#you ever think an unhealthy amount about all the times scott tells liam the things he wished he’d heard? cus i do.

[toastybugguy]

“Liam, it’s okay.”

“They can’t see me like this… like…”

“Like a monster?”

For @scottappreciation ’s Scott McCall Week 2023 — Day Two: Quote

[onlymorelove]

fic: We are made to bleed (and scab and heal and bleed again)(3/4)

Title: We are made to bleed (and scab and heal and bleed again)(¾) Fandom: Teen Wolf Relationship: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken Characters: Theo Raeken, Liam Dunbar Summary:  What doesn’t bend, breaks. (Liam and Theo both have questions.) Rating: T Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms,  Liam Dunbar needs a hug, gratuitous Florence + The Machine references Chapter Title: “The laws of physics bend, when you touch my hand.” A/N:  Thank you, @tabbytabbytabby & @eclecticklutz , for giving me song suggestions when I was looking for additional angsty tunes. :)

Read under the cut or on AO3.

The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my skin But as the embers of the summer lost their breath and disappeared My heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within But then he rose, brilliant as the moon in full And sank in the burrows of my keep And all my armor falling down, in a pile at my feet And my winter giving way to warm, as I’m singing him to sleep

— Fiona Apple, “Pale September”

Early September, and the summer heat that had girls and guys alike turning bare shoulders and legs toward the sun eases into crisp hints of the fall chill still to come. If Liam closes his eyes, it bites at his nose, the faint, bitter scent of rot and decay wrought by dry, crumbling leaves and broad swaths of grass that have gradually shifted from the brilliant green of a lacrosse field to dull brown.

Green. Brown. The mix of which Liam finds in the quicksilver flash of Theo’s eyes.

Seasons turn; civilizations die. If there’s anything history has taught Liam it’s this: change and death are the only constants in an inconstant world. And yet— 

Without the sun’s rays to warm him, goosebumps rise on Liam’s bare forearms. When his bedroom started to feel too small, shoving against each one of his boundaries; when all the oxygen in the atmosphere seemed to have fled, and his lungs struggled to pull in the air his brain said his body needed; when that scalding ball of rage started simmering in his stomach, he’d opened his window, jumped out, and run.

He’d only been wearing a loose pair of sleep pants. The fact that he was shirtless hadn’t mattered at the time. But slowing down enough to think instead of just acting on impulse when he’s angry hasn’t been one of his strengths for a long, long time, if ever. Now he’s cold, even wearing the t-shirt Theo had forced on him. He’s grateful to the other boy for loaning him a shirt. For saving his ass, yet again.

Why does Theo even bother? What anchors him to Beacon Hills? He could go almost anywhere, and the thought of having that kind of freedom—the freedom to choose—fills Liam with sour jealousy.

Scott never asked him if he wanted to be a werewolf, something to be feared, hated, and threatened by a slavering mob; he bit him when they were still strangers and then offered hollow platitudes like “The bite is a gift!” after the fact.

(Nor did anyone ever ask Liam if he wanted an asshole for a fa— He’s not thinking about that. Nope, not going there.)

The shirt Theo tossed him to wear smells like cheap laundry detergent and Theo’s truck, and Liam really, really doesn’t want to think about what it might mean that as he stands in the darkness and drinks in the combined scents like a man who’s been wandering in the desert for a hundred years, throat parched, skin blistering, his wolf whines piteously and throws itself against the bars of its cage in an effort to get closer to Theo.

Theo, for his part, watches him, hands in his pockets and head angled down the slightest bit because of the few extra inches of height he has on Liam. He holds his body perfectly still except for the slight furrow between his eyebrows.

Questions curl in the night air around them, in the space between one breath and the next. But Theo doesn’t voice them. His gaze glides skyward for a moment, luring Liam’s attention to the sleek line of his throat. Then he looks to Liam again, endlessly patient in a way most people stopped being ages ago, if they ever bothered in the first place. That patience is a dangerous thing because it catches in Liam’s throat and his hands; makes him yearn to forget caution and tell Theo things—important things.

Theo had called himself a murderer and a liar. Liam saw no use in arguing against that. But since Liam had released Theo from his underground prison, he’d risked himself to help. When he rinsed the blood from Liam’s battered hands, his touch was gentle, even careful. Is a person merely the sum of his sins, or is there room for a more complicated calculus of morality in their supernatural world? Just thinking about it makes Liam (more) tired.

Moonlight carves harsh lines and casts strange shadows onto the unreadable mask of Theo’s face. All the color has leached from his skin, leaving him pale as a marble statue. As untouchable, too.

Liam shivers. Not from the cold that’s seeped into his bones, though. From holding back.

He wants to touch.

Theo’s pulse thuds even and regular, giving away nothing. Not panic. Not fear. Not awareness of the war raging within Liam.

Must be fucking nice, Liam thinks with no small amount of resentment rising inside him in a bitter, towering wave, to be able to hide what you’re thinking so completely. His hands curl into fists at his sides. The movement sends small glimmers of pain jolting through Liam’s almost-healed skin and bones. A confusing tumult of feelings Liam doesn’t want to name riots inside his chest, making his breath sough a touch faster. To name something is to give it meaning and power; Liam is tired of things having power over him. His IED. The moon. His alpha. Hunters. The Anuk-Ite.  

Nevertheless, he wants— He wants to draw closer to Theo. He wants to plant his hands against Theo’s chest just long enough to feel the throb of his heart and the hot tide of blood rushing through his veins under his palms, and then shove him back until he stumbles. He wants to set his hands to the hard planes of Theo’s cheek and jaw; wants to slide his fingertips over that skin like he’s reading braille and check for the rasp of overnight stubble. He wants to hear Theo’s heartbeat stutter. He wants to make it stutter—in shock; in arousal; in something.

In his chest …  In the whorls of his fingertips … In the storm-heavy electric pressure behind his eyes, Liam wants.

Above all, Liam wants to claw through Theo’s composure and leave him as wrecked and bloody and off-balance as he feels. Why should he get to stand there and look like nothing and no one can touch him or hurt him or make him feel, when Liam is an open wound spilling blood and guts out on the uncaring ground at his feet?

Liam’s body doesn’t feel big enough to hold everything itching and clamoring beneath the surface of his skin. With his breath held, he watched Theo take a dying Gabe’s pain. Tributaries of black swam up Theo’s corded arms, and now, Liam wishes Theo would take his pain. Wishes he could.

He’s not oblivious to how Theo watches him. Watching: he’s always watching Liam. There’s a quiet, patient quality to the way he watches Liam. Theo studies him like a scientist. He observes Liam with those kaleidoscope eyes, as if just the act of looking is enough. As if Theo knows that if he simply bides his time and waits long enough, Liam will act.

(Theo’s not wrong.)

Be careful; he knows you. Liam doesn’t want to be known like this. Liar. He doesn’t want to be understood. Liar liar, everything on fire. Sometimes Liam wonders exactly what Theo knows and understands about him from all the watching he’s done.

What is Theo waiting for? Liam is exhausted from all the waiting and being watched.

One sharp exhale and Liam stands in the sacrosanct bubble of Theo’s personal space, hand stretched over his breastbone. Things crack and splinter inside Liam as he listens to Theo’s heart and feels it, too, in stereo. He taps his fingers against Theo’s chest in time with his pulse, gratified when the tempo increases.

Finally, the scientist is gone. What’s left in his place is a boy looking down at Liam with ancient, shadowed eyes growing slowly wider the longer Liam tap tap taps.

“You first, Theo. Why do you keep trying to save me?”

Theo hesitates, then takes a deep breath. Another. If Liam didn’t know better, he would say Theo’s calming himself.

*** Liam is the warning prick of claws against the carotid arteries in Theo’s neck. A single swift slash and Theo’s blood would jet in a brutal crimson arc. 

Theo’s prime directive is survival. In spite of that, he doesn’t know how to step back from Liam.

A hand at Theo’s chest, Liam’s hand, holds him in place. His fingertips drum in time with the cadence of Theo’s heart. Through a layer of cotton, through strata of skin, Liam’s touch scalds. It transforms fabric and flesh alike to ash, burning through every one of Theo’s defenses, until Liam’s hand curls around Theo’s naked, pulsing heart. Around the heart Theo stole from his sister.

“Because you saved me,” Theo replies, voice hoarse, and speaking the words is like vomiting shards of glass. Liam’s mouth draws down in a frown. “How?” He leaves one hand resting on Theo’s chest, but the other drifts to Theo’s jaw, strokes lightly, the motion seemingly absentminded.  A sigh breaks from Theo’s lips. “You know how, Liam,” he answers, wondering if there’s blood dripping from his mouth. 

“No, Theo, I really don’t. You know why?”

Theo shakes his head.

“Because you don’t talk.”

“I talk plenty, Liam.”

Liam’s fingers stop their stroking and flick Theo in the chin. “Not about yourself, you don’t. So talk to me now.” Command and plea twine in Liam’s voice, jerking at the choke collar that circles Theo’s neck.

Bile rises in Theo’s throat, thick and sour. Theo closes his eyes; he can’t look at Liam while he says this. He can’t bear to see the horror and condemnation that are sure to follow, even though he knows he deserves it all—and more.

“That heart you feel beating under your hand? It’s not mine. It’s … It’s my …” Coward. “It’s Tara’s. It’s my sister’s.” Theo coughs and attempts to gather the tattered rags of his courage around him. “I killed her.”

“I know you did.”

“You asked, Liam. Let me finish.“ The brusqueness in his tone, he almost regrets it. But he has to finish this while he still can. “It was winter— The creek was icy. She begged me to help her. But I … I just stood there and let her die so the Dread Doctors could give me her heart.

“When Kira split the ground open with her sword, Tara pulled me down. She wanted her heart back. She came for it. Again and again and again, she ripped it out of my chest. It’s hers.” Theo’s shoulders snap up and down in a shrug he hopes appears careless. “She wanted it back.” He laughs, the sound wet and humorless. “She still wants it.” Though his voice remains steady, Theo’s body is anything but. He’s quivering, unbalanced, teetering on a serrated blade. “That’s what you saved me from, Liam.” That’s why I’ll do almost anything for you, he thinks but doesn’t say.      

Theo clasps Liam’s hand, intending to pull it from where it still sits against Theo’s chest. Being touched like this feels nearly unbearable. He doesn’t deserve it, and as soon as Liam’s head clears enough for him to process the immutable reality of what Theo’s done, surely he’ll regret touching him at all. Better to get it over with now.  

But Liam’s grip tightens, and Theo is left holding their joined hands to his own chest.

“Open your eyes, Theo. Look at me.”

A/N: I swear I’m going to put these guys out of their misery and end this in the next chapter. If you’re up to commenting, I would love to hear what you thought. Should you feel like it, you can tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly; it’s all okay. :) Regardless, thanks for reading. 

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