Archive of Our Own

Theo’s apartment all the way on the edge of town might be kind of shitty, always cold, and still mostly-unfurnished even after months of living there, but he’s really not complaining - No matter how often the vents’ constant rattling sets off his fight-or-flight instinct whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night or how the faded old wallpaper always looks a little dingy around the corners even after sinking at least a hundred dollars into various cleaning products to fix it, it beats getting yelled at by the Beacon Hills deputies every time he tries to get some shut-eye out in his truck because the system hates the homeless by a longshot. Sure, maybe the place looks and smells like its last resident was a heavy smoker and the landlord isn’t the most pleasant person in the world, but it’s his, and more importantly, it’s a quiet place to go to be alone. After a long day of working at the supermarket in town, Theo definitely needs that.

Theo is pretty obviously not the type of person anyone would ever suggest putting in a customer-service position what with his general dislike of people and talking to them, so after a full day of having to deal with just that, he has to take a few minutes to recover. As soon as he gets through the door, he takes off the plasticy green employe vest and heads straight to his bedroom, which is pretty much just a full-size mattress on the floor and a couple of battered old boxes serving as a dresser in the corner to hold what little else he owns, so that he can flop down on his back and shut his eyes to the world for a little while. He can’t count on one hand or even two the amount of times a week he gets asked “where is the [insert product here]?” while he’s in the middle of restocking the item they’re looking for right in front of them. He knows that he really has no room to complain, since the job pays enough for a cheap place if he skips a few meals and there aren’t a lot of businesses willing to hire someone who played a part in the entire town being effectively ripped apart just a few months back, but that kind of thing does start to weigh on a person after a while.

So that’s why Theo likes his gross apartment with the stale cigarette smoke smell and the patchy stained carpet - nobody can touch him here. It’s far enough away from the heart of town that nobody comes looking for him if they don’t have a good reason for making the drive, so if anybody wants to contact him for anything else, they have to call or text. He doesn’t really have to worry about that possibility, either. Ever since Scott and the rest of the older members of his pack filtered out to go to their respective colleges, seeming to take a lot of the supernatural strain on the town with them, there haven’t been a lot of reasons for anyone to get in touch. Nobody needs an extra in a plan, nobody needs help disposing of a body, and nobody needs their life miraculously saved, so Theo can keep his ringer on with confidence that it won’t annoy him.

Well, that’s what it’s like most of the time, at least.

Theo’s laying back on the mattress, arms up behind his head with his eyes closed, when his phone chimes and vibrates where it’s sitting right next to his head and has him snapping out of his accidental drift-off. He makes a point of scowling at the locked screen as he goes to reach for it, sitting up and blinking a couple of times to get his eyes back in focus to look at the notification.

Liam (11:24 PM) - do u think i could ask u a favor

Theo looks at the message, temporarily forgetting his irritation. If anyone’s going to text him, it would be Liam - he’s always been the one to remind him about ‘pack meetings’ that have Theo more often than not making excuses not to go to them - but Theo has no idea why Liam would be coming at him with this. He’s not sure what made Liam think that he’s the person to come to when he needs a favor from someone.

Theo (11:26 PM) - What is it?
Liam (11:26 PM) - could u maybe possibly kind of drive me to school tomorrow ?

Theo blinks again, both at how quickly Liam replies and at what he sends. He’d barely even noticed that August had faded into September, the start of the school year being the last thing on his mind. 

(He’d given up on getting a diploma a long time ago. It’s kind of hard to explain a sudden four-month absence caused by being in hell and then fighting a bunch of weird ghostriders and deranged werewolf hunters, so, no. He hasn’t re-enrolled.)

It also just feels kind of weird to think about Liam and the others doing something as simple and human as going back to school after all that’s happened, but he guesses that that was exactly what Scott McCall and his friends did ten times over without any trouble at all, even after Theo had tried to-

Right. Theo has to push through the sudden twist of guilt in his chest to refocus on the task at hand instead. Thinking about it, he doesn’t particularly want to wake up at seven in the morning just to drive Liam to school - his later shifts at work every day allow him to wake up at ten o’clock with no problem - but then again, he’s not sure he’s up to enduring Liam’s huffing and puffing about it if he refuses. One of the many things that Theo has picked up on from afar is that when Liam doesn’t have to be serious in the face of a life-threatening situation, he acts like a regular eighteen-year-old boy, which is to say that he’s still kind of a child. Theo will never hear the end of his whining if he says no.

Theo (11:31 PM) - Fine. Be waiting outside your house when I get there. Don’t be late.

Once again, Liam pops right back up, and Theo idly wonders if he was actually sitting by the phone waiting like it seems.

Liam (11:31 PM) - !!! thank you !!!! :)

Theo sighs deeply and puts his phone back on the mattress before laying down and closing his eyes. Maybe this won’t be terrible. If he gets up early and doesn’t give in and go back to sleep after getting home, he could go to the grocery store and see if there are any earlier shifts that he can pick up. He could drive the fifteen minutes from his place to Liam’s house, the fifteen to the high school, and then another five to the store so that he can work an additional eight to two. It’ll make his day less boring and put some more money in his pocket as well as help him avoid Liam’s whining at him for the next week and a half, so it’s not a bad plan.

Besides, if Theo had to pick someone to drive somewhere, he’d pick Liam first. Then again, he’d pick Liam first for a lot of things, like who he’d want to go on a mission or stakeout with or who he’d give his hand in marriage to.

Wait. Not that last one. That’s not a thing that Theo thinks about. It would be really dumb if he did, so he most certainly doesn’t.

Pushing that way to the side, Theo resigns himself to setting an alarm on his phone for way too early in the morning and gets started on getting ready for bed much sooner than usual. Normally he stays up until at least one o’clock, but if he’s going to work an extra shift and endure a ride with Liam, he’ll need the rest.

The term ‘endure’ is, of course, used very loosely.

---

Theo has a lot of pretty useless information stored up in his head from the past, the stuff he’d made himself learn and memorize in order to put some stupid master plan into play, so he already knows where Liam’s house is without needing to ask him for the address. He’s forgotten the exact locations of the other pack members’ houses by now, but Liam’s turns out to be one of the little bits and pieces that have stuck around. He’s trying really hard to convince himself that that’s just a coincidence.

Anyway, Theo is kind of grateful for that useless information now, since he pulls up 83 Walnut Drive at seven-thirty on the dot. Unsurprisingly, Liam isn’t waiting outside for him when he gets there, but he also doesn’t pull right away from the curb and keep going like he’d threatened to. He’s not that much of an asshole.

While he waits, he looks at Liam’s house. While he knows Liam’s address off the top of his head, which is pretty damn stalkerish in itself, he’ll give himself credit for never actually having been there before. It’s a big property separated from the neighboring houses with thick oak and maple trees with a large, well-manicured front yard, flowers and bushes lining the stone walkway, and the house clearly has at least two stories making it up. Theo absently remembers that Liam’s stepfather is a doctor at the newly repaired hospital, the thought cut short in the middle when he catches movement in one of the lower windows.

That movement turns out to be Liam, the front door opening a second later, and Theo watches through the passenger side window as he waves goodbye to someone inside. He shuts the door with a contented smile on his face, holding a couple of notebooks under one arm and the strap of his backpack slung over the other, and makes a point of it to get down the front path and to Theo’s truck as quickly as he can.

Liam opens the passenger side door and hops in, slinging his bag off of his shoulder and into the footwell as he settles in. “Hey,” He greets, sounding a little breathless as he reaches for the seatbelt. He plugs it in and looks up at Theo with a bright grin on his face that leaves Theo kind of stunned. He doesn’t think Liam’s ever looked at him like that before. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Don’t mention it,” Theo manages after a second, shaking his head a little to himself as he puts the truck back in drive. As they pull away from Liam’s house, he sees a woman who must be Liam’s mother coming out and locking the door behind her, dressed for work and explaining why Liam doesn’t have another ride, and getting into the only remaining car in the driveway. She beams at both of them when she sees them there, waving and mouthing a ‘thank you’ to Theo, which he really doesn’t know how to feel about. He thinks her gratitude would feel a lot less wrong if he didn’t know she was giving it out to a literal murderer who’s taken her only son into his vehicle.

On a different note, Theo’s driven the much longer distance between the abandoned zoo and Scott’s house while Liam was there before, but that was when he was either half or fully passed-out, so it feels a lot different to be driving with him in the passenger seat like this even though it’s only fifteen minutes. This isn’t driving into danger or coming back from a near-disaster, frantically searching for car keys in a box full of them or Liam rubbing his cheek in a place that should’ve bruised; It feels simple, casual. Familiar, even though it’s not at all. Every so often, Theo will glance at him out of the corner of his eye the same way he that did the night they’d been to the zoo, and instead of holding his hand in front of his forehead to make sure he didn’t loll forward too much with the motion of the truck, Theo’s hands stay on the wheel and he finds Liam sitting there with that same little smile on his face, staring out the window or down at the supplies in his lap. Sometimes he’ll even be fidgeting with some of them, fingers rolling around the spiral of his notebook or wrapping around one of his pencils as he bounces a little in his seat. Each time, Theo has to stop himself from rolling his eyes, but it’s far from being because he’s annoyed. Of course Liam would be the kid who’s actually excited for the first day of school.

He guesses that he understands. He had never been particularly excited about getting a job at the grocery store, but he gets the appeal of doing something so ordinary and uneventful after all they’ve been through. That must be why Liam’s holding some of those school supplies in his lap, just to touch them and look at them and soak in that he’s really going to school, that he gets to go to school. It makes Theo think about the fact that Liam must have gone shopping for all these in some brightly-colored back to school section somewhere, debating over packs of pens and colors for folders with more criticism than anyone over twelve needs to put into it, and the concept is just as kind of sad as it is stupidly cute.

Theo spends a lot of the rest of the trip wondering what the hell happened to him to make him start thinking that things are cute - probably literal hell, now that he’s thinking about it - but it actually feels like it’s been no time at all when he finally pulls into the school parking lot. He glances around at the place with a weird sense of nostalgia as the sounds of Liam excitedly unbuckling his seatbelt and gathering up his things again fill the cab.

Considering how off-the-wall Liam’s been the whole ride, it surprises Theo when he doesn’t immediately slam the truck door shut and take off towards the building when he gets out. Instead, he leans into the empty space, one arm braced against the roof and head still leaning in, and smiles. 

“Thanks for the ride,” He says with genuine appreciation in his voice, soft and kind. It sounds natural coming from him even though Theo hasn’t had the pleasure of hearing anything more than the opposite too often before now. Before Theo can think of a response that sounds casual enough, Liam’s head tilts to the side just a little and he looks at him curiously. “...What’re you doing today, anyway? Since you’re not in school, I mean.”

The pack knows about Theo’s apartment and that he kind of has his life together, but they don’t really know many of the details. He’s had the misfortune of running into Malia when she happened to be there during one of his shifts at the store, but that’s pretty much it; Nobody except Liam ever actually brings it up in a context that isn’t a thinly-veiled attempt to make sure he’s not up to something again, so Theo hasn’t really told them much of anything. 

It’s been long enough that he’s not really sure how to start now, not without Liam asking a million follow-up questions as he tends to do and make himself late on the first day, so he doesn’t try too hard. He just gives his regular, vague answer that he has down to a T, complete with the noncommittal shrug. Maybe another time. “I’ll be around,” He says, knowing it’s not nearly good enough of an answer for a guy like Liam, so he’s not surprised when Liam doesn’t budge for a few more seconds. 

He looks like he wants to say something else, try to pry more out of him, but someone - presumably Mason, if the way Liam’s head snaps up is anything to go by - calls out his name from up towards the doors and he has to go. 

Liam’s slightly-disappointed expression sticks around a second longer, but it thankfully fades back into appreciation quickly. “Than’s again,” He says, finally shutting the door and heading off in the direction of his friends, and Theo can’t say that he isn’t a tiny bit relieved; Liam’s scent this close has always kind of overwhelmed him. Liam has always kind of overwhelmed him.

He watches him go meet up with everyone, but as soon as Liam’s out of sight, Theo sighs and turns the engine back on. Considering that the last time he’d been to this school was because he was still running his sham of a sob story, playing the poor little former best friend who’d been bitten and abandoned and in need of an alpha to help him, it probably wouldn’t be great if someone were to recognize him. Besides, this place gives him an unpleasant sense of nostalgia that has his spine straightening up a little more. He can see the overhang near the front doors from here, and it reminds him of the night he’d returned, the night he’d started to make himself the villain in everyone’s - Liam’s - story, which he’s already reminded of so often. He doesn’t need another one.

With a deep breath that comes in too shakily for his liking, Theo backs out of his space, leaves the parking lot, and drives off towards the grocery store to see if he’ll get lucky with another shift.

---

Theo gets home that night feeling especially tired from his lack of sleep and the additional work he’d gotten to do, so as soon as he gets home, he gets out of his clothes and right into the shower so that he can get ready for bed. He spends extra time in there running his hands through his hair, near-shamelessly imagining that they’re someone else’s fingers rubbing gentle circles into his scalp and the base of his skull instead. He’d be content to sit there in his pathetic daydream for a few more hours, but he only gets around twenty minutes in when the hot water tank apparently decides that he’s taking too long. He rinses the rest of the soap out with cold water a lot less enthusiasm.

He gets dressed in nothing but a pair of sweatpants after drying himself off, sits down on his mattress as always, and lays down as he reaches for his phone. He’s checking it more for just the time, but he hadn’t heard it chime when he’d been in the shower, so there’s another few messages waiting for him when he unlocks it.

Liam (11:45 PM) - do u think u could do me another favor
Liam (11:45 PM) - would it be ok if u drove me to school again tomorrow ?

Theo rolls his eyes to himself but his thumbs are already on the keyboard as he does it, and he kind of hates himself for what he knows he’s going to type.

Theo (11:59 PM) - Fine.
Liam (12:00 AM) - :)))))

Theo knows as he stares blankly down at his screen that this is going to become a vicious cycle if he lets it become a thing, especially if Liam is going to keep responding to every text with those stupid smiley faces. Fuck Liam. Fuck Liam for somehow managing to make his texts that specific brand of Dunbar-cute that Theo hates thinking about. It’s not going to be a thing.

---

Because Theo is apparently a grade-A schmuck now, it becomes a thing.

After the fourth night in a row that Liam texts Theo full of hope asking for another ‘favor,’ Theo decides to just give in and tell him that he doesn’t need to ask anymore. It definitely makes him seem like even more of a pushover than he already is, but every morning after that at seven-thirty sharp, he finds himself rolling up to Liam’s house just as Liam is getting out, and it becomes a routine far more easily than it really should.

Sometimes they talk on the way, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes Theo plays music, sometimes Liam commandeers the AUX cord, and sometimes they go without music entirely. Either way, they both get more comfortable with the arrangement as time goes on, and it makes it hard for Theo to really be that mad at himself for sealing his own fate. Liam starts to do things like use the cupholders between their seats and screw with the knobs on the dashboard as he gets more confident, and Theo stops feeling like there’s something inherently weird about having Liam there by his side and some of the tightness in his chest lets up. Most importantly of all, it makes Liam happy, which Theo has kind of a hard time reconciling with as apparently being one of his priorities now.

Things run smoothly as they are, but once lacrosse practices start up for real again a week into October, their arrangement starts to evolve.

It’s at the point where Liam has long since gotten comfortable with talking to - or, more frequently since it’s early in the morning, talking at - Theo on the way to school, and Theo has learned firsthand that as well as talking in general, Liam seems to love to complain. That’s not to say that Liam’s ranting isn’t interesting, because it is, always peppered with overexaggerated comparisons and retellings of things that happened; He just doesn’t really know what to do most of the time, and despite Liam not seeming bothered by it, he feels a little bad for only being able to listen and not offer a lot of help.

Anyway, about a week into October, lacrosse practices start to really get going again, and that’s apparently more of a problem for Liam than Theo thought it would be. One morning, Liam gets into his truck and almost immediately starts talking about what a pain it is having to take the activity bus back home as he shuts the door.

“It’s to drive around all the kids who stay after school for clubs and stuff, but practice ends at five -thirty and the bus leaves school at six -thirty,” Liam half-explains, half-gripes when it becomes clear that Theo doesn’t even know what the activity bus is. “So I have to sit there, ready to go home for an entire hour while I wait for the chess club to be done. I mean, I get wanting to be in the chess club, but who plays chess for three and a half straight hours? Do they need to be there until six-thirty? I don’t think so.”

“Well, chess is a very intricate game,” Theo says just to be an asshole, earning an unimpressed look from him before he keeps going, but he is taking Liam’s complaints somewhat seriously. He’s not looking at him as he rants, but he does sigh to himself a little bit. For someone who used to yell exactly what he wanted Theo to do at him all the time, Liam is now shockingly bad at just asking for what he wants. “Do you want me to drive you home after lacrosse practice?” Theo interrupts after a few more minutes of Liam’s venting, intentionally keeping some of the exasperation in his voice so that Liam knows that his attempts at subtlety are terrible.

It doesn’t seem to deter him much. He looks over at Theo then, face immediately fading into this soft, surprised thing, the corner of his mouth curling up into a little smile. “You’d do that for me?” He asks softly, and it takes a lot out of Theo not to just shut down.

“Sure,” He says, fighting to keep his voice level. It’s a very close miss. “My shifts got changed around anyway. I’ll be back in time.”

Liam turns away to smile out of the window and the entire mood in the truck shifts into something much lighter, much happier, so Theo starts picking Liam up after lacrosse practices as well. On Mondays and Fridays he picks Liam up in the morning, and on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, he picks Liam up in the morning and is also there to drive him back from practice by five-forty-five. It’s not too bad. Liam’s polite as always, and he always showers after practice, meaning Theo’s not being bombarded with the smell of sweaty werewolf whenever he sees him, but deep down Theo’s not entirely sure that he’d be that annoyed with that alternative, anyway.

Seeing Liam after school is a lot different and somehow still a lot more entertaining than only seeing him before, too. When Theo comes to get him in the afternoons, Liam’s a lot more awake and also a lot less put-together, which comes with some pretty interesting situations. Liam gets into his truck in a state of disarray a lot of the time as he tries to balance lacrosse gear that needs cleaning with his textbooks and folders, and Theo has helped him pick it all up out of the footwell and parking lot when he inevitably ends up dropping it everywhere just as often.

Liam also has a lot more to say after a full day of being at school and being around other people, which is how Theo learns not to feel too bad about being more of a listener than a participant in their conversations. Their morning drives are mostly taken up by soft music and the occasional comment about the music if Liam doesn’t have anything in particular he wants to talk about, but after school, Liam forgets all about the AUX cord entirely and fills up the whole fifteen minute ride by telling him about anything and everything that happened that day.

More often than not, those stories end up in the same flow as the activity-bus rant, long stretches of high-volume talking that have Theo wondering if Liam even needs to breathe or if he has some weird photosynthesis skin-pore thing going on. Theo hears a lot about Liam’s new role as co-captain of the lacrosse team, and since he’s doing that with Nolan, he has a lot to say about it almost every time. Nolan’s been pretty much forgiven in Liam’s - even if not in Theo’s - eyes for the whole trying-to-kill-him thing, but apparently not for being a sucky co-captain.

Theo isn’t really sure what to say most of the time because he knows next to nothing about lacrosse plays or even just the people he talks about, but Liam doesn’t seem to mind. Theo gets the impression pretty quickly over those next few days that Liam actually likes it when someone is willing to just sit and listen for a while as he gets it all out, and that makes him feel a lot better about it. In fact, Theo’s pretty good with being that person for him.

But he really shouldn’t think about it like that - ‘being that person for him.’ That makes Theo sound like he’s something he isn’t, and he needs a reminder of that colder reality sometimes.

---

Theo starts to look forward to seeing Liam’s happy expression, but one Friday morning, it isn’t there at all. That day, he doesn’t make his descent down the front path as quickly as usual, doesn’t smile at Theo as he gets into the truck, and doesn’t immediately go to connect his phone to the speakers, even though it’s his turn to pick what they listen to. Theo watches curiously, and more than a little concernedly, as Liam gets in, shuts his eyes, and slumps down into his seat. Not only is Liam’s smile gone, so is any bit of brightness on his face; Instead, his eyebrows furrow and his lips turn down into a tiny frown as he pulls his backpack up into his lap to clutch at like some kind of improvised teddy bear.

Theo doesn’t start the truck back up right away, waiting for some kind of explanation. He’d kind of like to know why Liam looks like he wants to pass out, and the longer he stares at him waiting, he notices how much paler he is than normal and that he’s wearing the same shirt as he had on Monday, implying that he’d just picked anything up off the floor or something and went with it, which only adds to the image.

“...You okay?” Theo asks, raising an eyebrow and giving up on Liam talking first after a few seconds of watching him just sit there silently. 

Liam doesn’t open his eyes, but he nods tiredly and runs a hand over his face. “Yeah, just…” He murmurs, shaking his head a little to try and wake himself up more. It clearly doesn’t work, since his hand comes right back to curl around his bag again and his entire body sags a second later. “...Feel a little sick.”

Theo blinks. “How…?” He asks, and it comes out sounding more incredulous than anything from trying to hide the growing concern in his voice - something must be really wrong if Liam’s managed to get sick. He’s a werewolf, for Christ’s sake. 

Liam shrugs weakly like he was expecting the question. “Dunno,” He breathes, curling up a little tighter into his ball. “Scott said that it can happen if you wear yourself out too much.”

That makes more sense. In mid-December, Liam has to handle exam reviews, more homework for the end of the semester, the holidays, and lacrosse practices on top of his duties as a teenage werewolf, which, even though most of the danger of the town is gone, he’s always taken very seriously. Theo isn’t surprised, just thinking that he should’ve seen this crash coming. Liam might quite literally be considered a superhuman, but everyone has their breaking point somewhere along the line.

After looking him over one more time, Theo swallows down the weird sad feeling building up in him and turns his attention back to the road, flipping the keys in the ignition. “Don’t puke in my truck,” He warns, feeling bad about it as Liam cringes and shifts in his seat, and starts off down the road.

Theo feels guilty about every time he goes over a bump in the road, Liam adjusting uncomfortably in his seat and cringing with each jolt of the suspension, until he starts feeling guilty about driving Liam to school at all. Theo wishes he could take Liam back home and put him into bed to sleep it off, but he knows Liam would never agree to it - something about a really impractical goal of receiving a perfect attendance record or something similar. Once, when Theo accidentally drives over a branch he doesn’t see soon enough to avoid in time, Liam makes a small, breathy noise of discomfort that has Theo hissing through his teeth right along with him.

When they finally get to the school a few agonizing minutes later, Theo notices that Liam doesn’t have his gym bag with him and immediately feels so much worse. There’s no lacrosse practice on Fridays, meaning that Liam is planning on taking the bus back home today, and it makes Theo’s stomach sink just thinking about the time he’d had to do the same when he was a kid. Theo’s been through a lot of terrible things in his life, but he still hates imagining Liam feeling sick and taking a hot, noisy, bumpy bus ride all the way home, especially since he could barely handle riding in the passenger seat of Theo’s relatively smooth truck.

Liam groans quietly when he realizes a few seconds later than he should that they’ve stopped, reaching for his bag in his lap and opening his eyes. The slow way that he moves for the door is what finally makes Theo break - no way.

“Y’know, I can…” Theo trails off, his voice softening in a way that he’s not sure he likes. Liam glances back at him, eyes half-lidded and his fingers curled limply around the doorhandle, and Theo swallows. “I can drive you home today, too.” Something in Liam’s expression shifts that looks like tired confusion, so - “So that you don’t have to take the bus home sick,” Theo explains, feeling a little sheepish as he does it.

It takes a second, but slowly, a small smile comes to Liam’s lips that makes something in Theo’s stomach flutter. 

“Thank you,” Liam says quietly. He still looks exhausted and way too out of it to be anywhere but under the covers in bed, but the promise of not having to take the bus home has clearly brightened up a sucky day just a little, and Theo’s glad to have done it. Even though Theo might have just signed himself up for driving around town all day, Liam is still looking just that much more alive than he did a few minutes ago as he shuts the truck door behind him, so he doesn’t regret his offer for a second.

As he watches Liam stumble off towards the front doors, Theo makes a mental note of it to be back there at three-fifteen, but in the end, he doesn’t even have to wait that long. He’s only halfway through his extra morning shift, honestly a little interested for once in checking out a series of increasingly concerning objects that are coming down his conveyor belt, when his phone buzzes in the pocket of his jeans - three buzzes, the setting he has set only for Liam. Theo finishes scanning the first of five boxes of condoms on this round of items as he fishes his phone out with his other hand.

Liam (11:21 AM) - hey
Liam (11:21 AM) - can you come get me
Liam (11:22 AM) - i signed myself out
Liam (11:22 AM) - im really sorry

Theo curses silently to himself. Normally he wouldn’t be able to leave during a shift under any circumstances and he would’ve had to tell Liam no, but his texts are so pitiful and saddeningly apologetic that he knows he really has no choice. He finishes checking out the rest of the groceries on the belt as quickly as he can, probably forgetting to scan and charge a few things in his haste to get them all into bags - Theo really doubts that this guy with his five boxes of condoms and several cucumbers is going to notice - until they’re all done and he flicks his lane’s light off. As soon as the guy is gone, Theo is out of his place at the counter and looking around the open stretch of the front of the store, spotting one of his co-workers who looks like he’s coming off of his lunch break a second later.

“Jim,” Theo calls out, barely waiting for the man to raise his head. “I have to go. Cover for me for a minute.”

“Uh, how about no fucking way?” Jim scoffs, but Theo’s not in the mood to listen; He’s already halfway towards the doors and he’s already got one hand starting to pull off his vest. With no hesitation at all, a sick Liam waiting for him in mind, Theo looks back at him and flashes his eyes just quick enough to startle him. He watches with satisfaction as Jim’s smug face turns anxious and his shoulders tense up. There are definitely some perks to werewolves being a pretty commonly known thing around town. Intimidating Jim into doing him favors is now a new favorite. “God, fine,” Jim grumbles, body sagging back down and face looking even more annoyed after a second. “You suck, Raeken,” Theo hears, but he doesn’t bother turning back around so that Jim can see him smirk.

Theo speeds a little to get to the school and pulls right into the bus lanes out front, ignoring the several traffic violations he’s just committed as he walks right up to the building. Technically since he’s not a student or a member of the faculty, he’s not allowed to be there, but once again, werewolf status comes in handy; The secretary at the front desk knows better than to do anything but unlock the door when she sees him through the security camera even without him having to flash his eyes. 

Since Liam is technically an adult now, he can sign himself out without parental consent, but he still needs someone to come retrieve him; Theo finds him sitting in one of the little plastic chairs outside of the main office, staring at his hands and looking even more worse for wear than just a few hours ago from what he can see of him. Either his senses are also impaired or he’s really not paying that much attention, because he barely notices Theo there until he’s right in front of them.

“Come on,” Theo says patiently, holding out a hand before he knows what he’s doing. Liam doesn’t even glance at it before taking it and pulling himself up, and it’s a little clammy, but Theo can’t bring himself to mind too much. 

Their hands don’t stay together, but Theo does keep the same one protectively hovering over the small of Liam’s back as they walk over to Theo’s truck. Their shoulders brush together every so often with Liam’s slow, unsteady steps and shaky breathing, and Theo has to make a real effort to stop noticing how natural this all feels. He focuses instead on making sure Liam gets there in one piece, feeling pretty accomplished when they make it to the truck in decent time.

Liam pretty much collapses into the front seat as soon as Theo opens the door for him, shutting his eyes and releasing a punched-out breath, so Theo makes a point of it to get ready to go quickly so they can hit the road. He has to remind Liam, curled up in a ball against the seat like a pillbug, to put his seatbelt on, and even that’s an efforted affair. 

“...Don’t puke in my truck,” Theo tells him again as he gives him a once over, half-serious this time.

Liam scowls, which really doesn’t look much different from what his face is already doing. Theo would probably find that funny under different circumstances. 

“I didn’t puke,” Liam says, sounding about as annoyed as he can probably even muster. “I just couldn’t stay awake through third period, and I have gym fourth. I just need to go to bed.”

“Got it,” Theo says, maybe even a little apologetic sounding. “Fifteen minutes.”

Theo doesn’t bother him again after that, letting him lean back against the headrest and doze while he drives. He makes sure that he takes a route that he knows won’t have too many potholes or bumps, so even though it takes a little longer than fifteen minutes to get to Liam’s house, it’s as smooth and peaceful as it can be. At some points, Theo’s not even really sure if Liam’s awake or not, which he’ll take as a good thing.

They pull up to Liam’s house not too long after that, and despite the fact that he’s doing Liam a favor, he still feels vaguely guilty as he watches him trudge up the front path to his house. His parents are both still at work, nobody to take care of him in there, and considering the way Liam’s hands fumble with the house key as he tries to get it into the lock, he shouldn’t be alone. There’s a pang in Theo’s chest as Liam finally gets the door open that makes him wish that he’d gotten out of the truck with him, kept that hand over his back, followed him into the house and tucked him into bed and made him soup or something - Theo doesn’t even know how to make soup - but it’s too late. Before he can finish the debate with himself and change his mind, the door closes behind Liam and leaves Theo staring at the wood.

Theo sighs, sits in front of the house for a few seconds, and then forces himself to pull away. Liam’s heartbeat sounds steady enough for him not to worry too much, and Jim will want to go back to his hunter ways if he’s away for too much longer; Flashing his eyes at him will start to lose its effect if he does it too often.

Besides, Theo thinks with another deep breath in. Liam probably wouldn’t want him there, anyway.

---

Even though Liam doesn’t get sick again after that, Theo starts showing up in the parking lot at three PM every day anyway.

He’d be lying if he said he doesn’t know why he did it the first time, so he’s really trying hard not to think about it with too much scrutiny. All he’ll admit to is happening to be in the parking lot that next Monday afternoon after classes let out even though Liam is well-rested and feeling much better, happening to shoot him a text a few minutes before the last bell rings saying that he’s there waiting, and happening to see the curious and pleased expression on Liam’s face when he comes out and finds him there. Liam openly smiles at him as he tugs the door open and gets in, looking comfy as ever in Theo’s passenger seat, and unlike on the first day of school, Theo doesn’t even try to deny that he’s going to make this a thing.

Finally driving Liam around full-time does have its advantages; He still has just as much to talk about on Mondays and Fridays as he does on lacrosse practice days even though he doesn’t have to deal with his idiotic teammates for hours at a time, and sometimes Theo even understands what he’s talking about. He still doesn’t know who most of the people Liam mentions are, but his stories are still funny, and they make him wonder just how much he really missed by not going to high school normally. Theo must have been too wrapped up in his stupid chimera pack plans to notice this when he went to Beacon Hills for a short few months, but according to Liam, the place is a zoo.

Liam never describes it that way while he’s talking about it, but Theo gets the impression that it could be called that for several reasons. Not only are the students of Beacon Hills absolutely ridiculous, Liam telling him multiple times about the chair-jumping competitions that happen in the cafeteria that always end up with at least one kid in the nurse’s office, Liam himself probably included more times than Theo suspects he lets on, but some of them are also terribly behaved in a different way. There’s an important distinction between things like throwing pencils at the ceiling tiles to see if the points stick and whatever happens to Liam one afternoon that makes Theo see red.

Exactly two weeks after Theo had driven him home halfway through the day, weak and sick and helpless, Liam gets into Theo’s truck looking pissed off with the remnants of a purple bruise healing on his cheek and his bottom lip sewing itself back together where it’s split down the middle. 

Theo’s first response upon seeing it is ordinarily uncharacteristic anger, needing to tamp down on the burning ache that rips itself open in the bottom of his chest before Liam notices, but Liam has already moved into resignation at that point. His eyebrows are drawn together and his jaw is clenched, but instead of exploding into a heated explanation like Theo honestly kind of wants him to, he takes in a deep breath and says nothing as he buckles his seatbelt.

“What the hell happened to you?” Theo asks, fingers twitching at the wheel as Liam’s seatbelt clicks into place. He clenches his own jaw then as the urge to reach out and touch the tender spot on Liam’s cheekbone takes over, the desire to ghost his fingers over the crack in his swollen lip and press down with his thumb until a different type of ache distracts from it, but he forces himself to stay still and tightens his fingers on the steering wheel more instead. 

Liam shakes his head and rolls his eyes, leaning back. He looks defeated, a new wave of barely-hideable frustration crashing around in Theo as he stares at the side of his face. 

“It’s fine,” Liam sighs, reaching up to rub the spot himself. “It’s nothing.”

Theo does not think it’s fine. Theo is still fighting back the ever-growing urge to walk into that building and make whoever laid a hand on Liam regret his entire life with every word of acceptance Liam speaks, because this isn’t the first time that Liam’s sat here holding his face while Theo tried not to look like he was watching, but it is the first time he’s had someone else to blame for it other than himself. He’s spent enough time feeling stupidly yet rightfully guilty about the first time, the time he’d stopped Liam from killing Nolan in the only way he knew how and then bashed his head against the dashboard every time he’d woken up with glowing gold eyes, and it’s all hitting him again now and only adding to the anger he feels at the thought that he’s been hurt again , but-

“Not everything changed when the Anuk-Ite came down, I guess,” Liam says, because Liam is still talking, has been talking while Theo was too busy trying not to crack the steering wheel in his hands. 

His mind clears just enough to remember something else he said to Liam that night, after the explanation of why Liam had that ache in his head when he finally woke up; Something about fear doing strange things to people, making them aggressive, like the way Liam had been that had made Theo knock him out in the first place. The difference is now that the Anuk-Ite is gone. Its ghastly, intimidating presence in the town isn’t making people lash out and take to the streets with guns and sometimes not even metaphorical torches and pitchforks, but fear will always be a part of life, and so will the repercussions of it. 

After all, people are still people, and even if they don’t mean to be, people are dicks.

That reasoning doesn’t really make Theo any less upset about Liam getting hit in the face at school for something he has no control over, but thinking about it lets him calm down enough that Liam doesn’t seem to notice and ask about it. 

Theo must be doing a good enough job, because Liam keeps acting like it’s all fine, just like Liam always does when it comes to himself. As Theo turns a corner, Liam mumbling about something that he only vaguely hears as background noise, he’s reminded of how Liam is all too willing to get involved and angry for the sake of someone else, but when he’s the one taking the hits, it’s like he doesn’t care at all. Theo both admires that and hates that about him, both wants to marvel at that effortless selflessness that he’s sure he had even before the bite that ruined his life and also grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he learns to be a little less selfless sometimes. 

And it isn’t fine. “I just really can’t wait to be done and out of here,” Liam says a few minutes after he’d finally gone quiet, because it isn’t fine and they both know it. His fingers are still touching his cheek, and Theo can smell the tiny bit of blood that’s been leaking from his newly-cracked open lip that won’t heal from all the talking. “Just...start over with a blank slate somewhere else. For a little while, at least.”

It takes Theo a good few seconds to register what he means by that, but it hits him like a swift punch to the stomach when he finally does.

Right. College.

Liam’s already committed to one about an hour away from Beacon Hills - UCLA, home of the blue-and-gold Bruins, on a lacrosse scholarship. Theo was the first one Liam told when the acceptance email had hit Liam’s inbox in Theo’s truck on a ride home and read it out loud to him - and it’s mid-March already. He’ll be going away soon, and Theo...hadn’t thought about that. 

Liam has to have been thinking about this for weeks by now, imagining what it’ll be like moving into a dorm or an off-campus apartment and who his roommate will be and which of the many posters in his bedroom he’ll take with him when he leaves, but Theo hasn’t at all. He’d sat there, biting down on a smile that was getting way too big for his cover as Liam’s excitement and elatedness shook the suspension of the truck with how much he was bouncing around, happy for Liam and proud of him, and he’d had not one thought about Liam actually leaving.

He’s really cursing himself now for it; Theo thinks that he is probably the worst at hiding his feelings for Liam from himself, constantly having to remind himself to stop daydreaming like a lovesick idiot, that Liam isn’t his, but he’s still done such a good job at ignoring that Liam really, truly isn’t his that it feels so much more real now. It takes the breath straight out of his lungs realizing that the vague bouts of sadness he’d felt over knowing that he doesn’t have him were just that - vague - and that the full weight that involves Liam really leaving is so much heavier. Theo suddenly feels like all of this time has gone by far too quickly, suddenly regrets taking any single moment of it for granted, because he’s sure that he’s done it.

“...Right,” Theo manages through a tight throat anyway, probably a few seconds too late, nodding along even though he wishes more than anything that this wasn’t a conversation they needed to have. “I’m- I’m sure that’ll be great.”

He tries for casual and hopes for the best when he hears himself fail miserably, but he sees it out of the corner of his eye when Liam turns his head to look at him thoughtfully. Theo keeps his eyes trained on the road, choosing pointedly to ignore it, because his throat’s gone tight again and his hands don’t feel right on the wheel, either. That kind of thoughtful look is the kind of look that he knows will one day turn into a question, and even though Theo doesn’t know what question that’ll be yet, he already knows that he won’t know how to answer it.

---

Theo has been sitting in the darkened side parking lot of the high school for ten minutes a couple weeks later, unable to move all because Liam is moving around in his seat so much that the entire truck is rocking on its suspension where it’s sitting in park. Theo catches some of the questioning looks that other drivers give him as they pull out of their own parking spaces, probably wondering if they’re seriously doing something that Theo has elected not to think about for his sanity’s sake, but Liam doesn’t seem to notice at all; He’s bouncing around with so much enthusiasm in every word he says, punctuating every point with some new wild movement of his hands, eyes bright with excitement as he says things that Theo has no hope of understanding at a million miles a minute.

Both of Liam’s parents are working late shifts that night, Liam’s stepfather David at the hospital and his mother Jenna at her therapy practice, so Theo has been blessed with the responsibility of driving Liam to and from that Friday’s lacrosse game. He hadn’t stayed for the game itself after dropping Liam off, unsure if he was supposed to, but the pre-game nervous buzz and the post-game adrenaline-soaked glow coming off of Liam makes it feel like he had. The Cyclones had obviously won, granted that they have not one but three players with the benefits of supernatural sense and speed on their sides, but considering that Theo would think this is Liam’s first win with how hyped up he is about it, he’s not going to mention it.

“Jesus, Theo, it was awesome,” Liam says after what must have been the climax of the story Theo’s had no hope of comprehending with how fast he’d been talking, breathing it out on the exhale as his body finally starts to calm down. He turns to Theo, chest heaving a little as he finally catches a breath, and smiles. “You should’ve been there.”

Theo feels a pull of regret in his chest at that one; Liam had wanted him to be there. He could’ve sat up in the bleachers and watched Liam play, cheered him on like in a dumb little daydream Theo had had while driving back from dropping him off. He could’ve seen what was happening and shared more of Liam’s excitement, but he gets a pretty good contact-high from all of Liam’s, so there’s still a small smile on his face as he starts to drive and listen to more of Liam’s disorganized chatter as he pushes right along with the play-by-play.

“I’ll go to the next one,” Theo says when Liam has to stop and breathe again, and he knows he will; Liam’s smile is so bright when he says it that Theo’s breath catches in his throat.

Looking back on this year, Theo will say that the dark ride back to Liam’s house is one of the best he’s ever experienced just because Liam is so truly and genuinely happy. Seeing him like this, so energized and worked up over something as normal as a winning lacrosse game is refreshing. Not only is watching Liam’s reactions a gift in and of itself, it’s a reminder that even though Theo isn’t necessarily seizing the day right now or anything, he still could. There can still be a lot of good in a life that belongs to even the most complicated, including the ones who sprout fangs and claws on a full moon, which is easy to forget.

He’s glad that that applies to Liam in his senior year. There’s also still the point from before that Liam is absolutely adorable, and he can’t even bring himself to censor the thought. He’s sitting in Theo’s truck, hair still wet and hanging in little spikes in his face and wearing a soft white t-shirt and grey sweatpants, clearly having rushed right out of the locker room to come tell Theo about the game instead of taking the time to dry off properly, and the thought of that is dizzying. Theo doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything more beautiful, and since various memories of Liam are also the second, third, fourth, and however-many next in line, that’s really saying something.

He feels sadder than usual when they pull up to Liam’s house after fifteen minutes of listening to a story about some kind of trickshot he and Nolan had pulled off in the last second to win the game, and that keeps going for a while even after the truck rolls to a full stop. Liam seems to only realize that they haven’t been moving for a good few minutes when he glances over and catches the amused look on Theo’s face, and he honest-to-God blushes. Theo thinks he might die, right there and then.

“...Anyway,” Liam breathes. Logically speaking, Theo knows that Liam probably can’t make his cheeks that red on purpose, but it really does feel like Liam’s trying to kill him with how pathetically soft he makes him feel inside. Liam laughs a little to himself and grabs his duffel bag off the floor. “I’ll leave you alone now.”

His tone is obviously joking, but something nips at Theo to tell Liam that he can keep talking anyway. He’s honestly just about to say something about it, trying to gather enough context clues to throw together a flimsy question good enough to make him stay another minute, but he doesn’t get the chance - Liam is already starting to hop out.

Theo expects Liam to bound right up to the door, still high on his adrenaline rush, but he doesn’t. Instead, he pauses when he gets out of the truck, turning back and leaning down so that Theo can see his face. Weirdly enough, Liam is more calm now than he’s been all night, stacking his forearms in the empty space in the door where the window is rolled down and resting his chin on top of them. He looks at Theo for a few seconds, a few seconds that make him want to unravel, a soft little smile on his face. 

“Thanks again for the ride,” He says seriously, and Liam once again makes such a pretty picture this way that all Theo can do is give his customary half-nod in response. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

Those words shouldn’t sound so important, both of them already knowing that they’re going to see each other then like every other week, but there’s something about the way Liam says it, puts some weight into it, that makes it seem like something deeper. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but Theo still swallows thickly. “Yeah,” Theo says, voice coming out a little faint. “See you on Monday.”

He stays at the curb and watches to make sure Liam gets into the house alright, giving a small and absent wave when Liam turns back to grin at him one more time before he opens the door, and wonders when his weekends became less important to him than his weekdays. Probably since the very beginning, if he’s being honest with himself.

---

Theo ends up getting to the school to pick Liam up from lacrosse practice a little early, getting admittedly a little too focused in one of the bloatware games installed on his phone while he waits, so he’s understandably kind of startled when he hears the two back doors of the truck open instead of the passenger side and looks in the rearview to see three guys who are most certainly not Liam clamoring in. Theo’s hand spasms around the edges of his phone, shutting off the screen and his round of Candy Crush early as he whirls around, opening his mouth to say something probably along the lines of ‘get the fuck out of my truck,’ but the words die in his throat a second later when he sees Liam tugging on the passenger side handle out of the corner of his eye. 

Liam still smells like the turf of the lacrosse field and whatever slightly-intoxicating mixture of scents is in his soap, and it distracts Theo enough to realize that Liam is there and aware and the three guys climbing into the back are Nolan, Corey, and Alec - not, in fact, three total strangers trying to kill him or something. 

“Let’s go to DiLisi’s,” Liam says simply as he buckles himself in, explaining just what the three others are doing there before Theo can ask. 

Theo has half a mind to ask Liam what he thinks he’s playing at, but deep down, he knows that he won’t; It’s not like he could ever deny Liam anything. If he wants Theo to drive him and his loud friends a few minutes to the pizza place around the block, it’s not like he’s going to say no.

“...Alright,” Theo mutters after a second, giving into his fate and starting the truck back up. He tries to ignore the three in the back still shoving each other around and fighting for spots, but it’s pretty hard when they’re the only thing stopping him from pulling out of the parking lot and getting on his way.

“Alec’s the youngest, he should have to sit in the middle!” Nolan’s crying out at the same time that Corey manages to plant himself into one of the seats and stake his claim. He settles in with his seatbelt on and takes out his phone, probably to text Mason, but almost gets it knocked right out of his hands with Nolan and Alec still duking it out half on the floor. It’s either the left-side seat or the space in the middle that’s so tiny it’s barely even a seat - Theo has never used it for anything, and this truck has been through kind of a lot - and no one wants to be stuck with that.

The fight ends with Alec scoffing out a “did you forget I’m bigger than you?”, pushing Nolan back by the chest, and fighting him off with his own feet when Nolan half-hits the floor and starts kicking at him. He’s valiant enough in his attempt that it makes the entire truck shake, and Theo’s only really letting it all happen because of the way Liam is laughing up a storm next to him. 

Eventually, after a few “fuck-you’s” from Nolan thrown in Alec’s direction and a quick slap to Nolan’s forehead by Corey when he elbows him in the stomach as he gets into the tiny middle seat, Theo gathers his wits enough to start making his way to DiLisi’s, acting like it’s normal to suddenly have three extra people in the truck with him and Liam. He mostly ignores the guys in the back, who are still snipping about the seating or something stupid that Alec did at practice as an arguing point about the seats and who is owed one, keeping his attention fixed on the road. 

It’s easier than he thinks to keep his eyes on the horizon even with them back there. It’s stupid and he knows it, but he can’t help but feel a little bit cheated by this. This is supposed to be his time with Liam, not Alec, Nolan , and Corey’s time with Liam. They get to have him all the time. Theo doesn’t. When Liam goes on to summer vacation and then eventually off to college, there will be people that he visits and people that he…

Well, doesn’t.

But on the bright side, while the three of them continue to argue amongst themselves, Liam doesn’t join in. Instead, he turns away from his content and silent stare out the window and Theo sees him smiling at him out of the corner of his eye. There’s a heated debate going on in the back about Nolan’s skills as captain, a subject Liam has very strong opinions on and would probably love to contribute to, but Liam keeps his eyes on Theo alone and asks how his day was.

A normal person wouldn’t be able to hear him over the commotion, but Theo even notices the genuine interest in it - but then again, he’s always kind of looking for it. He bites back a smile despite himself. 

“...It was fine,” Theo says, and as soon as the words leave his mouth, he kicks himself for it - Not enough, not enough, Jesus. It only takes a second of the following silence for Liam to realize that he isn’t going to say anything else, and his smile starts to dim, disappointed. Theo’s heart jumps in his chest, suddenly floundering for something else to tell him, make it better.  

“One of- uh, one of my co-workers dropped a whole crate of blueberries today,” Theo tacks on quickly, stammering through the first words as he rushes. Liam’s eyes snap back to him, alight with renewed interest, and something flutters in his stomach. “I had to help her clean it all up. The floor is completely stained.”

Theo doesn’t think the story is particularly entertaining both on a basic humor and he-was-the-one-who-cleaned-it-up perspective, but Theo isn’t known for talking very much about his chore of a job, so Liam grins anyway. The blueberries staining aisle 13 probably give Liam some much-wanted insight. Theo thinks it’s both odd and touching, for the same reasons, that Liam wants to know so much about him, but he pushes it back as they enter the parking lot of DiLisi’s Brick-Oven Pizza.

Alec, Corey, and Nolan all start to stumble out of the back as soon as the truck stops, Nolan even before as he’s desperate to get out of the middle seat, but Liam goes slower, gathering his things as Theo keeps his eyes on the pavement - trying not to give himself away. This ride felt way too short, and now all he can do is wait to leave. He wonders if Liam will want him to come get them when they’re done, too. 

He might even agree. He’s pathetic like that.

The others have already reached the front doors by the time Liam finally snaps his seatbelt out of place. He leans forward in his seat to settle his bag over one shoulder and glances back at Theo, but his neutral expression only lasts a second. Theo raises an eyebrow right back at him when Liam does it first.

“What’re you…?” Liam trails off, and Theo’s about to ask him to spit it out when something apparently dawns on him. A mix of incredulousness with a hint of… sadness? crosses his face all at once, confusing the hell out of Theo even more. “Wait, did you-? Theo, come on, that was an invitation,” Liam says like it should’ve been obvious; Theo will fight on his own behalf that it was not. “I know you have off today. I wouldn’t ask you to drive us if I didn’t want you to come. What kind of an asshole do you think I am?”

Theo blinks, surprised, but he’s kind of forced to snap out of it when Liam suddenly reaches over and unbuckles his seatbelt for him. “You know, for a while there I thought being an asshole was one of your only discernible personality traits,” Theo comments dryly with a smirk, which he’s mostly using to hide the smile that wants to take over instead and the butterflies swirling up in his stomach as he gets out of the truck.

Liam grins, quick and easy. “Hey, I have been nothing but nice to you all year,” He scoffs, punctuating his last word by shoving Theo sideways towards the door with both hands, sort of ruining his point. 

A little bloom of rare optimism in Theo’s chest makes him want to say that the way Liam touches him, how the backs of his knuckles have lingered on Theo’s skin as he was swatting his hand away from the knobs on the dashboard, how he reaches out to push him in the first place, is flirtatious. The logical side of him brings him back to Earth and makes him settle. Playful, he decides. Friendly.

And weirdly enough, Theo thinks that he could be okay with that. Friends is so much more than he ever could’ve hoped for from the beginning. He’ll take Liam anyway he can have him.

Luckily, Liam doesn’t seem to notice Theo’s short inner monologue and shuts Theo’s door for him. “Come on,” Liam says. “If we don’t hurry up and get there to stop him, Alec will order the pizza with olives.” 

And there’s Liam’s hand again, this time with his warm fingers wrapped around the width of Theo’s wrist as he tugs him forward, so Theo’s steps falter for two reasons - that, and stopping to wonder how Liam remembers that he doesn’t like olives even though he probably mentioned it, like, once several months ago. 

He catches up with Liam’s pace eventually, mostly because he’d be tripping over his own feet with the way Liam’s pulling him along if he didn’t, but he’s still a little fuzzy about it as they walk the distance from the truck to the front door. Liam lets go of his wrist when they get there, but they walk in together with their shoulders and elbows bumping. If their hands were any lower, any closer like Theo wants but will not let them be, he’d be able to reach out and take Liam’s into his own.

As it turns out, Theo doesn’t end up minding the interruption from Liam’s friends by the time the day’s done. The five of them sit in a big circular booth in the corner of the restaurant, eating fries and pizza - no olives! - as an early dinner, talking and laughing and shooting the shit, and it’s the most fun Theo’s had all week. It definitely helps that Liam never moves more than an inch away from him the whole time, thigh always pressed right up against his own and close enough that Theo can feel the heat radiating off of him, but Theo even has a good enough time that he doesn’t blink at driving them all back to their houses at the end.

He drops Liam off last, getting his time with him after all, and even then, Liam sticks around an extra second just to smile at him.

“...Here,” Liam says after a beat, holding out the styrofoam box he’s had in his lap. It’s the leftover fries from the table and one piece of pizza, and Theo looks down at it and back up at him curiously. “You take it. I know you loved it.”

“No, I...that’s yours,” Theo protests, shaking his head. 

“You’re right, it is. That means I get to do what I want with it,” Liam says, pushing the box further towards him. It’s still a little warm, and Theo will admit that the smell of the thin crust and slightly crispy cheese is tempting, but he shakes his head again. “God, you’re impossible. Fine,” Liam sighs, over-dramatically put-upon. He pops open the box with one hand, takes the piece of pizza out with the other, and holds it out to him. “I’ll keep the fries. Take the goddamn pizza.” 

“Pushy,” Theo says, but he can’t help that he laughs, and he can’t help that he gives in and takes it out of Liam’s hand. Liam breaks off the top of the box for him to use as a plate of sorts, looking satisfied with himself, and grins.

Theo’s still looking at it when Liam gets out of the truck. “See you tomorrow,” He says as he shuts the door behind him. “My turn to pick the music!”

“Yeah, and no more love songs!” Theo calls out. “It’s too early for sappy shit!”

Liam doesn’t even stop on his way to the house, just shaking his head and barking out an incredulous laugh.

“You love them and you know it, Theodore!” (He’s right.) “I’ll get you to appreciate them even if I die trying!” (Theo already does.)

Theo isn’t really hungry, but he eats the pizza on the way back home instead of saving it for dinner that night. He guesses that, stupidly enough, it’s about the fact that Liam gave it to him. He doesn’t want it to go to waste and get cold because he waited too long, wants to experience a gift from Liam to its fullest.

God, he’s so fucking pathetic.

He’s going to miss him so much.

---

It’s a cloudy, grey-sky day in May when things start to slowly fall apart for Theo.

It starts off perfectly fine. Rain is beating down so hard against his windshield that he hadn’t turned the truck off so that he can keep the wipers going and the clouds look more foreboding every second that passes, but it’s not getting in the way of Theo’s decent mood, even though it really probably should be. He’s had a rough day up to that point already, covering two positions in the storage rooms at work that morning - which is probably not legal now that Theo’s thinking about it - to have enough to pay his rent on time this month and avoid the late charges. It was only just barely enough to cover it and his muscles ache from all of the lifting, supernatural healing notwithstanding, but instead of being pissed off by it like most people would be, Theo thinks of the rent money as one less thing to have to worry about. He really does go into that afternoon with about as much optimism as possible for him.

Theo doesn’t see Liam in the crowd of blurry students through the rain, the first glimpse he gets of him being when he whirls over towards the direction of the opening door. His surprise quickly fades into amusement when he sees Liam desperately trying not to get completely soaked, face pinched up in a disapproving wince and one hand holding a plastic-coated binder over his head; The plastic doesn’t protect that much, of course, and Theo already knows Liam is going to be pissed at his already-messy notes getting even more wrinkled and smeared from rainwater drying on them.

Liam slams the door shut with a heavy sigh, maybe going a little harder than he needs to with both of those things, and sets the binder down in his lap as he plunks himself down into the seat and settles in - his jeans are pretty well soaked already, anyway. His hair is all spikey again where the binder hadn’t been able to catch the rain and the fabric of his shirt over his shoulders is a darker grey where it’s speckled with drying water that can’t be comfortable, but despite all of that, Liam gets over his irritation pretty quick. Theo is so preoccupied with being amused by it that he almost doesn’t notice that Liam has something in his other hand.

Liam wants him to notice it, too - as he starts fumbling for the seatbelt one-handedly, he holds it out to let Theo get a closer look. Between his index and middle finger is a roll of cash, a few bills sticking out haphazardly here and there that mostly look like ones, but either way, a substantial amount of money. Theo honestly has no idea what he’s trying to do with it, still holding it out even when Theo makes no move to mention it or take it.

Eventually, Theo breaks and raises an eyebrow, Liam’s lips tipping up into a nervous smile like he’d been hoping to avoid explaining. 

“I just, uh…” Liam trails, sounding sheepish. His cheeks color just the slightest bit and Theo struggles to keep his eyes off of it again. “It occurred to me a while ago that you’ve been going out of your way to drive me around every day and I haven’t even been pitching in for gas,” He explains. He holds the money out a little further, Theo’s eyes flitting down to it, but they stay mainly fixed on Liam. “It’s probably not nearly enough for a whole school year, but I’ve been saving it up. Doing odd jobs and stuff. ‘Mowed a lot of lawns,” He says, giving a breathy little laugh along with his attempt at humor.

Theo glances down at the bundle again. He will admit that the money is tempting, mind hopping back to how hard he’d had to work that day just to afford his rent, but despite that, Theo’s fingers don’t even twitch to start to accept it. It feels wrong to. Instead, he shakes his head and looks away, but that’s more because of Liam’s expectant expression than it is because of the money.

“Thanks, but I don’t need it,” Theo lies without shame. “You should keep it. Buy something for your college dorm. Mini-fridge, or something.”

His eyes immediately cast down to the steering wheel as the words fall from his lips; He hadn’t meant to remind himself about Liam leaving soon, hadn’t meant to turn the conversation that direction, and definitely hadn’t meant to let that bitterness flow right out into his tone the way that it does, and Theo can tell that he’s not the only one who heard it. Liam looks at him for a few seconds too long before he lowers his hand, and Theo’s throat feels tight when he swallows through the sudden tightness in his throat.

The rest of the ride back to Liam’s house is quieter than usual that day, both of them having sensed the shift in atmosphere. Liam chats idly about his day to him, Theo nodding whenever it seems necessary, but there are too many stretches of increasingly tense silence to ignore, and silence is the last thing Theo wants these days.

He’s been trying not to dwell on it too much, but as the days pass by one by one, the reality that Liam is going to leave gets closer and closer and more and more daunting. He’s not ready for it. Lately it’s felt like seeing Liam is the only good part of his days, of his weeks, making Saturdays and Sundays and the occasional extra days of a long weekend feel long and dragging and empty. They don’t have time for silence. 

“Well, we’re here,” Theo announces stupidly when they pull up to Liam’s house just to break it, the words feeling thick in his mouth as he tries not to cringe at himself. He settles for gripping the steering wheel a little more tightly, focusing on a random bush in one of the neighbors’ yards to give himself something to look at that isn’t Liam, who’s staring intently right at the side of his face - He’s not sure he can handle looking at him head-on right now.

He can tell that Liam’s trying to be slick about the way he stares, but Theo has known him for a long time; He’s so painfully obvious about his concern for other people that his expression can be equated to the subtlety of being hit by an eighteen-wheeler.

Liam also apparently thinks that he’s slick when he finally stops staring and starts to get out. “Bye,” He throws over his shoulder, but it’s so quick and light that Theo knows what he’s doing right away - that roll of cash hadn’t left his hand the whole way there, and he’d had a feeling this might happen. Theo catches him as he tries to slip it into the cupholder behind him as he leaves, scoffing and wondering amusedly who he thinks he’s trying to con, and reaches across the seats to grab the back of Liam’s backpack before he can speed away.

“Nice try,” Theo comments dryly as he puts the roll of cash into one of the side pockets of the bag, even patting it for emphasis and the put-off look Liam gives him. He rolls his eyes and starts trying to get it back out, but Theo isn’t having it -  He uses the rest of his reach to shove him lightly towards the house, Liam stumbling forward far enough that Theo has time to lock the door and roll the window up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Liam glares, but there’s no real heat to it, any that was there already dying out. “Yeah,” He says, putting a grudging tone in his voice, but Liam’s a terrible actor. It doesn’t take a genius to see right through it. “See you tomorrow.”

---

Theo can’t remember a day that he wasn’t what’s supposed to be his version of normal.

He’s been bred and trained for years of his life to be quiet expressionless, seen and not heard if even that, whether it was by parents with a favorite child who couldn’t bother to spare the time of day for the sick one with the heart problem, or the people that came after them - Some of the things the Dread Doctors did to him, the physical and mental manipulation, are still burned into his brain today. It’s part of why he knows Liam’s exact home address, height, weight, and a fair bit of his backstory in the least personal terms possible, even if it has nothing to do with knowing his favorite color and ice cream flavor and class schedule. He remembers some of those things because he’d been made to, and he remembers how. Remembers the hours of reading they made him do while he was down in the sewers, having him study the human psyche at a college level and observe what normal human interaction was like before they trusted enough to let him up on ground level, having him scrutinize every blink, pick apart every twitch, every movement of the hands until he could get it right himself. He remembers the way the pages of those old stolen psych textbooks were curled up at the edges from years of sitting in damp air and folding under his fingertips, remembers sitting on cold sewer floors as he’d read, remembers the tests they’d put him through to prove that he’d absorbed the information, that he was good enough, perfect enough, normal enough, remembers the way they’d punish him with searing hot metal rods across the arms and legs and back as incentive to get it right, over and over again.

He’d been a quick learner.

After all of that, one would think that a straight, stoic face and a genuine feeling of indifference should be the default for him, just as he was taught to keep it; It’s the only way to get through life without anything touching you. After all of those years of studying and torture and perfection, he should have to work to change his expression to show something other than boredom and work to add those tilts and drops of emotion to his voice when he speaks. He should be going through a well-rehearsed act, nothing but a convincing actor whose fake smile could sway anyone to the other side.

But the thing is this: learning to repress emotion and then re-learning how to show it are not two things that go hand in hand; It’s one or the other, and in a world where he’s had to prove his loyalty through his remorse, the decision has been made for him. To this day, Theo’s not sure if he would’ve made it on his own, if it was his own personal hell that’s made him this way or what came after it, but he’s certain that coming back up has something to do with it. Liam really screwed him up by pulling him up from the ground, and even though Theo has regarded him as perfect since only just a few weeks after that like the lovesick fool he’s always been, he’s still screwing him up now.

It’s not his fault. It’s just that Theo has no one else to blame for the way the world is moving around him. While Theo remains stuck in his routine, working at the store to pay his rent and hoping to afford dinner all seven nights of the week with no plan to deviate, Liam is still striding forward. The passage of time doesn’t go subtly, either. Lacrosse practices start to go for longer and end later, games start to be scheduled with less space in between them, and the amount of times that Liam - and sometimes Theo - go out with his friends get more frequent. He can tell that everyone’s preparing for the end of the school year by the way they suddenly want to do everything all at once, hanging onto what little time they have before they officially graduate on June eighteenth, and Theo just has to sit and watch it happen; He sits there, hands braced on the steering wheel and staring through the windshield at all of the unavoidable reminders that the end is fast approaching for him, too.

Liam changes, too. He gets less homework as classes start to settle down and his last round of exams pass, less to complain about and less for Theo to end up helping him with on the ride home, he starts playing harder in his practices and games and gets into Theo’s truck with aching muscles, and he starts talking a lot more and a lot faster. Just like everyone else, it’s everything all at once with him - he jumps from something funny that happened at lunch to something annoying that he experienced in fourth period to something interesting he overheard in the hallway on his way out all in the span of a few minutes. Theo never knows how to react to any of it, feeling whiplashed as he listens because of how hazy and heavy his mind has been these past few weeks, and he has a feeling that his helpless lack of acknowledgement is only spurring Liam on, because when he’s not talking a mile a minute, he’s not saying anything at all.

Even though Theo has been drifting for a while now, preparing himself for the time when he can’t and won’t hear Liam’s voice every single day, the quiet mornings and afternoons are so much worse. Liam might stop talking after a while, but that doesn’t mean he gives Theo a chance to breathe - it doesn’t mean that he stops the staring.

As more time passes, Liam’s long, sideways glances get even longer and even less subtle, and Theo hates the way he always ends up trying to pick them apart from the corner of his eye. It’s the most endlessly frustrating thing ever. Liam has always been like an open book to him, heart on his sleeve and expressions clear on his face, but now he has nothing. He can tell that Liam’s thinking and that he’s not happy about whatever it is, but he never actually knows why, never gets any clue. It bothers him so much more than he would like to admit, past or present.

Sometimes Theo wants to think that the look in Liam’s eyes is just what it seems like, like some part of him feels that same sadness and will miss Theo too when he has to go, but Theo knows with a bitter taste in the back of his throat that he’s gotten far too used to wishful thinking for that to ever be true. It’s too much, always too much once he reminds himself of the reality, and he dreams of a day where he finally just looks right back at him and snaps, tells him to stop fucking looking at him like he’s something fragile, something breakable, but it never comes. 

He just keeps driving, because of course he does. 

He keeps driving even as the staring gets worse and worse. It gets worse with every time that Liam offers and Theo denies his money, worse with every time Liam looks at him with these pleading eyes and holds it out to him in the first place, worse with the way they linger when Theo makes some terrible, half-assed joke about Liam’s future at college. Liam never jokes back, and he doesn’t even try to fake a laugh anymore, but Theo for whatever reason just can’t help himself. He cracks an ingenuine smile every time while Liam sits there in the front seat and looks at Theo like he’s trying to see through him, and of course, because Theo’s only defense mechanism at this point that isn’t jerking the steering wheel is the same thing that makes Liam give him those looks in the first place, all he does is come back with more humor.

One day he feels it all fall apart, blindly stepping right over the line of casualness when he waves off Liam’s money again. It’s the third time this week that he’s tried to offer it, and Theo is tired of hearing his earnest voice and seeing the cash in his hands, but it’s Friday and he won’t have to deal with it again for another two days, so he pushes through. It’s Friday, so he goes right for the joke, starting with the “Use it for the-” but - 

“Yeah, yeah, the mini-fridge, I know,” Liam interrupts before he can finish his sentence, exasperated and so clearly tired of his bullshit that Theo’s words die right in his throat. His mouth snaps shut just as quickly as he’d opened it. He hadn’t realized he’d been making the same joke so many times. His throat is dry as he swallows.

The rest of the ride after that is quiet even as they drive into Liam’s neighborhood. Theo hopes, shockingly not for the first time lately, that the next four blocks’ worth of time will stay that way. He doesn’t get that lucky.

Today is June fourteenth. This weekend, Liam will probably help his parents a little with the graduation party they have planned for the weekend afterwards - Theo’s invited - and get his cap and gown in order. On Monday, he’ll bring the rest of the things from his locker home and undoubtedly leave gum wrappers and worn-down once-lost pencils on the floor of Theo’s truck when they fall from his hands. On Tuesday, Liam will walk into Beacon Hills High School as a student for the last time, say goodbye to his teachers and lesser-known classmates, and walk out. On Wednesday night, Liam will officially graduate. 

But today is June fourteenth, and even though they’re running out of time, they still have some, and that’s why it hurts as much as it does when Liam turns to him and asks him “...What are you going to do?”

Theo inhales sharply, a terrible noise in the cab of the truck. It’s said quietly, Liam’s hands fidgeting in his lap where he’s been staring for the past eight minutes, and Theo knows exactly what he means even though it’s horribly vague - the big question - but it doesn’t stop Liam from going on. 

“When...when we’re gone, I mean,” Liam says; When I’m gone is what he really means.

Liam sounds so meek and genuinely curious that Theo fucking hates it, bites down on his tongue until he’s about to taste blood, but he still tries his hardest not to show it. He shrugs, putting on that trademark smirk of his, and keeps his eyes on the road. 

“The same as always, I guess,” He says noncommittally, and he does pride himself on how well he does at making it sound like he doesn’t care at all. “Just with less gas consumption, I guess.”

It’s a valiant attempt and one of his better ones despite the circumstance, but apparently his vagueness and flippancy has worn even thinner than he’d thought. “No, I’m serious,” Liam presses.

“What do you care?” Theo snaps before he can stop himself, but his careless act has worn thin, too. They both hear the bite in his voice that slips past, and it does nothing to keep this conversation from happening. 

“I just do, okay?” Liam says as Theo is silently begging him not to, staring right at the side of his face as Theo’s hands tighten again on the wheel; He doesn’t want to hear about it, he doesn’t want to hear more, please, please just shut up, shut up, shut up- “Come on, there has to be something,” He says, shut up, shut up, “There has to be something you want to do. A job, a hobby, a goal. There has to be something that you’re looking forward to-”

“There isn’t,” Theo bites, the ball of tension in his chest winding too tight and threatening to choke him; That string is already wrapping around and between his ribs and pulling him under, cracking them painfully and sourly. “There isn’t. I’m going to do the same. You’re going to go to college, and I’m going to keep working at the store and keep focusing on getting my fucking bills paid on time, and that’s it.”

“Theo, that can’t be-”

“Do you think that there’s a lot out there for me, Liam?” Theo interrupts in a sneer. “Because there’s not. I have one friend, no money, no scholarships or anything impressive, not even a fucking GED. I’m not going anywhere,” He flares, just barely keeping the full extent of his frustration underneath. It makes his throat burn and draw tight, and he has to swallow around it before it pinches too far. “That’s all. This is it.”

Theo hasn’t believed in God since he was a child, sitting up at night terrified and wondering as he stared up at the ceiling why anyone would ever let his life go this way all the way back when he was only seven and hardly even knew how to tie his shoes, but he thanks some kind of higher power that might be out there for the good fortune of finally turning onto Liam’s street. He pulls up to Liam’s house before he can get a chance to wrap his head around all of that and reply, and then it’s over. Liam stares at him for a few more seconds as Theo keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead, unable to look at Liam’s stupid, concerned, hurt face anymore, and it’s over.

For once, Liam doesn’t say anything as he gets out of the truck, pulling his bag up over his shoulder and looking down at the floor as he goes. It’s probably for the best and it’s what Theo has been wishing for for the past few agonizing minutes that have felt more like hours - quiet - but it still sits heavily in the pit of his stomach. Despite his frustration at it, the silence paired with the look on Liam’s face hurts almost as much as saying all of those things in the first place, hurts almost as bad as watching him go.

Theo kind of wants to yell, kind of wants to cry, kind of wants to lash out and punch a dent in the dashboard or the headrest of the passenger seat, but he doesn’t do any of that. Liam reaches the front door and Theo keeps driving after forcing himself not to take another look, settling for a deep sigh and running a hand through his hair instead. 

It’s easier than expected to make his way off of Liam’s street. It’s less easy to keep the stinging feeling in his eyes from turning into the blurring of tears and the hand in his hair from clutching and pulling more than soothing as he gets further and further away, but he manages. That’s what he tells himself, anyway. 

That’s what he tells himself, but it doesn’t mean shit, not with the year he’s had. It didn’t mean shit when he told himself at the beginning of the year that this arrangement wouldn’t become a thing or when he told himself back in December that driving Liam home from school was a one-time thing, and it doesn’t mean shit as he tells himself that he won’t be driving right back down this same street on Monday morning. Nothing that he tells himself when it comes to Liam anymore is more than a pathetic, bold-faced lie, and he hates himself for it.

He’s not going back here on Monday morning, he silently tells himself anyway as he turns the block, fingers wrapping around the wheel.

That weekend is rough for him, the roughest one yet.

---

It’s June seventeenth and Theo is right back in the side parking lot just like he knew deep down he would be, rain beating down on the roof of the truck just as hard as it had been the first time he’d been offered Liam’s money like the world knows what kind of day this is, and Theo almost, almost wants to laugh. It’s like the world knows that Theo’s already had a terrible day that’s only going to get worse with a work day full of accidents and distractions and that it’s the second-to-last day of Liam’s school year, the second-to-last day that Theo will get to see him like this, and maybe it’s Theo being kind of jaded, but he thinks that there could be some amusing irony in that. Maybe he’ll stop and laugh to himself about it a different day when the wounds aren’t so raw, or, more accurately, about to split open for the first time. 

He’d spent that weekend trying not to think about Liam and failing miserably, all of the possible combinations of outcomes playing out on a constant loop. At work, Liam leaving town. At home, Liam leaving town and not coming back. Trying to sleep, Liam leaving town and not coming back and never speaking to him again. All of it feels so imminent, so inevitable, because somewhere in Theo’s head he knows that he still technically has the three months of summer vacation before Liam goes away, but that hardly seems promising either. Theo’s sure that Liam will want to spend his summer months with his more important friends and his family, friends that don’t have to worry about when their next meal will be if they’re skipping them for rent and being too busy picking up extra shifts to hang out, friends that Liam has just known for longer and better than he knows Theo, friends that don’t have a past with him that really should’ve ruined any chance of them talking, ones like Mason and Corey and Alec and Nolan, because Theo’s sins far overshadow even the literal hunter’s. It’s hard to think about summer anyway when the sky is this grey and he’s still sitting in the parking lot, but he doesn’t have a ton of time to, anyway.

Theo narrowly avoids flinching in surprise as Liam opens the side door unexpectedly, startled for just a second before his stomach fills with the unsurprising dread and has him tensing a little in his seat. 

Liam comes in soaking wet from his trek from the front door to the parking lot in the rain, already dripping water all over the place before he’s even reached for the seatbelt. Theo looks at him warily with the most warning expression he can muster, half-expecting Liam to do something stupid like start shaking his wet hair out like a dog - he’s done that before - but Liam seems to understand that it’s not the time to. Instead, he tosses his bookbag stuffed full of various locker items, pencils falling out here and there just like Theo had imagined, pulls his seatbelt on over his chest, and turns to Theo with a strange look of set determination.

“I need to make a stop before I go home,” Liam says very matter-of-factly, leaving no room for argument, and Theo just barely avoids rolling his eyes like he really wants to. 

In the past he would’ve jumped at the opportunity to drive Liam someplace else, would probably have tried to drive him to the moon if he’d asked him because it’d give him extra time with him, but Theo doesn’t have it in him anymore. He’s tired of being present and hopeful. His stupid hope died last Friday afternoon after being slowly snuffed out for weeks, and all he wants to do now is go home and collapse onto his mattress so that he can start accepting the inevitable before he has to get up and go for his nighttime shift.

On the other hand, there’s the side of Theo that had wanted to laugh at the way it’s raining, the masochistic side that says Fuck it, might as well add insult to injury, and it’s the side that wins out. He can’t avoid sighing about it, but he gives in and nods to the GPS built into the dashboard. Liam descends on it right away, using the plastic touchscreen to punch in the location as Theo forces himself to start pulling out of the parking lot.

It’s not the greatest system in the world and Theo doesn’t use it often because of the pretty unhelpful interface, his unfamiliarity with it and the fact that it won’t just tell him where he’s going in simple terms not helping to sway his irritation. All Liam put in was a direct street address so that’s all it shows him on the screen besides the directions, giving no hints as to what the address is, which is sketchy. In hindsight, Theo really should’ve just asked where Liam wanted him to take him, but it’s not being in a talking mood that makes him start driving without questioning it out loud. 

They don’t talk very much on the ride over unless it’s Liam pointing out where to turn and where to keep going every so often, probably just trying to be helpful, and Theo doesn’t point out that he can see the path on the GPS just fine even though he really kind of wants to. For the most part Theo ignores him, going into his own sort of highway hypnosis as he follows the directions and purposely tries not to think too hard about them. He drives out of Beacon Hills and through some of the neighboring towns as they line up without needing to focus, an action that comes from choosing not to see the way Liam keeps throwing him sideways glances that are just a little bit different today in a way that Theo can’t place, and just keeps going.

He starts to come back online as they get further out of town and closer to their destination, blinking and looking around to see things start to look different than what most of their region of California is used to. At one point, long after Theo had lost track of how long they’ve been going, they pass a sign that Theo doesn’t catch the wording but sees the colors of - blue and gold, UCLA’s branded blue and gold, to be exact - and wonders if Liam would really be so cruel as to take them to the place Theo will lose what little he has of him to.

He starts thinking that his suspicions are right when those colors don’t stop coming, flags in school colors lining some of the streets and people about their age walking around in blue and gold hoodies and T-shirts as they rush to avoid the rain, and Theo’s heart sinks further even though he’d thought it’d already reached its limit. He bites back the heavy sigh that wants to escape and keeps driving through it all until the GPS - and, unhelpfully, Liam - tell him to stop. 

They end up in yet another parking lot that Theo can barely see through the torrents of rain, especially when he parks the car and the windshield wipers turn off with the engine, after pulling wordlessly in. He doesn’t bother trying to look around at first, eyes zoned off on a chip in the polish of the steering wheel - from his claws on the night the hunters took over the hospital and Theo had been so overwhelmed with the feeling of someone else’s phantom-like pain coursing through his veins in the aftermath that he couldn’t stop himself from letting them loose, he thinks - and only looks up again when he realizes that Liam is still there. 

Not only is Liam making no attempt to get out and go into whatever building they’re in front of, not even starting to brace himself to walk out in the rain, he’s back to looking at him Like That, capital L and T. Theo couldn’t have helped rolling his eyes then even if he’d tried. He gives in and looks at their surroundings just so that he doesn’t have to give in and look at Liam, having to squint a little to make anything out through the rain, but it doesn’t do him much good in figuring out why they’re there.

He’d been trying not to think about the way that they’re only a few minutes away from the UCLA campus, but it’s kind of hard not to with all of the evidence; The school colors are all still there in the little flags and bumper stickers stuck to a bunch of the cars around them in the lot, triumphant looking brown bears - bruins, which is apparently an important distinction to Liam - staring at him, plus more blue and gold signs throughout. It’s when he catches a glimpse of the big one over what must be the front doors of the building that he really wants to just bang his head on the dashboard - Bruin Apartments.

“What’re we doing here, Liam?” He finally asks, a generous amount of is he fucking serious creeping into his tone. Liam, however, doesn’t seem to be affected by it at all. If anything, Theo’s voice seems to set his sights in place, looking at him determinedly.

“Remember what I asked you last week?” Liam starts, immediately bringing on Theo’s snark of wondering why he’s acting like he wouldn’t remember a conversation they had only a few days ago, especially that one, but he bites his tongue to keep it back. “When I asked you what you were going to do after I...after I leave for college? How you said you weren’t going to do anything different?” Liam pushes on. 

Theo, tired of the conversation already, obeys; He nods slowly, eyes drifting off to the rain-blurred windshield as that heavy feeling fills in the pit of his stomach once again. 

He only looks back after Liam takes a deep, steady breath, looks around at the parking lot pointedly, and stares right back at Theo again. “Well, here’s something different,” He says. “We’re going to look at apartments.”

If that isn’t enough to make Theo’s entire being ache, he doesn’t know what is. It wasn’t bad enough that Liam made him drive an hour out of town all the way out here and it somehow still wasn’t bad enough when the GPS had told him to pull into the parking lot of Liam’s future apartment building, and now he wants him to help look for one. Theo feels like he can’t even breathe, can’t find any air and can’t let any out, and Liam’s still going.

“I figured that you’d have some ideas on-”

“My apartment in Beacon Hills isn’t exactly luxury, Liam,” Theo interrupts before he can go any further, tired of listening. “It might come as a surprise to you, but I’m not the expert to ask about this.”

That at least seems to throw him off for a second, but only just that. “Well, yeah, but I thought that you might be the best person to help me out anyway. You’re smart, and your opinion is kind of important here.”

Looking back, Theo might’ve thought to take a little bit of time to register what Liam was saying, but in the moment he can’t at all. With every word Liam says his stomach sinks lower, fingers itching to grip at the steering wheel again and press more gouges into the faded leather, and his next words come out through gritted teeth, an argument already in place.

“Mason and Corey are going here, too,” Theo points out, not a single trace of the annoyance he feels left out of it this time, because they are. Mason and Corey, those two more important friends, are going to be right by his side when he moves into whatever little apartment he chooses, probably will live in it with him, and they’ll all have a fun happy college life together while Theo is back on his own in Beacon Hills. He can already imagine the things that the three of them will get up to while they’re left alone, and it hurts, because imagining will be the only experience Theo gets with Liam from now on. They won’t have to deal with that thought. “I’m sure they’ll have a lot more to say about it than I do. Just-” Theo cuts off on a sigh. “I’ll drive you out here again if you want, but just ask them so I can go home.”

The air between them goes silent, and Theo really thinks that that’s it; That he’s finally delivered that final blow, that Liam finally gives up on trying to make him talk, that Liam finally realizes just how fucking pathetic Theo is, offering him to drive him there again and letting the hurt seep into his voice because he just can’t help it anymore. Theo feels nauseous sitting in the driver's seat, eyes falling to his lap as he wishes more than ever that he’d just said no when Liam asked him to make a stop, just said no when Liam had asked him to pick him up for school on the first day. If he’d just had a spine, maybe he could’ve avoided all of this. Maybe he would’ve even gotten over it before he’d ever had to start worrying about Liam going to college, as far fetched as a world where he doesn’t worry about the next time he’ll get to see Liam seems. 

Theo is sitting there in pure agony with every second that passes, hoping with each one that Liam will give some sign that he can leave and they can start making the long and painful ride home, but it doesn’t come.

“You really don’t get it,” Liam says instead. Theo’s eyes snap back over to him much more quickly than they’d left; it doesn’t sound like a question, more like a realization, and now they’re both confused. Liam’s staring at him like he’s never seen him before, lips parted and eyes wide and eyebrows just the slightest bit raised, and Theo’s sure that he doesn’t look much better. He wants to ask him as soon as those words hit the air what the hell is going on, but Liam’s eyes are pinning him in place, and he couldn’t open his mouth if he tried. “You…” He breathes, punched-out like he’s amused. It’s that and something in his expression that makes Theo feel like an idiot for reasons he doesn’t even know yet, his normally-confident exterior starting to crack, his mind starting to scramble to get it back before it all falls apart. 

“You know that Mason has a car too, right?” Liam asks, dashing any hopes of getting it together; His mind goes blank. “He does. He got it for his birthday, almost, like, three years ago when he got his permit. His parents gave it to him as a sixteenth birthday gift and to celebrate his, what, four-point-three?” Liam says. “Theo, I thought you knew.”

“I…” Theo’s pretty sure he says, but in all honesty, he can barely even hear himself think.

“Yeah. He drove me to school every day last year, and he could’ve been driving me this year too, but he didn’t. I...I wanted you to.”

What?

“And, yeah, Mason and Corey are going here too, and yeah, I could’ve asked for their opinions,” Liam keeps going, plowing right through the absolute paper-white blank mess Theo’s brain is. “I could’ve asked Mason to drive me out here and look at apartments with me, but I didn’t. He didn’t.” Liam looks at him then, really looks at him, and takes in a deep breath. Theo feels like it’s been sucked straight from his own lungs as he watches the bob of Liam’s throat as he swallows, watches the part of his plush lips and the way he’s looking at him that’s threatening to break him apart. “Because I didn’t want him to drive me, not to school or here or anywhere else. I didn’t want him to drive me, and I didn’t want his opinion on apartments, because I don’t want him to live there with me. Don’t you get it?” He asks again, voice breathless and disbelieving. “I just want you.”

Theo doesn’t even have time to even begin to think about a response to that before Liam’s moving, eyes dropping down to his lap. One of his hands reaches into the left pocket of his jeans and pulls out that all too familiar roll of money again, hand shaking just enough to be seen through the confident mask he has on, and holds it up in front of them. It’s right in front of his eyes, and Theo barely even sees it. All he sees is Liam.

“And I don’t care what you say,” Liam comes back with renewed energy just a second later, seemingly startling them both a little, but he presses on. “I’m going to pay you back for all of the gas you wasted when you didn’t need to one day, but this…” He says, holding it up a little higher. “This is going towards a full-sized fridge in our apartment, if that’s what you want.” His voice is bold and his eyes are assessing, and Theo will never in his life understand how Liam smiles so easily when Theo feels positively raw and shattered. “And you know, I looked into it,” He says. “There’s a DiLisi’s not too far from this complex. We’ll need to have room for those pizza leftovers you like so much.”

It’s important to note that of all the things that Theo Raeken has been, sociopathic and evil and deplorable being just a few of the nicer ones, he has never been speechless. 

Theo Raeken has always had something to say even in the worst situations of his life, trained to have an answer back to every single introduction, every single joke, every single threat, has stared down the barrel of a hunter’s gun with a smirk and sneered right back at a man trying to electrocute him to death, and here he is, sitting in the driver’s seat of his own truck in some random apartment complex parking lot, and he has absolutely nothing. All that’s in his head is a constant, nearly-unintelligible chorus of “I just want you, I just want you, I just want you, he just wants you,” and after months of heartache and dread, Theo doesn’t say anything at all.

He’s not sure whether or not it’s a surprise to himself when he lunges across the seats and crushes their mouths together instead, taking Liam’s bottom lip between his own and itching to bite, but he knows that it feels right, feels like the same kind of warmth and belonging and relief that he always knew it would, and he can’t stop. He has Liam’s face held in his palms, warm against his skin, and it’s all he’s ever wanted. He just wants him, wants to take and take and give Liam everything that he’s given him and more, wants to show him that, except -

Except that Liam is frozen under his hands.

Theo pulls back just as quickly as he’d come in, ice-cold fear rushing over him in a wave. Oh God, he thinks, terror running through his veins so fast that it stings; His fingers are still stuck on Liam’s face and his lips still tingle from where they’d been pressed to his and Liam’s eyes are still closed, and Theo has just ruined everything. He’s not sure if it’d been seconds or minutes that Theo was lost, but Liam hadn’t kissed him back, and he’d just fucked everything up. Fucking typical, his mind is already spitting, his fight-or-flight instinct screaming at him to start the truck back up and gun it out to get this goodbye over with. You just had to do it, just had to lose control when it really matters-

“Fuck, I’m-” Theo stammers, finally ripping his hands away from his face. “I’m- I’m so-”

It’s then that Theo looks at Liam’s face, apparently having been stuck on something else, and it’s his turn to freeze. Instead of the pitying or disgusted expression he’d expected to see on his face, Liam is smiling. His eyes open up wide, pupils blown, and Theo loses all of his air again.

“Theo,” Liam says, voice shaky. Theo swallows. Liam’s hands - money dropped onto the floor with a dull thunk - find the collar of his shirt and pull. “Shut up.”

They kiss through it when their fingers tangle in each other’s hair and accidentally tug so hard it starts to hurt, hard enough to send a wave of heat rocketing through Theo’s stomach that’s incredibly hard not to think about, kiss through it as the rain starts to pelt down even harder on the roof, kiss through it when Theo starts thinking that he must be dead, must be dying, because he feels like he’s fucking floating. They kiss until Theo is convinced that he’s dead and then really alive, until he’s convinced that he’s nothing, just pieces half-ascended held together in Liam’s strong hands, and his mouth tastes like the mint gum he always chews and he can feel their shared heat radiating between them and Liam really wants him. 

He’s wanted him this whole time, through all of the rides to school and back and all of the stops in between, wanted him and missed him like Theo did on all of the weekends and off-days, and he wants him enough to take Theo with him when he goes and starts his new life. Liam wants him, something Theo has tried and failed not to allow himself to hope for, and it’s unbelievable.

And Theo would have been perfectly content to keep going, serotonin-flooded mind conjuring images of winding his fingers into the hem of Liam’s shirt and tossing it into the backseat before climbing back there himself and pulling Liam along with him, but - probably for the better, in hindsight - they’re finally cut off by a loud wolf-whistle from just a few feet away. 

They startle apart by just a few inches, both of them flinching to see a guy walking, holding his own car keys on his own UCLA keychain, completely drenched and weighed down by the rain but smiling and cheering them on just like a college kid close to the end of the year. He grins even wider when he sees them looking, even tossing up a fist in what has to be celebration on their behalf, and Theo is so stunned that his wide eyes follow him all the way across the parking lot. 

The guy eventually finds his car and drives off, and Theo’s sure that he’d have kept staring at the space with a stupid shocked expression and a truly embarrassing blush on his face, but he doesn’t end up getting to focus on it for long. He feels Liam’s hand cup one side of his jaw a second later, turning Theo’s face back towards his own, and resting his forehead up against Liam’s and letting his eyes slip shut is suddenly the most natural move in the world.

“Yeah?” Liam asks after a second, soft but excited, and Theo is almost dazed enough that he doesn’t understand what he means, but-

“Yeah,” He breathes, pants. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, yes,” Theo huffs, and that’s all it takes to seal the deal. He feels Liam smile against his mouth before he pulls him back in by his collar, noisy rain and apartment hunting and passerbys be damned; Nothing can hold Theo back from this anymore.

---

Although it doesn’t happen that day as Liam had planned, both of them too preoccupied with, ahem, other things that needed to happen elsewhere, Theo and Liam do eventually get their shit together.

The next couple of days after their first kiss are hectic. After a Monday night and Tuesday on-and-off-all-day full of things that he’d only ever seen in his uncensored dreams, Theo does end up going to Liam’s graduation on Wednesday night, which is incredibly gratifying and exciting considering that he’d been imagining putting the ticket Liam had given him a few weeks prior through the shredder in the back room at work and curling up with a pint of ice cream that he can’t afford like some melodramatic romantic comedy character. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, Theo gets dressed nicely and swallows his pride, walking onto the field set up for the ceremony on his own. If anyone recognizes him and has a problem with it, Theo doesn’t notice - He manages to catch Liam’s scent and quick heartbeat from somewhere in the crowd of waiting students, and even though he can’t see him, it’s enough to keep Theo focused on only the good. Liam just has that effect on him, he guesses.

Theo not only watches Liam walk across the stage to get his diploma - he doesn’t hang back, either. There are a couple of people standing towards the back of the football field behind the rest of the audience and some of them even past the speakers, but Theo doesn’t join them, no matter how tempting it may be. He takes his spot at the very end of row four in the aisle, nodding and showing his ticket with the seat number to who must be Liam’s parents as they look at him inquisitively - Jenna has only ever actually seen Theo from twenty feet away, so she gets a pass on that. It’s a little awkward at first and has his heart racing more than he’d care to admit as he settles in, but he figures that it’s about time that Liam’s parents meet his...well, whatever Theo is to him. About time they meet the guy who’s been driving Liam around town all year and who he’s going to end up moving in with in just a few months, Theo amends. And whatever else he gets to be.

(Theo will later find out that Liam has more family there than just his already-informed parents, a realization that comes with momentary abject terror when he kisses Liam right there in front of them all without knowing that he’s related to the entire row. He’s saved from a complete and total apologetic breakdown when Liam just laughs at the shocked but pleased and adoring expressions on his family members’ faces and kisses him again, but the introductions to Liam’s aunts and uncles and cousins after the fact are significantly more awkward than they were with his parents, and it’ll definitely always be one of those moments that haunts him late at night when he’s trying to fall asleep.)

The graduation party is that weekend, held at Liam’s house and hosting his friends and family, which means Theo gets to have a little more practice. He tends to stick by Liam’s side through it, Nolan, Alec, Mason, and Corey still being mostly just acquaintances and everyone else being total strangers, but since Liam has a lot of people to talk to, they get detached every so often and Theo has to roam around and be an actual person for once. He thinks he does pretty well with Liam’s parents, who, alarmingly enough, seem to know kind of a lot about his situation - Theo’s not sure if it’s sans-murder arc or not, but they do mention the pack and seem to already know that he wasn’t always on great terms with them - if their approving smiles and follow-up questions about his job and personal life are anything to go by, but there are people who are less easy to talk to. There’s the relatives whose names Theo doesn’t know and whose existences he wasn’t aware of until three days ago, most of whom have never heard of him either and have a lot of (all positive, but still nerve-wracking) questions about his relationship with Liam, including a very enthusiastic Aunt Beatrice who quite literally pinches his cheeks like a child and tells him how adorable he is, how cute he and Liam are, welcome to the family, you’ll have to tell me your shirt size so I can knit you a sweater for Christmas, and then Scott, who walks into the backyard party about an hour in and sets Theo on edge as he approaches, thinking that he’s going to say something scathing, but all he does is look at Theo’s tense frame assessingly, give a lopsided smile, and say “So you kissed him in front of everyone?”

Theo ends up kissing Liam that way again - not really by his choice, having had enough PDA in front of people who are already trying to figure out what kind of in-law he would be to them, because Liam’s family is unhinged - while most of them are on their way out of the backyard and Theo is staying behind and standing on the front step to wave goodbye with Liam. He’s not too mad about it that time despite someone else whistling at them as they leave - Theo suspects that that’s Scott, who he is never going to be able to look in the eye again - because Liam smiles and asks him to officially be his boyfriend right afterwards. Theo never thought that he’d be anyone’s boyfriend, but it’s not like he’s going to say no.

Besides, he finds out as soon as Liam says it that he really, really likes that title a lot more than he thought he would, anyway.

And, of course, they do go apartment hunting soon after that. Theo takes a day off work about a week into summer, figuring that irritating his boss won’t make much of a difference since he’ll be finding a new job soon enough, to drive both of them back down to the apartment complex on a sunnier day than the first time they’d been there. They make it out of the truck that time and head inside to talk to the owner, who’s more than happy to show them around. There aren’t a whole ton of apartments left to rent out at that point since Liam waited so long to actually tell Theo about his plan, but they end up finding a pretty nice one on the fourth floor. One of the elevators in the complex is under repairs and the way the owner mentions it implies that it’s like that a lot, meaning that there could be a lot of trips up the stairs in their future there, but the apartment has good sunlight, decent included appliances, and best of all, more than enough room in the one bedroom for at least a queen-sized bed. There are definite advantages to off-campus living, and Liam signs the rental agreement on that day so that they’re set to move in in two months.

Moving in with Liam turns out to be one of the best decisions Theo’s ever made. Theo still doesn’t have much to his name besides the mattress that’s never had a bedframe and the clothes off his back and Liam obviously doesn’t have too much to take from his childhood bedroom, so moving everything in doesn’t take very long. It means that they go mostly without furniture for the first couple of weeks in there, the only things being provided by the complex being a welcome basket with some pamphlets about the town and the college, the refrigerator, and the fixtures nailed down to the floor, but they manage. Liam’s college fund comes in handy now that his scholarship is paying for his actual tuition, so they start looking at things like couches and chairs and, yes, bed frames not too long after they’re settled, sitting with Liam’s laptop between them on the floor in their empty living room.

Theo likes this place a lot better than his old one, one-hundred percent sure that it’s because of Liam more than anything else, but the complex itself is good, too. Mason and Corey end up moving into an apartment a floor below theirs’ and visit a lot, giving Theo a chance to get to know them better and even start to become friends as they keep finding more things that they have in common, and they meet new people as well. There’s Jess, another incoming freshman at UCLA with a sharp sense of humor and sarcasm that matches with Theo’s enough that they become friends quickly, and someone on the other side who’s a lot more of a shock. Theo answers the door to him a few days after they move in, figuring that it’s just the owner checking up on them, but it turns out to be none other than the guy who had seen them in the parking lot. The guy - Michael, a junior  - is so stoked to see them there that it almost overshadows Theo’s frozen state in the doorway, and he becomes their friend through his enthusiastic welcoming and offers to help them with anything they need. Theo has a full-blown social life between Michael, Jess, Mason, and Corey by the time Liam’s classes start, and it’s thrilling in a way he never knew it could be.

It’s also great having things to do every day. After a year and a half of living in his old apartment in Beacon Hills, waking up solely just to go to work and drive Liam around every day before going back to sleep and starting the process all over again the next morning, having some drive is exhilarating. Things pick up quickly at the end of the summer and beginning of September. Theo’s getting closer with Liam, hanging out with his newfound friends, and getting his life together. As more shipments of household necessities come in and make their apartment feel more like a home, Theo feels more like someone with a purpose.

His purpose, besides exploring his new relationship with Liam and getting the apartment into shape for the next couple of years, is getting his GED, which takes him right up to now.

Sitting behind the wheel of his parked truck, Theo is taking his third practice test of the week on his phone with his book propped up on the dashboard and a pen in his mouth to mark the wrong answers on a precariously-balanced notebook as he goes. If Liam saw him now, he’d comment again about an abundance of caution, but Theo has never listened to him; It doesn’t matter that he’s already passed the other six. He’s going to pass at least four more by the time his test day actually comes. 

His truck is admittedly not that conducive to studying, materials slipping around the curved lines of his seats and dashboard, and he really should be at home. His laptop is a lot better at running the practice testing site, there’s a whole box of new dishes sitting by the front door that are waiting to be put into the cabinets, and they’re supposed to be hosting Jess, Michael, Mason, and Corey over that night for a truly inappropriate amount of pizza to celebrate the first week of classes gone well, but he can’t exactly just leave - he is the driver after all. The website lights up the screen green with another correct answer, and Theo takes that chance to glance over at the clock on the control panel. Any minute now.

Ten minutes later, Theo is startled out of smiling triumphantly at a one-hundred percent test result when he catches Liam’s voice sounding a little closer than it had before. Theo smiles to himself more softly then, quickly gathering up his supplies out of the passenger seat and depositing them into the back to make room, and gets out of the truck to stand in front of Liam’s door afterwards.

He watches, leaning against the truck with his arms folded, as Liam emerges from the front doors of the Los Angeles DMV, anticipation stirring up in his stomach. Liam looks less nervous as he’d been going in, his chemosignals almost all the way back to normal, which Theo takes as a good sign, but he asks anyway.

“How’d it go?” He asks when Liam’s a few feet away, a grin already spreading on his face because he knows what Liam’s going to do. He stands in front of Theo, rocks back on his heels with a scrunched up look on his face, and then holds out a shiny new probationary license.

“I passed,” Liam says, breaking into a shaky smile of his own as Theo reaches out to pull him in. “Almost hit a cone once or twice, but…”

“Stop, no you didn’t,” Theo scoffs, swatting at him, and Liam laughs into Theo’s shirt. Theo tightens his arms around Liam’s waist and sighs a little to himself. He knows Liam didn’t hit any cones or even get close - he’s had a good teacher preparing him for his road test. There’s no way that Liam would come out of there with anything less than a perfect score and a license of his own after all those months of practicing with Theo, the world’s most critical driver. “I’m proud of you.” 

They don’t stick around in the parking lot for long, mostly because it’s almost four o’clock and their friends are supposed to come over at five, so after Theo finally manages to pry himself off of Liam, they turn back to the truck.

“Gonna show off your new skills?” Theo asks when he stays by the passenger door instead of going around, looking at Liam amusedly, who still doesn’t seem to have grasped that he legally can. 

Theo stares at Liam the whole ride back to their apartment, the whole ride back home. It’s weird sitting in the passenger seat of his own truck, but he likes the view. Liam looks good when he’s focused, eyes just a little squinted and lips just a little parted as he stares at the road, and he likes it. That - and the fact that Liam even manages to look good in his license picture - makes Theo wish they had a little more time before they’re supposed to have company.

He settles for covering Liam’s hand on the gear stick the next time he uses it, squeezing a tiny bit just to watch some of that focus fade away. Liam smiles towards the front softly, still keeping his eyes on the road like Theo taught him to, but it doesn’t last that long.

“Okay, uh-” Liam says, voice suddenly nervous. “Not that that doesn’t feel great, but I’m not exactly as experienced with this as you are, so-”

Theo huffs out a surprised laugh as he takes his hand away, letting Liam replace it on the steering wheel like he’s supposed to, and shakes his head to himself amusedly. Liam seems to consider it for a second before daring to look over at him.

“I like it when you smile like that,” Liam says, and it’s so unexpectedly soft that it takes Theo aback. Something in his chest flutters and his mind stalls to a stop, but he manages to get it back quickly enough.

God, he loves him. 

“Oh, hey,” Theo says when he turns back to face the front, shaking himself off. “Eyes on the road, you’re moving into the other lane a little.”

“Oh, dammit…!”

“Ha!”