and all I ever knew...(only you)
A shiver skitters down each and every vertebrae, so unexpected, it clams up the tendrils of his knitting muscles, slightly jostling Theo's hand beneath his sweatshirt, and Liam's going a little moon-eyed as the words rake their way through his conscious.
Yes, he thinks in between the ponderous beats his heart skips. Because...how could he not? Because how could he not, when this is so intrinsically...different.
This is different from the crackling hiss of his red-hot anger finding a match in Theo's posing, only camouflage to his own unbounded rage; until the ache to his knuckles drowns the tangled cacophony thriving inside his brain.
It's different from trying to steal the upper hand for themselves with vicious preconception, aiming to push all the wrong buttons with words dripping in sarcasm, vitriol and the casual nonchalance of cruelty. Different from intentions thickly coated in arrogance to mask the fear lurking behind walls so tall they had no hope of ever daring to climb.
Different from hanging onto each other by the skin of their teeth till it hurt and bled, then faded with time; the remembrance of the marks they scarred into one another, like smeared ink on ripped pages, keeping them going until they crossed paths again. Different from the gaping wounds, livid bruises left behind by kisses with fists and harsh bitten rebukes.
Different from backs pinned against brick walls as they try to break each other's body and mind, only to try and steal one another's breath through swollen mouths and shrinking lungs depleting of oxygen, instead. Different from the desperation of receding anger as something far less harsh but much more intense fills that role instead.
Different inflection, different intention. Different from being stuck to living in shades of black and white and candlelight, as they now melt, burst into color around Theo's touch.
It's uncharted territory, mystifying in the worst, in the best of ways.
Liam reaches for him, unwitting, the stretch of seconds sticking to each other as the heel of his palm glues itself to the other boy's wan cheek, the gentle pressure of his thumb against his rounded cheekbone.
It's reflexive, the way Theo turns into his touch. A split second, the brush of his hot mouth against the gauzy skin of his pulse.
He shivers.
This unabating softness is the most disorienting, perhaps, piercing through his defenses in the sweetest way.
Liam thinks about this in fragments, as Theo leans forward in an abrupt manner, eyes slipping shut against the mechanics of his own thoughts, and he feels the balminess of his breath, first. Until it's replaced, incensed by the satin silhouette of his mouth.
His smooth-shaven chin drags against Liam's abdomen, along with the dry silk of his lips, setting off fireworks of heat against his aching flesh.
He thinks it's a bruised tenderness, this one.
Storm clouds keep rolling into the blanket of the starless night, fading into a stretchingly beautiful darkness, the sky flooded in black like a perfect storm.
And Liam can't hold himself upright anymore, the twinges of protest to his muscles flare to a sputter of sores, pulling his body to crumble in on itself. For a persisting moment he can only feel the pounding of his heart in between his temples, the heat of bruises and lips alike across his skin.
Then his worldview turns edgewise without warning, without him wanting to. He's being moved, distantly he notices.
It's instantaneously abrupt, the way he misses Theo's warmth. Too sudden, the realization of needing him against his skin; him all over himself.
Liam struggles to sit upright against the maneuver, but a weak cry rips from his throat when he feels like his torso is being ripped in half at the motion. He didn't quite take notice of how hurt he might be–he's noticing now as he fights through the nauseous pain, a wet protest on the tip of his tongue, desperation rolls off of him in waves; but then Theo is making it all better by following after him.
It puts his heart at immediate ease, and he goes down without fight or fuss this time around, like melting ice. The burning tang of slicing pain fades into a background of numbness once more, just like it did before, leached away in a way Liam can't and doesn't quite understand, and isn't particularly interested in figuring out at the moment.
Theo is laying him down on his bed, a careful arrangement of limbs as he avoids flaring any of his sores, cautiously slotting himself until one of Liam's legs rests between his knees, with enough given space to never touch. They can still feel the heat of each other's skin radiating through two layers of clothes.
Theo balances himself with one hand over the crumpled line of his body.
The clap of thunder reverberates cacophonous, grating into his eardrums, but it's too far away to grant it thought, so immersed as they are in their own little world of frangible glass, a gap bridged in fragile trust.
Liam breathes roughly and shaken, wide-eyed and quivering below the pigment tint of a shame blush, and he only wants for him to drain the last vestiges of flinching alarm he is hostage to, just wants the feel of his lips back to warm his skin.
Unbidden, the glaze distorting his vision clears when a tear slips past the crimson rim of his eye. Theo catches it with the pad of his thumb, brushing it away, tender, the gesture comprised of more affection than it probably should possess—and Liam realizes with hazy suddenness that he's crying.
"M'sorry–" He pushes out, choking up on saltwater and anguish as it trails his face like acid rain, and it's ridiculous because he doesn't even know what he's apologizing for, doesn't think he did anything wrong to require one. But everything is shapeless, warped, and he's floating, but paralyzed, his heart shoved into a tight corner and his brain detaching itself stitch by stitch, and it's all so—overwhelming.
And Liam suddenly feels so, so vulnerable.
Exposed in a way he can be seen right through, like the translucent outline of a ghost. Feeling as if Theo is perfectly capable of seeing through the design of his skin, beneath the stretch of muscle, the frame of brittle bones and threaded veins, below the pulsing of his organs, staring at the root of bleeding inside of him, laying spread open and bare and vulnerable, like pulling puzzles apart, like sharp glass, past the jagged shards pushing into him, past any of his gossamer-thin resistances.
But Theo doesn't dig past this, the bruised tenderness.
"You're okay," He breathes, instead, again and again, imprinting it into his skin like a drowning locket enclosing a sinking promise, and half of Liam is desperate to believe him.
Theo's heeding gaze settles onto him once more, akin to warm fabric sliding against his flesh. It has Liam flushing a telltale crimson below the pull of his attention, reserved toward him solely.
He stretches one of his arms to grip, unresolved, at his sleeve, tugs unsure like a scared child who needs to hide his head beneath the safety of his blanket to chase away the monsters, and Theo goes right with it.
The velvety texture settles back on him in the shape of his mouth, upon the worst of the discoloration, and Liam's breath catches at the butterfly like sting, at the way he seems to be feeling everything. Theo notices, of course he does, makes sure he is as gentle as gentle can be, brushstrokes of his lips so delicate and fine as if he's drawing pencil-thin symbols from muscle memory.
The taut skin of his abdomen clothed only in a layer of goosebumps beneath his mouth.
Liam throws the other arm across his face to hide, cover the evident weakness streaming twin river paths down the slope of his temples, his other hand finding purchase into Theo's. He feels the pad of his thumb run across the hills of his knuckles, soothing, before he threads their fingers, and he lets Liam hold on. He's so, so nice as he lets him squeeze so tightly he can feel the structure of his bones against his own palm, clutching so despairingly it must hurt, and a muffled whimper bursts out of him because Liam is suddenly so, so scared of letting go, give way to a night filled with razor blade terror, the scorch of blood and eyes brimming with tears.
He does his utmost to chase fragments of the oppressing horror away with the kaleidoscope feel of him, the graze of their fingers in a darkened room.
A stifled sob wracks soft through his ribcage, and before he knows it, Theo is there, his kiss staining just above the panic-stricken rhythm of his chest, feels the vibration echoing back into his flesh.
Until each brush of his mouth eases slivers of his ailing too deeply rooted to be discerned. He craves the softness of him like melting molasses, wants to let it sink in him, let it wash away the last vestiges of his sanity.
Petals of fire bloom wherever his lips fall, igniting his insides aflame, and the cloying relief of it puts out the flames in the sweetest way.
Theo's lips steal inches above his kickdrum heart, thudding with hurt, with life. Liam wants his mouth to bruise him past his humanness, drown into the depth of it.
Give him something to haunt his dreams when he isn't around to hunt the nightmares away.
Liam can barely breathe underneath him. His abdomen dances involuntarily with every inhale and exhale, with every one of his grazes, Theo is soothing an ache in him he wasn't aware existed, squeezing his fingers in his hold, his reassurance bearching past the inhibition of his walls, bleeding into his core.
Air clings to the meat of his lungs when Theo unglues himself from him, soothes his free hand up the dips of his ribs in the absence of his mouth.
Liam wills every cell of his being into disobeying the curl of trepidation pulled tense at the stem of his spine, and hauls his arm away with tremendous effort. One look cut across inches of space from him, and he wants to catch on fire.
But then, the unfamiliarity of vulnerability draws openness out of Theo in the form of an exhausted simper meant for his eyes only as he gazes down at him, as if he's done so a thousand and one times already.
Familiar like the innocence of handwritten notes exchanged in secrecy.
Liam melts.
He has beads of saltwater clumping his lashes together and his heart thumps into his pharynx, and somehow all he wants to do is split his face wide open with a smile.
In a bout of hankering, he's reaching up, making grabby, eager hands for him, come back. The resulting, euphonious chuckle edges somewhere below the tenderness of his kisses Liam is wearing above his skin.
Theo drapes himself over him once more, careful to hold his own weight as he slips his hands in the arch Liam's back makes on the mattress, curls both arms around his waist while Liam grips into the dip between his shoulder blades, the other palm gliding up the downy hair at his nape, feeling safe and sound, Theo a border all around him.
Their foreheads meet in a gentle press, Theo's fringe caressing his skin where it falls open like curtains, so close his irises play tricks of light into his own. Before, tentative, tentative, the tips of their noses are bumping together in clumsy, shy affection, lips a hair's breadth away.
And Liam pushes up, meets him to erase the fine line, feels the soft, soft collision of it tingling all the way down to the knobs of his spine.
Enveloped in warmth kissed blaze, his kiss lingers.