The last of the tension left Theo as they boarded a subway cart, at least eight blocks from where they'd left Stiles and Derek, Theo's shoulder drooping as he flopped back against one of the poles. Liam grimaced as he shuffled closer, nose twitching against the harsh smell. He didn't have to for long, the train hadn't even started moving again before Theo's hand was fisting in his shirt and tugging him closer.

"How do they all smell like piss?" Theo huffed, nosing at Liam's neck.

"Are you using me as an air freshener?" Liam asked.

"Yes." Theo said unashamedly. Liam didn't complain, just copied Theo's movement and burrowed his face against Theo's throat.

"You smell like Stiles and Derek." Liam grumbled bitterly.

"At least I didn't hug them." Theo muttered. "You smell like Adderall and man pain." Liam laughed lowly. The cart rattled to life, Liam swayed closer to Theo as it swept along the tracks

"Where are we even going?" Liam asked.

"Away from them." Theo said, hands snaking around Liam's waist and tightening until Liam was plastered against his front. "Wake me when we get to the end of the line."

"So, I'm an air freshener and a pillow?"

"you're the one who wouldn't let me drink coffee." Theo said.

"You want me to give you a piggyback once we're 'away from them' as well?" Liam asked only half joking.

"I'd say yes but you're so tiny I'd crush you-"

"Go to sleep asshole." Liam scoffed.

"I would if you'd stop talking." Theo hummed shifting his head until he was apparently comfortable.

"You know-" Liam said once Theo settled. "-You're way touchier than I expected." He regretted the words the moment they were out as Theo's hold loosened as if he were about to pull away, before Liam could open his mouth to spew out a delightful mess of word vomit in which he'd probably end up offending Theo while trying to explain how it wasn't a problem in the slightest that Theo was happy curling around Liam like an octopus at any given second, especially when tired, Theo's arms tightened again, wrapping around Liam in a crushing hug that left the air squeezed out of him like a boa constrictor before he was returning his grip to a comfortable level.

"Yeah, well, Deal with it." Theo muttered.

"I'm totally fine with it as long as you don't try to crush me again." Liam panted. He felt Theo smirking against his neck like the true asshole he was, he tightened his grip again. "Okay touch privileges revoked." Liam wheezed. Theo loosened his grip once again but didn't make any move to let Liam go, not that Liam would have let him even if he had actually listened to Liam.

"Never had a chance to do it before, It's nice." Theo breathed, words seeping into Liam's skin. Liam would never understand Theo's ability to both melt and break his heart in a single sentence. He dropped his arms, looping them around Theo's sides even as the boy gave a small huff at the slight shift it forced him to do. Liam tucked his chin over Theo's shoulder resigning himself to hugging Theo until they got to the end of the line.

*

The end of the line turned out to be in Brooklyn which Liam was sure Theo wouldn't consider far enough away from Stiles and Derek because he himself didn't but at least it was out of their immediate vicinity for the time being.

Theo didn't request a piggy pack, nor did he agree to the one Liam offered just shuffled along after Liam saying nothing when Liam found them a Motel, dug the card from Theo's pocket as he asked for one bed with only a small amount of stuttering.

Theo fell onto the bed the second they walked into the room, seemingly not even noticing that the room they'd paid an arm and a leg for (not literally thanks to Derek) was roughly the same size as a large box. Liam wasn't entirely sure it couldn't be considered a cupboard. Theo wriggled on the bed, trying and failing to kick his shoes off with nothing but his feet only for the laces to trap them. Theo gave a small huff shrugging out of his top and tossing it across the room where it hit the wall and slid down to the floor in a sad puddle before he was climbing under the covers, jeans and shoes still on.

"Dude you're gonna be so uncomfortable."

"I've slept in worse." Theo said burying himself under the blankets. Liam huffed marching the two steps to the bed and ripping the covers off he got to work quickly on pulling off Theo's shoes as Theo watched him lethargically. The shoes hit the floor with soft thumps before Liam was moving to Theo's jeans "You know if you wanted to get into my pants you could have just asked." Theo hummed. Liam yanked down the fly tugging at them as Theo did little to help.

"Thought I didn't have to ask?" Liam asked, eyes flicking up to Theo in time to watch him snort softly in laughter and shoot Liam a lethargic smile. "You need to start sleeping properly."

"Hmm, I would but you see there's this little shit that always snores so-"

"Alright. Go to bed." Liam huffed, flicking the comforter over Theo's face and dropping his jeans to the ground. Liam shifted around the room, moving into the bathroom that was only just smaller than the bedroom. He was halfway through brushing his teeth when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, Liam pulled it out snorting when he saw it was a picture from Stiles to the group chat of Derek frowning as he stood among the bright lights of Times Square with Stiles next to him, thumbs up and a cheesy grin on his face.

He hadn't even managed to rinse his mouth before his phone was buzzing again, rattling annoyingly as a call came through.

"Hey Mase, give me a minute." He gargled. Theo didn't bother even opening his eyes when Liam walked through the room, just grumbled something Liam thought was meant to mean 'take the key or I'm not letting you back in'.

"Alright, hey." Liam said, once he was finally outside.

"I'm proud, man, you didn't say anything weird." Mason said. Liam snorted a small laugh.

"There's still time. Theo's basically asleep I didn't want to wa-"

"So, Theo's still alive then? I worried, Stiles looked like deceptively happy in that photo."

"Yeah, he's alive. You could have warned me Stiles was coming-"

"Dude I didn't know he was. We literally just saw when Stiles sent that photo. He told Scott he was sick." Mason said, Liam found himself chuckling. "So... you've seen them, right? You're in New York?"

"Yeah, yeah, we picked them up yesterday, spent today in New York."

"How was it?"

"Oh dude." Liam groaned, flopping his head back against the wall. "So right, First Derek doesn't let Theo drive the truck and then Theo has this hot dog in his pocket and Stiles saw it-"

"Is that a euphemism?"

"No, dude, a literal hot dog."

"Why did he have a hot dog in his pocket?"

"Because of the eating contest."

"What? What eating contest?"

"The one we entered to get money."

"What the hell are you two up to?" Mason asked sounding utterly confounded. "Alright, you know what. Start from Disney World because I still don't actually know what went down there and I need to know how you got from kissing to punching to being pushed off a cliff and dating."

"Are you actually alone?"

"Totally. I'm not even with Corey."

"Alright, okay so-"

"Why do I have to be alone? What exactly have you two been up to in the past-"

"Nothing like that!" Liam hissed, cheeks flushing as he peered back towards the Motel door nervously. "I mean, we made out a bit but-"

"You made out?"

"Yeah." Liam said, a grin creeping onto his face.

"And?"

"And what?"

"Was it good?" Mason urged.

"Yeah." Liam answered in an embarrassingly breathy voice. "Dude like...yeah." Liam reiterated.

"Okay okay, So Disney World. Then we'll talk about kissing."

"Disney world." Liam agreed with a stiff nod. "So, I came up with this plan, simple, three steps."

"You screwed it up didn't you."

"So freaking bad." Liam snorted. "So, for day one-"

Mason was the perfect listener, he laughed at the right times and gasped accordingly. Liam seemed to ramble on forever, leaning against the wall and hand gesturing unseen as he told Mason about Sandcastles, Austin and Liz and Theo stealing a stupid trophy that they almost won. And sure, maybe he was lying about how well they did, or more, how well he did (second place apparently) but Mason was human so it wasn't like he could know for sure that Liam was lying.

By the time Liam was ending the story with their quick but overdue farewell to Stiles and Derek he was fairly sure he could actually hear Mason eating popcorn. The most annoying thing about that fact was simply that Liam wasn't able to steal any for when Mason took over the conversation with his own tale of the pack's last few days.

It was gone two by the time Liam was curling up behind Theo ignoring all rules about personal space as he latched onto him.

*

Liam woke with a jolt as a gentle slap cracked across his cheek.

"M'not snoring." Liam grumbled. Another slap came to his cheek, harder than the last and Liam forced himself to crack his eyes open glowering up at Theo. He'd been quite fond of the idea of waking up the way he'd fallen asleep, curled around a delightfully peaceful Theo, perhaps even with added in morning kisses. Waking up to Theo slapping him was definitely not what he'd had in mind and even the soft glow of light filtering through the window and creating an annoyingly beautiful halo of light around Theo didn't help much with the rude awakening.

"What are you doing?" Liam asked.

"Waking you up." Theo said.

"Why?" Liam inquired grumpily. Wondering if it would be bad if he just grabbed Theo's arm and yanked him back into the bed. His hair was damp and he smelt like him, no traces of Stiles and Derek lingering on his skin making the urge that much stronger.

"Stiles said I was a crappy boyfriend so-" Theo started

"-You're proving him right by waking me up at-" Liam blinked at the clock on the bedside table "-Seven am?! Jesus Theo what-"

"No, I'm not 'proving him right' you dick." Theo huffed, voice pitched in a high squeak that Liam supposed was meant to represent him.

"I don't sound li-"

"I'm proving him wrong."

"How are you going to prove him wrong at seven am and why do I have to be involved?" Liam groaned, slamming his face back into the pillows because really, if Theo was going to wake him up stupidly early then he at least deserved to be woken up nicely, with kisses, not with freaking pissing contents with Stiles.

"Well Pumpkin-" Theo sung ripping the covers off of Liam in one swift motion that left Liam curling in on himself with a yell when the cold air hit him. "-You have to be involved because we're dating and I'm proving him wrong by taking you on an actual date that doesn't involve sand castle's."

"One thing about being a good date." Liam moaned. "Don't wake them up like an assh-"

"If you don't want to come I can always find someone else to go on a date with. I'm sure there'll be someone in New York who'd be interested." Liam pushed himself up as Theo talked stalking towards the bathroom with a string of curses. "-We're leaving in-"

"-Half an hour at least and I expect breakfast." Liam grumbled.

"Whatever you want, Dear." Theo drawled sarcastically. Liam waved his middle finger at Theo before he was kicking the bathroom door shut to the sound of him laughing.

*

By the time Liam was out of the shower the fact that they were going on an 'actual' date had managed to sink through his tired mind leaving him sprinting through the tiny room in a panic trying to figure out what the hell he was meant to wear. That was of course until he saw his one and only set of clothes in the room tossed messily on the floor.

Liam was busy trying to pull the wrinkles from his t-shirt when Theo reappeared with breakfast looking remarkably calm for someone who'd just asked Liam on a date and hadn't even got a 'good morning' for his effort.

Theo dropped onto the bed tugging Liam down next to him and slapping a warm takeaway cup into his hands before he was rifling through a bag, pulling out little boxes of food. Liam tried to keep his heart rate steady and ignore his mind screaming the word date at him as loud as a banshee's cry.

"Okay we've got – Fruit," Theo flipped open a little container of pancakes. Liam rolled his eyes stomach settling in its nervous turning as Theo smiled smugly up at him like he was oh so proud of his terrible joke. "Bacon, eggs, French toast-"

"Do you mean croissants?" Liam asked.

"No. You dumbass, I mean French toast." Theo scoffed. "Sausages and then-" he flipped open the last contain to show an assortment of fruit. "Some actual fruit in case you feel like you want to broach into the world of adult diets." Liam hummed sipping at what he thought was a coffee only to be met with hot chocolate.

"That's not coffee." Liam said.

"Astute observation." Theo hummed. "If I'm not drinking coffee you don't get to drink it in front of me. I also got some orange juice but my 'dumb Gaston mugs' are back in the truck so you'll have to drink from the carton. "I would have got you flowers but even on a date I'm not paying ten dollars for some leaves that are already dying."

"Stiles was so wrong about you. You're clearly a romantic." Liam said dryly.

"Shut up and eat." Theo snorted picking up a slice of French toast. Liam followed his lead picking at the breakfast eyes flickering to Theo every few seconds who seemed to be enjoying the way Liam's heart was still racing, a smug smirk on his lips even as he ate.

"So.." Liam said slowly. "What does an 'actual' date with you include?" Liam asked, Theo gave a small shrug. "A Picnic? Swanky restaurant and champagne? Taking out a rowboat?"

"No, No you're too young for them to even wonder if you can drink and definitely not. This is meant to be a nice date, it's not meant to end with one of us being shoved into a dirty pond."

"We could just not push each other out." Liam suggested.

"Like that would happen." Theo scoffed. Which, really, shouldn't have been a good point but their history proved that it really was the most probable scenario for them attempting to rent out a rowboat.

"Then what are we doing?"

"You'll just have to wait and see." Theo said.

"Or you could tell me." Liam suggested. Theo smiled at him.

"Eat your breakfast." He hummed, ducking over to press a swift kiss to Liam's cheek with an exaggerated sound so Liam couldn't even enjoy the cuteness of it when he knew Theo was doing it for the sole purpose of trying to annoy him.

*

"This is your idea for a date?" Liam asked, blinking up at the looming building curiously.

"My first idea was the MET, but I know nothing about art and I'm not exactly sure how you are on art history so that was out. Then the Bronx Zoo." Theo said. "Because 'feed the penguins' is on your Pinocchio list, which by the way, is a weird thing for you to think every kid does, but last time we went to a zoo together I had to knock you out, a lot. Then I remembered they had this, so-" Theo waved a hand towards the entrance of the Natural History Museum. "-You know, you can be a history nerd and then if we have time we can go to the MET cloisters or-"

"So, your plan was to go to a Museum and figure out the rest later?" Liam asked.

"Well we're going for dinner but the reservations aren't till-."

"Reservations? So, we are going to a swanky restaurant?"

"Yes Liam, we're going to a Swanky restaurant." Theo huffed, tugging on Liam's hand. "Surprise I lied-" Liam snorted as Theo did a one-handed version of jazz hands. "-But that's later so, for now, let's go get into an argument over history or biology again."

"I'm going to convert you to history by the end of this." Liam said with a grin.

"Well, while you fail to do that-" Theo said calmly, shoving the doors open with a dramatic flourish. "-I'll be thinking about how cool Jurassic park would be if it were possible." Liam looked from Theo to the large t-rex skeleton stood in the lobby, a beaming smile creeping onto his face as Theo watched him eagerly awaiting his reaction. "Better than sandcastles, right?" He prompted, tugging Liam forwards once again as people huffed at Liam for blocking the doorway.

"Better than your sandcastle at least." Liam tried halfheartedly, eyes skimming the walls as they joined the queue by the tills bouncing on the balls of his feet to try and get a better look into the adjoining rooms. This was going to be awesome. "Dude they have a butterfly exhibit!" Liam blurted slapping Theo's arm to get his attention.

"You're this excited over butterflies?" Theo asked. "You realize they have a dinosaur exhibit, right?"

*

"I reckon I could take it." Liam said, squinting at the large bear mouth stuck up in a constant roar.

"I don't know." Theo said thoughtfully. "I think security might notice you walking out with a stuffed bear beneath your shirt."

"What? No, I meant in a fight."

"Of course, the more logical answer." Theo snorted. "You know, if you didn't think you could beat a dead bear in a fight I'd be pretty worried about your self-esteem."

"I mean if it was alive obviously." Liam scoffed. Theo laughed, a sharp surprised bark that left the people around them glancing over curiously.

"You think you could fight a bear? And live?"

"Yeah." Liam said with a quick nod, sizing it up once again. "It's not that big and-"

"Not that big?" Theo said. "Liam, it could fit three of you in its paw."

"Okay so maybe it's big, but it's gotta be slow."

"No." Theo said. "Liam, you can't fight a bear."

"I don't want to. I'm just saying, if I had to I think I could." Liam explained.

"Why is your mind even on fighting it?"

"Well what were you thinking about looking at it?"

"Oh look a bear. You know, like any normal person." Theo said, leading Liam away from the bear swiftly like he might jump it at any given moment.

"So, you're saying if we went camping and a bear tried to eat you, you wouldn't trust me to save you?"

"If we went camping and a bear tried to eat me I'd throw you over my shoulder and run the hell away." Theo said swiftly.

"You'd get me first?" Liam asked, butterflies fluttering in his stomach as he turned to Theo with a grin.

"Well apparently I'd have to or you'd try to fight it."

"I'd say that's sweet but I'm still stuck on the fact you don't think I could beat a bear." Liam grumbled, taking one last glance at the hulking animal. "I think you could beat a bear."

"And this is why I don't let you plan things." Theo said shooing Liam towards the other animals dotted around the large hall.

"Hey Theo, What's the difference between an American Badger and an English badger?" Liam asked peering down at the little-stuffed badger.

"I don't know, what is the difference betwee-"

"It wasn't a joke, it was a question." Liam laughed.

"It's probably the accents. That or the American badger usually carries a gun." Theo said, eyes skimming the room once more only to pause as he spotted the wolves on the other side, a smirk curling onto his lips. "How much do you reckon people would freak out if I shifted and jumped out at people looking at the wolves."

"I think they'd need therapy for life." Liam said. "And I think you do too." Theo scoffed. "Seriously, how am I weird for wanting to fight a bear but you wanting to join the display isn't weird."