a/n: ...uhh haha it's been a hot second. i have no idea if this chapter is even in english? i'm sorry if this makes no sense at all? i truly only update this one when i'm sick, have to say i'm really impressed with my consistency for once
mood: all my ghosts
and they know all of my habits, but they don't know about you (...i hope that's true.)
The day after is shit. But what else was he expecting?
Not much, to be honest.
The cost of misery is sitting at an all time high, emptying his pockets. As of late, he has resorted to burying himself inside his bedroom (self-isolation, what's up?), tracing feelings through the ceiling in the hopes it'll clear the fog in his mind that's saturated in darkness, spearing ice into his lungs. But he's only left with death's head hovering over his bed.
Hit with a shockwave of ugly adrenaline, Liam suddenly pulls himself to his feet. He can't keep burning a hole through his walls.
...which, in hindsight, was maybe a horrible idea.
Running while feeling sick has only succeeded in making him feel even sicker—who would have thought?
Every footfall he leaves behind is smacking into the compressed asphalt, the impact ringing clangorous inside his ears, splitting his head open with each new one.
He's exhausted beyond belief...but just can't seem to hold still.
If only he could fold into the sweet, sweet release of nothingness. But Liam has slept something like eight hours in the last nine days, even less the weeks prior, he doesn't even know how he's still standing. He's worn himself to the bone by werewolf standards, let alone human ones.
"Pretty pathetic for a Co-Captain."
He abruptly halts, the stagger of his footsteps screeching like skid marks across the gravel. He's caught so off balance he ends up losing it, scraping the sheer layer of flesh on his knees beneath his sweatpants.
As it stands, Liam is only aware of the dread leaking into the pit of his stomach.
"Which, by the way? How fucking generous of you to share the spotlight like that, Dunbar."
Liam feels the razor-thin lines of his still-blunt nails biting into his palms, struggling to keep the shift at bay and tucked underneath his skin, his wolf howling with unsated rage in the back of his head.
"You know, you never really struck me as the sharing type. Makes you wonder just what spurred on the change of heart."
Liam grits his teeth so hard he thinks he's going to break them.
He won't rise to the bait, he refuses to engage, he's not the angry kid who used his fists to talk when his words failed him, not anymore, he isn't anymore.
(...oh, if only that were true.)
"Aw, don't tell me you're learning self-restraint now? Little late for that, I'm afraid. Wouldn't you say?"
He inhales ragged gulps of air while perspiration runs cold above the shivers. Seated deep below his skin coils the burn of his anguish like fuel, his muscles aching as if he's being torn apart.
"Shut. Up." Liam's words sit layered in a voice that isn't wholly his, the stab of angst bleeding through the clench of his jaw.
"But I'm not saying anything, how could I be?"
The emotionless whisper tears into him like sharp claws raking over the thin skin covering his jugular, his vision distorting with the crimson haze—with the well of tears creeping in.
"I'm dead. Remember?"
Liam's head snaps up.
Desperately scanning his whereabouts, he finds himself amidst a smattering of cars in a mostly vacated parking lot. He's alone.
Brett is...gone.
Liam runs a shaky palm across his face to conceal his crumpling expression and tries to gulp in air that refuses to seep into his lungs. His eyes sting so bad that, for a second, he's scared he'll go blind.
Liam's so, so tired of chasing shadows down dead-end streets.
A streak of stars blackens the edges of his vision when he tips his head back to the leaden sky, feeling sicker by the minute.
Until his surroundings digest painstakingly slow into a tangible realness, and he sighs with his whole body.
God, he's so fucking thankful for stores that go all night.
As soon as he sets foot past the threshold, a twist of something akin to relief flows through his insides, and Liam feels like he can take the first proper breath without keeling over.
That is, until an unexpected collision.
The clatter of plastic and aluminum across the pavement is grating, the buzzing coming from the refrigerators is so loud , the flash of LED lights washing over him too bright, and Liam is in the midst of this sensory storm overload.
The lump in his throat keeps welling in his eyes.
"–oh shit, shit, I'm sorry, I-I didn't even–"
"Jeez, relax. It's just a soda." The stranger that's not-much-of-a-stranger-at-all is saying to him. "Nothing to freak about, Liam."
Liam almost physically wrenches away from the shock, heart thundering at the overfamiliar voice cutting ribbons through his alarm.
...oh no.
Please, no, not tonight. Not right now. Not when he's...like this.
Liam stares back at the last (at the only) person he wants with unmitigated horror, panic pulsing rabid into his fingertips.
"Hey, are you..." Halfway through, Theo's question tapers momentarily off, he seems to do a double-take as he properly takes him in; the stroke of surprise painting his eyes a little wider, the furrow in his brows drawing a little more grim, his mouth falling open on a chopped gust of air. "...okay?"
The undiluted concern is so unexpected, it floods him with an uninhibited current of warmth that sweeps throughout his whole body—but it's trounced by a sudden heatwave of acid that burns up his throat with such vengeance, Liam can't do much but hastily shoulder him out of the way.