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It's just a paper cut.
Liam is throwing things around his room to try and hide the incriminating dirty laundry, dirty dishes, dirty towels, and general teenage boyishness. It's futile. It happens every time Theo comes over. He's not really sure why he still tries.
Where Liam's a whirlwind, Theo's a calm breeze. Liam can't count the number of times he's turned around to Theo leaning against the wall with a smug face and irritating smirk he still hasn't worked up the courage to kiss right off his stupid face.
He's not expecting the soft gasp followed by a thunk. Liam whips around, not quite worried but curious, and finds Theo with his thumb in his mouth while he glares at Liam's book on the floor.
Liam's half expecting Theo to make some throwaway joke and laugh off the look Liam's giving him with a shrug. But Theo just stands there, and Liam's hit with a vague sense of being off-kilter.
"...You good?"
Theo takes a second to look up and respond. "Hm? Oh, yeah, it's just a papercut."
As he takes his thumb out of his mouth, though, Liam notices how much it's bleeding.
"You still have wolfsbane in your system from that party last night?" Liam teases. When Theo just shrugs and gives a half nod, he frowns.
"C'mere," he says, grabbing Theo's wrist and pulling him to the bathroom. He grabs the first aid kit from under the cabinet, and it takes until he's wrapping a bandage around Theo's still bleeding thumb for Theo to ask what he's doing.
"You seemed like you could use..." Liam trails off, not quite knowing what to say. A bandage? Some help? A friend?
Theo bristles, and the sight is strangely comforting. It's better than the odd silence. "I'm not useless, I can handle a paper cut."
"Dunno, it was a pretty brutal injury," Liam throws back. Theo rolls his eyes but Liam can see the smile tugging at his lips. It doesn't entirely get rid of the chill from seeing Theo... like that, but it helps.
What doesn't help is Liam's big fat stupid mouth. He feels almost giddy from the success of making Theo smile after that weird mood he was in, yet disoriented because what was that?
"Need me to kiss it better for you?"
Liam freezes as soon as he realizes what just left his mouth. He hears Theo choke, and then silence.
Then, "Well? Don't tell me you chicken out of your own plans, Dunbar," and Theo's offering his hand like some damsel waiting for a greeting and Liam's so fucked.
He can't tell whether Theo's serious or not for a moment, but as his eyes flit up to Theo's face Liam's struck breathless by Theo's eyes boring into his soul.
It should be weird. He should back down and admit defeat. But he doesn't, instead taking Theo's hand in his and raising it to his mouth. He kisses his knuckles and feels dizzy at the sound of Theo's breath hitching. He turns Theo's hand over until it's face up and he can press his lips against Theo's thumb. The bandage is rough and he can feel where it transitions to skin, and Liam's lips tingle as he thinks about how that very skin had just been in Theo's mouth.
He doesn't expect the tears beading along Theo's waterline when he pulls back up.
"Hey, wait, I'm sorry, did I-?"
"I didn't need your stupid help." Theo says adamantly. His voice is cold, and Liam feels as if they're having two different conversations right now.
"Theo-" he tries. Theo just yanks his hand back to his chest and tries to leave the bathroom. Liam lunges, trying to block the door.
"Move," Theo says.
"At least tell me what's wrong, Theo."
"I don't need your stupid help," he repeats, but it sounds less angry and more desperate. "It's just a stupid paper cut. You don't need to help."
"Why not?" Liam presses. "I put a fucking bandaid on your finger and now you're pissed at me?"
"You didn't need to help me."
Liam's going to lose his fucking mind. "But I did, so."
"Why?" Theo yells, throwing his shoulders up in some perpetual tense shrug.
"Because I wanted to?" Liam shouts back, bewildered. They both pause and just stare at each other for a minute and Liam suddenly becomes aware of how hard they're both breathing. How did they get here again?
He's starting to wonder if he has leftover wolfsbane in his system too.
"You're an idiot," Theo says flatly. He leans against the wall and slides to the floor in a crumpled heap.
"For wanting to help you?" Liam asks incredulously. Theo doesn't say anything. He just sniffs once, and finally, finally Liam can see whatever ass backwards third conversation was going on beneath both of theirs.
"Didn't realize it was a crime to want to help someone," he says as he slides down next to Theo.
They're both quiet for a moment before Theo asks, "Why'd you kiss it?"
And maybe it's just because there's this shroud of vulnerability that's been there since they got back from that party last night and crawled onto the couch downstairs just for Theo to burst into tears the second they started watching a nature documentary that opened with a baby cheetah copying its mother and bloodying its tiny, fluffy maw in the corpse below it that has Liam feeling vulnerable too, but he says, "Because I wanted to."
Theo looks up at him with inky eyes bleeding across the lines of his face like fresh watercolour. "Why?"
Because while everyone else in the world looks at Liam's good or bad Theo sees both and takes it in stride. Because Theo doesn't care that he's a little chipped around the edges and doesn't try to fix it or ignore them but instead accepts them as part of the piece -- as part of Liam. Because Theo understands things about Liam that he doesn't even know how to put a name to and even, sometimes, dark hours of the night lets Liam understand him the same way.
"Cause I love you," Liam says instead. Simply. Realizes, is more like, but it fits so painfully well that he's surprised it took this long to come to. Not a shallow crush or fleeting fondness, but a deep, inevitable love that has Liam choking a little.
Theo looks at him and Liam half thinks he's going to ask 'why' again, but instead he says something that baffles Liam entirely.
"Thank you."
He knows he should say something comforting, but all that comes out is "You're welcome," as his mouth moves on autopilot.
It makes Theo smile a little though, so Liam supposes he doesn't need to go bury himself alive out of shame and embarrassment.
"Your help isn't stupid," Theo says quietly. Liam thinks it's his way of saying 'I love you' back so he takes it and tucks it in a pocket along his heart.
"You look a little upset over there," Liam says when the mood starts lifting a bit. Theo half glares at him. "Need me to kiss you better?"
Theo barks out a laugh at that, and closes the gap between them himself.