a/n:

is this gonna turn into another comfort fic i lose myself into when i'm sick?

...perhaps it will.

. . .

life is emotionally abusive, and time can't stop me quite like you did

Aromatherapy is thought to work by stimulating smell receptors in the nose, which then send messages through the nervous system to the limbic system — the part of the brain that controls emotions.
Aromatherapeutic: broadly; the use of aroma to enhance a feeling of well-being.

...one hundred and sixty-eight hours (and thirty-two minutes and seven seconds). It's been one hundred and sixty-eight hours since Liam's been driven slightly insane.

Clearly.

He wouldn't be here otherwise, about to explode like a ticking grenade.

So Liam has made the executive decision to take the plunge—by pounding with the heel of his fist on the window of the Tundra he genuinely thought would be long gone by now. Although he's strung tight enough that he barely has a grip around self-restraint right now, let alone depth perception; honestly, it's a relief when the glass doesn't shatter.

There's a jolt from inside the driver's seat that jolts something inside his chest, succeeded by a bit of shuffling and a devitalized sigh. "...yeah, yeah. I know."

Liam still possesses just enough wits about himself for a flicker of guilt to burn through the overall queasiness after he realizes Theo was apparently taking a nap that he none too gently interrupted. But that's mostly overshadowed by that too well-known voice he hasn't heard in the last one hundred and sixty-eight hours, muted only through a thin sheet of glass.

"I got it already. I'll mov–" When Theo (finally) chances a glance in his direction, he freezes up in a way that has Liam paralyzed by his stagnancy too. "...oh. It's you."

(His heart rams against his ribcage, bruising his bones from within.)

Theo instantly defrosts, and in a hasty (but still unfairly smooth) glide slides over—because Liam's standing outside the passenger's side—and rolls down the window.

Underneath the burnt hue of a denim dusk, his eyes seem darker, dappled with surprise.

"Yep. It's me." Liam confirms redundantly, watching clouds of his breath dissipate in the air (disregarding the wall of warmth suddenly pummeling into him and the inexpressible way Theo's voice sounds after he just woke up, because...god) and landing on the first distraction within his immediate grasp. "Why, who did you think it was?"

Averting his stare for a moment, Liam watches as Theo brushes traces of astonishment off his face like he would ash, almost as if he's smothering its existence into his sealed fist when he forcedly coughs into it. "Doesn't matter."

Feeling dumbfounded and just a little bit dumb standing there before him in the biting cold while gratuitously basking in his presence, the week-long sickness he's been marinating in blazes languid into a small-scale inferno that engulfs Liam down to the tip of his toes.

"...So?" Theo prompts after a good thirty stifled seconds have ticked by, elongating the vowel in impatience.

Liam blinks back at him. "So?"

His perplexity is met with an eyeroll. "You actually needed anything or you just plan on standing there 'til daybreak like a ghost?"

Liam flinches, catches himself, and tries to school his expression back into factitious normalcy. But, of course, his reaction doesn't elude Theo's scrutiny.

(He thinks between the two of them, they have basements worth of backlogged ghosts that refuse to be put to rest.)

Self-consciously, Liam scuffs the tip of his consumed white nike into the grainy dirt, anxiety leaking like blood through his words. "Um, hey?"

" ...hey?" Theo echoes, tone pinched just a smidge higher, and Liam doesn't know if he's returning the greeting or reiterating it in bemusement because it feels misplaced between them or perhaps doing a little bit of both or maybe actually neither.

(The realization cuts a little sharper than it's meant to, what with his heightened sensory faculty simultaneously serving as a special brand of sensory fog as of now, but he finds himself unnaturally frightened at being unable to get a clear read on him whilst Theo can seamlessly leaf through his thoughts whenever he damn well pleases.)

Another spell of vertigo spins his surroundings into swooping swirls of color, and he decides that's as good a sign as any to proclaim his plight.

Not exactly known for mincing his words, Liam just blunders out. "Let me scent you."

Theo blanches. "Excuse me?"

He almost reflexively answers 'you're excused', but getting on the nerves of the guy he's been craving the scent of for the past week probably won't do him many favors.

This is all a bit awkward and slightly mortifying but mostly excruciating and on the whole nerve-shredding, and Liam is trying here, even if he's a stone's throw away from bending over and letting the half sleeve of saltines from that morning clamber back up his esophagus. Again.

So he clamps his mouth shut and tries his best not to pass out right where he's standing. That would be embarrassing, he fears.

"I–you're–what–" Witnessing Theo Silver-Tongued Raeken struggling to process his humble request as he uncharacteristically fumbles for words is weirdly and fascinatingly...satisfying. "...you...want to...me?"

Liam didn't think his solicitation to be that unearthly, but Liam has also been wading through the thickening fog spreading through his mind since he last saw him, so what does he know? Maybe his temporary insanity is preventing him from seeing the messed-upness of this situation, and maybe he should have gone to Scott or literally anyone else to ask questions first, not directly come (on)to Theo seeking answers for himself instead.

(...it's as if the crimson haze from the Anuk-Ite vanished only for something more vicious to permeate the crevasse its absence left behind.)

So, since he doesn't know what else to do at this point, he just...shrugs. "Yeah?"

"I...is that my shirt?"

Shit, he noticed.

Liam thinks the slight wobble in Theo's tone is in all likelihood due to irritation.

Liam also takes the chance to attribute the ensuing shudder to the cold—even though he's running so hot it's a wonder his skin isn't melting clean off the bone—and glance down at the shirt covering his torso...which is, in fact, Theo's.

"No." Liam lies to his face—not emotionally inclined to dive into that can of worms.

Theo, thankfully, seems unimpressed more than he does mad, and another unnamed emotion that flutters through his features too fast for him to name.

"...so?" It's Liam's turn to masterfully change the subject prompt now, and he feels exposed in a way that has him burrowing deeper into himself, and maybe, just maybe, it's not the chill of nightfall he's trying to shield himself from.

He expects Theo to laugh in his face, roll the window up and tell him to fuck off.

He expects Theo to drive away.

He expects Theo to ask him why before he shoots his request (demand) down.

He expects Theo to tell him he has lost his fucking mind, and honestly that would be the first (second, fourth, seventh) time the two of them agree on something.

He expects Theo to throw a searing accusal back at him, "So you only come looking for me when it suits you? Color me shocked."

He expects at least thirty-three renditions of that same deep cut that's been playing on loop in his mind and squeezing the air out of him.

He doesn't expect Theo to let himself sag against the seat with exhaustion that seems to run bone-deep, like he's finally dissolving beneath his fight, and pin him in place without even trying, with weary soft eyes and the enunciated murmur of a single word. "Okay."

...oh.

"Okay." Liam whispers back through the lump lodged in his throat, lungs burning with the breath he's been holding throughout a rejection that never arrived.

Unhesitatingly, Theo opens the passenger door for him and Liam chalks up the prickling behind his eyes to the wind.

(For a transient moment he thinks that maybe he isn't the only one who's losing it here.)

. . .

a/n:

…i'm sorry? but like. this needed to exist outside my own mind it was driving me insane?