I Was Hoping For A Quiet Life, But You Gave Me So Much More

Realizations

Liam wasn't quite sure when the realization hit. It had been about two and a half months since Isaac and him first left their prison sentence and finally made it to freedom, and about two months since Liam was kidnapped. Liam couldn't pinpoint when the shift happened. A few months ago he was waking up in a cold sweat every night from nightmares every night, and that's if he managed to fall asleep at all. He still had them, but they were far less frequent than before.

Scott had started staying over at their house a lot more. Not just on weekends either, but sporadically throughout the week. Random Wednesday mornings Liam would wake up to find Isaac making breakfast in the kitchen while Scott was still passed out in his room. Liam tried to play the protective brother role. He'd had a 'conversation' with Scott about a month ago. He basically explained that, given his new found knowledge of werewolves, and his steadily growing friendship with one Alan Deaton, if he ever tried to hurt Isaac, he would personally make sure Scott didn't leave the relationship with all of his limbs intact. Scott chuckled a little when he told him. Liam, however, held a very stoic expression, one that, in all honesty, did scare Scott just a little. After Scott nodded, Liam went back to his usual self and basically acted as though the short, but mildly horrifying, description of him sawing off Scott's leg, had never happened. Isaac had ensured Scott that Liam would not have the drive to do all of that unless he actually physically harmed him, which they all knew he wouldn't.

Liam's efforts to be protective fell drastically short about an hour after the conversation when he'd gone downstairs to find Isaac passed out on the couch, his arms wrapped securely around Scott's waist while Scott ran his fingers gently through his hair. Scott blushed when he noticed Liam watching from the corner of the room, a fond smile on his face. How could anyone be upset about something so wholesome?

With Scott's newfound home in Liam and Isaac's house, it seemed that they also started to experience an increase in visitors. Liam DID come downstairs to find Isaac in the kitchen and Scott passed out in his room. However, what he forgot to mention was that Stiles was asleep on the couch, and Malis was asleep in the armchair. Lydia was home, because sleeping on the floor wasn't really her thing, and he always had a feeling that Derek was around somewhere.

The feeling was validated when, about a week ago, he came down in the middle of the night to get water, and found Derek asleep on their couch, with Stiles passed out on top of him. Neither of them mentioned it the next morning, or at all since. It just worked somehow. He wasn't sure if there was anything official there, or maybe they were just more physically affectionate than Liam had first calculated. He wasn't sure.

But with the influx of people, people who he trusted, Liam felt more and more safe in his home. He wasn't sure when he realized it but sometimes he would wake up from nightmares in the middle of the night. Not enough to really register it, but those kind of groggy moments when it just feels like a dream the next morning, or you can't even remember it. He started to register that someone was in the room with him, it was never the same person. Sometimes he would feel someone rubbing his back, sometimes they'd pull a blanket over his shoulders, sometimes he would just feel someone watching him. But not in the way that normally made his skin crawl and told him to cover the curtains, but in a protective, watching over, way.

He felt something.

He wasn't numb. Not anymore. He was still angry. He didn't think the anger would ever truly go away. Same with the sadness. But now there was joy. He's laughed more in the last few weeks than he has in years. Whether the emotions are good or bad doesn't matter because it's something. He liked feeling bad, because then the good felt even better. He liked being stressed about school, because then, when he wasn't stressed, he felt this wave of relief. Liam loved feeling.