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The light bulb flickered, has been for the past 20 minutes. Naturally, it's dingy in Damon's room, his floor littered with pages and pages of sketches and lyrics and other nonsense he didn't have the time to read, much less decode. Liam couldn't really think properly, head's still wrapped up in the afterglow of sex, bouts of drug fueled thoughts of him and Damon popping up in moments of clarity. Him and Damon, the only two people that mattered. That existed. It felt like he was drifting away, floating, flying. His palms were red from gripping the bedsheets so hard. Next to him, he could feel Damon's eyes on him. His arm was pressed against his and Liam can't tell if this is happiness or something entirely else brewing in his chest.
"You're shivering."
He was. Which was weird, because his mam used to complain, saying he burned like a furnace. But Noel had liked holding his hand when they were little, just because of that. He doesn't anymore and Liam wonders if it's because he's lost his warmth. And then tries to pinpoint when exactly he lost it. When he got so cold.
Liam gave up. He shrugged. "I'll live."
"No," Damon said, and Liam didn't even have to look at him to know he was rolling his eyes. "C'mere."
He felt Damon's hand tugging on his arm, pulling, and all of a sudden they were face to face, Liam's hands tucked carefully in Damon's very own (freezing) ones, pressed against the smooth surface of Damon's chest. Liam thinks he could feel Damon's heartbeat through his skin if he was quiet enough, and smiled when he instead heard Damon's teeth clattering.
"You're freezing too."
"Exactly," Damon grinned, and Liam's not sure if it's the lights playing tricks on him or if he actually looked shy when he continued, "we'll hug each other. You know, body warmth. But i mean, if you're okay with it—"
" 'Course I am," Liam chirped, biting down a smile at Damon looking surprised and pleased at the same time. "I've literally sucked you off more times than you've held my hand."
The look he got in return for that quip was very worth it. Damon's whole face reddened, laughing and scoffing as he lets go of Liam's hand, the absence of which was so severe he thought he could freeze to death. "Twat. I just don't want you to feel, you know, pressured or something like that."
Liam snorted. "Too late for that. You did basically force me into sleeping in last night."
"Fuck off. I did not!"
"You begged me, mate, I thought you would fucking burst out in tears if I said no—"
"Oi, don't pretend you didn't throw a tantrum the other week when I told you to leave—"
"It was raining, you ninny!"
"It was barely a drizzle!"
"I could've got struck by lightning or—"
He didn't even get to say his punchline, Damon's laughter drowning out his words, the bastard. But when Liam looked at Damon, his perfect nose scrunched and doubled over from giggling so much, cheeks reddening and eyes so pale they looked like diamonds, Liam was struck with how beautiful he was. He felt his hold on Damon tighten, and he thinks he'll never let go, scared of what might happen if he does. He hooked his leg around Damon's waist and buried his face in the messy blonde mop of hair he used to loathe so much.
Back when they were strangers exchanging digs at each other, before they shagged, before they started talking and listening to each other, before everything. It all seems so silly now.
He could feel Damon angling his neck upwards, his hand slowly moving towards Liam's chin, and his body pressed warmly against his. Damon's blue eyes were on him, the ghost of a smile still on his lips even as he leaned in to close the distance between them. And when their lips met, Liam wondered how it was possible that he managed so long without him, without Damon, to kiss him senseless like this. His lips were so soft, and Liam asked and asked for more, his hand balling Damon's hair so he's sure they were still real.
Damon placed a chaste kiss on the top of Liam's head. His ears picked up the sound of the radio playing next room. The TV static, the rustling of paper. Memorising every little details. He'll need to get this moment accurate. So he can feel this at home again. Even in memory.
"You'll come back next week."
They locked eyes. Damon held his hand. The radio was playing some shite pop song Noel hates and Liam was still smiling.
" 'Course. Where else would I be?"
Damon smiled back, and it was the kind of smile that Liam wishes he could frame. Some tangible evidence that all the happiness in the world can easily manifest itself in just one smile. In him.
"And the next?"
"And the next."
and the next, and the next, and then all of them.
He thinks of Damon being the only person he really needs in his life, thinks of them sharing beds and laughing and kissing in dark alleys where no one can see them, where they're strangers to everyone but to each other. Thinks of them sneaking off from their friends to clubs, trusting their bodies to one another, and Liam knows he wants more of this, of him. He wants to give him his whole life and—
Sun's up. Time has reset and they're not the only two people on earth anymore. Life has waken, their little bubble burst, leaving them naked and vulnerable and grounded but together.
Reality sets in. Liam stares at the ceiling. The light bulb flickered. Damon's warmth against him the last proof of them being real, before that, too, turns into a distant memory, fogging Liam's brain and forever occupying the compartments of his whole self.
He will turn out to be a very angry old man, Liam muses, with missing parts and a hole for a heart. And so will Damon. But no one will know—because Damon has always been one to sew his hearts on the insides of his sleeves, hid and tucked away for no one to see—unless they learn to read the way his eyes shine when he gets mad, how his voice wilts and his words die out in his throat, the intricacies of his beautiful mind coming to a halt where his emotions take over, learn it the hard way like Liam had.
One day, though, Liam thinks, whenever that is, their time will run out, and so will their luck. And when that day comes, he wonders if they'll know. If they'll know that their time, shared together and bled to dry, will never come back for them and it'll be their fault. Their time will pass, never to return, slipping from them further and further into the distance, until it looks like nothing more than a tiny figure from afar, a menial and puny thing, so inconsequential, so harmless, it'll be treated as just another blip in the system.
He sees himself looking back and not being able to comprehend how their little time together could possibly tear him up to pieces the way it had. Someday he’ll be fine without Damon. And it's something to look forward to as it is something to dread.
There will be knocks on the door. There will be lies and goodbyes and then they will have to face the world alone, separated. They'll no longer be the only two people on earth, with all the time in the world in the back of their pockets and beautiful pink blotches decorating their skin.
But here inside Damon's house, where it's quiet and the desks were stacked with unfinished songs written in his ugly handwriting, and the bedsheets, warm and smelling of Damon, it felt like they still were. And Liam thinks time can grant them this, for just a few more. Selfish as it were of them to ask for more. But maybe they're content with that, being selfish.
And he can take it a step further, too. Hell, he wants to.
To be selfish and ruin everything they have, say exactly what he needs to say, get it out his chest; the pleases, the confessions, the requests, those three impossible words he has yet to return, and of course, the truth—that Liam is ready to throw away his life for Damon if he ever so much as even asks. And then Damon will know just how fucked they are, and it will kill them both, knowing that they are in love with each other and there's nothing they can do about it.
It will go to waste, all of it. Or maybe it'll still be in him, what he feels for Damon. Maybe it will be there even after everything goes wrong, and maybe it'll stay there for him to keep and cherish, memories of bliss he alone has access to. Damon's last gift for him.
And Liam knows time is running out. The clock will strike midnight, the spell will break, and it's not enough time, never enough, so maybe now's not the time to ruin things.
No, he thinks, feeling Damon's fingers dance away in his disheveled brown hair, muttering something about him turning more and more into a dog the more they see each other, maybe now just isn't the time.