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Theo knew this moment was coming (he had planned it months ago, after all): He had to kill Liam Dunbar. But what he hadn't expected was Liam coming to him, presenting himself like a lamb to the altar.
Or well, to his parked car in front of the city's Water Treatment Plant.
"Do it!" Liam shoves him into his car before Theo can fully get out of his seat, his shout echoing into the empty parking lot. It seems he had waited for him there, but Theo can't even begin to imagine how he would know this place leads to the Doctors' lair. With the red glow like an ominous spotlight shining on him, Theo almost misses how raw and irritated the skin around Liam's eyes is. Like he's been crying for days. "What the hell are you even waiting for!?"
With almost comically wide eyes, Theo watches as Liam pounces on him once more, pushing him so hard against the side of the car that Theo's elbow dents the door. It also shatters in at least 3 places, he'd guess from the sound of multiple bones cracking.
And yet… Liam doesn't try anything more, he just stares at him, half-wrathful and half-desperate. So Theo simply stares back. He could do it right now, of course. Could slice his neck with one swift movement and get the alpha spark for himself, putting Liam out of his obvious misery. The young man looks shattered, hollow. It would be almost merciful to end him now.
For some reason, Theo finds himself hesitating, though. Just like he hesitated yesterday and the day before. He's not quite sure what he's waiting for. After all, this is the plan. Liam kills Scott. He kills Liam. Voilà.
Maybe he just wants to see Liam struggle first. To see him be dealt a bad hand for once and to witness him having to push through it. He wants to see him trudging through a shit situation and realize with horror that he's utterly alone. That no one is coming to help.
The kid has had it too good and way too easy for too fucking long! He didn't do anything to deserve it, and yet, everything came to him on a silver platter of acceptance! Strength, pack, power. Liam didn't even need to ask for it and everything was delivered to him, hug and words of reassurance included. Meanwhile, Theo had to survive the sewers and the omnipotent threat of the dread doctors each day for a decade before he could get the promise of a pack!
Liam literally gets stupidly taken by a wendigo but is rewarded with Scott giving him the bite and being brought into the pack like a beloved newly born prince!? Are they fucking joking!?
A pebble gets kicked as Liam takes a sudden step back, his eyes returning to that familiar, fearful look despite pleading for death only a moment ago. Theo holds on to the fading wave of hate with both hands, and he grabs Liam's collar, watching the horror and relief mixing in his blue eyes.
Is that how he did it? By looking so young, so lost? Is that what made the pack so eager to help him? But didn't Theo look just as young? Do the 10 months between them really make such a difference or is the battle-worn look in Theo's eyes what repelled the McCall Pack's good graces? Well, Dunbar pack now, he supposes. Although, he knows very well how the other members have been giving Liam a wide berth, only Mason brave enough to speak to Liam since that night. Theo has even heard that Sheriff Stilinski, no more at death's door, is looking for him. Probably Stiles deciding that killing his best friend canceled out the fraternal bond of loyalty they had before. Theo wonders if, if he killed Liam, Stiles would be more inclined to accept him as their new alpha.
Then again, probably not.
"Fucking say something! Don't just stare at me! What is wrong with you!?" Liam screams, his voice wavering under the despair.
Uh. He didn't think being an alpha could ever do that to someone. His hold loosening around Liam's shirt, Theo realizes he can barely recognize him. The laurels have fallen and the weight of power has set in, and, as suddenly as a bubble bursting, Theo can't find anything to envy in it. His heart sinks as he understands that he hasn't spent weeks and weeks being jealous of Scott; he'd been envious of Liam. The beta who was gently protected and accepted. Who was only expected to help once in a while, nothing more. As he watches Liam practically falling to his knees in misery, like a melted Icarus, Theo finally gets it. That had been power. To be safely embraced by a pack without having to make the hard choices, to be able to live his life in its most mundane details, to keep his family separated from all of it, to keep seeing his friends and not have an entire pack to keep under his thumb and to monitor at all times. That. That must have felt like power. And freedom.
Two things he never thought he could actually have again.
Theo frowns, his hands letting go of Liam.
"You did this!" Liam shouts, a bloom of roar in his voice and his eyes flashing red again. Apparently, the indignation overpowers his fear of Theo's next move. Cutting his skin with his claws, Liam grabs both of Theo's hands back and slams them against his own throat. "So finish it!"
"I can't."
A few tears escape Liam's eyes. His mouth lies open, slightly contorted by pain. The next word that escapes him is a feeble, agonized thing.
"What?"
What's another lie at this point, anyway?
Theo takes his hands back now that Liam has softened by dread. "The alpha gene inside of you is still a true alpha gene. It follows the same rules, Liam." Theo takes a moment to breathe in, watching confusion write itself on Liam's face. Theo can't help but feel exhilarated. This might just work. Theo might just get to taste what it felt like to be Liam Dunbar. Not only that, he'd be ripped from the doctors' hold and the doctors' plans in an unavoidable and definitive way. "You'll have to bite me."
"But I… I'm not a true alpha, it shouldn't…"
"It doesn't matter, the alpha spark is the same. Don't you feel how strong it is? It's that powerful because it's a true alpha spark."
It's not like Liam could compare and call his bullshit.
Liam opens his mouth again, but he can't seem to find the words to express his confusion, and Theo takes advantage of the small moment to fix his wrinkled shirt.
"You're gonna have to bite me, Liam." Theo shrugs casually. "Make me your beta so I can steal it."
"You could die."
Theo stops wiping down his shirt, his entire body coming to a halt. He hadn't anticipated that reaction. Hadn't thought it would be an issue.
"The worry is touching, but we both know it wouldn't lie too long on your conscience."
"Not everyone is a sociopath like you!"
"I killed Scott, L-"
"No! I KILLED HIM!"
The shout is unforgiving and the volume of it makes Theo take a step back, his bruised elbow knocking the car once again. Liam's panting breaths shatter the peaceful night with the thunderous ferocity of it, but his whole demeanor changes in a split second. Liam suddenly shrinks into himself, hiding his glowing red eyes and staring at the distance between them. The distance Theo made to protect himself. Tracing red lines across his face that do not heal before many, long seconds, Liam's claws cause damage as the young man wipes his tired face with his hands.
"I c-can't control it, Theo. I can't be an alpha. I- I wasn't meant to." His chin wobbles as his voice falters. "S-so…"
A wave of exhilaration dances through his body yet again. "So?" he asks Liam, his expression muted.
Liam looks up, his eyes red but merely from all the crying and the serious lack of sleep.
"So don't die," Liam says with a tired voice before he leaps towards Theo. The action is so fast, his body is like a spring that had been pulled back for too long before it was finally released. Slammed against the ground, the back of Theo's head hits the cement with force. A scream squeezes his throat as he tries to suppress it. The fall had been pretty bad… The bite, though, that hurt like a motherfucker.
"You couldn't bite my arm!?" Theo exclaims, his voice dry from the searing pain in his shoulder.
Theo expects a sorry or another trademark Good Guy comment about hurting him but the only sound he can hear is actually Liam's growing growls. Shivers run up and down his spine before he can even look up and see Liam's crazed eyes still glowing red despite their dark pupils, and the blood all around his mouth.
It takes a long time for Liam to center himself and Theo tries not to move. The eyes finally turn blue and he gets the sense to wipe his mouth with his shirt, erasing most of the gore. His traits softening, worry creeps up on his face like high tide.
"Are you alright?"
Theo, like an idiot, tries to shrug and winces in pain as soon as he tries. To be fair, he resorted to doing this gesture because he knew that his heart would skip if he tried to lie and say that he's fine. In truth, his body is like a giant wound. Heating with fever. His skin taut and raw. His brain dizzy with pain, Theo doesn't hear Liam's next question. He can tell that Liam is staring at him, though, and that he doesn't seem to breathe.
For the first time in his long and harrowing life, Theo realizes that he might truly die. Of course, it had always been at the back of his mind for the last ten years and certainly a vague concern when, before the dread doctors, his mom and dad told him about his health issues. But, now, it wasn't just a thought. He could feel it in his entire body. The terror rushed through his cells like a seething flash of rage. He couldn't die. He didn't do all this shit for it to lead to this! Didn't scrap blood and dirt from his nails every fucking dark day of his life, didn't kill and bury and betray every person he met along the way, didn't let the doctors mutilate and rearrange him like the freaking ship of Theseus for him to die because some boy bit him!
"Fuck…" Theo whispers under his breath and that seems to scare Liam more than anything else.
"No,no,no,no,no, please! Please!" Liam mumbles hysterically not knowing where to put his hands as Theo's body starts to cramp and his very blood seems to flare in pain. "You're not dying!" he shouts at him before he starts to cry again.
His eyes rolling backwards, Theo can barely focus on anything that isn't the pain twisting his every muscle and carving through his bones. Only a slithering and cold certitude is capable of piercing the cloud of pain and it washes over him, providing him absolutely no comfort. He's going to die. This is it.
A dark part of his mind thinks that, of course, he had the perfect chance to seize everything he's ever dreamed of… and then he did a hard pivot to the left by asking for the bite. The one time he lets himself think maybe he can have it all and be part of something without having to build it first!
Hyperventilating on top of him, Liam repeats his name over and over again, ordering him not to die, but the one thing that does actually keep him from passing out, maybe even dying, is the warm hold of Liam's hands around his arm. His wolf and his coyote are screaming in his mind like stuck animals in a forest fire and Theo feels a ping of guilt. He should've thought of them more. They've always been there for him and yet he betrayed his coyote at the first chance he got, sending it to a sure death.
I guess you can't show an old dog new tricks.
Convulsing and feeling nausea creeping up from the amount of suffering he's been in for the last few minutes, Theo thinks that, of course, even his death is a pain to go through.
And then his mind snaps and he takes one last breath in. His body melts into the ground, his lifeless eyes pointed at the open sky.
With a hiccup, Liam's sobs start again, and he shakes Theo, murmuring things he can't even hear himself. Utterly alone, Liam feels his head pounding like an alarm. He just killed another person! Didn't even put up much of a fight, he just did what he was told. Scott wouldn't have done it. Scott wouldn't have been this stupid!
Clutching the corpse, he only separates himself to punch it a few times, hoping for some kind of reaction. But the corpse stays silent. Liam's way out crumbles in front of him like an old castle, and Theo's plan - the only thing that made sense of what Liam has gone through - escapes in the light breeze like a wish unspoken. His crying is so loud by that point that he doesn't hear it when Theo suddenly inhales, but the subsequent coughing attack shakes his heart like a defibrillator and he jumps several feet away. Gobsmacked and struggling to catch his breath, Liam ends up coughing just as much as Theo, but his eyes never leave the resurrected boy.
The first thing he smells is fear. The second, werewolf. Despite the stench of blood invading his nose with each new exhale, Liam can still distinctly recognize that familiar scent he has grown to associate with Scott, Derek, and Peter. Werewolf. Definitely werewolf.
Sitting up, the no-more-chimera goes over his entire body with trembling hands. Glowing blue eyes shine through narrowed eyelids as he tries to catch his breath, and Liam has never seen him looking so shaken, so small.
Despite it all, Liam folds in on himself in deep relief and lets out a curse as a weight - the additional weight that would have brought him down and kept him cheek to pavement forever - lifts from his shoulders. Yet, as soon as the initial ease settles, a haunted look covers his face as he remembers why he bit Theo in the first place. And, sitting on the ground, Liam stays there, bracing himself for what's to come.
Although he finally managed to get his breathing under control and seems to understand that he's still in one piece, Theo takes several long minutes to gather himself. A shiver runs down Liam's spine as he watches a true smile form on Theo's face. Still, the boy doesn't move and Liam can't shake the feeling that something is wrong.
"Are you okay?" he ends up asking, his voice gentle despite his body being tense from waiting for the fatal blow.
Theo snorts, the care in the alpha's voice amusing him. It does the opposite to Liam.
"Then stop taking your time and just kill me already!"
Theo gets up, agile and poised. "Mmmmm…" he says, showing hesitance as he winces at Liam's statement, and Liam's eyes widen as Theo's real intentions unfold in front of him like a red carpet made to make him trip. "Is that really such a good idea, Liam?"
His face finally turns so his gaze can fall on Liam who is still sitting on the ground, and that look pierces through Liam's flimsy defenses. Mouth open, Liam's face loses several shades as horror distorts it. "What!?" A bloom of red, embarrassed blush slowly covers his pale cheeks.
"Do you really think that giving me the alpha spark is such a good idea? What would the pack think of that? You willingly giving it to me?"
"There's no pack right now! I killed the pack! They all hate me!"
Bringing his hand to the drum of pain on his shoulder, Theo can see that the wound is no longer bleeding. Only after this does he snap back into the conversation, a new lightness washing away the infinitesimal worries of what now feels like a past life.
"But not as much as they hate me. They know I was the one to point you to Scott. They know I was with the dread doctors and that I killed Josh and made Stiles kill Donovan. I made chaos of what was supposedly the grand, impressive true alpha's pack! And all of that, while being a simple, puny chimera. Who knows what I could achieve as an alpha? Isn't it a better idea to keep it out of my grasp? Isn't that what an alpha would do? …Isn't that what Scott would do?"
Theo bends down in front of Liam's small form, ignoring the boy's deep, angry breaths.
"They're grieving right now, yes. But they will come around."
"I'm going to prison, you fucking asshole! A-and I deserve it!"
Theo straightens himself once more, enjoying the stability of being one and not a chimera of creatures born in a bloody, windowless lab. He smiles, delighting in the simplicity of having someone else be in charge. Still, Theo figures that he owes Liam a few favors. So fine, he'll help his distraught alpha.
"Not true. You'd get juvenile detention at best. You're still a minor. But you don't need to fuss about it, I'll take care of it."
"Don't!"
"Don't worry, I won't kill the Sheriff of anything. I'll just… make them see sense again. And maybe some of the evidence gets lost along the way."
Just like a switch being flicked, Liam suddenly stops shaking, and that's when Theo realizes there had been a tremble before. Staring at him, Liam waits a few heavy seconds before he asks, "And why would you do that?"
Theo smiles at him. "Isn't that what betas do for their alphas? Help?"
Visible shivers run on Liam's skin, leaving him even more of a wreck.
With a grin, Theo lets his eyes finally wander elsewhere before he turns on his heels and starts walking towards his car.
"THEO!!"
The scream is more desperate than angry but something in it, in the growl of it, rattles Theo down to his guts and connects to his core. His feet stop before he can even process the scream. Taking a shaky breath in, Theo focuses on keeping composure, trying not to show how unmade he becomes under this type of control.
"We both know you did all of this to become an alpha. So if you're doing this to torture me and wait a few weeks before you kill me… don't."
Turning around to face him, Theo tilts his head and smiles again. "Had a change of heart." He shrugs.
"Right."
"Besides," Theo says, his eyes going up and down Liam as he towers over him, "red looks pretty good on you."
Liam can't find any words to say and he stays there well after the car has left the parking lot. Now alone, Liam looks around him, almost expecting someone to help him or maybe kill him, he's not sure which one he's hoping for. Feeling this surge of emotions rising and rising and rising until he can't think, Liam hits the concrete under him until he bleeds and then cries. But despite it all, despite the shitstorm that has been consistently growing for the last few weeks, there's a sudden string of balance, of grounding. He can almost hear his heartbeat still, even if Theo is now impossibly far. Somehow, he can feel his fragile exultation just as if it were his own. Without knowing how, Liam knows he could always search within to know Theo's emotions. He could always tell if he needed help or if he was perfectly fine.
Closing his eyes, Liam lets his back hit the ground and he focuses on this heartbeat. This new heartbeat pulsing from within him like a beat under a big, fluffy pillow.
Buzz!
Snapping his eyes open, Liam fetches his phone out of his pocket.
Mason
DONT BE MAD! I JUST NEEDED YOU TO STOP GHOSTING ME AND AVOIDING EVERYONE!!!!
Well, that can't be good. Liam's arm drops to the ground, his entire body empty of any energy. His phone makes a shkrak! sound as it hits the cement and Liam wants to cry again. The phone must not be completely broken because it buzzes yet again.
Stiles
we need 2 talk
Liam thumbs up the text and then actually starts crying, lying back down on the dirty concrete, blood still covering his face and nails.