Nesting

(and other shenanigans)

The first time it happened, Theo had just brought the chimeras back from the dead. He was still buzzing with the adrenaline of killing Scott and his new pack was full of mechanic energy that smelt all kinds of wrong, but Raeken couldn't care less.

He spent 30 hours awake, settling his new betas – Tracy and Hayden got the guest room, he piled up the boys on living room – and worrying if McCall's pack would come after him. Theo loved to think of them as 'his', he just couldn't fight the warm feeling of control and belonging. In the end, it was just fitting that the first successful chimera got a pack of chimeras.

"Just go to sleep, all of you" He ordered, when finally decided McCall's pack was too enrolled in their own shit and wouldn't come after them. He was asleep before he could hit the pillow.
Theo woke up with incessant knocking and with a grumpy groan he opened the bedroom's door. His "parents" faces were white as milk and before they could say anything, Raeken heard a scream that chilled him to the bone.

'the room, pressing her lips closed to stop a scream. Tracy, on the other hand, was lying on the bed, yelling like a goddamn banshee.

"What the hell is going on?!" Theo screamed, walking carefully toward the girl on the bed.

"She's having a nightmare" Hayden whispered back "No, Theo, don't-"

"And why didn't you wake her up?" He interrupted, without turning to look at her, and grabbing Tracy by the shoulder. He shook her awake, only to feel something sharp around his wrist and realize she had grabbed him. And her nails were claws. Shit. Theo tried to move, but Tracy pulled him to her and he felt something stinging the back of his neck. His entire body froze; muscles hurting and rigid and Theo dropped to the ground.

"Thanks a lot for the warning, Hayden"

"I tried" Hayden hissed, and he realized she wasn't really curled up, but rather fallen against the wall. Tracy didn't stop screaming and her eyes went orange. They were all screwed.

Theo heard the steps on the hallway and struggled to look who it was. He saw Josh's feet.
"She's having a nightmare!" Hayden told them, just like she had done before.

"Don't come closer, she'll paralyze you too" Theo warned them.
Josh's feet twitched "And how the hell are we supposed to wake her up?!"

"Figure it out, Josh! Use your brain!" Hayden barked and Theo didn't fight a grin. He knew she would be a fierce one from the beginning.

He heard a noise and realized Tracy had jumped on them. Josh pushed her against a wall, Theo could see her feet hanging above the floor, squirming to kick and hurt him.
"Oh, it hurts!" the boy yelled and Theo sighed deeply before Josh stumbled and fell over him on the ground.

"I said not to come closer" Theo groaned, without air.

"What did you want me to do? Let her tear your parents in pieces?"

"It's a way of thinking"

"Theo, shut up" Hayden growled from her corner and he obeyed gladly, focusing on getting back the control of his body. The sensation of not being able to defend himself was starting to give him crippling anxiety.

They heard a noise on the hallway, a male scream and then Corey's voice "Tracy, look at me… Look at me, you're dreaming. Wake up, wake up please"
Theo frowned; the innocent kid thought he could talk a Kanima out of the frenzy. Corey would get himself killed.

"Corey, get away from her!" Theo yelled.

"Yes, you're ok, you're ok" thirty seconds later, Corey entered the room, color still coming back to him… literally, Theo could see through him!

He had one arm wrapped around Tracy's shoulders and she seemed to be sleepwalking to the bed.

"How did you do that?" Theo asked, while Hayden got her movements back and helped him slip from under Josh's heavy torso.

"It's my chimera part, I guess" Corey said, before turning invisible to show them. Theo smiled. This kid gave the words "surprise attack" a whole new meaning.

The second time it happened they were in the middle of a war with the Dread Doctors and Desert Wolf. The pressure was crushing them all, Theo included, and Tracy being the most emotionally fragile of them was falling apart.

Malia was using him to learn how to shift. She needed it for yesterday, the fastest he could help her wasn't enough and Theo didn't know why, but he just couldn't bear to think she might die because he wasn't a good enough teacher. So they trained and trained and the perks of training naked in the woods was that he could smell the attraction all over her and that was exactly how their fuckership started. Simple and raw and Theo wouldn't change a thing.

"Theo?" a small knocking on his door and he opened his eyes, looking around the dim bedroom. The sheets were revolved, his clothes were pooling at the end of the bed and Malia was not there. She never was, always left before he could ask her to stay… Not that he ever would.

"Just a second" He dressed his underwear, spying the clock. Four AM. "What happened?" Theo fought the hysteria in his chest. He was aware of how cruel the Dread Doctors were and day after day the threat of them was catching up on him. As if they were getting uglier in his head. Theo didn't know why he felt so scared of the fight, why he was terrified of the Desert Wolf… He just was.

Hayden turned bright red when she saw him in only his boxers, but she turned her gaze to his face quickly and sighed "Tracy is sleepwalking around. I don't want her to go all kanima on me again"

He didn't want to face Tracy either, but he was the alpha "Go back to your room, I'll get her"

Hayden turned redder and Theo felt his own cheeks flushing. He didn't know why he was embarrassed, but Hayden clearly did, because she turned in her heels and almost ran back to the guest room now claimed by the girls.

Tracy was stumbling around the living room. He was suddenly very grateful for kicking his 'parents' out and giving their bedroom for the boys, because Corey would bitch forever if Tracy had stepped on him in the middle of the night.
On the other hand, Josh might kill her just for breaking the furniture. Furniture Josh, Hayden and Corey had spent an entire evening picking with Theo's credit card, because their alpha was an asshole, so he must pay for their fun.

He would have got angrier, wasn't for the fact that his betas got much more bearable once they started feeling the Raeken's house was theirs. If the cost of his peace was some accessories, Theo was more than happy to comply.

Theo circled Tracy slowly, trying to see if her claws or tail were out and if she'd attack him out of nowhere. "Tracy" he whispered, when noticed she was still in her non-supernatural form.

They had learned on the hard way not to wake her up during her sleepwalks sessions. She had torn his 'father's' face open, it hadn't been pretty.
"Tracy" Theo called again, putting a hand on her shoulder and calmly pulling her to him "C'mon, let's go to bed"

She leaned in his touch with a familiarity that was unsettling. Theo was sure she mistook him for someone else. Somebody she trusted. "You're ok, you're fine" He whispered in her hair, exhausted. It was too late for him to be babysitting a girl who was probably older than him.

Tracy didn't answer.

"C'mon, let's go upstairs, Tracy…" Theo mumbled, when they got to the stairs steps. She didn't move, her breath slow and even. At least there would be no fighting tonight. "Tracy move, we're almost at your room"

Again, nothing. Theo let out a sigh and whispered to the asleep girl "Don't tell anyone" before picking her up gently, ready to drop her at any moment he felt she was going to on clawing his face out.

Instead, she only got a little stiff before relaxing and curling up closer to him. Theo rolled his eyes, knocking with his knee against the girl's door.

Hayden opened it with a puzzled expression before opening a mischievous grin and pulling Tracy's blankets away for him to lay her in the bed.

"Don't" Theo warned her, putting down the girl he was carrying.

Hayden raised her hands "I didn't say anything, Theo" she smiled, staring expectantly at him.

"Then keep on not saying anything and go back to sleep" He ordered, turning to the door "And if she sleepwalks again tonight, open the front door and let her go, because I'm not waking up"

"There should be an award for worst person in the world, Theo" Hayden sighed, getting into bed "You'd win every year"

"I try my best" He smiled, getting out of the room and starting to close the door.

Theo pretended he didn't hear Hayden whispering "But if you keep acting like you care, you might fool us"

There was blood underneath his nails and dirt in his hair. His pants were more mud than denim and his shirt had been reduced to shreds. Theo Raeken was destroyed. Weirdly, his mood was lighter than it had been in months.

The fight had been that night. Well, not the fight, because the Beast was still somewhere and there was still one of the Dread Doctors alive, Corey had told him.
But the fight with Desert Wolf had also happened that night, and Malia had won.

He couldn't remember much. Sweat, claws and his blood singing in his ears in a chanting of "you don't care, you don't care for her, you don't". But he did care and when Malia had fell to Desert Wolf's feet, covered in blood and with her heartbeat almost vanishing, a piece of his mind simply disappeared.

Theo remembered the feeling of Desert Wolf's throat underneath his nails, more blood, and then he was falling, everything was going dark and Malia was saying "You don't get to die when we won, Theo. You don't get to die on me, get up!"

Corey had yelled at the phone, asking "Why you didn't join us in the fight against the Dread Doctors? Where were you?! Where are you?! You let us do all the job, you let us risk our lives and you weren't there!"

He wasn't wrong, but Theo would deal with that in the following evening, after his bones healed together, after his mouth stopped tasting like blood and her. After he fully understood they had won only one battle, not the war.

"Theo"

The voice startled him and Theo jumped, only for a bone to sink in an organ or something equally as painful and make him wince and gasp "What the hell are you doing in the dark, Tracy?" he groaned, trying to turn on the lights.

"Kira toasted the city lights." Tracy told him, and he heard a chair moving, steps coming closer. Hell, he was too tired to even see her in the dark, black spots dancing in his vision. "You're smelling like blood and death"

"I'm fine…" Theo lied, taking a step back, afraid she would yell at him like Corey or Hayden would. Afraid she was sleepwalking again and would attack him. A kanima attack would surely kill him now.

"Even your heartbeat is uneven, Theo" there was light concern in her voice and then he felt a hand on his arm "Sit down, before you bleed to death" Tracy pulled him to the chair she had vacant and then he felt her fingers in his scalp.

"What are you doing?" Theo asked, suddenly exhausted enough to sleep until the next century. "It's almost sunrise, what are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep after the fight" she answered, groaning when her fingers hit a sticky pool of blood in his head. "Did someone shoot you in the head, Theo?"

It was a joke, but not far from the truth. Desert Wolf had tried to blow up his head and he had felt the pain, but since he was breathing and the bullet had left a hole in the car behind him… She must have missed. "Something like that"

"You should have seen Josh and Kira fighting" Tracy told him, her voice dropping to a tone he knew was purposely calming. The same voice you use when telling a bedtime story. "They fried the taller Doctor"

"Surgeon…" Theo mumbled, blinking against the darkness threatening to swallow him "That's impressive"

"I couldn't…" she pulled away and sighed "Can you not die for five seconds? I'll try to find our first aid kit"

"I can try"

He sagged to the side, hitting the table softly and closed his eyes. Maybe he could take a nap there. Tracy would take more than five seconds to find the never-used thing in the darkness…

"Theo" a male voice woke him up, hands not as gentle as Tracy's shaking him "Theo, wake up please"

"I think we should take him to Deaton" it was a girl talking and he couldn't decide it was Tracy or Hayden.

"No" Theo grumbled, trying to open his eyes. His head felt full of cotton, his body ached so much he couldn't try and move his toes "No Deaton". He had had enough of doctors to his entire life.

"Then wake up, stupid" oh, it had to be Hayden. Another ruthless shake and he opened his eyes.

When did the night turn into day? And how did he end up in the couch? Oh, Josh would kill him for getting it covered in blood…

"What…"

"You passed out in the kitchen" Tracy answered simply, and she was sitting on the coffee table with a bucket next to her feet, full of bloody rags.

Hayden was on the top of the couch arm, close to his head. Josh, sitting at his feet, had been the one shaking him restlessly.

"Where's Corey?" the first thing that occurred him was that his beta had died. Died in a battle Theo hadn't even showed up for. But then he remembered Corey yelling at him on the phone and the cold in his stomach calmed.

"He's still angry at you" Hayden rolled her eyes and of course she was also angry at him. But she smelled like worry, so Theo counted that as a win. "He's at the Animal Clinic"

"Did someone get hurt?" He didn't really care. His entire pack was safe and the only person he cared about of the McCall pack was Malia, and she had been much more than fine. However, his pack cared about the others and he was trying really hard to be nice for them.

"Liam" Josh answered, and Theo heard Hayden's heartbeat skip before she willed it to calm down. "It's not serious or anything, just painful"

Theo wanted to ask how Liam got injured but Hayden was still sitting by his side, smelling like concern for his well being, when her high-school sweetheart was away and in pain. He decided to have a little compassion and drop the subject. From his peripheral vision he saw as her shoulders dropped in a more relaxed position. Ha, points for Alpha Raeken.

"Do you wanna explain how you ended up…" Tracy looked him up and down, trying to find the right word to describe his status "Why did you almost die at our kitchen, Theo?"

"And why you didn't show up for the fight?"

He started to tell them. A wrinkle appearing between Tracy's eyebrows and after some minutes Theo was pretty sure it would turn permanent. Josh turned ash gray, but then smiled "So, no more training until sunrise with Malia?"

"You asshole" Hayden hit him lightly on the head "If you had died we would be omegas and then we would die" her badly masked concern was lovely.

"A few cuts weren't going to kill me, Hayden" he replied, rolling his eyes. Tracy snorted.

"The amount of blood you lost would kill anyone. How did Malia even let you drive home?"

"She was in a bad shape too" Theo mumbled. He knew she healed better than him, so if he wasn't dead, she wasn't either.

"How did you even get home without crashing the car?" Josh complained, annoyed by his alpha's luck, and then he sagged pathetically on the couch. Theo smirked and kicked his tight lightly, noticing the absence of his own clothes only then.

They must have taken it off, to evaluate how badly his cuts and broken bones were.

From her spot, Tracy glared at him and stood up. There was a big scar in her arm, mostly healed and Theo sighed. He would have to listen all about their fight against the Doctors.
However, it would have to wait. He was exhausted.

"Rest" Tracy told him. Hayden settled better on the couch arm and her hand fell to his hair; a very predicted and nonchalant move, daring him to mention it. Theo didn't. Instead, he obeyed Tracy's soft order, feeling Hayden play with his hair and Josh's warmth at his feet.

They could handle themselves.

He trusted them.

N/A: Work made for day 7 of Chimera Week: Free Choice. I hope everybody enjoyed a little of my new obsession.