Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They meet in the middle and become a mess of limbs, clutching with brute force. 

Before that Theo had heard a multiple yells of his own name. He doesn’t care.

Mangoes, honey and smoked tea leaves. Underneath that scent is a lurking mass of the second person’s own natural blend of earth, thyme and chamomile. Theo moves his head just enough to catch the standing figure that's still in the shadows of the trees, half-hiding behind one of the larger trunks. Her dark curls fall to her shoulders, thick and shiny, dark skin holding an unmistakable sheen of energy that’s mostly invisible unless you’re actively seeking it.

A witch.

Theo curls a protective hand over the back of Bree’s skull, the other he places between her shoulder blades. 

“Quit it, she’s with me.”

Theo is still more than a little overwhelmed, unable to focus on a single element. His mind can’t supply what should be a priority - his long dead best friend’s sudden and overly suspicious appearance, the witch tagging along with her—why would Bree willingly go with a witch in the first fucking place when it was a coven that partially helped kill her?—with her fidgety stance, or the delegation of stress behind him. It’s too much.

That may be, he still doesn’t want to let go. It means he’ll be able to step back to conduct a thorough play-by-play of the events and might unveil ill intent, deception or face the fact that this may as well be a cast illusion to—

Bree wacks the back of his head, forcing his teeth to clack together. “I can hear you thinking. Still as loud as ever, huh?” 

They separate, but scarcely. It’s just the right amount for them to be able to catch each other’s eyes without losing the bubble they've created. Hers dart to the formation that’s as still as stone in Scott’s backyard. She lifts a single brow, after a brief flash of consideration crosses her face. Theo shakes his head, they’re not my pack he means. That only makes her expression harden, assessing them in a harsher light. 

Then the most glaring detail of all sinks its teeth into him.

“Does your brother know?”

Just as he says it he hears Liam answer Scott with a clipped Yao Feng’s little sister, the same sentence Theo had shared with him all those weeks back, and catches the sound of heels colliding with the ground. Lucia.

Theo pulls them up to their feet before Bree can answer, from where they’d fallen on their knees upon crashing with one another. The animals decide for him. He places himself between Bree and the rest, unenthusiastically giving his back to the witch. But she’s one, he can partially decapitate her before she can count to three and with the sudden and powerful rush of adrenaline in his veins, he’s certain he can pull it off. 

Lucia is a straight line to the others’ chaotic scents. He doesn’t think he’s seen them all this vigilant in a while, with the same cagey and distrustful expressions they’d aimed at him when Liam pulled him back to the land of the living. 

Bree side-steps him to place herself to his immediate right. “Alpha Amadio.” she bows her head a little, forcefully eases her body language and leaves her scent untouched and open for dissection.

Lucia takes just another step towards them, stops, cocks her head. "Brenna."

This is the woman that 'welcomed' Theo on her territory, before she saw with her own eyes that he had no involvement with Ryan, one of her newly turned wolves that suffered a gruesome demise. Merciless and calculating, with a note of biting chill to her aura, her eyes burgundy and severe in their assessment. The strike first, ask questions later version of her. 

Theo extends his right arm, lifts it in front of Bree in a semblance of a barrier, one foot drawn back because instinct is telling him a fight is more than likely. None of the others have made a single move forward, even those like Liam and Alec who are desperate to do so. 

“Step aside, Theo. You’re not stupid.”

Theo just situates himself completely between her and Bree, but since Bree has always been a hardheaded, impulsive cretin while staring death in the face, she kicks at him and pulls him back to his original standpoint. She also lifts the sleeve of her left arm up to her elbow, showcasing it to Lucia. On the unmarred skin lies a black sigil, lines criss-crossing and overlapping, forming a shape that Theo can’t really put, but is familiar with from somewhere. 

A shift behind them of more rustling, of the witch also pulling her sleeve up from what Theo can put together. He darts a lightning quick look at her and sure enough, an identical replica of the same sigil is situated on the exact spot. Lucia clicks her tongue. Theo shuffles memories like a deck of cards in his head, seeking out the answer he knows is in one of them. Witches, their variants and types of magic play through, their characteristics and specialties, and finally:

“She’s a necromancer.” he breathes out to Bree, catches her eye for confirmation and receives it in the form of a subdued nod. She damn well knows the reputation that type of magic comes with.

Now that Theo’s judgement isn’t clouded, when he can finally observe, he notices something extremely uncanny. Bree has aged. She’s not a sixteen-year-old apparition with the ability to attain a corporeal form and keep it for an extended period of time. She’s flesh and blood and sinew, living.

His head snaps back in direction of the witch, stepping so that his back is to Lucia. The thing about necromancers is that they’re overly rare, unusually potent with their magic and more than a smidge unstable. The power utilized to perform their spells and rituals requires more chaos than order, more raw influence and energy. They’re also not to be looked down on, because where there is ground, soil to be exact, there is also a conductor of power for them. In this case it's ceaseless if he tries to attack. That and: there’s always a limit, even for them, a time-frame in which they can bring a soul back into its body. It’s why they can generally only summon spirits of the dead, help them stay manifested with neat tricks and robust spells. Never truly living, never truly a person anymore, kinda like him in a sense - a fake, an imitation.

The witch brought Bree back within the three hours or so of her death. And she’s somehow managed to veil her up, keep her hidden for years, even from Yao Feng’s intelligence and his ever-present eyes everywhere. 

“No.” Bree grabs a hold of his wrist when his irises flare.

Theo pulls her a step back with him, closer to Lucia, tries to bring them closer to the rest, his instinct sounding an alarm throughout his entire body.

“I said, no.” this time she holds a growl in her tone and the tips of her claws dig into his skin, through the thermal. Not enough to draw blood, only to state a point.

The witch has, in the meantime, taken to staying once more half-hidden behind her chosen tree. She doesn’t even smell like a super powerful necromancer to be honest, they tend to carry with them a highly specific smell of ozone that makes you all types of dizzy, and the crisp scent of freshly fallen rain. This one is more like a senior in high school who’d gotten ready for a date, then got roped into some bull she didn’t sign up for—if he has to go by her fancy red dress, new leather jacket and shiny boots, or the vast assortment of jewellery. When Theo dispels his shift the witch perks up, lifts a hand to very reluctantly wave with a nervous, dimpled smile, sweat beading at her temples from her level of stress. 

She appears as though she's seconds away from fainting. And see, Theo can recognize fellow cons fairly easily, the bastards that know which parts of themselves to shield and which ones to leave open, how to make the act more than believable, execute it to perfection. Either this is a highly skilled individual that's going to make Theo look like an amateur and give him a run for his money or just a regular teenager, there's no in-between.

"Naya? You okay?" Bree doesn't turn, yells it over her shoulder.

"Define okay." the witch tilts forward in an awkward angle at the waist to better glimpse past them and see Scott and Co. She blinks with her mouth open, straightens and lifts a hand with her index finger pointing up, only for her wrist to flop as she brings the limb back to herself. "Definitely not okay. Didn't you say we're not going to get killed? This feels like we are getting killed. By multiple people at the same time."

She's rambling, the sourness of her fear and anxiety strong enough to irritate Theo's nose. She's also started breathing at an accelerated pace, droplets of sweat now also on the rest of her face and her throat, pulse too high. There's this sweetness, the unpleasant kind, that drifts to him. 

"Pocket." Bree tells her and sure enough the witch startles, reaches to get out a chocolate bar before Theo has the chance to even tense his muscles further, and takes a large piece to plop it into her mouth. Theo places the sickly sweet scent and rocky, uneven pulse as overly low blood sugar. 

He slants Lucia a look, who is just as conflicted as him. Is this Naya girl a threat or not? Is Bree a threat in disguise? 

"Theo?" Liam's voice gets to him, it's purely a habitual move when he turns enough to face him. 

The rest are ready to lurch into a fight at the smallest of signals, coiled for a pounce. Liam is at the front, must have tried to venture near, prevented from stepping too close by Scott's sure hand around one of his wrists. His eyes, the blue in them dark and turbulent, keep darting between Theo and Bree and Naya, can't settle for more than a few seconds and when they do, it's always on Bree. Theo shakes his head.

Stay back. 

Liam grits his teeth, body twitching in an uncoordinated wave that's telling to what his opinion on the matter is. Scott doesn't let him come any closer than he's already gotten, attempts to gently pull Liam back a smidge actually, but Liam yanks at him and the effort is down the drain.

Bree diffuses the situation by taking a seat on the cold ground, crossing her legs with her palms clasped together in her lap. Theo sits down next to her, knee to knee, frowning. She gazes up at Lucia who's not swayed by the seemingly mundane occurrence just a while ago, settles to look at Theo.

"When you howled, after they got you back, she felt it." Bree tilts her head in Naya's direction, evidently trying to start an explanation and lost as to what method would be optiomal. Her teeth grind together for a short moment, at the reminder of the Doctors. "At that time, she knew she possessed some type of magic, but not the essence of it. Her family has centuries of it in their bloodline. So when she sneaked out to investigate, drawn by the aftershock of the feeling, she found the secluded site. They didn't even hide my corpse, those horror clowns." she laughs, the dark humor as present as ever.

Theo flinches, forcing himself to straighten again when there's witnesses all around them. This is too fucked up. He's both here and there at the same breath. Surrounded by the bodies of the coven that tried to kill them, now dead, hears the snap of Bree's neck next to his ear. The day that the door to his cage opened, so he could crawl out on hopeful limbs, ending in him losing the sole friend, nearly a sister, he'd naively wanted to keep by his side for as long as the fates would have it. Elation and devastation, all meshed up in the same twenty-four hours. 

"She thought I was unconscious, tried to turn me on my back, 'till surpri—se, you just discovered a dead body, woo-hoo! New level unlocked!" she brings her hands up in an ironic cheerleader whoop, sans the pom-poms, drops them back down. 

"Oh my God, she’s worse than you." Stiles miserably pipes up in a mix of uneasiness and disbelief; simultaneously after that Derek slaps a palm over the lower half of his face, an aggravated Scott shushes him loudly and Lydia jabs her elbow into his ribs. The pained sound he produces is muffled by Derek’s hand.

Lucia is back to initiating gargoyles, unmoved by and uncaring of the theatrics, just biding her time until the fatal slip comes. This isn't easy on her either. If it's not a ploy she'll have wounded the most influential, on this continent, alpha's baby sister. She has to weigh her actions to precision, otherwise she's risking the lives of every single one of her pack members.

"The shock of it made her magic react. You know when you wake up after a nightmare and the shift takes over without you even feeling it?" Theo nods, trying to remove the presence of the others from his radar, and she points at him. "That's the feeling."

"And she'd already established a point in time of physical contact." he realizes, eye locking with Naya who has her own palms clasped in front of her, fingers wiggling with her distress. 

With a witch not knowing of their necromancy inclinations, it was an instinctual emanation of magic, she had no control over it. It still doesn't matter and it still makes no sense.

"It's not the bringing back to life part, Bree. It's the after. It's been five years since then. Five. Even Yao Feng couldn't find you and—he doesn't even know, does he?" he's so rattled by it all that his body tries to expel the stress through a stinging laugh. "I'm having a very hard time believing all of this, I mean why didn't you go to your family?" he waves one arm about in a chopping motion, in agitation, his gums itching. 

It's not adding up and he loathes it.

Bree makes a juvenile face, rubs the knuckle of her index finger over her mouth in the thing that usually predicates her spilling something ludicrous.

"Remember when I said it's highly unlikely for me to be able to pull off a full shift? Yeah, well." she lifts a shoulder. "Only problem was that I kept it for too long and I couldn't shift back. And I didn't really remember anything when Naya brought me back in the first place." her attempt at popping the balloon of pressure kind of has the opposite effect and she sees it on his face, in the tension around his eyes and mouth, exhales slowly to keep herself from reacting to it.

It's not adding up, is the backlog of doubt singing a shrill opera that takes over all of his senses.

It's also too convenient. Oh, look, I shifted while under mental strain without undergoing the usual process of werewolf evolution to achieve the state, stayed that way for five fucking years, then here I am back again, like I never died. Oopsie-daisy.

The smile that pulls at her lips is bittersweet. She knows what he's thinking and it pisses him off to no end. If this is another creature, a phantasm standing before him, able to recreate her demeanor, way of talking, untimely humor and everything that makes her Bree, he's going to have even more severe trust issues than he already does. 

So she does the only thing to convince him. 

She grabs a hold of his arm at a speed he can't react, and the abruptness of it triggers the animals, the claws, which she forces him to pierce into the back of her neck. 

Then,

There's something missing, is the feeling going through her. He's gone, is what she's thinking, but who is he? A friend? A brother? Where did he go? 

Then,

A human girl's wide, amber eyes stare up at her in terror, making to crawl backwards and away from her. 

Then,

The urge to shift is the last haven she has, it's all panic and fear inside of her and it's too much, she can't even remember, doesn't know what she should remember. The drawer where the memories sit is empty, void of even a telling and guiding crumb. What is she? Who is she? Who was she looking for?

Then,

The human girl with magic presents her as a friendly dog she found on the road. The human's mother doesn’t buy it, so she makes a run for it, paws sliding on the sleek wooden floor, hitting a wall on her way to the door.

"Wait! It's okay. It's okay, see?" the human girl has sat on the floor, hands raised, with her hopeful face so trustingly open. The mother has stepped back, retreated. "We won't hurt you. We just want to help." amber eyes catch the early morning light that falls through the windows; they're like pretty stones, shiny. 

She tilts her head, nose in the air to scent their intentions, ears pinned back. They're not lying. So she stays.

Then,

The human girl constantly tries to make her shift back, to that uncomfortable and loud form that also makes her look human, too. Spells, incantations, rituals. But she doesn't want to go back to that place where her mind was packed with too many thoughts. This form, the animal form, suits her better. Hurts less.

Then,

How did the human girl even find her? Was she looking for somebody? 

Then,

The human girl and her mother converse at the table in the bright room. She's lying on the fluffy rug, tail covering her snout. 

"There's this guy, Theo, in my class that's so moronically convinced that—"

Her eyes snap open.

Theo. Why does that name hurt? It's a human name. She's not human. So how does she know that name hurts?

Theo. Who's Theo? Where is Theo?

The memory springs out like it's out to get her.

There's a human boy, looking at her with a twisted and broken face, with a parting smile for her. But, "Theo, don't —!" 

The three figures apparate like ghosts, quick and nimble and unseen, too agile, and before she knows it there's one in front of her and it grasps her by the head, by the chin and by the upper side of her skull on the opposite side, and it twists—

She's backed into a corner when she blinks out of the nightmare, the human girl on her knees before her, rubbing at her head with gentle hands, shushing and comforting. 

And all she can think about is: where is Theo?

And,

Theo's back in the present, gasps when he fully slams himself into his own body, arms flying out to catch his weight on the ground behind him. Lucia yanks him away, so there's now some distance between them and Bree. Theo feels his chest reverberate, hears the growl stemming from it a second after, but Lucia's crouched form next to him is not trained on him. Finally, she does turn to face him, ruby on gold.

"What's the verdict?" her voice is low and clipped, a thread of emotion starting to show itself.

Bree has remained in her cross-legged pose, hands back in her lap. It's only her shoulders that make circles to alleviate the uncomfortable sensation of the still healing claw marks on her nape. She extends an arm to Lucia, palm up.

Theo disregards Lucia's attempt to separate them, lurches forward to grab Bree's wrist and shove it down. "Absolutely fucking not." he snarls, the flash of his first day spent at Lucia's place a sharp stab, ending with a thick belt between his teeth and battery acid replacing his blood, boiling his insides. "You don't know the consequences." he gives, when Bree tries to wring her arm away. "I do, first hand. You're not doing it again."

"No offense to be taken, however. If you truly are the real Brianna Feng, I'd rather not have your older brother as an arch nemesis."

Bree opens her mouth, expression defeated in a way, eyes desperately trying to negotiate with Lucia's once more iron face. Impulsive she may be, but she has a quick head on her shoulders, arranges the pieces Lucia gave her and accepts her answer with a quiet sigh. 

Theo quickly goes to explain what he saw, to disperse the thick air. "The necromancer brought her back by accident and Bree shifted, with no memories intact. It just… it all got entirely wiped. She remembered me by pure chance and even that wasn't a lot. Not enough to bring it all back."

"So how did she remember the rest?" it's Lydia who asks the question Theo had dreaded all along, voice carrying. The McCall pack are a few steps closer than their last position, having moved when Theo was reliving the foreign memories. "And how did she find you here?"

Bree has started accumulating a caged look, with their sudden proximity. Not to say they're standing close; it's still not the original distance that gave a sense of ease to her warring instincts to strike if approached.

She turns to Theo and Lucia. "A few days after the memory of you, I had this little fact floating about in my head," she speaks like it's hard for her to form the sentence, speech slow and choppy at random intervals. "That with werewolves, trauma sometimes manifests through prolonged shifted states. Have to say, when I'd spent five years as an animal it was hard to put a human face to myself."

"And if you stay shifted for too long, you lose the human side." Theo extends a leg, Bree doing the same, so that the soles of their shoes get into contact; the only bit of comfort he can give right now.

Surprise, surprise, it's Malia who enters the conversation. "That's nice and all, and I really hate admitting it, but he's right. Why didn't you go back to your family first?" as a person who has had a similar experience, sans the dying and resurrection part, it makes her the perfect candidate to put herself in Bree's shoes. 

Bree isn't offended by it, it's just forced her to acknowledge the question she's been pretending wasn't there, eyes on the ground with a frown pulling her brows closer. 

A few heart beats later,

"Those freak clowns took him again. Had to get him back." she tells them, in a sort of a trance-like state she shakes off in the literal sense of the word, first her head, then her shoulders and torso. By the hand she drags down her face, it wasn't something she'd wanted to share with anybody but Theo, and maybe Naya.

"They're dead." Liam declares, and a bolt of something passes between him and Bree, at the shared knowledge that the Doctors are no more. Liam seems to sense it too, eyes flaring in synchrony with hers, the interaction less than two seconds in total. 

Interesting.

Bree's mouth splits into a pointy grin, teeth human but the gesture is all canine, a bloodthirsty beast pleased. "Good." she gives back to Liam, and Theo doesn't miss the mildly appraising and interested look to Liam. 

Even more interesting.

Scott offers them to move this inside, where nosy neighbors can’t eavesdrop on them. Theo almost doesn’t agree, quite frankly afraid that if they step in a closed space he’ll get separated from her. The wolf and coyote are just as protective, but it’s never been what he throttles every time Liam is concerned. Bree is like a sister, and when he thinks on it, he’s a little glad the Doctors wiped any remnants of her or he would have spent years upon years finding more proof that Bree was just another version of Tara, a parallel, with him as the killer of both. 

He’s still looking for any wrongness, a glitch in her actions, speech, anything too fast or delayed, that would incriminate her as another being. The McCall pack take it all in and he should be more concerned with how open he is to them in his current state, sidelining from covering his signals and body language, an open book. The witch practically hides behind Bree’s wide shoulders, hunched, pulling her leather jacket tighter around herself. 

“Oh, you cold?” Bree takes Naya’s hand, purses her lips. “You’re freezing.” then she tips her nose in the air, scents it, seeks out Melissa when she puts her as one of the owners of the place. And blatantly chooses to address her rather than Scott, who she's already put as the alpha of the pack, in her usual antics to rile people up. “D’you have some tea by any chance? Anything with thyme or chamomile?” 

The pack dart incredulous looks amongst each other, Liam turning to catch Theo’s eye, brows raised. Theo shakes his head at him, huffs and goes over to the cupboard in the far left, slanting a glance Melissa’s way for permission to tug out the chamomile and honey tea out once he receives a baffled nod. While he prepares the tea, in the complete silence of the room, Bree tugs out the remainder of the chocolate bar from Naya’s jacket pocket, makes her eat a few more bites since her scent has once more taken on the sweetness of low blood sugar paired with stress. While doing so she also takes off her own jacket, drapes it over Naya's shoulders.

Huh. Overprotective and attentive streak. This is Bree though, once she perceives you as one of her own it’s game over, you’re under her wing unless you do something despicable enough to lose her trust. Which makes Theo cherish these moments, currently developing, because when she finds out what Theo became, what Theo is, she won't be so free to trust him anymore.

“I can call him for you. It’ll be a nice way for them to start the New Year. Well, not the Lunar New Year, but close enough.” Lucia takes her phone out, extends it to Bree. It’s another test, Theo realizes. “Or you can call him yourself.”

Bree doesn’t take the phone, to which Lucia smiles, wry, eyes narrowing. “Only if you help me start the conversation. I mean, somehow I doubt opening with sup, big bro, I kinda wasn’t dead, you’re still stuck with me is going to be a bright idea.”

Theo snorts, pouring the boiling water in the mug with the teabag and tea spoon. “Since when have you ever had any bright ideas, Brianna?”

Theo was also the one person she didn't get angry at when he used her full name, was allowed to use it the same way she was allowed to use his. Like hell he'll miss the opportunity.

Bree immediately plays along, "Well, Theodore, mighty words from your dumb ass and the ludicrous lunacies you call logic." she always loved to let out her more sophisticated side while they bickered, apparently something still in play.

Their gazes meet in a comic retell of their then default reaction to petty insults - a twin set of playfully squinted eyes and pursed lips, followed by a once over and a shake of their heads.

Alec chokes while Mason covers his mouth with his eyes wide, the rest in varying stages of disbelief. It’s so easy, slipping back into the banter of the good old days when Theo was more himself, before his eyes were turned golden, and when he’d sit with Bree on the hood of her car, the rusty thing she was determined on getting instead of whatever flashy shit Yao Feng wanted to get for her sixteenth birthday. She never really liked the money she came from, was aware of her privileges and strived to use them for the better cause than for her own benefit nine out of ten times.

Theo places the steaming mug of tea on the coconut-themed coaster on the kitchen table in front of Naya, now solemn. “They’re not saying it, but I will.” he holds Naya’s wide, amber eyes, observing as she stiffens. “Don’t try anything. And if you feel like something out of your control  is going to happen, just give a warning. We don’t want accidents.”

Bree glares at the top of the table, arms crossed, staying silent on the matter. It's two outsiders on another pack's territory, there's little wiggle room for negotiation with the delicate balance that's barely keeping itself from toppling over. Still, she stays upright to Naya’s left, mulish like a guard dog. Hell, for the past five years she probably was that. Fucking shit is it weird to think about it, the supernatural world is beyond disturbing at times. Yet Theo speculates it’s more than just the instinctual need to protect her savior.

“Lucia’s right.” Argent speaks from where he’s leaning on the wall that separates the living room from the kitchen. “He has to know.”

Theo points at Bree before she can bite out a retort. She’s long since noticed the tell-tale trace of metal and wolfsbane on the man, condemning him as a hunter. He snaps his fingers twice, when she refocuses on Argent again, to point at her a second time in a don’t you dare manner. Green on brown, followed by Bree going over Lucia and Scott, for their opinion on the fact that one of those sworn to kill their kind is butting in uninvited. 

“I’d rather know the name of the person who looks more the type that’ll shoot me in the gut first.”

“Fair enough.” Argent lets out a smile like Lucia’s, awry and angled, not friendly. “Chris Argent.”

Bree blinks, head going back with her brows flying to her hairline while she does a sequence of comic faces, making Theo release a sudden gust of air through his nose. 

“Argent? Like the—” she clenches her fist in front of her, lifting it to tap at her chin when she seeks Theo out. “I’m gonna say something offensive, I think.” Theo’s lips purse at her repertoire of clownism, to which Bree clicks her tongue. “A little help here, like damn, show some mercy. How should I know where the hunter clans stand when I’ve missed half a decade? All I know about him and his was that the Argents weren’t part of the nice lot back in my day.”

Theo hears Liam mutter back in my day? under his nose, like he’s unsure if he can laugh on it or not.

“He’s with us.” Scott supplies, having found an in on the talk, breathing life into the path of uncovering his boy-scout badges to her. “He’s not one of the bad guys.”

Stiles waves a hand in the air, scoffs. “I mean, he did try to kill you a few times, but that was years ago.” he coughs at the face Lydia pulls, mouth falling open while he takes a peek at the entire room of deadpan expressions. “I’ll just…” he mimes zipping his lips and throwing the key far away. 

If only, Theo muses to himself.

“Sure. Great. Reformed hunter then. Well, Alpha Amadio is gonna rip my head off faster than you can even take the gun out of the back of your pants, so.” 

Malia laughs, the loud ha of it resounding in the room. Derek covers his eyes, Corey doing a full-bodied wince next to him whilst hiding how he too was probably going to explode just like Malia did. Alec’s shoulders shake, chest convulsing with the need to keep in his own laugh, fingers scratching at his nape.

This time, Lucia’s smile isn’t the slightest bit an ill omen.

Somehow, the Feng pack—as well as the Amadio pack since Lucia wasn't keen on the idea of leaving them alone and because her pack refused to settle for celebrating the New Year without her—drag their asses to Beacon Hills, all of them jam packed in the Preserve. The chill to the air isn’t only due to the temperatures having dropped. The Feng pack were the last to arrive, having taken a trip in a fucking private plane after Theo dropped the bomb on him, with Bree hyperventilating next to him so bad that she couldn’t tell her brother nothing but a choked out can you please just get here, dammit, along with more detailed cursing in Mandarin, and Yao Feng had hung up. Theo had received a text message stating they’d be in Beacon Hills by sun fall.

In present time everybody is trying to not watch the reuniting scene, first tense with the formation of the astounding presence of the Feng pack creating a protective half-circle behind their alpha who stares at his little sister in broken awe. Yao Feng takes a step forward and lifts a hand, palm facing Bree, and each person present holds their breath as she erases the distance between them, adopting the same stance. Theo has never seen the man close to a breakdown or showing any other emotion but anger, disdain or precisely the amount of 0.01 percent amusement.

As eye roll worthy as it sounds, it truly is something like out of a high-end fantasy movie. Their palms shake before they make contact, fingers clasping together, a pale blue glow emanating from the point of unity as their eyes shift in their respective shades of red and gold—a family with lineage of traditions Theo has always been curious about, they might be the most interesting pack he's ever come across, what with the amount of magic interwoven and passed down generations, along with the lycanthropy.

A moment passes, and with a shuddery gasp Yao Feng pulls her tight to him, having confirmed it for real. No creature can imitate family blood, particularly the Feng clan's. He's wrapped her in his arms like one would a child, cradling. Loving. Bree’s arms slide under his, to dig into his shoulders through the expensive suit, eyes having long welled up and spilled over with bout after bout of tears, both of them murmuring in low Mandarin and the phrases must be nothing near light in meaning if the rest of their pack's glassy eyes are anything to go by. Theo’s skin erupts into goosebumps, the rest of the Feng pack completing the circle around them, patting gentle hands, running careful fingers over Bree's head and shoulders and arms to call her every synonym connected to kid or kiddo.

Brother and sister, the last of their clan, surrounded by their pack and now finally a full family again. 

"Raji," one of the women elbows a fellow pack-mate, spitting the hair that's swishing in the picking wind out of her mouth and batting it away. "Give them some space, you menace." there's a Slavic undertone in her intonation.

"Fuck off, Tiana." Raji retorts with no bite, offers a fist so they can knock knuckles—gets a rumbled, if fond suka in return—and he presses his shoulder into that of the tall man with long hair to his left while Tiana leans her forearm onto the shoulder of another woman.

Bree cackles, pulls Raji and Tiana by the wrists to wrap her arms around their necks. "I'm so happy none of you guys changed." she whispers, shifts her head to look at the rest of her pack one by one, finally settling back on her brother who can't seem to keep the carefree grin off his face.

Theo can't look anymore.

The only thing that matters is this: Bree is back where she's always belonged.

It tugs, exposes that gaping crater in him that gets inflamed and bleeds a lake each and every time he witnesses touching events that he’s never had for himself. It’s the selfish child, crying and bawling its eyes out at the burned bridges it brought the freshly lit matches to, after it watched as they caught flame, regretting it only after all that was left of them was gapes upon gapes, in charred remains. All ash, reduced to nothing. All gone.

Theo backs away, while the rest are in tune with the unfolding events and won’t notice him slithering out of the clearing. Except for Liam who trails after him, silently waiting for Theo to pick a place to recuperate. He’d like to say it’s only been the last twenty-four hours that weigh on him. In retrospect, it’s been the past two months. He still feels like today has been a fever dream, with the myriad of events unfolding rapidly, ensuring he can’t catch his breath before the next unexpected development. 

“So it really is her.” Liam starts, once they’ve been still for a full minute, far way from the others that any words passed between the two of them won't be heard. “The, uh, the Brenna you knew?” he sucks his lips inwards, careful of the way he structures the sentences, aware that they still might not land as expected.

Theo has sat down, back propped against a tree trunk, knees up to the point where he can lean his forearms on them. “Yeah.”, he confesses.

“Okay.” Liam digs the toe of his sneaker into a protruding root. “And… how’re you holdin’ up?” he swallows, the fidgeting amping with his nervous energy, expecting a fight for his concern.

Theo brings his hands up to his face. “Not now. Just—just not right now. I don’t want a fight and I don’t want to talk about it either.”

“You know, just yesterday we all thought you’d never recover. Or not fully. And today we found out your, um. That Brenna is still alive after—”

Theo’s fangs pop out, piercing the insides of his mouth. “Get to the fucking point or leave, Liam.” he can’t have this conversation in the headspace he’s in, would opt, preferably, to never have it.

Liam inhales sharply, fingers clenching into fists at his thighs.

“Stop and feel, okay? Just, for once, stop and feel, before the mountain of all that shit you buried manages to bury you along with it.” Liam hisses before he throws himself down next to him, but respects his personal space and doesn’t try to touch him. The animals lament the unneeded, in their opinion, consideration; Theo mentally thanks it. “I know it sounds deranged coming from me, but when was the last instance you actually processed something that hurt you? Every time, you build that wall right back up, detach yourself from anything and anybody and fight tooth and nail to not feel a thing. You’re not a robot, no matter how much you try to sell that to us. And with the amount of psychology knowledge you have, don’t you think you should start applying some of that crap on yourself?”

Liam isn’t even looking at him, having copied Theo’s sitting position, although a more animated version of it with his hands flying about whilst his word-spewing ensues. 

“We read the files, what they did to you. I know you’re pissed about it, I’d be too in your place, if somebody invaded my personal space that way. And I am sorry about that, we should never have—” he brings the knuckles of his thumb to his mouth, bites at it with his eyes screwed shut, a pulse of hot anger stemming from him, one he swallows down to continue in a murmur, “It was like a natural disaster, going over it. When you think it couldn’t get worse, it got worse.”

Boo-hoo, some vivisections and a little torture that ultimately made him stronger and nearly an identical level as a werewolf strength-wise, as well as honed his skills and durability to the point where few can match.

And, to be quite honest, he's not even that angry they read the files. It's an eye for an eye in his equation. He took so much from them that, in a way, they do have the right to look. Because what if it was hoarding of plans, crannies and nooks overlooked, but with the potential to be too lethal to disregard. He understands it. The justified mistrust.

No, he's getting more worked over how involved Liam is with this.

The part of Theo, the survivalist who doubts everything, trusts nothing and detests having a weakness exposed, would have been his candidate to take care of the job and push Liam away. He’s not worthy of the amount of compassion Liam extends his way, which is typically the last drop; when he tries to bribe Theo into believing that the blood on his hands, under his fingernails and cuticles, is just food coloring and that he’s just another victim. 

“At this point, I’m not even sure you can process the trauma as trauma because it’s been your life for more than half of your existence.”

It's Liam laying down all his cards on the table, talking without a filter. Still doesn't make Theo less enraged.

“People have different ways of dealing.”  

“But you don’t deal with it, that’s my point!” Liam bellows, head jerking his way, Theo making the fatal mistake of meeting his flared eyes. ”You stare at it, lock it up in a chamber and revisit it when you’re feeling especially masochistic that day, or as a way to convince yourself of a reality only you see! That's not dealing.”

“Okay. And? What else have you got for me, Jean Piaget? Lay it on me.” Theo’s hostility shows in his scent and face, giving Liam what he wants, what they all generally want from him: a reaction. “C’mon, don’t be shy, give me the full psychoanalysis. You got any suggestions for integration methods? Cognitive-behavioral therapy, right? Or positive thinking. Writing a list with things I’m grateful for every morning? More exercise and talking about my feelings like it’s gonna scrub off the blood from the fucked up shit I’ve done with these?” Theo expands his fingers to bring attention to his hands, can feel the mirage of the sticky, coagulated and crusty coat on his skin.

Liam’s first reaction is to bare his teeth and snarl, his second to flinch and his third to drop the shift, to glance at Theo's hands with the something Theo has, to this day, been unable to decipher. He keeps staring and staring and staring at Theo, until Theo’s wrath is swept away by the wind like sand. 

After an eternity, Liam eventually finds the words he’s been meticulously assembling. "You think you don't deserve to be helped. You're afraid that anything good never really lasts. And you're afraid that it'll be a trick, if you do take the offered hand."

A bitterness attaches itself to Liam's scent, before he shakes his head with a harsh scoff and looks away. He folds for now, knows Theo can't be reasoned with about this. He'll figure out another way to broach the subject.

They get back a little while after that, silent and with numerous glances stolen in-between. Bree zeroes in on him in the matter of ten seconds, eyes stopping on Liam next to him, then drifting back to Theo. She lifts her chin up, to ask you okay?,  to which Theo nods. She doesn't buy it. 

His legs feel like lead. He wants to go to her. Why isn't he? A long dead friend, dare he say the best friend he's ever made in his miserable life turning out to be well and alive. Is it the fear of her finding out about his wrongdoings all these years? Possibly. He doesn't want to get comfortable, because if he does it might just break him when she leaves.

You're afraid that anything good never really lasts. And you're afraid that it'll be a trick, if you do take the offered hand.

That might just have been spot on.

Theo does a quick scan, surprised that the three packs are making an effort to socialize rather than keeping to their own, albeit the Feng pack being a tad bit more reserved about it. He bets Scott made the first step. 

A guy who Theo surmises might be Yao Feng's emissary, a pretty guy who surely must have been pulled out of a modelling agency or whatever, is in deep conversation with Deaton. It seems to be quite the peculiar topic. Deaton is entirely immersed, unusually expressive when most, if not all the times Theo has been in his presence, he's held onto his lax and collected ways.  

"Uh…" he refocuses on Liam at the eloquence. He's met with dubiously raised brows, not far from judging. "Aren't you and—" he glances to Bree and back. "Like, you know."

The idiot has taken Theo's interest in the Feng emissary as interest and wrongfully gotten to one of the dumbest conclusions he could have concerning him and Bree.

Theo snorts, pointedly eyes Naya stood close to Bree, with Bree's jacket still atop her shoulders and with the Feng pack having immediately taken her on as a temporarily adopted stray. Bree turns to her, pearly grin wide and bursting, to get her attention and point at her brother.

"Can you believe he was all for skinny jeans back in the day? Let me tell you—"

Yao Feng blanches, sighs, but it's fond. "Brenna."

She waves a hand at him, cackling. "He used to be the biggest peacock you can imagine. Still is, by the looks of it, but it was way worse back then."

"Brenna." he ruffles her long hair, gets his fingers tangled in it and succeeds in stopping the progress of the story when she yowls and slaps at his forearm.

Naya only has eyes for Bree, her scent warm and happy, because Bree is warm and happy. And the other point proves it self in the form of Yao Feng and his emissary seeking each other out, sharing a brief and barely noticeable smile before they get back to their respective conversations.

Theo looks back at Liam. "Aren't we, like, you know?" he imitates him, and Liam shoves him away lightly with a frown that holds no irritation, mouth pulled into a juvenile grin, eyes crinkling along with the motion. 

"Point." he takes a breath, does the nervous tick where he glances at the ground with his upper teeth digging into his lower lip, eyes turning back to Theo's shortly after. Just as he's about to speak, Theo hears Yao Feng say his name. 

"You couldn't have done it in a less stressful way?" Bree complains, does a what can you do shrug for Theo when their gazes meet. 

Liam trails him when Theo heads their way, now even closer than before, an obvious ball of electricity. Scott has taken notice of this, as well as the majority the McCall pack. Lucia's lack of reaction calms him into letting whatever this is run its course, not without him listening in of course, just in case.

Yao Feng extends his arm to Theo, like one would for a handshake. The difference is that when Theo, in a belated manner due to his confusion, raises his own arm to return the gesture, it's two palms instead of one that take a hold of his hand. They squeeze, hard, and for the first time since they've met it's not a cold look aimed down at him, meant to make him feel insignificant and a lowlife. It's brimming with gratitude.

"Thank you." he breathes out, grip growing stronger to the point of bruising, before he lets go and continues in a muted, hushed voice to give as much privacy as possible. "If you hadn't howled that night, Naya wouldn't have felt it, wouldn't have inspected. You rattled a large chunk of her crystal collection just by the energy you produced with your grief." Theo feels his face crack with unconcealed astonishment. He can't have been that strong as a chimera. Did he have more abilities back then? That question stops him from reacting at the explicit depiction of his emotional state at the time.

Yao Feng partially turns his head, to beckon Bree closer. He flashes the shift of his eyes, Theo responding to the ruby with gold, Liam next to him doing the same by instinct, Bree as well. But her mouth makes a speechless O, shock and disbelief, with an angry sheen rapidly forming over the gold that confuses Liam. Theo and Bree maintain the shift as she inches closer, brings her index finger to trace just under his left eye. 

Yeah, last time she'd seen them they were the original color the Doctors gave him. Akin to that fucking enchanted piece of tumbled jadeite mineral. Arsenic green.

She takes a shuddering inhale, a single furious tear sliding down her cheek before she rubs it away immediately. The Doctors are dead. What's done is done and there's no undoing it.

Yao Feng clarifies why he'd showed her this with, "That's why you felt something was off." he's brought a gentle hand to the middle of her back, shifting his body so that he's facing her more, to comfort her.

"What? Why?" Liam is stuck in his state of perplexity, staring between the three of them.

Of all the ways to phrase it, Bree explains it as: “His eyes weren’t that color before."

*

They all welcome the New Year together, watching the sky for the fireworks with the supernaturals covering their ears to their best abilities. 

Theo kind of hates it. He wants to go to sleep, head pounding with the amount of shit that piled up today. Whatever stability he had after he woke up is long gone now, slipped through his fingers. Liam's parents showed up before the fireworks, meaning that at least he can think without the little shit breathing in his neck. 

He pulls Bree to the side, his smile strained. She'll go back to her family in New York, it's where she belongs. She also has to get on top of her education, work on not acting out on her instincts as much as she does, how to be mostly human again. What he isn't ready for is when she asks him to come with them, or at least stay a little while as a guest, telling him that her brother has given a green light should he choose to. 

"And after we've caught that megalomaniac you can stay with us, if you want."

He can say yes, fabricate a lie by omission for the McCall pack, let time deal with the rest. This would be the perfect moment for somebody to have listened in, interrupt and say no way, not happening. Scott's pack is cheerfully conversing with either the Amadio and the Feng pack or among themselves, surrounded by family. They're not paying attention to Theo. 

Or so he thinks. 

He can find Liam by scent in spite of the current chaos of the Preserve, has his senses automatically keeping an eye on him always. Liam's heart skipping a beat can't be a coincidence, yet he's still talking with Jenna and one of Lucia's younger betas. 

"Although…" Bree doesn't look at Liam, just tilts her head in his direction. "Something tells me you won't."

"Dunno about that."

Another skip. 

Bree knocks her knee into the side of his. "Still wish you'd swing by. It'd be nice."

And another, along with the elevation to Liam’s pulse.

"If you keep tempting me I might just accept."

Higher and higher, speed picking up, and Liam's easy expression starts falling. His head tries to turn Theo's way, stops, faces his mother. His exhale is shaky and his smile brittle, even if aimed at Jenna.

"Why not? The hunter can't say shit in front of big bro. What's he gonna do? T-pose for dominance so that they can keep you on their admittedly long leash? Puh-lease. I know you. The moment this pile of shit with the Monroe psycho is dealt with you're gonna pull a Houdini and hightail out of this place." she's scanning all the different pack members and Naya in her usual display of vigilance, the one he'd witnessed firsthand when they first met.

Theo, having followed her lead in the little observation exercise, only just notices Liam's burning eyes on him. Jenna and Lucia's beta are too deep in a conversation to take in his tense body language or the intense emotion bleeding onto his betrayed expression. The distance between them isn't that little; it doesn't mollify the force of the look, the anxiety behind it. And Theo can't say he's overjoyed by the accusing glance Liam sends Bree's way, the clenched muscles of his jaw and cheek bulging. 

"Well. Your big bro will let you in on what's happened the past few years. If you still think you can stomach being in my presence after that, I'll think about it."

"I'm guessing that whatever happened was with them." them being Scott and the rest. She's always been too perceptive, quick to catch details others may miss. "Were you still with the horror clowns at the time?"

Not this again.

"And there you have it."

"Trust me, you won't be making excuses for me when you find out."

Bree sighs, long and loud, exasperated. She doesn't want to cause a scene, but he's still not off the hook. Their weird gravitation, one that's always made them come in close proximity in the end, has them stand pressed together from shoulder to shoulder. Even their posture is nearly identical - leaning on the thick trunk of an old tree, arms crossed with one ankle over the other, attentive of the scene from a bit of a distance to take in all the details. More than once, during their conversation that changes topic every few minutes—like they're trying to cram in everything they've missed, compensate for the time they'll never get back—Theo notices eyes on them, from the McCall pack. Bewildered, curious, unbelieving that a creature like himself is capable of such a deep and ostensibly  mutual friendship. 

"You know, I might just be speculating here, but. I think there's a way to bring them back." Bree mutters, turning to look at him and gauge his reaction, resting her index finger under the thin skin of her own eye.

Ah, so them signifies his original eyes.

Theo's pulse stutters, breath catching, which makes Liam lose his shitty pretense that he's most definitely not been listening in since the beginning for a second time in a row. 

At last, Theo exhales in something close to a pitiful laugh. "I don't think that's possible, Bree."

And he wasn't overly fond of them to begin with, after some memories of those years surfaced through. The sole thing he does like about them is the time period they signified and what he had back then, concerning friendship and mentality.

"Yeah and a few hours ago you didn't think it possible that I'm not a goner. Yet here we are, bitch. I'm alive and kicking." she uses force when she playfully shoulders him, causing him to forcibly take a few steps to the left in order to not fall. 

Once he's regained his balance Theo narrows his eyes, lips pulling into a mirror of her playful smile and goes to shoulder her back. She sidesteps to avoid him, and so their little game of tag begins. The rest of the three packs halt, sharing even further bewildered glances as they watch the display. 

"Ha!" Theo snickers when Bree tries to swipe her claws at his abdomen and misses by a long shot. A few moments later he has his own claws positioned in way he usually has them to rip a throat out. "Too slow." 

Before this can escalate he retreats a step back, clawed hands at his sides, legs braced with his core clenched tight and back a little hunched to better hold himself upright in case she decides to lunge at him. He raises his arms enough to make her see the come on gesture of his fingers. They haven't done this in over five years. He gives an astounding amount of zero fucks that they have witnesses from three different packs, one being Bree's own. If Yao Feng hasn't reacted yet, albeit being on edge before Theo called an end to their first round, then he understands this as child play, not an attack. 

When Lucia starts spewing commentary—on their forms, execution of movements and such—others join in, both from her pack and from the Feng pack. Yao Feng himself has one shoulder to a tree, hands in his pockets and his usually chilling eyes now fond, his emissary less than a foot away. They're having a back and forth, but Theo can't quite catch the words over the cacophony. 

At one point, when they're finally in the zone, they predict each other's attacks too accurately, can't land blows and they keep laughing every time the other does a par to a fatal blow. This time it's Bree who chokes on her own laugh, puts up a hand.

"Time out, wait, I'm gonna choke—" she wheezes out, bracing one hand on her knee. Multiple others cackle along. Just as she's gotten a hold of herself their eyes meet. A few moments of silence and Theo's shoulders shake, he turns his head away to face the forest and cover the lower half of his face.

"You look like you're gonna start swinging at me with a cane." the words are muffled from his hand and barely discernible with how hard he's fighting to not combust.

Another eye to eye moment and they half land on the ground, with one knee on the frozen soil. Theo doesn't have it in him to care. So what if he's out of character? So what if it's all bare for them to see? Fuck it, he has his best friend back.

Fuck it all to high heaven.

*

It's the goodbye that splinters something in him. It was inevitable, an event he was well aware of. It still hurts. The only good part was that Yao Feng and his emissary stayed until the very end and opted to go home in Naya's car. Bree pulled him a new one when her brother suggested that somebody else picks it up and deliver it back to Naya's doorstep, for the audacity and the inability to take in regard the fact that maybe it's something important to her, for fuck's sake, learn how to read the room and that was that. Something tells him she just wants to spend more time with Naya, prolong their goodbye the same way Theo prolonged his.

Theo drove them to the car itself, just so they wouldn't have to trek the forest again and because he wanted to postpone the known sequence of events, if by a few minutes. 

"You'll see her again." is what Yao Feng tells him, and he means it. Any hostility from him and his has vanished into thin air, a feat Theo is still getting used to, but not in the slightest bit opposed to. 

"Of course he will. I bribed him to come over to our side once the war is over with." here Theo can't even resist it when she offers the back of her clenched hand for a first bump, taps her knuckles with his, followed by a high-five.

Yao Feng had just shifted to get in the backseat of Naya's car, turns around on the heels of his overly expensive shoes. "Is that pack of yours going to even let you?"

Theo blinks, brows climbing up his forehead. "I'm not a part of the McCall pack." he drags out every word, to accentuate the meaning. "I'm just the necessary evil."

The emissary—Declan, Theo recently found out his name is—slants a pointed glance at Yao Feng, in an similar way to told you so, but with the sense that they've delved into a whole other topic Theo isn't privy to. They have some nonverbal conversation, after which Yao Feng taps his fingers on the metal of the door in contemplation. 

Then, burgundy on green. He says nothing and Bree, even after having spent years in her animal form, has retained enough human cues to not interrupt. Theo feels left out of the loop, similarly to when Lucia does something along the same lines or offers a genuine invitation to her home. 

"Well, if that's how you feel."

If that's how he—the fuck?

Yao Feng grins, a shocking event in itself, aims the sentence at Bree whilst still holding Theo's eye. "If it's all clear with them and Lucia doesn't snatch him first, he’s welcome." 

There's a small bout of bickering and off they go, to the other side of the continent. At least Bree promises to text him the moment she has a phone again, and to help with the battle tactics as soon as she's up to date with the whole disaster.

Five minutes after they've departed Theo is left standing in the middle of the deserted road, pushing the playback button on the last scene. Not even Yao Feng's cryptic words. Just how it feels like he lost a sister again. Don't get him wrong, Bree isn't a replacement. He'll never forget Tara and it was never with that intention. Sometimes, though, the small details like the age gap of two years, which is identical to his with Tara, the fact that Tara and Bree's birthdays are a day apart and how they're some of the few people to ever bring out Theo out of Theo—the kid, the small fragment that stays barricaded in a cave layered with cement, scarcely let out to see daylight—well, it hurts.

It aches. And in some way it's a punishment, maybe. Not like he doesn't deserve it.

*

Theo makes a small lap in his wolf form, to cool off and step back on his feet. The processing is easier like this, not as a harsh reality slap. Liam is the only one in the apartment when he comes back. Derek's loft is empty. Knowing him, Liam probably bribed Scott to arrange this and give him privacy to verbally castrate Theo for all the shit before New Year. Theo debates how to claw the metal door open, since his clothes are still in the truck and he only got inside the building itself because of a bout of luck and some couple identifying him as "Alec's dog"—Alec had to explain the strange sightings of a big canine climbing up the straits to his apartment, apparently freaked out and served that lie as an excuse—after cooing at how smart he is for knowing to keep the leather strip holding the keys in between his teeth to alert his owner.

Liam yanks the door open, lurches a step back like he's witnessing his first murder scene and looks like he's a breath away from having a panic attack. Theo headbutts his shin, huffs to signal he wants to get in and switch skins. He manages to sneak in through the small gap Liam left, ignoring how his side scrapes against the metal frame, and runs up the last flight of stairs standing between him and his own space. 

Liam is somber and quiet, withdrawn even. Never a good omen.

When he's put on a fresh set of clothes and is once more on the ground floor, Theo raises his arms, lets them fall back against his thighs. "Well? Lay it on me."

Liam is unnaturally still on the couch, one leg drawn up to his chest with an arm wrapped around it, sitting with his side to the back of the couch. The blue of his eyes is the color of a swimming pool at dusk, a bright, yet simultaneously deep shade that makes you sink, makes you feel like you'll drown if you stare too much. 

"What do I have to do in order to convince you to let somebody else take care of the rest?" the words are dull, dead serious and a little haunted. Liam's expressions doesn't change.

A fight, the last thing he needed. Because this topic always ends in a fight. The stupid fucking theaters.

A strange idea forms in his head, that maybe Liam bribed Scott to not start this conversation himself, to let Liam do all the talking. Because Scott won't permit another repeater of this and he might even plead it with Argent, but his approach won't be as direct as Liam's. 

Theo shakes his head, doesn't let his vocal strings work. He expected Liam to explode and charge at him with a string of carefully aimed words, scenarios he's already gone through alone, anything to tip the favor in hands really. But no, he just gets this pained and lost look, pulse jumping.

"Why?" he demands.

Theo silently begs him to not pull the gun he himself would in this situation. Everybody from Scott's pack, along with Lucia, knew he omitted telling Bree of his physical and mental state before she materialized out of thin air into his life again, never led her to believe anything was remotely off or not how it should be. For whatever reason, they didn't allude to it once. At least not by words. Not like he was in their vicinity for a long time while she was here to begin with. 

"What would B—"

Theo is whip quick to interject, startles Liam with his quiet, but saturated with too many emotions tone. "You do not get to bring her into this." 

A beat, two, Liam stunned to silence with the unexpected strike.

"You don't get to fucking use her against me. Do you understand? Ever. A single one of you does it, I'm outta here."

It's not even a threat or a bargaining chip to manipulate—and to be quite fucking honest, he's not sure he will actually leave if push comes to shove, had he meant it as such. Bree is a wound as deep as Tara. Two sisters, one related by blood, the other choosing to place him under her wing no matter what her actual family warned her against, and he lost both. He got back only one, can repay only one for getting killed because of him, for her effort of taking him in. This type of wound is a crater as insatiable as a black hole. They can dig at whatever else they want, can utilize any other means necessary, but he's sure as fuck not letting anybody near this particular spot.

Liam physically recoils back, mouth parting upon the realization of the magnitude of his fuck up. He's posed ready to spring up and pull Theo further away from the door, but doesn't.

"I'm sorry, I didn't—" Liam's lips clench together to keep the words in, in order to not escalate the situation. He looks away, eyes jumping from object to object, with his body hunched in, regret and distress and guilt pouring out of him.

Theo exhales quietly and sits on the couch, facing away from him with his back to the cushion. He's too weak to even be properly pissed for an extended period of time when it comes to Liam. 

"I know none of you get it, but this is as close to redemption as I can get." he starts, drags a hand over his eyes, down to his stubble. "All the shit I've done and helped them with, all the people that died because I tipped the odds in the Doctors' favor - this is the only way I can feel like I can—like—"

He brings both hands to cover his face, the back of his head hitting the couch as he takes a slow breath, holds it and exhales just as slowly. 

"And the timeline of the war, the time catching up on us, I can't do it quickly and efficiently when there's somebody else to witness it. But we need speed. Or we're dead."

He's never been one unable to articulate himself. This is as foreign as being the good guy is. Ha, as much as he can be a good guy.

"You stopped breathing." 

All thought processes short-circuit. For a tiny bout consisting of a mere three seconds, his mind just stops.

Theo drops his hands to his lap, turns his head to Liam in confusion. There's still panic in the deep blues, only now it's accompanied by the same haunted look from before. 

"Three times. Once in front of Alec."

"And the other two?" Theo asks and he knows.

He knows.

The crushed smile Liam gives him and the subsequent flare of his eyes, there and gone in a split second, confirm it. 

“From what Alec told us, you were clinically dead for probably three minutes. He woke up because of it, managed to bring you back with good ‘ol chest compressions and called me because I was the closest. Scott was with me. And thank fuck for it, I've no idea what would have happened if he wasn’t there.”

Liam stares at his own fiddling hands, twisting and twining his fingers to contain his anxiety. His legs give these jerky movements, a testament to him relieving the scene anew. 

“The second time, you were having a nightmare so bad that your heart stopped. At first I didn’t know what was going on. You kept swinging from deep sleep to a comatose state that it didn't register, until—” Liam shakes his head, hair flopping over his eyes. “You got back on your own, at least, by the time it took me to get up the stairs.” a pause, green on blue, dread piling in Theo’s stomach like lead. “The third was the worst. You woke up from a nightmare again, but you were still in it. You kept clutching at your chest, until you slammed your fist in it and your heart stopped again.”

Was that even possible? He gets why he inflicted harm onto himself, it was a tactic he figured out early on. Punching out the breath he can’t get out of his lungs snaps him out of the night terrors, but it only works when he’s at least partially aware he’s in it because it's a delicate balance of time between the punch and the heart's rhythm. He must have fucked up and ended up causing commotio cordis instead.

“The first few seconds were the worst. I kept on thinking you’ll spring back into action any time now. Any time. But…” Liam’s scent dips, complexion paling to an alarming degree, eyes wide. “I can’t even remember how I did it, like my brain wiped it clean. When you woke up from it you couldn’t take in a single breath again. Then you shifted.”

Theo remembers this one. Liam holding his hand to his chest, urging him to copy the measured inhales and exhales to no avail, the wolf shoving him off the scene in a blink of an eye. No wonder he shifted. His body and subconsciousness had known it was the fastest way to heal any damage from however long the lack of brain function lasted for.

“And—” Liam is looking at him, but is unseeing, brows pulled tight together, worried, reliving the scene in his own head. His speech keeps getting choppier and choppier, too fast as he instinctively brings his curled leg closer to his chest. ”You—you weren’t supposed to shift. It kept stalling the progress every time you did it and Amadio told us to make sure you don’t do it again in case you got stuck in it and couldn't revert back, but I couldn’t stop you and—”

“Liam.” Theo lays a hand onto Liam’s raised knee, startles him out of the memory. Had he known it's this bad and that it holds such an impact, he would have never asked.

Wolf and coyote whine as one, and Theo obliges. He hesitantly reaches out with his arms, one to drag Liam's left leg up onto the couch as well, the other to guide his head until his forehead rests on both of his raised knees. Just as he'd predicted, Liam traps Theo's hand on his nape, keeping it hostage under his. He also curls his free arm around one leg to dig his fingers into Theo's shirt, to keep him from pulling away. 

Theo's grip on Liam's nape increases, thumb tapping gently over the side of his neck, the sole finger free from Liam's guard hand atop his. 

"That's why you freaked out when you saw my wolf form just now?"

Liam nods, shivers. “Thought you were gone again.”

"With people who can shift, the easiest way to reverse damage is to maintain a form that doesn't produce the same amount of overly complex thought process as a human's. 'Till it's safe to ping back online." he shares the bland information softly, hoping that Liam can see the logic through Theo’s lens and understand, maybe even take comfort in the acquired knowledge. 

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Theo swallows, stills his hand in order to not let himself slip and start cradling his fingers through the short strands on the back of Liam's head. 

Liam seems to comprehend that the lack of answer is still an answer, if tactfully void of more weapons Liam can use against him. "It's not fair." he hisses against his knees, his grip on Theo's hostage hand now close to bruising with how tight he's holding it. 

They spend the next hour like this. Theo pulling every ace up his sleeve to reason with a hard-set Liam who resolutely refuses to accept any excuse that's liable for a carte blanche slip. Theo bargains, Liam disassembles the verbal package in the making. Theo fights to make him see reason, Liam retaliates to convince him of how fucked up this entire exchange is because normal people don't negotiate in order to make others permit them ruin their own body and mind, Theo, fucking Christ and, well. They get nowhere. The sole development is the steady increase of proximity. 

At some point Derek comes back to his apartment, in tow with Malia, Peter and Scott. Liam's grip on him further strengthens, like he's afraid they'll barge in and pull them apart. Theo isn't even sure if they've also figured out this mess of emotions and feelings surrounding them, whether they appreciate Theo's lack of action on them. Because come the fuck on, they're not blind. Theo might prefer adopting the ostrich method with his head in the ground when it comes to the thing between the two of them, but sadly he's aware enough to know how their behavior looks from a third point of view. 

"Liam."

"Not fucking happening." the answer is muffled, carried between their bodies with how their limbs are almost intertwined and how the top of Liam's head has stayed pressed to Theo's jaw for over half an hour now. 

"Is he negotiating with him for permission?" he hears Peter say from a few floors up, the amusement apparent on him. "Fat chance of convincing him." Malia hums in agreement just as Scott and Derek sigh. 

Liam must not hear them, though, because he doesn't react and continues to hog Theo's personal space. Hell, he bunches in closer, the tip of his nose making contact with Theo's throat, breathes in deep and long to hold the breath and exhales it just as slowly, causing a shiver to trail over Theo's skin. 

"Not happening." Liam repeats in a whisper, ankles clasping together behind Theo's back. He'd lost the fetal position a while back and now they're in a similar situation to the bathtub disaster, the only difference being that Liam hasn't gone full octopus mode yet.

"I haven't even said anything."

"Every time you make a pause this long you try to pull something out of your ass as an excuse. I'm saving you the effort."

Theo pinches his side, a mistake. Liam lurches forward with a high sound, pinches him back. "How benevolent of you." Theo says it to ignore just how close they are, with Theo's chin on top of Liam's head. 

He should be stressed Liam isn't giving any ground, is in contra with every word Theo delivers. Instead, it's a peaceful feeling settling into his blood and bone marrow. The animals are quiet in his head, a rare and startling occurrence of them curled up together with no blood spilled. It's the Liam effect - his proximity gives Theo a sense of safety so strong that even the phantoms can't enter the premises of this sacred little circle they've formed. 

*

And Theo, he’s weak. He folds.

*

The first trip they make it’s with Scott, Malia, Derek and Liam. Theo ropes Derek into this shitshow because he’s the one other individual who holds some similar world views, enough lines in juxtaposition that if push comes to shove Theo knows he can rely on him to diffuse the situation. Or to nudge Scott in the right direction, which will also force Malia and Liam to behave. Somewhat, at least.

And you know what? He should have known what this band of merry derangement will make.

It’s a disaster. A fucking disaster from start to finish. Scott puts his foot down when it comes to extensive drives with little to no rest, makes them sleep at least seven hours a night and since there’s no need for precaution when Theo isn’t alone, he can't even utilize Argent’s modus operandi in his gain. It’s so bad that Liam acquires a guilty mug that persists throughout the night, he doesn’t even pester Theo to hold meaningless conversations. Not that he has the opportunity. Theo exiles him to Scott and Malia’s room to have a video conference with Lucia and waste an hour texting with Bree who finally got a phone.

The rest of time he bombards Argent’s phone to bitch about the slow progress and how he shouldn’t have let this happen in the first fucking place. If he’s gonna suffer for this shit, then so will Argent. The man isn’t faring better, sometimes forgets of the arrangement and shoots Theo a text in the form of a lone question mark, prompting Theo to send a clown emoji at him. The opportunities for subtle patronizing are probably the only highlight and the one delight Theo has.

The remainder of the time he’s detached, working himself into a forcibly calm state he maintains by juggling multiple psychology hacks to keep the monsters at bay. They divide the deactivation into three zones and Theo isn’t allowed to work alone, like he’s some kiddie that needs constant care and attention in case he flips his lid. In the end, he’s forced to dissociate, triggering it by himself. He seldom speaks while they’re down there, in the cold underground with the preserved tools and hazardous liquids. 

It’s stupid how it feels like they’re stepping into his territory, invading his personal space. He opts to have Derek as a nanny, confirms it’s the right choice when he’s not stopped from collecting his files, nor when he crouches down with the fragile papers, hands shaking as he makes to open the yellowing folder. 

He's barely a paragraph of medical terms in when dirty sneakers enter his field of vision. Grubby hands try and snatch the files and he growls, the burr stemming from deep within his chest.

"Theo." Liam starts in an admonishing tone, this close to swerving into pissed-off lane. "Gimme."

"Fuck off."

Derek lets out a sharp breath, having also come to the conclusion that a fight is going to ensure and stall them even further. 

"You pigheaded—"

Theo cuts him off, flashes his eyes up at him. "Maybe I wanna know what body I'm actually living in." there's too much venom piled up in the sentence, the culmination of his current situation not far from being caged. 

Scott calls Liam away, comes closer to physically tug him away when Liam stays rooted to his spot. 

His blue eyes are helpless.

"Amadio said one page per day." Malia says from somewhere far away. Theo's perception is starting to dwindle, which may not be visible on the outside. "And that was a stretch." she adds, for what reason Theo can't tell. 

What, she thinks it'll discourage him? He can deal with Lucia later, is immune to her anger and disappointment. To anybody's really, even Liam's. Fine, Liam has more power over him than any of them, he'll admit it. Not right now. He'd readied himself for this precise moment, to pull the lever and sever the emotional from the logical, to trigger his brain into remembering details critical to his existence. 

Liam is him and his. Theo is his own. They're not pack. He's an outsider. Basic math right there.

Where the thought of it would usually hack a laceration between his ribs, now it's a fine distinction aiding his decision making. They know too much already; he's allowed to keep some semblance of privacy. The heart isn't his, but the body is. And he has a right to know what's been done to it. Will the knowledge help him? Probably not. Will it mollify his paranoid and rattling subconsciousness and apply a temporary balm of calm that only full awareness can? Yes. And to him that outweighs the risk. He wants to reclaim every part of himself that he can, that includes the damaged ones.

Pros and cons has been his entire life. He's not stopping now. 

"Scott, you can't just let him!" Liam hisses when they're behind a half full tank filled with something disgusting and partially see-through. 

Scott doesn't make a peep. He's just as thick-headed as Liam, sees and identifies with his reasoning more than Theo's, despite wanting to permit Theo his privacy. 

Theo is five pages in when Malia comes near. 

"What do I do with this?" she holds out a vial with neon blue liquid between her index finger and thumb. She keeps up the play, that nothing is amiss and it's just your regular Wednesday. 

Theo swallows down bile. 

That particular vial is a poison non-lethal to werewolves but heavily lethal to him. Some magic shit contorted with science that has you believe your insides are melting cell by cell if made to consume it. Theo extends his arm in a languid manner, palm outstretched and clammy. Malia's eyes narrow, zipping to the sweat beading at his forehead and palm, to his far away and not entirely present gaze, all in opposition to his flat-line scent and pulse. 

She hesitates, catches Derek's eye next to Theo, before handing him the vial. And Theo is so far into his dissociation he doesn't handle the liquid with the warranted precaution, executes the motions by memory of seeing it done before his eyes, moments before the disaster. 

Swish the vial vigorously up and down, five times in total, twist the wrist until the liquid does a circular motion inside its glass confines and slam it into a solid surface, just enough to disrupt the molecules so that they solidify in an even more venomous neon blue, just not enough to break it. Shards of crystal form, the tips almost clear with most of the color saturated in the middle. 

"What is that?" Scott pipes up. He'd witnessed the entire process along with Liam, from their standpoint a few meters away.

"An analog to Aconitum Lamarckii, but works faster." Theo drones out, focused on the poison. 

They all seem to have a simultaneous recollection of the bullet shards ordeal, the same night Monroe fled. 

"It's not deadly to you." he adds, to lessen their unease. Ever since the full-out war started Argent has made every member of Scott’s pack educate themselves on how to distinguish the most common and deadly strains of wolfsbane, then roped up Theo into helping them when they got too confused with the minor, yet extremely vital differences.    

"Then who's it deadly to?" Derek has his head tilted to one side, eyeing the vial as though it’s a rattlesnake giving him a warning sign to get the fuck out of here. 

Theo's vision swims, tips on its axis. How did the Doctors even manage to save his body after they made him swallow a shard? The reaction had been immediate, with convulsions starting a brief five seconds after ingestion, throat unable to produce sounds other than blood curdling screams. 

"Me." he hears himself answer, handing the vial back to Malia nonchalantly like she can't just break it and secure his death within the minute. Ingestion isn't the only way to poison, the fumes do a considerable job, too. She'll even be able to enjoy his agony, satiate the coyote under her skin. Win-win.

It doesn't matter either way. His body is keen on sadism and makes him relive some of it without any of it present in his system. The files fall from his lap in a lamentable heap, just when he'd gotten to the part where an explanation as to how he lived past this shit was going to ensue. Theo picks them up, diligently places them together, brings them to his folded legs to straighten them out with a few taps and hangs his head to keep on reading with the words swimming in front of him. 

Apparently he's missed a conversation, as well as Liam getting on his knees in front of him, hands nearing Theo to gently pry the papers out of his numb fingers. Liam's own hold a tremor to them, quickly swinging his arm to deposit the files to Derek's keep, and clasp Theo's to rub circles into the middle of his palms. 

Pins and needles, pins and needles, ice in his blood. Noises in his ears, they thud. Pins and needles and blood, how hastily they flood. 

Jesus fucking Christ, is he making a mildly put disturbing nursery song in his head? That’s a new one. He's even more whacked in the head than he'd presumed.

Theo can see Liam's expression crack, wrath pushing through and his head aimed up at Derek. His mouth moves, yet Theo hears nothing of it. He uses the diversion to channel all the strength he has left for a trick move and slams the back of his head into the wall behind him. His ears ring, eyes closing to target the focal point of pain and latch onto it. The hands holding his own shake, take him by the wrists with brute force before they loosen up and one migrates to his forearm, then to his shoulder and finally settles on the juncture where neck and shoulder meet. It keeps his head still, though he won’t be making a repeater of this particular exercise. He just needed to shock his brain a little, force it to calm the fuck down and quit with the theatrics. The superhuman healing will deal with the rest for him.

Blood trickles down his nape, brings him back to his pathetic, curled up body in the motel bathtub a few days after Christmas, when he’d done the same thing in order to mobilize his nervous system. Theo keeps his eyes closed, forgets about his current lack of hearing to relish in his now steadily slowing pulse. His eyelids lift when he notices the pair of scalding hot palms on his face, on either cheek, pressing under his lower lashes and at the corners of his eyes.

Liam is distraught. Pissed. Terrified. On the verge of swinging an arm back to punch him, and he might have just done that if not for Theo's self-inflicted head trauma. But that, all of it, melts away. Dazed blue turns into liquid gold, inches closer to better analyze whatever he sees in Theo’s eyes. With his peripheral vision he catches sight of Scott and Derek crouched on either side of him and Malia a little behind Scott, her hand on Liam’s shoulder. They all waver, with suspended apprehension and staring just as intently, while Liam runs his thumbs under Theo’s eyes in feathery swipes, over and over again, careful and tender.

Theo’s hearing comes back online just as Malia grits out a confused what the fuck is that, Scott shooting Derek pleading glances, hoping he knows whatever the fuck is happening to Theo’s face. What? Is it muscle spasms? 

"She wasn't lying." Liam’s awe-struck voice gives him the clue, “They really were a different color.” people go to look at paintings in museums with that particular look. Why is he aiming it at Theo? The creature better off alone and isolated, lest he turns all psycho on everybody again. He’s not worthy of it.

Wait, back to the topic. 

Color. 

Liam said color. What color? They’re genetically engineered to maintain the false gold, undeserving of it when his hands metaphorically drip with innocent blood. But Liam used Bree’s words, when she saw Theo's shifted eyes and realized they aren’t what they used to be. And in a quick roll of the tape he remembers that day on the clearing, with Yao Feng scrambling his brain, with the crystal clear picture of him and Bree standing in front of a mirror. Theo holding that fucking tumbled Jadeite mineral glowing like it leaks radiation, enchanted by the now deceased coven. His only key out from the Doctors.

“See?” he hears her word for word in the back of his mind. ”Looks like your eyes.”

Ah. The poison eyes. He fucking loathed them, still does. Arsenic green with little lines of white woven in-between, like a shattered and useless thing. Pretty only in theory, ugly when destroyed and the more you observe at it, the more you want to look away, afraid you’ll get infected with something. Those eyes. 

The brief hours when he’d been free was the first time he reconsidered the hideousness of them, thinking that the symbol of his liberation, given to him by Bree no less, should be deemed as something other than the color of toxic waste.

“Derek?” Scott tries verbally when his pleading expression gets him nothing. 

Derek shakes his head, “This is a byproduct of genetic experimentation. I’ve no idea.” 

“Liam, what did you mean by she wasn't lying?” Malia tries to pull Liam back a bit. Key word: tries. Liam won’t budge. He’s too busy exposing himself to unsightly shit. 

"Bree." a pause and he fixes his misstep. "Uh, Brenna. Yao Feng's little sister."

Theo tries to move his head away, eyelids drooping to hide the venom. “Hey, no, no, no. Don’t move, okay? C’mon, open your eyes.” the astonishment-induced ease is hastily replaced by uneasy dread. Liam must think he’s seconds away from shifting to his wolf form. “Theo.” 

Theo grits his teeth, shaking his head with his brows pulling together. He doesn’t want Liam to see that when he’s already been witness to too much damning shit. What is it with him and his nosy pack and their need to dissect everything about Theo and the mismatched variations of the word abomination? He gets it. He fucked them over, killed Scott and traumatized the rest, along with Scott himself. He gets it, okay? But can’t they pick a better moment to do more damage? Fuck’s sake.

To his delight anger seems to be the key in this situation. It mobilizes him with the help of the stinging split in his scalp, now almost healed after having left a sticky residue of carmine in its wake. He applies iron pressure to Liam’s breast bone with his palm in a quick move, to make him lose balance and force him into Scott and Malia’s arms, then uses the wall as a crutch to get to his feet. He permits Derek’s touch because it’s a helping hand, rather than a shackle to bring him back to the floor. 

He snatches his files back, clutches the paper in his hand, hearing it crinkle and bunching, and heads towards the nearest reflective surface. So it is true. As Theo snarls a huff and focuses, notices a brief flicker of gold. There. He feels it. It's working. He calls off the shift for an interim of time, flickers it back on and his chest lets go of the air in his lungs in a leveled exhale. 

Gold. They're golden again.

Liam advances, turns Theo over with a palm on his shoulder. There's something in his eyes Theo isn't able to follow the thread of, similarly to the other thing that evades him each and every time Liam exhibits it. 

Liam's lips part, like he's going to say something, but Theo sidesteps him to take care of the rest of the deactivation. 

"Go outside. I'll be out in ten." and if he sounds too gruff and cold, more than they've ever heard him, it's none of their business.

"Like hell." Liam snarks back at him, trails him, or more like stalks like a hungry wolf looking for a way in on a pounce.

"Go outside." Theo repeats, in the same infliction. He drags a hand over his nape to collect the blood, wipe it in his shirt, and continues disemboweling the theater piece by piece. 

Liam doesn't react well to Scott ushering him to the entrance. "He just crashed his own skull in the fucking wall and you want me to leave him here alone?" his bellow echoes in the dark space.

Scott chooses his words, breathes them out with guilt layering them like a heavy quilt, a realization that must have hurt him to understand, as well as accept. "We're not helping, Liam." he states, voice urging and more than a little lost, unable to think of any other way to proceed but to do what Theo asked for. "We're making it worse." 

Theo forces himself to not catalogue Liam further than the skip of his pulse and the small sound that lodges itself into his throat. Scott drags him out with Derek in tow. Malia is the last one to leave, stays another minute to watch Theo's calculating movements and take apart his suppressed chemo signals. 

"He worries for you. A lot." she tells him when they're far away, like it's a secret and not something Theo is well aware of, wants to extinguish because of that pitiful thing in him and how much it likes being thought of. "And he cares about you. Also a lot." she carries on, but with her position he can't see her. 

"Not like we all don't know how much of a fuck up that is." he doesn't hide the angry bitterness from her when she's on the same page as him. She doesn't like him being what he is to Liam either. Not like he can blame her. 

"It wouldn't have been if you didn't have the emotional range of a tattered couch and actually stopped with the self-sacrificing. And if you finally acted on—"

"Puh-lease." Theo snorts, uses too much force in shattering a glass tank with a kick to the middle of the surface. "He doesn't need that." 

He doesn't need me, he wants to say, but that's too much honesty. What Liam needs is a person as genuine and sunny as himself, not Theo fucking Raeken with his circus of horrors and all the consequences of his actions catching up. Or his gloomy, cynical and self-destructive state of being—hey, he's self-aware, he knows he's not a bag of sunshine, never has been.

Malia mulls something over, but doesn't act upon it and lets him be.

*

Liam is in Derek's room when Theo comes out of the shower. He'd gone with Scott and Malia on the way back to the motel, Theo free to put on whatever music he liked. Deep bass, low voices, eerie sound and all that. The kind of music Liam would talk through to engage him in a conversation when he's more fond of upbeat or louder songs that don't leave you stranded in your own thoughts. 

Theo uses the alone time to unwind, to bring himself back into his body. If he doesn't do it now, all he'll do is think about how sick it makes him that he has to do this—breaking down until the pathetic insides of his mind come to the surface—with an audience. It's kind of a pride thing, but not entirely. Nobody likes vulnerability, least of all Theo. He could turn a blind eye to Liam because Liam seems to always be a weakness of his, when it was just them, but not to the three other additions.

He falls asleep on his bed, curled on his side with the phone held in his hand, to feel the vibrations of the music through the metal panels. He wakes to Liam crouched by the bed, gently prying it out of his lax fingers to lower the volume and leave it right next to him, like he knows Theo won't be able to sleep well enough without this type of background noise. The moment Theo debates whether to open his eyes and gauge the state Liam's in, a warm palm presses over them.

"Go back to sleep." it's withdrawn, voice scratchy, but holds no room for naysays. So Theo listens. 

And then he wakes up again.

A hand flying to his mouth to keep himself from throwing up, his legs carrying him to the bathroom all the while he feels like he's half out of his body. He manages to not slam the door by some miracle. His stomach keeps on spasming, forcing him to empty it out. His vision swims, like he's on a boat at sea, swaying left and right, left and right. He closes the lid of the toilet to flush it and lessen the acidic stench of the air after he's done, but he can't get up. 

That's when Liam comes in, sleep groggy, yet his pulse is jumping all over the place. Theo tries to get up, forces his weak muscles to cooperate with his need to rinse his mouth and slosh some toothpaste in it. Liam clearly gets the idea, uses his shoulder to hoist up the better part of Theo's weight and guide him to the sink, all the while maintaining his stance as a furnace-like pillar, immovable from his place next to Theo. 

Only when he's gotten rid of the sour taste does his body further betray him. He catches himself on the edge of the sink, one leg bucking, almost making him land his face in the mirror above the sink. The world is starting to look squiggly, a Starry Night brought to life in front of his eyes, which he has no idea how long have been flared for, but they lose the gold and to his horror melt into that god awful arsenic shade. Liam steering him to his bed is the only thing stopping him from actually breaking the mirror when he sees them. 

Theo is just about to open his mouth when Liam says, "Say you're fine and you'll be dealing with a livid Derek and Malia who I'll wake up just so I can watch them rip you a new one."

Theo snaps his jaws shut, the click of enamel on enamel audible in the quiet that's interrupted only by the low-volume music still playing from his phone. Liam deposits him on the bed with a dead serious face, mouth pinched tight, and despite those factors it's still a gentle action. 

"How the fuck are you supposed to get better when you keep pouring acid on yourself?" Liam spits out, the hint of his lupine side burring the words. His fists stay clenched at his sides as he gazes down at Theo. "Spare me the spiel, I know all your excuses disguised as logical explanations by now."

Theo runs a trembling hand over his face, muscles weak, lungs still not quite there yet with the full expansion function they're supposed to be carrying out. 

"And yeah, I know. Not now, preferably not ever, right? God forbid you actually talk about it."

Either Theo is too predictable or he's so tired that he's an open book. Possibly both, actually. Liam is one of the few people who have, indeed, heard all of his reasoning. Yes, reasoning, not excuses. He's not happy about the whole reliving the trauma crap either, and he's guilty for maintaining a self-destructive mindset, but it doesn't mean he'd go this far if the circumstances didn't force his hand. Liam and his world view, his clean hands, don't have the capacity to put it into perspective the way Theo can and does, day in and day out.

"Okay." he gives, surrendering in a way. It takes Liam aback, apparently having expected to receive a comeback. 

Theo reaches for his phone, fails to unlock it five times before he actually succeeds, to hit the pause button on the player. The music isn't really doing it for him anymore. He needs quiet. 

His phone almost lands on the floor with how bad his hands tremble, when he goes to place it screen down by his head. There's no use for setting an alarm. Liam won't let him out of the room until Theo has had more than seven hours of sleep in a row. 

Liam goes to his bed, stops right in front of it to glance over his shoulder at Theo. He then proceeds to take his pillow and comforter, bodily moves Theo from the middle of his bed to the right side in order to climb in with him. So he's that freaked out. 

They're face to face, Theo with no spare energy to turn. His eyes give up on him when the animals under his skin find solace in Liam's body heat and scent, needing just this tiny comfort to lay back and forget all about the nightmares. 

He sleeps undisturbed for the next eight hours. 

*

They take care of the whopping amount of four theaters, Scott folding under Liam's constant state of aggravated anger after each and every time Theo does a forced lock down on his emotions. It gets to the point where after a one-sided verbal fight with Malia—he doesn't remember what set her off, but she's been slowly surrendering to the coyote's caginess and it finally seeped through it seems—he answers her jagged we should have put you back in the ground with a detached probably, not like it's ever been off the table to begin with, which unlocks a string of shouting matches between herself and Liam, a taken aback Derek and a horrified Scott. All in the same minute. 

Theo smokes outside, sat on the hood of his truck and texting Bree while he waits them out. Least of all he expects Liam to storm out of their shared motel room, where the disaster occurred, with their duffel bags slung atop each of his shoulders. He throws them in the backseat, then himself into the passenger seat. 

He doesn't order Theo around while he's finishing his cigarette, however the first words out of his mouth are a direct command:

"Drive. We're going back." Liam doesn't look at him, instead his eyes are concentrated with all their anger in the direction of the motel door he just slammed closed. 

Scott and Derek are talking Malia out of breaking the room apart, until Scott finally breaks.

"Malia!" he shouts, with not a small tint of alpha werewolf underneath. He'll hate himself for it later, Theo knows. Scott rarely likes utilizing this unless it's highly necessary, is uncomfortable with the power he can hold with just his voice. "Malia, that's enough." he's switched back to pleading and panicking, already regretting his slip up. "Please. Enough." 

Liam has one elbow to the edge of the window, to press his curled fingers to his mouth, still observing the door as though he can see through it. He fights to take measured inhales, rather than the heavy breathing he can't seem to shake himself out of. 

Theo can reach out, initiate contact to calm him down in a matter of seconds. He doesn't. Instead, he takes advantage of their supernatural hearing. 

"Scott? Are we heading back or not?"

Insensitive to the barely diffused situation? Yes. Any spare fucks to give? No.

It's Derek who answers him, "Yeah. We're leaving. You guys get a head start, we'll catch up."

Liam moves the fingers from smushing his lips to rub at his eyes, shoulders easing up the slightest bit the moment Theo starts the truck. Theo is mute and numb for the first hour and it appears that so is Liam. At hour two he can't tolerate the quiet anymore and puts on music from his connected phone, the slow and reverberating bass notes tearing some of the phantoms out of his vision. 

Then Bree calls. And of course, he picks up. He never has it in him to decline, no matter what state he's in.

"Hey." Liam turns to look at him at the soft and quiet greeting.

"'Sup. Dick move for ghosting me, by the way. And big bro said he has some new intel for ya, but he'll need another hour to compile all that shit in some semblance of order. Do you have any idea of the chaos in here? Believe me, you don't. Declan almost yeeted a fucking wok at his head this morning while Raji and Tiana just kept laughing at him like those hyenas from the Lion King." Declan, the supermodel emissary. The other two Theo had only glimpsed during the Feng pack reunion, didn't properly meet them. "And it's why he never wants anybody over. They're gonna see how much of a loser he is, underneath all the posturing." she talks without taking a breath, speech quick and a trip to nostalgia; it's the same way she spoke when they did catching up during recess or after school. "Anyway, how's it goin' on your end?"

Liam chokes, uncertain as to how he should react to the word vomit and the consequential blackmail they suddenly have on Yao Feng. You know, the stoic painting of a man who can pulverize you with a sole look. All at once, Theo wants to formally meet this emissary of his. 

"We're heading back to Beacon Hills."

A pause, during which Theo mentally prepares himself for when Bree understands the underlying meaning. 

"You're not alone, right?"

This right here is the warning before she pulls the mom friend card and rains hellfire on him if the answer is what Theo wants it to be. In this case he's glad he doesn't even have to choose whether a white lie would be worth lying to Bree of all people.

"Scott, Liam, Derek and Malia tagged along, so yeah, I had babysitters."

"Babysitters?" Liam screeches, like it's Theo with the audacity to complain. 

"Hey," Theo can hear her inner debate of trying to maintain some semblance of propriety before she throws it all out the window and gives a quick exhale that Theo is a thousand percent certain is accompanied by an audacious grin. As in, she's following Theo's sympathies, not Yao Feng's. "Liam, right?" 

Liam gulps, one arm raising to point at the phone, then to himself before he blinks in a fast sequence. "Uh. Yeah, it's Liam. Hi."

"How is he really? I have zero intentions of believing any word out of his dumbass mouth concerning his well-being."

Liam's head swivels towards Theo, hand waving in the air in a silent see, I'm not melodramatic, you fucking asshole like he's been dying to tell him since this morning. 

"He's being a stuck up prick about it, well deserving of a clown face at this point."

Bree lets her own hyena laugh before she clicks her tongue. "Oh yeah, but I'm too concerned for you and I'm nannying you, Theodore? Sure. " 

"Shut up, Brianna."

Liam and Bree answer in unison, a doubtful and dragged out, "Uh-huh."

Theo should have expected them to bond over their hatred aimed at Theo's coping or lack thereof. Any irritation, however, is a farce. Deep down, he's overly relieved that the two people he's so emotionally attached to, beyond any capacity he thought himself capable of, are getting along like bread and butter. 

*

They're down to five theaters in need of neutering and nobody is letting him step a foot out of Beacon Hills. 

Scott cornered him a few hours after both groups got back. At least he gave him some time to shower and asked Derek to take Alec outside somewhere to give them privacy while also corralling Liam to go home for a few hours. 

"Okay." Scott runs his hands up his face, into his hair to shake off whatever jitters render him unable to sit still. "I have no idea how to start this conversation."

Theo gives him a deadpan look, crosses an arm over his abdomen while sipping his water, all the while demonstratively not helping him. 

"After you got back I wasn't ever sure you'll wake up as you again."

Well he'll be damned, Scott decided to take the jump after all. No platitudes beforehand, bravo.

"Lucia told us it'll be fifty-fifty, with how the shift had progressed to pushing your consciousness to the back of your mind. And then you wouldn't show signs of recognition even when Malia shifted and. Well."

Scott's eyes dart to one corner of the room, signalling his recollection of whatever sequence of events happened. Probably something to do with Liam and Alec and how they witnessed Theo dying on them, if for an interim of time. It's not even that big of a deal, he wasn't brain dead for too long and even if it'd passed the seven minute mark he would have retained normal brain and body function without any magical or scientific boost as long as he hadn't crossed fifteen minutes. But it's not like he can say this. Scott's pack is soft, doesn't do well with hard and impersonal data and they can't understand just how much that same data is his lifeline most days and how much it helps preserve his sanity. They see clinical where he feels comfort.

"That and finding out you'd been living in your truck." here Scott holds his eyes, having sat down on the couch with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together with his head low. "You know the worst of it? I think that deep down I knew something was wrong. What with how you spoke of your apartment with Alec, the debate in my house when you refused to elaborate on why you can't take Alec to your place, the detachment. I think I knew. I just—"

"You didn't want to acknowledge it."

Scott's head snaps up, a panicky thing crawling onto his face.

"It's okay, Scott. I'm pretty sure that out of everybody I get it the most. After all, it was my claws in your abdomen. It was me who killed you."

Scott's mouth pinches, breaths starting to tumble into a zone of heaving. It's an internal war, after all. 

"Theo," he says, preventing Theo from continuing. They stare at each other for a long time, however long it takes for Scott to choose his words, handpicking them piece by piece. "What you did to us, what your involvement made of us, I wish I could say it's in the past." he winces, pained because he doesn't want to lie, but also because the truth is too hard for him to swallow. "It'll take more time for us to fight off the first instinct of reaction, to change it from weariness to something else."

If ever, Theo muses internally. He hardly doubts they'll ever have middle ground. His claws had dig in too deep, literally and figuratively. Nearly every member of Scott's pack has sustained one form of trauma or another, all courtesy of Theo. 

Trusting because your association with the person who re-entered your life made you keep your guard down, unaware that he's been pouring gasoline over the threads connecting you to some of your dearest people and setting them alight, receiving vindictive claws in your abdomen for your kindness. Locked up in a psych ward for supernatural creatures, then falling into a limbo of losing your own mind and autonomy while not being able to be present in the present because of the unwilling experiments done on you. Leaving you for dead with a fatal wound, handing you over to the mother that never saw you as a child, but a burden and an obstacle to kill, while also playing your instincts through foul manipulation tactics. Nearly killing your only parent left, the last of your family, setting you up to create a rift between you and your best fucking friend, to shatter yet another piece of you that you can't afford to lose if you want to keep it together. Bringing you back to life, treating you like you're a disposable napkin, luring you with measured words, then killing two of your own for the gluttony for power, killing two people you've unfortunately formed bonds of understanding that plague you in the present because you can never get them back. And then. Spinning your winding mechanism, twisting and twisting and twisting, fucking with your head until you snap and nearly kill the person who saved you and took you in like a little brother, who's done his best to guide you when the rage of your own indisposition renders you unable to think straight, making you live with these fragments of memories until your last breath.

And that's just the members still present in Beacon Hills. He helped screw up Kira's powers to the point where she had to leave in order to protect everybody else from herself. He killed Josh and Tracy.

Theo knows his sins all too well. And he's not that much of an asshole to play pretend and hope that time will mend all of those wounds done by his wit and hands.

"But that doesn't mean that what you have gone through is invalid and should be kicked in the corner." 

Theo lifts a shoulder, not in any mood to hide his indifference. "It made me stronger."

"That's not the point." Scott bites out, quick and admonishing, like he's losing his patience with whatever point he's failing to solidify. 

"Yeah, it is. If it'd crippled me - sure. But it didn't."

Scott's eyes are increments away from bulging out of his skull in incredulity. His scent becomes this tangled ball of emotion that is more Liam's signature reaction than Scott's. 

"It did, Theo." he says, slow and calm, like he's willing himself to speak this way.

"With what, Scott? Nightmares? Everybody has nightmares."

Thing is, Theo is aware that Scott's right to a degree. Though most of the shit surfacing for the past months is from the too quick recollection, not giving his brain enough time to file away all the details and instead dumping an Olympics pool in a tiny and deserted shed. It was expected and he's finding ways to do damage control. Of course it's not normal childhood, what he had, but he chose it for himself. He chose it.

Scott gets up, hands making a mess of his hair as he paces the room, breathing askew. 

"He was right." Scott whispers, to himself most likely, unaware he's saying it out loud.

"Who? About what?" Theo lifts a hand to sway it in the air to get his attention.

Scott comes to a halt with his back to Theo, to brace himself on the kitchen island. "Liam." is the one thing he gives before moving his head in order to look at Theo from over his shoulder with a pained face. "About you."

Theo's still lost. 

"The day you came back, after we found you unresponsive and were waiting for Lucia, he said something."

Theo leaves the empty glass on the counter behind him. Something tells him he won't like what follows.

"He said that you're not even aware of how deep they—"

"I'm gonna stop you here. Liam loves invoking fables out of vague details."

Scott raises his voice, to talk over him and continue. "Of how deeply they fucked you up and how much they altered you." his expression has gone hard, burgundy peeking into his brown eyes from the stress he's caused himself. "Of how much you think it's a lie. And refuse to accept anything else but what they planted in your head." 

Theo breathes out a leveled breath. He's up to here with patience regarding that topic. First with Liam while he retold everything to his parents, then in the Preserve before the fireworks on New Year's Eve, now this. 

"Riddle me this, Scott. Why is Tara dead?"

Scott recoils, losing the alpha edge in a millisecond. 

"Why are Tracy and Josh dead? Who killed you? Who turned Liam against you? Who put Lydia in Eichen? Who—"

Scott turns away again, nearly folded over the kitchen island with his curled fingers digging into his mouth and lower chin, eyes closed. 

"I know you're a good person. But it's not like I didn't get served what I ordered. At the end of the day, I went with them while—" Theo swallows down bile, forces himself to soldier on. "While Tara kept on calling after me. Who the fuck does that?"

The laugh coming out of his throat startles them both, brittle and bleak, hysterical even. 

"Who does that?" follows after it, just as hysterical. 

Scott's next words have no right to be this gentle, not for Theo. "How did they convince you?" 

And this understanding, the answer to the question, fractures yet another part of his already spider-webbed foundation. 

"I can't remember." 

Knowing his twisted self it could have been jealousy. The need to get back at his parents and their fucking snobby assess for having a child they didn't even want, then condemn it when it didn't fit the norm. Some fairy tale that it's just a dream and that there won't be consequences to his actions, no matter what he does to obtain what he wants. But he can't remember. All he knows is that he watched his hypothermic sister, who fell in the creek and broke her ankle, struggling to get out, hand reaching out to him while he stood by and did nothing. 

Nothing.

An all-consuming wave of rage falls like a veil over him, thick and cloying and strident to the point where his muscles shake with it. 

Theo leaves the scene, doesn't react to Scott yelling his name after him while he takes the stairs to his part of the apartment.

"Theo, please."  Tara had begged for help with her last breath. 

Dying and afraid. While her baby brother, whom she'd always taken care of, put his needs before her own and tried to compensate for their parents' lack of love for him with her own, watched. 

Honestly? Seven hundred and seventy-seven ripped out hearts was too little of a punishment for him. 

He locks himself in the bathroom until Scott leaves, deaf to his pleas. Deaf to everything but,

"Theo, please."

*

Alec finds him on the floor, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. To his credit, he tries to his best abilities to give Theo space, doesn't crowd him or demand anything of him. He keeps digging his teeth into his lower lip, stewing on his bed in the corner, next to the windows. 

"It's fine." Theo rasps, catching Alec's disbelieving sound, which is no doubt accompanied by a sour face.

A huff and, "Can I say something that has the potential to piss you off?" he's not really asking, will say it either way.

Theo snorts, "Go right ahead."

"You're so abhorrently fucking stupid sometimes that I really want to throw a brick at your head. Maybe if I do, the sleeping grey matter in your brain will suddenly double in size and actually start working for a change."

The dig cracks some of Theo's resolve, mouth twitching. Alec can sure get creative with his insults, he respects that. He doesn't try to stop the amusement showing in his scent.

"Oh, and don't think for a second that I've forgotten about Christmas and what you were doing instead of celebrating with us. Or what happened after Christmas." he sounds like he's a step away from taking Melissa's stance when she scolds Scott and Stiles. 

Which reminds him, he never told the kid he has a present for him. Alec is the sole individual he permitted himself to get one for, with the reasoning that Alec, who hasn't had a proper present since he was probably a child, deserves to experience the Christmas spirit properly. It's a bit too late now, and quite frankly his mind had wiped it from his head until he'd gotten back with Liam, but what's done is done and it's still waiting to be unwrapped.

He snaps his fingers to get his attention and Alec's rant is cut short. Theo points at his part of the apartment, up the stairs, does a shooing motion in its direction.

"Wardrobe." he tells Alec, shifts his head to watch him run up the stairs in a very similar manner to the Roadrunner after a lagging second.

The tiny creak of the wardrobe being opened, and: "Holy shit! Holy shit, Theo!" Alec runs to the railing, bracing himself on it in the last moment and doing a little jump. "That's for me?" then his face spasm, scent tanking. "But I only got you—"

He "only" got Theo a pretty snow globe with an astonishing carving of a wolf and a coyote inside if it, curled together in harmony and when you would shake it, small and glittery snow with would surround them, then change its color to a blue hue with sparkles of aurora green in-between. He's no idea where Alec got his hands on the thing, but it's not just a present. Theo hasn't stopped looking at it every night since Alec gave it to him, and it works as kind of a dream-catcher, helps him sleep better and pulls him back to reality when he's powerless and incapable of finding the way.

"Not the point of this." Theo looks up at him, lets his facial muscles relax into a tiny smile. "They're yours, kid, like I promised. Go batshit crazy."

Theo promised him during Alec's first full moon, that fateful and stressful phone call, that he'd get him quality speakers. He'd just waited to give them as a Christmas present to be sure Alec will accept them as such, and not as a pity slip, or a dig at his control of the shift.

The speakers are kind of monstrous, sleek and black, almost up to Alec's chest. Theo had to get to elaborate scheming in order to get them in the apartment while Alec was out with the kiddie squad, Nolan updating him when they'd be back and which roads to evade. And it was worth it. The sound they produce is literally out of this world. The first thing Theo did once he'd snuck them in was to test the bass and reverberation, goosebumps rising on his whole body at the very first few notes. He'd had a hard time turning them off to hide them, was left in a mild state of euphoria afterwards.

Theo helps him connect the speakers and turn them on, arranges them for optimal sound, all the while taking every embrace Alec throws at him, each more heartfelt than the last. And Alec collapses into a pile of goo on the floor alongside Theo, basking in the vibrations carrying in the air, shaking with the elation, eyes wide and exhilarated.

His happiness soothes some of Theo's bad mood, lets his lungs take in a proper amount of air for the first time since Scott left.

Alec raises a shaky finger in the air, high on the emotions and the perfectly surrounding bass of the song he'd put on. "Correction: you might be as stupid as I am, if not more, which is an astounding achievement in itself. But! You have taste." he nods his head, swirls his fingers in a circle, lifts it up higher. "And this is the best present I've gotten in my entire life, so I'll be generous and keep it a secret for you, as long as you don't piss me off again." 

And Theo laughs, a deep belly laugh and makes his abdominal muscles seize, curls on one side with it. For a few moments he's content to forget, just exist in the present and laugh along with Alec.

*

The following four days he barely sleeps, overworking himself to occupy his mind. The ashtray he'd dug out of the back of a drawer in the kitchen is steadily becoming his companion out on the balcony. He dodges every call Scott makes, every text, every message he asks Alec to relay to him. The irony of Scott's need to point him into a different direction, beliefs-related, backfiring into Theo putting his emotions on complete and total shutdown isn't lost on him. 

Somehow word goes out to Lucia. Which is how he finds himself in her living room, accompanied by Derek because god for-fucking-bid he goes alone. He accepted her invitation with full knowledge of her intentions, just to get away from Scott's pack and most importantly - from Liam. 

He makes small talk with Monica, the alleged werewolf ghost whisperer and also Lucia's first beta, while outside. She's more laid back since the last time he saw her, all soft indoor clothes and loose short hair that gets in her face when the breeze picks up. 

He'd started with this:

"I reckon Lucia tipped you in on why the Doctors were in Stockton five years ago and you're not stupid by a long shot. Just in case they were right, I don't wanna know if I'm actually being haunted or not. The shit in my head is enough." 

Monica blinks, looks him up and down, appraising, before her whole frame relaxes further and her lips pull just the tiniest bit in a knowing smile. "Fine by me." 

And Theo, he doesn't know how he knows. If it's a memory he hasn't uncovered or just his instinct. But he knows. She is what the Doctors presumed she is, only they didn't have enough evidence to act upon their madness. He just doesn't feel the need to hear the words of any dead person, in fact is scared shitless that he'll lose the scant remainder of his sanity if he does. Maybe one day, if he's alive long enough to pull his shit together, he will. Not now.

"I heard Scott's beta wanted to come along."

Ha. More like she was present for the phone call when Lucia up and decided that Theo is going to be her guest for the upcoming three days and that Scott can deal with it. No, she didn't ask permission or contact Theo beforehand, further than a seemingly innocent conversation while Theo may or may not have been in the middle of a dissociative episode. And he bets Liam had several outbursts over the duration of the call.

"Kiddies have school." Theo offers, to add more fire to the joke. 

Monica grins, glancing behind Theo to tilt her chin in a nod at Lucia having just emerged from the house. She leaves Theo then, also with a nod, to let Lucia interrogate her guest. They brush hands when they pass each other.

Lucia hands him a ginormous, steaming bowl of beef paprikash, also carrying a basket of sliced homemade sourdough bread on the elbow of the same arm that held the bowl. 

"You don't eat enough." she grumbles while nudging the basket towards him.

The paprikash is an astounding mix of spices, the meat tender, and it all melts in his mouth. He practically inhales it, along with what might possibly be at least half of a big loaf. Lucia goes over some new information where he doesn't need to speak or do anything but shake and nod his head, stops to ask him if he wants seconds, gleeful when he refuses and has a hard time thinking after the stunning amount of food he consumed in under fifteen minutes.

"So. We both know why I kidnapped you and if I hear the f word, I'll fucking whack you with a pan." she means fine, is his realization, not fuck. "From all the observations I've had, your mental health deteriorates by the minute, yet you sit there in your circle of fire and pretend you're not being burned alive."

"That's a bit of a stretch."

Lucia aims her sharp eyes at him, hooded and unamused. "Don't make me pull Feng's little sister as an ace, kid."

Theo's expression hardens, then falls altogether. He hunches over at the prospect of Bree getting a whiff of his nonexistent mental stability. The reason he doesn't explode is because it's Lucia, an adult who won't meddle just to make a statement, not about this, and who isn't saying it just because. That, and he might also respect her more. Her words aren't a threat, more a not so gentle nudge to remind him that Bree has no idea of this, to urge his protective instincts to take care of himself in order to not hurt her. Manipulation tactics at their finest, if used for good.

Lucia leans back on her hand in the grass, crosses her ankles and breezily adds, "You know, McKane went to supernatural therapy regarding an eerily similar problem and turned out fine."

McKane with the military and his bossy emissary Danny. Theo wouldn't have pegged him one to even consider therapy.

Lucia catches onto his train of thought. "No, it wasn't willing. Danny blackmailed him into it."

Theo snorts, mind already forming the scene and execution when he's communicated with them on more than a few occasions and was witness to more than one of their circus specials. The short, yelling guy browbeating his alpha to go sit on a chair, fucking vent it all out before it kills you, you fucking degenerate of a werewolf, Jesus.

"I'm not saying you go to the same one." she clocks a glance at him. "She's good, though, even I had a turn. Just consider it. Maybe even talk to McKane, if you will. Underneath all that short hair and constipated behavior he's a softie, single-handedly built an animal shelter from the ground and adopted a raccoon and a fox cub when they couldn't find homes."

This is why Theo came here. If there's one person capable of making him consider doing the unthinkable it's Lucia fucking Amadio. She'll serve it through a careful approach fitted for the individual she's trying to sell it to. He knows it's highly unlikely he follows through, but even thinking of doing it is a step forward. 

"Why'd you go?" he looks up at her from under his brow, head low. He's not exactly asking why, but who convinced her. And she gets it.

Lucia tilts her head up, to look at the last rays of the sun setting the entire expanse of the sky in shades of red, orange and pink. "Monica." she confesses. "After I lost my mother I didn't really take it well. Dad tried his best to swallow down his own despair to help me overcome mine, but I'd become a fury of grief. Being a new alpha didn't help either, the inherited power doing jack all to satiate the blood lust, made it more potent."

Lucia wasn't born a werewolf, her father is human. But her mother bit her in dire circumstances, her hand forced the same way Yao Feng's was with Bree.

She reaches for the pendant around her neck, a ruby red stone she twirls between her fingers, reminiscing. 

"Truth to be told, I didn't want to get better. Just find the sons of bitches who murdered my mom and make them suffer the same pain I went through, a hundred fold." her eyes glow red, scent an amalgamation of emotions rooted in anger and sorrow. "Then one day Moni told me that dad cried over a mug of mom's favorite mint tea nearly every night because he feared I'd get myself killed, too." a thin sheen of tears forms in her eyes, and then she catches his gaze. "That he'll lose the rest of his family and his efforts won't be enough to protect me from myself."

Theo isn't compassionate by nature. The short retell of the past events still hits him like a train. 

"And so you went." he summarizes, throat tight.

"And so I went." 

The sun sets in the following ten minutes, quick to turn its back on them with winter still holding tight. Only then does he get to the conclusion that he's no longer comfortable and is merely enduring the cold. 

Lucia shepherds him to the house, makes him and Derek coffee.

"Make sure he doesn't run for the hills, will you?" she aims at Derek, returning Theo's crude gesture with an identical one, and goes to have a video call with whoever.

"Can you not?" Theo rests his face in his palms, elbows to the solid wooden kitchen table. 

Derek lets out a wry breath through his nose, "You're worse than I am in regard to self-help."

"I'm fine just the way I am." Theo mumbles, automatically countering because whatever Derek is saying now is fueled by whatever Scott asked him to beat through Theo's skull.

"There's literally nobody who will back you up on it." there's some of the indignation seeping into Derek's tone now, too.

"Yeah, well, good thing I'm used to being alone." okay, admittedly that was a bit too dramatic, but if it does the job it does the job.

The stretch of silence isn't a comfortable one. 

"The fucked up thing is that you actually believe it."

Theo uncovers his eyes, slants them to Derek who is posed with his back to a counter with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, hardly trying to conceal his lack of approval. 

Lucia barges in to save Theo from answering, snapping her fingers at him to get his attention. "One sec." she tells whoever is on the other side of the phone before she mutes herself. "It's McKane. Believe it or not, I didn't even orchestrate it this time. He's in the area."

Translating to: I'm not trying to tip your hand, you can say no and if you thought about our conversation, there's no better time than the present. 

She doesn't push for an answer, waits him to empty his glass of water. Theo nods with his last swallow, offers her, "Sure. Why the fuck not?"

Lucia's smile is blinding, proud, and she lays a hand on his shoulder briefly, squeezing, before she unmutes herself and continues to where she left off with McKane. 

"No, sweetheart, that's not a chew toy, you'll hurt your teeth that way." comes through the speaker, McKane's tone soft and calm. "Ah shit, give me a minute, Bayley is tryin'a bite through the handles of the pliers. C'mere, girl. I know you wanna, but that's a no this time."

Bayley has to be either the fox or the raccoon, if Theo's right. Derek looks from Lucia's retreating back to Theo, does the motion again, until his forehead smooths out. 

"You're willingly socializing outside of strategy work?"

Theo drinks his coffee in three swigs. "Blame Lucia." 

McKane and Danny make their appearance known before they even stop the car, in the middle of a debate over pineapple and whether its presence on top of a pizza is just begging for murder or not.

"Absolutely fucking not, Steve. Just don't." Danny yells, slamming his door shut. "Now gimme back my keys." silence for a shopping two seconds, then, "It's my car, you Neanderthal! Keys, now!"

Theo and Derek share a look, Lucia and a few of her betas shaking their heads with wide grins. 

McKane barges in holding a fox swathed in blankets like one would their newborn child. The fox, Bayley, starts yipping happily upon seeing Lucia who immediately goes over to coo at it. 

"There's my favourite girl!" she picks up Bayley, despite McKane's lack of cooperation, unraveling the blankets. Bayley starts vibrating in her arms, fluffy tail wagging not unlike wonky helicopter rotor plates.

"You'll spoil her again." McKane grumbles, entirely unsuccessful in hiding his delight. "Careful with her right leg. We just got the cast off a week ago." 

Lucia's entire pack swarms Bayley to use their baby voices on her and have a turn at petting her soft-looking coat. Bayley laps it all up, nuzzles every hand, playfully biting at fingers that stay on her for too long. It transpires for less than a minute before she starts getting overwhelmed by the attention and McKane takes her back into his gentle hands, pressed her head atop his chest. 

"That's a good girl." he even starts trotting around the place, swaying her carefully, waiting for her pulse to normalize so that her body temp can also go down to a comfortable state.

During that time Derek has inched closer, nodding at McKane. The man lets him run careful fingers atop her head. Bayley turns her head to look up at him, a new individual she hasn't seen before, her ears dropping low to the sides, before she decides he's not a threat and relaxes. 

Theo stays where he is. And McKane tags it. His eyes narrow a bit, judging his lack of want to pet the furry little creature everybody seems to have developed a love at first sight connection with. He shares a look with Lucia, sighs with the conclusion that he isn't in her house just because this time around, and purses his mouth.

Danny gives a loud groan, head thrown back. "What's that constipated look for, huh? Maybe the kid saw Bayley go too excited and opted not to flood her with more input? Quit looking for conflict where there is," he waves his pinched fingers at McKane, one hand on his hip. "None. Nada."

McKane drops the calculating expression to pull a face at Danny. Lucia points everybody to the spacious living area, with a subtle upward tilt to her lips at Theo. 

Danny is the one with the last words, finger pointed at McKane. "I'm watching you." and he turns on his heel to go down the hallway to a room where he most certainly won't be able to watch him.

Theo stomps down his animals' natural instinct to scram and camouflage his existence by mingling with the mass. McKane's steps towards him are measured. Not too fast, not too slow or menacing. The last part is entirely lost with how he's dressed in cargo pants and a black tee, like he's out on the field and not like he was about to have a gossip afternoon with Lucia. 

Bayley immediately freezes upon catching sight of him, ears going flat and staying that way. Theo steps back, shakes his head at McKane who goes to soothe her with words.

"Part wolf, part coyote. It's not her fault it's freaking her out." 

McKane tilts his head to one side, a bit, says, "Let's sit down." 

It's not a command. Theo still follows it as though it is. He sits with his legs crossed on the carpet, hands in his lap, making great effort to predict where this is going. Bayley's ears remain pinned to her skull, wiggling in McKane's arms.

"You're just stressing her out." Theo murmurs, avoiding making eye contact with Bayley to not have her think he's more of a threat than she already perceives him as. 

McKane raises his brows, blinks slowly. "Excuse me, did you raise this vagabond? I don't fuckin' think so."

Theo lets out a sharp breath through his nose, watching as McKane sets Bayley in his lap, a big hand stroking her back. Her ears perk up again, once she's free to do as she pleases, and her eyes zigzag between Theo and McKane. She takes a tentative step forward, sniffing the air. Then another. She sits on the carpet halfway through, to tilt her head this way and that, proceeds to advance. Once near Theo the first thing she does is to poke him with a paw, and again after that, then to sniff at his stiff fingers, her wet nose almost causing him to flinch away. The tension accumulates in his shoulders from how still he's forcing himself to sit. 

Bayley yips at him, carefully bites at the knuckle of his index finger, yanks herself back a bit. When Theo doesn't react her muscles loosen some more. 

Theo raises his gaze to McKane, who's been observing with a fond face. He tentatively reaches out with a hand, oh so slow, and doesn't touch her. If she wants contact she'll initiate it. 

The wolf and coyote are puzzled. It's not their first time seeing a fox, but it's the first time they're supposed to be careful and non-threatening to it. Typically, they just growl to keep it away. This is beyond weird and confusing to them, just as much as it is to Theo. Small, vulnerable creatures are better off with him far away—he's never hurt animals, not until he'd had only a truck as his home and had to resort to different methods of sustenance on the days where he'd been starving for over forty hours in a row. Not to say he doesn't get the urge to pet them and give them belly rubs. It's just that the stark innocence they hold makes his stomach hurt. 

Bayley butts her head into his palm, shattering his thought process. She also climbs atop his lap, does an awkward circle and flops over his legs, neck bent at a bit of an odd angle as she rests her lower jaw onto his belly and tips her head up to blink her amber eyes at him.  

Theo stares back with his own wide eyes, swallows, and rests his hands on her silky coat. 

McKane's low voice almost startles him, "It's not because you're a chimera. It's because you can do a full shift." he explains, having leaned forward to press one elbow to his thigh and put his chin on his palm, his other arm loose over his other leg. "Animals sense it the best and it weirds them out until they have the chance to investigate. That and she sensed your prickly unease, whereas the Hale kid had none."

Bayley melts into his arms when Theo scoops her up in his arms, movement languid and unobstructed lest she doesn't want to. She boops his nose with hers and Theo can't stop the smile creeping up on him. She chews at the string of his hoodie, spits it out to settle her head on his shoulder, her furry ear tickling his cheek. 

"Okay." McKane does a solemn nod. "You passed the test." 

Theo's brows pinch. 

Surprisingly, he does get an elaboration: "If she likes you it's all good. She's never been fond of assholes."

The retort is automatic, still a bit of a fuck up he can't swallow back, "Even if one raised her?" 

McKane bellows out a laugh, thankfully doesn't take his slip as back talking. 

"Now let's get to business. If Morticia Addams didn't want us to talk logistics, why am I here?" he's back to the serious persona in the flick of an eye, making Theo stiffen up, then forcefully loosening his body to not startle Bayley. 

"She's bribing me to go see a therapist." he says it like a joke, albeit the bitter tint to his tone. 

McKane knows of his involvement with the Doctors, has a pretty good grasp of it actually, and Theo hopes that seeing as he's a man with military training he'll get the need to keep your mouth shut about the demons plaguing you day in and day out. Therapy might be good for some, but for people like them? It's more like enduring torture. And look, he's not even aiming for histrionics. It's just a principle, same as how the sky is blue or how Liam will whine for pancakes on Saturday morning. Theo won't be caught dead saying a word of his life to a stranger with a detached face that'll look at him like he's a rare specimen of a bug. He'd rather bury himself with research papers until his eyes bleed out of their eye sockets, cram more newfound resources and use them on himself, than to pay somebody to do it for him. Not the healthiest approach, still better than adding another person to the mix. If he's survived a decade of it then it can't be that flawed of a plan.

"Do you want to go see a therapist?" McKane utters it like one would while speaking to a child. 

"Not in the fucking slightest."

"Problem solved then." McKane is saying it to get a reaction, as most of his actions are. The day at the summit with Liam, when he'd pushed the right buttons to gauge their involvement and toughness, is one example. "So what's with the long face?"

Theo aims his eyes down at Bayley, to her fiery coat, fingers unconsciously going up and down in soothing motions. She's almost asleep. This little creature trust him enough to nearly fall asleep in his homicidal hands. 

The thought does something to him, slams into him with an icy wave down his spine. It's so unexpected that he needs to let a few beats worth of time pass, to swallow down the nausea, before he can act.

Bayley yips when he starts getting to his knees, even though he's painstakingly careful not to jostle her. His legs are with a mind of their own, taking the few steps to McKane, and he delicately places her into his already outstretched arms. 

"Kid—" McKane starts, hurried, but Theo shakes his head a bit too sharply. He turns around just as his fingers get overtaken by tremors. 

Fuck's sake, he's not in a theater to warrant this type of reaction. It's the tell-tale sign of an impending de-realization episode. What for, dammit? He wasn't even stirring memories this time. Is he seriously this far down the lane? 

He's lost a little time, having rounded the corner leading to the sliding doors of the patio, already sans a sweatshirt and jeans, subconsciousness doing the thinking for him. 

He hears Lucia and Derek through a tunnel, their raised voices yelling the words in unison:

"Don't let him shift!"

Oh. Yeah. He wasn't supposed to shift. 

It's his last human thought before his skin changes. 

He noses the sliding doors open, sprints to the middle of the field in front of the house, only to drop on his belly and pant in the cold winter air. Footsteps follow him out, his fur prickling before he remembers, they're not chasing him like predators. 

He's dumbfounded when Bayley reaches him first, freezing in place when their eyes meet, his own flared up until the point where he turns his head away to twist into a ball of fur, facing away from everybody. He hears her timid steps and multiple voices causing a ruckus, the loudest by far being the short emissary who's currently aiming his ire at his alpha. 

"Which part of don't fuck with the kid who just got out of a coma and a heavy dissociative episode, then up and fucking died three times, did you not comprehend?" he's screeching for the whole forest to hear and then some. 

Theo's ears go flat, tail covering his snout. He coils tighter at Bayley's inquisitive sounds, and even tighter when she bumps her nose to his forehead. The air gets lodged into his throat when she huffs and proceeds to also curl into a comfortable ball next to him, rests her small head atop his ribs. 

The yelling match halts. 

Theo doesn't move. Nor does Bayley.

McKane is the first to talk, voice terse. "Bayley." it's measured, him asking her to come back to him and stay away from the crazed shifter wolf that is more than two times her size. 

The wolf, now on the literal surface, urges Theo to loosen his muscles. Its lack of reaction is stupefying. Canines form attachments way faster than most animals, but this truly is a big neon question mark in Theo's head. The wolf has no ill intent, nor does it see Bayley as a target. It just wants to… accommodate. To be complacent.

It wants—it wants a friend.

The revelation causes his lungs to seize, the breath coming out like it's been kicked out of him, eyes stinging even in this form and he's just scarcely able to withhold the high, lupine whine. 

It just wants a friend. 

Lucia comes to them, addressing Bayley first, scratching under her chin. "Hey, girl." the backs of tentative fingers also go over his skull, between his ears, their pressure more heartfelt when he doesn't flinch away. "Theo, you with us?" 

Theo blinks his eyes open, still flared, to look up at her and chuffs, air coming out misty from the cold. 

"Good." Lucia sighs, loaded with relief. "Let's keep it that way." 

Derek ventures over to them next, sitting down next to Theo in overly prolonged movements, to keep himself predictable. His touch to Theo's side is a surprise, Theo's muscles jumping from it. Derek watches his own arm, apparently seeking to leach nonexistent pain. He keeps his hand there regardless, mouth a thin line. 

"He has to shift back." 

"Don't I know it." Lucia keeps petting Bayley, along with her fingers on Theo's head as an anchor point, turns to the rest. "Go back inside. And you, stop worrying. He's fine."

"Fine, my ass." Theo hears Danny grouch. Somebody gets smacked, though something tells Theo it was also Danny who did the smacking. 

"Hey, uh. You want me to start on some soup?" it's one of Lucia's betas chiming in. Antonio, with his newly found passion for cooking.

Monica answers in Lucia's stead. "That's a good idea.", and pulls him away. "Let's give them some space."

Just as a few minutes of quiet pass Derek's phone starts ringing, followed by a hissed out shit.

"It's Scott." he confirms, denies the call to type something out. "Told him I'll call him back later. Let's just hope that Liam isn't with him." 

Because if he is, he won't react like an adult and wait for Derek to reach out later. He'll want answers now. Since they have no luck whatsoever, Derek's phone starts vibrating within the minute. Derek declines it. It starts vibrating again. Derek declines. On the third time he picks up.

"Not now, I'll—"

"Where is he?" the sudden oscillation elicits an instant reaction from Bayley, one Theo neuters by lifting his head and nosing at her head to calm her. 

"I'll call Scott later." this time, Derek must have also turned off the vibration before putting the phone on the ground. When Liam's name takes over the screen it's silent. It goes blank after twenty seconds, only to light back up with a message from Scott, stating I got it. 

Derek catches Theo's eye, with a wry sort of amusement.

"Sometimes I think he only really listens to you."

That's the problem. Liam should most definitely not be listening to Theo. 

*

He shifts back at some point, after Bayley takes her little nap on her new furry pillow. She nudges just under Theo's eyes before she hops back on her paws and runs to McKane's arms, who has been standing on the porch the whole time.

Theo doesn't even let him get a word in when he approaches him after he's put his clothes on.

"You didn't do anything to trigger me, it's fine."

McKane's hazel eyes turn burgundy for a fraction of a second. He closes them and when they blink open they're back to their human shade. 

"I pushed. You reacted." it's remorseful, self-berating.

"No, you talked and I went back into my head." Theo corrects while pulling the strings of his hoodie tighter, to have more cloth around his neck. Damn is it cold.

"Same difference, kid. I stepped out of line." he rubs a hand over his face, his other one poised at his hip. Theo wonders if he got that from Danny. "I'm sorry. They warned me and I still did it."

Okay, so he won't take Theo's no harm done approach. Fine. Nodding along it is.

Only it doesn't work.

McKane takes him to Lucia's study room, after going through Lucia with the idea, utilizing Danny's momentary involvement in the kitchen with Antonio. Theo is getting incessantly tired of this shit. He shouldn't have agreed to it. Right now he could be helping Lucia make those divine coconut muffins; instead he went out on a limb and got bit in the ass for it. 

"Stop repressing them."

McKane has sat down on a leather chair, Theo opposite of him. When Theo's body moves in an automatic spasm the leather creaks along with him.

"The emotions. You're already liable to episodes out of your control, but complete repression will worsen the fallout to an extent where even the smallest input of a memory holding weight to you will trigger them." that has Theo's full attention, if not really in a good way. "Then one day you'll shift and won't turn back. One day—" McKane's gaze grows even heavier, tangible with personal knowledge to the statement. "One day you'll lose your humanity and neither spell, nor enchantment will be able to bring you back."

It's also automatic when Theo feels the urge to negate the little monologue with a bitter laugh. "You seriously underestimate how much I can bottle my shit up." 

McKane smiles, and it's bittersweet. "I don't. Which is why I know the outcome. I lived through it."

Back the fuck up. He's been in the military since, what? Age eighteen? An elite Navy SEAL with practically little to no down time between missions. At least that's what Theo has read on paper. When did he have the time for a forced supernatural sabbatical?

"How long?" Theo finally finds himself asking, trepidation running through his nervous system. 

McKane looks to his left, knuckles of the hand on the armrest going bone white from his grip. Theo swears that his eyes, when they shift up to catch his, hold an electric spark in them. 

"Five years." 

As long as Bree, then. 

"And how'd you turn back?"

McKane tips his head to one side, quickly glancing at the door, where his emissary is but a few rooms away. "Danny found me." and back to Theo. "On the second year. He never gave up on me ever since. And he never once let me run away from it."

That's little to no information. So what? Emotional attachment? Comradeship? Love? Theo can't work with that.

He lets out an angry breath, gritting his teeth together for a few seconds to stave off the itch in his gums.

"Can you cut to the cause? 'Cause I'm real fucking tired of all the half-assed bites you and Lucia keep handing me, in the hopes that I piece it together instead of actually telling me the full picture in the first place." 

Deranged. 

He's officially deranged. Demanding and standing up to an alpha as powerful as McKane. Lucia is another story, her case is a bit more complicated with whatever attachments she has to him, as well as their history. This man has none of that for him. 

But McKane doesn't react. His eyes remain the same, so do his scent and pulse, having stayed an unchanged line since they sat down. 

A minute passes.

Two.

Three.

He doesn't talk and Theo keeps his tongue behind his teeth.

It takes him a couple more seconds to get to the conclusion that McKane is letting him get his cool back, handing him time to flush the anger out at his own pace. 

When Theo is back to his normally irritated status-quo McKane continues, "He talked me through every single trauma he knew I had and made me face it."

Not quite what Theo expected. 

"Showed me that every fear I'd buried is due to a memory, or memories, I refused to get through because of how much it hurt to go back there and relive it anew, with no certainty that it'll be worth the pain. Since I thought, I'd rather let it radiate its poison so long as I don't have to look at it again. And then he actually sent me to a capable supernatural therapist, when I'd had time to adjust."

Love and friendship, got it. Nothing Theo has. He can count Bree in; still, that's without her knowing the full tale of his stay with the Doctors. When she pulls her head out of her ass and lets her curiosity take reign she won't be able to even stomach the idea of looking at him, much less being his pseudo therapist. Alec? Misguided, with imprinting issues. Liam? Also misguided, with anchor issues. With this quick math he's left with nobody. Well, good luck to him. 

McKane snaps his fingers, having leaned forward in his chair to do the motion closer to Theo's face, pulling him back to Lucia's study. "You're doing it again."

"What?"

"At a risk to further abuse an abused cliché: being your own worst enemy."

McKane has taken grasp of Theo's outright refusal to hear what he's saying, doesn't venture further.

Theo's phone rings, incessantly buzzing against his thigh. It's Liam. Nobody else is this bullheaded.

Just as he's about to turn it off McKane gets up from his seat. "I'd answer if I were you, seems important." are his parting words. The door closes with a soft click of the mechanism. 

Theo stares down at the screen, gripping onto the phone. His thumb swipes the green button. 

Liam's voice booms through. "What the hell is going on?"

"If you're calling to piss me off more than I already am, save it."

"Piss you o—we were worried, you complete and utter asshole!" Theo swings the phone away from his ear as the sentence progresses, the notes going higher along with it. "Scott calls Derek? Gets declined. Receives a cryptic 'call you later', then Derek proceeds to decline my calls, too, and tells me the same crap while sounding like he's swallowed bricks. After that it's Amadio who updates us, instead of either one of you two, and you the have the fucking audacity to act like nothing's wrong?"

He shouldn't have put the phone to his ear in the first place. 

"Nothing happened, stop—"

A slam of a door sounds from the other line. "If you tell me to stop blowing things out of proportion, I swear to god I'm gonna punch your lights out when you come back."

Theo sighs, smooths his free fingers around the bridge of his nose and tips his head back into the leather. "I freaked out over nothing and shifted. You happy now?"

"You shifted." Liam breathes out, in incomprehension. Theo moves the phone away from his ear before he screeches, "You shifted?!" 

He'd been irritated before this, is starting to quickly move on to worried when Liam's breathing does the opposite of calming even the tiniest bit down. 

He remembers, Liam's chalk white face when he saw Theo shifted after New Years, his mental refuge and the scorching fire in his voice when he'd shot down every attempt Theo made to convince him that he absolutely can not let anybody else take care of the theaters. 

He remembers, "You stopped breathing."

Then, "Three times. Once in front of Alec."

And, 

"That's why you freaked out when you saw my wolf form just now?"

“Thought you were gone again.”

Shit.

"Liam, listen to me. I never lost consciousness. I came back on my own, but the animals were never in control. Do you understand?"

Liam's retort is high and breathy, "Yeah, like you haven't lied about it before."

"I'm fi—" Theo backtracks, stops mid sentence. Wrong wording. "I'm… okay. Right now, I'm okay. Okay?"

The harsh breath Liam lets flow out of his lungs makes the connection go static-y. "You're not lying?" 

Theo is quick to confirm, "I'm not." for once he hopes his heart beat is audible through the line, that Liam believes him. 

"Okay." another long breath, and a more quiet, "Okay."

He doesn't know what to say. But he should have said something. When Liam goes to end the conversation he sounds like he's most definitely not taking this.

"I gotta go." he whispers, voice frail, and he hangs up. 

Theo stops himself from chucking the phone at the wall, presses the side of it to his chin, eyes slipping closed.

"Fuck." 

*

Bayley is waiting for him at the door when he comes out of Lucia's study, maybe fifteen minutes after the call with Liam. Her tail wags with the speed of light, emitting high noises of delight and jumps on him. 

Theo pockets the phone, picks her up and lets her lick his cheeks and chin, once more unable to stop himself from smiling at her unrestrained enthusiasm. Why she's taken a liking to him will remain a mystery he can roll with. 

His fingers have sunk into her soft fur, have practically drowned in silky softness. An abrupt tsunami of emotions slams into him at the feeling. His throat closes up, eyes stinging with salt. 

McKane's words echo in his head, like he's hearing them through a megaphone. 

"He never once let me run away from it."

Again and again and again, until Theo slides down the wall with Bayley in one arm, the other reaching to his back pocket for his phone. Bayley makes a tiny distressed noise and he places the back of the same hand to her head, knuckles going up and down, up and down.

"Shhhh, I'm okay. I'm okay." he keeps repeating, eyes starting to spill.

Everybody else is on the other side of the house. Of course McKane chose a spot far away enough for him to have a potential repeater of an hour ago in peace. 

"I'm okay." he murmurs into her fur, more to convince himself than anything, clamps down on his signals so that she doesn't get overwhelmed. "You're okay, Raeken. You're goddamn okay, so act like it."

The phone burns his palm, with the knowledge that certain people are a call away, all he has to do is unlock it and dial them. 

"You're okay." 

Bayley licks his tears away, curls into him with a whine. He adjusts her until she's formed a comfortable ball, with her face nearly all the way buried in her tail, until she stretches her paws and melts into him shortly after.

See, Tara took in a stray once. Mid-sized, fluffy. They decided to call her Roxy, he thinks Scott's dog shared the name, can't quite remember if they named them together or if it was a coincidence. She was such a lovable and loyal dog that even their parents couldn't say no to the furball of sunshine. She stayed with them for six months, enough to become a part of the family and brighten Theo's life. Then one day she just didn't wake up. They'd sneaked her ham under the table, took her out for a walk, hugged her goodnight. Nothing was amiss. But she just didn't wake up. She didn't wake up. Not when he begged her to, not when Tara did, not when their parents took her away. The vet couldn't give an explanation other than already existing health conditions she might have had, missed during the vaccination process and examinations, that had just progressed too fast.

And it crushed them, him and Tara. He vowed to himself he'll never take another pet, ever, if he has to go through the pain of the loss every time, if it always hurts so much. Be it from her death or not, his heart condition took a hell of a downfall the following week, triggering the worst of his experiences with that useless thing then in his chest, after he'd spent hurting and hurting and hurting. He never really got over it. 

The same hurt he'd felt the first time Bayley curled in his arms, he realizes. Roxy used to be the same size, with a brown coat that in just the right light would create the illusion of fiery red. The same hurt pulling at his seams now.

Theo shifts his hand holding the phone to unlock it and goes to his call history, thumb hovering over the last name. His brows scrunch up in a miserable expression, lips pressed together to obstruct his chin from wobbling with the pitiful sob that wants to crawl out of his throat.

What the fuck is he even going to tell him? I remembered a pet I had eons before I became a monster and am drowning in the sorrow of her passing like it was just mere hours ago? Yeah, right. 

Theo squeezes his eyes closed, which has more salt spill down his cheeks in angry rivets, opens them to try and find a bright light source to trick his mind into forcing the tears away.

When his screen starts to dim a bit, indicating it'll go dark in a few seconds, it goes proton star-bright with Liam's name smack in the middle of it. He picks up on reflex, unintentionally, eyes unseeing as he brings it to his ear.

"That was fast. Way too fast. Whatever, point is I have blackmail on you and the next time you piss me off everybody is gonna see you cuddling a cute fox, got it?"

Theo's brain operates in the background regardless of his current state, supplying that Lucia or McKane got by his wonky senses, took an incriminating photo moments before his briefly good mood went to literal shit and sent it to Scott, who sent it to Liam. In reality, all he can do is curse his inability to keep in the just as incriminating wet and rocky sigh that's all too telling as to what he's been doing the past fifteen minutes. 

"Theo?"

He's also unable to hold in the following sigh holding identical characteristics to the previous one. 

Fuck.

He pulls the phone away, is about to hang up, when:

"Were you about to call me, just now?" 

Why does Liam choose moments like these to be perceptive and prove that his wit can be just as razor sharp as his tongue?

Theo swallows, needs three attempts to actually manage it and lifts the phone back up to his ear. At least Bayley has started snoozing, head over Tara's heart.

"Or, I mean, somebo—"

"Yeah." he gives, voice scratchy as fuck, and if Liam wasn't a supernatural he might not have been able to catch him saying it.

His head is full of cotton, a sure numbness taking away the burn of the excess emotions, a fail-safe of his own making. 

"Oh." Liam breathes out, shocked that Theo legitimately admitted it with barely any prompt. He doesn't ask him if he's okay, doesn't seek answers to his undoubtedly piling questions. Instead: "There's, uh, mom got some new fancy tea you'll probably like. It's chamomile, peppermint and lemon balm. There's probably more, but hell if I'm remembering all of it. I wanna say it's bad, but it's actually kinda nice? Usually not a big fan of mixing tea flavors, don't see the point when I don't want to experiment and get scarred by nasty tea of all things."

Liam keeps talking about nothing in particular while going about his house, stops to answer Jenna and David a couple of times, asks Jenna what else the tea is made of and parrots the newfound ingredients back to Theo like they're top priority information.

Is Theo finding this endearing? Fuck, he's finding it endearing. Miracle of all miracles, it's working. Listening to Liam talk has warded the numbness away, has staved off the avalanche of ache in his chest and his pulse is steady and he's no longer cold to his bone marrow. 

After another monologue about the scents of recently purchased detergents Liam finally asks, "Okay?"

Theo tips his chin down, rests it on Bayley's head. "Yeah." 

Liam swallows, voice airy. "Okay." at least it's not only Theo in new waters.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Whatsoever." 

He catches Derek's scent. A knock on a wall a corridor away sounds, to state his presence in case Theo didn't sense him another way, and he emerges around the corner moments later. There's no way he can't see the dried salt on Theo's face, or smell it for that matter, has most likely heard at least some portion of his phone call with Liam. 

He crouches next to Theo, quiet so as to not wake up Bayley, reaches for the phone and stops. He only takes it after Theo nods. 

"I've got him. And he really needs to get up because I bribed Lucia to not pick him up herself." 

Liam emits a high-pitched noise, hurries to cover it up with his reply. "Hi, Derek. Yeah. Sure, I'll uh—I'll go help mom and dad with dinner."

Derek hangs up, slips the phone in his back pocket and places an arm under one of Theo's, the one supporting Bayley, to maneuver her into his own arms. They manage to pull it off without her waking up. Theo needs the wall as a crutch to get himself back on his feet. 

"I know it's hard to accept help." Derek mutters, stroking Bayley's spine. "Believe me, I do. But sometimes it pays out."

Green on green. Derek puts Bayley's weight on one arm, slowly freeing the other one. He hesitates when he reaches out, puts his warm palm on Theo's upper arm and squeezes, lets him go. 

He hands Theo his phone back. "I wasn't joking about Lucia. I can stall her a little longer if you need to go to the bathroom." 

Theo sighs, eyelids drooping with exhaustion. "Yeah, not a bad idea." 

They separate at the edge of the corridor, go in opposite directions. Theo cleans his face with cold water, the superhuman healing already having taken care of the puffiness and his bloodshot eyes. He's in the emotional collapse phase where all he needs is to lock himself in a room and be left alone. Not really an option currently. 

Theo slithers back to the populated areas of the house, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie. He's this close to pulling the hood over his head, discards the idea as it'll be a bit too much even for his broody self. 

Danny spots him faster than Lucia does, waving his hand in a come here motion while also giving McKane a get out of eyesight shoo with the opposite one. Theo stands flabbergasted when McKane does just that, picking a sleeping Bayley out of Derek's arms, swaying her some when she stirs.

"Don't worry, kiddo, you don't have to talk. But this here is for you." Danny places a mug of hot chocolate in front of him, barely making a sound when he sets it on the marble island. "I know food is probably the last thing on your mind, but I've learned from idiotic mistakes of certain idiotic people," a pointed glance at McKane who scoffs from the other side of the room. "That sustenance is key for a better mental health. And hot chocolate does wonders with that. Done with the Ted talk, you can stay or go do your own thing. I won't get in your way."

Theo takes the mug with a quiet thanks, curls both palms over the hot ceramic. Just as he's about to take a sip, Lucia fucking teleports out of nowhere to pull the hood over his head, pats his head over the cotton. 

"Danny makes a killer hot choco, dig in." he glances her over the corner of the hood. Her gaze is soft, kind. After all, she's been a supernatural for longer, can read him to a terrifying degree and is well accustomed to the need to hide a little after such an emotional toll.

Theo spares her a small and overly thankful smile, or with as much of one that his mouth can pull into, which she returns with her own understanding one. 

True to Danny's words, he doesn't step into the conversation and gets to his pot of soup. Antonio barges into the space with a groan, points at him. 

"Stop fucking stirrin' the damn thing!" 

Danny does a spot on impression, waves a middle finger over his shoulder, having not even turned around to deem Antonio the time of his day. 

"How'd it go?" Lucia sits down on a bar stool next to Theo, the question nearly indiscernible between the numerous conversations currently being held, and especially with Danny and Antonio's bickering, which is progressively getting louder. 

He just can't deduce whether the ruckus is for his benefit, a veil over him and Lucia to deter any snoopy ears.

Theo stares down at his hot chocolate, finally takes a sip. It is, admittedly, heaven in liquid form. "Okay, I guess. He gave me a basis. Doesn't mean it'll work for me. I don't have what he has."

"Which is?"

He shifts his head to give her a deadpan blink, shifts some on the bar stool so that his eyes can zig-zag between her pack members and turns back around. 

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Lucia clicks her tongue, applies pressure between her brows with the knuckle of her thumb. "You can't be this blind. You're too smart to be this stupid."

Theo lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "I'm not with them. They just need me for the time being, is all." 

"Fine." Lucia leans on her elbows, a smidge closer to him, to lower her voice in case somebody like Derek might be listening in despite Danny and Antonio's cover. "Let's pretend that's not bullshit. The Feng family have practically opened all their doors for you, after Brenna's back. You can stay here, too, if you want. It's not a one-way street. I don't get why you make it out to be."

"Why'd you think it was a one-way street? Back then?" the back then he's alluding to is the feral months of blood lust. She gets it on the spot, facial muscles pulling tight. "Because you didn't have proof of another alternative."

Lucia takes a deep breath, let out in a shaky exhale. "You don't trust it."

You don't trust us, she means. Her and hers, Scott and his, Bree. And it's not that he doesn't trust them, because he does. In a fight he knows where they stand, can give them his back no thoughts warranted.

She hops onto his train of thought, it seems, sews together the tells and omissions in his phrasing, corrects herself to: "You don't trust us with you."

With Theo outside of apocalyptic scenarios where it's not them against something else and it's back to them against Theo.

No. He doesn't. Everybody leaves. That's just the standard rhythm of his life. People come and go, some stay for a little longer than others, but ultimately they leave. Always. Theo is a thing beyond its expiration date, useful only in forging plans interwoven with logic and cunning, a weapon that gathers rust if not used, and what's a rusty, creaky thing beneficial with? Not much. That and he's a lot to manage on good days, a vile taste in their mouths on the bad ones. Maybe if he tattooed his hands red they'll understand how he sees things. As it is, only one person stayed, if he doesn't count Bree. And how did he repay Tara for the effort? That part doesn't need elaboration.

Lucia pulls him to the side, along with his mug. She tips her chin up in command to one of her own, Tori with the crystal necklaces jangling on every move, to cast what he later finds out is a silencing charm around Lucia's selected spot. 

"And what about Liam?" she inquires after they've sat on the carpet, near a corner of the living room area. 

Oh, hell no.

"What about him?"

Lucia harrumphs, looks him up and down, raises her brows. "Seriously?"

Theo takes a gulp of the hot chocolate. "Deadass."

"You don't trust him with you."

"He has internal problems causing him to hyper-fixate." anchors, the IED, his physical attraction to Theo and the prevalent naivety of his worldview. He'll leave, too, once he's figured himself out. "The moment Monroe is out of the picture he'll address it, go to college and find new hyper-fixations that won't kill him."

"Brenna?"

"Misguided emotional attachment due to childhood memories holding more power in decision-making, that can all be easily taken care of when she finds out the truth about me."

"Alec?" 

Theo doesn't like where this is going.

"Imprinting, will go away on its own."

Here Lucia bares her teeth in a predatory grin. She's entertaining him, waiting for him to give her the weapons she can aim back at him. He already knows what she'll ask.

"If everybody is seemingly mingling with you out of some personal benefit, miscalculation or emotional compromisation, then what can you tell me about the person sitting next to you, then? What's my benefit, that seemingly makes me keep you," she makes exaggerated air quotes around the last part, in a jibe that gets on his nerves. "And, I don't know, tolerate your dumb ass? Do I invite you over to take a breather from Scott and his band of overly positive misfits to gain favor in case you decide to go double agent?"

"The hunt for Monroe."

Lucia brings a hand to the back of her head, stops mid motion to rub at her mouth with an index finger, thinking his answers through. 

"So you think you're allowed to walk freely because we have more upper hand with your mind on the battlefield with us and that we'll discard you the moment it's done with?"

Theo doesn't answer, because that's not quite it. Some, but not the bigger fragment. He skims over the groups of people trying not to stare at the two of them in their corner, catches Derek's frown, quickly zags away from it. 

"You think you don't deserve it." she says to herself with a finality, a cognizance. "That we'll see what you see and one day kick you out for it."

There in the morning, gone in the evening, as it's always been.

"Why shouldn't I?"

Theo raises his mug in a salute, to down the rest of the (not so anymore) hot chocolate in one go. They sit there in silence, ironic considering why they isolated themselves. Lucia doesn't say anything else. It goes on for half an hour before Yao Feng texts him a bulk of carefully constructed text and perfect pictures of files. Translations of texts, Theo surmises. Then down the drain the personal dilemmas go, making way for the hunt. 

Brenna, but of course, managed to get her grubby hands on some of the files containing compiled magical evidence from multiple crime scenes and narrowed it to a handful of incantations. Some of them reach terrifying levels of power needed to conduct them, others seem too easy to possess such magnitude and efficiency. 

"Okay, let's just slow down for a second." Danny raises both hands in front of himself, drags them over his slicked back hair in frustration. "Didn't you say she's human? With no magical traces to her? No spark? Then how is she managing this?"

This pertains to the grotesque images currently displayed to the TV connected to Lucia's laptop. It's the murder scenes of the most bizarre cases, the scant data they have to compare. 

"She doesn't need to be the one with magic. If she's taken prisoners it's an easy feat." Theo supplies, having been grounded to sitting on the couch when his pacing got on Lucia's nerves. 

"Fact. But those specific incantations need the willingness of the individual." Lucia taps a manicured finger to her glass of whiskey on the rocks. "You can't bypass it by forcing their hands, placing ultimatums, or even mind control."

That's where the blood-curdling idea has their hackles raised. If Monroe is brainwashing humans, that's manageable. But covens? That willingly supply her with any sort of magic her twisted ideas require and point her in direction of ingredients she might need to engineer her own weapon? 

That's the last thing they needed. Seems like it's their new reality.

*

Which brings Theo back to brainstorming mode. He lets Derek do the communication with his pack, texts Alec a short notice for his upcoming ghosting. Liam will learn it from either him or Derek. 

He stays with Lucia for the time being. Her house has many attributes, such as multiple places he can hole himself into without the prospect of anybody barging in. Bayley is a nice side effect, what with McKane and Danny having opted to accept Lucia's extended invitation. She didn't even ask Theo, took one look at him and ended up calling Scott in his stead once he'd swallowed his pride to voicelessly plead her to do so. That was until Scott's inability to stop himself from calling him shortly after, then negotiating himself and Malia into the deal. 

He should have reckoned Liam would manage to weasel in on it. Meaning Theo is saddled with sharing a room with him. 

Bye bye, peace. The circus just wants to keep on spinning him dry. 

Mind you, he finds out whilst having a friendly spar with McKane of all times. Friendly for them, apparently heavily lethal to Scott and Co who barge out of Stiles' car just as McKane swipes a clawed hand before doing at least three locks on Theo, then managing to successfully pin him to the ground with a forearm over his throat and a knee under the place where the breast bone ends. 

"Hey!" Liam and Malia bellow, sprinting over to them with Scott behind them. 

Theo and McKane share a look. The enraged duo—since when did Malia get this worked up over Theo's safety—stagger in their run when McKane offers Theo a hand, stop entirely when Theo accepts it, along with the strong pat to his back.

"I'm so not involving myself in this. The stage is yours, kid." and the bastard leaves Theo all alone. 

Scott has finally caught up, dashes between Liam and Malia to pivot on his feet, dangerously close to slipping on the grass, with his arms outstretched.

"We talked about this! We're not in Beacon Hills." he hiss-whispers, eyes manically slanting to the left, to McKane's retreating figure.

Liam doesn't even look at him, mutinous glare aimed at Theo, sidesteps Scott and evades the hand that tries to snag him back. He crashes into Theo, pushes him back with both palms to Theo's chest to make him lose his footing, then again, and ultimately takes a hold of Theo's dirty shirt to pull him closer, fists bunching the material tight to Theo's skin.

"What the fuck was that?" is the hissed out outburst.

Theo slaps the offending limbs away. "A friendly spar."

Malia scoffs, voice rising. "Friendly?"

"Believe it or don't. Ask Lucia if you're that doubtful." he turns, heading towards the house.

Liam doesn't let him go far, trailing him with loud steps in the cold ground. "Oh, yeah, Amadio who snagged you in the first place and managed to trigger you into another episode?" 

Theo swivels on his feet, fangs having elongated. "What's the matter with you?" 

Liam stops, they all do. His expression blows open, caught that whatever is causing this isn't just him witnessing a benign fight for training purposes. 

"I don't know what the everliving fuck is going on, but if you think for a single second this is some sort of sleepover or detainee ground-control, you better fucking turn around, now. I'm not gonna sit here, trying to figure out what that psycho's next move is while you react to every little thing I do, all to try and ignore whatever problems you have going, you hear me?" 

He's gone and recreated a Danny explosion, but his holds more pull when he rarely permits himself to get to this point. The three of them stare with shocked mugs, startled by the reverberation of his words. 

Theo pushes the air out of his lungs and turns back around, almost breaking the sliding doors. Lucia throws him a knowing smirk, amused if anything. 

When he gets out of the shower most of Lucia's pack has fled the scene, not voluntarily. He's still so angry that he's failing to shake it off, sits on his bed with his back to the headboard, eyes closed. He shouldn't have blown up. Liam is pissed at the prospect that Theo has been pushing himself after the fuck up two days ago, showing it through anger. One emotion at a time, Theo had told him back then. What is Liam afraid of, even?

Speaking of the devil, Liam's scent emerges from behind the closed door. He doesn't knock, doesn't enter or state his presence. He takes a few steps back, returns, goes further the second time he tries to leave, returns to his initial standpoint again. Theo's phone screen lights up with a message from Lucia, confirming what he'd thought had probably occurred while he was away with a he apologized, cut the kid some slack. 

Theo blinks, shakes his head to let it fall back against the headboard. "You gonna stand there until you calcify, or?"

Liam's pulse jumps some, breath catching. 

The door slowly opens to reveal a remorseful Liam, gaze downcast, head also tilted down. The hand holding the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder is shaking with the force he's clutching it with. He opens his mouth; no words come out. He then hangs his head lower with his eyes closed tight for a beat, lifts it enough so that when he opens them he can catch Theo's, chest expanding with his inhale.

"I'm sorry." he admits, his hold on the duffel bag strap tightening. "I was an asshole."

"She said you apologized." 

Liam squints for half a second and his facial muscles loosen, expression going blank. "That's—" he tries to verbalize, halts. "The apology here, now, is to you. Not to Amadio." he enunciates it, the intensity of it baffling to Theo. "I was an asshole to you, too." 

Theo nods without getting the meaning. Liam is always an asshole to him, the majority of the time. He blew up, so what? It's their—their thing. The one stability of their whatever-ship. 

Liam groans, throws his head back and closes the door behind him. "You're not even getting it." 

"Getting what?"

"I'm not saying it just to say it."

Theo blinks, more likely than not pulling one of McKane's constipated faces. "Oh—kay?"

Liam makes a barely there squeaky noise of irritation, throws a hand in Theo's direction. "See, you're not getting it!"

"Getting what, Liam?"

"You—!" Liam deposits the duffel bag on the floor in front of the bed designated for him, hunching with both hands splayed in the air, his fingers halfway clenched.

Theo stares, nonplussed, crosses his ankles and waves a hand in confusion. "I don't even think you know what you mean."

Liam gives him a louder groan, landing face first on his bed. 

This, he can work with. Not exactly back to how they usually communicate, but the amusement has mollified their nerves. Liam shifts his head, so that one blue eye can peek up at Theo. He seems to be on the same boat - confused, but not willing to sacrifice this middle ground of accidental comedy to clear the air up.

"You might be right." Liam's tired admission is muffled with half of his face in the cover. "I have no idea how to put what's in here," he points at his temple, hand falling back on the mattress afterwards. "Into words with meaning."

Theo lets a sharp breath through his nose, "I know the feeling."

And they both fall asleep just like that, so drained that they don't move to more comfortable positions. Malia wakes them up an hour later with a knock to the door. 

"Dinner's ready." she barges in, sees how groggy they are and repeats herself. Liam has managed to get up on his elbows, unable to keep his eyes from staying open for too long and Theo isn't doing better. "Go help Scott." she tells Liam, holds the door open.

Theo speaks before Liam can have time to react. "Go." 

Blue on green, Liam's brows pull together, as do his lips. He gets on his feet with a glance at Malia and last one at Theo, slips past her on slow legs, deliberately stalling himself in the hopes of hearing something. 

Malia leans on the door frame, hands in her loose sweatpants, but then she crosses her arms in a few seconds. Theo has a good idea as to where this is going, and yet has a hard time believing it to be true. 

"I shouldn't have said what I said."

Theo scratches the bridge of his nose, for once unable to pick a proper response. Not because he's at a loss of words. He just can't calculate what will appease her and what will set her off, not with the sleep haze still holding him in a groggy half-awareness. 

He sets on, "Okay." 

"Okay? That's what you're going with?" the muscles of her crossed arms tighten, notable in her visible forearms.

"It's fine, it's… whatever. I guess. Not like it wasn't unfounded." 

Malia growls softly with her following exhale, starts buzzing in place with one foot tapping the wooden floor, frustrated. "You can't just say okay like that." she parrots his pronunciation with a low voice and an annoyed, sharp shake to her head. 

"You should take a class with Liam." he finds himself saying, his mouth too fast to form the words. At her incredulous look he elaborates, "Proper communication 101, so that people can understand what you mean. Because I sure as hell don't even get what you're angry about right now. And I had this," he twirls an index finger in a circle, dropping it back to his ribs after. "Form of mental gymnastics with Liam just a little while ago, where we both came to the conclusion that even he doesn't know what he means."

Malia's frown had disappeared somewhere at the start of Theo's uncharacteristic vocality, has given the stage to disoriented bewilderment. 

Theo clears his throat, crosses one arm over the other on his belly, each hand cupping the opposite set of ribs. 

"Okay." she says, airy. It does nothing to prepare him for the word vomit to ensue. "I'm sorry for what I said, I shouldn't have said it and you shouldn't be fine with it, because Liam has seen the consequences of your stay in the skinwalker prison first hand and if he, who can't keep his mouth shut about any secret and has less tact that me, is unwilling to speak about it, then it was bad bad. And you're not the same Theo we sent there. So I'm sorry." the way she delivers it is like she's reading it, but Theo has seen her in other uncomfortable human situations involving feelings. The choppiness is just a byproduct of it, doesn't speak of its actual legitimacy. 

Theo's—Tara's—heart kinda stops from the earnestness of it. She takes in his dumbfounded face with a nod, doesn't wait for him to say anything this time since, apparently, what she's seeing is satisfying enough. That and she's definitely itching to get herself out of the awkward Scott-esque monologue just as much as Theo is. 

When Theo ventures into the lovely—too fucking loud—dining room it's to the sight of a pleased Scott and Lucia, with Liam and Malia sitting awkwardly on the couch with their plates, still in the throes of their apologies. Theo adopts Liam's meerkat impression. The only free spaces, from all the various sitting arrangements—at the table itself, on either of the two couches, on the loveseats and the floor respectfully—are either between Liam and Malia, or next to McKane and Danny at the table. 

McKane has one forearm parallel to his body on the table with a Cheshire grin from one ear to the other as he cuts his steak, all the while holding eye contact with Theo. He's having fun, the bastard. Lucia isn't even trying to hide her not so subtle efforts to muffle the glee and Derek, next to her on the other couch, gives him a knowing look before returning all his attention to feeding Bayley. The rest of Lucia's pack, and Danny, don't acknowledge in any way that they've sensed his arrival, the conversations continuing their flow without so much as a hitch. And Scott, on the carpet to Malia's right, just raises his eyebrows in a quick, amused move, as if to say really, Theo?, like it's the most natural thing for Theo to come over to them, like it's ridiculous he's even thinking it though. 

With a silent sigh Theo takes the plate Antonio hands him and sits on the cushion between Liam and Malia. It doesn't happen immediately, but their postures relax and when he's halfway through his meal he realizes their thighs are flush with his. He pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. Liam gently taps the side of his knee to Theo's with an inquisitive sound low in his throat. Theo shakes his head, as well as the natural instinct to overthink this entire situation, and takes his bite of roasted potatoes. 

Liam takes his plate when Theo is done, places it, along with his own, on the coffee table to his left. Derek seems to have been holding Bayley back - she does an excited circle around a few groups of people, lunges herself onto Theo's now free lap. Malia pulls her plate to the side a bit, in order to avoid the fluffy tail flying about in unpredictable directions. Bayley squeals, amber eyes squinting in happiness once Theo supports her with one arm and scratches her chin. She playfully bites Liam's fingers that skim over her back, yips at him, too. 

Liam laughs, unguarded and looking more like the teenager he is than Theo has seen him in a long, long time. Bayley mushes her side to Theo's chest, also pushes her head into Liam's palms. Liam sits with his back to the armrest, throws his left leg over Theo's knee, twists the other sideways, to coo at her and cup her cheeks. 

Theo fights tooth and nail to maintain a poker face through it all. If he doesn't make a deal out of it nobody will. He doesn't check to see either Scott or Malia's reactions, nor Lucia, Derek or McKane's. What he does do is lift his free hand with a middle finger and his theory is confirmed when he hears several clicks of phone cameras. 

He shouldn't get used to the warm feeling in his chest, should ignore the contentment of the animals in him, but fucking Christ would it be nice if it does become a normal part of his life.  

*

At night Theo loses some sleep. Even with Liam near him and his eyes closed, he keeps going over rituals and murder scenes. Around four in the morning he outright gives up, slinks out of the room to sit at the kitchen island, observe the little field in front of the house, then moves to sit next to the sliding doors and stares at the constellations.

He'd hoped Liam would stay asleep. He doesn't. His steps are uneven as he gets to the kitchen area, the creases of his pillow stamped to one side of his face. A crinkling noise alerts Theo, Liam has pulled something out of the front pocket in his hoodie—technically Theo's hoodie, he nicked it once he'd come to the conclusion that he'd packed light clothes—jangles it in the air.

"Tea." he supplies. The same tea he talked to Theo about. 

He makes them a cup, Theo having gone to him to inspect the scents. The tea is wrapped in a Christmas themed napkin, most likely Jenna's doing, before Liam had shoved the bulging napkin in a zip-lock bag. Their shoulders bump a few times, while Liam pours some leaves in tea holders he'd dug out of somewhere as Theo picks out all the refreshing scents of the loose tea. 

They pull a few cushions off the couch, sit down next to the sliding doors.

"I knew it." Liam says, when Theo takes his first sip. "You like it."

It's nice, the mixture of flavor just the right amount to not be too strong. He does like it. And it does calm him down, slows his pulse. Theo knocks their ankles together, shifts to look back at the stars.

*

By now it's a known side effect that Theo loses time when severely under the weather or heavily wounded. It's what's happening now. He just knows that he has to run. 

The memories trickle in molasses-slow, taunting in their late arrival, as he's failing to cover his tracks and the freely falling blood from the wound on his side. It's bad. He feels bone under his palm.

All he knows is that it started with the last theater. 

*

McKane comes along with him for the remaining numbers, after Theo lowers his guard during the nearly two weeks they spend at Lucia's. The hours of strategizing, video conference calls, training and pseudo therapy sessions have more or less helped Theo build trust for the man. Argent warming up to him in the matter of a day also helps his case. And Bree's spontaneous one day visit, followed by the bear hugs with McKane, cement it.

Their new formation goes as follows: Theo, Derek, McKane, Argent and Malia. Scott stayed with Lucia to delegate the hefty decisions, while also running things through with Agent McCall so that they all stay on the same page. Liam is back in Beacon Hills and attending his classes, playing pretend, still bitter that he was once more sent away. Alec is also there to keep an eye on him, with the help of Corey, Mason and Nolan.

The theaters should have been a week's worth of time, tops. But all Theo feels is an intense foreboding of doom over their heads, mirrored by his new nanny squad. That, in turn, makes Malia resort to sparring lessons she forces Theo to conduct.

"You've always fought better than us. So teach me." was her reasoning.

Not that Theo has any protests on the matter. She's a quick learner, trusts her instinct. Her body remembers things at an astonishing pace, acquires speed startlingly fast and in no time he doesn't even have to go easy on her. McKane acts as their referee, Derek and Argent silently looking on. Sometimes Derek joins in too, with Theo. Sometimes McKane does. On a few notable occasions even Argent did, which was an interesting dirty fight that only made Argent grow in his eyes. Human he may be, but guns, knives and crossbows aren't the limit. 

Argent even pulls him aside to show him ways he can improve, rendering Theo speechless as he'd been expecting some form of scolding.

"You leave your side open, when you do this." Argent takes the position, then claps to the exposed part of his own body. "I know that four out of five times you'll be against people who aren't really as good as you are," wait a damn minute, is he— "But there's always that one person who'll knock you off your high horse one day, considering how arrogant you can get."

Argent's dose of praise: pat them on the shoulder, then kick them down so they forget any form of praising words. Theo snorts, corrects his stance and they continue the new routine of display and amend the weak spots.

This time the process is smoother for Theo, as well. McKane makes him tie a bandana to the lower half of his face every time he sets foot in a theater, one he's already dabbed orange essential oil on, as an anchor to the present world without the need of self-inflicted injuries. It's not fool-proof, he still has a hard time the following twelve hours after they've left, but. It helps. He hasn't had a dissociative episode and a win is a win.

It's going so well that he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And boy does it drop on their heads.

They get ambushed, miss the scents and multiple heart beats with the help of the clocking spell Monroe landed herself way back. It's a shitshow. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong.

It all happens in the last theater, when it's too late for them to head back. Too fast, no time to think, only to react. There's bullets, snarls, claws, knives, wolfsbane. There's smoke bombs and some new weapon she's designed to practically blind them. There's pain, there's yelling, and then there's the worst. 

They get separated. 

Theo tries to lure the hunters away, to a seclusion he knows has a vast array of acids at his disposal and, in a way, plays himself. Because she'd predicted his next moves. And she lays in wait for him, there already, a cold smile on her face and,

"Hello, Theo."

*

Which brings him to here and now. Alone, having lost more than a liter of blood, limbs in pins and needles. He doesn't even know how he got out, if the rest are alive and why she wanted to lure him away specifically. What he's more concerned about is how long she's known about this lab. Was she aware from the beginning? Did she do the waiting game, lull them into a false sense of victory that they've taken away her best source of destruction? Or was it a recent development? 

The bullet going through his chest stops him from turning more cogs, revisiting old sites to find the indicators, and he can't get up. Can't even pull himself on his hands.

The last thing he sees is a heeled boot, then the loud crack of his skull, and then—

Darkness.

*

He's strapped to something made of stone, metal chains icy from the winter air. He's freezing. 

"Oh, look who's come through. How nice of you to join us." he hears, somewhere to his left. Monroe.

Theo opens his eyes, and there she is. Healthy, glowing and manic. The same psychopathic aura to her since the last time he saw her. What makes him go into overdrive is how content she is, leery, like she's found out how to wipe every supernatural being on the planet. She's so happy that it makes bile rise in his throat.

Oh, fuck.

What has she done?

She tilts her head to one side. "It took me some time, but I won. I won, Theo, and I'll ruin all of you."

"What, no synopsis of the evil plans?" as Theo speaks blood pours out of his mouth, down to his throat. He's not letting her have her moment. 

Monroe narrows her eyes, a twisted sort of disgust in them. "You can't buy time. You can try, but there really isn't any way out."

"Oh, I know I'm dead. Been there and done that more than a few times, know how it feels by now."  

"Then what's the point of this conversation?" one of the surrounding goons laughs, malicious with it. 

Theo grins, teeth stained red, says nothing. Monroe regards him in a calculative way, settles on the comfort that he's chained and dying. It's not just the bullet wounds and blood loss, she's dosed him with something, his blurring vision and buzzing insides telling.

She grins back at him, relaxes back against the wall. "All this time I searched for a werewolf and the key was right in front of me." she starts, as if retelling a fond recollection. 

The key for what? Ritual? Summoning? What?

"Turns out you can bribe even the toughest one, with the proper ingredients. You see, I found a very interesting source in New York. Right under the Feng clan's noses even." Theo's blood runs cold, freezing his brain along the way. A spy? "The enemy of my enemy is my ally. And you have no idea how many enemies Yao Feng has." 

The moment she starts explaining, his perception warps. Theo has only heard of the ritual from Bree, seeing as she found it, or if found her more like. The Arcana sisterhood, or as the original name goes: Baomi Jiaopai. The coven of deceased witches notorious for stringing the sentenced individuals on a trial held by the ones they've murdered. Then leaving said individual in their hands, practically forever, no way out. Once sentenced, you're a goner. Theo never found out if direct blood line is needed or other quotas have to be met. Monroe, apparently, has.

"Not so mouthy now, are ya, freak?" a tall guys with fish eyes snarks, rabid with hatred. 

"You know what they do." Monroe says, head tipping up to look down at him. "But what you didn't know is that they can be utilized for more than simple sentencing. If you become their full master they abide to every word. You'd need a specific ritual to do that, of course, which kept us busy for the better part of the past half year."

They have it now.

"And that's you, Theo. You're the key. You," she pushes off the wall, heels clacking on the stoned floor, to rest her hands on the slab of stone he's chained to. "Will kill them all."

Theo snarls, actively trying to cover up how much the words are affecting him. She knows it, softens her features in mocking sympathy.

"What's that face for? Thought you liked murder?" she asks, the rest of her cronies bellowing out ugly laughs that echo all over the space of the chamber they're in.

She's been trying to kill werewolves as sacrifices because the ritual's original transcription was so messed up that they fucked up a few important words. What she thought meant a werewolf is supposed to be any sort of were-creature but a werewolf, one that has stayed dead for some amount of time, then brought back to life. One who has wandered both worlds, holds both parts of them in their soul, hence the heavy and excruciatingly important requirement. Death warps everything it touches and that precise left-over power is the key component in this ritual. Spiritual residue.

Peter would have been an ideal candidate if he wasn't a full-blooded werewolf. And Theo is still half-coyote, which mixed in with the knowledge that he's a science experiment is enough to bypass the system. Enough of a supernatural to be fit for the trial.

If she chains the Baomi Jiaopai to herself she can use them for her bidding of executing all supernatural. It'll be over. They're all dead. And it'll be all his fault because he slipped right into her hands.

With the flick of her wrist her sycophants set to lighting the elaborate set of candles. Once there's more light Theo takes sight of the sigils smeared on the wall, blood still dripping down the stone from them. His blood. Monroe cuts to the chase and before he can even brace himself she's stabbed a dagger made entirely of jade through his middle, the force lodging it into the stone itself. 

Theo chokes on another mouthful of blood. That thing is magic-infused, the thrum of what appears to be the start of the spell feeling like a force squeezing his insides with searing claws. He can't even produce a sound. Monroe hurriedly takes a tome handed to her, starts chanting. 

Three candles get blown away, not by one of her own. 

She keeps reading, tone unchanging, circling him. Four tours in she stops by his head. This time Theo has a few seconds to prepare and even take the last proper lungfuls of breath he'll ever have before she slits his throat. It's a weird feeling, like you're drowning and the muscles around the area are paralyzed. It's when the panic settles in. 

She must have used another jade dagger forged from or with the same type of magic. It feels like melted metal on him, dripping along the sides to form a bloody leash of fire. His body shakes, rattling the chains along with it.

He can't breathe.

Monroe stops chanting only once and it's to look him in the eyes, upside down, with her teeth bared in a nasty smile of vengeance. It's for the sole purpose of, "You ready to see Tara?"

Theo grits his teeth, consciousness steadily slipping from him. The jade dagger stabbed into him pulses, the power it emits not unlike unseen energy tearing at his skin, sinew and bone. He knows pain, grew up with it, it isn't something that phases him anymore. He'd thought the memory manipulation at Lucia's and the clearing with Yao Feng were bad, would be the most excruciating things he'll ever experience. This current pain, however, melts his brain, shocking it so much that he isn't even fainting from it. What the Doctors did was mostly surgery related, this is pure magic tearing him apart. And magic always has and always will hurt more than any scalpel, syringe or dose of mercury ever has. 

It's how he misses it when things go wrong. The terrified screaming is the first indicator to cut through the pain-induced fog and the overwhelming sound of blood rushing in his ears. The piercing noise of stone on stone, of stone dragging on stone, is next. Last is the cold. 

Theo forces his eyes open. 

All of the hunters have been chained to slabs of stone that weren't there the last time he was actively looking, for them all to form a complete circle. The sigils on the walls are coated with their blood atop his, barely recognizable anymore, closer to grotesquely melting circles. All of them have similar jade daggers stabbed through their guts. Theo sees in slow motion as a sole jade dagger appears in the middle of their circle, swerving in black smoke that withers as it does a wide arc to slit each and every single one of their throats open just as Monroe had slit his. Their terror clogs his nose more than the stench of copper, and their horror-filled screams try to escape through their now gaping necks, the sound of them wet and muted, unlike anything he's heard before. The difference is that where Theo sustained a broad laceration that admittedly isn't benign, they spot slashes so deep that the tissues and muscles wouldn't have been able to support their heads had they been standing. 

He blinks and shadowy figures flicker into existence. Faceless abyss after faceless abyss. The last thing he sees is the one designated for him reaching towards his face. Reaching and stopping. Reaching but not touching yet, not tearing his jaws apart to shove a tied bundle of burning herbs down his maimed throat, not yanking his ribs open like the rest of the shadows do to Monroe and her hunters, one by one, making them watch the domino effect. It just reaches. 

It just reaches, hand empty, and covers his eyes. 

*

He's in the same chamber, watching from the side, watching the convulsing bodies surrounding him, watching the copious amount of blood pour out of each and every single one of them. Watches and sees how all the shadows turn to the one above his corpse. 

His designated shadow extends an abnormally long arm to rip the dagger out of his abdomen. It must be a sign. The rest turn to their own prey, tear out the hearts only to stab them back into the gaping rib cages with jade daggers, the twin sets in each hunter pulsating with an energy field so potent that the power is visible to the naked eye.

A wave of magic pulses, thrumming with a multitude to screams of countless sentenced, before and now, leaves a perfect circle in the form of a crater in the stone walls.

Somewhere a distant detail swims to the surface. Baomi Jiaopai aren't things to be bound, aren't thoughtless slaves. The Feng clan never used them as such, because the coven willingly permitted their contract - the Fengs supply them with a reason to keep existing, to keep doing what they were raised with, and the Baomi Jiaopai help them take care of threats, if said threats truly are corrupted and deserving of such a death. A mutual convenience. 

As is the Baomi Jiaopai law: only magic can punish magic. But, they were once human and just as cunning, knew they had to bide their time to use the loophole. They're omniscient. And they let Monroe keep on chanting, with her little foaming gang of simplistic followers, to make her unknowingly strip their own humanity, hack at it until it started splintering. They let her think she's at the top of the world, then tore it out of her bloody hands the moment she, and all with her, crossed the path of no return, of no longer being fully human, contaminated by the magic of the countless rituals they'd conducted.

Only a disgraceful fool would think a simple ritual of humans can bind centuries of ancient magic. 

*

The wolf sniffs out the air, unaware of how it got here, only that the human boy and the coyote runt shouldn't come out. It's too dangerous and they're too weak, will get them killed in a heartbeat. Especially the overly trusting runt that it's obliged to keep in check, or those three monster figures would come for them both and hurt their human boy.

It steps on careful paws in the snow, ears going every direction to map out the potential threats. There was a shadow thing a few kilometers back that waved their weird arm at the spanning forest, to show the way out, but it didn't follow. For now it's just them and the birds.

Food, water and shelter is what they need. The sky is white, filled with falling slabs of more white. It's quiet. It's safe. For now. 

The wolf runs, until it can't run any more. It's not stupid, kept some energy for hunting, for food. It filled its belly with snow to stave off the hunger. The rabbit is an easy target, just as unassuming as the runt keeping human boy company. Shelter proves to be the hardest obstacle with the blinding wind.

A dying tree provides its delved in trunk as a temporary stop. The wolf burrows in it as far as it can, curls tightly to shiver and watch the merciless winds. The storm slows a bit and between one moment and the next, the wolf falls asleep. 

By the time it wakes up there's no more falling snow. It's easier to navigate the forests. Off to another run the wolf goes, instinct whispering that they have to be far, far away from back there. 

Back there is where the bloody corpses are and if they don't run they're next. They've already died before, know what follows, but they don't want to go back to the human sister and her cold fingers in their rib cage. So they run, run, run. 

Human boy stirs sometimes, never truly waking up. Mght never wake up. The past months it dragged them through hell in the form of memories better forgotten and it fractured him, ruined him, even if it also brought him peace. The runt keeps on pawing at its consciousness, resulting in not even a ping back. 

For now the wolf lets it be. Either the boy wakes up or it doesn't. 

Run, eat, sleep.

Run, eat, sleep.

Sunrises are pretty. Sunsets are even prettier. Human boy was fond of them, they made him easier to tolerate, especially if that human not-pack beta was with him for them. Thinking of the not-pack beta hurts, as well as thinking of the rest of its not-pack. The wolf wanted them to be pack, as did the runt and human boy, but too much blood was spilled, too much skin was torn off. Now sunsets always make the wolf grow cold, no matter how many warm places it uncovers to lay in. 

Run, eat, sleep.

Time doesn't exist. It's only bright or dark, sun and no sun, sunrise and sunset.

Run, eat, sleep.

Running so much is tiring.

Run, eat, sleep.

The wolf finds a fox cub after a hunt. It isn't hungry anymore, belly full, but it's curious. The cub is crying, all alone. Just like them. The wolf remembers the other fox cub, from the tall alpha's pack, the same fox cub that made human boy cry, but also made it happy. The wolf ushers the terrified cub to the forest, tracks the last remnants of its mother's scent, nudges it with a paw in her direction when they find her. The mother scents her cub, licks at its tiny snout, looks at the wolf. It looks and looks, raises her head a little before she gently takes the cub in her jaws to run away.

Run, eat, sleep.

The wolf doesn't go near humans. The last ones almost killed them. It still feels metal chains that aren't there, still feels like its insides are tearing, still feels like its throat is gaping. 

Run, eat, sleep. 

The wolf wants to stop running. It wants human boy to finally wake up. It's too quiet otherwise and the runt won't stop crying nowadays.The wolf knows it's not supposed to show it kindness, or there'll be consequences in the form of electricity and needles, but it wants to. Doesn't like the constant crying, its smothering misery and the naive touches it keeps handing out to the human boy that has also kept it on a tight leash, or else.

One sunset bleeds into the other, more painful than the next. Human boy's memories have started fading, the wolf doesn't even know what it's running away from anymore or why the sunsets hurt. 

Run, eat, sleep.

The wolf shivers, ears to its skull. It doesn't want to eat anymore, nor does the runt. It has stayed silent for some time, curled next to the sleeping human boy, doesn't even want to come out anymore. It doesn't react when the wolf tries to nudge it onto its paws, it just sleeps, too.

The winter is harsher here. The wind is blowing in the wolf's face, has been for hours, but if there's no wind to surround it it's too dim and quiet. So it just stays in the snow, watches the umpteenth storm pass it by. Human boy and the runt sleep and the wolf is alone. Lonely.

It doesn't want to run.

*

There's footsteps approaching. The wolf doesn't want to run, doubts its sleeping companions want to either. 

And there, in the sunset, is a figure. It approaches and the wolf stands, tenses. It doesn't want to run, but the figure doesn't stop. It's a human and humans only cause pain. 

But,

"Theo." the figure says, its features blurred by the last rays of the sun. "Please. Please don't run, please."

The wolf feels like it knows this figure, that it reminds it of sunsets like the one swathing them in color now. 

It doesn't run, stays rooted to its spot with its head low. The crunching footsteps advance and the human's face becomes clearer from this close. Its blue eyes are spilled over, cheeks wet, mouth wobbling. A human boy. No, a human wolf of a boy, just like the wolf's sleeping human boy. 

It lands on its knees right in front of the wolf with an uncontrolled, hurt whimper and more tears fall on the snow. It reaches and pulls the wolf close, mindless of its sharp teeth so close to its throat. 

"Theo." it whispers, shudders with the weight of the human word. "Theo." 

It's warm now, wolf boy smells nice, smells like home. 

"Oh god, I found you." it rasps, grips tighter and buries its face in the wolf's coat. "I found you." it whispers, weeps and shakes. 

The wolf catches more scents nearing, manages to curl into itself in spite of the human limbs constricting its movement and how large it is in comparison. Another human wolf approaches, an alpha, dressed all in black with long hair. She also drops to her knees, places a hand atop wolf boy's trembling shoulder.

"Let him breathe some, Liam." she says, but keeps on looking at the wolf, her eyes also glistening. 

The wolf keenly observes her hand as it nears its head. Warm, gentle fingers stroke behind one ear, shift to the top of its head when it doesn't react. 

"Theo, you with us?" she asks, but it's choked up; she knows the answer. The wolf doesn't even know how it understands the meaning, or some of it at least, possibly remnants of the sleeping human boy. 

The wolf blinks, moves a little to take a glimpse of the other figures in the back, standing still in wait. What for, it doesn't know. But it doesn't want to run. 

The woman alpha abruptly turns her head to the sky, the grip of her fingers tightening, the scent of salt cloaking her. And wolf boy's weeps grow, keep growing, reeking of pain while also not being hurt anywhere the wolf can see or sense. There's no blood in the air, so why is it in pain? Why can it barely breathe around its hurt?

A third figure, another human alpha, another boy, comes to them. "Theo?" the wolf blinks up at him. This is wolf boy's alpha. "Lucia—"

The woman alpha shakes her head, swallows. The wolf can't think with all those cloying scents in the air that reek of hurt, bitterness and anguish. There's no wind to carry it away. It makes it uneasy, prickly. Wolf boy pulls it closer to its chest, presses the wolf's head there, hides it from the rest and envelops it as best as it can with the upper cloth it wears.

At some point the wolf has tumbled off into a nap, wakes to still being in wolf boy's arms. They're in a moving, enclosed space. Warm. Vibrating. 

"Shhhhh." wolf boy tells it, bundles it closer and the wolf is too tired to do anything but sleep. 

*

The wolf is left alone in a house with wolf boy. It sniffs out every nook and cranny, with wolf boy not far behind. It never lets the wolf out of its sight, grows anxious if it does. It takes the wolf snapping its jaws with a low growl for it to realize it's crowding too close, too much, too soon. 

"Sorry." it says, takes a step back. The wolf stops growling, huffs a grumble before going back to exploring. 

A shrill noise sounds, causing the wolf to crash into a wall. It's the metal thingy with human voices. Wolf boy fumbles to get it out of the pocket, places a placating hand on the wolf's side for a scant second in comfort. No danger, it's safe, it means. The wolf licks at the hand, decides to not bite at it.

"Yeah?" 

"He's not there, is he?" 

The wolf's ears perk up. It knows this voice. The same way it knew that wolf boy isn't a threat, nor the rest of the human wolves with it. 

Wolf boy freezes, whispers to the other voice, "He recognized you."

"Put me on speaker."  

A human girl. It knows this human girl. It knows it.

The wolf jumps on its front paws, demanding for the metal thingy to be placed on the ground so it can be inspected. Wolf boy complies and the wolf noses its hand away from the device, sniffs at it, but there's no new scent there.

"Theo?" the human girls' voice is hurried. She's anxious, too. "C'mon, you know me." but the distant voice of another human, on her side of the metal thingy, makes her shift focus. "Shut up! Just shut up, okay? Let me talk to him!"

The wolf growls, from deep within its chest, slaps a paw onto the device making it dash away and slide on the floor. It doesn't like whoever is with the girl. She needs to be calm and happy, not anxious and angry. It's bad for the head and the body and its human boy is proof enough.

Wolf boy carefully moves its paw away. "Hey, no, that's Brenna. You remember Brenna, right?"

But she's still talking with the other unknown human. "You know what? Fuck you, I'm heading over there."

The wolf finally hears the third voice with the human girl, from far away, "He's overwhelmed enough as it is after no human contact for a month. I know you want to—hey, I know you want to see him, okay? I know you do, but we risk him shutting us out and losing himself."

The wolf knows that voice, too. It appears to recognize a lot of voices, but human boy won't wake up to take care of the human business as usual. It keeps on sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and it's taken the runt with it, so now the wolf is on its own with all these two-legged human wolves and their weird human noises. 

The wolf lies down on its belly, covers its snout with both paws in irritation, then bites at one of them and starts chewing on it.

Wolf boy explodes. "No! Theo, no! No self-harm! Stop that!" 

The wolf doesn't listen after that, snaps at wolf boy that's trying to pull the stinging paw away. It does something with the metal thingy, making it go from bright as the sun to black, throws it at one of the beds.

"Please stop." wolf boy doesn't relent, no matter how much the wolf bares its teeth and wrinkles its nose in threat. "I'm so sick and fucking tired of you being hurt and in pain, and seeing that massacre scene with the slab of stone drenched in your blood was—" it chokes, curls at the waits. "Just, please, stop." 

The wolf does, only because wolf boy starts smelling like it's hurting again, scent sour with it, as well as with pungent fear. It once again noses at a warm, human hand, rubs its forehead over it and licks the twitching fingers once. An apology.

Wolf boy stays silent for some time, having taken control of its scent and chemo signals as it pulls the wolf onto the bed, then ushers it close. It's too hot with both of their high body temperatures, yet the wolf permits this, if it keeps wolf boy calmer and less terrifiedandgrieving. It starts talking, information piled for later, for if human boy wakes up.

"McKane found it, the chamber. You didn't see him when he came out, Theo. That guy's been in the military for decades and even he was shaken by it." wolf boy's breath tickles. "I lost it when he said you weren't there. Wasn't even supposed to know of the rescue mission, got lucky that I was with Ms. McCall when Scott called her." it fills its lungs, swallows. "Scott tried to stop me from entering, along with Derek, but when we got in, well. Nobody could move. There was blood everywhere." 

Wolf boy strokes at the wolf's coat, keeps petting it until the wolf is nothing but a pile of liquefied fur. The human boy would know. It lived through it, locked away the memories with it in whatever place its sleeping, to protect both the wolf and the runt and it can't access them, the wolf tried. 

Wolf boy doesn't continue, starts shaking again, pulls the wolf closer. The hands grip the same way the wolf would bite into a bone, don't let go. 

*

A human word zings in the wolf's mind when it comes to.

Liam.

The wolf boy is Liam, its human name. 

It's strange thinking in that language, with all of its detailed descriptions. Why do they need need such a vast array of explanations? Human boy isn't here as a way of translation between both sides, yet the wolf still somewhat grasps the meaning behind the sounds the human wolves produce. Human boy still isn't awake either, but it's given the wolf a word, a name. Maybe if the wolf uses it enough, human boy will wake up and stop the never-ceasing cloak of pain and misery and anger emanating from wolf boy. 

Liam. 

Liam.

Liam.

Wake up, human boy, it tries to mimic human boy's language, to no avail.

Human boy sleeps.

Liam is still holding the wolf, curled around it, has covered them with something soft and warm. Still awake but pretending not to be. The wolf considers moving away from the solace of this enclosed space, opts to take another nap instead. 

The days aren't measured just by sunsets and sunrises anymore. They're not cold either. Liam goes to another room to use the metal thingy with voices at least seven times a day, doesn't let the wolf near them, leaves on a bigger metal thingy with moving pictures to keep its attention away. 

Today the moving pictures are of Liam and his pack, and the sole reason the wolf doesn't go after Liam to hear the voices from the smaller metal thingy is because he hears them from the pictures. 

"Oh my god, is Theo snuggled between Alec and Liam, or am I hallucinating?"

On the big screen the wolf sees its human boy, along with Liam and another human wolf. It's the one human boy lives with, the wolf thinks, sniffs at the bright screen, can't catch a scent.

"Shhhh, I'm trying to take a picture!" Liam's human alpha. 

"Scotty, my boy, way ahead of ya. I'm taking a video of this, no way am I letting it slide."

Liam says something to the wolf's human boy, leaned in close, while the other human wolf turns to another boy.

The moving picture cuts off, another starting shortly after. It's dark, even for the wolf's sight. Human boy is lying in a weird inflatable bed with Liam. The moving picture is choppy, from an odd angle, goes black but still holding sound. It turns around, to the face belonging to the first voice of the previous moving picture. It's the same human that doesn't trust them, the smart one with the snarky remarks and the constant battle with gravity and inanimate objects.

"Liam, next time you start a petty war with me just know that I have this," the human waves a hand in front of its face with no direction whatsoever. "And I'll be sending it to Theo. Capice?" 

Another moving picture starts after this one. 

Human boy and Liam, sitting on the ground in front of a big metal thingy with weird diagrams on it. 

Hushed whispers and suppressed laughter and, "How are they even doing it? It was supposed to be Theo helping him with chemistry and it's become this? The tension is killing me, I swear."

"They're in their own world at this point. Look at them, they can't even hear us gossiping about them." it's the wolf boy from the first moving picture, the one sat next to Liam and the wolf's human boy. He's important to human boy, the wolf can tell, can vaguely recollect. Can vaguely feel that importance, too.

The moving picture shakes, is replaced by sliding and unmoving pictures. Most of them are of Liam and the wolf's human boy, different days and places, some blurry, others at strange angles with more human wolves. 

"What the fuck?" 

The wolf flinches, ears pinning back with its head low.

Liam is standing at the edge of the bed with wide, panicked eyes. "Mason, I'm gonna kill you." he gasps, covers the big metal thingy with a long cloth and takes the form of a ball on the bed, next to the wolf. "Oh god, he's gonna remember all of it when he wakes up."

Then something happens. The runt wakes up. 

The wolf sits on its haunches, tips its head to the side, mindless of the embarrassed squeaks and wiggling next to him. The runt shakes itself—this time the wolf doesn't bite or aim to incapacitate it, instead rubs their flanks together—nips at human boy's hand after the baffling affection from the wolf has sunk in. They wait. They wait, but human boy only stirs a bit, doesn't wake up.

*

Theo is wrapped in a soft blanket and something heavy is on him. Not the blanket. Fuck both whatever it is and the blanket.

He tries to move, can't. The arm on top of him doesn't let him. A single duration of ten seconds and wolf and coyote erupt in his head, loud and persistent, annoyed and worried. And in an awfully bewildering synchrony.

Theo tries to shut them up, which only makes them louder. They don't want him to fall back asleep, is the one thing he does understand from their stormy signals. Rude much. He needs sleep, it's the only way to heal properly. How the fuck is he supposed to pilot his body without the mental stability? Did they forget his deactivation spree around Christmas?

He moves to get off the bed and away from the arm that has grown tense. Somebody speaks and he should be able to understand them, but he can't really put the speech to any clear connotation currently. Theo shoves away, until he's on the floor with the freedom to change skins. That same somebody grows just as intense as the animals and he's having none of it. He patters away on his paws to a warm enough corner, snarls at the person when they try to touch him and lies down. 

And he sleeps.

*

The wolf is going to make human boy's life a living misery when its back online again. Wakes up just to agitate wolf boy and goes back to sleep. No, it's not going to use any more human language to describe humans, it's confusing and the wolf won't pander to that kid if it's going to pull stunts like this. 

The wolf is in a bad mood the whole day and the curled, motionless form of wolf boy reeking of despair makes it angrier. It bites at the leg of a chair to keep itself from chewing on its own paw, goes near the bed to peek up sometime in the afternoon. 

Wolf boy stares, eyes bleak, turns away. It hasn't gotten up once today. When the wolf hops up it stays facing away. Maybe the floor is a better idea after all. Or the wolf could open the door and go outside. A quick arm stops it, makes it lie down. The wolf stays.

*

Theo opens his eyes and he's alive. 

He's not back with Monroe, he's not stabbed with his throat slashed open and a shadowy figure towering over him. He's alive. 

And he's been asleep for a long time. 

He senses Liam next to him, facing him and gripping his forearm, still unconscious.

Where the hell are they?

Theo stays inert, breathes in and out. Waits for the memories to come to him.

He's been on the run. Well, the wolf was. Theo was—kinda half dead, if he has to assume. Recuperating in his own mind. Liam and the rest found him. From the phone conversation with Bree and Yao Feng's words, he's been running for a month, hiding, existing just to survive and with no clear cut motive but to go as far away from those chambers as the wolf could carry him. Then, Liam's laptop. The little video clips that Mason must have compiled and convinced Liam to play to the wolf in an attempt to bring Theo back through reliving certain moments. Certain moments with Liam. 

Theo had an idea of how obvious they are, wasn't aware that Liam's pack has been compiling evidence since who knows how long.

Liam's leg jerks, pulse picking up with his scent sour with terror. His lungs seize, Theo's doing the same. After the wolf was in the front by necessity for so long he's quick to react on instinct before anything else, turns on his side, slides his free hand forward to shake him awake. Liam's eyes snap open and he stops breathing, doing a full-bodied recoil. The palm still on Theo's forearm has an iron grip on him, claws having emerged to dig into his skin.

Theo's rapid movement has stirred the air, and along with it whatever dust is on the blanket, sheets and cover.

Liam's face pinches, he covers his lower face moments before he sneezes. A second time. A third time. And a fourth time in a row. 

Those damn fucking wolf hairs. 

Theo makes him sit up, uses Liam's distracted and stupefied state in his gain to pull the blanket over Liam and get him to his feet, while also tying the discarded and relatively hair-free cover to his own waist, and pulls the sheets in his arms to go get rid of the fur. Liam stands still where he left him, watching him with wide, disbelieving blue eyes and his pulse sky high when he comes back, not unlike a statue. Theo tugs the blanket off him once he's done with the sheets and pillows, wills himself not take a lungful of Liam's scent and makes another tour to the front door. He gets pelted with another bout of freezing air as he shakes the thing a few times to fill the snow with more wolf hairs. The only saving grace is that the wind isn't blowing his way, or else the hairs would have gone straight into his face.

When he gets back Liam is sitting with his legs crossed in the middle of the bed, having haphazardly tucked the sheets in an automatic action rather than a need to help, tremor-filled hands covering his mouth and chin. He's heaving like he's straight out of an intense lacrosse practice, mind in overdrive. 

Liam strikes out the moment Theo is within his range, yanks him onto the bed, which dislodges the cover from Theo's waist. Being practically in Liam's lap goes to his head and he can't react to either this situation, nor to the desperate way Liam's palms find their way to Theo's face, pressure a bit too hard on his cheekbones. Blue on green, and Liam's chest starts rising and falling at an alarming rate. 

Theo curls a hand around the back of Liam's head, making it a hard pressure point. "Breathe." he tells him, guides him to lean forward so that his head is closer to Theo's lungs, encouraging him to copy his breathing pattern. 

When he reaches for one of Liam's hands Liam grabs his wrist, then the other, both in twin steel grips. Theo pushes Liam's head down with the tip of his chin.

"Liam, breathe."

Liam shakes his head. "You were dead." it's the type of voice break before one starts weeping uncontrollably. Theo remembers with clarity, the following moment after they found him, after Liam found him. Liam's imminent breakdown was so intense he couldn't even keep his body from expressing all of the pent-up stress in the form of all-encompassing sobs. "And then you were gone. You were—"

Theo makes an attempt to free his hands, has his arms shoved back by Liam for his effort, chest coming forward at the way his shoulders are pushed back. Liam keeps shaking his head, giving these high, distressed noises. 

Theo brings his legs up—mindless of his lack of clothes situation—to cinch them around Liam's ribs in a makeshift barricade and anchor, applies a barely there pressure only to relax his muscles, again and again in a specific rhythm, imitates a steady pulse with the motions. 

"C'mon, breathe with me." Theo murmurs, takes Liam's steadily lax grip as the chance he's been waiting for. 

Liam intercepts him with a low, threatening sound the exact second he feels Theo's wrists are no longer in his hold and between one moment and the next they're hand to hand, Theo nudging his fingers between Liam's to grip tight. Liam's arms twitch, as do the obliques under Theo's inner legs, head pulling back a smidge to catch Theo's eye. 

"You're in a house." Theo starts with his voice quiet, lulling, hoping that Liam remembers this sequence. "Size, location, furniture, layout, time in space - all up to you." Liam's eyes widen, the something, that Theo has chased and has been unable to catch, surfacing. "It's familiar, might even be boring on occasions." Liam squeezes his eyes shut. "The people there are all welcome, nobody is out of place. Can you picture it?"

And with a heavy shudder his head falls back down, previously lax fingers now curling and gripping Theo's hands back, forehead bracing where shoulder and neck meet, hair tickling Theo's skin. 

It takes him a little while to picture it in his head, his idea of a house that is a home. It's gradual, the process of him coming back; his scent starts leveling out, the cloying and bitter notes in it steadily dying out like candle flames.

But.

The sensation of something on his throat brings him back to that place. To when he couldn't breathe past the scorching agony coming wave after wave, choking on his own blood in his lungs.

Liam springs back like he's been stung, having caught the change in Theo's signals. Fucking shit, all that progress ruined in the span of a second.

"I'm okay." Theo rasps. "I'm okay. Just," a phantom pain throbs in his abdomen and throat, vision getting blurry. He tightens his legs around Liam's ribs. "Just give me a second. Psychosomatic, should go away on its own."

Liam presses their foreheads together, doesn't let go of his hands. However, he does ask: "Do you need me to stop touching you?" he doesn't want to but he will, if Theo asks him to.

Theo doesn't know what he needs, the animals aren't of any help either. He shakes his head. Liam uses their joined palms to pull him closer, brings his elbows down to the outside of Theo's raised knees, making Theo's legs cage him in further. Now he's as close to a fetal position as he can get.

"We saw what happened." Liam lets out, constructing his sentence in a slurred manner, elaborates: "The castors of the ritual, the living ones, serve as the moral compass. They have some sort of connection with the coven."

"Make them emotionally compromised with their humanity." Theo realizes. Liam is using Theo's form of logical diversion in order to give his body time to catch up with his mind, all the while staving off his own impending panic attack. Also handing Theo intel he'd like to know. And he does, now that he's thinking about it, he needs to know the reason why he wasn't sentenced. It didn't kill him, "Because of Bree?"

Once, a late night call of reminiscing, she confessed that she'd conducted the ritual as a test to her abilities, a little after she uncovered the spell. Her bloodline is complicated like that, and if her older half-brother could do it on the first try, she thought she'd be able to as well, so why not? Teenage impulsivity at its finest. That was back before Theo came along. Yao Feng forbade her from ever casting the ritual again, as it was too dangerous and it came with too much responsibility for her fourteen-year-old self could handle. The connection from the initial contact she must have made with the Baomi Jiaopai shouldn't have been strong enough, it builds the more you summon them, the more you prove yourself as a person with correct judgement to sentence and condemn. As it is, she truly is a unique case. Died, got resurrected by a necromancer, got her humanity back. That must have amplified everything, must have filled a supernatural quota of some sort. Might have even made a connection they don't have an explanation for.

Since they're entities of death, essentially, it makes some sense. They're more likely to indulge one that has roamed their world, if for a short while, Theo presumes. And maybe, just maybe, they're also liable to further be persuaded to spare somebody who's roamed their world, on top of the human compassion they're connected to.

That's not all. Has to be more to it since Liam's scent is rapidly souring, growing heavy with anxiety and fear.

"She didn't mean to." he shoots out. "When she summoned the, whatever those things were, she didn't mean to. But she was stressed because we were doing it behind her brother's back, we didn't have a lot of time and I guess she couldn't stop herself from broadcasting the afterimages to us, too. Because they showed her. When she asked, begged to know what happened after she'd felt them being summoned by somebody who's not her family at the same time her brother did, then put two and two together when Yao Feng saw the scene of the chambers and the sigils, they showed her how you'd—what had—"

How he'd died. What had happened to Theo.

"Everybody in the building saw it. It felt like an explosion, a magnetic wave, and then I was there, staring at… staring at—" Liam tries to finish the sentence, is stopped by a high noise in his throat, an inhale in the form of a hurt, lupine whimper. "I think we had a meltdown, me and her, 'cause I don't know how I got out of that place or how Scott brought me back to the motel room."

Jesus, Theo remembers how he looked while he was observing from outside of his own body, how the entire chamber looked. A bloodbath, the stench of copper enough to make you hurl. He's seen a lot of bloody scenes in his life and even for him, this event was too much to witness, to live through. He can't imagine what it must have been for the unseasoned folk.

Theo tells him, "She needed somebody who'd died and was brought back, as the sacrifice for the binding spell she wanted to use. It had to be a supernatural, but not a werewolf like she'd initially thought. That's what she was looking for." Theo's mouth is filled with cotton. In retrospect all the murders would have made sense if they'd dug into the medical files some more, if they're tried to fill the blanks.

Theo swallows back the internal criticism; it's over now. The close proximity with Liam helps a lot. 

Liam's rage burns his nose. Theo shifts his head, to align their temples, the animal habit to provide comfort too strong for him to shake off. Liam's nose digs into the hinge of his jaw, when he returns the pressure of the touch.

"Am I a bad person for being satisfied she got dished the death she deserved?" Liam whispers right into his ear, breath warm. 

Theo answers with certainty, immediately, "No. You're not."

They stay like this for more than a minute, just to breathe together. Until they've calmed down in the loaded quiet, filled with things Liam wants to say, chooses not to yet. Until they can breathe unobstructed and their heart beats begin to match. Until they feel less like all of their nerve endings are exposed.

Liam is the first to break the silence.

His tone is hushed, voice low. "I want to try something. And I need you to tell me if I fuck up or if you want me to stop, okay?" Theo barely contains a shiver, nods.

Liam waits a few beats and at a slow pace he shifts his head forward, nose skimming down to the edge of Theo's jaw, then down, down, down to the lower edge of his ear, to reach the skin behind it. To scent him. There's no bad memories this time around. Liam stays there, taking in lungful after lungful, the effect it has on further calming him down is astounding, his entire frame loosening with it. Theo's head drops back to bare his throat. 

Liam's inhale is stopped short, hesitating to act out on what he clearly really wants to. He inches closer and lets go of Theo's right hand to gently cup the back of his skull and slowly guide his head to the side, handing Theo ample time to stop him if he needs an out. Theo's eyes close of their own volition with an overly audible swallow, his freed hand mirroring Liam's and anchoring in his hair, to confirm that Theo wants him there, isn't just tolerating it and is willingly exposing this vulnerable part of his body.

When Liam untangles their fingers for a second time it's to curl his arm around his waist, the pressure of his blazing hand on Theo's lower back. This time Theo doesn't fight the shiver, arches into it. 

"Just like that." Liam murmurs, fingers spasming. Theo's left hand lands on Liam's bare shoulder, human nails digging into his skin and muscle and bone there. 

A feather-like kiss under his ear, and another. Liam keeps up at it, gently covering one side of his throat with them, tracing the design of a map of his own making. He gives the same treatment to the opposite side, his mouth on Theo's skin increasing its pressure. Then,

"Okay?" and it's probably a deliberately vague word, which can mean are you okay?, or is this okay?, or do you want me to stop?, maybe even all of the above.

"Okay." Theo murmurs, rubbing his thumb behind Liam's ear.

Liam swallows. "Can I try something else?" it's a question, sounds like a confession. 

Theo says, "Go for it."

Trepidation burns in his veins.

A fever-hot tongue retraces the path of the kisses, human teeth searing the area, sucking at it with a wet noise, continue sucking what has to be a purple bruise into his skin when Theo's head fully drops back like his stings have been cut, now only supported by Liam's hand. Another shiver, arousal pulling at Theo's gut and he gives a hoarse moan at the prolonged feeling of tongue and teeth on the delicate skin. God, he wishes the marks would actually stay on him. Liam's back tenses, and he pulls him forward. Theo's cock makes contact with his abdomen, resulting in a lupine whimper that lodges into the back of his throat. There's still Liam's sweatpants between them, but the friction is too good, even like this, for Theo to move away and take care of that problem. 

The hand on his lower back slides upwards before going back down, blunt nails digging into his skin to tease at the nerve endings around his spine. Theo bows forward into him, melts into it, thighs clamping around Liam's obliques with his ankles crossing behind his back.

"Liam." Theo breathes, ragged, and the most turned on he's been in his life. His body sings with it, demands more of it. 

"Fuck." Liam rasps, hips angling into Theo's. 

"Yeah, yeah I'm good with that." 

It's Liam who whimpers this time, punched out, pulling Theo in until they're connected from hips to chest with no room for even air to pass between them. "I want you to fuck me. Have wanted it for so long, but right now can we—can I —"

Theo doesn't need an explanation, means it when he tells him, "Whatever you want, yes."

Liam inhales, lifts his head and maneuvers Theo's with the hand still cupping the back of his skull. "Do you want it? This isn't just you obliging?"

Because they both know Theo has done a lot of obliging, for small and grand things alike. This, right here, isn't such an instance. He wants it so bad his insides keep turning with the scorching twists of primal desire.

Theo slides a hand to the side of Liam's face, swipes a thumb under one eye. "Yes, I want it. I want you."

With the thought planted in his head his body keeps whispering at him, how much he needs it, the closeness of the act, of Liam just like that. He'll take whatever he can get, whatever Liam is willing to give him, in any shape or form.

Liam surges into him, kisses him, mouth heavy and insistent. The moment Theo opens his lips for him Liam slides his tongue inside, tangling it with his. He's just as bite-y with this activity as he was with Theo's neck, keeps tugging at his lower lip with human teeth until he can't keep the shift away anymore and sharp canines nick Theo's tongue, the cut healing fast, but not fast enough for them to not taste the blood. They both moan, from deep in their chests. Theo can't think about anything but this, but Liam's insatiable mouth, his twisting tongue between Theo's lips. 

There's nothing but them. No bad memories, just them, in this moment. 

Liam encourages the small jerks Theo's hips keep doing, giving him momentum and stability. The contrast of Liam's bare skin and the cotton of his sweatpants on his cock gets him more sensitive, the perfect slow teasing. Theo spreads his thighs, plants the heels of his feet into the mattress for better purchase. Then Liam's hand, the one on his back, skims to his side, slowly and with pressure up to his chest, skims it down with his fingers digging in to finally wrap around Theo's cock. 

Theo throws his head back with a choked noise, collapses back into Liam. The glide isn't quite smooth, but Liam gathers the steadily increasing wetness at the tip and soon fixes that. Liam strokes at his frenulum under the head on every few upstrokes, pauses at a particularly intense shiver with a syrupy smile, starts rubbing slow circles there. 

"Liam…" Theo gasps, braces both hands on Liam's shoulders, squirms at the deliciously overwhelming sensation, jerks his hips forward.

Liam holds eye contact with him and studies Theo's face with his pupils having taken over his irises, the blue in them barely visible, watching as he takes Theo apart. And this is just his hand, fuck. 

Liam leans in. "Just like that." he says, and their eyes flare from the heat in his words, Liam's widening. 

Theo can feel it, his own aren't golden but that fucking venomous shade. He twists his head to the side, closes them. 

"Hey, no." Liam cups his cheek with his free hand, brings Theo back to face him. "Don't hide them." Theo shakes his head in a sharp move, tries to tip it down; Liam doesn't let him. "Hey." he lets go of Theo's cock, to wrap his arm around Theo's middle, palm securing itself on the opposite hip. "Look at me? Please?"

He can't. 

"Not with those fucking arsenic eyes I'm not." Theo grits out, jaw clenching.

"Arsen—what? They literally look like fucking jewellery, where did you even get the arsenic from?" Liam's affronted by it, how dare Theo compare that shit to lethal poison when that's exactly how it looks like.

Jewellery? As fucking if. Toxic waste fits better.

"Theo. Look at me." Liam crowds in with his demand, his breath damp over Theo's mouth. "Please."

So Theo, because he's weak when Liam uses that word, does so and averts his gaze to the side, lips pulling together. Liam's pulse stutters. That gets his attention, tricks him into making eye contact. Liam has that same awestruck expression from months ago, in the theater when they were with Scott, Malia and Derek. His eyes are wide, fascinated and amazed, not repulsed or aghast at the sight. His thumb brushes Theo's lower lashes and he tries to get as close as possible before his vision doubles.

"They're like… like cracked emeralds." he states, with a smile of all things. 

"Broken things are useless."

Liam's face drops, turns stormy. "No. Not useless, not damaged and not arsenic, okay?"

"Generally, cracked things are considered faulty."

"Bullshit." the hand on Theo's hip grips him tighter, fingers sharper at the tips. A beat and, "Do you consider me faulty, then?" he raises his brows, playing dirty to try and provoke him, to prove a point. 

Theo flinches, "What? No. Why would I—"

"A werewolf with an IED, a walking time bomb. That should classify as broken goods, cracked. Faulty." and his par is not fair, it's not the same. Theo shakes his head sharply; Liam isn't his condition, isn't broken. "So if I'm not, why do you think your true eyes are?"

Theo's retort is smacked into oblivion, he's been well played. Liam tries to stay serious, but he loses focus watching Theo's eyes again. A shiver and a gravelly sigh, another jump in his pulse, another swipe of his thumb under one eye. He's actually serious. He likes them. He genuinely likes the sight of them.

That shouldn't hit and baffle Theo as hard as it does, shouldn't make him shiver at the realization. He'd spent all the years before Bree hating them, doing the same after he remembered what their original color was like, never considered them to be as enthralling as they seem to be to Liam. 

"Cracked emeralds." Liam repeats, like he's saying it to himself.

Theo's eyes pulse and he feels the color growing brighter with it. Liam's breath catches, followed by yet another shudder, scent growing hot with arousal. Theo's own matches his in response to how fucking divine Liam smells when he's like that. Liam's eyes narrow, brighten with an idea. 

He yanks Theo so that their hips collide and where Theo had flagged a bit Liam is still rock hard. "Tell me," he whispers against Theo's mouth, lips brushing his as he forms the words. "Does this feel like I'm disgusted in any way?"

His arm around Theo's waist pulls again as Liam thrusts his hips forward, bringing their cocks together with only cotton in the way, both of them giving simultaneous, low moans. His hand falls from Theo's face, to take one of Theo's and bring it down to the prominent bulge in his sweats.

"Does it, Theo?"

Theo's fingers grip him tight and Liam's eyes roll back into his skull, close for a brief moment, his back arching into Theo's touch. They slit open to stare at him, still flared.

"What's the verdict? Am I lying?" he gasps out, bares his now pointy teeth into a grin when Theo can't answer, or else it'll mean Liam's right. "Because I can tell you all about the dreams I've had about them. Dream after dream of you fucking me senseless in my bed, with those same eyes flared and staring down at me, watching me with your fingers in my mouth."

Theo grabs his lower jaw and kisses him, four fingers splayed on one side, his thumb digging into the jaw bone on the other. His arousal sparks up, ignited anew with the images he can't stop himself from picturing in vivid details. Liam pulls away. 

Theo makes the flare of his eyes pulse, feeling it with his own hand when Liam's cock twitches, sees when his pupils dilate further. Christ, the things this does to Theo. Then Liam brings his palm back to Theo's cock, grasping it in a tight grip off the bat with no preamble, thumb pushing into the glans on the head and Theo's thighs spread open, body lolling forward. He has to let go of Liam to dig his fingers into his hip, his other hand still holding Liam's lower jaw. 

"You have no idea how pretty you are, do you?" Liam's heavy breath passes over his mouth. "Gorgeous on any normal day, but so fucking stunning like this. Could watch you all day." he says as his hand keeps toying with him, like his arousal is so encompassing that he can't help his confession, and Theo himself can't even land a retort or feel embarrassment with the hard and steady—teasing—strokes. "I almost caved on Thanksgiving, when you were still half-asleep on your bed like some honest to fuck Greek god in grey sweatpants. And you had a mild case of morning wood I don't even think you knew about, you asshole, I was gonna faint on the spot."

"Funny you should say that," Theo chokes out, thrusts his hips into Liam's stimulation, into the index finger that traces the protruding veins on his cock while the middle finger of his other hand keeps going over the little slit in the head. "I almost pinned you down back then."

Liam groans, goes to start mouthing at his throat again. He stops before his lips touch Theo, continues only when Theo gives him a vocal yes and bites into the tendons with non-human teeth, still careful to not pierce him with them. He smiles into Theo's skin at the keen crawling out of Theo's mouth, at how he pushes Liam's head closer. The pit of arousal in his stomach grows hotter and hotter, knots starting to twist in his lower abdomen, head spinning.

"If you don't stop I'm gonna come." he pants, the sentence is barely a sentence with how fast he spews it out. 

Liam bites at his jaw, tongue laving over the edge of it while he speeds up his hand, his other pressed flat over the head, rubbing. "That's the whole point." 

Theo chokes on air, claws on the verge of springing out to dig into Liam's defined shoulder. And, well, he's not Theo if he doesn't try and get back a little, inches his mouth closer to Liam's ear so that he can bite at the shell of it. "I thought the point was for you to fuck me."

In response to the words Liam whimpers, hands applying more pressure, "Oh, I will. But first I want to see you come like this." he doesn't give Theo time to throw in a jibe, sinks his teeth directly over Theo's jugular vein and holds.

The orgasm is teared out of Theo, a kick to his gut, and he produces a sound between a cry and a moan, with a distinguished, resonating note of not-human in it. Liam lifts his head. Even through the haze of pleasurable waves that make his thighs clamp around Liam's waist, take him to a near hyperventilation state, he knows he'd been too loud. But Liam just gives his own gravelly moan, and Theo feels it reverberate into his own chest. 

"Like that, Theo. Just like that. Wanna see all of it." he keeps moving his hand in tight and slow strokes, to keep Theo high on the wave, bringing his other hand to press his thumb to Theo's lower lip. He's breathing like he's the one having an orgasm with how rapt his attention is. He's been watching the entire time, flared golden to flared green, like he's hypnotized by every single expression passing Theo's face. 

Theo sucks the thumb into his mouth, tongue pressing to the pad of it, to keep the high noises in. Liam gets it quickly, applies pressure, gentle but enough to make his lower jaw drop a little so that he can hear every single note coming out of Theo's mouth. Theo gets oversensitive fast after the last dregs of his high start leveling, sees Liam's front covered in his release and drops his head back with a faint keen, pushing into Liam's hand. The thin line between pleasure and pain is quickly breached, abdominal muscles spasming with it, but he wants everything Liam is willing to hand out, no matter how they get there.

"Hey." Liam abruptly lets go of his spent cock, pulls his thumb out of his mouth to hold his cheek, and Theo collapses into him, panting and with his muscles twitching all over. "Hey, shhh." with the back of his come-streaked hand, the only clean part of it, he drags feather light caresses over his breastbone. He must have noticed the change in Theo's scent. "Didn't we agree you'll tell me if I fuck up?" and now he's heading towards distress valley, obviously thinking he's forced something onto Theo.

"You… didn't…" Theo unevenly rasps, still unable to take deep breaths. A few moments and, "So… we getting to the fucking part?" 

Thin lines appear between Liam's brows when he furrows them, eyes zig-zagging while he studies Theo's features. He comes to a conclusion pretty fast.

There's a vulnerable crack in his voice when he inquires, "You do know that this isn't just sex, isn't just about fucking and coming? Right, Theo?" but he sounds like he's staring right at the answer Theo will give him, is dreading it becoming definite. "Theo?"

Theo is too far down the lane with the still present tremors of the orgasm, is unable to control his face or chemo signals. Liam makes a high-pitched, anxious noise, clearly not liking the reaction. Theo looks away, shoulders climbing up to his ears instantly, hunching in to shift away from Liam's heat. 

"Then what is it?" it's hushed when he vocalizes it, failing to make it land as even remotely humorous. "I'm—at the end of the day, I'm a thing only good enough for a fuck, Liam, so—"

Liam snarls right in his face, startling him, all bared sharp teeth and flared eyes. "Don't you fucking dare say that shit to my face!" there's not a trace of human in the outbursts. He's gone from zero to sixty, so livid from Theo's confession that he's triggered the IED. 

Liam forcibly fills his lungs to their full capacity, removes his hands from him and closes his eyes, cracks his neck. When he opens them they're still flared, hold more clarity. And apparently he's also so livid he's afraid to speak his mind, quivering with the withheld words. Theo opens his mouth. Liam jerks his head to the side, effectively giving him a sign to shut it. Amidst the anger is hurt. A lot of hurt and bitter ache. His eyes lose the shift, Theo having preceded him ever since Liam had let go of him, take on a glassy appearance. 

"I need you to understand something. I need you to understand that you're not just sex to me. You're not an easy way for me to get pleasure, nor are you just a—a thing, an object." he goes for the slow method, opting to not just rain it all on Theo, opting to think before he acts. "You're so much more than that. And if this," he waves his index finger between the two of them. "Is because you think you owe me something or, or if you think I need it and it's not because you truly want it—"

"That's not—I told you I want you. I told you that." Theo grasps Liam's shoulder like that'll get through him. "It wasn't a lie, you haven't coerced me into anything. It was a thousand percent consensual, okay?"

Liam's face is pinched. Theo can't imagine how much it costs him to keep it open the way it is, letting Theo see instead of storming away. He looks like he wants to believe him, but whatever deduction he's in the midst of making isn't letting him.

"I did it of my own free will. I wanted it, still want it. It isn't some fucking misguided way to make it up to you." Liam's mouth pinches at the last words; oh, there is it, jackpot. "I want to be here," Theo inches his head closer. "With you," he runs a hand from the middle of Liam's chest to the side of his neck, palm holding his cheek. "Like this." and he presses the insides of his thighs to the outsides of Liam's hips. "I just…" he can't articulate it with vocabulary other than the crude way that only served to hurt Liam, the way he doesn't want to hurt him further.

But Liam can. 

"You just don't think you can be loved."

Just like before Theo severs the eye contact, unable to stomach it. Because he's right. He does think that. He doesn't deserve it and who in their right mind would? 

A certain conversation with Lucia crashes into him like an avalanche.

"And what about Liam? You don't trust him with you."

Either Liam has developed a sudden ability of telepathy or he's gotten keen on reading Theo. "You won't trust me if I say I do, will you?"

It echoes, inside of Theo. 

If I say I do, if I say I do, if I say I do.

A bout of icy alarm starts circulating in his bloodstream. Liam doesn't. He just thinks he does, but he doesn't. He's a teenager that doesn't know what love is, has only experienced puppy love at best. Maybe what he had with Hayden was love and he'll probably find somebody just as suitable in college, will get to live a more normal life, won't get that from Theo. He thinks he means it, but he doesn't. He can't. Why would he? Theo is just… Theo. The murderer who traumatized and almost splintered his pack apart. 

He's—

Liam grabs his chin in an identical manner Theo had, four fingers on one side, thumb on the other, grip solid and unshakable with an adamant expression. 

"Whatever you're thinking about - stop it." Theo brings his teeth together. "I can smell it, Theo. Stop." he's deadass serious, but the following order is muted and hushed: "I hate it when you get scared like this, so please, stop."

Theo focuses on the wrinkles of the sheets, drops his hand from Liam. Only Liam catches it when it falls, threads their fingers together. Now Theo can't focus on the wrinkles on the sheets if he tries because he's gazing down at their connection, like it's a gun aimed at him. And because Liam is an utter imbecile, he starts pulling the numbing fear away, grey lines crawling up his forearm.

Theo tries to yank his hand away. "Stop it." he hisses, Liam doesn't listen. "You fucking know how dangerous that is!" it's too late, he's leached it all out, he's felt it. The fear, the turmoil, the pain from that pathetic and needy side of him, he's felt it all. He knows exactly how Theo feels. 

Theo's still feeling it, brain too overworked to not signal more hormones to set his blood ablaze, which is why he shoves Liam away while hefting himself closer to the edge of the bed, making sure they're not touching anymore, and points a finger at him to keep him away. Now he's afraid and angry. For different reasons than before. He recalls as bright as day how Ryan, the kid Lucia took in, looked while he kept pulling his schizophrenic mother's terror and paranoia every day, how he went comatose and tore his own throat out. 

Liam realizes the mistakes he's made, raises both hands in a placating manner. In another situation it'd be funny with how one is still dirty. This isn't such an instance.

"Don't fucking touch me." his chest rumbles with the growl, recoils back when Liam intends to move closer. Liam stops. 

"I won't do it again." Liam promises, stays where he is on his knees. "I won't. I'm sorry, I didn't think—"

"That's the problem, Liam! You rarely think before you do." instead of getting stung at the acrid tone like Theo had expected him to, Liam contemplates the words, finds Theo's misstep.

"Which is why you won't believe words." he mutters with a nod, more to himself. "You think I haven't spent months only thinking about it, convincing myself I'm not feeling what I'm feeling, making Mase and Corey try and convince me of it, too, and fail at every attempt. But I have."

"No, you're just hyper-fixating and you're physically attracted to me."

Liam crosses his legs, leans an elbow on one thigh and braces his chin on it, levels him with a cold type of fury. "Wasn't aware that hyper-fixations and physical attraction could make you hurt like somebody's torn your insides, could make you cry harder than when you were a kid, or that it could make you do a total shutdown that nearly gave your mom and dad a heart attack. But that might just be me, I guess." 

Theo's wrath dissipates, shatters. 

"I know you have a fucked up world view and ginormous trust issues. But you don't get to tell me what I feel and whether it's true. Not after the last month we spent looking for you, not just our pack."

Our pack? He doesn't have a pack.

"And I swear, if you say you don't have a pack I'll dial Scott." but he doesn't have a pack. "You do. You're ours. Not Amadio's, not Yao Feng's. Ours." he flares his eyes, there and gone again, severe in his mission to convince. 

Ours.

A word so simple and for all that holding a force proportionate only to a gravitational pull.

This is a glitch in the matrix, there's no other explanation. The thought must show, Liam narrows his eyes. Then something else must show - his outrage is softened by worry. 

"Shit." he looks like he's fucked up regarding something Theo isn't privy to, glances at the pillows at the head of the bed, haltingly extends an arm. "I won't take anything. I promise."

Theo stares at the limb in incomprehension, feels his chin tip down. True to his word, Liam doesn't leech the emotions from him, just guides him to lie down, does so himself as well and they're face to face. He tugs a sleeping shirt from under his pillow he must have placed there while Theo was taking care of the wolf hair, to wipe whatever he can from his front and hands, tosses it somewhere behind him. What's all this about? 

Theo waits for him to do something, anything, but Liam doesn't. He holds Theo's hands, caught in between his. That's all he does. Theo waits. One minute, turns two, turns five. He's closed his eyes, less agitated now with the combined scents of them that have created a thing that's only theirs.

"If I can't convince you with words, can I show you?"

That's. Not what Theo expected. Liam usually isn't the one to change the serious topics, especially when he can't get through to Theo. That's Theo's move.

Theo's eyelids flutter, but, "Keep them closed?" so he complies. And, "We don't have to do anything. It's your choice."

Meaning: this time, if we start something I want to hear you say it and read your signals while you've left them uncovered so I can make sure you mean it.

He can say no, retreat and repeat this fiasco tomorrow. Or he can stop running. 

To possess and be possessed, the animals' constant repertoire. He's only ever believed he can be possessed, that nobody would let themselves be possessed by him. It's not about ownership or staking claim. It's about give, take and receive. Thus far he's only scarcely given and mainly taken. And in this instance Liam wants him to receive. Wants Theo to believe he deserves to receive. 

"And what about Liam? You don't trust him with you."

He wants to. But unless he tries, he won't find out. That's the root of the fear - ignorance is bliss. He didn't want to be proven right again, not about this, not about Liam.

"Okay." he swallows, letting out a sharp exhale, in a way dispelling his thoughts like dust. "Show me." 

Liam says nothing. His fingertips run over the knuckles of Theo's hand, take his palm to trace the lines there. They map out every finger, skim down to his palm to his wrist. Liam's other hand joins in, to hold Theo's upright while an index finger goes over the blue veins of his wrist that go up his forearm. His entire palm travels further downwards after, languid, to sear Theo's forearm with his body heat. Up and down, up and down, stirring the hairs there. Next pit stop is the elbow, the same one he had to insert a cannula in after Theo went offline for four days after his deactivation spree and scared the shit out of them. Liam stays there the longest, painting circles over the thin skin, like he sees the puncture wound and is trying to erase it. He then lays Theo's forearm flat to the bed, to continue up his shoulder, fingers skimming over the definition to retrace the muscle groups.

Next should be the clavicle connected to the shoulder. Yet, Liam doesn't breach that zone. It takes Theo a little to find the answer. This is a confirmation area. 

"Yes." he tells him, and the venturing hand continues on its way to his trapezius muscle, strokes over his collarbone. Theo unfolds some, leans his head further into the pillow to bare his neck. 

He hears Liam exhale, choppy, and the pads of careful fingers trace a horizontal line over his throat, then go back over it like he's smudging a stain away. Theo realizes it's the spot where—

He grabs Liam's wrist just as Liam is about to retract his touch, the telling jump of his heart at the elevation in Theo's pulse giving away his next move. "Still a yes." he confirms, grip sure, and he holds on for two more seconds, lets go.

Liam continues after a short bout of hesitation, splays his whole palm over his larynx and thyroid, smooths the skin. He goes over one jugular vein, then the other. Next he follows the slope leading to his Adam's apple, swipes up towards his chin. Theo shifts his head back more. Since he's on his side Liam can go over only one side of his lower jaw. To correct this he once more takes a hold of Liam's wrist, as well as his forearm, curiosity carrying from Liam's scent at the action. Theo goes to lie on his back, uses his contact points to pull Liam along with him. He hears Liam go up on one elbow, the sheets rustling with it, feels his body heat next to his untouched arm from how close his chest is to it. 

The uneasy prickling of dread, anger and panic have fled the ship. His blood is steadily becoming magma again, chest coming up and going down at a faster pace. 

Liam puts a palm to Theo's untouched shoulder, moves to lean over him. Theo readily splays his thighs open for him, tips his head back into the pillow, hands fisting the sheets at his sides. On full display, handing all his trust. Liam cups his hips to lift them, settles them on his lap, thumbing at his hip bones before continuing his mapping in the order he started. He goes over to the other arm, the one he hadn't had access to, carries out the same touches he did with the other until he's gotten to the clavicle. He flattens his hands over both collarbones, curls them and brings them upwards so that the backs of his fingers follow Theo's jugular veins again, the tips of his thumbs smoothing his lower jaw bone, from chin to each edge, up to the hinges. 

Theo's never been touched this much before without it being a violent ordeal. The sensory overload starts piling, Liam stopping every time he feels it near the horizon, waiting for a rasped out yes. 

When Liam starts mapping out his torso Theo is a goner. He's been hard since before he laid on his back, arches when twin sets of index and middle fingers hold his nipples between them. Not even pinching or twisting to give more friction. From the start of Liam's initiated sensual form of torture he's kept his touch light. Theo needs more. 

His palms find Liam's wrists again, cover the backs of his hands, press them down so they lay flat over his chest, press them down further to convey what he wants. His eyes staying closed means he can't see Liam's face or his reaction with how his scent doesn't morph into anything but the faint sparks of arousal seeping through the clamp Liam has on it. Liam doesn't move his hands but to lightly intertwine their fingers, to squeeze Theo's.

Show me, he means. Guide me, he means. 

So Theo does. He guides the scorching palms over his ribs, following Liam's pace from before, down to his abs, drags them up in the same manner, down to retrace their previous path. To the sides, to clasp them around his waist, goes up and down again a few times, and back to his middle. Instead of trailing them to where he needs them the most he stops at the hairs leading down that area, swivels his wrist to direct one of Liam's hands to his lower back. He curls the fingers of the palm just over his belly button until he feels blunt nails dig into his skin, back automatically arching into the sensation with a low moan. 

His own hands have started shaking now, chest heaving. Until a very important detail blazes like a neon sign in his head. 

"Hmm?" Liam voices out as Theo stops. He startles when Theo snaps his eyes open all of a sudden. His own are entirely glazed over, pupils leaving little to no space for the blue irises, lips parted. Theo's a little amazed at his self-control when he's also, evidently, as influenced as Theo himself. 

However, the underlying problem still stands.

The humor seeps in when it's such a ridiculous question: "Do we even have lube?" 

A beat, two, Liam's cheeks bulge and they both bellow startled laughs, shocked that they're laughing while they're in the middle of Liam's little tantric exercise. Theo reaches for the sole nightstand by the bed, no dice.

Liam pulls him up to sit on the bed, stupidly handsome with the mischievous grin plastered on his face while simultaneously painfully hard. He ticks his brows up suggestively, "Divide and conquer?" 

Theo snorts, "Divide and conquer." 

He grabs the cover to throw over his shoulders, heads towards the bathroom. He finds it on the first try in the overflowing medicine cabinet. Jesus, he doesn't even know whose house they're currently residing in. Probably one of Yao Feng's many isolation nooks, given by the overly expensive shit in here—along with the dead giveaway in the form of a small collection of highly specific lip balms that can't belong to anybody but Declan, Yao Feng's emissary, what with how many times Theo has seen him twirl one on video calls with the Feng pack. 

The weight of it all hits him after he's closed the cabinet shut, once he's taken the bottle. He hears Liam muttering from the kitchen after he'd washed his hands, opening and closing random drawers.

"Nope. Nope. Definitely not in here. Nobody would put their lube with the pasta, right?"

Theo tunes it out. When he's not under the influence of those gentle hands he can think, which was precisely what Liam wanted to avoid. He braces himself on the sink, doesn't look at his reflection. The cover starts falling from his shoulders. He barely catches it in time, goes to the door case of the bathroom to throw it near the bed, which is when Liam comes back empty handed. 

He takes one glance at Theo's face and the easygoing air evaporates. He erases the space between them, zeroes onto the bottle Theo is holding, doesn't stray his eyes anywhere else before he catches Theo's. 

"Again, we don't have to do anything. At all. It's your call, whatever you say." he states, a reminder for Theo, one he doesn't really need. 

"I know." Theo steps closer. "I want to." he swallows, rephrases it as, "I want you." 

They both shudder. Liam pulls him in to land a dirty kiss, all tongue and teeth, holds him by the hips to turn them around and starts walking Theo backwards, pushes him onto the bed. As they're still trading kisses he takes his sweatpants off, kicks them away. They separate, with Theo halfway sitting and Liam on his hands and knees over him. Theo crawls them back, up to the pillows, hand anchored to Liam's nape to drag him along, clutching at the bottle of lube. They resume their previous position, with Liam between his open legs, like there was no commercial pause whatsoever. 

Liam plants his hands on either side of his head, rearranges himself on his elbows to suck Theo's lower lip into his mouth, to slide his tongue back between Theo's wet lips. Theo moans, wraps his legs around him, arching into the motion when one of Liam's arms strays to wrap around his waist and pull him further into the cradle of his hips. When there's no fabric between them his cock slides against Theo's ass. Liam grinds down into him, making Theo sever the kiss with a gasp.

"I say we leave the tantric sex for future us and get on with the program." Theo cants his hips up, to glide his cock against Liam's abs.

"Fine by me." 

Liam lowers his head to suck at his neck the moment Theo tips his chin up for him, takes the bottle of lube Theo is still clutching, flicks the cap open. A hot wave goes down Theo's spine at the sound, fingers twisting into Liam's hair. Not long after two lubed fingers stroke over his entrance and Theo's so aroused he doesn't even care it's cold, the contrast of the temperature just amping him up. 

"Yes." he hisses through clenched teeth, feels Liam's smile. 

The finger slides in slowly, almost hesitant, almost like he's not that sure of himself and Theo's fighting to keep himself relaxed to the intrusion. Liam moves, cautious in his pace, sucking mark after healing mark into his throat, every next one fiercer than its predecessors. As turned on as he is, he doesn't rush the process of stretching Theo open. Theo finds it in himself to appreciate the attentiveness, but he needs things to speed up a bit.

"Remember when you told me to communicate? I'm communicating that I'm not made of glass and I want you to fuck me maybe sometime this century." Liam bites with pointy teeth at the sass, thrust his finger in hard. 

Theo melts into the bed, gasp inaudible. Once he's set a faster pace Liam doesn't disappoint. He lines up a second finger within the minute, times it so that he's dragging blunt nails down Theo's chest as he inserts both. They go in smoothly. Theo's hips jerk into Liam's ministration, stutter when he scissors them and starts stroking at his walls rather than just doing the in and out motion. 

"Fuck," Liam whimpers. "I can feel it, I can feel the way you open up for me." 

Theo twitches around his fingers, grinds himself down onto them and clenches his insides to receive another choked out whine. They play this back and forth of teasing to see what turns on the other further, how to rile each other up more than they already have. By the time two fingers turn into three Theo considers forgoing them, considers but ultimately reconsiders. The same way Theo is extending his trust to Liam, Liam is returning the courtesy, trusting Theo to permit Liam's way of showing him how to not only give and take, but how to also receive. So he doesn't say it, welcomes the third finger with a groan, insides fluttering as they adjust, and when he's not as stretched yet he can differentiate each and every one of Liam's knuckles bumping and rubbing against his inner walls. 

This is where Liam leans over him again, waits for the yes and contrasts the now sure and dexterous twist of his fingers with feather-light kisses over his throat. A scissoring motion softened by a benign and wet suck. A thick stripe licked into the delve between his collarbones. A hand in his hair to twist his head where Liam wants it when he presses a kiss, when he curls his tongue into Theo's mouth, runs it over his elongated teeth. 

"Liam." Theo lets out, bowing his lower back to arrange his hips, waits, waits and—

A strike of lightning going through his groin, up his spine, making his thighs shake. Liam leans back on his elbow, tilts his head and rubs the pads of his fingers over the mind-melting bundle of nerves, his strokes hard and unyielding. 

"Ah!" Theo's head goes back, vision swimming. His hands have dug themselves into Liam's shoulders, dragging down his back at the next stroke over his prostate. "Fuck, I'm ready. Liam, I'm ready."

Liam presses their temples together, "Okay, okay, just one sec." his fingers inside of Theo twitch, cause another cry to surge out of his mouth. "Shit, sorry." Liam sits up, not before pressing a kiss to his jaw, palms his hip in warning before pulling out. 

Jesus, he feels so empty without them, insides squeezing on nothing, hips jutting up. Liam's palm slides up to his lower ribs, down to his hip, repeating the motion until both their heart beats calm some. He slicks himself up with the remaining lube on his other hand with a high whimper, halts, grasps Theo's cock to give him a few pulls. 

Theo knees him in the side, bares his teeth with his chest oscillating from a low non-human noise, in spite of how his cock jumps at the attention. Liam smiles, pleased and relaxed, unhands him to pull him further onto his lap. And he waits, expression fond if winded by all the waiting they've both endured.

"Yes, fucking go already." 

And in the back of his mind he hears Liam's exhilarated go, go, go! and his just as enthusiastic slaps to the dashboard back when all the mass of emotions between them started forming.

Liam's smile becomes a grin, predatory, hungry. His cockhead bumps into Theo's entrance, pushes against the barely there resistance after the in-depth prep. Theo tries to twist and take him in one go, feel all of him inside. Liam grips Theo's hipbones, both to keep himself—but mostly Theo—in check. When Theo bides his time and makes a second attempt, the canine impatience surfacing, Liam braces a heavy hand over his lower abdomen with a resounding rumble, pushes it down into the muscles in a clear-cut command for him to stay.

That does something to Theo. His abs seize, thigh muscles flexing. The image of Liam over him, staring down at him while looking like he wants to eat him alive, between Theo's legs. Oh, the shit it does to him.

Liam's blunt nails dig into his skin, thumb this close to making contact with his cock, dig in further when Theo shivers and Liam feels the wave course over his skin. He then inches his hips closer to Theo's, sliding in just past the head. And he's not blind, Liam is as big as Theo is, which makes him not small in the slightest. He's so full from just the two inches or so, how the fuck is he supposed to wait patiently for the rest? The thought doesn't help him, eggs him on.

Liam is relentlessly slow, giving these growly sighs and high whines, from the restraint he's insistent on keeping. Once he's almost all the way to the root he leans forward, to take a hold of Theo's jaw—four fingers on one side, thumb on the other—beckoning Theo to open his eyes for him. The first thing Liam does is kiss him, sweet and short, then flares his own eyes to trigger Theo's natural instinct, which is to shift human green into arsen—cracked emerald green. Then Liam slams all the way inside, their hips in full contact. 

Theo throws his head back with a shrill gasp, one hand slapping the headboard to grasp it as his spine bows up, into Liam. His fangs and claws have popped out, chest heavy with the inability to take a deep breath. Liam covers him with his own body, leaning on his forearms with one on each side of Theo's head, and Theo tips his chin to the right a bit to convey how much he wants Liam's mouth on his throat right fucking now. Liam obliges, pointy teeth dig into his flesh, holding, hips churning in tiny figure eights, but not moving more than that and not pulling back, letting Theo adjust.

The bruises Liam sucks into his neck, paired with the feeling of fullfullfull and LiamLiamLiam, make his eyes rolls back, only hearing Liam panting in his ear—panting like it's taking him the last rational part of his consciousness to subdue him from fucking Theo's brains out—and god, those wet sounds each time his lips cease the sucking to lick a broad stripe, bite down with a rumbling exhale, then begin anew. 

"Okay." Theo mumbles, slurred and breathless. Another wet noise from when Liam stops sucking and raises his head to bump his nose against Theo's. 

Liam doesn't set a pace immediately, instead keeps kissing Theo, altering between short and closed mouthed to deep and dirty and scorching. Apparently he's been anticipating Theo moving first, in uncontrolled rocks going forward and backward, using that guide to follow along his tempo. Forward and backward, in small increments, then finally he pulls out further, rams his cock back inside. Theo's hand on his shoulder spasms, digs red lines in a downward motion, Liam arching back into it. It takes him a little but when he finds the angle where his cock drags against his prostate on every thrust in and pull backwards he doesn't relent, sending Theo into a panting frenzy at the soaring euphoria his brain goes into. It's still slow, but it's hard, each thrust rattling him and giving him the intensity he needs to stay anchored in the moment. Throughout it all Liam counters his deep thrusts with soft kisses and touches, creating a balance that distinguishes this as not just sex, not just fucking, not just the aim to find release. 

Liam drinks in every noise Theo makes, every expression he lets Liam be privy to. Theo plants his heels against the mattress, meets Liam's thrusts with his hips, slams them down until Liam's as deep as he can possibly go. Theo's cry, holding burred, not-human notes in it, fills the room.

"Theo." Liam gasps and buries his face into Theo's neck, Theo doing the same, biting into Liam's shoulder and Liam's movement stutters, his moan going straight into Theo's ear.

Their pace picks up and Liam lifts himself until they're face to face again, brushes a stray strand of hair off Theo's forehead, smiles. "Absolutely fucking gorgeous." he says, like he's thrilled he's allowed say it now, when Theo's not making them pretend there was never anything at all. 

The thought is eye-opening, in a way. Some of the times Liam had been Liam, the carefree and cocky teenager he is, was when Theo dropped the act, let them have a moment undisturbed by the usual need to deny it to Liam and spare him the attachment. So lost in his fear that Liam was developing non-platonic feelings for the reformed murderer he'd never really considered that by withholding the obvious spark between them, by smothering it every time it showed itself, he'd been also smothering a small part of Liam along with it. Choking it with his path on self-destruction happening right before Liam's eyes, helpless to do anything but observe—and any time he'd tried to do something Theo blew up for it and belittled his worries—with his deliberate detachment from everybody else, with his firm belief that he's unwanted if he isn't useful for something, so why not throw himself and his psyche under the bus for it when he can perform a small redemption where he's not hurting anybody but himself. Physically at least. He's never understood people's concern, taking it as anything but that, to better cope with the loneliness he could never admit plagued him day and night, one he'd single-handedly imposed on himself as a punishment. But he understands it now, just how much he means to Liam, even if he can't quite accept it yet.

Theo squeezes his eyes shut, under an earth slide of emotions. The salt in the air cuts Liam short, but Theo wraps his arms around him. "Don't stop, please don't stop." he whisper to him, the break in his voice too telling.

"Theo." Liam is Liam and words won't be enough for him, wants to look at his face and judge by himself.

Theo eases his mind with, "Not bad tears. I don't want you to stop." he swallows heavily, runs his fingers through Liam's hair. "Just—just don't stop." 

When Liam noses his cheek he leans into it, opens his eyes, nods at the inquiring sound with a faint smile. He feels… cared for. Wanted. It's confusing, disproportionate to everything he's ever known, but he can try, for Liam. He understands.

He pulls Liam down for a kiss, chaste and gentle. The tsunami of emotions is in the background. He'll deal with it later.

"C'mon." he cants his hips up, taking Liam all the way to the root again. Liam's eyelashes flutter, heat in his eyes renewing with the comfort that whatever passed Theo really did pass and wasn't a bad thing. 

In the end, he truly does end up fucking Theo's brains out. Apart from the tiny glitch of unprecedented contemplation he can't think anymore. It's all LiamLiamLiam, who's as close as Theo needs him to be, who reads him with uncanny precision and gives him everything to achieve this state. The feeling of being perfectly full, perfectly stimulated and perfectly caged in by Liam's bulk means the knots in his gut tighten at a rapid pace. 

"That's it, Theo." Liam murmurs against his lips, having taken notice of how Theo's clamping up, insides working to pull the thickness in him further, further. "Wanna feel you come like this."

He doesn't even need to touch Theo's cock, he's that far gone. A harsh thrust is all it takes. 

"Liam!" he whites out with the orgasm, squeezing Liam inside him, hears his own cry, as well as Liam's through the haze. It's bigger than last one, all-encompassing and nerve melting. Liam fucks him through it, doesn't change the speed, just the intensity to give him every bit of pleasure he can, bites into the place where neck and shoulder meet when he releases, too. Theo feels it, the pulsing and the heat coating his insides, shudders with it, moving his hips with Liam's tiny jerks while he keeps himself fully-seated until he has to pull out. 

They both wince, winded and panting. Liam collapses on top of him, face mushed into Theo's throat, Theo's thighs around his middle. Their hips keep twitching for quite some time with how their softening cocks are also pressed together. Liam's cradling the back of his head when he's finally back in his body, stroking, and landing sloppy, barely there kisses to any expanse of skin he can reach. He turns them on their sides when the over-stimulation of their groins in close contact really does get too much.

"Okay?" he asks, cheeks rosy. This is the most laid-back Theo has seen him since Thanksgiving. 

"More than." Theo smiles, eyes crinkling with it. Liam's face breaks open. This might just be the first time he's seeing this type of smile on Theo. His own mouth splits into a happy grin, his scent brimming with satisfaction that Liam's the one who brought him to this state.

*

Their afterglow kind of gets ruined when they both remember that only Liam knows Theo is back and that while they've been doing the horizontal tango, along with some impromptu therapy sessions, the rest are still unaware of his recovery. 

Scott nearly faints when Liam serves him the good news, while Bree starts crying and laughing, hiccuping through her entire conversation with Theo, then Alec is laughing and crying when Theo calls him next. The rest find out through Derek, while Malia calms Scott down, and that includes Lucia and McKane. 

They don't leave immediately, have to clean up a bit and Liam won't rest until Theo has eaten a proper meal. On the ride back to Beacon Hills, since the little house—courtesy of Yao Feng as he'd predicted—is more than a few hours away, Theo and Liam don't know what to do with themselves. Well, Theo doesn't. Liam's inability to keep his hands to himself has now reached another dimension. He's constantly scheming ways to touch Theo. Bumps of their hips, trailing fingers over the back of his hand when Theo hands him something, leaning in to hook his chin onto his shoulder when he wants to see what meme Bree has texted him or when Theo wants to show him a picture Lucia sent. It takes Theo an hour to stop being startled by it and by the time they're back in Beacon Hills he's used to it, doesn't shy from it. 

Liam makes him stop the car five minutes away from Scott's house, to kiss the breath out of him.

"I just know I'm not gonna be able to do that for a while when they bombard you. Let me have my fix." he grumbles, goes back to twining his tongue with Theo's.

Theo shoves him back to his seat a minute later. "We're not having car sex when we'll reek of it, Liam."

Liam blows a raspberry at him. "You do know that they've probably had a bet on when we'll finally cave, right? And, you still smell like me." the last bit causes them both to flare their eyes.

They grin at each other and Theo starts the truck. 

The front of the McCall house is piled with cars upon cars. So much so that they've taken up the space in front of the surrounding houses with no abandon. Bree hurls herself out of the front door before he steps out of the car, and he meets her halfway. 

His back pops from how hard she crushes him. 

"Hey." he tells her, returns the embrace.

"Hey your-fucking-self. We thought you were dead dead, you asshole." when she pulls back some her flared eyes are near spilling over, but it's from happiness. Then she sees his flared ones. "Oh. They fixed them." she wonders and grins. 

The Baomi Jiaopai are the culprits for his old eyes permanently coming back after the memory re-acquisition jump-started the process? Figures. 

Bree laces their fingers together, gives Liam a fist bump when he joins them. Theo's missed this part. Somewhere between the search party they've thawed the ice and have grown closer, the same way Liam had quickly warmed to Alec after Nolan went after Theo, Argent and the Sheriff. Now, after he knows how Liam feels about him and after he's accepted it, he's finally getting new things. It was never about anchors and him worrying his stability would vanish if Theo's attention went on somebody else, it's because he wanted it mostly to himself. It's always the simple answer that fits.

Liam catches his eye, scratches at his cheek when he notices how Theo's have narrowed, but he's saved by the mass of people that come out of the McCall house. 

Theo can't lie, he's kinda dreaded it. Liam spent the ride here making sure he couldn't think about it too much, pointing his mind in other mundane directions. 

Stiles explodes first, "Oh my God, of course he's gonna stand there like a lone raccoon!" 

Lucia pushes Scott between his shoulder blades, since he's standing as still as a statue. By the looks of it she wants to come to him first, but doesn't. Because she isn't his—isn't his alpha. Scott's gaze latches onto his face, and Bree steps away just before Scott brings his arms around him.

"Welcome back, Theo." he tells him, voice all wobbly, leaves his hands on Theo's shoulders when he pulls back. He gives a dimpled smile, looking him over as though he can't believe Theo's standing in front of him. Theo claps his hands to his elbows. 

The rest of the pack filter through, but Theo doesn't even notice it on time, nor Malia, who hugs him next. Brief, followed by a whack to one shoulder. 

"Don't ever get yourself caught again." she grumbles and Theo is too stunned to speak. 

"I'll try."

Then it's Alec crashing into him, just as crushing in his embrace as Bree was, holds on for way longer. It takes the effort of more than one person to make him let go. It's surreal, he loses focus with all the people piling about, with how they pull him to the house. So many personally come to him that he's beyond flabbergasted. Liam stays by his side the entire time.

Argent claps his shoulders, pulls him into a very brief embrace, but enough for Theo to catch the relief, along with something softer creeping into his scent, on him. "Welcome back." he says and the Sheriff follows his lead, his palms a bit heavier and eyes crinkled at the corners with a muttered Jesus, kid, followed by a shake to his head. Both of them, along with Liam, guide him to the living room, one of Argent's hands still on Theo's shoulder, that squeezes when he finally lets go.

"Just so you know, I'm revoking all of your rights to shift for the foreseeable future." Lucia barks out, after she's also added to the hug count and has shoved an entire basket overflowing with fresh coconut muffins at him.

"I second that." McKane points at Theo, standing with one hand on his hip. "Under no circumstance until you've passed the two month mark, you hear me?" 

"Better yet, make it three." Danny chimes in, also with one hand on his hip. 

"Four." Yao Feng adds, with both hands on his hips. Declan, his emissary with the lip balm obsession, gives him a once over and rolls his eyes with exasperation that reaches Pluto, pinches the bridge of his nose. 

"That's just gonna stress him out, you idiot." he mutters, lands Theo an apologetic look for the drama. 

"Two is optimal." and Lydia's statement cements it, her vote counting as at least ten. Argent and Melissa nod along.

Fucking Christ, the McCall living room has never been this packed, ever. Theo's head swims with it to the point where he's getting dizzy. The rest of the McCall pack are closer to him than the rest, the exceptions being Bree and Lucia. Liam is next to him on the couch, Alec on the other side and Bree above him with her elbows rested on the back of the couch, forearms brushing his neck. 

Her next sentence stills some of the air. "You're swinging by soon, right, now that the war's over? There's plenty of room and I want you to finally meet Naya properly. Big bro said it's fine by him." she flippantly shoots out, like the little instigator she's always fucking been. 

She's testing it, the thing Liam told him less than twenty-four hours ago—You're ours. Not Amadio's, not Yao Feng's. Ours.—and what Bree's been speculating. Theo's not even mad, he needs to know, needs the confirmation. Liam might perceive him as pack, but that doesn't actually make him pack to the rest.

Scott and Co share looks among themselves, then aim them at Bree and even Corey turns to stare at her. Not unkind, just with something else.

The change in the room, from Scott having flared his eyes, evaporates the air in Theo's lungs. 

"He'll stay here for a while, if you don't mind." he says, his smile easy, but also something else.

Malia continues, "He's not getting any field trips passes until he can prove he's capable of not getting himself killed the second he sets foot elsewhere."

And surprisingly Stiles takes the ball, "And knowing that asshole, the moment there's no eyes on him the first thing he'll do is shift." 

"At least there's no more labs to neuter." Lydia muses, raising her perfectly shaped brows at Theo's incredulity, Derek tilting his head in a go on, try and get out of this one, I dare you manner from where he's next to her, Scott and Malia.

"Not to mention," Mason snorts, points his thumb at Liam. "Is so not letting him out of his sight for at least a month." 

To which Corey adds, "Or until the end of time." and ignores Liam's affronted hey!, purses his mouth at him, Alec and Nolan adopting the exact same expression at the exact same time.

A glitch in the matrix. 

Liam presses his thigh against his, then his elbow knocks into Theo's. When Theo slants his gaze up at Bree she's the embodiment of the cat that got the cream, looking away from Scott, down to Theo. And that settles that, her eyes say.

Theo zones out after that little tag game, still getting used to the amount of people around him when he's spent, from what he learned, a month on the run and just over a week with Liam in the secluded house. He's so tired he falls asleep, wakes up with his head on Liam's shoulder, Liam himself having a hushed conversation about the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Bree, now next to Liam, and Alec, now on the carpet. 

He doesn't tune in his hearing, gets lulled into another nap while he listens to the buzz of their voices and for the first time since never he feels like he belongs, like he's home. 

*

Liam abducts him to his house and Jenna and David shamelessly aid him in it. The others are getting ready to go home to get some more clothes for the slumber party they want to conduct, while all the remaining alphas and their plus ones manage a plan to set a gathering in the near future to celebrate, both Theo's return and the end of the war, without consulting Theo on the matter. Bree shoves him in Liam's direction with an enthusiastic little dance. Stiles takes a look at the exchange, turns to Scott, then snaps his head back again with dinner plate eyes.

"Oh my God!" he bellows, slaps Scott repeatedly. "Scott, oh my God, smell them!" he grabs at Scott's shoulder, shakes him about like a rag doll while he points at Theo and Liam. Derek slaps his hand down. Scott sucks his lips in to keep himself from laughing, cheeks dimpling.

Those two knew the moment they caught a whiff of Liam and Theo's scents, and how Theo smells more like Liam than he ever has, both on the outside and, the most telling detail, on the inside. Which, well, can mean only one thing.

Mason gasps, also points at Liam and shrills, "No way! You—and you didn't tell me?" 

Jenna and David have taken an interest, share a look over the rims of their mugs of coffee, eyes crinkling. Liam makes a cutting motion in the air, alongside a comically terrified face and Mason lifts his phone, points at Liam a second time, then crosses his arms with an, admittedly, funny expression. Liam is going to have an adevnture gossiping with him later.

Malia, most likely one of the first to notice the development, reacts with, "What, like they haven't been torturing us for months with their," she wiggles her fingers Theo and Liam's direction in an undefined way, her curled upper lip saying everything else for her.

Lucia adds, "And about damn time, the planets have finally aligned for us to have a moment's peace." to which Alec and Bree cackle, loudly, holding each other up while bent at the waists. 

Liam pulls Theo away shortly after. Jenna and David only aid them until they reach the door, share a look.

"You know, you do owe me a rain check." Jenna states, barely keeping her face innocent. David can't mange her level of self-control, lets a sharp gust of air through his nose before he straightens and nods along, with tears in his eyes from how much he's holding his laughter in.

Which brings them to now, Liam and Theo alone in Liam's room. Liam gulps, and Theo sees the shiver going over him, skin erupting in goosebumps from its intensity. Theo takes a step forward, bunches his palm in Liam's shirt and stares down at him. Liam's hands go to his shoulders, sliding up to cup each side of his neck, trembling.

Theo remembers,

Because I can tell you all about the dreams I've had about them. Dream after dream of you fucking me senseless in my bed, with those same eyes flared and staring down at me, watching me with your fingers in my mouth.

He flashes his eyes and Liam gives an unsteady whine, wobbles on his legs, holds himself up only through his grip on Theo. He arches into him when Theo slides his hands under Liam's shirt, to clasp them firmly around his waist, thumbs on his hip bones, the rest splayed on his lower back to dig into the valleys of his lats. 

"I want you to fuck me so bad." Liam tells him, breathy like they already have started fucking. He smells like it, too, the thick scent of heady arousal having materialized itself into reality within seconds. It was there on the ride here, but now it's compellingly overpowering. 

"You have lube?" and they both laugh at the insinuation of the divide and conquer moment.

Liam twists one hand into his hair, grips tight. "Oh, yeah, no problem with that. I also have a very comfy bed right here, with a distinct lack of wolf hairs on it."

Theo pulls him closer, making Liam lose his footing. "Hmm, tempting." his voice has lowered, practically intoxicated by Liam's scent, clear with his soaring desire, unmarried by fear or pain. 

Liam folds first. He yanks Theo down to his mouth, first bites at his lower lip, then slips his tongue into his mouth. Theo gives as good as he's given, slots their hips to grind their cocks together, maddeningly slow and tantalizing. There's a need to rush, want no longer forcefully contained by Liam and his urgency to show Theo all his—all his love. 

Fuck, the word still makes him lightheaded. Seizes his chest in a good way, in the best way. 

"Stop thinking." Liam breathes, digs his thumb into the corner of Theo's mouth. "I want you here and now, okay? No past or future. Just here, with me."

Theo tip his chin down once, eyelids drooping a little. "Fine by me." 

"Good, 'cause every time you try and go somewhere else I'll forcefully drag you back to me." 

Is it normal for that sentence to hit him right in the groin? Theo doesn't contemplate it, brings Liam back into a slick kiss, starts waking him back to the bed, pushes him on it when the back of Liam's knees hit its edge. He pulls his shirt off, Liam not far behind and doing the same, his deft fingers then digging into the muscle definition on Theo's torso. Where Theo had been so pliant back in the house now he wants to devour. To pin and lick and bite and fuck Liam so good he can't differentiate directions. After all the anguish Theo has caused him, he wants, if for a few moment, to completely erase its traces and heft Liam into a place where there's only carnal pleasure and them. 

He crowds Liam, on his hands and knees. Liam's eyes grow dark, playing along with the cat and mouse game, crawling back when Theo advances, scant space between their faces the entire time. When Theo has him where he wants him he covers him entirely, groaning as their bare fronts make contact. Probably should have taken off the jeans as well, too late to ponder it. 

His gaze strays to Liam's throat. He wants to press his mouth and dig his teeth in, for a moment bemoaning that no matter how many marks he puts on the soft expanse of skin, none of them will stay. Liam bares it for him, with a high sound, spreading his legs into the motion, putting himself on full display.

Theo drives their hips together, angles his head to the side and bites. Liam’s cracked moan resounds in the room, in his ears. He goes boneless on the mattress, heaving these little whimper-filled pants, before he crosses his ankles behind Theo's back, uses the leverage to thrust his hips upwards. His hand on the back of Theo's head presses Theo harder into him, throat clicking from a swallow with the heavy sucks Theo stimulates him with. Theo licks a slow stripe from his clavicle to the edge of his jaw, bites at it, then pivots down to the skin behind Liam's ear to land a kiss.

"In that—in that parking lot, when we smoked together that time you let me come with you, I wanted you to fuck me on the hood of the truck." Liam shakily blurts out, with the hint of a smile in his voice. 

Theo huffs a breath out of his nose, "Well, I've also wanted to do that, among other things. Add it to the bucket list."

Liam laughs, then hisses when Theo bites down with sharp teeth. "Fuck, yeah, like that." so Theo does it again, and again, and again. 

Liam likes being manhandled as much as Theo does, he finds out. Likes being pinned by Theo's weight, likes it when Theo directs him wherever he chooses, likes the sure and heavy presses of his hands on him. He's also impatient, starts unzipping Theo's jeans and drags them down until Theo shifts away to get them off entirely. By the time he's done Liam has pulled his own halfway down. Theo stops him, tugs them the rest of the way as an excuse to run his hands over his feverish skin and the hairs there. It's what he continues doing when he re-positions himself back between them, flares his eyes to stop Liam from whining about how unhurried the pace is. 

The reaction is instantaneous. Liam's eyes glaze over, cock twitching against his abs, lips parting and wheezing out a rattled breath. The same way Theo has Liam where he wants him, Liam also has Theo where he wants him. Theo gives him some more. The fingers of his right hand travel all the way from Liam's calf, up his shaking inner thigh and abdomen, over his throat and, finally, they settle at his chin to curl around his jaw. He keeps them there and grips at the bone under them, not with a lot of force, just enough to see Liam's pupils expand and leave a very, very thin ring of blue. Liam tips his chin into it, and when Theo's fingers move he's already opened his mouth, accepts two fingers deep into it. Theo curls them down onto his tongue, and Liam's lips seal right around them, suck them in, hips jolting upwards.

He whines, the sound stemming from his chest, thighs holding Theo hostage. Theo leans on one hand over him, their cocks flush together, pulls the fingers out to slide them back in with a little more force at the same time he pulses his eyes. 

Liam grips the arm connected to those same fingers, eyes rolling back into his skull before he closes them. He's saying something, his mouth filled up meaning Theo can't understand him. But when he tries to extract them, worried that Liam doesn't want this anymore, Liam opens his eyes, flares them at him and with the hold he now also has on Theo's wrist he shoves them in as deep as they can go. They reach the back of his mouth, curl downwards, into his throat, and that high and fucking pornographic sound Liam emits makes Theo's cock throb and pulse along with the noise. He has to squeeze his eyes shut as his other hand grips the sheets by Liam's head. He thought being on the receiving end was intense? Well, good to know he was wrong.

Theo does remove his fingers from Liam's mouth, replaces them with his tongue. Liam is a live wire beneath him, twisting, withering and seeking all forms of contact, like he can't find a comfortable place because he's so high-strung with his want. 

Theo's head drops down, lips to his ear, "Lube." he pants. 

Liam smacks his hand to the nightstand, to find the round, protruding wooden part he needs to pull in order to open it, hand acting like it's possessed. 

"Would have saved us so many arguments if I knew I could shut you up with just my fingers." he murmurs, grinning at the idea. Liam shivers, glances up at him from where he'd turned his head to look at the contents of the drawer.

"That's not fair. Have you seen your hands and your long fingers?"

Theo blinks, pulls a face. "They're just hands, Liam." he raises the one still partially wet with Liam's saliva, drops it back down. 

Liam sputters, also traces its movement, honed on it like a magnet, "They're all strong, and the perfect shape, and, and veiny." he takes Theo's wrist, holds that same wet hand, and he bites over one of the protruding veins on the back of it. 

Theo hisses, arm muscles tightening. The corners of Liam's lips are tilted up in a cocky smile, maintaining eye contact as he twists the hand, opens his mouth and places the index and middle fingers right back onto his tongue. Theo feels the sleek muscle contract, feels his own guts spasm along with it. 

Liam then pulls them back, "Ha!" he throws his journeying hand up in victory, shakes the half-full bottle into Theo's face. 

"You're fucking insufferable." Theo sighs, but it's fond.

Liam grins up at him, flutters his eyelashes and laughs at his own antics. The moment Theo takes the bottle his mirth alters into arousal again, like a switch, as he tracks Theo opening it and pouring some onto his hand. His thighs spread, squirming some. Theo palms one of them, soothing him with Liam's brand of placating up and down, up and down, continues doing it when he rubs his lubed up index finger against his entrance. He pulses his eyes, waits for Liam to heave out a breath before he starts sliding it in.

"Oh." he twitches. "Feels way better than when I do it." Theo slants him a look whilst he's pushing his finger slowly all the way inside. "Don't give me that face, you've no idea how much pent-up frustration I had after long exposure next to you."

"Yeah and who always insisted on being everywhere I am, hmm?" Theo twists his finger, Liam's insides twitching and clenching down on him. 

Liam bites his lower lip, all of a sudden shy with it. "Can you blame me?"

Liam is way too coherent. Theo wants to render him unable to produce a single word with meaning. He drops down on one forearm, noses at Liam's chin, uses his free mouth and teeth for better purposes than banter until Liam liquefies into the mattress with it. It doesn't take long before Liam inches his hips up, taps his knees to Theo's ribs.

"More." he gasps, one hand on Theo's back, the other on his head to keep Theo's mouth on his neck. 

Theo readily complies, circles index and middle finger into the sensitive skin around his entrance, slides them inside at an easy pace. He strokes at Liam's walls, avoiding the protruding bundle, focusing only on stretching him out for now. He sucks angry purple bruises into his neck, same way Liam had done to him when their positions were reversed, the previous marks gone before he's even done making the next. It gives him something to focus his arousal into so that he doesn't rush things, and Liam guides him to every new point he wants Theo to lick or bite or suck at, having lost himself in the sensations.

Two fingers soon become three and this is where he's met with most resistance, the muscles of the ring tight with the unused stretching. 

"Okay?" he kisses at the edge of Liam's jaw, fingers only half-way in. 

Liam's eyes are pinched tight, breathing through his nose and willing his body to relax. "Yeah, just… I've never gone past two." he murmurs, licking his lips, pressing them together tightly.

Theo already figured that one out. He keeps his hand fixed, not inching in any direction, bows his back to lean over Liam and makes use of his other palm. He licks at one nipple, stroking Liam's outer thigh, gripping the lower side of it. Liam is holding himself motionless to keep the fingers inside him still, too. He doesn't let Theo pull them out, knees his arm with a low growl when he tries to. After a few slow minutes of Theo just caressing him, of multiple kisses to any expanse of his skin he can reach, the ring starts relaxing. 

Liam finally starts canting his hips into Theo's fingers. "C'mon, gimme more." 

Theo ever so carefully pushes them in all the way, eyes on Liam's face. It's lax, open, in a daze of pleasure. No pain. Then his eyes snap open, flared, a high keening noise sounding from him when Theo flares his and twists his fingers. He blindly reaches for Theo's free hand on his thigh, brings it to his mouth and sucks two fingers into it, to give himself an outlet at the amount of stimulation he's under. Theo moans along with him, both sets of fingers twitch and Liam cries out, muffled. Theo strokes at his tongue, strokes at his sensitive walls and the small gathering of nerves he'd ignored, circling the pads of his fingers over it. Liam whimpers, grip on his wrist tight, mouth sealed around him tighter. He starts fucking himself on Theo's fingers, sucks at the fingers in his mouth, cock leaking profusely onto his abdomen. 

He frees his mouth, trails the wet digits down his throat, leaves them there. "Fuck me." he orders, claws springing out when Theo teases at his prostate again. "Fucking fuck me, Theo."

He looks like he can barely see, drunk on the dizzying lust. 

"Please," and he leans up when Theo moves forward, to kiss the next words out of Liam, to meet his tongue when Liam's lips drop open for him. Theo removes his fingers, slicks himself up with the remaining lube on his hand, hissing with the touch to his aching cock. Liam hands him his own shirt he'd thrown on the bed. 

"I'm gonna need this for later." Theo tells him, winded and panting just as hard as Liam is.

"No, you're not. I wanna come just by feeling you inside me." 

And Theo's done for. He wipes his hand down, lays his palms on Liam's moving legs that are unable to decide whether they want to stay wide, to grip Theo tight or to slide down on the sheets. 

Liam speaks before Theo can even ask, "Can you please just fuck me?" he's shaking all over with his desire, gripping onto Theo tight with clawed hands, hips jerking in tiny movements. 

Theo positions himself, starts pushing in. He's still so tight, blistering-hot and velvet soft, inner walls contracting around him. The sweltering pit in his gut clenches. They hold eye contact, and while one of his palms stays on Liam's hip, the other he uses to take Liam's hand and flatten it over his own chest, in a silent reminder to breathe, to urge him into following Theo's rhythm and anchor him. This isn't just sex, he reminds himself. Liam is drowning in background emotions just as much as Theo was their first time together, which in turn makes his body too sensitive at times. So it's up to Theo to alleviate it until he's ready, until they can give in and let go. 

The claws are five poking points over his pectoral muscle, dig in a bit as Liam's fingers twitch when Theo is halfway inside. Theo squeezes his hand, once Liam can actually breathe again. He props himself onto his elbows, leaving them face to face, breathing the same air and sharing it, and Liam's arms go around his neck, never looking away. He swallows hard with a lupine whine, fights to keep his eyes open when Theo's finally inside all the way to the hilt.

Liam's scent takes on a deeper, more pronounced note in it. "Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck." he reaches down to form a tight circle around the base of his cock, to stave off what must have been an impending orgasm. Theo waits, presses their foreheads together, panting with the need to move. He doesn't, it's up to Liam when they start. 

Liam pulls him in, until Theo's crushing him with his weight. Theo buries his face below his ear, taking a lungful of his heady scent, high on it, really. It takes a little over a minute for Liam's hips to start moving, his insides clamping onto his cock and releasing, clamping and releasing, teasing. He turns his face to glance at him, is met with a toothy grin and barely opened eyes. 

Theo wants to make this last, but with the way they're already this worked up it's not that big of a probability. He starts moving, slowly pulling back, thrusting back inside hard. Liam wants it to be intense, to banish whatever prowling phantoms are left, and Theo gets that, felt the same way. He'd said it himself, he wants Theo to fuck him senseless and thus far his every action has supported those words. 

Theo spends a few minutes searching with his head cocked and his hearing stretched, monitoring each sound and each thump of Liam's heart. Liam seems to understand what he's doing, lower back bowing a bit in an uncontrolled move that also helps Theo.

"Ah!" Liam cries out, startled by the sensation, claws sinking into Theo with his neck bared as he throws his head back.

Liam looks up at him, mouth red and parted. Theo tugs his hips closer to his, to heft his ass onto Theo's lap, his spine further arching with it, making Theo align to hit his prostate all the better. Liam's head goes right back into the pillow at the following thrust just as he'd re-angled it to watch Theo, as a moan tears out of him. 

"Fuck yeah." he mutters, shuddering, tips his chin down to see Theo staring down at him. He must also see some of his own dreams playing out behind his eyes, eyes going half-lidded and glassy. His insides squeeze him, Theo moaning at the feeling, lower back bowing forward a bit. 

He tries to keep the pace steady, he tries, and Liam is having none of it, hinging his hips to fuck himself right onto his cock with his entire body aiding the process, peeling at Theo's sanity. At a particularly harsh thrust he whines, having lost the battle to keep his eyes open - they roll back and stay closed. Theo himself is starting to see smudged, almost double, with how good Liam feels around him, with all these little noises that won't stop ringing in his ears, and with the slick and lewd sounds they make when Theo fucks right into him, just make him dizzier.

"Just like that, just like tha—ah!" the high-pitched moans are by far his favorite, they come out at sporadic intervals, accompanied by other noises that are more lupine than human, that make Liam's chest rumble and shake against his own. 

There's just one detail to complete Liam's retell of his dreams. Theo groans, gasping at nearly every breath by now, bringing himself up on a shaking forearm and trusting that Liam's legs, wrapped snugly around his middle, will keep Liam stable without Theo's hands on his hips. He bites with his fangs at the bobbing Adam's apple, just barely stays upright at the heat around him clenching, bites at Liam's chin.

"Liam," he pants, shivery, the clean fingers of his left hand stroking over the tendons in Liam's throat, pulled taut and tempting. Liam's eyes slit open and widen in realization with a shudder that slams into Theo, too. 

Theo calls out the shift, flares his eyes and Liam's mouth drops open, welcoming Theo's fingers. He pushes down onto Liam's tongue, catches a garbled moan in the form of his name. He ups the intensity of his hips, stirring Liam's insides with every single one, and with just a few more Liam seizes, hands digging into Theo's back as he drags them down with brute force, clamps around him and fucking screams. The sight of him arching almost all the way off the bed—head back with his throat laid-out, coming untouched with Theo's fingers still in his mouth—slams into him in the literal sense of the word. Theo's lungs and abdomen constrict, head going back with a loud moan tumbling from his open lips and he presses his hips hard against Liam's, the quivering thighs around him pulling him in tightercloserfaster. He loses a few seconds with the force of his own orgasm, keeps making small, uncontrolled thrusts, pinning Liam down with them and fucking Liam through his high to prolong it. Liam, in his own haze, is doing the exact same motions, eyelids fluttering.

He's still shaking when Theo's coherent enough to think of pulling out. He won't let go, keeps him fully seated while he still hasn't started flagging, walls still spasming around him, still fucking himself onto Theo. Theo keens at the sensation, feels himself let out a last spurt. All at once, the thighs keeping him in place slump, despite all the tremors going over Liam's body. Theo gently pulls out, careful and slow, does the same with his fingers. 

"Shhh." he soothes, gets them on their sides and reaches for the discarded shirt that is thankfully still on the bed. He wipes them down to his best abilities, a palm on Liam's side the entire time. After that's done he wraps Liam in his arms, a hand stroking his back. It takes a while before Liam relaxes into him, flutters his eyes open. "Okay?"

"You took the 'fuck me senseless' to a whole new level right there. I'm fuckin' perfect." are his first words, slurred and lackadaisical. He still can't keep his eyes open, hangs an arm around Theo's waist and throws a leg over his hip with a pleased noise.

Theo cups his cheek, "We need to get cleaned up."

"I am not getting off his bed for at least an hour."

"It's gonna get nasty."

"Don't care."

"You wanna wake up uncomfortable?"

"I won't be when you're here."

Tara's heart stutters under his ribs, and Liam opens his eyes, his hand on Theo's back applying some pressure to inch him closer. His smile is blinding, happy and boyish. Content. 

"We'll figure it out later." he whispers, traces a finger over Theo's upper lip and leans in to steal a closed-mouthed kiss, pulls back. "I'm in a house." he starts and Theo's air leaves him. "Everybody I need is here. You are here. And I don't need to just picture it anymore, because I finally have it."

They fall asleep, curled together, in no hurry to wake up. And Theo's right where he wants to be: home.