Chapter Text
When Scott returns from the emergency meeting of the GCLT he requested, it is with his proverbial tail between his non-proverbial legs.
Theo smells guilt on him so strongly that it must have been festering for hours, and he wonders if Scott’s let the signals go around home and safety or if he smelled like that during his meeting with some of the most important and most dangerous supernaturals in the Western United States.
The acrid scent still clogs his senses. Theo shakes his head where he’s sitting on a stool at the McCall House’s kitchen island, staring at the granite countertop while Scott stutters his way through the meeting and Argent and Derek add context when necessary.
“They were unmoved by my concerns, even considering Monroe’s recent use of similar tactics. The vote stands for Theo to remain under the Warden-bond until Monroe’s been apprehended. Breaking it could result in drastic retaliation.”
“Anthony Retiner said the only way he’d allow the sentence to end early was if it resulted in Theo in pieces,” Derek adds conversationally.
Theo closes his eyes at that but snaps them open at Scott’s next words, “He stopped saying shit like that after I declared for Theo, though. I don’t think he was technically allowed to threaten him after I did that, even if he’s going to trial.”
Argent snorts, “He’s allowed to say what he wants as a respected Alpha; I think it was how you said it that stopped him, Scott.”
Scott shrugs, “I didn’t think I was being that dramatic.”
Derek raises an eyebrow and looks at Scott in bemused disbelief. The three of them stand at the counter as they talk to the room and answer questions thrown their way by Stiles, Lydia, and Liam . They ask questions about what else the meeting managed to change and what information the three of them had managed to glean from the convened council. Liam asks Argent what they can do about the trial, and the focus of the conversation turns abruptly into how they can raise a solid defense.
There’s too much going on, but Theo is still silently staring at Scott, who had said “declared” like it hadn’t toppled everything that Theo had been carefully crafting over the last few weeks into the dust-laden ground. He’d had two days to prepare for this outcome. He knew that Scott would go to that meeting and tell those people that Theo mattered to Beacon Hills. And well, he even knew that Scott would probably let it out that Theo mattered to the pack. He hadn’t conceived the option that Scott would claim him as a Beta.
That changes the rules. It makes his past not something he owns by himself anymore. Theo’s plans to quietly face his crimes without obfuscation can no longer apply. If he goes down now, so does Scott . So does everyone else. They may not face the consequences he would, but they would still have to face consequences. His chest burns with a rage he doesn’t quite have the tools to put out.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Theo hisses across the counter. His words interrupt the group while they’re in the middle of some useless conversation about the night vision goggles of all fucking things.
Scott opens his mouth, but it’s Stiles who answers with his particular snark, “I’m sorry, have you been tuned out of everyone collectively attempting to save your undeserving ass?”
Theo’s tongue touches the back of his blunted teeth, and a humorless laugh huffs out of his mouth before he answers Stiles bitingly, “And you all think you actually stand a chance?”
He pushes his stool out from the island and begins pacing the McCall House kitchen, gesticulating wildly now, his fine-toothed control snapping hair by hair, “Anthony Retiner hates me because his daughter is dead—not because I stole some heirloom or was rude at the pack picnic ,” he spits, his eyes pinballing hurriedly from the cabinets to the tile on the ground, “I led his only daughter into the woods when she was fourteen years old, and the doctors dragged her kicking and screaming into an operating theater where they tortured her for fucking days. She begged me to help her escape when we were thrown back in our cells to sleep. He deserves to see me dead.” Theo pauses, taking deep, labored breaths while attempting to catch his breath. He looks straight at Scott, shakingly repeating, “He… deserved that.”
“And now I have to look at him and tell the council I deserve another chance. I have to say that I was young, and coerced, and so very oppressed ,” Theo says with a faux apologetic affection. The tone disappears when he swallows again, nearly whispering, “Because you were stupid enough to tie your fate with mine. For what? For your guilt? Who pays for what I’ve done now that I can’t, Scott?”
And to his credit Scott holds Theo’s gaze levelly, doesn’t blink or duck his head or admit defeat. Ever the True Alpha, always.
“Fuck. Anthony. Retiner.” Theo’s head is torn forcibly away from Scott as it locks straight onto Argent's sure fast intensity. “You’re 18. His loss doesn’t give him the right to see another child dead. If he were even half the man he claimed to be, he would understand that the monsters who took his daughter took from you.”
Theo swallows heavily, uncomfortable and rough around the stone still lodged there.
“I took , too,” Theo nearly pleads.
“No,” Liam says, like it's simple, like it’s a fact, “You survived.”
A heavy silence sits in the room, weighted and sticky. Theo grinds his teeth through his anger and storms out. Liam gets up to follow him, but he’s stopped by Corey’s hand on his shoulder.
“Let me.”
They stare at one another for another long moment before Liam nods, and Corey levers himself towards the front door.
Liam sits heavily on the stool Theo vacated. The silence is mercifully ended as Stiles clears his throat pointedly and addresses the group at large, “Okay, so can we get the timeline on the early operations lined up? If we’re gonna lay it out, we should really have it in order.... And can someone please write down that shit he said about a cell. Jesus Christ .”
…
Theo doesn’t know why he didn’t drive away the second he turned the key over in his truck. He should’ve. He should’ve peeled off the McCall House Street, and across the county border, and out of California entirely. And yet he’s tied here to these people and this god-forsaken place, and a pathetic, stupid part of him is sure that Liam is going to follow him out here.
And he wants that. He is so angry with himself for wanting that. His blunt, human nails dig into the steering wheel, and he reeks of shame, anger, and guilt.
When the passenger side door opens, and Theo breathes in deeply because he’s weak and craves the comfort that comes with Liam’s scent, he is shocked when he recognizes someone else entirely. His head snaps up as Corey slams the door shut.
The silence is stilted, and Theo nearly breaks it a number of times before he finds that he simply can’t . Instead, he turns his head back to the McCall house across the road and stares at the closed door and the murmuring that he’s learned to tune out since he’s come back around post-hell.
“You know I used to be so angry with Liam for forgiving you,” Corey says with no inflection. It’s flat and all the more brutal for its honesty.
“I never understood how he could do it. You made him everything he tried to prove he wasn’t for his entire life. And then he couldn’t just forgive you for that. I watched him forgive you for the other unforgivable things, too. The things that weren’t his to forgive because they weren’t his losses. The McCall pack survived you, but ours didn’t… and Liam would fight me tooth and nail on why you were first necessary, and then 'trying,' and eventually, laughably , good.”
Theo glances at Corey and finds him staring directly at his profile, something unreadable on his face. Theo sighs and says, “He shouldn’t have.”
Corey scoffs, then chuckles. “God, Theo.” He shakes his head like he can’t quite believe the other Chimera’s response. “ My point here … is that he was right.”
A bowed head slowly comes up to look at Corey in confusion, a clear question in his expression. Corey takes in the question and finishes what he came out to say.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it, Theo. It doesn’t matter if you feel guilty. In fact, good. You should feel guilt. I know I do.” He pauses and bites his lip, finally injecting some emotion into his words. Anger and a hint of desperation. “It doesn’t even matter that you seem so intent on dying for your fucking sins or whatever. You don’t get to kill another one of my friends. Not this time. So stay out here for however long you need, but you aren’t driving away tonight. You’re going back inside, and you're helping us save your pathetic fucking life.”
The passenger door opens, and Corey steps out into the fading sunlight. Before he closes the door, he adds, “And you’re driving me, Mason, and Liam home, so it'd be a real dick move to leave. Just so you know.”