What the hell are we?

6. Dream-catcher

He had not even noticed that he had fallen asleep. With his head buried in the economics book, in an attempt to recover the lost months, Theo had ended up falling asleep over it, lying on what for two weeks now he could call his bed.

"Theeoo"

Theo opened his eyes suddenly, panting and trying to remember where he was, why he was in the dark and why it was so terribly cold.
He was at Liam's house. Liam had took him in. He had wanted him there. Theo raised his hand, clashing against a cold metal surface.

"Theeoo" Theo shuddered, his heart being fast. Tara was there. She was in the house. She would have taken her heart back. Would she hurt Liam?

With those thoughts that crowded his mind, Theo rolled out of the mortuary cell, shooting on his feet in alert. He turned to right, then to left, facing Tara. Or what was left of her. "Theeo"
Theo took a half-step back, his eyes watering, his lower lip trembling. "Do not ... you do not have to stop," he mumbled through his tears.

And he gasped as Tara ripped his heart out from his chest. His body falling to the ground, Tara looking at him from above with his icy stare. "Theeo"
"Do not ..." Theo gasped dying "... don't ... hurt him ..."

And he woke up screaming.

With his hand clasped to his chest, he sat up trying to regain control. The ticking of his fingers on his chest that passed the slow rhythm of the heart, while breathing heavily. After several minutes, he looked up and looked around. He was back in his room, he was safe, where was Liam?

Theo rose hastily from the bed, and slowly opened the door. Fortunately, he had not awakened the Geyers, or they would have had several explanations to give. He went out into the hall and stopped outside the door of Liam's room, undecided whether to knock, or even go in.

"Theeo" His sister's hissing and icy voice still echoed in his ears. And he pushed him to turn the door handle, which creaked open, onto a quietly empty room. And onto an empty bed. Liam was not there. Why was he not there? Theo's heart lost a beat, while drops of cold sweat still slid across his forehead.

Then he remembered. Liam had told him that morning at school that he would not come home. In the evening they had to play away and would sleep in a motel to get home the next morning. Idiot, he said to himself, before taking a deep breath to calm himself. The sweet and familiar Liam's smell impregnating the whole room immediately had the immediate effect of relaxing him. It was not a nightmare. It was all real. He was not down there anymore.

He turned to go back to his room and go back to sleep. But then he stopped. He glanced at Liam's bed significantly. What was wrong? It was only for one night after all. Who would have known about it? At least he could fall asleep with the hope that he would not fall again into Tara's clutches. He looked around the hall, before closing the door behind him.

*

He felt something tickling his ear. Theo grumbled in his sleep, raising his hand absently to push away whatever it was. It did not work. He turned his head against the pillow, almost as if he wanted to suffocate in it, but that thing was there again, on his ear. Theo stifled a growl.

"Liam, what the hell are you doing?" He exclaimed, when he finally opened his eyes - just to see Liam's face over his, his body lying next to his, his finger still halfway between his face and the Theo's poor ear.

"I could ask you exactly the same thing, this is my bed, in case you haven't noticed it" he snorted, frowning at Theo's tone, as if he was the one who had been caught in inappropriate attitudes with another person's bed .