Stuck in Beacon Hills after Liam Dunbar insisted he stay, Theo Raeken wants nothing more than to run. He joins Liam's lacrosse team in the hopes of becoming a nuisance, but instead, it just brings them closer together than Theo could ever imagine.
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Theo Raeken is alive, surprisingly, and that leaves him with far less to do than he really expected. Theo always assumed that once the fighting stopped and his life was no longer in immediate danger, he’d just know what to do after that. You know, he’d live a normal life and that would be that. He would know how to exist like everyone else.
Theo is now freshly out of hell and he can confirm that he was wrong. Living is hard. You have to do it right. Decisions made in the thick of battle don’t have to be good, they just have to keep you alive long enough to make another one. Outside of a fight, though, everything matters.
Frankly, it’s a little disheartening. Theo figured he was capable enough to survive without anyone, but it looks like that might not be the case.
He’s not alone, though. Someone made sure of that. Someone stopped Theo from moving out of town despite his best efforts otherwise, and that someone would be Liam Dunbar.
Yeah, Theo can’t really believe that part. Despite the fact that Theo spent several months manipulating Liam into wanting to kill Scott McCall (and would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids), Liam still wants Theo here. Unhinged behavior.
Every other member of the McCall pack shares in that skepticism, but Liam is apparently unbothered by it. He decided that Theo would be staying, and seeing as Theo himself seems to have no say in the matter, he’ll be sticking around a little longer.
The problem is that Theo doesn’t want to stay in Beacon Hills, not really. This is the site of his great failure, his inability to topple the McCall pack like he’d been planning for so long. Even the sight of Liam is another reminder that Theo tried to make everything work according to his twisted schedule and just couldn’t do it.
At the end of the day, Liam Dunbar is– well, he’s Liam, and that encapsulates a whole hell of a lot more than Theo could ever adequately put into words. Liam flies off the handle at a moment’s notice. Liam alternates between being down in the dumps to raring to go with more frequency than a pendulum.
Liam also is the only one who checked to see where Theo was staying after the dust cleared. The only one who could be regularly counted on to watch Theo’s back as opposed to just leaving him high and dry in the middle of a fight. Theo isn’t sure how to respond to any of that, so he goes with his usual response: blank apathy with a little bit of targeted aggression. It has yet to fail him.
The fact that he’s been all but ordered to stay put so Liam can keep an eye on him is incredibly frustrating. Theo wants nothing more than to leave this whole godawful town behind him, find another pack to torment and maybe succeed there. Liam only wants Theo here so he can feel some sort of protective bullshit. After all, Liam’s the one who ‘saved’ Theo from his dark side, maybe he feels called to keep Theo in line now.
Regardless, Theo doesn’t like it. Liam apparently wants him on the straight and narrow, which isn’t anywhere in line with Theo’s idea of a good time. Instead of putting his plotting skills to good use and actually succeeding, Theo has to do boring things, like go to class, do his homework, and otherwise live like Liam and the rest of the do-gooders in the McCall pack. What a nightmare.
The only foreseeable way Theo can get out of this is if Liam gets so sick of him that he finally relinquishes the noose he’s got around Theo’s throat. So, Theo launches his best plan of attack: namely, being so infuriating that Liam kicks him out of Beacon Hills as soon as possible.
Theo is wonderful at being insufferable. He’s also very good at being adaptable. When constantly flirting with Liam’s ex, Hayden, doesn’t seem to be doing the trick, Theo switches tactics and goes after his friends instead. Suddenly, Mason and Corey can’t hang out because Theo desperately needs them for studying or something else. Liam is left alone with no one to blame for it but Theo.
Or, that’s how it should have gone, but instead Liam just grins and talks about how glad he is that Theo’s really fitting in with the rest of them. Impossible boy. Theo can’t even rely on the old classic of getting Stiles to suss out his obviously evil tactics because all of the pack members in Scott’s pack graduated earlier this year. It’s just Theo and Liam and the rest of the younger ones, and none of them are nearly as suspicious as Theo would like.
Out of sheer desperation, Theo focuses on the one thing Liam likes more than anything: lacrosse. Theo still has the reflexes, speed, and strength of a werewolf, even if he left most of his chimera abilities behind in hell. All Theo has to do is run a few laps, do some pushups, and show off the fact that he’s obviously got anger issues, and the lacrosse coach is practically jumping up and down with delight.
Theo shows up to the first practice that afternoon, outpaces Liam every chance he gets even when it means he’s heaving for breath whenever the other boy’s back is turned. It’s worth it, seeing the competitive streak flare to life in Liam’s eyes when he realizes he’s finally met his match. Yes, Theo wants to scream, that’s what I’m talking about. Hate me. Hate me so much for beating you that you run me out of this town.
Theo’s never really cared much for lacrosse, but at this moment, he thinks he’ll play it until the day he dies. He gets to run for hours and charge into other people and knock them down so he can score and score and score, never ending, always up for one more round. Coach loves him. Liam grows more furious by the second. It’s everything he wanted.
At the end of the day, Theo has to snap his mind back to reality and remind himself that this isn’t why he joined the team, not that animal roar in his ears whenever he scores but to get out of here once and for all. Pushing Liam past his breaking point is all that matters.
Theo swears to himself that he’s only there to serve as a hindrance, to get under Liam’s skin in yet another way out of thousands, but something in his chest still sparks with approval when he gets his official school jersey for the first time. There’s a number on the back, his, and some voice inside asks if he’s ever had something just for him in so long. The rage, that was the doctors’; the guilt, that belonged to his sister; but whatever he does out on the field, that is his and no one else’s.
That gets harder and harder to remember as the days turn into weeks and the whole lacrosse thing keeps getting better. Theo plays as a part of the team, they face other schools and they win decisively, Theo makes sure of it. To hell if he’s an aggressive player, that’s how you win. Even when some of that rage is directed towards Liam instead. Besides, Coach has said that Theo and Liam can fight with each other all they want in practice so long as they turn that aggression towards the rival players when it’s game time, so isn’t that basically just a seal of approval for Theo to be Theo?
The best part is that he’s good at it. Really good at it. That goes beyond a werewolf’s enhanced athleticism– Theo was made for sports, or so he’s taken to thinking since putting on that jersey. The plays make sense to him, the strategies stick in his brain even when he’s dead tired but the game must go on. Theo likes lacrosse and lacrosse likes Theo. Easy as that.
Even Liam can admit it. He keeps doing this thing where he keeps treating Theo like his friend. Whenever Theo scores a good goal or Beacon Hills High wins a game, Liam goes up to Theo and slaps him on the back or gives him this one-armed hug around their lacrosse sticks that should be awkward but somehow isn’t. For this brief moment, it’s like Liam forgets who Theo is and what he stands for, that they’re just teammates who can celebrate together, joined together by the sheer force of that victory.
The moment always ends, though. Liam’s breath catches in his chest, Theo can hear the hesitation, and he steps away quickly as if nothing happened so they can go back to hating each other. The moment keeps getting pushed off, though. Every game it takes them more and more time to remember who they are.
That extra time gives Theo chances to notice things that he didn’t before. Liam’s good at lacrosse just like Theo is, they both have that same fire in their stomachs to go out there and do something well. They both stand side by side when it’s time to face off with the other team at the start of the match, like they know they could win the whole game even if it was just the two of them and the other team should be quite aware of it, too.
Also, Liam Dunbar laughs with his eyes closed. When he really means it, that is— nothing like that polite chuckle he’ll do when someone isn’t really being funny but standing there motionless in the face of a failing joke seems to be in poor taste. Theo has seen it a few times now.
The first thing he thought was that it was a weakness. Never close your eyes around anybody or you’ll get hit before you know it. The second realization hit him like a gut punch, because Liam probably knows that but does it around Theo anyway because Liam trusts him enough for that. To give Theo a chance to strike because he knows Theo won’t do it. To close his eyes when he’s laughing and let Theo smile back at him. Trusted. Protected. No longer a threat.
Theo has always been a threat. The thought that at some point over the past few months, that stopped being true, shakes him more than he cares to admit. Not everybody around here feels the same way, and every time Scott or Stiles comes around, they always bring back a fresh current of distrust against Theo, but Liam seems to have given up on that front.
Maybe Theo has given up too. He realizes that it’s been a while since he thought of leaving. Just the other day, he was talking absently about plans he was going to make a few months from now, plans that involved him staying here perhaps forever. Liam had been there (isn’t he always?) and grinned triumphantly when Theo mentioned that. Theo hadn’t understood it then, but he thinks he does now.
There is a lot to Liam that Theo didn’t notice, even beyond the physical. He does things to Theo that Theo can’t describe. Liam makes Theo nervous, but not like hunters-and-death nervous, something else. Something like a racing heart even when he should have cooled down after practice. Something like how every time they drive together or walk together or even stand side by side, Theo can’t stop his mind from spiraling into the thousand ways they might touch, accidentally or maybe– maybe even on purpose.
Theo feels that all he can do is look, and look, and look. Liam’s hair is longer now than when they first met, it gets in the other boy’s face until he irritably brushes it behind his ears only for it to fall back in place about ten minutes later. It’s dark usually, but when the sun is setting and the windows are rolled down in Theo’s truck, Theo swears Liam’s hair looks like pure gold.
Theo can’t stop looking. He thinks that it might be all he has ever wanted to do, look. They’re in a car driving home from practice and it’s a good thing that Liam is behind the wheel, because Theo probably would have crashed a dozen times from not keeping his eyes on the road.
This isn’t what Theo was supposed to do, and he knows it, so he turns to a distraction in the form of the only answer he seems to get right: lacrosse. The championship game is coming up for the season, and Theo wants to win this one more than anything. He throws himself into training extra long, extra hard, anything to get this right. He needs this win more than breathing.
It almost works, that’s the best part. Theo loses all track of time and then he blinks and he’s there on the field, the night sky pitch black and the lights like stars forced down to earth. There’s a roaring in the stands that matches the triumphant yell building in his throat, and he realizes at last that he has done it.
God, he feels like a bullet ripped from a gun. Theo is soaring through the air, a crack of gunpowder in a shock of sound, and nothing in this world can tear him down. He won. He won. They all won, actually, and for some reason that distinction makes it better, not worse.
Theo spots Liam across the field and sprints over to him, not caring if he’s moving too fast for a human or not. Liam doesn’t see Theo immediately, too caught up in glancing around the stands like he’s looking for someone. Theo doesn’t like that in the slightest. Something in the back of his head screams that Theo is the only one Liam should be looking for, the only one that should matter in the entire damned world.
Then Liam glances up and sees Theo there before him and grins, this wide smile a bit too big for his face, so full of the same joy and passion that Theo feels right now. He almost wonders if that’s the chemosignals getting to him, both of them standing so close that their same happiness is reverberating through their bodies, building with every passing moment. It might be why he feels better than anything he’s ever felt before. It might be why he finally has the confidence to do something he’s been wanting to do for a very long time.
Liam is surprised when Theo kisses him, Theo can feel it like an electric shock against his skin. He isn’t angry, just surprised.
Theo breaks away, chest heaving, and Liam blinks up at him. “Hayden used to do that. Kiss me after games, I mean.”
Theo nods, jaw set. “Yeah, well, I’m doing it now.”
It doesn’t feel like Theo is encroaching upon some ancient tradition of Liam and his ex-girlfriend. Instead, it seems oddly as if Hayden herself is the outsider here, that Liam’s having brought her up is wrong somehow. The girl’s memory is a villain, and Liam turns a dark shade of scarlet not entirely unlike the tint of his jersey for having shattered their peace by saying her name.
Theo isn’t willing to let the moment be ruined, though, and he pulls Liam in again by the collar of his jersey. The maroon fabric twists in his fingers. It’ll turn out to be torn later, pierced by claws Theo doesn’t remember bringing out. He’s always had such good control over his supernatural tendencies. It’s just like Liam to ruin that for him.
This time, Liam kisses him back. It’s Theo’s turn to be surprised now, amazed by the force with which Liam tears down their walls.
“Easy,” he says, halfway to a laugh, “try not to break my teeth.”
“You’d deserve it,” Liam grumbles, but he’s grinning again by the time they reconnect.
There’s a shout across the field, someone calling their names. Belatedly, Theo remembers that they probably have to shake hands with the opposing team and take photos and whatnot. He says as much to Liam, who looks supremely unhappy to be interrupted in this way.
Theo isn’t bothered by it, though. Not much. Sure, the timing is inconvenient as hell, but there will be chances later: after the game debrief, in the car driving home, all night and all the next day, plus the rest of the weekend. Kind of like forever, actually.
It occurs to Theo, as they’re walking back across the field, that finally– finally– he did something right. It feels very, very good.
teen wolf tag list: @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @lovesanimals0000, @rafecameronswhore, @bellabadacadabra, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @23victoria
thiam hunger games au in which theo and liam keep telling each other:
"i'm not dying for you"
"i'm not dying for you either"
because they know that only one of them can make it out of the games and only one of them can live at the end - and they'll fight together, to make sure one of them does - but they won't die for the other so the other can win.
except that every time they say it - as they grow closer and closer, as they keep risking themselves to save the other - it rings less and less true.
sorry, shouldve been more specific: this one /post/174083027649/the-moon-dust-writings-writing-prompts-not-to
1“Not to be dramatic, but I almost died coming here.”
3“Is this blood?”
10“Just because I murdered someone, doesn’t make me a murderer, it makes me resourceful.”
15“Did we just bond?”
16“I know we are sworn enemies and all, but, can we take a moment to appreciate the stars tonight? They are so pretty.”
25“Listen to me, you’re dying, let me help you!”
Liam was finally home from his lacross practice. He threw his keys on the sideboard that was next to the door, before going upstairs, dragging his sport bag behind him. He was exhausted and just wanted to stay in bed forever, it wasn’t a surprise that Liam wasn’t feeling himself lately. His girlfriend left town, he failed to save Brett and his sister, and he was blaming himself for that.
Throwing his bag on his bed, on made his way towards his closet to grab warmer clothes because his room was freezing. Liam turned around when he noticed that he never heard the sound of his bag on the bed. “What…?” he said to himself before seeing Theo, standing next to his bed, the bag in his hands.
“Yeah I’m not your mom, I’m not gonna do your laundry” Theo told Liam while throwing him his bag at his feet. Liam watched his bag at his feet and slowly looked back at Theo. Liam’s blue eyes were now replaced by a bright yellow color.
Liam was thinking of a way to attack Theo, none of them was actually moving. The only thing moving was Liam’s chest as he was breathing heavily. Liam was finally ready to jump on Theo and knock him out when he noticed that smell, a smell he knew way too much. “Is this blood?” Liam asked, pushing his werewolf side away.
Theo moved into the ray of light that was coming from Liam’s window. “Not to be dramatic, but I almost died coming here. You know, those idiots hunters are pretty dumb to come after us. Well, were pretty dumb” he said as he sat on Liam’s bed.
“What’s wrong with you?!” Liam half yelled, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re gonna leed them right here! And what do you mean by ‘coming here’? I wasn’t stupid enough to ask you to come here” he exclaimed, clenching his fist in anger.
Theo let out a chuckle before grunting and putting one of his hands on his wound that was taking a little bit longer to heal. Closing one of his eyes because of the pain, he put pressure on his wound to try and stop the bleeding by himself. “Well I came here for you. I know you’re having a hard time and I though some company would make you feel better.”
“I don’t need help, not from a murdered at least” Liam answered coldly, crossing his arms on his chest.
He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to call Scott and tell him that Theo was here, but deep down he knew he was responsible for that. He was the one, with Hayden, who decided to bring him back. He did help for the Wild Hunt but now Liam was facing the consequences of setting him free.
“ Just because I murdered someone, doesn’t make me a murderer, it makes me resourceful. And It was self defense!” Theo replied, putting his hands up. “I must admit that I was hoping for something like ‘Listen to me, you’re dying, let me help you!’ but I guess I can wait”
“Was your sister for self defense too?” Liam snapped at Theo. Liam felt a little bit bad when he saw Theo’s eyes filled with remorse.
“Anyway… Just don’t put blood everywhere please. It’s a pain in the ass to clean up” Liam mumbled as he grabbed the biggest jumper he owned. “Wear this, your shirt is so disgusting” Liam continued as he threw the piece of clothing to Theo.
“Thanks” he said as he catched the jumper.
Both of them stayed silent for a few minutes. Liam understood that attacking Theo or calling Scott for help was useless because they both were in the same kind of issues: hunters trying to kill them.
Theo sat on Liam’s bed and focusing his gaze outside the window. “I know we are sworn enemies and all, but, can we take a moment to appreciate the stars tonight? They are so pretty.”
Liam furrowed his eyebrows “Dude, I think you lost way too much blood. You’re acting weird”
Theo scoffed “Shut up and just watch the stars. It’s peaceful and relaxing”
Liam sighed and joined Theo on the bed. The two boys stayed like that, not saying anything for a few more minutes. Theo finally broke the silence “Did we just bond?”
“Shut up, look at the stars” Liam answered, not wanting to admit that they did bond.
