Archive of Our Own

Even though Theo’s been awake for what’s pushing half an hour now, he’s still laying on his side in bed, starting to debate pulling his pillow over his head, blocking everything out, and going right back to sleep for a while just so that he doesn’t have to leave his room.

Don’t get him wrong. The enticing smell of waffles with butter and syrup that’s drifting through the house and into his room should be enough to get him up and out of bed on a sunny Saturday morning, but that’s not what’s stopping him. What’s making him want to smother himself with his pillow is that he can hear that his roommates, responsible for the waffles, are already wide-awake and sitting at the kitchen table. They’re trying to keep their talking and giggling to a hush, only making it worse because they’re doing a spectacularly bad job of it, and Theo doesn’t want to go out and face all that for two reasons. 

First of all, he already knows that they probably look as effortlessly perfect as ever even at this hour, and Theo decidedly...doesn’t. He can feel that his hair is a big crunchy mess from accidentally falling asleep without washing yesterday’s product out of it first, his arms and one side of his face are streaked red with the imprints of his wrinkled sheets, and his eyes are hard to open, letting him know that they’re definitely still a little puffy from waking up a million times during the night. He’s a disaster in comparison to what they must look like.

Second of all, his roommates are...well, they’re them. He’s going to want an extra minute anyway.

His extra ‘minute’ actually turns out to be around ten, but his boredom and hunger eventually wins over his stubbornness and he makes himself roll out of bed. He rubs his hands over his face and flattens his hair down the best he can, trying to fix what he can of the damage, sighs, and starts towards the door. The laughter from outside becomes louder the closer he gets, and he has to brace himself with a deep breath before turning the knob.

He’s hoping to make it to the bathroom down the hall unnoticed, but as soon as he steps foot out of his room, Hayden and Liam look up at him from the table with bright smiles and even brighter eyes, looking just as frustratingly flawless as Theo knew they would; just one of these days, Theo would like to see Hayden with even the slightest of dark circles under those big brown eyes or Liam’s absolute birds’-nest of hair not suit him as well as it does, just to prove that it’s possible. Just like the waffle smell, their instant attention should be a nice thing to see first thing in the morning, but Theo takes one look at the position they’re in - kitchen chairs pushed together so that they can sit close, Hayden’s hands wrapped around Liam’s wrists while he appears to have been trying to stain her nose red with the bitten strawberry that’s caught in his fingers - and all he feels is an extra sour pang in his stomach that mixes disgustingly with the chronic morning nausea. Maybe he was right to want to stay in his room.

“Hey,” Hayden greets happily as if she and Liam aren’t currently still assaulting his eyes, not even bothering to drop his wrists as she looks at him. “Sorry, we got up early. Did we wake you up?”

“There are more waffles on the counter if it’s any consolation,” Liam offers, nodding over to an aluminum foil-covered plate sitting on the counter next to the stove and the cooling waffle maker, which Theo will begrudgingly admit makes things a little better.

But only a little.

Hayden and Liam have both learned from living with Theo for a little over two years that he is not the same morning person-type that they are, so they don't take offense when he doesn’t respond with anything more than a nod before moving on. Theo can hear them go right back to what they were doing before he came out and interrupted, Liam apparently succeeding in hitting Hayden’s nose with the strawberry and getting a loud laugh of protest in return, as he trudges the rest of the way towards the bathroom. He shuts the door behind him firmly, hoping that the sound of it is enough to cover another, longer sigh, and scowls at himself in the mirror above the sink.

Before he starts splashing water over his face like he does every morning, he braces his hands on the counter and shuts his eyes tightly for a minute. The sick, swirling feeling in his stomach is starting to dissipate, but it’s taking longer than it usually does; he feels this almost every morning before he gets his first conversation of the day with Liam and Hayden out of the way, but that little spectacle at the kitchen table must’ve hit harder than most.

The thing is, he reminds himself bitterly as he turns on the faucet, is that he used to love living with Hayden and Liam, not that anyone would be able to tell by looking at him right now. He’d been close to Liam for years now, having started becoming friends over a shared box of pizza and two-liter of orange Crush in Scott McCall’s basement after the fight with the Anuk-ite and Monroe’s team, and although at the time he’d never thought he’d ever see Hayden Romero again, the world works in mysterious ways. She’d come back to Beacon Hills to check out the local college and visit Liam to continue the post-breakup friendship mending that they’d been working on since a few months after she left, and although she’d chosen to go to Rosewood instead of Beacon Heights and was only really sticking around town for Liam, she and Theo had had a lot of time to cross paths, work through their long list of differences, and oddly enough, find friends in each other.

As unlikely as it may seem to just about everyone else in the McCall pack, Theo considers Liam and Hayden his two closest friends, and if he’s feeling honest with himself, the two most important people to him, too. So when Hayden had been looking for her own place that she couldn’t afford on her own at the same time that Liam was moving out of his college dorm and Theo wanted out of his shitty apartment, getting a tiny three-bedroom together and splitting the rent was the natural thing to do.

The first year and a half of living with Hayden and Liam is still what Theo considers the best time of his life. The three of them would have movie nights every Friday, make a mess out of the kitchen as they (sort of, in Liam and Haydens’ cases) learned how to cook, spend night after night out on the town, and so much more. Theo got to see Liam’s ridiculousness firsthand and lose himself in stomach-clutching laughter with Hayden over it every day, and he got to learn and rather admire her sharp sense of humor and the deep-rooted wittiness that accentuates her words. They laughed, they cried, they cleaned each other’s wounds. They went through every party, holiday, and gathering together. Gunshots or game-nights, claw-slashes or cookie-baking - they were in it together. No matter what was going on with Theo, no matter which one of his many issues was bothering him that day, Theo could lay back at the end of each night, thinking of them and their laughs and their smiles, and know that it was a good day.

And then Liam and Hayden had gotten back together.

Theo had always had it in the back of his mind ever since the three of them started hanging out that Liam and Hayden were once in love with each other, but it was a fact that he’d tried very, very hard to ignore. He’d been so caught up in the fact that he finally had friends, friends who trusted him and chose him and liked him for his real, unfabricated self, that he’d been so unwilling to recognize anything that could possibly mess it up, and he’d gotten so good at it that most of the time, he forgot about their past relationship altogether. He’d definitely blacked it out when they’d moved in together, completely ignoring the reality that Liam and Hayden were then going to be exes living under the same roof. Space was tight, bedrooms were all right next door to each other, and there was only one bathroom, but Theo didn’t see it like that.

Theo had done such a good job at ignoring all of those very obvious, very unavoidable aspects of their life together that he hadn’t even noticed when the close proximity had started getting to them; when the touches started to linger when they passed plates to each other while doing the dishes, when they’d started sitting closer together during their weekly movie nights, when they’d be up late talking about nothing at all long after Theo had gone to bed just for the sake of it. All of the willful ignorance that Theo had exercised during that time meant that when he did finally find out, it’d felt like a slap in the face.

He still remembers the day that he felt everything fall apart. He’d just arrived home from a long, tough day at work, but he hadn’t even cared about his stupid boss or his rude co-workers; he’d had a smile on his face as he walked up to the front door, knowing that his day was over and he got to see Hayden and Liam again, which he’d been looking forward to since he’d left that morning. He’d been so ready to just drop his bag at the door and flop down on the couch with them until it was time to start cooking dinner, but when he’d opened the door, he’d been met with two things - the sight of Liam and Hayden already there, sitting on the couch, Liam’s arm looped around Hayden’s neck, and the undeniable scent of sex coming from his bedroom.

The three of them had frozen for several seconds, Theo with his hand still on the doorknob and Liam and Hayden sitting there, faces going flushed and Liam’s eyes dropping to the floor. “Hey,” Liam had greeted lamely, looking back up at the same time Hayden looked away. At least, Theo had thought bitterly, they had the decency to look a little bit guilty about fucking everything up.

“Hey,” Theo had managed, voice a croak as it came out of his tight throat, but that was it. After a few more agonizing seconds of staring, Theo couldn’t take it anymore. He’d shut the door behind him, set his eyes firmly on the floor, and walked right past them and into his room. He hadn’t come out for the rest of the night. 

They didn’t talk about it after that, either. While the first year and a half of living with Hayden and Liam had been the best time of his life, the first few weeks after they got back together definitely ranks on the list of the worst. Neither of them would meet his eyes for a long, long time, probably rightfully scared to see what they’d find there, always flitting away from him whenever Theo dared to try. Mornings, afternoons, and nights went by quietly. Meals stopped being shared together for a long time, Theo preferring to eat in his room instead of in the kitchen if he even forced himself to be in the house at all.

That period had felt like it’d gone on forever, progress slow and painful especially when Theo had to just start sucking up and dealing with it. They started speaking politely again after the first week or two and started eating meals together again, weak attempts at getting back to normal. Hayden and Theo would talk quietly about their plans for the day in the mornings while she leaned on the counter as coffee brewed and he sat at the table, and Liam would come in halfway through the conversation to kiss her on the cheek before he left for work, nodding to Theo awkwardly afterwards and leaving awkward silence behind, and that was it. They’d all just had to live like that for a few weeks, because Liam and Hayden weren’t going anywhere, no matter how much Theo had hoped it was all just a one-time thing.

Of course, things did get better over time, and their friendship didn’t stay that strained forever. They started being able to talk normally again, able to joke and laugh without those terrible stretches of awkward silence, and they did all of the same things as they used to do before.

Still, everything feels different now, because even though Theo got over the news that their relationship was back, he never got over the pain. It’s just that Liam and Hayden are together now and Theo is suddenly the third wheel. Their affection for each other is there in every single thing they do whether Theo’s there or not, so thick in the air and shown in their movements that it makes his chest ache. He misses when they could cook dinner together without looking over and seeing them staring at each other so adoringly while he’s trying to ask them to pass him something. Misses when they could look at him without just a trace of something unreadable in their eyes even now. Misses when they were just Hayden, Liam, and Theo, and not Hayden and Liam and Theo.

He wants all of that back, wants the time that he wasn’t a second-class citizen to come back, wants them to come back in some weird, stomach-twisting way that he wishes he didn’t understand the meaning of. He wants so badly to say that he doesn’t know what he wants, and even though that is a complete and utter lie, he will, and he does. What Theo wants is, yet again, something that he chooses to ignore.

But even though he’s still repressing it, what Theo wants certainly does manifest itself in what he does that same night. He’s laying in bed again, this time at eleven PM instead of eleven AM, book abandoned on the other side of his bed because all he can focus on is the sound of Hayden and Liam getting ready for bed next door.

He listens to the shifting of blankets and pillows and the soft words spoken to each other as they lay down, which makes Theo’s chest constrict painfully in a way he really doesn’t like, and if that isn’t bad enough, they don’t go to sleep right away, either. Liam must’ve hit somewhere on Hayden’s skin that’s particularly ticklish - her left side, Theo remembers; it feels like yesterday that she’d fought him off, laughing and gasping for air, when he’d found it on accident - because then Theo starts hearing surprised giggling of a completely different type, Liam’s voice dropping low and suggestive and making Hayden laugh even more.

Theo bites back a sigh, squeezing his eyes shut frustratedly. It’s the third night in a row of this, and he’s had enough. Before he can think about what he’s doing, he’s up and out of bed, out of his room, and opening Liam’s door. Hayden and Liam immediately squeak and jump back from each other, looking at him with wide eyes, but he ignores that and their questioning noises as he walks right up to the foot of the bed and crawls in to plant himself right between them. While Liam lets out a rather stupefied ‘Um,’ he yanks Liam’s pillow further towards the middle of the mattress so that he can rest his head on it, manages to blindly pull the throw blanket at the foot of the bed up so that he’s covered, and then firmly and finally closes his eyes.

He can sense Liam and Hayden having one of those God-awful unspoken silent conversations overtop his body as he lays there, but no matter how uncomfortable it is for a few seconds, nothing’s going to get him to move. Eventually, after they seem to get that he isn’t going to budge, he hears Liam huff in exasperated acceptance and feels Hayden shrug, the two of them shimmying back to lay down again. Good, Theo thinks, satisfied. Anything to get them to be quiet for a night.

When he comes to the next morning, Hayden is pressed up against the line of his back with one hand dropped to his hip and Liam has gotten close enough that his soft hair tickles Theo’s nose. It feels so stupidly and twistedly right that he can’t even censor the thought before it forms all the way and sends his heart jumping, and the frustration of that is enough to get him out of bed before the early-risers can even wake up.

It might be wrong how right it felt, but that isn’t to say that Theo isn’t back there again that night. 

His will isn’t that strong.

---

Liam has known Theo and all of his various forms of self-preservation for years, which is why he knows one thing for certain - Theo might think that he’s being slick, but he’s not. Something has been up with him for a long time, but it’s too hard to ignore now.

On the first morning that he and Hayden wake up after Theo came in the night before, they look at each other with confused blinks and raised eyebrows, go out to the kitchen, and find Theo standing at the stove making breakfast like nothing weird has happened at all. Hayden and Liam share a glance as they sit down at the table already set with three plates and three forks and silently mull it over as Theo sets toast and scrambled eggs in front of them. 

On the second morning that he and Hayden wake up with a large gap between them, they try to talk about it, but they’re quickly interrupted by Liam’s alarm signaling that it’s time to get ready for work. Liam’s alarm is as late as he can set it - he’s only an early riser when he knows he doesn’t have to go to work - and leaves no allowances, so he gets dressed quickly and agitatedly in the dark of the morning while Hayden sighs and rolls back over. 

On the third morning that they wake up without Theo there, they don’t even bother trying to talk about it. They just look at each other in complete bewilderment as the first thing they do when they both come awake and their faces stay that way throughout the rest of the day, caught in the constant question of ‘what the fuck.’

It leaves Liam more and more frazzled every day, but that third one is his breaking point; when Theo comes in again that night, this time barely even giving them time to lay down, he has to say something.

He could be a lot more strategic about it, but the first thing that comes out of his mouth is a baffled “What are you doing,” which pretty much sums it up. 

Without stopping the way that he’s twisting himself all up so that he can get under the comforter this time, Theo just about snorts, sharp and derisive. “Not that I’m not thrilled that you guys have such an active and successful sex life,” He says, shifting down in the bed to get comfortable and shutting his eyes. “But our walls are thin, and I need to sleep.”

Liam colors almost immediately, but not just from embarrassment; he will admit that he and Hayden could be a little more considerate about their activities, but he’s thinking less about the words themselves and more about the way he says them. There’s something in his voice, just a hint of something strained, that makes Liam think that it’s not just a noise complaint. When he looks up at Hayden and sees her staring down at Theo thoughtfully, a little line forming between her dark eyebrows, Liam can tell that he’s not the only one hearing it.

But either way, he’s not really sure how to bring it up with her, so he kind of just...doesn’t. The two of them shrug at each other and Hayden flicks the lamp on the side table off, and they go to sleep, Liam keeping his thoughts to himself. 

After that, it stays unspoken, but it’s obvious that he and Hayden can both tell that something has changed even if they don’t know what it is. It’s confusing, and it’s even more confusing when something between them shifts. It’s mostly subconscious, things they do without thinking about it and then ponder later. They act less couple-y when Theo is around after that, keeping their displays of affection to a minimum. He guesses that it just feels like the right thing to do for both of them, so it just...keeps happening.

Over the course of a week, they make a lot of changes in their behavior without meaning to. They’re not nearly as embarrassing about their PDA now as they were in high school, the two of them practically having their tongues down each other’s throats whenever they could, but now it fizzles out even more. Liam stops doing things like whistling like a cornball whenever Hayden walks past him and stops giving into the temptation to pull her to sit in his lap during movie nights, and he doesn’t know why. He’s concerned about hurting her feelings, but he’d be a lot more concerned if Hayden wasn’t doing the same things - she’s not ruffling his hair just for fun anymore or sticking her hands up his shirt to tickle his stomach whenever she gets the chance. 

The only thing that they do on purpose is the one thing that Theo actually complained about to their faces. It’s no secret that Hayden and Liam like sex, admittedly more than a lot of couples do, but they don’t do it when Theo’s in the house anymore - not that they have much of a choice with Theo’s new habit of wedging himself between them as a literal cockblock whenever they so much as think about it, anyway. If they have sex, they wait until they’re well and truly alone, and they even make sure to be as subtle about it as they can - they’re sure that being able to smell when your best friends are having sex in your house isn’t pleasant, so they invest in an air freshener can or two.

The first chance they have to be alone is sometime after that first week of adjustments. It’s the first morning that they both have the day off while Theo’s at work, and by then, it’s pretty hard for Liam to have anything else on his mind. Liam’s already staring down at her when Hayden senses it and opens her eyes, and it only takes a second for her to know exactly what he wants, smiling up at him and looping her arm around his neck to pull him down.

It’s a great release after a while of waiting, but Liam realizes with a twinge in his stomach about halfway through that something isn’t right. Hayden is below him, making pretty little noises and digging her half-human nails into the muscles of his back just the way he likes, but something is off, something is different. It’s a weight in his chest that doesn’t settle even as he rolls back over, both of them panting as sweat cools on their skin - it only gets heavier.

As they’re laying there side-by-side, the afterglow feels like it’s fading faster than usual, something else that squirms uncomfortably under his skin replacing it. They’re holding hands and resting them in the space between them on the pillow, Hayden’s thumb rubbing circles around each of his knuckles in soft little figure-eights, but they’re not looking at that. At least Liam isn’t.

Liam’s looking at the space past their hands, the one that feels eerily empty now as stress mounts within him. Instead of the beautiful, perfect woman who’s laying right next to him, all he can think about is how wrong it feels to try to go to sleep without Theo in that empty spot. Guilt starts to mix in with the smell of sex and sweat in the air, which only fuels itself and makes the weight on Liam’s ribs press down harder, and it’s the most ridiculous thing ever because he shouldn’t be thinking about Theo right now, shouldn’t even have to feel bad about thinking about Theo right now. 

He can feel his expression tightening, jaw clenched and tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and forces himself to look at Hayden. She’s already staring at him with an unreadable expression, the same one she’d had looking at Theo on that fourth night. He wants to know what she’s thinking just as much as he’s afraid of it, and he’s glad that he doesn’t have to look at that face for long. Her eyes drop to the sheets and her throat works as she swallows, moving in closer to fill that space.

She presses herself completely up against him, tucking her head into the junction between his neck and shoulder, and Liam wraps his arm around her back to pull her in even closer. There’s not a centimeter of space between their skin now, no space that needs to be filled anymore. He lets out a slow breath towards the ceiling and closes his eyes. This is nice. This is normal. This should feel like a good way to fall asleep.

They end up getting up only twenty minutes later, muttering claims that they need to stretch their legs, and it makes Liam feel even worse that he’s the one who makes up that excuse.

---

If Liam thinks that Theo isn’t being slick, he’s in for a big surprise when he finds out that Hayden is two steps ahead of them both. Not only does she see right through Liam’s attempts at hiding his empty-headedness these past few weeks and Theo’s at playing off his strangeness - she also has a pretty good feeling that she knows exactly what it’s all about.

Her and Liam getting back together hadn’t been so much of a decision that they made more than it was something that had just kind of happened. It sounds like an easy lie to cover her ass, but Hayden can say in full truth that she was just fine with keeping her relationship with Liam strictly-friendship for a long time. Honestly, Hayden had been so relieved that Liam had forgiven her and still wanted to talk to her after she left him that she’d been nothing more than grateful just to be allowed to be close to him again. They had never really had a chance to just be friends before they started dating the first time, and she enjoyed getting to experience what it’s like without expectations or romance. The feelings she has for Liam hadn’t come back up until years later once she, Liam, and Theo had moved in together when she suddenly had him around her during just about every waking moment, and getting back together had been a surprise that she really should’ve seen coming.

No matter how quick and kind of thoughtless it’d honestly been - eye contact held for just a few seconds too long after months of tension before Liam had snapped, pushed her up against the counter, crushed his lips to hers, and pulled her off towards the bedroom while Theo was completely oblivious and away at work - Hayden had worked to make sure it didn’t stay that way. She and Liam’s past shot at a relationship had been all puppy love and poor communication and hurt feelings, and she wasn’t about to let that happen again. That afternoon, before Theo had come home from work and sent her into a spiral, they’d sat down in the living room and had one of the most mature conversations that they’ve ever had together in their lives.

There are conditions now, ones that they came up with together and agreed to stick to in order for their relationship to work as adults. One of those conditions, possibly the most important one and the first one she’d proposed, is one of honesty. They’d agreed on the first day, respective hands folded in respective laps to keep the pull of desire to themselves, that they didn’t have to tell each other everything and they didn’t have to tell each other everything up front, but that they wanted to have as little secrets between them as possible. 

Hayden’s not sure if he would’ve done it if they hadn’t had that conversation, but Liam had come to her one day around two weeks into their new relationship, sat her down again, and told her that he used to be in love with Theo. 

It’d definitely been kind of a shock to hear at the time. Hayden had sat stunned, listening to Liam nervously confessing in all one rush of words that he’d had it bad for their friend for a long, long time, since shortly after she left Beacon Hills, and that he’d still had those feelings months after she’d come back. Hayden had never thought that she’d be listening to her boyfriend anxiously and indirectly coming out to her during a conversation about being in love with their roommate, but once she’d had a minute to process it, she’d found that she wasn’t really surprised at all - both about the bisexuality thing and the Theo thing. 

She’d always kind of had a feeling about the first part, Liam’s heated rants about his old Devenford Prep teammate always seeming a little too heated, and when she’d thought back to when she’d first come back to Beacon Hills and how Liam talked to her then, him being in love with Theo made sense. Back then, all Liam could talk about was Theo’s heroism and self-sacrifice and all of the times that he’d almost given his life for Liam’s. He’d smile as he told the same couple of stories over and over again, telling her about the Ghost Riders and the hunters and the Anuk-Ite no matter what she’d actually asked him to fill her in on, and he’d smile even wider and then try to hide it whenever he actually saw him. At the first pack meeting that Hayden had come to, the two of them had gravitated toward each other like confused, flustered magnets, at at first glance, it may have even been a thought in her mind to wonder if they were anything more than just allies.

Liam being in love with Theo isn’t surprising to her at all. She knows everything about it, every detail that Liam’s told her and the ones that she’s picked out of older memories herself. She also knows that Liam is still leaving out a very simple, very important part of the story.

Hayden knows better than anyone that feelings that strong don’t just go away that easily, especially not when he’s your best friend, and especially not when you’re living under the same roof and sharing just about every moment.

And she knows, because Hayden seems to know many mismatched major details about this, that the fact that Liam is in love with someone else, especially someone who has caused them both so much pain and done so much wrong in the past, should hurt, but no matter how badly she’d wanted to be angry about it at first, she never could be. From the very moment he told her, she knew that being mad at Liam for being in love with Theo at the same time as her would be the most laughably hypocritical thing ever. Maybe a younger Hayden would have run to her older sister crying if Liam had told her something like that back in high school, but Hayden’s older now, and things have changed - feelings have changed. The only thing that she could feel was relieved that she wasn’t the only one.

As for Theo, it’s obvious to her by the fifth day of it why he’s suddenly acting like...well, a child. She’s always known that Theo is into Liam - how could she not when all she needs to do is take one look at his body language and the way that he stares at her boyfriend like he hung the moon and all the stars? - and she’s felt her fair share of guilt over that, but now that Theo’s picked up this interesting new habit, she’s starting to realize that there could a lot more to it.

Maybe she’s been so busy noticing the way Theo looks at Liam that she hasn’t noticed him doing the same to her. Hayden’s realizing with each day that passes that the way Theo’s acting doesn’t seem at all like it’s just about one person. Theo’s not pulling away from her and trying to draw Liam closer towards himself. He’s climbing into bed with both of them every night, because what he’s feeling isn’t jealousy for Liam. He’s climbing into bed with both of them because what he’s feeling is the need to be close, the need to feel like he’s not locked out anymore, because Theo loves them both.

That thought hits her like a freight train at first. She’d always thought that the way Theo acted around her - comfortable, but slightly skittish at times - was all just residual guilt from their past. They obviously hadn’t been on such good terms when she’d come back to Beacon Hills. A changed and newly-timid Theo had acted like an abused cat around her for a long, long time, his stoic mask cracking just a little every time she had too much bite to her voice or she even looked at him too hard, breaking eye contact and shying away. He’s nowhere near that bad about it anymore, but there’s been some confusing guilt hanging around in the air lately even now that they’re at the point that they’ve made jokes about Theo’s past to each other’s faces.

Now that guilt isn’t so confusing anymore. The guilt she’s sensing isn’t about his past, it’s about what he’s feeling, and Jesus Christ, Hayden is stuck between the two most oblivious men in the world: one who feels guilty for loving someone else, and one who feels guilty for loving them both. It’s laughable, and she definitely does spend a great deal of time laughing to herself about it when she finally puts it all together.

Now, Hayden’s not about to say that she hasn’t had her role in adding her own layer of poor communication to this situation - she is, after all, the one who never found a good time to tell Liam that his feelings weren’t only his own - but she will gladly take credit for being the only one out of the three of them who’s going to try to fix it.

Her first moves are subtle - non-calculated, but purposeful - just trying to get under Theo’s skin. If it’s even possible, she starts talking to Theo more, following him around the house and probably annoying him sometimes, but she’s still on his radar, irritated or not, and that’s what counts. If she’s giving Theo a break from her yammering, she’s still stuck right to his side, standing next to him while he’s cooking and conveniently needing to go to the same place he does when he gets up to move. She also makes sure to include him in her and Liam’s conversations when it fits, and even when it doesn’t, she finds a way anyway. It doesn’t go without a few questioning looks from Liam when he notices her pulling Theo in out of nowhere, but luckily, neither he or Theo ever say anything to disrupt the flow.

Those things work on some level - even through his obvious confusion, Theo seems pretty satisfied with being shown some attention - but nothing changes that much. Her first real move is planned out ahead of time, taking place during one of their house-famous Friday night movies.

Liam and Theo are already sitting a half-cushion away from each other on the couch, Theo scrolling through his Twitter feed and Liam getting Netflix queued up to their carefully-curated watchlist, while Hayden’s in the kitchen popping popcorn and pouring pretzel sticks into the designated green plastic bowl. As the microwave dings behind her, she looks over the counter and into the living room at them, and starts to visualize her next moves carefully, feeling herself start to get a little nervous with the anticipation.

Liam smiles up at her when he notices her coming over, scooting further over on the couch so that she has room to sit in the middle, but Hayden ignores him. Instead, she hands the bowl of pretzels to Liam, plunks the popcorn bowl down into Theo’s lap, and squeezes in between the arm of the couch and Theo’s body so that he’s the one sitting in the middle and she’s uncomfortably close. Theo jolts in surprise, immediately trying to move, but just as Hayden had thought of ahead of time, there’s not much he can do; their couch is small, and he can only move so far if he doesn’t want to run right into the same problem with Liam. 

They end up with Theo’s thigh pressed up right against the full line of Hayden’s, their shoulders brushing every time one of them so much as breathes, completely and unavoidably close. Hayden hears the satisfying way that Theo’s heart skips beats and holds back a smirk at how he won’t even dare to look at her or Liam, that nervous. It might be a little mean to trap Theo in here this way, but it works on all ends; Liam is looking at her curiously over the back of the couch, Theo is being included, by force or not, and his silent-but-still-there freakout is giving Hayden even more proof of what she’d hoped was there.

Hayden’s so committed to this plan that she would deal with sitting through an hour and a half of this rigid tension, but luckily she doesn’t have to. Liam seems to forget about his curiosity and Theo calms down some by the time the opening credits of the movie have faded out, so apart from the excitement pattering through her chest like little bunny hops, it starts to feel like regular movie night procedure pretty quick. Theo keeps his hands mostly out of the snack bowls, paying rapt attention to the movie (he does this even when Hayden doesn’t almost accidentally make him combust into a ball of nervous energy), Liam ends up breaking that focus by making his little comments here and there, and Hayden steals glances at both of them, paying more attention to her boys as she pops popcorn into her mouth than the movie.

By the time the movie hits the halfway mark, their positions have changed a little - Theo and Hayden are still pressed close, but Theo is more relaxed now, even though Liam has naturally moved to lean on him a little, too - and the popcorn is starting to run out. It takes Liam an extra bit of effort to get it out of the bottom of the bowl, especially since he always seems to insist on doing it without looking and taking huge handfuls at a time, so popcorn starts spilling out of the bowl with every pass. Usually Hayden’s the one who ends up with a million little popcorn kernels in her lap when they turn the lights back on, but Theo’s the one cursed with the middle seat and the popcorn-holder position now, and he’s not used to it enough not to notice it every single time a new one lands on his jeans.

It takes a frankly offensively careless grab at the popcorn that has multiple pieces falling all over him for Theo to finally scoff and dare to flick one in Liam’s direction, and that’s all it takes to start a popcorn fight that Hayden knows she’s going to have to bug one of them to clean up later. They keep it quiet, singular kernels flying through the air every thirty seconds or so, but once things start to pick up, it devolves pretty fast. Tosses get a little harder, occasionally sending them Hayden’s way on accident and tempting her to flick them back, but Theo’s the one taking most of the hits. They’re all over his jeans and shirt and one’s even caught right on the edge of going down into his neckline, and he’s in the middle of throwing a piece back at Liam when one of them lands right in his hair and sticks there. Hayden lights up. This wasn’t a part of her plan at all, but her first thought upon seeing it is that it’s a perfect opportunity.

“Hey, wait, you have a…” Hayden says as Theo snickers and throws another piece at him, but as soon as he sees her hand come into view, he goes completely silent. She reaches up slowly, using two fingers on the further side of Theo’s lightly-stubbled jaw to turn his face towards her own, and very deliberately rests the heel of her hand on his cheekbone as she picks the piece of popcorn out. Her hand lingers on his face for a second longer than it needs to - Theo’s pupils blowing wide - before bringing it down with one last brush to his skin and absently flicking it away. “...There.”

They’re frozen like that for a second, Hayden out of confidence and Theo out of shock, until he finally blinks and abruptly turns back to the screen. The line of his body has gone tense again, fists curled tightly at his sides and making no move to go back to the popcorn, heartbeat racing. Hayden finds herself wishing at that moment that they hadn’t turned the lights off just so that she could see if Theo is blushing, because he’s certainly acting like he is.

Her eyes slide over to Liam next, who doesn’t look too much different than Theo just did a second ago - in fact, he might be even worse, eyes wide and eyebrows climbing up to his hairline. It would be funny if that nervousness wasn’t creeping back up in Hayden’s stomach again, the little voice inside her that’s still wondering if she’s wrong; wondering if she’s wrong, and Liam doesn’t want this, and that she’s just made a grave mistake.

Still, she pushes past it; she can’t not know now. She swallows before putting on a brave face, one eyebrow raising and one corner of her mouth curling up in a hopeful smile, and she gets to see the exact moment that Liam finally gets it.

His mouth drops open a little further, his eyes pop open a little wider, and his gaze snaps from Hayden to Theo and back again fast enough to give him whiplash. A flash of bright light on the screen comes at just the right time, lighting up their living room and allowing Hayden to see the pink flush steadily spreading across Liam’s cheeks and how positively red Theo has turned, and when it goes out, she looks back at her boyfriend to find him already staring back.

Sucking down the rest of her nerves, Hayden tilts her head to the side in a clear question, the most important question, and it clicks for Liam again. She watches anxiously as he looks at the side of Theo’s face, eyes lingering longer this time, and then looks back at her own - and then starts nodding almost frantically.

Something overwhelmingly warm and open settles in Hayden’s chest, taking over and spreading. It has a wide smile pulling at her, and she has to bite down on her bottom lip to hide it from Theo, who’s luckily so focused on looking anywhere but them that he doesn’t notice. It’s a good thing, too, because Liam looks like he could quite possibly start crying right now, out of relief and excitement and God knows what else in this swirl of emotions they’re both feeling, and Hayden’s right there with him.

But they can’t do that now; they can’t let it out now. With one last glance and shared smile, they turn back to the screen, set their eyes on the main character whose plot all three of them have lost track of by now, and let the gears turn in their heads silently.

---

Liam really, really likes this new plan.

The day after that fateful Friday night, he and Hayden wait until she goes to work, Liam following in his car twenty minutes later and telling Theo he’s going to pick up some groceries, to talk it all over before opening hours at Sinema when it’s still kind of quiet. Hayden wipes down the surface of the bar while Liam leans on it with his elbows, carelessly getting his sleeves wet, as they stumble through it. It’s hard to be serious at first, both of them bursting into breathless laughter whenever either of them say anything remotely romantic about Theo, still blown away at being able to say it all out loud, and even though Hayden is the mature one who brought the whole thing up, she keeps blushing and it doesn’t help Liam get his thoughts back in order at all.

Eventually, by the time half an hour has passed and neither of them can believably distract themselves with the cleaning of the counter anymore, it’s all out there in all of its jumbled glory. It’s a complete mess, bits and pieces of their hearts laying scattered across the bar, but out of it they get to one clear and true conclusion: they want Theo in their relationship, they have a good feeling that Theo wants that too, and they’re going to do whatever they can to make that happen.

The conversation gets them both buzzing with the excitement of a new beginning, naturally leading to a hookup that neither of them really want to think about the location of - the Sinema womens’ bathroom is definitely a new low, and that’s really saying something - but Liam is still jittery about it days later. He loves Hayden with everything he has and the guilt of loving Theo the same way has been eating away at him for months, but now that he knows that Hayden feels the same, it’s like a ten-ton weight has been taken off his chest. Now that it’s all out in the open, all that’s left to do is get Theo there. They both know that it won’t be the easiest, Theo being Theo and all, and that they’ll have to wear him down, but they’re more than willing to try.

A lot of Liam’s strategy at first is just being around him, which isn’t hard at all; it’s never been hard to be affectionate with Theo, even though he looks at Liam like he’s insane because he hasn’t actually let himself cling to him since he and Hayden got back together. He starts sitting closer to Theo now, and follows Theo around like Hayden’s been doing these past few weeks, one of them on either side of him pretty much whenever they can get away with it.

Liam’s definitely stealing a lot of his moves from Hayden. Just like Hayden had been so quick to offer to get that piece of popcorn out of his hair in the most suggestive way possible, Liam finds himself searching for any excuses to touch him. He’ll pick any little bit of lint off of Theo’s shoulder or the tiniest crumb off of his lap just so that Theo will notice him there and hopefully get the hint. He uses that one a lot, and Hayden, who’s definitely the smart one of this - throuple? Liam’s always thought that was a weird word, but, well, - finds new ones for him to steal every day.

Much to Liam’s amusement and adoration, Hayden seems to be going full high-school with it, using the same tactics she’d used on Liam all those years ago but on Theo this time. Liam remembers how much teasing and touch had been involved back then now that he gets to see it happening all over again. She’ll lay his head on his shoulder and close her eyes, acting like she’s going to fall asleep there, and sometimes she does. When Theo wears ripped jeans she’ll ‘absentmindedly’ play with the ripped fibers of fabric and elastic, hooking her fingers underneath them and occasionally brushing over exposed skin and making Theo have to hold back his shivers. Even more boldly, she’ll mess around with Theo’s hands, just touching them and playing around with his fingers. She still does all of these things to Liam today, but it feels extra special watching from the outside knowing her intentions.

They do a lot of this during movie nights, where it’s become normal for them to force Theo to sit in between them instead of off to the side like before. It gives them both a lot of opportunities to ‘accidentally’ brush up against him or lean in to whisper into his ear, but Hayden really goes all out. One of the most entertaining things she does is pretend that she needs to stretch her legs out, turn to the side instead of just propping them up on the coffee table, and throw them over Theo’s lap to rest there. It never fails to make Theo jump, eyes widening and hands raising to hover over them like he’s afraid to touch her, and Liam always has to stifle a laugh.

But it gets even more fun when they talk it over and decide to be less subtle. Theo is a smart guy, but when it comes to feelings, he’s about as dense as the cake Liam tried to make that one time - which is to say that he’s pretty ridiculously dense, since Liam thought it was a good idea to try it without instructions. All they really succeed in doing is getting Theo flustered, which is good, but flustered doesn’t equal understanding. They’re going to have to do more, and after a conversation about how much further they want to risk going, they decide to take a leap of faith - including Theo in their dates.

They obviously don’t tell him that that’s what they’re doing, so Theo is none the wiser when they take their first real jab at it. It starts with another movie, this time at a real theater on the big screen. Liam has three tickets to a new movie Theo’s been wanting to see tucked into the back pocket of his jeans as he laces up his shoes on a Saturday night, very aware of Theo’s eyes on him from where he’s sitting on the couch in his pajamas. Liam’s making a show of getting ready out there just so that Theo will ask about it, and it works.

“Where’re you going?” Theo finally bites curiously as Liam tugs on his second shoe. Liam smiles down at the floor where he can’t see. 

“Movie,” He says without looking up. “Theater near the pizza place.”

He glances up at him in time to see Theo’s expression dim - now that he knows to look for it, he can definitely tell that it’s there. “Oh. Hayden?” Theo asks, sounding more downcast than usual, and Liam hides the slight pang he feels in his chest with a scoff.

“Uh, Hayden and you,” He says like it should be obvious. When he stands back up, Theo’s eyebrows are raised - success. “Did she not tell you?” Liam asks, already knowing for sure that she didn’t. The taken-aback expression on Theo’s face is nothing short of priceless, and he can almost see the rusty gears in his head starting to kick into motion - the theater by the pizza place is one of Hayden and Liam’s most common date spots, and he’s hoping that that’s what Theo’s thinking about, too. 

“I- no,” Theo admits after a second, shaking his head as an afterthought. “She didn’t.”

“Well, get ready,” Hayden says with a hint of playfulness in her voice as she chooses the perfect moment to walk out of her room, no doubt on purpose, and both of them look over to her. Liam has to bite down on something between a giddy smile and an amused smirk when Theo’s eyes snap over and then linger - for good reason. She looks stunning, and Liam has to check her out a little, too. “Liam finally got paid. We get to buy the good snacks this time. No smalls,” She tells Theo, leaning in to kiss Liam on the cheek. Liam wraps one arm around the small of her back, pulling her in close, and they both look right at Theo where he sits there, still surprised.

He doesn’t take much more convincing after that. After he registers that they’re not kidding, he gets up without another word and goes to get dressed, Liam and Hayden sharing a look of triumph as he walks off to his room. Theo’s back out and dressed only five minutes later, eyes a little bright and excited no matter how nonchalant he’s trying to keep his expression, and he follows right along when they nod towards the door. He even offers to drive them, so Liam takes shotgun and Hayden sits towards the middle of the backseat so that she can see them both.

The only complicated part about the whole night is when they get into the theater itself. They get their snacks - no small popcorns! - give their tickets to the man in the hallway, and make their way down to theater 6B, but finding their seats and sitting down is a little more complicated. They have three seats all booked right next to each other at the end of one of the aisles, and Liam ends up having to perform an improvised and pretty acrobatic move to stop Theo from sitting on one of the edges, which involves squeezing in behind him right before he can try to sit. By then, Hayden is already sitting in the third seat, so Theo looks between them both, one eyebrow raised, and sits down in the center. It means he has to hold the popcorn bucket again, but at least no one starts throwing it this time, and their fingers do brush a lot when they reach for some at the same time. Some of that isn’t even intentional. 

The second ‘date’ that they take Theo on is kind of an accident, and it starts with a completely different one.

They’re on their way back from the furniture store up in Beacon Heights, Liam sitting in the back and keeping a steady hand on the lamp box sitting next to him - the old lamp breaking having been his fault after all; there’s a reason that his mother, stepfather, Theo, Hayden, and every other person Liam’s ever lived with has told him not to mess around with a soccer ball in the house - while Hayden and Theo talk up front. Soft music drifts through the truck as Hayden and Theo talk about what the best way to dispose of a broken lamp is, tossing pointed looks through the rearview at Liam every so often, but Liam barely hears any of it. He leans his head against the window, watching the sun start to set and turn the sky light orange, and tries to ignore the hunger clawing at his stomach.

He’s thinking about having to reheat leftover pasta for the third day in a row for dinner that night when he sees the ice cream stand over by the farmers’ market, open for spring, and perks up just like he did when he was a little kid. “Hey, wait, Maria’s is open,” Liam says, cutting Hayden and Theo off, voice rising with hope. “Come on, Theo, pull over!”

Hayden laughs and Theo looks at him in the rearview like he’s a child, giving a half-genuine sigh of exasperation, but it’s common knowledge that Theo can’t deny him anything. When they get to the entrance of the farmers’ market, he turns the wheel and pulls them into the parking lot. Hayden and Liam both smile widely at him, Hayden doing it as she jumps out of the truck before he’s even turned it off to go get in line, while Theo and Liam go a little slower.

They walk up to the stand together, hands at their sides and knuckles brushing with every other step. Liam would be afraid of Theo seeing the heat on his face if he didn’t have his eyes fixed on the ground, too.

“Happy with our lamp selection?” Liam asks as a distraction, making sure it sounds as teasingly innocent as he wants it to.

Theo snorts. “I was happier with the one we had before you shattered it,” He says dryly with a smirk, and if Liam gives into the urge to shove him teasingly off to the side with both hands, no one can judge him for it. They’re both laughing, Theo’s eyes crinkling up at the corners, when they make their way back together and up to the stand to meet Hayden.

“Okay…” Hayden trails, having already ordered - there’s a strawberry cone in one hand, a chocolate in the other, and another one being made behind her. “Chocolate for Liam…” She says, passing it off to him, and takes the other one that the girl at the stand is holding out to her through the window. “And mint-chip for Theo,” She says, handing that one to a slightly-surprised looking Theo. “Your favorite,” She says with a smile.

Liam and Hayden both pretend not to notice it when Theo has to take a second to blink at the fact that Hayden remembers what his favorite ice cream is, but it’s hard, especially when Theo nods his thanks and then very-poorly hides his smile against the mint. Liam looks at Hayden and can immediately tell that they both think that it’s the single most adorable thing ever.

They all sit down at a rickety picnic table in the field off to the side to eat. They don’t force Theo to sit in between them this time, Liam taking one bench and Theo and Hayden taking the one across, but Liam doesn’t mind at all. It feels like old times, Liam watching the two people he loves the most and what a breathtaking sight they are as they do something as simple as talk and joke and poke fun at Liam for the lamp and what a mess he’s making of the cone when he accidentally lets it melt down his fingers, too busy looking at them to eat it in time. It’s like old times but better, Liam decides as he watches Hayden smear a little of her ice cream on Theo’s nose with her thumb, because it’s allowed to feel right.

The third date they arrange is on purpose, and it’s also the most obvious one.

While Theo is on his way home from work and Hayden is in her room getting ready, LIam sets up a sort-of fancy dinner in their kitchen. It’s all delivery food since Theo is still the only one capable of making something that doesn’t go past the complexity of, like, pasta and jar sauce, but he likes to think he’s doing a good job of presenting it, at least. He’s putting it all on real plates, ones that they can’t just toss in the trash, instead of leaving it in their plastic containers, and doctoring up the garnishing so that it looks something like they’d get if they were sitting down in the restaurant - chicken alfredo for Hayden, stuffed shells for Liam, and chicken parmesan for Theo, plus the complimentary dinner rolls that Liam had stressed needing over the phone because Theo loves them so much. He even adds a parsley leaf on top of Theo’s chicken, and it looks fancy as fuck , if he says so himself.

He puts the rest of his effort in making the kitchen look nice, humming to himself as he bustles around. He’d run out and bought a red tablecloth after his own shift at work today, so he dresses the table with that and some flowers in the center (Hayden had said that a candle might be a little too forward, so they went with the next best thing). He even has a lighting plan, because apparently he has it so bad that he’d needed to develop a complicated and strategic way to dim the lights when they’re already on a dimmer switch in the first place.

Liam is so caught up with all of the rushing thoughts in his head, telling himself he needs to make the silverware on the table perfectly straight, that he almost misses Theo entirely. He looks up just in time to see Theo come through the door, shoulders slumping as soon as he sees the arrangement on the table, and then turn right around to try and leave again. The fork in Liam’s hand clatters down onto the table and he jumps into action, heartbeat spiking anxiously.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Liam demands, reaching out and catching Theo’s wrist in his hands. Theo’s eyes snap down to where he’s touching him and then move more slowly up to Liam’s face, narrowing. 

“I didn’t mean to interrupt date night,” Theo says, voice going slow and puzzled, but there’s still a hint of disappointment in the words ‘date night’ that makes Liam shake his head and tug Theo into the house.

“You’re not,” Liam half-lies, finally dropping Theo’s wrist when he’s confident enough that Theo won’t bolt out the door. He goes back to the fork that he’d dropped on the table, picks it back up to show him, and very pointedly sets it back down at a third place setting. “Now sit down, I’m almost done.”

He can see the tense hesitation in Theo’s body that sticks around for a few seconds, but he does take a seat when Liam pulls it out for him, and he doesn’t even say anything when Liam starts pouring him a glass of wine - red, because Theo actually knows the differences enough to have a preference. Liam takes the bottle and smiles, squeezing Theo’s shoulder, and goes back to the counter to finish up. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Theo sip at his wine, looking confused but starting to relax a little. 

Once Liam has finished plating everything, he takes a deep breath for confidence and goes to get Hayden so that they can start. They’re both dressed a little nicer than usual tonight, Liam’s hair in better condition that it normally is at six-thirty on a Friday night and Hayden’s neck adorned with a delicate gold chain, and Theo definitely notices when they walk back into the kitchen together if the way his eyes immediately dart away nervously is anything to go by.

Liam places all of the plates down on the table, Theo eyeing every move almost skeptically with one eyebrow slightly raised, but Liam acts like everything is completely normal as they start eating. The conversation isn’t much different than what it normally is, talking about their days at work and asking what the others’ were like, and even though it’s obvious that Theo has no clue what’s going on, he seems to be enjoying it enough. He talks a lot, complimenting the food and acting like it isn’t obvious that it’s takeout, and laughing when Liam and Hayden play along.

Liam smiles around the rim of his glass, never minding the fact that he doesn’t even like wine, and calls this one a success, too. 

---

When Hayden had appeared at his side one day, eyes brighter than they’ve been in a while and lips tipped up in a tiny smile with absolutely nothing to say, Theo had had half a mind to question it. He’d been in the kitchen late one morning, buttering toast for himself because he’d rolled out of bed so late that the breakfast rush was long over, and she’d come to stand next to him for, apparently, no reason at all, which he found out when he asked. After a second he’d raised one eyebrow, looked at her from out of the corner of his eye, and asked her if she needed something. All he’d gotten in response was an innocent ‘I can’t just be around you?’ and it’d had Theo strangely stunned enough that he hadn’t questioned it again when she followed him around for the rest of the day. That day turned into several, and then one day, Liam started to do the same, and Theo let it happen. He let them, because who was he to pass up their attention?

When Liam had invited him to a movie that one Saturday night, patting the not two, but three tickets in his back pocket, Theo had half a mind to question that, too. He couldn’t remember the last time that he had been to an actual movie theater, much less with someone else - he’d started seeing them alone when Hayden and Liam were still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship and he needed to be on his own if he wanted to have a movie night in peace - but that’s also what kicked him into motion when he realized that he and Hayden weren’t kidding, so he didn’t. Liam and Hayden had stood there, looking at him expectantly while he was still on the couch in his t-shirt and sweats, and Theo hadn’t thought about it at all past when he got up off his ass. Liam had bought popcorn and Hayden had nudged him in the side in a familiar way that made him feel warm and they very obviously made sure that he sat in between them so they could share his space, and he let it happen. He let them do all of that, because why would he ever deny them - deny himself - something so simple and so good?

When he’d watched Hayden as she’d run right up to Maria’s ice cream stand and he’d caught up with her to find that she’d already ordered his favorite, a detail she must have just picked up on from the past because he’s fairly sure he’s never told her that, there’s a voice in his head that wonders why she knows and why she’s making a point of it to know, but it’s tiny. He doesn’t listen to it. Hayden just looked at him so happily, holding the cone out while Liam was already getting started on his own, so he’d taken it. He’d tried to pay her back, but she wouldn’t accept it - ‘it’s only a dollar-fifty, Theo’ - and he’d followed her and Liam over to the picnic tables in the field. He’d sat there and thought about the way it was before, back when Liam and Hayden were still in college and Theo was stumbling his way through low-paying job after job and they’d spend their summers and days off here at Maria’s, determined to try every single flavor, which makes Hayden knowing Theo’s all-time favorite even more impressive. Hayden had paid for the ice cream and Liam’s chocolate had dribbled over his fingers and he and Hayden had made fun of him so much that they were breathless with how ridiculous and stupid they sounded, and Theo let it happen. He let them take him there, and he hadn’t even pressed the issue on paying Hayden back for the ice cream, because it’d felt so staggeringly alike to old times that he had to allow himself to get lost in it, so he’d barely questioned that one at all.

And it was the same thing when Hayden did things like throw her legs over Theo’s lap or pet his hair when he was tired, or when Liam squeezed his shoulder or casually mentioned that he’d joked about Theo with one of his co-workers on a shift one day, fondly, like Theo is a fixture to tell people about instead of just being the guy who lives with him and his girlfriend. All of those things, all of those little things, chipped away at Theo’s hard exterior until there was nothing left of it anymore. He’d fallen all in all over again, and it’d felt so good that Theo couldn’t bring himself to come back to the surface.

But tonight, Theo can’t sleep. 

Now that he’s thinking about it, he hasn’t been able to sleep for a while. What’s been going on lately has distracted him from it, but it feels like every night he ends up this way - staring sleeplessly up at the ceiling, one arm tucked behind his head as a cushion, other hand resting on his chest, rising and falling with each deep breath, eyes going slightly dry with long, slow blinks that get further apart but never stop. 

He’d like to say that he doesn’t know what it is, but he does. He hasn’t had any real reason to go into Hayden and Liam’s bedroom for a long time, the two of them being considerate from the moment Theo complained about them having sex, and he almost regrets complaining at all, because now Theo lays in the middle of his bed instead of off to one side. If he hadn’t complained, maybe the spaces on either side of him wouldn’t feel so empty. If he hadn’t complained, maybe he’d drift off to sleep and stay that way for once, undeterred by nightmares. If he hadn’t complained, maybe he’d wake up tomorrow morning with Hayden’s nose in the crook of his neck and Liam’s leg crossed over his, ankle hooked under Theo’s calf. 

But instead of allowing himself to picture it, long for it, Theo shakes that thought away as soon as it comes, swallowing down the nausea of dread that quickly settles in his stomach. Any thought of maybe going into Liam and Hayden’s room now, complaining of noise that they weren’t even making - because it’s not like he hasn’t pulled that one before on weaker, more oblivious days - is dashed, because Theo doesn’t feel at all the same as he has in nights passed, alone or not. 

Things with Hayden and Liam used to be simple, even when Theo thought they weren’t. He used to just live with them, feel what he feels, and push it all down in favor of shutting it away and denying it was ever there so he could write it off as just being confused, but he can’t do it anymore. He can’t pretend that he doesn’t feel what has always been so invasively there, warm and strong right under his ribs, and he can’t pretend that something hasn’t shifted even more these past few weeks. He can’t, now that there’s the feeling of Hayden’s soft palm brushing his cheek for a reason Theo can hardly even remember, his fingers tingling when they touched Liam’s every time they reached for popcorn at the same time or when they were walking to the ice cream stand, the mint sweetness of his favorite ice cream flavor on his tongue, and now dinner tonight. 

He can’t deny anything anymore after whatever the hell that was. It’s what has him awake tonight, so much more aware and present than he’s felt in weeks. His deep breaths are shakier and his eyes are drier and he won’t move to one side of the bed, can’t move to one side of the bed, even as a natural roll. He’s stuck there, thinking of the flowers and the plates and the pulled-out chair and the wine, for fuck’s sake, the wine, and the implications of it all are pressing into his skull. That dinner was too much to ignore, too much not to put everything else into perspective.

He knows that he should be elated to recognize Liam and Hayden trying to include him in their lives again, but he really, truly isn’t, because he’d fallen into it so easily. Seeing them make an effort for him does mean a lot, but the fact of the matter is that they’re in a relationship. They will always be a pair. All that they’re really doing by including Theo in their movies and outings and what might as well be candle-lit dinners is encouraging him to be even more of a third wheel than he already was, letting him get in the way even more than he already had. 

Theo presses the heel of his hand hard against his sternum and squeezes his eyes shut. It hurts to know that they really pity him that much. 

It’s not like he can even blame them, either. He knows what he did by worming himself into their bed on that first night. He made himself look pathetic, and they took that, and he played that role so well that it’s all that he is now. It makes his stomach turn to think about how easy it must have been for them to convince him, how he must have looked as he’d practically fallen over himself rushing to take any crumb of attention he got, and how fucking much he’d loved every single moment of it.

He keeps his eyes closed, but he can’t go to sleep. The more he thinks, the sicker he feels, the shakier his breaths get. Someone will notice if he doesn’t get himself back in check soon, but the thought is far away in his mind; the cloying, churning feeling in his stomach grows stronger and stronger and the sting behind his eyelids gets harsher and harsher until he’s sure he’s going to be sick or cry or both, and he needs it to stop. He needs it to stop , he needs to sleep, he needs to- he needs to-

He needs to do the dishes.

He needs to do the dishes, he thinks dazedly as his eyes shoot open and he rockets out of bed. He remembers vividly that there are still dishes sitting in the sink from dinner that night, since the three of them had gotten so caught up in conversation that the plates had been empty for hours by the time Liam had waved it off as being too late to wash them, leaving it for the morning, because no matter how insultingly-classy they can make a meal feel to three barely-functioning twenty-somethings, there are still disadvantages to plates that aren’t paper. A disadvantage that Theo is going to take care of right now, because that will surely fix everything. Yeah, that sounds right. Doing the dishes. Theo’s pretty sure that he tries to be quiet leaving his room, but his bedroom door may or may not fly open in his haste; he doesn’t know because he doesn’t look back.

He starts out on the first dish while his heart is still racing, turning the tap and holding his hand underneath the flow until the water scalds his skin, and forces himself to go slow. He takes a deep breath as he picks up the dish brush in the sink, taking note of each finger as it wraps around the plastic handle, and tells himself not to rush. With each pass of the brush over the plate in his hands, Theo tries to make his breathing slow down in time, and it works, a little.

He does the edges of the plate first, washing in slow circles as the sink fills up with tiny dish-soap bubbles, but as it gets cleaner, he finds himself wishing it wouldn’t. He would scrub these dishes with only a toothpick if it meant it would take longer; this is the only thing holding Theo together right now, and it’s just barely working. He watches the crumbs come off the plate and swirl down the drain. Liam always thought that that was the worst part of doing dishes, finding it absolutely disgusting, but Theo has seen a lot in his life - he can handle some wet crumbs. 

After a while, his breathing does start to calm down and he starts to lose himself in what he’s doing. He goes in deliberate, lazy movements until his arms are flecked with splashed-up water and soap, eyes focused on the plates and cups and forks if they’re even seeing anything at all. He washes around the very edges of the plates, careful not to drop them, scrubs out every squeaky-clean wine glass once, twice, three times before setting them back down in the sink to go a fourth, takes extra care to get in between each individual tine of each individual fork just for the hell of it. The skin of his hands goes pruned and wrinkly, but he just keeps going.

He doesn’t stop scrubbing, doesn’t take his eyes off of his moving hands, until a voice sounds behind him and he almost jumps right out of his skin. “Hey,” Liam says, scaring the absolute hell out of him. As soon as he gets his wits back, Theo deflates, shoulders slumping before he can help it. 

“Hey,” He says weakly, setting his plate back down in the sink with a clatter. “Did you need something?”

“No,” Liam says with a small shrug. Theo can already tell that Hayden’s at Liam’s side doing the same thing, and he thinks God, this is not what I need right now. “I have to say, I’ve heard of a midnight snack, but not midnight dishes,” He snickers. 

Theo glances over at the green timer on the oven; Liam’s right, he’s been here for almost an hour. There’s no way there’s anything left on these plates to clean, but he doesn’t turn away from the sink. “Yeah,” he croaks, and he hates the way his voice sounds, so tight and quiet. He clears his throat. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Once again, interesting strategy,” Hayden says amusedly as she steps into place next to him. She gently takes the plate out of his hand and grabs the towel hanging from the cabinet handle, and Theo does nothing more than watch in disbelief. “Definitely a new one,” She laughs as she starts to dry around the edge of the plate. 

Theo feels Liam come right up to his other side and hears the metallic clink as he picks up a fork from inside the sink, flicking the water back on a second later. Theo doesn’t even startle when the burning water hits his hands again; he’s still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that they’re still right there, wondering if it’s so much to ask to even get a minute alone these days, wondering how he ever started wanting one. 

He feels numb on the outside, no feeling in his fingers or in his skin as he and Liam wash the dishes again, Theo having lost count of how many times they’ve been through the water by now, while Hayden softly takes them out of their hands and dries them. Theo watches out of the corner of his eye as she dries them herself and sets them down on another towel on the counter to sit in the air overnight - they've been meaning to invest in a drying rack for a while but keep forgetting - but he doesn’t really see it. He can’t bring himself see much of anything or feel much of anything; not the brush of his shoulders against theirs’ whenever one of them moves, not the hot water steadily burning the skin of his hands when he leaves them under the tap too long, and not the press of Liam’s foot over his toes every time he accidentally steps on him.

All he can feel is the rapid pounding of his heart in his chest as he thinks, a little hysterically, about how Liam doesn’t even like doing the dishes, so why is he doing them now? Why is he standing there and pretending not to hate it? Why can’t he just go back to bed? Why couldn’t Theo just stay in his room? Jesus Christ, why does Theo never just stay in his room?

As soon as the last fork hits the towel with a dull ‘thump’ that rings in Theo’s aching ears, he pushes away from the counter, turning away and closing his eyes. He sucks in a deep breath and doesn’t let it back out. Through all of the muddled thoughts buzzing through his tired brain right now, he knows one thing for sure: he needs to get out of here. No matter where he goes, no matter what he tries to do, they’re right there with him, and he can’t handle any more of it tonight.

“I’m going to bed,” He murmurs, shoving his balled fists into the pockets of his sweats and setting off without waiting for a response. 

He goes as fast as he can without being suspicious, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor, and doesn’t even feel relief when he reaches the door - and, yep, there it is, thrown open and bounced off the wall. He tosses it back shut with one hand, hoping that that’s enough of a sign to leave him alone, but he doesn’t even notice that it never clicks closed until he’s already flung himself back into bed.

Liam makes a very affronted noise as the edge of the door catches his shoulder, Theo looking up at him sharply as he shoves it back open and pushes the rest of the way through. A spike of what can only be described as desperation spikes through Theo then, hopelessness following in its path when Hayden comes in next - no, not now, please not now. She closes the door behind her, shutting out the light of the hallway and washing them all in blue darkness.

“Can I help you?” Theo asks, unable to keep some of the nervous bite out of his voice, as Liam pulls the blankets up on Theo’s right side and Hayden’s knee presses into the mattress on his left, feeling a lot like they must have when Theo was the one crawling into their bed. Hayden smiles as she slides to lay down, reaching out for the pillow.

“We just noticed that it’s been a while since you snuck in,” Hayden says, fluffing out the empty pillow next to Theo’s head as Liam starts trying to tug Theo’s closer to himself. Her voice is light and amused - fond, maybe, if Theo didn’t know that that’s wishful thinking. “That’s all.”

“‘Snuck in?’” Liam snorts on Theo’s other side as he gets under the covers. “I feel like ‘barged in’ would be better, but…” he snickers, shaking his head. It earns him a swat on the shoulder when Hayden reaches across Theo’s body to do it, but all Liam does is laugh it off and lay the rest of the way down.

Theo sits up in stunned silence as this all happens, watching them settle into bed like nothing about this is different at all. His stomach twists; he’s been through a lot of awful shit in his life, but he never thought that the universe could be this vindictive, bitter kind of cruel. He half-expects them to sit up any minute, start laughing at him, tell him how stupid he is, and he honestly kind of wishes that they would just so that he’d be left alone, but he’s not lucky enough to have his entire life upended like that. Instead, they close their eyes and settle in with little smiles on their faces, and that somehow feels even worse.

Theo knows that he has two choices here. The first is to get up, crawl over one of them, and run the hell away, subjecting himself to the terrible and humiliating conversation that would inevitably come afterwards. He could stand in the middle of the kitchen and anxiously wait for them to find him, put their hands on his shoulders and arms and wrists and hands in a way that’s supposed to be comforting but only feels torturous, and he would go and ruin everything because he wouldn’t be able to lie anymore. They’d stumble through their pitying apologies for giving Theo the wrong impression all these years and assure him that it’s okay if he still wants to be friends, and Theo would start looking to move out the next day, because there’s no way in hell he could do that.

The first option is scary and horrible as just a hypothetical, but to Theo’s frazzled brain, the second one somehow seems scarier: suck it up, lay down, and struggle through the night. Maybe the answer would’ve been a no-brainer, say, two weeks ago, but when it’s up against having to keep his shit together for a full night while the loves of his life pretend to care about him, the first option looks pretty damn appealing. 

But deep down, Theo knows that he doesn’t have that kind of courage. Resigning himself to his fate, Theo takes one deep breath and tells himself what he always has: deal with it . He clenches his jaw and lays down, trying desperately to ignore the pleased little noises Liam and Hayden make and the way they move their bodies to fit in him in perfectly, only letting out his air once his head is on the pillow. Okay, he thinks. It’s okay. Just keep your eyes shut. Just keep your eyes shut and you’ll fall asleep eventually.

Keep them shut, he tells himself, but it doesn’t work. They pop right back open and fix themselves directly up at the ceiling, and not even his defense-mechanism-filled brain can make anything to distract himself with out of the plain white paint. He’s painfully aware of everything around him, every breath Liam takes and every twitch of Hayden’s fingers, and now he’s even more wide-awake than he was before he had the bright idea to go do the dishes at eleven-thirty. 

It’d been a tight squeeze fitting three people in Liam’s queen-size bed, but in Theo’s full, their attempt is laughable. They have to huddle even closer than usual, their bodies pressed together almost head to toe like a can of sardines, and Theo is dying, especially because his body apparently hates him and has decided to give him all of his senses back. 

He prays to a God he doesn’t believe in, pleads to any higher power out there that feels equally as far away that he’ll be able to calm down, but nothing is working. Hayden’s forehead rests against Theo’s shoulder, the smell of her hair making him dizzy, and Theo’s breath shudders loose right out of his lungs when Liam’s hand moves to rest right above Theo’s navel, palm heavy and overwhelmingly hot even over Theo’s t-shirt. 

He holds his next breath, desperately hoping that it’ll get him to chill out, but all it does is make him feel choked. His logical mind knows that it’s almost impossible for someone to fight their instincts effectively enough to do it, but he hopes that if he holds his breath long enough, he’ll just pass out, no drifting, no dreams, no worries, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t get there. He keeps taking these aborted little breaths through his nose every few seconds, and he can somehow still smell the intoxicating mix of the three of them together - Hayden’s lavender tea-tree oil shampoo, Liam’s Old Spice, and Theo’s wood and dead leaves - even when he isn’t. It’s driving him more and more insane with every minute that passes, and it makes him feel pathetic.

It’s on a particular breath that everything happens all at once. Hayden shifts on his shoulder just enough to send a new wave of lavender coming up towards him, Liam moves close enough that Theo can feel his breath on his neck, and if that isn’t enough, Liam’s lips brush there a second later, deliberate and lingering, and that’s it - it’s game over. Every nerve in Theo’s body lights up at once and he can’t do it anymore.

He sits up and scrambles away with a shaky gasp, knocking Liam’s hand off of his stomach and sending them both startling backwards - Liam almost falling off the edge of the bed with how much he flails - and looks at them both with wide eyes. 

“Hey...” Hayden starts to say softly at the same time that Liam tries to ask what sounds like a “What are you doing,” But Theo doesn’t let either of them get it through. 

“What am I doing?” Theo interrupts incredulously, mouth agape; he can hear his heart bearing in his ears and his breath is stuck in his lungs. Screw what he said before, he thinks as he stares at both of them - he can’t sit here and pretend any longer, not anymore. He is done. “What am I doing? What are you doing?”

“Wh-what do you mean?” Liam asks, voice going quiet. Hayden shakes her head at him exasperatedly, but Theo barely notices it; he’s too caught up with trying not to trip over his one words as they all try to come out at once, eyes starting to bug out. 

“You’re kidding me,” He breathes. “You’re kidding me. You know exactly what I mean,” He spits. “You know exactly what you’re doing, with the- the movie nights, and the touching, and the dinner, and the kissing my neck,” He emphasizes, and if he didn’t know any better, he would think that the look Hayden throws Liam’s way is impressed. Theo sucks in a ragged breath, pure anger burning through him and replacing the sadness. His eyes sting on their next pass over them. “Don’t you dare fucking ask me what I’m doing. I have been walking on eggshells around her for weeks knowing something was off, so either tell me what kind of cruel fucking joke you’re trying to pull off here or get the hell out.”

Theo’s chest heaves with the effort it takes him to breathe as he looks at them, Liam’s eyes shining and lips parted with hurt, and good, Theo thinks a little brutally; he wants it to hurt. He hopes it does, deep and genuine for all of what they’ve done to him.

There, as he’s kneeling on his own bed and looking down at them, he really thinks that this is the moment that they finally walk away, that he gets to be alone and start picking up the pieces on his own. 

But they don’t. 

Their eyes go sad as they look at him, no fear or shock in them at all, and they stay right where they are. Slowly, Liam moves the hand that had been on Theo’s stomach to slide around the curve of his hip, and Theo barely gets the time to look at it before Hayden’s fingers touch his wrist just as gently.

“Theo…” She says softly, betraying the dead silence in the air. Her fingers hover in a ring around his wrist until she finally gives in and touches. Theo’s attention snaps down to her hand and his breath trembles in his chest. “Will you look at me?” She asks, her thumb passing over the knot in his wrist. “Will you let us explain?” 

She says it like she’s really giving Theo the choice to say no, and something inside cracks, no matter how badly he doesn’t want it to. As his eyes go blurry, the tense line of his body sags, an answer in itself.

He can’t meet either of their eyes, his own burning and brimming with unshed tears that fill him with shame as he stares down at the rumpled sheet in his lap. Hayden moves like he’s a wild animal that she doesn’t want to scare away, just like her first six months back in Beacon Hills all over again, movement cautious and breathing quiet as she sits up a little more.

“...You’re really not as hard to read as you might think,” is the first thing she says, and it almost blows the whole deal. Theo’s heartbeat jumps, knowing exactly what she means before her words have even had time to sit in the air, and he’d have been across the room in an instant if Hayden and Liam didn’t see it and tighten their hands on him. “Hey, no, Theo,” Hayden pleads, trying to meet his eyes and barely getting there. “Theo, it’s okay,” She breathes, and Theo exhales shakily.

Hayden is right in front of his face now, too hard to look at this closely, so Theo’s eyes move to Liam instead. Liam’s hand slides from Theo’s hip down to his knee and squeezes, sending Theo’s heartbeat skittering past a beat for an entirely different reason.

“She’s right, you know,” He agrees with a nod of his head before his expression twists thoughtfully. “Well, maybe to her you aren’t that hard to read, but…”

Theo hears everything that they’re saying, but something in his brain isn’t working; it’s not all adding up for him. For once in his life, he’s completely and utterly speechless, brain feeling both full and like it’s been wiped clean. “I...you…?” He breathes nonsensically, looking at both of them. He lands on Hayden, desperately searching for something in her face, and one corner of her mouth tups up into a tiny little that does nothing to change how sad she still looks.

“It’s okay,” She repeats in a whisper, squeezing his wrist a little more. “It’s okay,” She says again as she starts to guide Theo back down. She carefully maneuvers stiff and nervous limbs and spine until Theo is finally laying back, head hitting the pillow with a dull whump. 

With a trembling breath and a lot of effort, Theo makes himself look at them both again, really look at them. They’re both propped up on their elbows, blue and brown eyes staring down at him, Hayden’s looking a little shinier than they did a second ago. Theo’s throat is so dry that it clicks as he swallows down nothing when Hayden’s hand slides from his wrist to grip the tight roll of his fist.

“We’re sorry,” She whispers, “For making you feel like we were playing some kind of joke on you. We never meant to make what we were doing seem like a trick, and we never meant to confuse you.” On Theo’s other side, Liam nods. “And we are so, so sorry,” Hayden continues, voice growing tight. “That we ever made you think that...that we didn’t- that we don’t-”

Hayden cuts off, shaking her head and biting her lip, and looks to Liam for help. He nods silently, looking down at Theo with a little grin to match the one that’s disappeared from Hayden’s face. He reaches up to brush some of Theo’s hair off of his forehead and Theo shivers at the sensation of his palm.

“Do you know,” Liam starts, and Theo doesn’t think that he could be able to recall a single time that Liam has ever looked at him this seriously even if he had the wits to. “How we both felt when we both finally realized what was going on with you?” He asks. Another throb of fear pulses in Theo’s chest, but Liam doesn’t even let it finish “When we figured out what all of those stares and chemosignals and the nights you’d fall asleep with us were about?” Theo thinks that he tries to shake his head, but he’s also pretty sure he can't move; he’s frozen, staring up at him unblinkingly. “It was a relief, Theo,” Liam breathes, smile growing a little wider. “I don't even know how to describe how happy we were when we figured out that you...that you feel the same way we do,” Liam says, and if it hadn’t already, Theo’s brain goes completely blank.

“We were supposed to be going slow, easing you into it before we sat down and had an actual organized conversation about it,” Hayden says, sounding suspiciously stuffy like she’s been trying not to cry. Sure enough, when Theo looks over at her, her eyes are a little puffy.
“Even if some people can’t seem to handle that,” Hayden says with a fond roll of her eyes. She smiles at Liam the same way that she had when she’d hit him on the shoulder, which feels like a lifetime ago even though it was really only an hour, and Theo’s heart starts going wild again.

“You’re-” Theo stammers, heart hammering and mouth dry. He looks between them with blown-wide eyes. “You’re not joking.”

“No,” Hayden stresses. Her fingers pry Theo’s fist apart and lace with his won to hold. “We’re not, Theo.”

“You-” Theo’s breath comes and goes in two shaky huffs. “You’re really trying to tell me that you both-” He shakes his head, all of his air leaving him in a rush. “I thought that all of this was just you feeling bad for me,” He admits, dazed.

“Oh my God,” Liam laughs, muffling it into the skin of his shoulder and neck when he drops his head there while Theo stares up at Hayden in awe. Unlike Liam, she looks horrified.

“It wasn’t. It’s not,” She says with conviction. Her other hand comes up to cover the one she’s already holding Theo’s with. “It’s not a joke, either. God. It’s never been a joke.” She shakes her head, looking at him like he’s insane, and Theo’s still not too sure that he actually isn’t. “Jesus, Theo. I swear, whatever we have to do to make you see that, we’ll do it.”

All Theo can bring himself to do for a solid few seconds is stare at her in shocked silence, wondering how the hell he got so lucky and if he’s going to end up waking up in the next few minutes, but Liam breaks the tension for him.

“I think,” He says decidedly, taking his face out of Theo’s collarbone. “That a good way to start would be to kiss him.”

Theo startles out of his haze and whirls around to look at him, finding a smarmy grin on his face. Butterflies fill his stomach at Liam’s words, and there’s one last-ditch attempt to convince himself that this isn’t real as he turns back to Hayden, but there’s a real questioning look in her eyes, and-

“Yes,” Theo says, the most important word he’s ever said in his life slipping past his lips without a thought as he starts to nod frantically. He doesn’t even care how desperate he must look; he has been waiting for this for what feels like forever, and caring about anything else that isn’t them is irrelevant. “Yeah, yes, yes.”

Hayden’s grinning wide when she leans down, so the first taste of her that Theo gets is her smile, and if that’s not enough to have him gone, he almost melts when she actually kisses him. Her lips are sweet and soft like the strawberry chapstick he’s been watching her put on before bed for years, gentle just like her hold on his hand, and with just one kiss, Theo can’t get enough. His free hand tangles into the back of her curls and draws her closer, careful not to take too much but needing everything she’ll give him, and he’s starting to feel a warm bloom in his chest that tells him that he’ll never have to worry about that.

Next to him, Liam shivers so hard that Theo can feel it, hand slipping off of Theo’s knee and gripping his thigh instead. Theo breaks away from Hayden with a quiet gasp for air and Liam whines. “Theo,” He pleads, looking just as desperate as Theo feels. “Can I-?”

Liam doesn’t even have to finish his sentence; Theo nods once and Liam’s surging into him, hands holding the sides of his face as he kisses him hard. Through the ocean of sensation flooding through him, Theo can tell that he’s trying to keep it calm like it had been with Hayden at first, but Liam has never been truly calm in his life. He goes all in, sucking Theo’s bottom lip into his mouth and rolling it between human teeth, and Theo very closely avoids making a sound that would be seriously embarrassing if it met the air.

He pulls back, knowing that he’s just as flushed and out of breath as Liam is if not even more, and looks between them one more time before collapsing back down.

“Holy shit,” He opines. This time when he finds himself staring at the ceiling, it’s not scary at all.  He just kissed them. They just kissed him. He and his two best friends just kissed, and it wasn’t even his idea.

They like him too. Fuck, they love him too.

“You really weren’t kidding,” He exhales thoughtlessly. The effect is immediate. 

“Oh my God,” Liam groans loudly, making Theo flinch, and Hayden buries a shocked laugh into Theo’s neck before she kisses there. “Yes, we’re serious!” Liam exclaims, reaching for the pillow behind him threateningly.

“I know, I know! I just-” Theo defends, both in his words and with the hands that he frees to avoid getting whacked in the face with his own pillow. “Okay, okay, stop-!” He laughs. “I just...can’t believe that we...I…” Theo flops back down, defeated. “Holy shit.”

“I know,” Hayden murmurs, kissing his neck again and leaning up to look at him seriously again.”I know. It’s weird, and it’s complicated, and there is definitely a lot more we need to talk about if this is going to work,” She reminds - always the responsible one. Liam sighs heavily and dramatically on Theo’s other side, face-planting into the newly-replaced pillow. Hayden scowls at him without much heat, but her face softens as soon as she turns back to Theo. “But..it’s late,” She admits. “We can save that talk for the morning, if you want to.”

One half of Theo still has a million questions bouncing around his head, a million things that seem like they need to be said right now. The other half, the stronger half, however, recognizes exactly where he is - laying in bed, Liam and Hayden at his sides without a trace of fear in his heart - and sees that as enough. Besides, Theo doesn’t think he has the willpower to disagree with anything right now.

“Okay,” He says, voice coming out quiet and breathy. Hayden smiles and moves in closer, tucking her face back into his neck, and Theo feels his own smile break across his face. “Okay.”

At that, Liam grins and leans right down, catching his lips with his own, and this time, he isn’t holding back at all. Theo makes a gasping noise that he really should be more concerned about when Liam licks straight into his mouth, but he loops one arm around Liam’s back and pulls him closer without hesitation. Hayden stirs on his other side and opens her eyes as Liam makes a happy noise in the back of his throat.

“God,” Hayden breathes exasperatedly, but anyone would be able to tell that there’s something else under it. “Liam, if you don’t let him sleep-”

Liam breaks away from Theo before she can finish her thought. “I,” He says, reaching over Theo’s body with one arm, hauling Hayden up and over so that she’s perched on Theo’s other thigh. Hayden squeaks and smacks at his hand lightly, but her hands find Theo’s chest a second later. “-Somehow don’t think Theo minds,” He finishes against her lips, and Hayden scoffs one more time before they’re kissing.

For the first time, watching Hayden and Liam kiss doesn’t feel like a door slamming in Theo’s face. He doesn’t feel like it’s the end of something good and the start of something he’ll never have. 

Now, as they sit on his legs and smile against each other’s lips, all Theo feels about it is right, moving his hands up to press his palms against both of their backs, and if Liam’s hands find the hem of Theo’s shirt a second later - well, lets just say he isn’t putting up much of a fight.