#but i grew up hearing lies again and again by my peers and my gullible self took a certain amount of time before deciding not to trust

[echo-s-land]

If there's something that felt like I lie when people told me the truth growing up - it wasn't Santa Claus

It was me discovering nobody else I know gets chills/cold when hearing some sounds

Everytime I get my hair cuts ? The room temperature seems to drop

Everytime I hear the vacuum or hair dryer ? As a child I used to go under my very thick blanket to stop feeling cold. It only worked when I put my hands over my ears

Hearing my father's coffee machine? Our cold kitchen becomes even more cold. It's horrible in winter

My dad's screwdriver-drill ? 1) way too loud 2) my blankets were never enough

[thiamfresh]

108 and 109

Here ya go, sorry it took so long!

I wanted to write something with this incorrect thiam quote and it got a bit weird?? sorry.

Being homeless wasn’t as bad as Theo expected. It wasn’t nice by any means and Theo knew without his supernatural abilities he’d probably have thrown himself off a bridge by now but with them it was..alright. It wasn’t fun, or pretty, or exciting but he could handle it. He knew enough about the town to know where he could sneak in to shower. His body ran warmer than most people’s would so when he added his thin blanket, the back-seat of his truck and some thick sweatpants to the mix he wasn’t really sleeping cold a lot. His muscles would heal themselves from the cricks most people would get from sleeping in such a cramped space within an hour of him waking up.

The daytime part he could handle, it was easy enough. It was the night that he hated. When the world around him drifted off to sleep and left him alone with his thoughts. When the memories of all the terrible things he’d done would fly back to him and the loneliness would creep in, deep and aching in his chest. But even that he could handle, he’d had a lot of time for thought with the dread doctors. He was used to being left alone with just his mind for company, sure, now he felt guilty for things which was fairly new but he could still swallow that down most of the time.

It was the fact that despite everyone else being able to sleep he wasn’t able to, even when he did manage to escape his thoughts and drift into a peaceful slumber it was short lived because he’d be being forced back into the world of wakefulness before long, whether by nightmares and his own panicked screams, or police officers telling him to move on.

Theo shifted on the seat a groan escaping his lips, tired and pained as he heard a thunk hit against the car window. He drew his hands up to his eyes rubbing the sleep out off them unsure whether he was happy that it was police rather than a nightmare or if he would have preferred if it had been his own fault that he woke up.

“Alright, alri-” Another thump.

“Theo!” Theo’s eyes snapped open at the familiar voice, hands dropping away from his eyes as his brow crinkled in confusion. That definitely wasn’t a police officer.

“Liam?” Theo asked, eyeing the roof the car. Liam’s heartbeat skipped, a small laugh drifting through the night.

“Wherefore art thou? We needeth to speaketh.” Theo’s brow scrunched at Liam’s slurred words. He dug around for his phone, blinking at the time. Why the hell was Liam at his truck at three am? “Theo…Theo.” Liam whispered, The drawn out way he sang it making Theo’s skin crawl.

“What?!” Theo snapped. Not bothering to sit up. He eyed the window as another pebble hit against it. Liam was lucky he was too confused to be angry. “Liam, what the hell do you want?”

“I need to talk to you.” Liam said, more rocks assaulting the window.

“You have a phone for a reason.” Theo drawled, sure, being woken up by the shrill buzz of his phone would have been annoying but probably less so that Liam tossing rocks at his window because he apparently didn’t want to walk the six feet to the car door. Theo blinked as something thunked against his window, louder and heavier than the others. Theo stayed still on the seat for a moment, disbelief rolling through him before he was diving for the window, rolling it down in a quick move and sticking his head out and peering to the ground where Liam’s phone sat, screen cracked.

“Did you just throw your fucking phone at my window?!” Theo hissed. Liam’s eyes pulled away from where he was frowning down at his now broken phone, lifting to meet Theo’s. A wide grin stretched across his face that left Theo blinking. Liam didn’t smile at him like that, not unless they’d just defeated an enemy and his defenses were down enough for him to forget that he didn’t like Theo. Liam finally walked over with lopping steps.

“Theo!” He said happily, the smile growing even wider. Theo’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Right now I’m talking to you.” Liam said,  resting a hand against the roof of Theo’s truck and leaning closer, Theo shifted his head back as Liam loomed. “Duhhh.” Liam’s breath ghosted across his face leaving his nose curling at the harsh smell of alcohol.

“Are you drunk?”

“Obviously.” Liam snorted. “Now let me in-”

“Wha-” Theo didn’t have time to finish the one-word question before Liam was hauling the door open and tossing himself in giving Theo barely enough time to scramble out of the way as he flopped into the back seat next to him with a hiccup.

“How much did you drink?”

“Everything.” Liam hummed. His cheeks rosy as he swung his head round to look at Theo.

“Why?”

“Mason figured out how to get a werewolf drunk.” Liam said. Theo eyed him curiously, his cheeks rosy red and the smile still sweeping across his face in a dazed way. “So, we figured why not…Were you sleeping?” Liam asked, fingers moving to pick at the blanket still pooled on Theo’s lap.

“No.” Theo lied.

“I could hear you snoring.” Liam giggled.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Why did you lie about it?” Liam replied, waggling his eyebrows leaving Theo huffing out a breath, this was getting him nowhere.

“What are you doing here Liam?”

“I followed your scent.” Liam said nonchalantly, like the fact he knew Theo’s scent well enough to track him down in the middle of the night while drunk without anything of his to use as a guide was normal.

“Liam why are you here at three in the morning?”

“No one’s seen you in weeks. You’re never at pack meetings and-”

“I’m not pack.” Theo said, Liam snorted, lips spurting out air in a way that made him sound like a braying horse.

“You’re basically pack.” Liam grumbled petulantly, looking up to Theo like he was the idiot here. “You’re our spike.” He added, the words sounding more like an accusation than anything else.

“Spike?”

“From Buffy” Liam said. “You know. We let you in even though we didn’t really trust you and then you betrayed and so we tried to kill you-” Theo’s lips thinned at the blunt reminder of their history. “But now, now you’re back and you help and you know, at first no one even wanted you there, I mean, why would anyone want you.” Theo looked to the door, wondering how much trouble he’d get in if he shoved Liam out and drove away before he managed to clamor off of the floor.  He could text Scott, tell him his Beta was drunk in the warehouse district.  

“But then you do the thing-” Liam waved a hand as if trying to start a game of charades on what ‘the thing’ was “And you know, Buffy still wants to hate you, because you’re selfish and there’s Riley who’s perfect and they love each other but then she keeps finding herself coming back to Spike who’s trying not to be selfish in a very selfish way and it’s..it’s confusing because Spike is hot you know?”

“Right.” Theo said slowly, eyeing Liam curiously as he continued to rant.

“And then underneath all the fangs and murder you start thinking..this isn’t all spike is, this….this douche bag. You know? I mean, he was a person before it, who’d been forced into this life he was just this gullible little idiot who was told that his life could be better and so he trusted the wrong people and then they warped him and he became a killer because he thought he had to and he was good at it and who doesn’t want to be good at something? So Buffy knows that Spikes the bad choice, that Spike’s screwed up but Spikes trying and Buffy knows that she’s not all innocent and pure and that she’s hurt people too, that she would again for the right reason and Riley never got that part of Buffy. Riley would play into the good part but Spike, Spike knows that Buffy can be a monster too and that doesn’t scare him, hell he likes it but he knows Buffy doesn’t, so he draws her back from the edge-”

“I don’t remember that epi-”

“AND!” Liam said, shushing Theo. “Just..gets that side of her more than anyone else seems to and makes Buffy feel..maybe not normal because she’s never going to get to be normal but you know, makes Buffy feel real and makes Buffy laugh and doesn’t freak out when Buffy just needs a break and turns up drunk to his ‘house’ because everyone’s gone, Riley’s gone and Xander’s busy with Anya. Even Giles is gone and Giles is the whole reason Buffy got into the world of vampires and stuff, he was meant to be there to teach Buffy. And so now Buffy mainly has Spike but Spike’s hiding out in his car in the middle of nowhere like a total loner.” Theo swallowed thickly. Liam’s eyes boring into his as he continued to talk, words spilling past his lips almost too fast for Theo to follow. A part of him was sure he should have tried to stop Liam from talking, to shut him up before he could say anything that would just end up damaging the trust they’d built over the past few months but a bigger part was curious to see where Liam’s rant would end. “And everyone hates Spike but Buffy kinda wishes that they didn’t so Spike could be around more because they might fight but dude fuck can they fight together. I mean once they get going they’re badass you know? And Buffy hates the idea that it’s going to end like it does in the show. With Spike only really able to come around when something bads happening and then he dies before they really get to be happy. Because maybe they’re both a bit broken but once Spike gets his soul back they bring out the best in each other. They need each other and Buffy thinks that they really could be happy together if Spike would just let them-”

“I’m pretty sure I watched a totally different show to you.” Theo joked lightly, finally putting an end to Liam’s tirade.

“You know what I mean.” Liam huffed, lips sticking out in a pretty pout that left Theo praying he was right in what he thought Liam meant.

“I just woke up. Why don’t you spell it out to me.” Theo suggested softly.

“You’re spike!”

“I got that part. It’s the rest that confuses me.” Theo said. Liam’s pout grew. “Because it sounds a hell of a lot like you’re implying something.” He urged. Liam’s cheeks grew redder and Theo knew that this time it wasn’t due to alcohol.

“What would I be implying?” Liam grumbled, ripping a thread from the blanket. Theo batted his hand away before he could do any more damage.

“Liam, Who’s Giles in this analogy?”

“Scott, obviously.”

“And so who are you?” Theo asked. Liam’s eyes skirted away from Theo for the first time in what felt like forever.

“I’m Liam.”

“You know what I-”

“Drop it, Theo.” Liam growled low in his throat.

“You’re the one who started it!” Theo hissed. “If I’m Spike who are you?”

“Shut up.”

“Liam-” The air was knocked out Theo as Liam keeled over sideways, head flopping onto Theo’s chest with a surprising amount of force.

“Liam, get off.”

“Nope.” Liam sighed, heartbeat slowing down as he tried to burrow his face into Theo’s chest.

“Seriously, How much did you drink?”

“Too much.” Liam said proudly. Theo couldn’t help the small smile that fought its way onto his face. “I’m tired.”

“Then you should go and sleep.” Liam nodded against his chest, kicking his legs up onto the seat as he got more comfortable. “That’s definitely not what I meant.” Theo said. “If I push you out of the car will you get lost on your way home?”

“Probably.” The wolf said earnestly. Theo sighed, hands moving to Liam’s arms trying to lever him away, the boy replied by digging his nails into Theo’s side like a cat that didn’t want to be picked up.

“Alright. Get off me and I’ll take you home-”

“Are you hitting on me?” Liam asked softly, heart making a strange flip flopping sound. Theo chose to ignore it.

“Move, so I can drive you back before anyone starts-”

“M good here.” Liam hummed, cutting Theo off. He opened his mouth, ready to argue only for Liam to shush him before he could try. He shut up despite knowing he could quite easily shove Liam out of his car, at this point he was pretty sure most people would. But still, Theo stayed silent, eyes shifting around the car nervously as Liam made himself comfortable, the smell of alcohol still seeping off of him leaving the car smothered in it. The silence was..nice, Liam’s face warm against his chest, his breath puffing warm against Theo’s neck and his heart beat a steady hum that made Theo’s own heart rate sound like someone having a heart attack.

“You should let me drive you home.” Theo tried.

“If you can sleep in your car then I can sleep in your car.” Liam mumbled. “Spike would let Buffy stay.” Theo felt his heart give another embarrassing jolt, his fingers loosening on Liam’s arms, hands slowly moving to settle on his back.

“Is that who you are?” Liam stilled, limbs locked as his breathing stuttered for a moment before he replied.

“What if it is?” Liam’s voice shook as he spoke, Theo felt his top get tighter around his shoulders as Liam’s fingers curled into the fabric.

“Well-” Theo started, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he tried to think of something to say. “I guess I’d be obliged to let you stay.” He felt Liam’s cheek moving against his chest as his lips pulled into a smile. Theo’s fingers trailed in a small circle on Liam’s back as the beta slowly relaxed against him again. Theo wondered how this became his life.