Author's Note: This is a headcanon for Liam Dunbar and Theo Raeken.

Summary: Theo's a stealth cuddler.

"I thought I would be understood without words."

— Vincent Van Gogh, "Letter to Theo van Gogh," May 3-12, 1882

Theo's a stealth cuddler.

When it's time to sleep, Liam's all over Theo—either behind him as the big spoon, or tucked against Theo's chest with an arm slung across his stomach. Though Theo pretends to just tolerate the cuddling for Liam's sake, they both know that's not true.

The truth, sharp as talons and bright as moonlight glinting on a hunter's blade, as truths often are, is this: Theo's touch-starved—silently desperate for any contact with Liam. They don't talk about it; verbalizing his needs isn't something that comes easily to Theo, and his pride gets in the way.

Controlling his hair-trigger temper is still challenging for Liam, but his warm hands touch Theo with more gentleness than he can remember receiving from anyone else in years.

That gentleness, it's more than Theo deserves, and he knows it, but that doesn't stop him from craving it anyway. The Dread Doctors tried to engineer him to be the perfect killing machine, but with all their painful surgeries and burning injections, they failed to extract the seeds of his humanity.

Those seeds took root while Theo was trapped underground with his sister. Down there he was forced to face one of his crimes, and he had plenty of time to contemplate the rest of them. What he's done he can never undo. But he's human and selfish and wants to belong somewhere. With someone. Liam gives him that.

So Theo needs Liam close, and he gets that without having to ask for it because Liam seems to know anyway, seeing beneath the masks Theo wears, with an ease that embarrasses Theo if he thinks about it for long.

Theo falls asleep to the "lub dub" lullaby of Liam's heartbeat echoing in his ears. If he wakes in the middle of the night because of a nightmare, or because he has to use the bathroom, he often discovers that Liam's rolled away to the other side of the bed. That's when Theo makes his move, a predator crawling toward Liam in the shadow-dappled bedroom, focusing on his heartbeat and breathing to make sure he isn't awake, until he's close enough to curve his body against Liam's and wrap himself in the pine and honey scent of his skin—in what the patchwork of human, wolf, and coyote inside Theo recognizes as...home.

While awake, Liam's in perpetual motion, vibrating with energy, seeming to move even when he's still. Now, though, he's all sleep-soft muscles and small puffs of breath. When sleep takes a long time to pull Theo back under, he contents himself with listening to Liam's breath and trying to synchronize his own breathing with it.

He tries his best to ignore the sound and feel of his own pulse because he can never forget whose heart lies inside him. But Theo can't ignore the heavy, aching sensation that fills his chest when he strokes his fingers over Liam's too-long, too-soft hair, so he sighs and mouths two words: "Thank you."

Liam's hands touch Theo with more gentleness than he has a right to expect. Those same hands cracked open the earth to bring Theo out, and they haven't put him back.

Theo fits their hands together and closes his eyes. In the morning, if Liam notices they're in different positions than they fell asleep in, with Theo doing the holding this time, he doesn't mention it.

A bad fight sends Theo to the couch one night.

"Fuck you, Theo."

"No, fuck you, Dunbar."

Those are the last words they speak to each other before going to bed.

Theo tries to sleep, but his sister's heartbeat thunders in his ears and the chirps and sighs of the bugs outside mingle with it in a maddening cacophony of sound. Dammit, it's too much, and he can't sleep without Liam anymore and how did he let himself get this fucking whipped and—

"Scoot in, asshole." The couch dips and a body wiggles behind Theo, finally settling with a deep sigh. Fingers glide through Theo's hair, scratching lightly against his scalp. "Shh… Go to sleep, loser. I could smell you freaking out from the other room," Liam says, warm breath tickling the back of Theo's neck.

Letting his eyes slip shut, Theo twines his hand with Liam's and lays it on his chest, right above his sister's heart.

A/N: Send me a Theo/Liam prompt if you like. :)