Liam wasn't exactly sure how long they sat there, he knew that his legs were numb and his fingers tingled with the cold and that he would have been happy to sit there for however long it took for the moment Theo's shoulders would finally shed the last layer of tension and he'd sleep. Liam watched the stars listening to Theo as he calmed his breathing and just sat, forehead still pressed against Liam's shoulder no complaints passing his lips even as Liam continued to run his fingers through his hair.

He almost had done as well, Theo's hand slowly going lax in his as he let himself be lured by the pull of sleep. And then the police had come, marching over with stiff frowns and leaving Theo sitting up, instantly alert as he raised a hand and said they'd leave.

"Give me the keys, I'll drive." Liam sighed, ignoring the itch of sleep behind his own eyes. Theo didn't even try to argue, his shoulders drooped in defeat as he nudged the keys into Liam's hand and flopped into the passenger seat.

The police officer watched them as Liam maneuvered them – as carefully as he could – out of the field praying that he wouldn't be asked to show his non-existent license.

"You should try and sleep. I'll find somewhere to park." Liam said. Theo's lips twisted into a sour smile.

"I don't think I'll be getting any more sleep tonight." He hummed.

"Just try. Alright?" Liam asked, sounding embarrassingly desperate about it.

"Not sure if it's safe to leave you to find a parking spot alone. Don't want to end up at a dogg-"

"Dude that was one time!" Liam grumbled.

"I've only let you park once. You currently have a hundred percent success rate at parking in dogging spots."

"You have a hundred percent success rate of being an asshole. Now stop trying to change the subject. You need sleep. Otherwise, I won't take you to Disney world."

"I'm going to be the one paying for Disney world." Theo muttered. Still, he begrudgingly dropped his head back against the window letting the conversation end as he made himself comfortable. Legs creeping up onto Liam's lap. Liam could feel his gaze burning into the side of his face for what felt like a small eternity. No doubt hoping for Liam to complain about being used as a footrest again so he could put off trying to sleep for a little bit longer. Liam, for once, refused to rise to the bait and eventually Theo let his eyes droop closed as he actually took Liam's advice.

Or tried to. But the problem with getting Theo to sleep wasn't shutting Theo up. It was getting Theo's brain to shut up. Liam remembered what it was like when his nightmares were at the worse, how every tiny creak of the house or whisper of wind brushing against the window left him too tense to sleep. Mind screaming for him to open his eyes, to move, to get ready to fight whatever was coming for him this time.

The car was worse than Liam's room ever could be. Rather than the occasional clack of pipes cooling there was the constant hum of the engine. Even ignoring the way the pair were constantly being jostled by potholes and bumps in the tarmac it wasn't exactly a peaceful place to sleep.

Liam's hands tightened on the wheel as Theo shifted for what must have been the eightieth time in forty seconds. His arms crossed over his chest, eyes opening into small slits like a child trying to get a peek of Santa. His finger tapped, once, twice. An irritated sigh pushed past Theo's lips.

"I'm not even tir-"

Liam's hand dropped from the wheel, resting on Theo's ankle. The chimera's finger paused almost instantly, dangling in the air for a moment like a snowflake caught in an updraft. Finally it dropped, his hands curling into fists as he shuffled against the seat again.

"I'll wake you up if anything happens." Liam promised. Theo cracked an eye open dubiously. "You have to close your eyes to sleep." Liam said, a teasing smile slipping onto his face. Theo rolled his eyes dramatically, giving a small huff before he let them close.

"Yeah...Alright, I'll try." Theo said in an impressively terrible lie for someone who was such a good liar.

Despite knowing he was lying Liam didn't call him out on it, just fixed his eyes on the road and refused to think about how he was definitely breaking multiple laws driving without a license and not even doing it carefully. Even so, it didn't stop him driving, he drove until his left leg was numb thanks to the heal of Theo's foot digging into it, until his eyes were threatening to close and his hand was loose around the wheel, worries about driving one handed so far from his mind, he'd be troubled to think about why he'd been so scared of doing it in the first place. He drove until Theo's pathetic lie had become a truth and his head was bobbing along with every bump and groove of the road as he slept soundly.

The annoying thing was that even though Theo had lied Liam hadn't. He wholeheartedly planned to wake Theo up if he heard even the slightest uptick in his heartbeat or an eyelid flickered. He wasn't an idiot, he'd realised that so far Theo had yet to have a nightmare when he was actually around, or, the one time he'd started to, Liam had managed to divert it with some well thought out preventative hand holding. He knew that as far as logic and reasoning went he could probably drift off to sleep and Theo would be fine until morning, which, judging by the stark blackness of the night wouldn't be too long.

Unless the darkest hour being before the dawn was a myth. Liam had never really paid attention to the stages of night-time.

Whether it was a myth or not wasn't important. It didn't matter whether the dawn was thirty minutes away or thirty hours away. Not when Liam had promised to wake Theo up if he needed it. It didn't matter that Liam had the tentative belief that maybe him just being there was enough to keep Theo's nightmares at bay, whether it be because Theo unconsciously latched onto the sounds of another heartbeat, something Liam seriously doubted Tara had going for her when she'd dragged Theo into the ground. Or because, like Liam, Theo had found an anchor, maybe not for his powers but at least to keep him from delving back into his own twisted memories. Liam still wouldn't risk it.

Because, whether Theo would admit it come morning or not he'd chosen to let Liam in. He'd had the option to tell Liam to fuck off, or to walk away if Liam stubbornly refused that and yet he hadn't. He'd had the option the night before to tell Liam to go with Mason. He'd had the option to leave Liam back in Vegas.

Neither of them could believably hold the allusion that they were there out of necessity anymore, or because they had nothing better to do. They trusted each other, and not in simply a 'I'll fight with you' way anymore.

It was bigger than that. It had probably been bigger than that ever since Theo had opened his dumb sleep deprived mouth and told Liam about how he once dressed as Chewbacca to go to the movies with Stiles but no there was no doubt about it.

Theo had trusted him with what was arguably his biggest fear and whether intentionally or not he'd fallen asleep trusting Liam to keep his sister away from him.

Maybe Liam couldn't fight the demons in Theo's mind, he couldn't hit a ghost that was hopefully still trapped in hell, but he could sure as hell make sure that Theo wouldn't be haunted by the memories for a few hours.

And so when he finally parked, slipping beneath a low hanging willow tree to keep them out of the eyes of any prying police officers who seemed far more interested in telling them to move on than asking why there were two teenagers camping out in a car in the middle of nowhere, he settled back into the drivers seat and used his free hand to shuffle through the glove box, ignoring everything but a tatty notebook and an old pen.

Liam turned the pages quietly, skipping past a few old shopping lists that seemed to consist more of crossed out items with a frantic chicken scrawl saying 'you don't have the money asshole' than actual ticked items.

Balancing the book so he could start his own list was harder, his fingers still loosely curled around Theo's ankle, refusing to move it in case Theo woke up or it broke whatever sense of ease Theo had managed to accumulate and sent him spiraling into another nightmare.

Just because Liam was staying up to wake Theo if need be, didn't mean he wanted to have to wake him. He was fairly sure if Theo had a say in it Liam would have been waking him the moment they parked but luckily Theo didn't have a say in it and so Liam got to work, balancing the book precariously on his thigh struggling to write with his non-dominant hand leaving the words an almost illegible.

*

"What are you doing?" Liam would like to say that he didn't jump when Theo's croaky voice broke through the sleepy haze of his mind but that would be a lie. Liam forced himself to blink, grimacing at how dry his eyes felt as he turned to look at Theo. Theo's eyes were still hazy with sleep as he slowly shifted himself, legs finally dropping off of Liam's lap. Liam felt his leg tingling as the blood flow returned almost instantly.

"You slept." Liam replied, voice raspy and crackling.

"You didn't." Theo said, eyes flickering over Liam's face in accusation. As if Liam spending one night not sleeping was a great sin.

"I said I'd wake you up if I needed to." Liam hummed, taking the opportunity to finally stretch out his aching muscles. He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd sat in the same position, scribbling down undoubtedly stupid idea's but the sun had crept up into the sky. Shining overhead too bright for Liam's sleep deprived eyes.

Liam reconsidered telling Theo about his car curtains idea.

"You should have woken me." Theo huffed, scrubbing a hand across his face as he no doubt tried to wake himself up from what Liam was pleased to say was a blessedly peaceful sleep. Liam didn't point out that Theo needed sleep much more than he did. "What were you writing?"

"Oh yeah.. I'm uh..I'm making a list." Liam said. Anxiety beginning to snake through his veins. It had seemed like a great idea when he started. Hell, it still seemed like a great idea, just...he wasn't sure how Theo would react. Whether he'd mock him or get angry or get the annoyingly fond look he got on his face whenever Liam did something nice for him and he didn't seem to understand why Liam would be doing it.

"A list? I thought you hated lists." Liam tilted the list out of Theo's view as the chimera turned his gaze to it.

"I do. They're stupid, but you're all 'respect the list' so I'm thinking you will be less annoying about it when I tell you what's on the list." Liam admitted, tapping the pen against the notepad, eyes flickering out the windows. The windscreen was littered with small leaves that had come loose from the willow overnight.

"And what is on the list?" Theo said, hand making a grabbing motion for it without even actually really moving to get it. Liam knew that Theo expected him to hand it to him but at that point, all he could think about was that perhaps Theo was trying to use the force to get the notepad. A smile inched onto Liam's face as he scribbled 'use the force Theo' onto the bottom of the list. "Liam." Theo nudged Liam with his foot.

"Stuff."

"That was very informative."

"How is it that you've been awake for three seconds and you're already being an asshole?"

"It's a talent." Theo said calmly. "If you do-"

"It's a Theo list." Liam interrupted, before Theo was awake enough for his sarcasm to be at full strength.

"A Theo list." Theo repeated. He sat up slowly, eyes cautious.

"Yeah. So..Look, alright, it kind of..Last night-" Theo's shoulders tensed.

"Can we not talk about-" Theo started.

"-I never really thought about you as a person." Liam rushed.

"Well that's something everyone loves to hear." Theo said dryly.

"That came out wrong." Liam said. "So, I knew you had a uh... difficult upbringing?" Theo snorted at what was possibly the understatement of the century. "But I never really like actually put them together. I just..I mean you act surprisingly normal a lot of the time."

"Thanks."

"Will you lower your judgemental eyebrow and let me talk?" Liam huffed. Theo's eyebrow only climbed higher. "I knew that you missed out on some stuff because of the whole...everything, but I didn't really realise just how much you probably missed out on until last night when you-"

"Not talking about it." Theo said.

"You have a lot of bad memories and I guess I realised that I don't even know like the half of all the stuff you went through but I do know that the ages of eight to eighteen are like... important, they're your formative years."

"no they're not. Formative years are generally considered to be everything before-"

"Fine then your adolescence." Liam huffed. "that's not what's important, what's important is that you didn't even know how to bowl okay and god knows what other stuff you missed out on during your emo phase."

"Emo pha-" Theo begun.

"The thing is! And I could be totally wrong here because I mean I'm running off like next to no sleep but, all that dumb shit people do when they're kids or teenagers that's like... important and with your nightmares-" Theo's jaw clenched but he stayed silent. "You've missed like...all the good parts of being a dumb teenager and I'm guessing that when you go to sleep you have maybe a handful of actual good memories from before the dread doctors all of which will be tainted by what happened after the dread doctors so getting some new memories. Some real, normal boy memories... I think it'll help."

"I have no idea what you're saying."

"I wrote you a bucket list. But it's less 'before you die' and more - here Pinocchio, you want to learn how to be a real boy then follow these easy steps."

"I'm not Pinocchio."

"So, there's sneaking out of the house-" Liam started, reading the first item off the list. "Which I mean, you can't really sneak out when you live alone. But, we did sneak out of the motel in Idaho so I'm counting that. Next is pull an all-nighter, which, you know, you're really good at-" Theo let out a quiet, exasperated laugh. "Movie marathon, which we did with Star Wars and- okay you've done these so- right! Go to a concert."

"Liam this isn't-"

"Play three blind mice on the flute and hate every second of it. Dye your hair-"

"Not happening."

"School dances, like prom or something, I mean you've finished school so I'm not sure how we'll do that-"

"This is ridi-"

"But give me some time to think and we can do that. Oh and I need to teach you to play crazy golf because although you've done it before no one should be that bad. Go to a birthday party, have your own birthday party, how did you even celebrate your birthday when you were with the dread doctors? Did they give you cake? Do you even know when your birthday is? And Christmas, you need to do a Christmas, or don't, whatever you celebrate if you're not into the whole Christmas thing. Just you know, winter celebration because it's fun. Halloween as well, definitely need an embarrassing Halloween costume and to go trick or treating."

"I'm definitely too old to go trick or treating."

"We're literally on our way to Disney world. That's not a valid argument right now. But speaking off old. I have the more childish stuff that you probably did but don't remember, or that you couldn't do because of the whole...Asthma attack thing. Like play on a climbing frame, complete the monkey bars. Make a blanket fort, have a picnic, and a snowball fight, oh and snow angels and- Why are you looking at me like that?"

"How long is this list?"

"Only like three pages so far-"

"So far? You're planning more?"

"Well yeah. You need the full experience. You said you don't have a job right? So when we're in beacon hills you can go through the list and I can help you for some of them. I'll be like your Obi-wan of normal teenaged stuff."

"Just drop it, Liam. It's not-"

"No. That's not what healthy people do with mental issues and so you're going to work your way through this list starting tonight with underaged drinking until we don't remember our own names, let alone our problems."

"That doesn't sound particularly healthy." Theo said calmly.

"Dude I'm a teenaged werewolf with an IED and a few years' worth of trauma. If you want healthy go to a therapist." Liam scoffed. Theo's lips twitched in a smile that he ducked his head to hide.

"So, it's the blind leading the blind then?" Theo asked.

"Pretty much yeah." Liam licked his lips, the nerves suddenly coming back. "So..uh... what do you think?"

"I think you're weird when you haven't slept." Theo said.

"Is that a no to drinking?"

"No. That part actually sounds alright."

"That part? What part doesn't sound alright?"

"The part where you think you could ever teach me to be any semblance of normal."

"I'm totally normal!"

"You just spent the better part of your night writing a 'how to be normal' list for me."

"That only proves you're not normal-"

"Yeah alright. I guess you are normal, what with the IED and years worth of trauma and what was it you were saying the other day about almost killing Stiles and De-"

"Okay. You made your point."

"Did I? Because I have a load more-"

"Do you want my help or not?"

"Do I want to be your weird charity case? No. Not really."

"Okay. Lesson one of turning Theodork into a real boy-"

"Fuck y-"

"When someone stays up all night to make sure you're okay and distracts themselves by making a list of experiences they think you might have missed it's called friendship. Not charity."

"We're friends?" Theo said, this time he didn't bother trying to hide his smile. Although Liam wasn't entirely sure that Theo knew he was smiling. It wasn't a blinding and wide, Just a soft curve at the corner of his lips.

"Clearly." Liam scoffed, pretending his heart wasn't drumming like a hummingbirds wings. "I wouldn't ditch Mason for just anyone. So you better make it worth my while alright? Which means, Drinking and Disney World and maybe even ticking off make a sand castle when we get to Flordia."

"You ever think maybe I don't want to be your friend?" Theo asked, smile only widening.

"No. I'm kinda awesome." Liam said seriously.

"Get out of my seat Liam." Theo scoffed, shoving Liam against the door. Liam didn't complain, apart from a few muttered curses, just hopped out so Theo could slide into the driver's seat. A moment later he was back in the car, curling in on himself in the passenger seat as Theo started the car and reversed out from beneath the tree. "You know I'm expecting a friendship bracelet, right?"

"I instantly regret saying we're friends." Liam lied.

"Sure, you do." Theo chuckled. "Get some sleep pumpkin. I'll wake you for breakfast."

*

For Liam the day was over in the blink of an eye. Mainly because he'd been asleep for most of it. Theo only waking him for long enough to herd him in and out of diners for breakfast and lunch. By the time dinner rolled around and Liam was actually joining the land of the living for longer than a plate of fries Theo was speeding passed a 'welcome to Arkansas' sign.