airplanes(Thiam)

chapter 20: comfortably uncomfortable

Liam shifted uncomfortably, chewing his lip as he let his gaze slip to Theo. He wasn't talking. Hadn't talked in over an hour. Liam had been fine with it for the first few minutes, while Theo chugged his way through a few of the remaining drinks with a pained grimace and they both shrugged into their clothes avoiding eye contact because he'd rather Theo silent than mocking Liam for the whole tattoo touching situation.

But that was forever ago. Liam had worked on shoving the incident to the back of his mind and ignoring the embarrassment that crawled over him when he thought about how weird he must have seemed to Theo for freaking rubbing his collarbone like a genie's lamp. He was now fully prepared to forget the moment ever occurred, or take Theo's mocking. He had a string of comebacks ready, he had excuses that he could convince himself he believed. He was ready for Theo to come at him.

Theo, however, didn't seem to be on the same page. Liam was pretty sure he didn't even own the book.

The chimera was curled in on himself. Not by much, his legs dangled into the water over the lip of the cave floor but Liam could see the way his shoulder's were almost reaching his ears and hear the stupid tap, tap, of Theo's finger against the bottle clutched in his hand. Liam was pretty sure Theo had forgotten he was there. He was staring out over the water, eyes glazed over. His breathing was steady apart from the occasional hiccuping gasp like he'd forgotten how much air he actually needed and had been running out.

Whereas Liam had been confused by the whole thing, Theo seemed haunted. Like when he'd looked at Liam he had actually seen the anuk-ite. And Liam, well Liam felt helpless because he didn't know what to do. He didn't even know where to start. The moment had been weird for sure, but not scary. It should just have been something to laugh off with a quick 'dude I think the werewolf booze is getting to me.' It shouldn't be something that left Theo in a catatonic state.

Liam stood up slowly, inching closer to Theo, shoes clapping too loud against the stone, Theo didn't even blink. The Beta shifted his weight from foot to foot, following Theo's gaze out to the lake as if he'd find the answer to what the fuck was happening beneath the water. He looked back to Theo.

He was ready to argue, to force Theo to talk about whatever the hell was going on, even opened his mouth to do so before he swallowed it back down only letting out a small strangled sound as he really took in Theo's appearance. His eyes were wet, glistening under the moonlight. His hand was shaking around the bottle even as he tapped it once, twice.

"Theo." Liam said, voice tentative and soft, even so, it made Theo jump, eyes snapping over to him, shoulders tensed. And really, Liam only had one way of getting Theo to chill out when he was freaking out. Liam crouched down next to Theo, grinning nervously. "You need some pre-emptive nightmare prevention?" He joked, reaching for Theo's hand, only the moment his fingers brushed the skin Theo was moving, shifting away like his life depended on it.

"Don't touch me." Theo growled. Liam's fingers dropped from the second time that night, humiliation clawed through his throat as he stared at the now empty place where Theo had been. That definitely hadn't been what Liam expected to happen. "I'm going to bed."

"Okay." Liam mumbled ducking his head as he heard Theo stomping past him trying to hide his flaming cheeks.

"You coming? Or are you going to sleep in the cave?" Theo asked and really, it didn't sound bad. It sounded a lot less awkward than picking up the shredded pieces of his pride and following Theo back to camp. Even so, the idea of actually letting Theo know he was hiding from him in a cave like an actual hermit was not something he could do so Liam pushed himself back up and followed Theo across the stepping stones.

The walk back was quiet, the two ducked into Eric's tent taking a place either side of him. Liam was disappointed to find that using Eric as a literal wall between them did nothing to ease the burn of mortification Liam felt. He twisted until he was facing the wall of the tent Eric snorted in his sleep.