
Theo remembered this, sitting in the driver’s seat of his truck, with Scott at the other end of his phone, fingers curled around the worn leather of his steering wheel.
“Tell Liam -“
He swallowed past the lump in his throat, and, quieter, “Tell him I’m sorry, okay?”
~
“Hey, Liam? You sure you don’t want a turn?” Hesitant, Mason tried to hold out the game controller to the young werewolf beside him, laid out on his stomach, absently picking at the threads of the carpet with his extended claws.
Liam shook his head.
“Your loss,” Alec said through a mouthful of strawberry twizzlers.
Corey napped somewhere on the floor behind Mason, snoring softly, and Derek sat on the couch, scrolling through his phone with one hand, his expression one of perpetual, cold seriousness behind the dark scruff of his short beard.
Nobody acknowledged the subdued atmosphere, the gaping absence in their miniature pack.
Liam hadn’t spoken much in days.
The puppy pack - minus Nolan, since he wasn’t in as much danger, his affiliation with them kept a close secret - basically lived at his house, ever since the war against the hunters had ramped up in intensity, with Derek Hale as their resident bodyguard. Scott had said it was for safety reasons, Alec called it babysitting.
Mason reached out a hand to try and rub Liam’s back, in a futile attempt to be soothing, to which the young beta wolf let out a barely audible, “Don’t,” though he didn’t shift away.
The human let out a sigh.
“Liam. You can’t blame yourself, okay? You didn’t know.“
“That’s just it, Mason.” His voice was low, a little rough with disuse. “I should have, but I didn’t.”
He couldn’t reconcile the Theo he knew, the Theo that drove them to lacrosse practice, the Theo that let him fall asleep in his lap while watching movies with the pack, the Theo whose genuine grin lit up his entire face and crinkled the corners of his eyes, with the Theo who’d looked at him and spoken to him with such vitriol, his features blank of emotion.
On top of that, the older members of the pack had been on edge the entire week. Liam expected to hear about more unidentified bodies, more attacks on nearby packs. Theo was smart, smarter than he should be, he knew their weaknesses, and he was fully capable of killing someone with just a plastic spoon. They should have been scrambling to stay alive.
Instead, there was nothing. Not even so much as a whisper of hunters anywhere near their pack.
It didn’t make sense.
If Theo hated them so much, they would be dead.
So why, then, was he lying in the living room of his house, with Mason and Alec playing video games next to him, his pack safe and sound and even a little bored?
“None of us knew that Theo was lying to us, Liam.” Mason’s mouth tilted into a half-grimaced frown. “It isn’t your fault.”
Everyone always said the same thing.
It wasn’t your fault.
And yet, why did it still feel like it was?
~
Theo cut off his hair.
Or, well, he tried to cut it off, at four in the morning in his run-down motel room, but his hands shook when he picked up the scissors, sharp-edged steel glinting beneath the dim, flickering bathroom light.
Theo looked at himself in the mirror and saw the dark hair he’d never been able to grow out, when he had been with the Dread Doctors, the hair that he’d taken such meticulous care of, even while he’d been living in his truck with nothing to his name, because it was the only thing he ever had any control over. He saw the dark hair that Liam would playfully run his hands through when he wanted to irritate him, the hair that stuck up after he fell asleep at a pack meeting, that he had to tame using his phone camera while the puppy pack bickered in the background.
He tried to cut it off, and he couldn’t.
It was the only reminder he had of the vow he made when he returned from hell.
To survive. To amend for his prior actions. To be good.
Theo had to kill a werewolf, that morning.
Monroe had brought him in the day earlier, and by the time Theo got to him, he was already on his way to death, covered in blood from wolfsbane-infected wounds that wouldn’t heal, hanging limp from the chains that bound his arms above his head.
The werewolf couldn’t even speak when Monroe forcibly lifted his chin, cooing, “Poor wolf, all alone and away from your pack. Are you going to talk to me, now?”
He spat in her face.
“Go to hell.” It was hoarse and barely above a whisper, but it was audible enough.
A sigh.
“Alright, I see how it is.” She stepped back, and her face went cold. “Theo. Kill him.”
The chimera’s nails dug into his elbows, his arms folded over his chest to look casual, unbothered by the sickly smell of rotting flesh that invaded his senses.
“Why?” he drawled. It sounded lazy, dismissive, but he could feel a drop of sweat roll down his temple, his jaw tense. “He’s going to die, anyway, I don’t see why I should waste a bullet on him.”
He didn’t want to kill him.
“Just do what I say,” the leader of the hunters snapped. “Or have you forgotten our agreement?”
Nausea roiled in his stomach.
Theo made himself look bored, rolling his eyes with a put-upon huff as if she were asking him to do something laborious, but his fingers trembled, minute and unnoticeable, on the trigger of his gun, as he pressed it to the other werewolf’s forehead.
“You… fucking… traitor,” the werewolf managed to breathe out.
Theo pulled the trigger.
Later, he would stumble into the bathroom, blood still on his face, and heave up the contents of his stomach, his entire body shaking.
He didn’t even know his name.
Scott called him, that night, for an update, and all he could do was stare at his phone, the screen lit up in the darkness of his motel room, while the alpha’s voice filtered through his ears.
“… Theo? Theo, you still there?”
“Yeah.” The chimera cleared his throat, and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m here. Is everyone safe?”
Is Liam safe?
“The puppy pack has been holed up in Liam’s house playing video games, with Derek as their - uh - assigned babysitter. Everyone else has promised not to travel unless necessary. Are you…” Theo could hear Scott’s swallow through the phone. “Are you okay?”
He stayed silent for long enough that Scott added a worried, “Theo?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
I’m fine.
~
Liam yelled at Mason.
He yelled at Mason, he yelled at Malia, he yelled at Scott.
He’d been on a short fuse for days, and he just couldn’t handle it, when Malia and Scott came to check in on him, again.
“I don’t want your goddamn pity!” Liam shouted. Blue eyes flashed gold with the intensity of the frustration and anger that shook his muscles, hot and bitter and burning. “You’re acting like I’m fucking - heartbroken - or some bullshit, and that I can’t -“
He trailed off, watching their expressions shift, the audible silence suffocating him as horror and dismay slowly clogged his throat. “You do. You think I’m in love with him.”
Sympathy. Pity. Apprehension. That was all he could see.
“Liam -“ Mason tried to start.
“Save it. I can’t do this, right now,” the young werewolf snapped, making his way upstairs in a way not unlike the living embodiment of a blistering sandstorm.
Once he’d shoved a spare set of clothes into the unused backpack in the corner of his room, along with a random assortment of toiletries from his bathroom, and escaped out his bedroom window, landing on the sidewalk with ease, he didn’t go to Stiles, or Melissa, or Derek.
Rather, he went to Lydia.
The banshee opened her front door to see Liam, dripping wet and standing on her welcome mat, illuminated by the porch light and backlit by the rain that pounded against the roof.
She sighed and ushered him inside.
“You’re going to give me a heart attack,” Lydia said, fussing over the young beta wolf with a towel while he stood in her kitchen, looking not unlike a drowned cat with his raven hair sticking up every which way and his cheeks flushed pink from the cold. “Just because no werewolf has gotten sick, yet, doesn’t mean you should be walking five miles in the rain, at night.”
He stayed quiet, and her gaze softened a small amount. “I’ll tell your parents that you’re staying over. Come on, upstairs, your hair is a disaster and I’m going to spontaneously combust if I don’t fix it.”
That was how Liam found himself lying on his stomach, head pillowed in his arms, on Lydia Martin’s fuchsia bedspread while she brushed and blow dried his hair, the relative silence punctuated only by the whir of the hairdryer and her occasional hum of disapproval as she worked through another tangle.
Lydia never forced him to talk, and often times, they would spend their time together in silence, doing homework or reading or, on rare occasions, her elaborate spa day routine. He’d started to think of her as an older sister long before he even breached the friendship barrier with Malia, which was why she had his parents on speed-dial, just in case he showed up at her door unannounced after an IED attack, like he had the tendency to do.
“They’re treating me like I’m broken,” Liam finally managed to say, his voice muffled by the oversized grey sleeves of his hoodie. “They won’t even say his name around me, as if I’m - as if I’m going to -“
“Break down crying?” Lydia‘s tone was almost bemused.
“Yes.” He couldn’t restrain his groan of complaint, and her manicured nails gently combed through his now-untangled hair in a casual, affectionate gesture. “Lyds, the pack, they think -“ His voice lowered, went quiet, and it took a few moments of silence before he spoke again. “They think I’m in love with him.”
“Are you?”
It wasn’t malicious, or judgmental. Just simply a blunt, obvious question.
“I don’t know.” A pause, and then, softer, “I could. I might. I just… I don’t know.”
Lydia gave a considering hum, her nails replaced by a hairbrush, running over his smooth locks of raven hair like a paintbrush over silk.
“I didn’t realize I loved Stiles, until he was taken by the Ghost Riders,” the banshee said. “We’d been friends for years, and I only understood what I had when it was gone. I don’t know what happened with Theo, but I’m not stupid, even a blind person could tell how much he cares for you.”
“He regularly tries to punch me in the face.”
“And how many times does he succeed?” Liam’s silence dragged on for too long. “Exactly.“
“If -“ The young werewolf let out a frustrated exhale. “If he cares so much, then why would he betray us?” It sounded pathetic, even to his own ears. “Why would he leave?”
“I don’t know.”
The brush in his hair paused, and he shifted, glancing up to see Lydia staring at the writing desk in the corner of her room, at the papers scattered across the mahogany wood and the expansive set of colored pencils pushed haphazardly to the side.
“Lyds?”
“I think…” She had that look in her eyes, the one that Liam recognized from when she would solve a complex math problem, as if she were so close to understanding the answer. “Come here. I need to show you something.”
He dutifully trailed behind her as she slipped off her bed and approached the desk, peering over her shoulder while she rifled through the mess of scribbled drawings. “I haven’t told Stiles, but I’ve been having nightmares. They’re always the same - Monroe, the pack -“
Liam watched her spread them out with wide eyes.
It unnerved him, how unnaturally accurate her prophecy-induced sketches looked. Sketches of a forested clearing, an asphalt road, smears of red and bullet holes and vague, human-like shapes.
Lydia tapped her finger on one drawing in particular. “I can never figure out who this is.”
It was a face-off, between two scribbled, faceless figures, one with Monroe’s curls, a rifle in hand, the other crumpled to the ground, covered in harsh lines of red and black.
The only features both of them had, were their eyes, and Liam would know those hazel-green irises anywhere.
~
“Scott, do not listen to anything Monroe says. She’s lying to you.”
Theo used his teeth to secure the Velcro of his leather gloves, his phone settled between his shoulder and his ear as he - frantic - buckled his gun holster to his thigh, the walls of his motel room suffocating, creeping closer with every stuttered inhale. “She’s bringing extra soldiers, and she’s going to massacre the pack while you’re gathered under the pretense of negotiations.”
“I know, Theo.” Irritation bled into Scott’s tone. “I’m not stupid. We have the Sheriff and his deputies on standby.”
“You don’t -“
A deep breath, and the chimera took his phone in one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Only bring whoever is necessary, okay? You went over this with Derek and Deaton?”
“ Yes, Theo. Obviously.”
“Good.”
Theo had gone through every possible outcome multiple times, while sitting in meetings with Monroe, while out on patrol with her hunters, while watching the horrors she put other supernatural creatures through.
Whether he killed Monroe or not, there would be a shootout, and there would be bloodshed.
He could only hope that it would just be his own.
~
“ What?”
Liam’s outburst had the rest of the pack turning to look at him, his cheeks flushing pink from the sheer rage radiating from his trembling limbs. “You’re going to leave us behind?”
After Lydia confirmed his theory that something was off about Theo’s betrayal, Scott called an emergency pack meeting the next day where he promptly said that Monroe was willing to negotiate with them, and that they would meet her at a set location just outside town.
The alpha werewolf then proceeded to say that the puppy pack would be staying behind, with Chris Argent.
It did nothing to alleviate Liam’s suspicion. Scott hadn’t made him stay behind when he was fifteen and newly bitten, so why was he doing this, now?
“We need someone to stay and protect the town,” Scott protested. He couldn’t meet his first beta’s gaze.
It was a weak excuse even to Liam’s ears.
The young werewolf narrowed his eyes, fists clenched, nails digging into his palms.
“Why not Derek, then?” he accused. “You’ve never left me behind, before, not even when we had to drive to Mexico. What makes this different?”
What makes this different?
Scott had gotten much better at hiding the scent of his emotions, but Liam could still see the obvious panic flashing across his features as he glanced over to Derek, to Doctor Deaton.
“He can come.” Doctor Deaton watched Liam with an edge of something curious in his expression. “Not the others.”
“Deaton -“ the alpha hissed out.
“If you don’t bring Liam, he’s going to follow us, anyway.” Lydia examined the pink sheen of her nails, tucking one curled lock of red hair behind her ear, and the young werewolf in question could see the pointed suspicion in her gaze as she gave Scott an unimpressed raised eyebrow. “Would you rather he run the whole way?”
Liam desperately wanted to give her a hug.
“I -“
Scott let out an apprehensive sigh, his dark eyes filled with an unidentifiable emotion as they turned back to his first beta’s blue ones. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Liam echoed.
~
Theo learned to turn himself off at nine years old.
After the third surgery, tearing out his organs and replacing them, strapped to an operating table with no anesthetic but his own mind, he simply dropped his head back and removed the tentative wires connecting his emotions to the rest of his body.
It was the only way he knew to survive.
Standing with Monroe, flanked on both sides by hunters with rifles that gleamed in the evening sunlight, he let his eyelids fall shut, and took a deep breath, the frigid wash of oxygen sharpening his senses, clearing his mind of any remnants of panic, anxiety, fear.
“It’s been quite a while, Scott.” Monroe’s tone always hovered on the edge of condescending, innocent kindness, and Theo’s hands clenched into fists where they were held behind his back. “I see you and your pack made it safely.”
The ash-burn of a familiar scent had the chimera’s eyelids flashing open.
Liam.
It was as if the anchor-chain tethering him to the bare vestiges of composure had snapped.
Panic rushed through his body, hot and suffocating, as he stared at stubborn-set eyes, blue like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings against the summer sky, the shine of swept-back raven hair, the curve of pale, defined features set in an unreadable expression.
He’s not supposed to be here.
Theo looked at Scott, and he didn’t care if the rest of the pack could see the edge of hysteria in his beseeching gaze.
The alpha could only communicate with a resigned, apologetic look.
Fuck.
This was not how it was supposed to go. Liam was supposed to stay at home with the rest of the puppy pack, where it was safe, away from the inevitable shootout at the end of the false peace treaty negotiations.
Monroe was speaking, Scott was responding, but Theo couldn’t hear anything past the high-pitched ringing in his ears, his sight locked in on Liam, next to his alpha, muscular arms folded over his chest, his tight, long-sleeved grey shirt, the faint sparks of anger washing over his natural scent as he stared defiantly up at Monroe.
“… Theodore.”
He jerked back into the present at Monroe’s irritated call of his name.
“What?” Theo tried to sound irritated, bored, but his voice had a hoarse rasp to it, and his hands trembled minutely, lips thinning into a hard line.
There was five feet between the hunters and the pack on the stretch of asphalt road.
All by design.
“Would you like to do the honors?”
Her words filtered through his ears, almost as if from a distance, and he stared as she motioned toward the pack, her expression hard and knowing.
Shoot them.
The chimera bowed his head and swallowed past his dry throat, letting himself stand there for a moment longer, breathing in the frigid evening breeze, before taking a step forward.
The soles of his boots scraped against the ground.
Theo may have spoken aloud for everyone in the vicinity to hear, but his words were only for Liam, hazel eyes meeting blue.
“I’m sorry.”
I love you.
He raised his gun and pulled the trigger.
~
Liam understood too late.
He was too late to save Hayden, he was too late to save Brett and Lori, he was always too late.
Theo looked him in the eye, turned around, and shot Monroe straight through the head.
~
Gunshots echoed through his ears.
Blood spilled through fabric, smeared down stumbling legs, pooled on the asphalt, bright scarlet against dark grey.
~
A choked gasp.
Liam’s body was restrained before he could reach out, lunge forward, run, to the chimera crumpled against the pavement, the power of Malia’s supernatural strength forcing him to the ground, shielding him from the flurry of bullets, the wild snarls of the rest of the werewolves in the pack, the shouts of the hunters.
Sirens rang through the air.
Everything faded into an incomprehensible mixture of sound.
He threw Malia off, ignoring her outcry of protest, and stumbled, crawled, dragged himself across the ground, ignoring the rocks digging into his knees, the palms of his hands, toward the limp body laying amidst a pool of blood.
“ Theo.”
It was a half-choked sob, hands pressing to torn fabric, to smoking bullet holes, trying in vain to stay the red bleeding over tan skin, staining the pale tendons of his fingers.
Eyelashes fluttered, revealing an inch of hazel irises, Theo’s chest rising and falling in a bare, shallow breath. “You - you idiot - you’re not allowed to die, not now, not like this -“
Tears dripped down his face. Wet and hot and vision-blurring.
The warmth of a familiar palm pressed to his cheek, bloodstained and shaky, trying in vain to wipe away his tears.
“Don’t cry, baby wolf.” It was barely audible, rough and breathy, and Theo’s glassy gaze was filled with such genuine concern, that more wetness spilled down Liam’s cheekbones.
“Stop it, stop - “ A torn-out sob. “You can’t - you can’t - not when I haven’t - I haven’t told you I love you, or taken you on a stupid movie date, or yelled at you, properly - please -“
The only response he got was the soft twitch of the chimera’s lips, that aching fondness, the love in his eyes.
His hand fell.
The young werewolf’s own anguished roar echoed through the air.
~
There was blood on Liam’s hands.
The constant noise of the hospital drowned out his thoughts, staring at the white tile beneath his dirt-scuffed shoes, the edges of the worn plastic chair digging into his elbows, the backs of his knees.
“Liam.” Lydia’s voice filtered through his ears, unnaturally gentle. “Come here. You’ve got blood on your cheek.”
He let the older banshee tilt his head in her direction, a damp alcohol wipe running over his jawline, his cheekbone, his eyelids fluttering shut as she gently pushed back messy strands of raven hair from his forehead.
“Do you - um -“
Alec’s sneakers squeaked against the tile, and the youngest werewolf of the pack hovered in front of them, holding out a wet cloth almost like a peace offering. “Your hands -“
Considering Liam’s behavior over the prior two hours, he was right to be more than a little cautious.
“Thanks, Alec.” Lydia took it, instead, and started to wipe off the dried blood from Liam’s hands, while he just let his head bow forward, staring at the smears of dark red that stained the blue wash of his jeans.
“Okay.” Stiles’s voice echoed down the hallway of the hospital wing their pack occupied. “Is someone going to explain what happened, or are we just going to be kept in the dark, again?”
The human had his arm in a sling - he’d dislocated his shoulder in the fight - and sat heavily on the floor next to Corey, leaning his body against the wall in an attempt to make himself more comfortable that didn’t really succeed.
“Theo didn’t really betray us, did he?” Mason asked, quietly, more of a statement than a question, from his place sitting on Corey’s other side.
It was Derek that answered.
“No.” A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Theo came up with the plan to eliminate Monroe and destroy the hunters’ chain of command by infiltrating their ranks. Scott, Deaton, and I were the only ones who knew, for the sake of realism. Monroe would have suspected something if you hadn’t reacted accordingly.”
“Jesus.” Shock and something akin to dismay filled Stiles’s scent, his head tipping back against the wall as he stared up at the ceiling. “Liam was right.”
“Liam was right,” Corey echoed.
Liam watched Lydia place her hands over his, rubbing gentle circles into his palm with her thumb, eyes unseeing.
Melissa came with the verdict another hour later.
“I can’t promise anything, right now, but he’s healing, slowly. You kids should head home, take a shower, get some sleep, before you pass out sitting here.”
Amidst the following series of creaking chairs and shoes shuffling over the floor as the pack got to their feet, most likely to head to Scott’s house, rather than their own homes, Liam stayed still.
Melissa approached the young werewolf and knelt in front of him.
“Theo won’t even be conscious for another twelve hours or so, honey.” Her voice was soft. “You should go home for the night.”
“I don’t -“ He swallowed, hard, and, quieter, “I don’t want him to be alone.”
“He won’t be.“ A smile colored her lips, fond with motherly affection. “I’ll stay with him.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” She patted his knee and stood back up. “Come on. My son has probably already ordered enough pizza to feed a village.”
Liam dutifully allowed her to usher him back to the rest of the pack, with one last glance over his shoulder down the hospital hallway.
~
Theo didn’t expect to wake up.
He remembered the flurry of bullets hitting his body, the metallic smell of blood spilling onto the pavement, the surety that he would die, there, staring up at tear-streaked cheekbones and held by bloodstained pale hands.
And yet, his eyelashes fluttered, the scent of bleach and sanitizer filling his nostrils, making his nose twitch, a rhythmic series of beeps irritating his sensitive ears.
Theo blinked against the harsh sting of the bright, hospital lights.
He was in a hospital.
He was alive.
“Hey, there, kiddo.”
Melissa McCall entered his line of sight, a soft smile coloring her features, dark curls tied up in a ponytail that draped over the shoulder of her blue nurse scrubs. “How are you feeling?”
Theo squinted up at her.
“Confused,” he managed to croak out, his throat aching with the effort.
“Considering you were mostly unconscious for two days due to acute blood loss caused by seven bullet wounds, I would be worried if you weren’t.” She started her work of checking the intravenous lines connected to his wrist and his elbow, typing something into one of the machines. “What do you remember?”
“I…”
The rest of his brain finished waking up all at once, and he sucked in a sharp breath as the memories rushed back, sending a prick of pain through his sternum, eyes blowing wide. “ Liam.”
Melissa had to put a hand on his collarbone to prevent him from shooting up and tearing the stitches that tugged at his skin, and, if he weren’t grievously injured, he would be embarrassed by how easily she pushed him back down.
“Liam is fine,” she stressed. “There were no serious injuries except for yours. You’re very lucky that you’re resistant to the strain of wolfsbane Monroe’s hunters used.”
Theo swallowed past his dry throat.
“Is she dead?” he asked quietly.
Melissa watched him with a careful amount of seriousness in her expression.
“As soon as she hit the ground.” A hand reached up to comb a few stray strands of dark hair away from his forehead. “You’re a good shot, honey. Next time, please inform all of the reasonable adults in the vicinity of your plan to sacrifice yourself so we can tell you how stupid it is.”
“Derek and Doctor Deaton were there,” the chimera pointed out.
“Their ‘reasonable adult’ statuses have been revoked.”
Theo let himself tentatively relax into the hospital bed as Melissa finished her examination, and surveyed the rest of the room for the first time, blinking in confusion at the collection of flowers and Get well soon! balloons on the table beside his bed.
The nurse seemed to sense his bewilderment and watched him with a small smile. “Your pack members brought them. Speaking of -“ She glanced down at her watch. “They should be arriving, on schedule, right about…”
Theo heard the pound of running footsteps down the hallway before the door itself burst open. “… Now.”
Liam skidded to a stop just past the doorway.
Blue eyes blown wide stared at the chimera, the raven hair that shone beneath the lights loose and swept back, cheeks flushed pink from exertion, his chest heaving beneath the drape of his oversized grey hoodie, the ends of the sleeves gathered up in his clenched fists.
It only took a quiet, astonished, “Liam,” to break the tentative spell.
The young werewolf stumbled to his side, lacrosse-calloused hands hovering, searching, as if he might shatter with the slightest wrong touch, before settling on cupping his face so gently, so carefully, just the barest press of his palms against his cheeks.
Their foreheads tipped forward, resting against each other, and Theo could feel the soft warmth of an exhale against his lips, the brush of their noses together, eyelids fluttering shut.
He couldn’t lift his arms high enough to match the way Liam held the back of his neck, the curve of his jaw, but he could lace his fingers into the hem of his hoodie, holding onto the beta wolf’s waist like a lifeline.
“Never do that to me, again.” Liam’s voice broke. “Please.”
“I’m sorry.” An apologetic bump of their noses together, and a softer murmur of, “I missed you.”
I love you.
“You’re so stupid.”
I love you, too.
Theo broke into a helpless smile, tilting his face into the gentle press of lips to his, still slow and careful, Liam’s warmth seeping into his skin, his lungs, the hands on his waist, the fingers in his dark hair.
They probably would have stayed that way for a while longer, had someone not audibly cleared their throat, forcing the pair to part.
At some point during that exchange, the rest of the pack had filed into the hospital room, and now watched them with a mixture of amusement, cooing fondness, and mild disgust (from Stiles and Malia).
“You know, this explains a lot about the last two weeks,” Alec commented aloud.
Liam’s cheeks flushed red, and Theo trembled with repressed laughter, suppressing a grin as he said, “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.”
“And whose fault is that?” Lydia gave him an unimpressed look.
“Scott and Derek signed off on the plan, too,” the chimera pointed out, slightly indignant. “Why is nobody pissed off at them?”
“They got yelled at two days ago.” Mason folded his arms, and Theo got the distinct feeling that he was about to be scolded within an inch of his life.
“Liam, help me,” he whined.
“Nope, you’re on your own, this is payback for abandoning me,” Liam responded, but he leaned forward to press another kiss to his cheek, not bothering to hide the smile that lit up his face, and Theo couldn’t help the warmth that bubbled up in his sternum.
They would be okay.