Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Theo can't stop looking at Gabe's slack, cold body. Corpse, the clinical part of his brain corrects. Because Gabe is dead, not asleep. 

Even when the Sheriff, Parrish and Agent McCall enter the premises to detain the rest of the assailants who don't even put up a fight with Monroe now gone, he can’t look away. Scott and Co relayed that the Anuk-Ite is dead, and with its demise the debilitating fear of the past weeks has rendered every inhabitant of Beacon Hills somber with the stark lack of it.

No more excuses to hide behind. 

Theo keeps stealing glances at Gabe, wholly detached from the dozens of ongoing conversations. He still feels the phantom twinge in his veins from his body absorbing Gabe’s pain. It’d been like a jolt of quivery static, at first. Unexpected. The wolf, or more so its version at the forefront of Theo's mind, keeps its head cocked, intrigued but underneath it all more than a little startled - it'd been taken off guard. The coyote, a part he’d beaten and essentially mutilated into submission years ago, annoying if most helpful when the need to blend in with people arises, had yipped. Dumbfounded. A child-like fascination swimming in a shallow pool of fear. It's possible that the synchronized dissonance between both of the animals is making it this noteworthy. 

He had to pick which one to keep as a dominating figure, years and years and years ago, and which one to block almost completely out. One with as much freedom as Theo allows it, and the other with scarcely any. It hadn't really been a choice. Wolves are more methodical. They think more before they attack and most importantly, has the ability to be patient when it is required. The coyote under his skin possesses none of those characteristics, rendering it the more unneeded of the two. So Theo shunned it, permitted it to surface when he needed to be quick, when he had to fuck with people's heads in a way that doesn't let on that he is. The wolf is his main source of input.

Theo blinks, the there and gone again of the faint imagery alteration having an effect not unlike a backup generator whirring back to life. He was in his mind, alone, and now he's surrounded by people.

He can leave. Forget about this wretched city with its memories that plague his ever-present nightmares. Go somewhere else, go anywhere else, on the other side of the country where there are no reminders present. Apart from the glaring ones in his head, but he can pretend they're not there. He can't pretend Liam, of flesh and blood and anger, with maybe even with too much blood outside of him and absolutely no fucks for it, is not right in front of him and very much alive. Him Theo can't escape.

Liam—as if tuning in on Theo's inner monologue—appears at his side like he's jumped through a wormhole from his previous place to Theo's vicinity, but Theo’s attempt to force himself to look away from Gabe is null. A small, vulnerable (and quite honestly very much pathetic) side of him doesn't want to know how Liam's observation of him is going, rejoices in the ticking seconds where it remains in blessed oblivion. 

"You're going to leave, aren't you?" Liam asks, scalding and accusing, no attempts to soften it. But also: quiet, yet still impactful in his hyper-emotional state. He reeks of barely contained fury - at Monroe's escape and any casualties that have been left unavenged, at his inability to prevent  Brett and Lori’s deaths, or accept them as such, as dead. 

Theo doesn't answer, blinks, transfixed by the pooled blood around Gabe's corpse. The flickering lights above them reflect in it. It's still relatively fresh, like a gruesome, monochrome Christmas decoration.

Liam yanks his arm, hand tightly locked around Theo's biceps, physically compelling Theo to acknowledge him. Theo falters a step or two in the process, sneakers squeaking on the floor as he inevitably removed some of the distance between them to regain his balance. 

He finally catches Liam's compelling eyes, the blue in them stormy and close to gray. 

Theo remains silent; whatever Liam reads on his expression makes him lose some of the edge. He feels Corey and Mason's attention on them, now.

Too many people. He should have left already.

"You're not leaving." Liam orders with finality, and Theo almost breaks character. Can he really read him that well? "Not until we find her." Liam's irises take on their more pronounced golden hue, flaring in a direct challenge, the color further saturating until they're glowing lanterns in this slightly dimmed part of the corridor. 

Theo's wolf would have reacted at that, would have had him snarl a few barb-wired words if Liam's hand on him didn't shake so noticeably. If his claws weren't digging into Theo's skin through the shirt, digging small holes where they'd gone through the material. 

"Calm down." is what Theo says instead, sweeping a quick glance through the cacophony around them. "Liam, calm down." 

Liam's jaw clenches, muscles there protruding. Theo doesn't need him to open his mouth to know his fangs have descended. A tell-tale snarl, vibrating deep within Liam's chest, alerts him as to how far off Liam truly is. Fear, anger, helplessness, lack of sleep, all of it culminating in him slipping the leash off the wolf, letting it howl its way to the surface.

Theo catches Corey and Mason's alert eyes when they try to step in, shakes his head once in a cut off move. He hears Ms. McCall stop a few feet away, ready to intervene, and behind her is Liam's step-dad talking to the Sheriff, completely unaware of the carefully balanced scales that are in the middle of choosing which direction they will tip into.

"Unless you want your family to find out about your little lycanthropy problem right the fuck now, you're gonna have to calm down." 

It takes Liam three long seconds to understand Theo through his blood-lust. When he does he shivers and recoils, almost faces Dr. Geyer in the process if not for Theo's hand around one of his elbows to keep him in place. 

"Calm down." he repeats, like it's so simple. 

Liam presses his lips together tightly in a lupine growl, closes his eyes. Instead of taking deep breaths to even out his heart rate, his chest heaves. His pulse jumps in manic little swoops and along with the stench of anger another scent makes itself present, overly familiar to Theo over the past nightmarish weeks in Beacon Hell.

Fear. 

"The Anuk-Ite is dead. Beacon Hills is secure. She got away, but for now we're safe." Liam inhales at the words. "One problem at a time, Liam. You can't chase her on blood loss, no sleep and no food. So quit it." Liam tilts his head, to crack his neck, teeth bared with his fangs overlapping, heedless of Theo's warning of the potential audience. "She can run, but she can't hide. She's too ambitious. One way or another she'll slip and we'll catch her. Right now? You can only help the process by calming the fuck down." with the last words Theo gets a hold of Liam’s other elbow, pressing both thumbs hard into the sensitive delve where upper arm meets forearm.

Liam lists forward and grasps Theo’s bare forearms, in reaction to the grounding touch Theo guesses. When that too doesn’t work fast enough, Theo starts drumming his thumbs to the beat of his own—Tara’s—heart, in the hopes that when Liam can both feel it and hear it, it’ll be marginally easier for him to concentrate on the beat. 

And it works. Liam’s forehead drops to Theo’s shoulder shortly after, still tightly gripping his arms, but his pulse levels out. He's twitching in place with his effort, swallowing loud with his teeth clicking as he grinds his molars together.

Something in the background makes Theo unhand him, makes him push Liam him away while taking a large step back. The Sheriff and Dr. Geyer have concluded their conversation, he realizes. Dr. Geyer spots Liam immediately, heads their way a millisecond later. Liam is confused for all but a moment, staring up at Theo in incomprehension at the sudden aloofness, before his step-father is there to take Theo's place. He goes through the same confused-why did you do that-oh, that's why sequence Theo himself had had.

Theo uses the opportunity to blend in with the background. Almost successfully. Mason takes a step in his direction. The Sheriff beats him to it—and Theo finds himself glad of it honestly—coughs to gets Theo's attention; once Theo looks his way he nods to the side, hands on his hips close to the gun and his sheriff badge, expression hard and with not even a single ounce of warmth for Theo as a person. Theo is a threat to him.

Mason retreats, having lost his free slot.

"Sheriff." Theo says when they're face to face, an ingrained courtesy. 

Sheriff Stilinski sighs, runs a hand over his forehead in a Stiles-like manner, and a part of his stoic act splinters. "You are entirely aware that we're not letting you leave, right, Theo?" 

"Liam made that as clear as day, yes."

At that, the Sheriff seems to conduct another assessment, ultimately choosing not to comment on the selected wording. "Yeah, well. We'll have this conversation later. For now, I want you to drive the lot of them to the McCall house." he tips his chin in Liam, Corey and Mason's direction. "We're meeting up there. No detours. Absolutely none, you hear me?" 

He's all authority now, but it's just as 'Stilinski', not as the 'Sheriff'. Theo is not let off the hook, as much as he may like to be. This is just a means to an end - he has a car that can fit a lot of people and it's a convenient measure to guarantee he can't flee the scene when he’ll have to go against an exceedingly unstable and compromised Liam, and an invisible Corey. They're both aware of the fact. 

But what they both also know is that currently, wounded or not, Theo has the upper hand of his peculiarities on his side. He can take them down if needed. It's a game of extremely reluctant trust, backed up by subtle threats.

Theo nods, accepts the condictions. "The others?" 

"They'll get there when they get there."

Deliberate withholding of information. Rude. Understandable considering, well, everything Theo has done upon the McCall pack. Considering he almost permanently killed Scott, put Lydia in Eichen, played Liam like a puppet, left Malia at the mercy of the Desert Wolf and then some. But still rude. 

Theo nods again, accepts the cards. In his peripheral vision he catches a loitering Nolan, just a few steps behind Mason and Corey like a panicky kid in a supermarket. Unable to decide whether he should stay or go by the looks of it, reeking of sickly bitter guilt. 

"And Nolan?" 

The Sheriff takes one look at Nolan, pinches his mouth together while pulling a face. "Him as well."

"Roger that." Theo offers a half-assed salute.

And he walks his way up to Mason and Corey. He lifts an index finger to point at Nolan, making the poor sucker jump, hooks it in a come-here manner. They have plenty of time while they wait for Liam to finish his quiet conversation with Dr. Geyer, he can might as well shepherd them in advance. Nolan is about ready to jump outta his skin to be quite frank, just one more surprise and he's a goner.

The ride itself is tense, Liam silently brooding in the seat next to Theo, the trio in the back just as stagnant. Nolan's shoulders are up to his ears, his guilt as poignant as when they were in the hospital. Until Mason reaches from his place in the middle of the back seat to swat Liam over the head, earning an offended squawk. Theo grips the wheel in reaction to the almost-there collision of Liam's left arm and his own face.

"The hell?" Liam whirls around to face Mason, then pulling his head back a little at the stare Theo gives him for the personal space breach.

"Not tonight." Mason supplies. "We won and we're alive. Do the Batman brood impression tomorrow."

Liam shifts enough to crane his neck some more and via best friend telepathy with Mason they seem to settle on an understanding. Liam snorts, turns back forward with a shake to his head. 

"You're just trying to ruin my origin story."

The thick tension disperses after that. Liam, Mason and Corey start a comic book conversation regarding Marvel and DC, a benign topic Theo can and does tune out. Nolan is just as mute as him, most likely trying to not bring attention to himself, unaware that his chemo signals more than make up for his silence.

They quickly pile out once at the McCall house, all but Corey. He throws himself in Liam's vacated seat, slamming the door after himself. Theo feels his gaze drill holes into his head, feels him pull back layers of dermis, dismantle his skull to get to the parts of Theo's brain where Tracy and Josh lay. People never did give Corey enough credit. He might not be that vocal but he's overly observant and opinionated.

"Why did you help Liam?" he doesn't specify. They both know he really means, why did you save Liam?

So Theo answers the question to benefit himself instead. "Because his step-dad was ten feet from him and my ears are too tired for another scene."

Corey's upper lip curls a little before he swallows down the sour comment at Theo's attitude, changes his tactics. "Why do you care?"

Theo can't answer. This seems to be another part his punishment. His inability to do things that is, the simplest things that should come naturally, once the fists are thrown. Useless out of a fight. Theo just tightens his right hand on the wheel. 

"Did you even care about Josh and Tracy? At all?"

There it is. The pointed arrow Corey had been diligently biding his time to shoot. But it's also a genuine question, he truly wants or possibly even needs to know if Theo has ever cared about anybody but himself.

Theo holds his eyes then. Because there is nothing lingering of the soft guy Corey is with Mason and Liam. That's the only version of him that Theo can talk to.

Theo reaches for the free space in front of the gear shift, for his basic-ass wallet, and holds it out to Corey. Corey frowns, hesitates before he takes it and turns it over in his hands. He notes it's old, some of the leather is missing in matches. He finally opens it. There, in the transparent laminate slot where people tend to keep photos of their loved ones stare back the faces of Josh and Tracy. And Tara. All of them smiling at whoever too their photos.

The photos themselves are beyond worn, after how many times Theo has smoothed them over with shaking fingers after some very particular brands of nasty nightmares. There's dried blood at the lower half of Tara's photo and it's fitting, really. Josh and Tracy's fare a hair better. He'd dropped all three of them onto his chest in accident after he'd sliced it open with his claws in a hasty attempt to prove to himself that there was no hole there, despite the phantom and achy emptiness telling him otherwise. He'd just wanted to remind himself why he deserved the punishment and managed to almost ruin the photos in the process.

Corey analyses all the data he has at his disposal. He's probably determined that the blood is Theo's, that it's also not fresh. That Theo's held onto the photos for quite some time, and it is not just a craftily fabricated well of sentimentality in the form of an action he could have potentially predicted Corey would make. Corey's chemo signals are like a fizzling bottle containing too many flavors, a rapid-fire Theo can't accurately pin down. The little Theo does get is: grief, anger and above all, the most pronounced being, confusion. Corey tugs out the biggest photo nestled under the others ones, the most tattered and fragile one, where Theo, Tara and their parents are. It's a miracle that it's survived so long, honestly. Theo had crossed his own eyes out in gagged little X's with a permanent marker, alongside the rest of his body, in a fit of self-hatred fueled by three days of zero sleep and profoundly disturbing hallucinations of Tara crawling towards him in the gas station, in the supermarket, in the park, upside down on the inside of the ceiling of his truck. He's a wispy poltergeist on that photo, and also the realest Theo. The last time he was 'Theo' before any interventions.

Corey gently taps it back in place, traces a fingertip over the laminate to touch Josh and Tracy's photos one last time before flipping the wallet shut, carefully. He hands it back to Theo the same way Theo had handed it to him and leaves the truck without a word, apparently having answered enough of his own questions to settle the interrogation for now. 

He doesn't slam the truck's door this time around.

Theo opens the wallet by reflex, flips it closed to place it back in the space in front of the gear shift. After swallowing a heavy sheen of metal coating his mouth, he gets out of the truck, too. 

The others get there not long after Theo has washed his hands at the kitchen sink, trying and failing to eliminate the feeling of Gabe's cooling arm off his skin. Nolan almost loses his shit when he catches the state of Scott, with the rivers of blood down his cheeks from where he'd tried to claw his own eyes out. You can't even pretend he didn't, can possibly imagine it was somebody else.

More pressing is the cramping knowledge that Theo has no place here. Even Nolan has one more than he does. But Nolan is too busy looking at the bullet holes riddling the walls, starting to shake from the all too evident fruits of his actions in the war. Theo snaps his fingers, certain that nobody else will notice the sound apart from Nolan himself. And nobody but Nolan does, indeed, catch the exchange. He hastily makes his way to Theo, possibly too overwhelmed by the warm welcome back's and the 'didn't-think-I'll-see-you-again's to be scared of Theo paying him attention. Especially when the Sheriff and Argent are so close and where there's little room to hide from them. At least Parrish is at the school with Agent McCall, small miracles.

Theo takes a wild guess where the cups are, doesn't know what to thank when he gets it on the first try and takes out two. He pours Nolan water, hands it out to him. Nolan looks from the water to Theo and back, guzzles it down at an admittedly alarming pace. 

Theo's not being nice. And he didn't lie to Corey when he said he couldn't take another scene. This is just avoiding Nolan's impending mental breakdown for as long as possible.

The thanks gets lodged in Nolan's throat by the looks of it, not due to indignation, more so bitter guilt. Theo hears it nonetheless, nods at him to dignify him with an equally nonverbal response. 

Soon after, the rest start a debate which pizza place to order from, then if any pizza place is actually working despite the shit show that went down.  

"Dora is gonna be open." he hears himself say, a little bewildered himself when the words leave his mouth. He gives nobody the chance to comment and texts Liam the number to Dora's store nonetheless. "Tell her I gave you the number, she'll hand you a discount."

They all face him, blinking almost in unison with a quick once-over. Theo only shrugs, fills himself another glass of water. 

Dora is a truly sweet and kind soul in her fifties. The rare people who are a complete match what how they portray themselves on the outside. She first saw Theo in the parking lot of her establishment one morning, after he'd been woken up by two separate deputies that same night and had given up on sleep. She immediately gathered his situation, ultimately gazed at him with sad eyes that understood too much and ushered him in, to a hot cup of coffee and the tastiest special breakfast bagel with a side of eggs, hash browns and bacon he's ever had. It was all on the house. That was well over five months ago. She sometimes calls to see if he's free to help her out (and pay him for it, of course; Theo oftentimes doesn't even want to accept it, it doesn’t feel like a job or a debt). Not once has she asked him of his past or pitied him, and she lets him pay for his meal only once a week, which is an insignificant income to her business considering he has breakfast there almost every day.

“One day, when you’re farin’ a lil bit better, darlin’. Now eat your goddamn bagel, you need to grow, young man!” is what she always tells him without fail.

Liam takes him up on it, phone already out. The bellowing of random orders begins, making Liam throw frantic looks from one person to another and most likely unsuccessfully trying to remember the orders. Theo takes a breath, very slowly goes up to Melissa, almost at a crawl's pace, for his own sake and as a precaution against Argent who hasn't lost him from his sight since he entered the house. 

"Um." his eloquence is trashed after the adrenaline has left him, it seems. "Can I use the bathroom?" 

Melissa's pulse jumps when she takes sight of him, having not spotted him despite his sloth imitation of entering the scene. He deliberately put four feet between them, with her being out of his range. His shoulders and spine aren't ramrod straight like he naturally tends to keep them. Just to maintain the illusion. They all know what he's capable of. Nevertheless, he doesn't want to impose when he's in her home.

Jesus, ever since Liam brought him back it’s a weird experience feeling genuine guilt, supported by its costar need to accommodate people from Scott's pack without an actual motive. The last part might be debatable, entirely dependent on his toleration threshold for the day. It’s a partial motive to not get on Argent’s bad side further than he already has, seeing as he's the one with the most lethal contacts and who can orchestrate a neat little witch hunt for him. But it’s mostly fueled by palpable remorse for his actions.

Melissa takes one look at him, lips pulling into a shaky smile, but she still nods. "Second floor, first door to the right." then, astonishingly, with a deep breath she erases almost all the distance between them to land a warm palm on his shoulder before jumping back to her conversation with Scott.

Theo makes damn well sure he catches exactly nobody's eye, much less Scott's. With Melissa's attention elsewhere he makes himself scarce after a muted thanks and thuds up the stairs. 

He grimaces at the sight of the clean bathroom. White sink worn throughout the years with use, but with an undoubted sheen of glittering cleanliness. It's not going to be clean for long. 

Taking out the bullets still lodged into his shoulder and thigh is a hassle but nothing he's unused to. Or, at least, not unused to the pain of it. Almost a decade with the Doctors ensured his tolerance is monstrous, what with unpredictable interventions and unannounced testings of his limits, that had gone on and on, and the past few years or so he wasn't even surprised when he'd an order to lie still on an operating table in the middle of the night. 

At least the wound from his grazed shoulder has healed.

Theo carefully unsheathes the claws of his right index finger and thumb after taking his shirt off. His body has already started healing around the bullets, meaning he has to pinpoint their exact location through memory alone, also with his sense of feeling out of whack, and make a precise incision. He positions himself over the sink, hip bones flush against the porcelain to keep whatever blood trickles down in the sink.

He drags his index finger horizontally for the first round, a few centimeters under his clavicle, and blood immediately seeps out in rivets. He delves his claws in, to tug out bullet number one with his teeth bared in a silent, pained snarl. 

A sharp clink and it's in the sink. 

By that time the edge of his jeans has caught a good amount of the blood, the material starting to feel uncomfortably wet and sticky. It gets worse when he has to repeat the process after a few seconds. The wound has closed successfully. 

So he does it again. This time he has to dig in further, compelling his lungs to sustain an absolutely steady rhythm while he uses the mirror over the sink as a guide. After twenty painful seconds, his claws losing their brittle hold of the bullet time and time again, he finally managed to snag it out. 

A second clink in the sink.

The next pest is the one that'd made breathing a bitch for the past half an hour - the one that had somehow managed to lodge itself into his sixth rib—which, how the ever living fuck; ricochet? An absurd one. Arguably, this precise little situation should have been his first priority, but the day is fucked and it wasn't because he gaslit himself that he's fine until he really did forget about the bullet in his rib. He has to open a large vertical incision, three times bigger than the previous one, sneak two fingers in and break the rib in a sickening twist to free the bullet, and set it back correctly so it doesn't heal fucking weird. 

A third clink in the sink.

Theo braces his bloody hands on the edge of the porcelain, head hanging between his heavy and hunched shoulders. There's blood dripping from his right elbow, where it'd slid down while he'd re-enacted a gruesome Body Parts game. 

Next is his leg, he muses in an alarming lack of unease at how easy it is to tear himself apart just like Doctors used to. Then he starts thinking about how frail, exactly, everybody is.

Only Liam bursts in before he can even get back into the operating zone. Liam freezes akin to a meerkat on a very noteworthy watch, mid opening his mouth to relay whatever information he'd come to tell Theo. He can only see Theo's side. It's the shish-kebabed one.

Theo straightens, leaves one hand on the cold ceramic to keep himself braced and turns around with raised brows, spits out a "Yes?"

Liam tracks the gaping skin, with the flesh around the bared sixth rib still knitting itself back together. From how he pales further and how abruptly his scent dips and sours, Theo bets said white rib being visible looks way worse to Liam than it is in actuality. At least he hadn't barged in when it was actively broken, after Theo had to break it. Then again, most people haven’t been exposed to human insides since the tender age of nine. He finally catches Theo's gaze, eyes flaring in response to Theo's own golden ones, and then they both call off their shift.

Liam swallows, containing his reaction.

"Liam," Theo forces out, on the brink of starting a yelling match, because fucking choose - enter the room or leave, Liam, what the fuck. "What?"

Liam narrows his eyes, "Why didn't you say something, you asshole?" he hisses, closing the door behind himself, minimizing the distance quickly. 

The slam is like a mocking yowl to the intended privacy initially motivating the action. Liam extends a hand, seemingly in an uncontrolled need to touch, thinks better of it and keeps his hand to himself. That decision doesn’t stop his fingers from shaking and curling in on themselves, distress seeping out of him in fervent waves. Too many emotions in such an enclosed space leave Theo reacting to Liam’s anxiety and fear by reflex, by the instinct he’d developed while shadowing him.

Liam exhales shakily, having noticed the entire scene of blood and bullets, since Theo had given him leeway to look by turning towards him. Blue eyes go progressively stormier as they take blood splatters on the floor, rivets going down his chest, the sink, along with the three stray bullets cluttered together at the bottom of it. “Oh my fucking—”

The door is ripped open again, this time with Scott, Derek and Melissa on the other side. Whatever they’d been expecting, it’s not this. They freeze, like the backup meerkat colony, taking in the stark red on the tiles, in and around the sink, on Theo.

Melissa is the first one to notice Theo’s still bared rib, the healing lagging with the infrequent meals, disastrous nights with little to no sleep and the accumulated stress from Monroe and the Anuk-Ite.

“Jesus.” she whispers, prompting Scott and Derek to put the picture and the meaning together soon after.

Now, instead of dealing only with an appalled Liam, he has four aghast and notably bullheaded members of the McCall pack (hell, the majority of them are bullheaded, it has to be a part of the requirement forms Scott makes them fill out) that are stalling his progress.

“Do you have a self-retaining retractor here?” 

Theo aims it at Melissa, finally unable to deal with the uncomfortable feeling of his body trying to heal around the bullet to the point where pride is absolutely nothing anymore. Especially considering—yeah, it’s a nasty onet hat shatters upon entering the victim and it’s one actually containing wolfsbane. He’d left it for last - it's gonna take out all his energy when he’s done with it. Apparently, Gabe loaded both normal and laced bullets. The only saving grace being that it’s not a strain deadly to Theo, just makes him a lil' nauseous. Aconitum lamarckii, or Northern wolfsbane. How that bitch Monroe got her covetous hands on such a strong European strain is beyond him, but in this case he’s partially grateful. It’s particularly agonizing for werewolves.

It's the part of him that keeps tabs on Liam, constantly, that is overly glad how it was Theo who got shot with it. Had it been the other way around Liam would have died in a horrifically prolonged agony, nervous system going high-ware, raw and enfeebling pain shooting up every single nerve ending. His brain wouldn’t have let him fall unconscious in his last moments, would have forced into staying awake for every single second of the torture. And even if Theo had gotten a hold of a bullet with the same strain to burn it out, it still would have taken a full day for Liam's pain to subside fully, no matter how much they try to pull it out for him. It still would have been three more days before Liam would wake up, much less be able to get up or walk. Monroe smoldered with her self-righteous vengeance and instead of dying like everybody else in this bloody town, turned out to be one cruel psychopath, a true psychopath.

Melissa dashes down the hallway, her reaction literally pulling Theo from his inner spiel to the copper-heavy bathroom. 

“Get out." he rasps, detached. He has to warn them before he continues. "This type of wolfsbane is highly poisonous to werewolves, more so than the usual variety.” 

At that Scott and Derek snap out of their stupor, Liam’s eyes glinting golden so quickly Theo wonders if his body can duck in case the do shoot damn lasers out, the color flickering in and out of existence on a loop. Liam starts controlled and slow, delirious with anger he's trying to contain, “You were shot with wolfsbane bullets," and then voice ups in octave with every word uttered until he’s all but screaming, fangs entirely elongated by the end of it. "And you didn't think you should fucking tell somebody?!"

“It's not lethal to me. Just an annoying sting and some nausea. Unless you wanna die convulsing in the most magnified type of pain you have every felt in your existence, caused by a strain that attacks your entire nervous system the second it enters your bloodstream, central and peripheral, then I suggest you get out, Liam.” Theo clicks his claws one by one in a sequenced pattern, from pinky to index finger, where his hand is still braced on the sink. It vaguely reminds him of a rattle snake, only this time while he is the danger, it's not him directly. It's a weird feeling. It's even weirder having the epiphany under three sets of eyes.

Liam bares his teeth at him, a low rumble starting from deep in his chest, the exact same one from hospital just half an hour ago when Liam ordered him to stay—Theo wonders, in a bit of a daze, whether he’ll feel the reverberation travel along his skin as strongly as he thinks he will if he rests his palm on Liam’s sternum—his now shifted eyes flickering down to the last remnants of exposed millimeters of bone, fixate there. Scott and Derek seem to come to the same conclusion, that Liam is waiting to see the wound close with his own eyes, because they wait alongside him. Before Derek yanks Liam out of the bathroom by the collar of his shirt in such an expert move and with such a trained sway to his hips that Theo almost commends him for it. Just in time for Melissa to patter back with a hefty-looking first-aid kit in her arms. She pays no mind to Liam’s posturing growls, incessant swearing and flailing limbs that try and fail to get Derek off him. 

Argent slithers into the midst of the clusterfuck. Unlike everybody else his reactions, if he has any when he takes in the scene, are internal. The only thing Theo gets from him is shock, which quickly diminishes as his trained mind plasters on the professional mask he wears like an ordinary man would a cologne. Effortlessly slotted into place, not one screw out of its place.

“He said the last one has wolfsbane.” Melissa tips Argent in while she closes the toilet lid and opens the window behind it. Then, she props the first aid kit on the side of the sink and even manages to balance it, heedless of the blood, and opens it. It’s way more advanced than what Theo expected, he'll admit - almost every surgical instrument a doctor would need during an extensive surgery is in there, along with not so few wolfsbane strains in glass vials, for burning purposes.  

Argent turns to Theo, but Theo shakes his head. “Not lethal to me. Aconitum lamarckii.“ the new scrap of information makes Argent grow visibly pale, stricken, even if his scowl deepens. He's undoubtedly the only one as intimately familiar with the majority of the existing strains of wolfsbane as Theo is, as well as their potency, lethality and side effects. “Yeah, she upped her sadism.”

Theo rounds the sink, his back to the toilet, and feels for the bullet hole in the back of his jean clad leg, mentally locates where the exit wound would have been had the bullet indeed left his body. He nicks the jeans vertically until most of his outer thigh is bare when he splays the severed cloth open. He rips the material further, so that nothing gets in his work, and toes his sneakers off. He so doesn’t have the cash to get new ones if his only pair gets drenched in blood. The last one bid him goodbye sometime last week.

He lifts his leg, knee to the edge of the sink for a better visual with the light hitting directly over the cut, foot braced on the toilet lid. It leaves him with the door to his right, and Argent and Melissa to his left. Theo takes the scalpel Melissa had already left out—overly conscious of the protective stance Argent takes, with one arm halfway in front of Melissa, the other reaching for the gun pressed to his lower spine, tucked in the back of his pants—and after a steadying breath and not even a glance in his audience’s direction, he does the first incision. In spite of how deep it is his body immediately starts fighting against it, his vision going soft around the edges, an abrupt inability to swallow following. By memory alone he forces his trembling hand to grab the self-retaining retractor, insert it and start working it open. Melissa and Argent both take a stuttery breath, stunned. Beyond that they do nothing to intervene. 

Well, good thing he’d left this part for last. There are a few pieces he has to dig for to remove and there's sweat beading at his hairline, forehead and temples already, before he’d even begun the extraction. One of them has lodged itself into the femur, into the side of the bone. The adrenaline must prevented him from feeling any of the damage. And it's not unheard of for supernaturals with healing abilities to live a normal, healthy life with regular bullets inside them if they don't have somebody to remove them, or have an innate fear of hospitals.

Outside Derek, along with Malia and Scott, is dealing with a seething Liam who's trying to bulldozer his way back in the bathroom. 

“Let me go!” his speech mingles with the definitely not-human snarl, supplying a mildly concerning image of absolute lack of control on Liam's part.

Mason, Corey, Lydia and the Sheriff have also wrangled their collective efforts to reason with him from a distance, from the stairs if Theo has to gauge. When the door to the bathroom opens yet a-fucking-gain Theo is ready to chew that somebody out. What he doesn’t expect is for Stiles stumbling his way in with a sleek black box reeking of even more wolfsbane strains. 

Stiles almost drops the damn thing at the sight of Theo’s upper thigh gaping and held open, blood seeping out freely. Worst of all, the idiot doesn’t close the door so the mock murder scene is finally on gull display for everybody outside to witness firsthand. They all halt, comically so. Except, Liam renews his trashing against Derek and Malia’s hold abruptly enough for them to nearly lose grasp of him as he zeroes on the retractor and the gleaming blood staining Theo’s inner thigh, still trickling out in a not so comforting fashion.

Theo looks away from him to take out the shard closest to the surface. “Somebody close the door. The fumes are dangerous to them.” he says to nobody in particular, methodical in his scheme of numbering shards by priority.

Melissa kicks the door shut with a swift strike of her foot. Stiles tries to say whatever exclamation of how sick he’s gonna be, complexion going a little green. “Oh my God.” he whines instead, handing the black box to Argent like it’s part of a hazardous contamination, unable to look away from Theo's working process. Surprisingly he keeps any and all commentary to himself.

Liam is going berserk by the sound of all the thumps on various walls, accompanied by Scott’s further softened murmur and Derek and Malia’s grunts of strain.  

“It’s not poisonous for him, you heard Theo himself say it.” Scott reasons, but Liam won't or doesn't want to listen. ”But it is for us. If you go in there now, it’ll just stop him from taking care of himself.” 

Argent, in the meantime, has crouched and placed the box on the clean portion of the floor—because of course he's above dirtying his neat belongings, the pedantic fuck—to slide the clasps open and reveal a truly stunning, as well as terrifying, collection of wolfsbane strains. There’s over a hundred, given the little levels splaying on each side, unravelling the further he pulls it open. Neat rows upon rows of wolfsbane.

Theo shudders, both at that sight and the sensation of his successful hunt, dropping shard number six in the sink. “That’s last. I’m gonna faint when I put the ashes in there.”

He tunes out the house afterwards. He can’t afford to have anything but his undivided attention on the wound. The amount of adrenaline in his system has upped considerably, but the inevitable crash due to him fervently trying to calm himself down is going to knock him off his feet. Most likely in the literal sense of the words. Unfortunately, that’s the only method he can currently utilize to do the job expeditiously and with maximum efficiency. Hypovolemia is not a condition he’s overly fond of when his body is fatigued to this extent. He's lucky he didn't have to open up his inner thigh or any big arteries, or he'd have mere minutes to avoid aforementioned hypovolemic shock.

It’s already taking a toll on him, forcing him to stop halfway lest he wants to black out on the spot. 

“Can I help?” Melissa promptly asks when it's obvious he's not focused. 

Theo shakes his head. “Think it’s better if you all step back. I’m close to the deeper shards and when I get to the one in my femur I might lose control.” he catches Argent’s eye, mouths gun, so the others outside can’t hear. 

A beat of silence from behind the door, and:

“Did he just—in his femur?!” whatever progress Scott accomplished with Liam swiftly goes down the drain as evident by Liam’s uncoiled roar. A shiver runs down Theo's spine from the sheer force of it.

Argent levels Theo with a heavy stare, the confused and highly suspicious sides of him warring with one another. Both born out of the question floating in his head - why would Theo willingly ask Argent to pull a gun on him when he’s at his most vulnerable, therefore putting an insane amount of trust in him to not land a bullet in Theo’s head at the slightest provocation? 

It’s not a hard equation. It’s a necessary precaution, given Theo is at wit’s end. If something happens, loud enough to startle him, he's going to react by instinct alone. Which would most definitely hurt at least one human in his direct vicinity. If even a hair falls off one of their heads, any remaining hope for his freedom is lost and they’ll either chain him to this town until they see fit or let Argent ‘take care of him’. Or. They might send him back to the downstairs department, back to Tara’s cold fingers in his chest cavity.

Yeah, he doesn't want the last one. Definitely not the last one.

It’s only a matter of self-preservation through gathered data of people’s actions and reactions given certain circumstances. Theo wants to live his life. Whatever that is and however he's allowed. And if he hates it, fuck it, he'll leave permanently. He can’t see if he hates it if he lashes out and lands a hit. And, in the end, better be dead than sign his own slave contract or his permanent residence with Tara. Simple as that.

In the end Argent does pull the gun out, causing Stiles to crash into the nearby wall in sputtering and flabbergasted shock. Even Melissa is taken aback, brown eyes dinner plate-wide. It’s kind of a dick move; they can’t say anything unless they want the disaster in the hallway to blow out of even bigger proportions.

Argent keeps the gun it pointed down, aimed at the tiles. He’s astounded to a degree where he can’t camouflage his scent. Only when Theo nods does he lift it, a finger on the safety, his opposite hand steadying the weapon and another finger tucked over the trigger. If he pulls the safety now Scott might barge in himself. People like him don’t understand the sometimes brutal but necessary precautions that need to be fixated in place, in order to forestall the situation from becoming an actual tragedy.

“What’s going on?” Liam asks, having apparently caught the shift of the scents in the bathroom. Scott keeps on talking away, voice low and soothing, the Sheriff tuning, too.

Theo takes the surgical pliers, braces himself. Six more to go. 

Inhale, hold for five seconds to shut down every other task in his brain but the one at hand. Exhale for five more to make sure nothing will get in the way of his concentration. And he’s rearin’ up to go.

The deeper he has to dig, the more trouble his brain has holding the alarm pacified, the more he feels the wound and the fucking movement of the instruments shifting inside him. The less he can channel the forced apathy and acceptance he’d developed after he realized the Doctors weren’t ever going to use an anesthetic despite how deep they kept going. 

And after a few more minutes of calculated plucking of bullet shards, the last one remaining is the motherfucker in his femur he’d left for dessert.

He heaves, cold sweat dripping down his face, neck, front and back. The intact parts of jeans are plastered on him like a second skin. Theo grits his teeth, hears his molars grind together. He has to pull it out, but it’s not coming out. It’s not.

Fear trickles in, quickly stomped down by the ingrained defense mechanism of partial dissociation. Melissa tries to take a step forward, her professional inclinations activating her own deeply fixed decisiveness to help those in need.

“Melissa.” Argent warns, low but pleading. An unexpected cloud of aggravation forms and clings to her. She doesn't intervene, after having received the reminder.

“We should really let one of the others—I mean, if he can’t pull it out, it’s—there’s a lotta blood is all I’m sayin’.” Stiles tries to articulate himself with his arms flinging up, and misses by a long shot. Argent must have signaled something to him; he shuts up.

Argent is firm, if with a gentle tone, when he tells them, “No.” he’s not going to be swayed.

Good.

“Liam, no.” Scott echoes him, the rumble of true alpha permeating the two words. “Theo?”

Theo halts, wasting precious time while his infrastructure is actively collapsing in on itself. “Just one more.” his voice is deliberately confident, to alleviate Scott’s situation and to hopefully convince Liam to pipe the fuck down.

When he gets a hold of the last shard with the pliers he feels the tug in his bone. At this point he can't fool himself into the argument that he's seen worse shit than a splayed open thigh and that he’s had to take care of numerous mutilated carcasses. It's different when it's his own leg he's digging into, when he's the one doing the reshaping. 

Theo pulls, almost loses balance, growling when it still doesn't come out. Argent takes a breath. With the situation at hand he can't ask for verbal confirmation that Theo is on the surface and not the caged animals.

Theo waves his free hand, in an affirmative, then runs it through his hair with how little fucks he has to spare of the blood. He looks at Argent, holds up the same hand he'd waved with and retracts his claws. He re-extends them again and looks away, slowly placing them under the thigh of his gaping leg, to show he's coherent despite the shift. He tunes everybody out, and he digs them through jeans and flesh, like hooks, a last attempt to anchor himself physically and throw his remaining strength into the last pull.

"Jesus fuck." he catches Stiles finally cover his eyes with his palm cupped over them. 

Theo pulls.

The sound is sick, not even loud, but jarring. Maybe he's biased, what with being able to feel it come free from his bone and all. 

Theo throws it, long and alarmingly blade-like, along with the pliers straight into the sink with a loud clatter. He nudges the scalpel in there for good measure and extracts the claws from his hamstring with a slick snick of a sound. He's on the floor soon after, on his back, unable to even reach for the retractor.

Melissa is at his side, burning the wolfsbane from one of the glass vials in a small metal bowl, pouring the ashes directly into the wound. Immediately after she removes the retractor so he can finally heal. He barely feels it, the burn of the ashes hurt more than usual due to the severity of the wound, or the strength of the strain. 

It's Mason and Corey who enter the bathroom when he starts experiencing minor convulsions. All the werewolves are unable to enter until the wolfsbane is properly burned, and preferably aired out.

"Mase?" Liam bangs the door, most likely hoping his best friend won't keep him out of the loop like everybody else is.

Theo is too incoherent to monitor Mason and Corey's reactions, only picks up the stinging horror in their scents, hadn't noticed he'd closed his eyes until he tries to use them and can't. Fuck it, his nose is enough. Screw sight and hearing for the moment. 

His claws haven't retracted. At one point between Melissa pouring the ashes and Mason and Corey barging in his other hand has extended the remaining claws as well. He digs them into the tiles, determined to stay conscious and track the healing process of the incision through feeling alone. 

Even when another person enters the cramped bathroom Theo doesn't extend his senses to them. A decision he wouldn't have made if coherent. Argent has a gun pointed at him, he's alone around people who would rather him drop dead, preferably permanently sent back to rot in the skinwalker prison. How low he's slumped, to not even give a damn about it. 

Theo from before wouldn't have closed his eyes on them, would have crawled to a corner to shove his back against a wall for a full visual of all exits and people in the room, would have watched them like a descending hawk for any sign of movement, no matter the pain and how tired his body felt.

Theo from the present just can't be bothered. He's too weak to fight either way. Might only put on a show just so he gets a bullet between the eyes instead of handing them ample time to reassemble Kira's sword. Can they send a corpse down there. It might be possible to lock a soul, if he has one, in that nightmarish purgatory. But that too is a back thought that is far removed from him, along with the rest of his self-preservation instincts, akin to a trance. 

Then there's a cacophony of sounds he can't seem to screen with ease anymore.

"I thought he said just nausea. Why isn't he healing?" Melissa. That's Melissa.

A wham against the door. Scott, Liam, Malia and Derek arguing, shouting and snapping, more animal than human. 

Unimportant, he filters it out.

"Uh, given how far he had to pumpkin carve himself I think any type of body, supernatural or not, would go into shock. And am I the only one seeing all the blood? Look at that puddle. There’s at least two pints in here. Outside. Not in his body, might I add." Stiles. And by the swooshing sounds, he’s manically waving his arms about. "Don't look at me like that, dad! You didn't see—"

"Not now, Stiles." ah, so the newcomer is the Sheriff. 

Corey, Mason and Argent are awfully silent. Might be the gun. Might be the lack of fucks to give. Might be the morals fighting whether they should let the psycho who wronged them so much just die already or not. Knowing Theo's luck, it's the second one. All his senses apart from hearing and feeling have fled the ship, a scary realization that should have rattled him enough into at least opening his eyes. 

"He won't stop bleeding." Melissa mutters, firmly presses what feels like a towel to his gaping wound. 

The ongoing conversations do nothing to aid the situation outside. That grates on his nerves more than his inability to heal. Liam's anger impacted him from the get-go of the amateur surgery, stalled Theo's progress enough to force him into autopilot regime, which landed him here, with his body forcibly enduring too much in a too short period of time. He knows it’s the IED taking grip of Liam's brain, doesn’t blame him for that, for something out of his control. But it always pissed him off how Liam doesn’t try even enough to find a stable anchor. Not to say he doesn’t try at all. Just not insistently, not as much of the potential will in it, sometimes too cocky that there'll always be somebody from his pack to lend a shoulder or a diversion. He has few considerations of the consequences. Then shit like this happens and he has to be contained. He's afraid of his actions, yet doesn’t extend the same amount of energy to instill a new form of grounding when, fucking evidently, nothing prior to that works anymore.

Though, that's not quite true, is it?

One thing.

One thing does work and it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t work and yet here they are, staring at the proof time and time again. The zoo, Gabe at the locker room, really any time Liam couldn't subjugate his manically careening wrath. And none of the little cretins that are his pack are doing anything to separate Liam from Theo, so he has to do it by his own will and effort.

But he's just Theo, the flashy science experiment nobody trusts because he forced them not to by himself, served his own plate of freshly plucked loathing even. Except for Liam. At least on a subconscious level. It's why Theo has separate them. He will always remain a manipulative bastard with an ulterior motive. It's the only thing he truly knows down to its core, the only outcome he's ever had to seek out, and the one art of life he's mastered. And in his current state he can't trust himself on the best of days, much less the dark and desolate ones, which presently are the predominant mood.

What if he defects again? What if he twists that instinctual trust Liam has for him and ruins him for it? What if he uses it for his own gain and destroys what makes Liam uniquely Liam? 

He tried. He can't. He can't separate them. Liam is the thing helping his ruptured seems hold against the pressure of what feels like his imminent insanity. It's not even using him as a tool to his survival. It's the child holding on and refusing to let go. And so his hands refused to sever the string. They don't want to heed his commands anymore. 

Theo's throat closes up for just a second, and he takes a sharp breath. He'd sunk too deep into his mind. He'd almost slipped under.

And he's lost time. It's less loud now. Still loud, but tolerable maybe.

His brain rebels against the noise nonetheless, smiting him with cutting pain in his ears and a nasty recollection of where he left off in his rant. He bites into his inner cheek. So meticulously structured by his desperation and enforced self-control it loathes the chaos surrounding him, currently and in general, liked it only when it benefited him while he was decimating Scott’s pack. Theo with the human emotions, unlike his brain, struggled to rein the part of him that cares all too much about Liam, almost too weak to stop it from reaching out and lending a teaching hand. Then he caved and he did. He kept on lending it. And those absolute cretins did jack shit to prevent it from happening while also doing nothing to de-escalate it. So now his ears hurt from a fucking pissing match between Liam and whoever is in his way, because his goddamn anchor's life is at stake. All because of everybody, either as a result of cretin syndrome or Theo's now poor Liam-impulse control.

There we go.

The pissed off cycle in his head should have infinite fuel, and its fumes he will emit as snark and snide comments outwardly if he can wrangle himself back online.

He can almost think. A little more spite, then.

Did he mention the McCall's pack affinity to cretinism? No? He wants to accentuate it in a neat reminder and mount it as a warning sign right in front of the cheery 'Welcome to Beacon Hills' one. He'll make it ugly, too. Just because he can.

And,

He can breathe.

It's a pathetic and lonely realization, that he has to resort to anger born out of absurd monologues for an ounce of will to live.

"Liam, shut up." he hisses out in a wrung out whisper, his fingers fully human, and incapable of latching onto the tiles with how close eternal sleep he is.

Eternal sleep sounds good, actually.

Wait. Ounce of will to live. He had that. In his hand. 

Hold, the wolf rumbles. Theo does, he holds onto it.

Miracle of miracles: quiet.

Until, "But—"

"Shut up." Theo repeats, almost inaudible. There isn't even power or command behind it, in spite of the opted words. It's a plea. He hopes Liam actually hears is, the little hand keeping that string is sure of its success.

A heart beat.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Silence.

He did hear.

Theo swallows and turns his head, cheek pressing into the cold tile in search of some solace from the fire raking havoc in his veins, from the vivid, all-consuming pain. It's kind of comforting, in a fucked up way. He's familiar with it. But with his mental walls down, the fail safes he'd developed—single-handedly constructed and nurtured year after year so he could extend his phantasm existence in this sadistic world—just collapse into charred, black dust. It's a foul reminder how little control he has over anything in his life.

In a final attempt to jump start his body he warns, "Step back. I’m gonna shift." the last part is more a warning to Argent. He’s no idea if the gun is still on him or not, better safe than sorry.

Theo shakily and with barely any remnants of vivacity turns on his side. His jeans are ruined either way, so he releases his wolf with no guilt to the lost material, no thoughts of where he’ll have to steal from again. Just instinct in its purest form.

Somebody gasps in the background as the shift takes over, the wolf crawling up to the surface to shatter the over-analyzing human's monologue and leave him with only basal senses. With that everything else can filter in, including the suffocating sounds. Theo remains curled, his wounded leg the only part of his body to stay extended, his snout almost in contact with it with how firmly he's woven into himself. 

There. 

Now he can breathe, can just be. The memories linger in the periphery, with the heinous ghosts in wait to steal his carefully conserved sanity finally shoved aside. He doesn't have to relive anything behind his eyes, doesn't have to think. There is nothing. He is practically nothing.

The wolf reacts before he even knows what's happening, baring its teeth at whoever tries to near them. 

"Yeah, nope, let's not do that." Stiles shoots out, high-pitched, and all hell breaks loose when Argent pulls the safety. 

Theo's eyes flare open and is up on his paws a moment later. The injured leg gives under him, but he has enough leverage to slam himself against the cabinet and drawers under the sink to cover his back. While in his canine form his heart rate is naturally higher, so it means that when it's thudding with the pain, the threat and the tension, it provokes the not-his heart to accelerate further and make the ache worse. Then also have him bleed faster as a result of it all. 

His ears are pinned back and flat against his skull, lying still in wait for Argent's next move. Or for his own demise at this point. Just one regular bullet and it's over, Theo is over.

The thought shouldn't make it feel like a liberation of sorts, yet does just that. 

He's started relaxing into the cabinet doors in pained and tired surrender when Scott bellows from the hallway: "Chris, wait!"

Upon a quick inspection his chemo signals are positively chaotic. He did a stellar job of keeping them at bay for the entire duration of the play and now it's come to bite him back. It's wasteful energy. Theo doesn't mind this outcome anymore. 

Not a single ounce left.

Liam must have bided his time and must have stripped himself free of all his titan keepers. He enters—barges into, more like—the bathroom. Technically, Melissa neutralizing the wolfsbane has counteracted any traces of the strain in the air that could have potentially affected the rest, it's not like there's a possibility of death, other than Theo who looks like the literal animal (monster, abomination, freak) they unanimously think he is.

Theo makes one last attempt to live and chooses that moment to lunge himself at the tub, uncovered by the curtain that's partially drawn from whoever had used the space last. Argent won't have time to shoot him and keep an eye on the unveloping drama to maintain his ground control position at the same time. He emits a high hurt noise upon impact with the inside of the tub, his jump successful even if he had to go past Corey and Mason to get there. 

Once he’s secure he coils himself tighter, the cold of the white porcelain a mild amenity to his exerted and overheated body. He pants, leg spasming with the incision having torn open further at the sudden unadvised movement. The pain has increased tenfold, not unlike acid meticulously poured on his bared muscles and flesh. He still curls it stiffly, tail poorly covering it so it's as far out of sight as it can be, in hopes that it starts healing properly. 

Silence. Complete silence. Only multiple heartbeats and scents betray the presence of the others. 

He growls, needing a little time to put together that it's Liam who took the herculean task of nearing the feral supernatural, Liam who is less than a foot away from the tub. The wolf is convinced it doesn't matter. Nowhere is safe, nobody is a friend. He's alone and more vulnerable than a child, can't even run, and it's not like it would have mattered if he could. He can't get past this room, isn't sure he'll be able to get up either. They might not give him an opportunity to find out. He can't see Argent or the Sheriff but he just fucking knows they're having a ferocious but silent argument where to position themselves for the kill shots and who gets dibs. If it was Theo he’d go for the skull, preferably one in the forehead, one through the temple just in case.

Liam remains stock still, golden eyes observing him from above and his chest rapidly going up and down with how hard he's breathing. His parted mouth reveals his sharp fangs. 

The wolf remains unrelenting in its lack of trust. While it's true that Liam might be, quite possibly, the only good thing in his forlorn reality, might be the sole person able to bring out the softer side—admittedly one Theo thought was cauterized beyond any recognition and repair that day on the bridge—of him, he's still part of the pack that sent him to what was a pure form of hell.

So what if he brought us back, the wolf reasons, he's not on our side when we're not useful.

And,

The sword was disassembled, not destroyed, it reminds him insistently.

Theo makes himself forget; the wolf never will, nor will it forgive. True, it was a deserved punishment at the time. But the reason he was brought back was to be used as what he's best at. Being a weapon with field experience, is what they'd needed at the time. And they got it. Look at him now, slumped in a bathtub filling with his own blood. Who's to say they won't open the door to Tara's lovely doom hotel any second? It's the same arguments the wolf keeps on hurling at him day after day, in different variations depending on the situation, reluctant of the weakness in the form of the one and only Liam Dunbar. It's terrified of that kid for how deep he'd dug his claws into Theo, because it's Theo who operates the body and has the biggest amount of control over it. The comedic punch is that Liam most likely isn't even aware of the immense, close to infinite, power he has over Theo.

And Theo can't get him out. Oh, he had plenty of signs. Plenty. He took none. He was stupid, just as much of a cretin as the others.

By the time he finally dedicated effort to do something about it he was already slipping in his own mental prison, and the coyote, ever cunning, had steadfastly stated its blood-lust once Theo was incapable of stopping it from vigorously pinging online. But when Theo realized it hadn't meant 'blood-lust' in the widest sense of the word, he'd known it was too late, drenched in cold sweat one night in the back of his truck with the loud ring of the consequence - the coyote wanted to sink its teeth in Liam's willingly bared throat.

To possess and be possessed.

Blood for blood, blood of a bond, not of a kill as it had initially started. One between beloveds, because no sane supernatural creature would submit the most guarded part of its body to anything but that. The cherry on top was the night after the zoo, when the wolf resonated with the same need that scantly protruded from its burial site patrolled by the inherent instinct to lash and protect from the very risk Liam posed to their safety. 

It was why Theo hauled his ass to the hospital when Scott called and asked him to. He begged. The single reason behind that act would have been Liam's, at the time, very possibly inevitable death. So Theo went.

He had his elevator moment, the downright perfect two to fuck knows how many hunters, and they took them. They took all of them. It's just a mirage, though. 

Liam won't be as trusting to do it again.

Liam is a—

Threat threat threat threat threat, the wolf's chant fragments his thoughts. Rightfully so.

"Theo?" Liam speaks with his human teeth catching the light, fangs gone. 

Theo maintains his growl. His nails clack against the tub as he tries to simultaneously become one with it and further hide his leg. It's a mistake. A spasm forces the limb to fully extend again, bringing it to Liam's attention. Golden eyes widen in slow motion, already pale face further losing all of its color. 

Liam adopts a determined look, with his brows lax and his lips pinched tight, akin to the elevator hours back when he'd said, But I will... fight with you.

Threat, he's a threat, don't let him fucking near you, the wolf frantically dictates. No other threat now means he's fighting against you. Not with. Against. You're the threat to him and his. So he's our threat.

Liam pulls at the curtain, just barely, to—

Theo clicks his teeth together. Stay away, is what he means to convey. 

Mason and Corey simultaneously exclaim, "Liam, wai—"

Liam gets in either way, starts sliding into the opposite side of the tub. 

"Oh my God." 

"Stiles, shut up." Derek hisses, also possibly the one who whacks him. 

Liam speaks no further, ever so slowly maneuvers himself inside foot by foot, even gives Theo his back for the two seconds it takes him to fully turn to face him. He brings his knees up, not to his chest, only halfway there, rests his elbows on them to loosely thread his fingers together. 

After that the only movement is from his chest and the blinks of his still-flared eyes. Their gazes stay locked but Theo makes no novice misstep and keeps his attention on everybody in the house. 

One by one, they filter out of the bathroom. 

The wolf is confused, hackles rising further. Unexpected developments rarely bring good outcomes with themselves. It's a calculated retreat to make him lose his edge, to further weaken him. Like hell he's falling for it.

Question is, why not just shoot him and get it over with so they can have their gigantic pack dinner and forget about the world, about Monroe, if for a night? Theo isn't a part of it either way.

Theo shifts his head enough to keep an eye Liam and track Scott who closes the door to leave the three of them alone. Scott sits on the closed toilet lid, mimicking Liam's position to the T, such an eerie behavior given he can't see Liam behind the shower curtain. It makes Theo question whether there's some form of telepathy between a true alpha and their first bitten beta, even though he knows there isn't because what the Doctors knew, he knows as well.

"Theo, it's okay." Scott uses the same brand of soothing intonation he'd applied to Liam just minutes ago. Theo's no imbecile. Malia, Derek, Argent and the Sheriff are outside, ready to interfere at any given moment. "Can you understand me?"

Theo ponders the pros and cons of confirming. If he does, they'll talk him into sleep with goody two-shoes speeches. If he doesn't, they'll treat him like a feral and foaming at the mouth dog they have to subdue before they tie the collar, or noose, around its neck. It's a lose-lose situation. Somehow, being irritated to death sounds better.

Theo nods his head, catching the twin sighs of relief in response to it. However, his awareness of the situation is not an equal to the clinical side Theo manages to maintain while around them. He’s still more feral than human.

"I know you shifted to help accelerate the healing process. Derek told me before, that full shift helps to lock out the loud human thoughts. So it's okay. You can stay that way as long as you need." Scott carries on, and Theo finally slants him a look.

He receives a threadbare and tired, but genuine, smile for his effort, with dimples and all. Then Scott's face goes pinched when he inevitably takes in the bloodied sink and floor, a somewhat lost and troubled expression slotting in place the more he pieces the scene to put together a better formed picture. Eh, Theo’s had worse than that, has practically seen most of his internal organs. This is nothing.

Theo tries to curl his leg once more. It seizes, forcing the muscles to grow taut and keep it straight. He tries three more times with an identical result before he ferociously digs his teeth into the fur near the incision, in silent canine outrage. Being in his wolf form makes it hard to contain such primordial demeanor, resulting in his sometimes childish eruptions.

“Hey, quit that!” Liam’s voice is firm and distressed, his palm slotting under Theo’s lower jaw to tug his head up and stop the self-destructive behavior. 

They both realize the act at the same time - Liam hauls his hand back just in time to avoid Theo’s teeth closing around the space it vacated in a powerful clack. He snarls, manages to somehow fold further into himself. Liam’s grimace is one of regret. 

“He’s burning up.” Liam states, tugging the curtain away to look at Scott. “Wolves don’t sweat, do they?”

Scott straightens up a bit, focusing on his mental resources. “No, they don’t.” he confirms. They turn to look at Theo, then at the faucet directly over Theo, and to the shower head above it. “The plug is still in the drain.” Scott adds as an afterthought, intention clear.

Theo snaps, chest thundering with the oscillation of a renewed growl. He tries to back up further, nails rattling on the porcelain bottom with his ears flush to his skull. 

Liam takes a deep breath, in an attempt to even out his scent like Scott has. He begins to lower himself on his knees, as slow and careful as a cat running from a confrontation, then braces his hands to leave most of his weight on his legs folded underneath him. He extends one arm, in the same sluggish motion. Theo tracks it, gradually shifting to the right side of the tub where the wall is. He refuses to acknowledge this might have been a deliberate manipulation of positioning on Liam’s side, to let Theo have a simultaneous view of Liam, his offending limb and Scott. 

Liam swallows, throat clicking. “I’m gonna turn on the faucet, okay? Just the faucet.” he informs Theo. He’s close now. Too close. His hand still can't reach the faucet. "Might be a little cold.” he nervously chuckles the more distance he erases. The jittery energy doesn’t extend to his limbs.

Theo’s impressed by the display of fixed and unwavering restraint, not that he’ll admit it like he did at the zoo with Mykonos.

Liam stops all of a sudden, golden eyes flickering out and back to blue, as if he’d forgotten he’d kept them flared the entire time. He catches Theo’s gaze and while maintaining it, surely offers his inner right forearm. When Theo does nothing he shakes it in his face, brings it in even more palpable proximity to Theo’s snout. It presses Theo to curl his upper lip, feeling it dimple and wrinkle as he uncovers his teeth. Liam stays, eyes intense, intending to convey a message Theo apparently doesn’t get.

“Here.” he murmurs, unimposing. “If I do something you don’t like, you just have to bite down. Alright?” 

Theo glances at Scott who hasn’t moved an inch from his seat on the toilet lid. He just shrugs, suspiciously uninvolved. 

Theo’s jaws automatically part once Liam presses his arm to his mouth, teeth clasping around soft, bare skin. Vulnerable. Neither Liam, nor Scott shout out in dismay. 

“See?” Liam gently shifts his captive arm up and down, Theo’s head moving along with it, to reiterate that he can’t get free. Theo’s fangs haven’t pierced it but the flesh under them is white from the firm pressure. “If I do anything you don’t like, you just bite down.”

Like it’s that simple. Theo feels like he’s missed pages upon pages of plot.

Liam then proceeds his journey to the faucet, with that same fucking arm. The wolf is further baffled. Heavily wounded or not, he can still tear Liam’s forearm off, even if Liam is the stronger one between the two of them. Only, Theo has an abundance of experience, cultivated from years of fights, lore examination and various physical enhancements. 

Liam is also keeping his weight on his knees and his other hand, still braced on the bottom of the tub, with no leverage. One pull from Theo and he’ll lose the balance, resulting in him falling headfirst, leaving his throat at Theo’s mercy. The other fact is, his neck is already in an exposed and defenseless position with how he has to reach over Theo to pull the faucet. Just because Theo has something between his teeth doesn’t mean he’s not swift enough to strike at it. Where Liam has the strength, Theo compensates for that weakness with speed and agility. And all of the people in this room are painfully conscious of it, from very personal and hard to forget form of experience. So this, what can only be described as trust that Liam is handing over freely, is more than a little mystifying and earth-shattering. 

Theo lurches when cold water hits his fur. 

“Shit, sorry, sorry.” Liam amends, corrects the temperature to cool. 

The noise from the falling water is too close, too loud, enough to cover up any small sounds of the house. That in itself ups his apprehension. The tub filling with crisp water mildly eats away at it, a refreshing sensation zinging up and down his spine, spreading to the rest of his fur in a shiver. He wasn’t even aware of how suffocating the heat was up until this moment. 

Once the tub is filled to whatever invisible limit Liam had set he cuts the water off. Theo’s wounded leg is above it, incision not in contact with it. Half of his coat is soaked with how the faucet had dripped directly onto it; it’d thickened recently and it’ll be a bitch to dry later. The revitalization is worth it. His hold on Liam’s forearm loosens. It’s part of the mute communication bubble - he doesn’t let go but Liam can retract it if he truly wants to, without getting it ripped apart.

With no new anxiety-inducing development his body continues the healing process seamlessly, restoring tissues muscle group by muscle group, incision and his own deep claw marks alike. Liam flaps at the accumulated water with his free palm to get his attention, nodding at his injury.

“We need to get the blood out, clean you up.” 

“Liam.” Scott steps in before Theo can show his dissatisfaction at the topic. 

“But—”

“Don’t push it.” is what Scott reminds him, not unkindly. 

And he's right. Theo won't permit touch in this state, nor will the wolf. What Liam doesn’t know is that had it been different circumstances it wouldn’t be a problem, Theo would be all too pathetically on board having that same hand in his coat.

He also finally realizes that Scott isn't here as a 'just in case Theo does lunge at them' fail safe like what they're all probably thinking. He's here to observe Liam and make sure he won't do something stupid by not reading the situation accordingly. Scott is more proficient with supernatural know-how than Liam when it comes to body language and finer chemo signals you need to be watching for in order to efficiently catch. Theo would scoff at the notion even, if every action since it's been the three of them hadn't suggested otherwise.

It's another tick in the what the fuck column in Theo's head.

Liam grumbles under his breath and settles in the tub so he’s sitting in it now, jeans soaked through and with his back to Scott. He’s not even attempting to dislodge Theo’s jaws from his right arm. He then focuses on the steadily closing cut, observing it with the same intensity he'd had for the one at Theo’s ribs, when the fiasco had started. 

Theo extends his hearing. Argent, the Sheriff, Derek and Malia are dead silent, still outside. Mason and Corey are explaining the situation to Lydia and Nolan while Melissa is trying to make Stiles shut up (ha).

“I mean it’s good you guys got rid of that bathroom rug, ‘cuz it’d be a murder-esque rug now.” Stiles continues. “How is he even—wait, is the blood gonna stain the tile grout? Oh God, I hope not. Wait, bleach! We’ll use bleach! Or hydrogen peroxide, whatever.”

“Stiles.” Melissa sighs, tired of what seems to be the end of a tirade. “Stop it.”

Theo further stretches his ears, to the birds outside. There’s the rev of engines, the lingering smell of pie from the house three blocks down, the heavy perfume the grandma on the same block uses. 

Once he’s regained some of his equilibrium he lets go of Liam’s forearm, noses his own injury whilst splaying in the tub freely, to soak more of his fur in water. He rests his jaw on the lip of the tub, stares out the window next to Scott. 

His pulse is as steady as it can get, eyelids drooping. Scott and Liam's have evened out as well. About damn time, there's finally no more worry to clog Theo's sinuses. 

He flicks an ear in the window's direction, at the sound of the approaching vehicle. The scent of freshly baked goods means it's the delivery of whatever they ordered. Dora never disappoints. 

Liam looks over his shoulder, at Scott, leaving the expanse of his throat bare right next to Theo's fucking face, the little prick. In moments like these Theo wonders if Liam truly is that dense and unaware. Being a werewolf has deepened his instincts in every sense; familial, platonic and sexual displays are altered permanently. He can't be this negligent, he's not stupid for fuck's sake.

"Liam." Scott lifts his brows expectantly. "Theo needs to change, food is here."

Liam's lips twitch. With one last glance to Theo he extracts himself from the tub, careful to not cross any boundaries. Still, a finger drags over one of Theo's perked ears, earning him a half-hearted nip. Liam snorts, but when he sees the sink the easy atmosphere melts away. His jaw works, the careful way he has to sidetrack the blood and the puddles further seems to make him tick. He yanks the door open, stomps down the hallway and stairs.

Scott uncurls himself, "There's food downstairs, if you want, and there's spare clothes in the drawer here." he taps the second pull-out drawer under the sink, on a part that isn’t soiled.

Theo nods when it becomes evident Scott is waiting for his response. Scott nods at him too, smiles and closes the door when he leaves. 

None of them talk on the way down. Theo blinks exhaustion out of his vision, shuts down his conscious supernatural hearing, entrusting it to his wolf to warn him if anything in the background goes south. 

The room being in disarray is a hell of an understatement. He sighs, waits for the wound to become pink scar tissue and shifts back into human form. There's still internal damage healing, he has to be careful with how he moves. His shower is quick and clinical, to get the dirt, grime and multiple stenches off him. 

Theo doesn't bother putting clothes on yet, takes the detachable shower head and starts cleaning the blood. It's dried up in some places, the puddle at the sink having coagulated in the appearance of nasty slime. The damn opened window has accelerated the process with the chilly air. There's a drain between the tub and the middle of the bathroom, at least. With that shit out of the way, he digs out the cleaning supplies to disinfect and erase any lingering traces of blood. 

His nose doesn't protest, in need to abolish the coating of iron on his tongue and in his nostrils. The synthetic orange fragrance covers every crevice, extinguishing the coppery stench. He abundantly sprays the tub, the tiles around the sink, the sink itself and the doors of the cabinet and the pull-out drawers. Next he scrubs all sprayed surfaces diligently, leaving the inside of the sink for last. 

Theo cleans the used steel surgical instruments, rearranges them back in their place in the first-aid kit and places it on top of the window sill. The bullets and bullet shards he props next to it, on a thick wad of toilet paper, so he can scrub the inside of the sink along with the faucet. 

The rinsing part is his favorite, watching the foam travel down the drain, leaving behind the glinting white surfaces spotless once more. Pristine. Like he was never there to soil it.

Next are the clothes and a towel to dry himself off from the second pull-out drawer - gray sweatpants, black socks and a black thermal shirt. They're a little tight on him, but he'll deal. Just before he pulls the sweatpants all the way up, he investigates the scar tissue to find it's nearly gone. The impromptu therapy session in the form of the bathroom scrub down has helped as he'd hoped it would in restoring his calm and diminishing his stress levels. 

His ripped clothes he gathers into a plastic back scavenged from one of the drawers, after he fishes his car keys out of the jean pocket and deposits them in his sweatpants pocket, ties it tight.

Theo debates throwing himself out of the window to make a hasty escape at the face of trotting downstairs and being subjected to the staring and more than possible comments. He can survive without dinner, no matter the fact that he hasn't eaten anything but the stray bagel that morning. 

Three heartbeats edge close. Scott, Argent and Melissa. 

A polite knock. 

With his plan sullied Theo opens the door. He gets to relive the instant shock from an hour ago. Only Argent hides how taken aback he is at the spotless bathroom, previously a countess Bathory's slaughterhouse wannabe-imitation. 

"Theo." Scott is admonishing, scandalized even, as though Theo taking care of his own mess is a bad thing. "Why did—you didn't have to do that!"

Theo lifts a shoulder. "I made the mess," so it's fair he cleans it. 

Melissa blows out a rough exhale, snaps her fingers at him with one hand on her hip and points in the direction of the hallway. "You, downstairs. You need to eat. Now. Nuh-uh-uh, I don't wanna hear it. Go." she points at the hallway again, brows lifting and daring him to negate her. 

Theo slips past them to see Liam close to the top of the stairs, waiting. He perks up when he catches sight of Theo, eyes narrowing as he takes him in, straying to his clothed thigh when Theo nears him. He halts a step before Liam, staring down at him. Liam seems to understand he's back to being normal. He doesn't try any cheeky shit, or to jab a joke, just turns around to lead him to the kitchen area. 

They have to go through the living room first. Theo does his best to not pay attention to any other person there. He still takes in the tense atmosphere, the suspense and watchfulness, neither one of them certain they know the Theo currently walking among them. The fact that neither Malia nor Stiles make malicious commentary is telling enough, with how much justified hatred they harbor for him. Parrish is here. Theo must have been too zoned out to notice his arrival. Not ideal. 

Once in the kitchen Liam hands him a still hot box of a whole pizza that has somehow managed to survive the ravenous horde, ham and cheese, and leans his back on the counter. 

"You do know you're not my bodyguard." Theo murmurs, blows on his pizza slice and bites in, careful not to display his zealous hunger while he's being dissected. He'd hoped there would be some of Dora's infamous bagels with three types of cheese, eggs and ham left, but alas.

"You do know you're supposed to tell a professional when you have bullets in you, especially if one is full of wolfsbane and has shattered upon impact." Liam counters with a stony voice, bears no room for reason. 

Theo catches his eyes when he swallows, ticks up a brow. It seems to aggravate him more. Liam pauses all of a sudden, glancing up, then back at Theo in a fast sequence before he pulls a face.

"Fuck's sake, Theo." Liam groans and runs a hand through his bird's nest hair. "You cleaned? Instead of, I dunno, getting something to eat before you fainted outta this life?" 

So the loyal little beta is developing a rebellious streak and listening in on his alpha upstairs. That's gonna be fun to witness when it gets worse. Any gloat dies soon after, upon realizing it's because of Theo that this issue has arisen, him and his habit to stir shit up even when there’s no need to. The prominently twisted side of him still relishes at the thought that he also has an effect on Liam.

Theo's silence gives Mason time to enter the kitchen, gaping like a fish out of water with his index finger in the air, signalling a time out. "Wait just a second here. I promise I wasn't deliberately listening in, but there’s no door here, which is not the point." he takes a large gulp of air after the word-vomit. "I'm sorry, you cleaned that massacre scene? All of it?"

Theo nods slowly, staring and casually chewing his pizza. What's the big deal anyway? Like they’ve never had to do that when one of them gets wounded. It gets crusty if it’s left for too long. What a bunch of drama queens. He’d thought only Stiles had that keen note of extensive exaggeration.

"All of it. You're not joking." here, Mason desperately seeks out Liam and points at Theo, astounded and ready to flip his lid. "Dude, he's not joking."

"Mase." 

"I'm going, I'm going." 

And Mason does leave but everybody else heard what he said. Fuck this house for not having a kitchen door.

"Let me get this straight." Stiles starts from the living room, claps his palms together just as Liam opens his mouth. "He performs literal surgery on himself, so extensive that an actual puddle of blood formed around him, and practically half of the space there was dripping with said blood, and he cleaned it. All of it?” a pause. ”All of it. This is, uh. This is, yeah, uh—I don't even know what to say." the last part is muttered in a tone suggesting he's shaking his head, eyes focused on something in the distance.

"Stiles." the Sheriff grumbles, effectively shutting him up.

Liam tilts his head back fully, hands gripping the counter so hard his knuckles go white, a wave of intense exasperation mingled with irritation flowing out of him. Theo can’t help himself, peers up through heavy lids at the prominent carotid artery that’s bulged in Liam’s ire. He takes a large swallow from his iced water, unable to swivel his sight to another point in the kitchen. He rubs the knuckle of his thumb between his brows, forcing his eyes to close.

“You still in pain?” Liam whispers so lowly that a human wouldn’t even be able to hear it, in a semblance of privacy. 

Theo licks his upper teeth, then his lips and takes another swig of water. “Nah.” 

A way Theo had figured out to lie and get away with it, as long as he's not too stressed out and relatively coherent so that his thought process isn't jumbled up, is rephrasing the words in his head and answering that question instead of the original one. He's technically responding with truth. In this case he answered, Are you still in a lot of pain?

Liam must have waited for him to let go of the glass because the moment Theo sets it down there’s a hot palm on his forearm, leading him to jump in his chair and flare his eyes. Gold meets gold, difference being that Liam is doing it intentionally. An exceedingly anemic shade of black, closer to gray really, courses up Liam’s veins for a brief four seconds. 

He’d leaned forward, one hand braced on the table, leaving them way too close for comfort, like he wants to start a dispute. “Sorry if I’m not up to believing your word for it right now.” he tells Theo in the same quiet pitch.  

“I’ve had worse.” but Theo doesn’t jerk his arm back. He does know that look on Liam’s mug, though. “Start growling and I’ll pour the ice water, along with the ice cubes in it, down your fucking pants, Liam.” his saccharine smile spreads when Liam sputters, still gold on gold.

Malia enters the kitchen, drops her usual glare to where their arms are connected and away, fleeting with the action like it’s nothing abnormal. It’s electric blue against two sets of gold for a moment, a habit more than a deliberate statement unlike Liam's eyes. She stands still, statue-like during her inspection of Theo, from his socked feet to his face. She then proceed to steals a slice of his pizza and leaves with no word in-between.

Theo and Liam share a look and Theo dislodges his arm so he can eat his pizza before somebody else decides to steal more of it. Liam is oddly still and calm, taking out his phone to text somebody. He remains with his hip propped against the sturdy table, facing Theo with his whole body. 

The overly loose body language is up to par with the majority of their interactions lately. Theo writes it up to the situation, doesn’t look into it. He’s not going to let himself slip into expecting certain behavior just because he wants its connotation to be true. 

So he eats his food at an even pace, stares through the pizza box the entire remainder of his meal. He doesn't listen in on the conversations, be it on this floor or the ones above. Not because he's trying to be a better person, fuck no. He needs to figure out a safe space to park and sleep. 

The Preserve is a good option generally, when he doesn't need to be that close to the center of the town. In this case it's not advisable. Who knows where Monroe's lunatics are hiding. He can't risk it as of yet, maybe after a couple of days, to wait and see if there's attacks on her side. She won't, he knows, she's not an imbecile even on top of having severe psychopathic tendencies. She'll run and hide, lay low for a bare minimum of a week to recuperate and feed her army more of her exquisite poison in order to help bring back the foam around their mouths. Theo's just playing it safe, needs to get proper sleep to help his body heal and return to its full strength.

"Hey." Liam taps him on the shoulder. "You're with me."

Theo blinks once, twice. "What?" 

"Sleeping arrangements." he waves his phone, the buzzing group chat on display. Mason has already given suggestions with Scott backing them up. 

Scott's with Malia in his bedroom. Melissa and Argent in the master bedroom. Stiles, Derek and Lydia in the guest room that has a bed and the old pull-out couch (with Lydia having firmly stated the bed is hers: you can take the floor, or Derek might pull his back). Mason and Corey are in the basement on one of the spare air mattresses, after winning a battle with Liam who’d wanted to be there first. Joke's on them - if it's the same ancient air mattress Theo thinks it is—and it is, Melissa addressed it the same way she did back when Theo was still a human in body and soul—then they'll regret their choice very soon. Nolan is on the couch in the living room. Which leaves Liam and Theo on the new air mattress they have to decide where to situate.

Theo frowns, the equation having not caught up with him. Why is he in there? Liam seems to misinterpret his confusion and comically frowns back at him.

"What? You have a better idea? Unless you wanna share with Nolan it's your best bet." it's not exactly sharp or hostile, there's just something lurking in the edges of Liam's words. Theo isn't in the right headspace to find out what that is. 

Next best thing is to shove the information in a mental drawer for tomorrow's imminent analysis and surmise it's Liam's annoyance at having had to choose which metaphorical evil to share the bed with - Theo or Nolan. Well, in Theo's case, actual evil. It might be that they've had to collaborate quite often lately, meaning he could stand Theo, whereas Nolan had tried to get him killed until very recently.

Theo shrugs, shoves the last bites of pizza in his mouth and looks at his empty box. He's still hungry. This is also his biggest dinner in months, he won't bitch about it.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot." Liam zooms to the right, grabs a medium cardboard box among the pile of empty ones. "Here." 

Theo knows before he opens it, the delicious scent giving it away. It's the bagel special. 

"Uh, Dora said it's just for you and that if anybody touches it she'll know and make sure none of us ever get any of her food ever again? And I sure as hell want more of that heaven, so." 

Theo huffs a laugh, more breathy than loud. "She would say that." 

He opens the box, takes his divine bagel and bites in like he didn't just polish off an entire big pizza almost all by himself, sans the one slice Malia kidnapped. He's well aware his happiness is all too prominent, doesn't have it in him to cover it up.

"Huh." Liam whispers, in all likelihood intending to keep it internal. Whatever cogs are turning in his head, Theo is genuinely too preoccupied to check it out. 

Liam's pack starts filtering in and out of the bathrooms, to clean themselves and get ready for bed. Theo works with the Sheriff and Parrish to inflate the air mattresses, in surprisingly good coordination. The topic of Theo's gory painting session is not breached but both men regard him in a different way now than they did before, like Theo's a grey area they hadn't taken into account while going over logistics.

Theo decides on putting his and Liam's mattress between the kitchen and the living room, it'll leave space for venturing in and out of both areas if needed, without having to roll your ankle or landing face first on the floor in the process. Nolan will have to deal with silent tiptoeing if he needs to use the toilet, although it might not even be necessary with the whistling coming from all the bullet holes and the broken window when the wind picks up. 

Theo observes, from his place where he's leaned on the wall half separating the kitchen and living area, how Nolan watches the swooshing evidence of his involvement with Monroe. The one that nearly killed the woman permitting him to sleep safely in her home, the same home he indirectly helped be desecrated. Nolan keeps tugging anxiously at his sleeves, counting the holes again and again and again.  And again. If his twitchy behavior is anything to go by, and by how pale and hunched in he is, he's envisioning any and every way the people in the house at the time could have been murdered. 

It's only because they're alone on this floor of the house that Theo speaks Liam, Mason and Corey are in the basement, taking turns in the small bathroom there. They'd all refused to step foot in the one Theo had used, forgoing Scott's offer when they'd learned of the one downstairs. The others are in various rooms on the upper floor, the Sheriff and Parrish having left ten minutes ago with the deal to come back in the morning. 

"Counting them won't change that it happened."  

Nolan's head snaps in his direction, expression torn open with raw remorse. He averts his eyes soon after, "I know." 

And he does know. It's why Nolan's tormented by it. Nothing can undo the actions that led to this point. Only thing he can do is earn trust by proving he's not his past mistakes, that he's not going to let that happen again. The parallels between them keep digging at Theo, leaving a bitter coating on his tongue. Then again, Nolan didn't kill Scott or manipulate every single member of his pack, now, did he?

When Liam departs from Mason and Corey he almost comments on the mutually assigned stale silence between Theo and Nolan. He keeps it to himself as he walks over to the mattress and settles down. Nolan follows his lead and lies down on the couch, bundled up in the thick blanket with his back to them. 

Liam huffs, stares at Theo upside down from his place, waving a hand in a vague the fuck are you waiting for? manner when Theo doesn't take his place next to him. He's post shower soft, the clothes obviously his as they fit him perfectly, meaning he has spares here. As do most of his pack. 

Once he's repeated it to himself a few times, in need of a psychological line between him and all of them, he takes the left side of the mattress. They stay on their backs for all of a minute before Liam turns on his side, facing the other way. Nolan is already asleep, no supernatural organism to stall his exhaustion from knocking him out. 

Theo keeps his heart and scent balanced, not keen on alerting Liam to what he plans on doing. The car keys in his pocket hadn't jiggled loud enough to betray him and Liam isn't as skilled at keeping all his senses on the ready at all times, at will. The keys sear a hole into his thigh whilst he mentally ticks off everybody under the roof. 

He can be patient. Liam is halfway asleep, the malodour of worry, rage and violence prevalent to him is the best pointer. The more indiscernible it gets, the closer he is to dreaming. He'd found that out after the zoo. 

Shortly after it's only Mason, Argent and Derek he has to wait out, then an additional half an hour to cement every person's sleep state and make his escape. He doesn't count on Liam stirring when Theo gets to his elbows, landing on his back but thankfully still asleep. When Theo sits up, a painstakingly slow progress, Liam's head shuffles on his pillow to face him. 

He wasn't aware of how deep the anchor went. At this rate, by the time Theo is on his feet and at the door Liam would wake up with how attuned he is to him. 

As is, Theo is resolute in one thing - he can't sleep here. It's fifty-fifty whether he'll have a nightmare and it's not up for debate whether he wants to risk it. He needs just one instance to get a taste of what it feels like to tumble into la-la-land in a home that smells like pack. Not his pack, logic says. But has the wolf ever listened to that? Not really. It just keeps on criss-crossing on quick paws between the lines of they're a danger and this feels like home because the heart wants what it wants and all that. 

He doesn't really have the right to want anything of that caliber. Especially with how unattainable it is. He belongs nowhere. He can't give in. If he does, recovering from it, the false sense of hope and diving into a pool labeled as 'belonging', will crumble him entirely. Resilience is his second nature when he can detach himself, not when it's both human and animal lamenting lost chances. Only one can get that luxury, and it isn't Theo. After all the pain he's put the animal through, he can give them that.

Theo does manage to slip out of the house on nimble feet, following Liam's sleep cycle on the way in case he needs to pause. He'd never planned on leaving, it wasn't in the cards. His freedom rests on his future actions and gunning it would demolish it completely. 

He gets in his truck to strip out of the clothes that hold Scott's scent and shifts into his wolf form. A leap down and he noses the door until it's almost closed, slightly ajar. A slam will wake them all up and it's not like nobody can steal his truck; he'll be awake before they even near it.

After a quick stretch he crawls under the car and curls up in a ball to fend off the cold, snout under his tail. Finally, he can rest.