a/n:
sorry if this doesn't make any sense at all whatsoever. i'm sick and in my feels and the words are blurring together
also this chapter could literally be summed up as:
Theo: *literally so worried for Liam he has trouble camouflaging it*
Liam: wow he hates me lol
. . .
and my week was awful, thanks for asking (i'm unglued thanks to you)
Liam is not altogether convinced that Theo is real; not when a great deal of his life is thinly stretched around stitches that hold terrors bleeding in the night at bay.
He can't bring himself to look through the windshield at the life whisking by ahead, and be daunted to find this is yet another byproduct of his fears. Or an hyperrealistic recurring dream, where a car is an abusive cage driving off a bridge and he's sitting in the backseat, screaming for seventeen minutes underwater until he startles himself awake, shaking on the floor and wearing the graphic memory of it still beating into his fingertips.
(In the nightmare, Liam is always resigned to the backseat. Sometimes it's Dad's vacant stare he sees in the rearview mirror, other times he's looking at his own reflection…and, once or thrice, Theo's eyes are boring into his own.)
"I don't see why you couldn't just floor it."
"Right, because the red light is there only as an accessory."
"So?"
"People were crossing the street."
"Okay. And?"
Even now, physically sitting in the passenger seat of his car and for the most part being able to move freely, Theo still doesn't feel corporeal. And it's one of the very first times where Liam wants to reach into the rift between them and validate his hopes, give himself the green light that he is.
"Someone really ought to teach you the ABC of driving one of these days, preferably before you cause an accident." Theo comments perfunctorily. And, after the briefest lull, it slips out, Liam notes, as easily as an afterthought. "Little Wolf."
His traitorous brain chooses to latch on the spurious endearment, refusing to let go until he's chewing on it and it fills up his cheeks.
"You volunteerin'?" It tumbles out sardonically, a self-deprecating little joke, before he has the chance to shove it back beneath his tongue.
But Theo simply shrugs into his shoulders, tossing the careless glance of a careful driver his way. "Why not?"
Liam reels where he's sitting.
Just picturing Theo being the one to actually teach him how to drive, maybe in this very same truck, infused with his presence in every nook…
A sudden pang has him clutching at his —Theo's— shirt like a life vest, swallowing back a gasp and, with considerable effort, he refrains from curling into the haze of pain like wants to.
He doesn't need to turn to see it. It's unnerving enough feeling Theo's stare piercing into him. "Are you sick?"
Liam's shoulders rise up to his ears, his body already locked in flight or fight before some supposed and imminent threat, ready to plunge into his instincts to protect himself—but his mind suddenly provides a patchwork of all the times Theo perilously went out of his way to actually protect him.
"...yeah." He constricts the truth out of his throat.
And then, as if in reward for his sincerity, a remarkably gentle palm splays on his back, warm through the fine cotton of his—Theo's—shirt, thumb stroking a cyclic pattern between his shoulder blades, meant to steady him.
The touch happens to be just so natural too, as if its absence at this point would be unthinkable to even conceive, and the overwrought energy that has seized him for days dematerializes in a smattering of seconds.
(He breathes.)
…but it's dismayingly ephemeral, Liam isn't even given the chance to properly lean into the touch that the cold is already seeping through the shape of the hand lifting away from him, so quickly he can't fight off the tremble taking its place.
The silence that follows is loaded, and Liam feels submerged underwater, vision blurry, ears tapped and fighting for breath.
"If you spew–"
"I won't!" He cries out in annoyance (and some warped form of gratitude at being steered back into familiar territory, because he's not sure he could fit inside his own footsteps if he tried right now). "And just so you know, I already threw up this morning. So your precious car is safe, I'm all emptied ou–"
They lurch in place.
Which is really not ideal for his unsettled stomach, despite his reassurance to Theo, who almost ran the red light because he was busy veering his full focus on him.
Liam feels strange, even more strangely appeased at being the nucleus of his attention. "What?"
In the world still existing outside, the traffic signal shifts lights, washing them in artificial green, Liam traces the glow it casts across Theo's cheek with his eyes.
"Gross." Theo suddenly says under his breath, a threadbare tremor enveloping the word. He sounds… tense. After the unpremeditated pause, Theo is swift to pull back on the road, scoffing. "Mommy never taught you not to overshare?"
Liam is inclined to mention that his mother would actually pay him if it meant he would 'overshare' with her, she's that desperate for him to climb out of his tight-lipped walls—which The Bite only worsened.
"You asked." He throws back, instead.
He didn't think Theo would be this disgusted by body fluids, didn't think he'd blink an eye to anything that might give a regular person terrors to contend in the night with, actually. But maybe he is.
(In the safety of his own mind, this only serves to solidify how little he knows him.)
Time crawls on, the seconds lumping into minutes, maddening the anticipation he's already dreading.
"Can't you go faster?" Liam urges through the distress gritting out of his teeth for what feels like the umpteenth time, arms wrapped around his midsection as if to keep himself from scattering to pieces all over the floorboard.
"Eager, are we?" Theo seems to fall back into his merciless teasing, the jibe taking a swing at Liam's bruising pride.
Smug bastard.
He twists toward the window, pretends he's looking anywhere but his way. "Shut up."
…although he's pretty sure they're well past the speed limit already.
"I just–" Liam is slumping forward, eyes squeezed shut and temple against the cool glass chasing a fleeting respite. The rest of his sentence slips out feebly, as small as he feels right now. "...I think this might help, okay?"
Once again, his expectations go unmatched. No truly scathing remarks are hurtling his way.
"Yeah." Comes the surprisingly quiet reply.
The steering wheel creaks in Theo's tautening grip, the road getting quicker underneath them.
While the drive was a hurried affair, making their way into the house is much of the opposite.
Somehow, they mutedly, mutually agreed that this—whatever this happens to entail—shall better be carried in the privacy of Liam's room.
And Liam should probably have plenty more reservations than he currently does about welcoming a former nefarious character into his home.
Maybe Theo finally managed to squeeze the last drops of self-preservation out of him.
On the trek upstairs, Liam doesn't think he's meant to notice the way Theo's gaze lingers heavy over the years painting the wall leading up the staircase, displayed in gilded frames framing family smiles and only happy corners of his life—it feels like a private sight he's intruding on, even if it really should be the other way around.
Liam closes the door behind them even if the house is empty and wonders if he's sabotaging himself (if the nightmare will turn out to be true, if he'll see Theo's eyes as he drives them toward their end).
Only once they're inside, Liam realizes he doesn't know how to go about this.
At all.
Theo is tactfully waiting for him to make a move, and maybe they might be better off leaving the pretence at the door.
"Don't pretend like this is your first time here." Liam tells him tiredly, his grin short-lived and most probably misplaced here.
Theo returns it in full, a slow smirk burning through his unfastened facade. "I won't."
Liam wonders with a morbid, detached curiosity, how much intel Theo managed to glean while he was double-crossing them.
But the way Theo is taking in his surroundings spells of something new, he's cautious, grazing the surface of his cluttered desk with the pads of his fingers.
(Liam entertains the treacherous thought of Theo leaving fingertips across his skin, shivers on account of it.)
The lights are off but the curtains aren't pulled, twilight sweeps what little is left of a dying afternoon into his room; Liam's always seen him in shades of blue.
"You look like you've been through hell." Theo breathes air into the stale silence. "I would know." He tacks on, sanguinely.
The remark stings in a way Liam thinks it shouldn't have. He tells himself these are just the symptoms of this senseless sickness speaking in lieu of his emotions.
"Rough day?" Theo continues, sounds as mocking as he does sincere inside the clutches of this hush stifling them.
It's been a jarring week since the alleged peace, already. And he's barely keeping it together.
How does Scott manage to shake the dust off every single time? Liam is coated in every single tragedy he internalizes, a rusty gear getting stuck through motions that should have been oiled smooth by now.
Maybe Liam's the problem.
Maybe he's just really shitty at compartmentalizing like everyone else.
Only below his breath is he willing to let himself admit. "...rough week."
"Tell me about it." Theo returns with a snorted mutter, and it's drenched in earnestness, so much so it doesn't leave him the room to breathe.
It's not the first time he speculates about how Theo spent his days since their impromptu 'We Made It Out Alive' celebration, but it is the first time he addresses the issue aloud.
"...you could've stayed."
Liam doesn't need to elaborate for him to understand, not when Theo is wearing that honesty that borders on weariness. "And outstay my welcome?"
The desperation coiled behind his vocal chords springs loose, startling even himself. "Nobody was gonna kick you out."
"That's what you think." Theo states like they may be discussing the change in weather, face pulled carefully blank.
Even Peter, of all people, stayed. So why couldn't Theo? Would it have killed him to just linger a little longer?
(Liam's nightmares were particularly vicious that night, his morning rather disappointing too.)
He's unglued and the cause is standing before him.
Liam is—perhaps more than anything—shocked that Theo isn't clinging to the distance he's halving between them.
This is how they end up, tentative alliances after sour betrayals after trust-fall trials, a darkening horizon crowding the edges of his vision, the labyrinthine hospital gnawing back in; in each and every room he's still right in front of him.
Maybe there's just too much convoluted history to erase.
But then again, Theo has never felt more like a stranger than right now.
And the thought is surprisingly allaying, and absolutely ridiculous—Liam's always had a certain yearning for the impossible—and what if they could just begin over, what if they could refashion their byzantine relationship into something palatable, what if they could just let themselves know each other in the now.
Liam wants to tell him, wants to dig his fingers into the meat of his shoulders, have Theo look him in the eyes, and avow, I just want to know you better now.
I want to know you.
It's a little gnarly and awful and terrifying and exactly what he wants.
His gaze falls down to those shoulders caving underneath some amounting weight, down sinewy arms straining to rise to the challenge, down to the same rough hands that shoved him back to save his life.
Fueled with an obstinacy colored childish, Liam slowly lifts his fist, knocking his knuckles into Theo's; the way they were supposed to.
Theo huffs, the ghost of an amused laugh, curling his own hand and returning the contact, a tender pressure cladding the gesture.
The thin skin covering the back of his bent fingers is icy, but Liam doesn't dare flinch away.
He only drifts closer, bubbling with it.
Their fists uncurl, but they remain that way, hand to hand, until his forehead is dropping down the slope of his neck, where his collarbones meet.
"...did it even occur to you that maybe I wanted you to stay?"
…shit, shit, shit. This is precisely what he was trying to avoid, he wasn't supposed to spill his guts on the floor for Theo to pick apart and dissect, his throat shouldn't be wobbling from words meant to be left unsaid, eyes burning from a flood of tears unshed.
"Liam." Theo murmurs into his hair.
He can't even recall the last time Theo said his name.
(… has he ever before?)
Theo leans into it—the way Liam couldn't in the car, inside the hospital and in every place still echoing with the phantom pains around his missing touch—his mouth gingerly pressing to the crown of his head.
Liam isn't still altogether convinced any of this is real.
But this, this right here; this tragic relief feels like living through a nightmare only to awaken in a dream.
. . .
a/n:
I'LL NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT THE ALMOST FIST-BUMP! they robbed us of (many) such a precious bonding moment