What Could Have Been [Thiam Rewrites]

Chapter 19: A Cure

A/N: Thank you all for your continued support for this fic! After the rewrites ended, I was fully expecting to be done, but these boys just have more to say. Developing their relationship and this mystery around the white wolf has been SO much fun. The white wolf plot was fully flushed out with the help of my best friend irl. Also, huge shout out as always to my wonderful beta reader Aathmanr, and also to ChayaConnelly for reading some of this ahead of time and encouraging me to not just throw out this chapter!

A/N: WARNINGS: This chapter contains smut, so if that's not your thing, please skip Liam's first POV.

Theo

Theo sifted through a mountain of texts at the safe house. Mason's legs were outstretched out in his lap, and Theo was in charge of shaking his ankles every time he nearly fell asleep. Corey had fallen asleep on the couch about an hour before retiring to his room.

The safe house now had enough bedrooms that they could stay over whenever they didn't have the energy to drive home at the end of the day. About fifteen minutes ago, after Liam's fiftieth yawn in a row, he'd kissed Theo on the cheek and gone to bed after making him promise to join him soon.

Even though Theo had promised, time had slipped away from him—he'd gotten halfway through another text before his eyes had started to blur.

With construction on the safe house and the new dorms complete, Derek had asked Theo to digitize all of the Hale family records. At least, all of them that had been protected from the fire in one of their many vaults. Argent also had a sizable collection of supernatural materials that he'd handed over, and Deaton was coming by tomorrow with even more. Part of the reason it was taking so damn long to find any information on the significance of a white wolf was because they had to sift through texts and notebooks. And only a few of them were in English, which wasn't helping matters. When Theo was done, they'd have a supernatural version of google at their fingertips whenever they needed to do research.

Which was how Theo ended up scanning texts at 11:50 on a Friday night. Only pausing when an old version of Derek's tattoo, a triskelion, had caught his eye. He still hadn't nailed down the tattoo he wanted. Liam had agreed to get a matching one of whatever he decided, so Theo was determined to make this first one meaningful.

"How're we doing, boys?" Derek called as he joined them in the library.

Mason responded with a groan, tugging his feet off Theo's lap and stretching. Theo merely rubbed his eyes, but only managed to grunt a reply.

"Still coming up short?"

"I can't believe how much stuff we've been through," Mason said, "and how much more there is left."

Derek a bag of sour patch kids on the table. Theo would've preferred coffee, but he supposed the sugar would help keep him awake, too. He popped a few of them into his mouth, enjoying the zinging along his jaw.

"You're doing great," the older werewolf praised, dropping a hand to Theo's shoulder. "Don't stay up too late, all right?"

Theo mumbled a vague affirmative.

"What've you got there?" Derek asked, peaking at the book Theo had been studying.

Theo slid the book so that he had a better view of it and ran a hand through his hair, hating the greasy feel of it and wishing he'd made time for a shower tonight.

"I'm still struggling to come up with a tattoo idea for me and Liam. I love the meaning behind the triskelion, but I also don't want to steal your family's symbol."