Teen Wolf Hellscape

The Hardest Part of Getting Clean

(All The Damn Apologies)

The war’s over, the Anu-kite is gone, Monroe’s scuttled off to a dark corner to regroup and strategise.

The McCall pack are off to college, university, a FBI internship, leaving the pups in charge of Beacon Hills’ defence.

And Theo? He’s trying to figure out what the hell to do with his life. He’s pretty sure he should leave, get going while the going’s good, slip away and find somewhere new before Scott decides he needs to go back in the ground. Easy enough in theory, he’s got the truck and miles of open road to explore.

In reality, Liam makes it a lot harder than it sounds.

Or, post finale series exploring Theo’s growth outside of the Dread Doctors and after Hell, as well as learning how to be a part of a pack, even if that last part’s mainly just because Liam gave him his biggest, saddest puppy dog eyes and asked him to be nice.

Stats:

Words: 120,482

Works: 2/?

Posting schedule? Never heard of her.

~~~~~

His claws dig into something solid, an anchor amidst the black, the weight of it trying to drag him back down, ice cold water dousing him from head to toe, like waves of saltwater beating against his back. A cold hand closes around his ankle, tugs him back, and his handhold slips. When he looks down, dull molten silver stares back, dripping from sightless white eyes, sunken into his own face, spiderweb veins of black and mercury both spread across a paper pale, waxen face. The apparition's mouth opens in a silent scream, enraged by his defiance, and blood pours from between it's lips.

"No." Theo growls in return, and his voice echoes in the darkness, a denial of what, he can't even be sure. His own death? This foretold epilogue he's been waiting for since they pulled him from the ground, too much of a coward to just end it before the pages could run on too long. This destiny he's been hurtling towards since he was nine years old, like a rocket, burning up with his own ambition along the way, the ambitions and desires foisted on him and grafted into his skin alongside all the foreign DNA and the killer's instinct and the sharp edges he didn't think would ever allow anyone close until Liam, Liam, stepped beside him and looked through him with those horizon blue eyes and ignored the way he cuts with words and the bad luck of his very presence and saw him.

"Don't you get it, Scott's never gonna forgive you, you'll never be pack." The darkness hisses, the tenor of Liam's voice all wrong, twisted up into something ugly and rotten and he grits his teeth, digs those blunted, ground down claws into his handhold and looks down at the spectre of his own dead face.

"It doesn't matter." He breathes out, tar rushing into his lungs to replace the precious air, these words spoken aloud to this other version of himself, to this place that is pitch dark like the things inside him, a reminder that there is still something out there worth fighting for, living for. "I don't need them to forgive me."

He kicks out, dislodges that ice cold grip on his ankle, doesn't spare another look downwards even as the darkness screams around him, ear splitting screech that follows him as he drags himself upwards, kicks off from the ledge on this cliff face he's suddenly climbing and reaches, blind faith, for that distant beam of a lighthouse, swinging wide to catch him here, surrounded by nothing.

(Excerpt from Chapter 13 of Locked Inside My Head (Say You Won’t Let Me Drown) WIP)

~~~~~

"Why didn't you tell me you were homeless?"

He says it so easily, words laid out bare in this tiny hospital room, spread between them like they have physical presence, and Theo's in too much pain for this conversation, too high on the revelation of not being dead, of continued existence, of being looked at like a person, saved like his life matters, to be able to dodge this curveball, to even see the impact coming. Something winds up around his throat like distant panic and he tears his gaze away, stares into the light trying to burn it's way in through the shutters on the window and pictures the last pack meeting he remembers attending, skulking into the corners and watching them all drape across each other like they're meant to fit, like they're all moving parts of one big organism.

"When was I supposed to, Scott?" He asks, exhausted, without looking at him, can't, pictures just dropping that at the end of the meeting - 'oh by the way the Doctors' left me with absolutely nothing and I haven't been able to get a job or find anywhere else to sleep so could one of you people I tried to kill or manipulate into destroying your own lives please help me'. He huffs a breath, dry, tired amusement, and then stiffens when several things throughout his body protest to even that small movement. "It doesn't matter."

It doesn't matter but fuck he'd wanted it to, wanted someone to ask, wanted them to notice he had nothing, he was barely surviving, wanted them to want to help him but then a week had passed and then another and another and it had become fairly obvious none of them cared so long as he was useful, staying out of trouble, until that damn text from Liam and that moment in the waiting room and 'Theo, are you okay?' but by then it felt like more of an insult than anything, to finally be seen, to be judged for slowly falling apart, to be looked at and told, after everything, that he's weak.

Fatigue hangs heavy from every word because he wanted to tell them, ran the scenario through his head a thousand times while he stood there in the back of the room and watched them all until he could barely breathe around the longing burning holes in his chest, feeling like drowning on dry land, knowing he could have had that, he was supposed to have it, but he ruined it like he ruins everything and now none of them would look at him like he matters - until Liam, that reminder that the beta has always been different, enough so to pull him from the ground and give him this second chance in the first place, enough to stand there and say 'he's my responsibility' when he had absolutely no reason to trust and enough to put his hand on Theo's shoulder and smile at him like he's an idiot and say 'I could be your friend' with enough conviction Theo could almost believe him.

And maybe he'd been too scared to ask because he thought he knew what the answer would be, couldn't face the dead eyed stares and uncaring sneers of these people he's wronged so deeply, couldn't stand to hear Scott, too, tell him he deserved it, that this was justified, that the parts of him that decided all he was good for was rotting away were right. It was easier to assume they wouldn't care and take care of himself, try and maintain the self-sufficiency he was taught, forced to learn, and make do with what he had.

"Do you really think I'd be that cruel?" Scott sounds horrified, voice thin and drawn, and some of his thoughts must have slipped out, escaped from half-incoherent lips, traitorous, and he's terrified to think which, what he's muttered in this charged air between them, what he's laid bare for the Alpha that has always been better than him, ever since they were children.

"Maybe." He finds himself murmuring, before he can even think it to himself, shrugs a little and relishes the burn of pain through his shoulder even as it makes him vaugely light-headed, "You'd deserve to be." Scott's mouth opens, the first syllable of a 'why' visible on his lips, and Theo cuts him off before he can vocalise it, feels the sudden, irrational need to justify himself, to remind Scott of the weapon he is - was, maybe -, the damage he caused, the carefully honed instrument he was made to be, the reason Scott saw him standing in his dining room and said, with such firm conviction, 'send him back'.

Locked Inside My Head (Say You Won’t Let Me Drown) Chapter 12

This strategy of posting chapters that end on a cliffhanger and then guilt tripping myself into writing more is really working out for me ngl.

We’re on the home stretch now folks!

~~~~~

Liam. Liam’s sitting beside him, one hand resting on Theo’s shoulder, gaze staggering between him and whatever is in front of them, in front of the dash and - oh, that’s the rumbling sound. An engine. Theo blinks at him dazedly, feels distant and faded, still, feels a loose grin tugging at his lips all the same because wherever he finds himself, it’s not the morgue, and maybe that’s his reward for trying to be some sort of good for the last few months of his life: a visage of Liam to haunt his hours instead of Tara’s vengeful hands in his chest.

“You awake?” Liam asks, voice taut, like a stretched rubber band, like he gets when he’s stressed, juggling too many things at once. Theo hums, twists his neck to look at the hand still resting on his shoulder, traces it back up to Liam, sitting beside him, knuckles white around the leather wrap of the steering wheel.

The beta’s mouth moves again, words drifting around him like background noise, but Theo’s just watching his hand, clutching the wheel like a lifeline, neon dash lights reflecting off his face as they peel down an empty road in near total blackness.

Liam’s driving a car. Liam’s driving.

The hand on his shoulder squeezes, Theo stumbles over a breath in response, spends a moment feeling his heart beating somewhere down and over from where it should, feels a little like he’s swaying every time it does, whole body rocking with the motion, can’t take his eyes off Liam’s knuckles curved around the steering wheel, the faint trace of blood swiped over the back of his palm, shining silver in the blue hue from the dashboard lights.

Locked Inside My Head (Say You Won’t Let Me Drown) Chapter 11

We made it! It’s been a long 3 months and I did spend FAR too long chewing on this one, but it’s finally finished. God help me for writing the next one.

~~~~~

It occurs to him that he’s really dying, slowly, so very gently. It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would - the realisation, not the actual dying part, that’s absolute shit. It’s peaceful, out here in the middle of nothing, surrounded by nature and the distant sound of water, a source that probably leads into the same stream that killed his sister. He thinks about dragging himself up onto his feet to go find it, to sit beside the cool spray before the mercury gets to Tara’s heart or it runs out of blood to pump, finally, to think of her as his body rattles with shivers and finally gives up on this stolen life.

He gets one hand under him, tries to get up. His arm trembles before he’s even an inch off the ground, vision splintering with greenish-white splotches.

He doesn’t get up. He thinks maybe he should call Liam, at least, tell him not to worry, tell him it doesn’t matter anymore because they’re both dead: Pope's insides turned to blackened soot and ichor, Theo’s turning to ash in his chest, metal on the back of his tongue. He has to remind himself to keep breathing, then gets distracted remembering he can’t call Liam, that Pope took his phone, his keys, everything, that they’re back inside those concrete walls. That stirs some sort of anger in his chest, makes him hope Liam does come looking if only so the truck doesn’t get abandoned again, thrown in some impound somewhere, crushed. It’s the first thing Theo ever bought, it’ll be the last thing of his left once he’s gone.

He allows himself to hope Liam will keep it, as a memento, maybe.

He rolls back over, so he can look up through the leaves into the splotchy patches of sky above, dotted with polka dot stars, quiet and cold and distant. It’s not so bad, he thinks, breathes raggedly through his mouth, doesn’t have the energy to clear the thick liquid choking him, to find out if it’s red or black or silver. It doesn’t matter.

There's a strange, warm sensation behind him, like someone's pulled back a curtain and let the sunlight in, just for a moment, but his eyes have slipped closed at some point and he doesn't have the energy to open them. A presence settles beside him, a hand on his hair, smoothing the too long strands back out of his face, carding fingers over his scalp, a low, humming sound he remembers from somewhere.

"…Tara?" He croaks, fingers spasming when he tries to lift a hand, no longer cooperative, and he feels more than hears the quiet shushing sound, the gentle hum of a long forgotten lullaby.

Excerpt from Locked Inside My Head (Say You Won’t Let Me Drown) Chapter 11

~~~~~

A low chuckle gets trapped in his throat, bubbling up in his chest like air in his blood, as he reaches out and snags the sweater, turns it over so he can read *DUNBAR* emblazoned across the back and remind himself why he's doing this, why he's fighting so hard against this ending that has been coming for him since the day he set foot back in this shitty town, earlier than that, probably, doesn't matter. He needs to do something good here, for once, if not for his own sake than for the stupid boy who believed he could be better. 'I could be your friend.’

He has the foresight to sit before he pulls the dagger out, almost blacks out again anyway, clings to consciousness with viciously sharpened claws until the sweater's tied uncomfortably tight around his waist, knot pressed hard against the gaping wound in his stomach, and then tips sideways onto the concrete, shivering uncontrollably, cold sweat standing out on every exposed bit of skin and snatching away what little warmth he had left.

He gives himself two minutes to feel sorry for himself before he has to get up, or else he probably won't be capable of it.

It turns into five minutes, - maybe more; time's blurring and slipping through his fingers like thick soup, mind melted away until all that remains is the pain, wrapped around him like an old friend, the taste of mercury, thick in his throat like blood, and the persistent, unkillable thought playing on loop in his head to remind him why he's still here.

Save Liam.

Ten minutes later, he drags himself off the ground, leaves a smeared puddle of blood behind, and stumbles his way to the door, leaning one shoulder on the wall and gripping the knife coated in his own blood as his weapon of choice.