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"I think," Alec announced tiredly to the room at large where he sat on the couch wedged between Liam and Theo. "That petting a dog would fix me."
Where Scott sat with an exhausted Malia curled up in his lap, monopolising most of the cushion that the two of them had claimed, he glanced up to see the trio squashed together on the couch. They, similarly to the rest of the pack scattered around the McCall living room, were covered in soot and dirt and still healing wounds, skin caked in drying blood. Liam's shirt was torn into ribbons and Theo's torso was peppered with the familiar circular wounds from gunshots, charred around the edges where Argent had been forced to hold him down to burn out the wolfsbane when it started to infect his blood. Alec, by all standards, looked marginally better, but that was probably only because Theo and Liam had been taking it in turns to throw themselves in front of him to shield him from harm, but even with their herculean efforts, he still had dried blood on his face from where he'd taken the butt of a shotgun to his nose that he hadn't bothered to wipe away yet even after the bones had mended, and his hair still had shards of glass and the dusty remains of soot that shed across his shoulders every time he moved too fast. Considering it was his first official outing against the Hunters as a member of the pack, it went about as well as it could have.
Around his bundle of Malia in his arms, Scott took stock of the rest of the pack. Melissa, Argent and the Sheriff were having a discussion in low tones in the kitchen, and Scott was too drained to pick out what they were saying. Parrish was standing against the wall in a change of clothes retrieved from his cruiser after he'd burned his uniform during the raid, and now he had his eyes closed and the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers, somehow still standing. Lydia and Stiles were coiled up together in a corner, near Derek who had sported this glazed, distant look in his eyes ever since the fire broke out, but the involuntary subvocal growl that had rumbled in his chest whenever anybody got close made it clear that he wanted to be alone, but still found comfort in the closeness of the pack. Spread out on the floor, Mason's head was pillowed on Corey's lap and their hands were clasped together on his belly.
Alec's proclamation was received by silence, but he didn't seem to mind. Maybe he hadn't expected an answer in the first place, but Scott suddenly felt the need to make him feel heard. "What do you think it'll fix?"
"I don't know. Everything? Nothing, maybe," Alec shrugged. The movement jostled Liam, who hissed at being shifted from where most of his weight was leaning against Alec's less-wounded body. "I just think that there's nothing in the world that hasn't been made better by petting a dog."
"Sorry, Alec," Scott said sincerely. "I don't have any dogs that I can give you. Maybe tomorrow you can come by the vet clinic and I can let you hold some puppies."
Stiles laughed, loud and mildly hysterical. "You do that often, Scotty? Hide in the backrooms of the clinic and cuddle sick dogs until you feel better?"
"Perks of being a vet-in-training," Scott shared a small, secretive smile with him.
From his lap, Malia hummed. "I wonder if Deaton would bring a dog over here if we asked him."
Liam snorted so hard that he devolved into coughing fits that rocked his entire, aching body. Mason cracked an eye open to peer cautiously at him before deciding that Liam wasn't at any risk of suffocation, and even Derek's gaze grew sharper for a moment to check on Liam spluttering before returning to blankly staring at the wall. "I think Deaton would rather use some of the horse tranquillizers on himself than bring any amount of dogs out of the clinic just because we want to pat them."
"He wouldn't because that's illegal," Scott said. Malia huffed a tired laugh against his collarbone, and he threaded a hand in her tangled hair as her warm breath ghosted across his skin. "Also unethical."
"I know that I'm off-duty," Parrish interrupted dryly from his place against the wall, squinting tiredly at them. "But I'm still an officer of the law and I really can't be hearing about any of this."
"Parrish, you literally helped us blow up a building full of Hunters tonight," Stiles said, ignoring Lydia slapping him in the chest with the back of her hand. "I don't think any of us are in a position to be talking about plausible deniability and committing crimes."
"When my body stops hurting so much and I don't feel like I'm about to pass out," Alec continued as if their little side-conversation hadn't happened, still focusing on his own thoughts. "I'm going to break into the animal clinic and pet so many dogs."
"That sounds nice," Lydia mumbled. Apparently, she still had the energy to smile kindly at him. "You got room for one more?"
Wordlessly, Theo abruptly stood from the couch and hobbled his way around the splayed limbs and limp bodies around the lounge. Alec grumbled a little at being displaced but settled in the empty space, and Liam shot Theo a confused expression, brows drawn low and lips pressed into a thin line. Scott watched him stumble past Parrish and Derek without a word and disappear around the corner. In the kitchen, there was a brief greeting as Theo passed them, and then if he stretched his senses out, he could hear the bathroom door opening and creaking closed and the metallic clank of Theo's belt buckle before he pulled his hearing back. He didn't hear the bathroom door shut, but he didn't pay it any mind.
Sighing, Alec hunched over and buried his face in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by his palms. "Is it always going to be like this?" He asked no one in particular but Scott still felt a pang strike deep in his chest. "Is it always going to be so... messed up?"
"Probably," Corey granted, shooting Alec a sympathetic smile. "But there are a lot of good moments too. It's not all bad."
"Yeah, you stick around for enough pack dinners and you'll start seeing way more of the good," Mason mumbled, not even bothering to open his eyes. His thumb moved in a soothing, repetitive motion across the side of Corey's hand. "Melissa is a great host and we usually end the night by watching movies until the morning and then we fall asleep in a heap."
"Food comas," Stiles laughed. "We always end up in food comas."
"I'm pretty sure that's just you, Stiles," Liam said and Malia purred in agreement, a languid, satisfied smile curling across her face. "The rest of us need all that food to, you know, exist."
Scott could have sat there and happily listened to the light-hearted back-and-forth banter forever, but his attention was pulled away by a sound catching on the outskirts of his senses. He heard the creak of the bathroom door, the repetitive clicking of nails on the floorboards, and then immediately the delighted sound of his mother. Frowning, Scott listened to Argent, the Sheriff and Melissa hum thankful sounds, and then the next second a massive black wolf strode out from around the corner as Theo, in his full shift form, re-entered the lounge room where the rest of the pack had gathered, having passed the adults in the kitchen after ditching his clothes and shifting in the privacy of the bathroom.
Despite the exhaustion that gnawed at him, Scott couldn't help the smile that spread across his face as Theo made his rounds. He padded further into the room, nails catching on the carpet, as he brushed his massive body against Derek's bent legs. He didn't linger, just rubbed his flank against his jeans, and Derek brought a hand up to carefully thread through the long coat on his back as he continued past, the course fur passing through his fingers, and when Theo moved away, his eyes seemed a little bit sharper, but that might have been Scott's imagination. Parrish bent down so he could give Theo an appreciative thump on his mighty sides and drag his fingers through the fur on the back of his neck, and Theo's tail wagged as Parrish scratched at the fur behind his ears.
Moving on, Theo bumped up against Lydia's side and pressed the tip of his wet nose against the skin between her neck and her ear. She laughed and gently pushed his face away, before untangling herself from Stiles's hold long enough to get both hands on the side of his face and grab roughly at his fur there. Theo stunk of satisfaction and pleasure as he pulled away, pausing just long enough for Stiles to reach a lazy hand out to rub at his chest.
As he approached the place where Malia and Scott had claimed for themselves, his movements slow and stilted and perhaps more than a little bit pained still after the eventful day, Malia slowly uncurled herself from where she was using Scott as her own personal pillow. "You're so stupid," she murmured as she got her hands around Theo's body and boldly pulled him towards her, causing Theo to stumble forward a little until the two of them came chest-to-chest, as flush as they could without Theo sitting on her lap. He rested his head on her shoulder as she ran her fingers up and down his flank, and Scott used the opportunity to pet Theo behind his ears, across his jowls, and down his snout. "You're gonna regret this when you shift back and learn you've aggravated your wounds."
Even as a wolf, Theo was oddly expressive. He huffed an exasperated sigh, and hot, wet breath blew against Scott's face. He laughed as he raked his nails harder in the space behind his ears. "I hate to say it, but I don't think he cares."
Eventually, when Theo had been loved on by Scott and Malia enough, he pushed away from them with an appreciative press of his cold nose to their hands and wandered over to where Corey and Mason were tangled up. Mason didn't even bother opening his eyes as he heard Theo approach, just raised a hand and grabbed a fistful of the fur on his sides to anchor him before he could walk away. Corey smiled indulgently and perhaps a little gratefully and raked his fingers under Theo's chin, and Theo's eyes shut involuntarily as he tilted his head back for more.
When he ultimately had enough of their affections as well, Theo slowly padded up to the couch where Liam and Alec were still sitting, Alec with his eyes closed and his head tipped against the back of the couch, but Scott noticed that Liam had been watching Theo with a soft smile ever since he had re-entered the room and made his lap around the rest of the pack, and as Theo approached him slowly, Liam raised a hand and Theo licked the back of his knuckles with his long, leathery tongue. Liam huffed a laugh and transferred his hand to the back of Theo's head where he combed his fingers through the fur there and used the right amount of pressure in the right spots that had Theo's eyes fluttering closed again, his tongue lolling out of his open maw and his tail thumping widely against the floor. Liam smiled affectionately at him as he pressed up against Liam's legs, leaning his entire weight against him.
But everybody knew why Theo had decided to shift in the first place, and when he pulled away from Liam- obviously with some amount of reluctance- and moved across to Alec, nobody was surprised. Apparently, Alec hadn't noticed him yet, and Scott couldn't blame him. Theo's typical scent, chemical and especially lupine in this shape, was overshadowed by the stench of smoke and wolfsbane and blood that still clung to him from the events of the evening as if caked in his fur, unable to shake it even when he shed his human skin, so Alec didn't react as Theo padded the brief distance over to him from where he was sitting beside Liam on the opposite side of the couch.
Theo pressed his cold, wet nose to the back of Alec's hand and Alec cracked an eye open to peer down at him, and his eyes went comically wide as he jumped backwards with a yelp and scrambled away. His scent had gone deeply surprised and weary as he stared down at the wolf with wide eyes and Theo watched him with a tilted head, laughing in amusement as much as a wolf was able.
"What the f-!" Alec exclaimed in shock, catching himself at the last moment as he remembered Melissa's rules. Eyes darting around the room without leaving Theo's form for more than a second, in a shrill voice, he demanded, "Who's dog is this?"
Beside him, a slow, self-satisfied smile inched across Liam's face as he reached across and ran a heavy hand across Theo's back and Theo leaned into the touch. "Mine."
Alec's eyes shot to him, confused, and when it became obvious that nobody was going to take pity on him and explain, Scott thought he needed to put Alec out of his misery. "It's Theo," Scott said, which only made Alec's expression grow more perplexed. "He can fully shift into a wolf."
Staring stunned at a patiently waiting Theo, Alec opened and closed his mouth like a fish a few times as he struggled for what to say. "I... I didn't know that was a thing that werewolves could even do."
"It's uncommon," Corey said. "Derek and Malia can do it too, but it's extremely rare to have three supernaturals who can fully shift in a single pack."
"And it's not just werewolves, don't forget," Mason said redundantly from his place in Corey's lap, lazily waggling a finger in the air like a teacher with a pointer stick. "Malia's a coyote and Theo's a chimera. I can't see any of you but I know you're looking at me weirdly without having supernatural senses. I just don't want him to be close-minded."
"I don't think Theo counts," Stiles said. At Theo's unimpressed huff, Stiles squawked, "What? Don't you get all huffy with me, I'm right. You're part wolf and part coyote, so technically so far we still only know that wolves and coyotes can full-shift and Theo does nothing to change that."
Stiles continued to ramble even though nobody was listening to him anymore. Everybody was busy watching Alec and Theo. Theo had shifted to sit patiently in front of Alec, waiting, and Alec had cautiously retracted himself from where he had panicked and crawled as far away from the wolf as he could. Scott couldn't blame him- Theo was an utterly monstrous wolf, with paws the size of dinner plates and fangs as long as kitchen knives and claws as long as gardening sheers, with a long snout and constantly twitching ears and a coat so sleek and black that he could be almost mistaken for a moving shadow, all of him genetically modified by the Dread Doctors to be the perfect killing machine. Seeing him so unexpectedly for the first time was bound to be a shock. If Scott wasn't so tired and drained and still healing, he might have thought about it sooner. But Alec didn't look afraid of Theo, just curious and a little uncertain, as if he wasn't sure what to do now that his only desire- to pet a dog until he felt better- was actually right in front of him.
Apparently, Liam had come to the same conclusion. "You can touch him. He wants you to touch him," he encouraged, nudging Alec in the ribs.
But Alec still looked uncertain. "Isn't that... rude? He isn't actually a dog, right? He's still a person in a dog's body. Isn't that... I don't know. Disrespectful?"
Against Scott's shoulder, Malia snorted a laugh, and even Derek, more clear-eyed and focused since Theo had passed him and pressed his flank against his body and let Derek tangle his fingers through his fur, managed a weak little chuckle. Theo gave a lupine smile and his tongue lolled out of his mouth as he shifted forward to rest his heavy head on Alec's thighs, conveying in every way but with words what he wanted. "He wouldn't have shifted and come around to let us pet him if he had any problem with being treated like a hound," Derek answered.
"It's what you wanted," Malia added. "You wanted to pet a dog and ta-da! Now you've got a wolf right in front of you, literally asking to be pet."
Alec's eyes darted between Derek and Malia one last time before he seemed to come to a decision. Slowly, cautiously, he leant forward and carefully brushed his fingers across Theo's lupine head. Theo's eyes closed in gratitude as Alec grew bolder and scratched behind his ears and a delighted purr rumbled in his chest where he was pressed flush against Alec's knees. Scott and the rest of the pack watched as Alec smiled, something small and delighted, and true to his word, his shoulders slumped as if a weight had been taken from them and he sighed the rest of the tremulous night away.
"Oh," Alec murmured to nobody but himself but the entire pack heard. "I was right."
When Theo got tired of sitting on the floor between Alec's legs, he took a few steps back, wagged his tail a couple of times and pounced, leaping onto the small space on the couch between Alec and Liam. They yelped and flailed about as they moved to the opposite ends of the couch, the two of them sitting right against the armrests to give Theo's giant body enough room to settle in the space between them with a deep, rumbling sigh of contentment, his head on Liam's lap and his hindquarters in Alec's.
"You're ridiculous and a big old softie," Liam said affectionally as he got his hands on Theo's neck and threaded his fingers in the long fur. "You don't have to give Alec everything he asks for every time, you know."
"It's not my fault I'm his favourite," Alec retorted. He tilted his head to the side and smirked at where Theo's eyes were falling shut in pleasure and he pressed his head insistently against Liam's hand. "Well, his second favourite, at least."
Throughout the night, various members of the pack crouched down in front of Theo, spread across the couch and occupying Liam and Alec's laps, and glided their fingers through his fur and thumped a hand against his flank and petted across his brow and scratched behind his ears until the heaviness of the night became a little easier for them to bare, and Theo's tail would swish against Alec's legs in appreciation every time. Melissa, Argent and the Sheriff emerged from the kitchen and made a pass by the couch. Theo nosed and licked at Melissa's fingers when she scratched under his chin, and Argent and the Sheriff spoke with Parrish over the back of the couch as they threaded their fingers through the fur at Theo's flank and hindquarters and Theo's tail wagged so forcefully that his entire body was shaking with the movement.
Scott felt himself settling against the seat at his back with Malia's warm and calming weight against his chest, and he breathed in the familiar, comforting scent of his pack safe and sound and secure and all under a single roof, laughing tiredly and chattering loudly despite the exhaustion that weighed heavily upon their shoulders, a moment of solace, of respite, of pause after an eventful day that broke Alec's nose and rendered Parrish nude and made Derek distant-eyed and Theo poisoned from wolfsbane and everybody soot-stained and blood-covered and bone-dead tired.
He glanced away from where Lydia and Stiles were delicately engaging Derek in conversation as far away from the thoughts of fires and burnt bodies as they could possibly get, and his eyes settled on the couch, where Liam was laughing at an argument that Mason and Corey were in the middle of, while Alec chatted idly with Parrish and the Sheriff, both still with their hands buried in Theo's fur. Behind them, Melissa and Argent were speaking in low tones, sharing fleeting glances and their pinkies entwined where their hands dangled at their side, and Scott had to glance away, biting his lip to hold back a smile.
Looked away and right into the inquisitive lupine eyes of Theo who was staring straight at Scott. He tilted his head under Liam's hands, and Scott felt the curiosity coming off of him, the wordless inquiry. This time, Scott allowed himself to smile, a genuine smile if a little ragged around the edges, and nod. Satisfied, Theo shut his eyes again and returned to lying limply across Alec and Liam's laps, hogging the entire couch with his tremendous bulk but nobody seemed to mind.
"I told you," Alec was saying to Parrish, mid-conversation that Scott had no hope of following. He rubbed vigorously at Theo's hindquarters, grinning at Theo's wagging tail, his kicking legs and his purr of satisfaction. "Petting a dog fixes everything."