Chapter Text
It’s not the first time Theo has a sleeping Liam in his truck. The first time was harsh on them both, the presence of the Anuk-Ite lingering over their heads and turning the cab into a well of their shared terror even in unconsciousness.
This time, Liam’s sleep comes easy, drags him under as soon as the door slams shut. He takes a moment to stare, lets his eyes roam the beta’s face now that the night is over. His face is relaxed, the pinch in his eyebrows that had been present for the past few days finally gone and a strand of hair falling in front of his eyes.
He resists the urge to brush it back and, without a glance back at the hospital doors, starts the car.
Theo knows where Liam’s house is, of course.
He knows it from Before, before the underground prison and before cerulean blue and before his truck became his home, and he knows it from Now, from nights spent parked in front of it, wondering if he should just knock and ultimately giving up on the idea.
He doesn’t feel the need to knock now, with Liam slumped in the passenger seat of his truck. He reaches a hand out, goes to shake him awake, and shrinks back when he finds gold studying him.
There had always been something odd in Liam’s eyes, even at their most human, that unsettled him. He can’t tell if it’s the flecks of gold that never quite revert to blue after shifting or the anger that brightens them to the point of glowing, even after days stuck at his side. He doesn’t think he wants to know anymore.
Instead, with Liam’s golden eyes trained on his every move, Theo goes to pull back his hand. It ends up stuck between them, though, when Liam’s own hand shoots out to grab a hold of it, fingers wrapped tight around his wrist. He can feel his heartbeat rise, and the look in Liam’s eyes tells him he can feel it too. Neither of them move.
Liam’s hand — warm, soft despite the use, gentle — squeezes once before letting go. Theo waits for him to leave, stares into gold until his skin is crawling, but still jumps when Liam starts moving again. He has one foot out of the door — his right, Theo notices, because the left has been trembling since he sat down — when he stops to look into the cab again.
His ears are still ringing when Liam speaks, and he can see the beta consider for a moment before reaching towards him and unbuckling his seatbelt.
“Just for tonight,” he says, “Since you left everyone else at the hospital.” And there’s smile dancing on his lips, a glint in his eyes that punches a laugh out of Theo, before Liam’s dragging him from his seat and out of the truck, nearly dropping him to the ground.
Theo doesn’t speak. There’s no need for it, not when Liam is still staring at him — his eyes were blue now, or as close as they could get to blue — with his hand still wrapped around Theo’s wrist. A thumb resting over his—
Oh .
He tears his hand back and slams the door closed, gesturing for Liam to lead the way. The house is quiet in front of them, not a single heartbeat within hearing range, and Liam must see something in his face after unlocking the house because he speaks up again, “My parents are out of the country for a conference,” — the house lights up in tired blues, and Theo has to blink a few times to clear his vision — “So we have the place for ourselves.”
He tries to answer, but the exhaustion of the day has finally started to settle into his bones and even opening his mouth feels like too much work, so he gives a barely there nod and lets Liam drag him — when did he go back to holding Theo? — through the house. He should shake the hand off his arm, but he’s too busy trying not to trip over his own feet on the way up — down? — the stairs.
They stumble into a room, Liam’s hand still wrapped tight around his arm, and Theo has to stifle a cough into his elbow when the undiluted scent of Liam slams into him like a wall. Dark blue sparks to life around him at the same time he shrinks away from the room, eyes flaring golden until it’s all he can see, until even Liam’s voice fades into gold and—
Theo crashes into the wall behind him, surrounded by the smell-colour-taste that he’s been chasing since he clawed his way out of the underground prison, overwhelmed by the bright blue rage that has its hands twisted into the collar of his shirt. The pressure of Liam’s body — a warm, burning line of muscle bearing down on him — is the only thing keeping him upright while he takes desperate lungfuls of air.
He can hear Liam talking, distantly, fragments of words that barely reach him over the sounds of his own breathing. He can feel a headache coming on, and the energy it took for him to jump out of the room evaporated from his body as soon as his back was against the wall, and— “Theo? Are you okay?” — he nods. He must still look dead on his feet, he’s sure they both do after the day they’ve had, because Liam takes his weight and drags him back into the bedroom.
Liam’s scent in the room is less overwhelming on the second attempt, but it still makes him dizzy with — want? Need? Something between the two, maybe, but he’s too busy watching Liam’s voice return to normal to think about it. The ceruleans crowd close to Liam for the first time that night, and before he can do anything else there are strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him down into the bed, so he goes .
Theo doesn’t remember falling asleep, but the next time he opens his eyes the sun is shining into the room. He turns his face into the pillow under him with a groan and pauses. There’s a steady thump-thump-thump close enough that he’s sure he would hear it even as a human, and he lifts his head to look at the—
Liam.
Liam, with the same bloody shirt he was wearing last night and smelling warm from sleep.
Liam, alive and breathing and relaxed under him, an arm he hadn’t noticed until now thrown around his waist. Their legs are tangled together, and he can feel Liam sigh against his lips when he leans closer, so he settles on the instinctual answer — the answer that would have killed him just months back — and buries his face into Liam’s neck, where it had been when he woke up.
Theo dozes in and out of consciousness, the warmth under the blankets doing nothing to keep him alert — he tries to remember if they were there last night but it must’ve slipped his mind in the moment. That is, until Liam’s voice sounds above him, a raspy “Good morning” breaking the silence that had fallen over them. When he doesn’t answer Liam chooses to push himself up to his elbows, dislodging him in the process.
“I know you’re awake,” he starts, “And I know you—” Liam pauses, and Theo can practically hear the frown in his voice when he speaks again, “You got shot.”
He lifts his head at that, only now noticing he was lying on Liam’s thigh, and squints up at him before moving to sit up, “So did you,” their legs are still tangled between them, “but I guess we won’t talk about that ,” He says, jabbing a finger into Liam’s thigh where the bullet had exited through. Of course, he only gets his hand smacked away for his troubles, in addition to a scowl that lights up the edges of his vision.
Liam looks down at his thigh — where Theo’s head was just resting — and suddenly, almost too quickly for him to register, jumps out of the bed. He turns to look at Liam, only to find him mere inches away from his face, “As I was saying,” he scrunches up his nose, “we both need showers,” And Liam is moving again, going for the closet this time, pulling clothes and throwing them towards the bed. He’s sure a shirt nearly hits him in the face, but sleep is still pulling him down, back into the scent of Liam and Rest and Him permeating the bedsheets, and he’s far too tired — he shouldn’t be, he should be healed enough to stay awake — to resist.
He’s out like a light before his head hits the bed.
