#liamgrady

When Anakin McFly finally comes to accept the fact that he has more than an embarrassing crush on Liam Grady, he tells himself not to count on anything happening. His specific words are ‘he could do better and you could do worse’, and he says it with his eyes staring at himself in the mirror. He looks at himself—the wound on his shoulder, the stupid length of his hair, the way the nerves on the left side of his mouth don’t respond the way they should, the scars on his torso and the boring brown of his eyes—and he repeats that over and over again.

“He could do better and you could do worse.”

He says it until the words lose meaning, and then he leans his forehead against the mirror and takes in a breath. The mirror fogs up as he exhales, and with his index finger he traces a lotus pattern he’s only seen once and watches it fade away.

The air from the open window smells like rain.

i’m lost, he types onto his phone, before pressing the send button.

Again? comes the response. It’s raining. Why are you lost in the rain?

i thought it would be a good thinking exercise. can i ask for directions?

How long have you been out there? What do your surroundings look like? I’ll come pick you up.

just directions are fine. i’ve been here a while. i passed a 7-eleven a couple of minutes ago and i’m near a bridge.

I’m going to pick you up, Anakin.

oh.

Find somewhere to stay under, alright? You might get pneumonia.

but you don’t have to pick me up.

I want to.

… okay.

“Are you gonna tell me why you thought getting drenched was a good idea?”

Anakin looks out the window, his elbow on the edge of it as his hand props his cheek up. Already he can feel heat curling up inside of him, causing his sneakers to dry from the inside out. “No,” he says, and he doesn’t mean to sound as clipped as he does, but it is what it is. Anakin presses his lips together at the sound of a sigh coming from the driver’s seat.

“Okay,” comes the reply. It’s spoken normally, no inflection or change of tone or anything to that accord, and Anakin is surprised. He turns his head, looking at the other man, water dripping from his hair and onto his lap.

“Okay?” he repeats, unable to mask his disbelief.

“Okay,” Liam agrees. “Just call me when you’re going out in the rain next time so I can come with you.”

There’s a fluttering feeling in Anakin’s chest, and his fingers twitch where they rest as he turns away once more and looks down at his lap. His blood is pounding, his stomach filling with butterflies, and the sensation of it all almost makes him want to laugh. He bites his lip, but it’s ultimately useless; he smiles, and he both hates and appreciates his mouth for betraying his wishes.

“Alright,” he murmurs, and for the briefest moments, he allows himself to be deluded into the fantasy that Liam could possibly feel the same way, joy tickling up his ribcage and towards the beating muscle of his heart. “You can be the Rachel McAdams to my Ryan Gosling.”

Liam grins at that. “I look forward to it.”

It’s a trying thing to continuously give yourself hope only to have it shattered time after time after time.

The imminent destruction of his heart gets even worse as the days go by, and Anakin finds himself learning how to properly spike a volleyball while he gives Liam lessons in origami. Sometimes Liam makes him sandwiches (“For all the times you fail at toasting bread,” he said), and sometimes Anakin makes him lunchboxes (“For all the times you gorge on ramen,” he said). Anakin learns how to mimic an Irish accent, and Liam makes the most amazing impression of Indiana Jones Anakin has ever seen. They try mini-golf at some point, and Anakin ends up hitting Liam with his club on accident. The day they go bowling is considerably worse.

(“I don’t think the ‘Irish man luck’ thing is working out for you anymore,” Anakin said, frowning as he offered Liam an ice pack.

“Me neither,” Liam replied, but they laughed about it, anyway.)

The day Anakin finds himself thinking of Liam instead of entropy in the middle of one of his master’s degree courses, he realizes that this isn’t going to be good for him.

The rain falls onto his skin as he stands on the rooftop of his apartment building, his head tilted back and catching every raindrop on his cheeks. His shirt gets drenched, and so do his jeans, and though it feels a lot like he’s going to get sick from this, he doesn’t budge.

His hands are curled loosely into fists, his mind racing a million miles an hour, and as the acid rain pelts his body, he wishes it could wash away his feelings. Nothing good’s going to come out of it—nothing fruitful, nothing happy, nothing great. It’s a lost cause to think anyone like Liam would fall for anyone like him. He should quit while he can.

Rebelliously, however, he finds himself backtracking instead—to rented DeLoreans and handsome tuxedos, to Valentine’s dates and old-school movie theaters. He thinks of giant tubs of popcorn and medium-sized sodas, of washed plates and corny music from the eighties. He thinks of fingers slotting perfectly in the dips of his hands. He thinks of spaghetti and he thinks of kisses.

His entire world is being filled with red, red is the sky, red is the ground, red is the air and red is the sun. Red are the clouds, the raindrops that pelt him. The color dyes his body, his world, and his soul.

And red is Liam’s color.

“Why didn’t you write me?” A voice carries from the doorway, somehow cutting clear through the sound of pattering rain. “Why? It wasn’t over for me.”

Anakin’s eyes open, even as rainwater falls into them, and he finds his head tilting down as he stands there in the rain.

“I waited for you for seven years,” the voice continues, and now it’s closer. “But now it’s too late.”

Anakin is quiet for a long while, and he doesn’t dare turn his head. “Li—”

A hand falls onto his shoulder and squeezes. Anakin swallows.

“I wrote you… three-hundred and sixty five letters.” His words tremble, his heart picking up speed. “I wrote you everyday for a year.”

“You wrote me?” comes the reply, and Anakin tells himself to stop playing along, to run away before this turns into something he can’t turn his back on. But the hand on his shoulders is so warm, and solid, and alive.

Closing his eyes, he pretends it’s rain dripping down his cheeks instead of tears of frustration and joy and anger and disbelief and every single emotion in the spectrum.

“Yes,” he whispers, barely heard in the midst of the rain. ”It wasn’t over.” Anakin turns around, sheepish smile on his face. “It still isn’t over.”

Liam’s eyes are soft. “I told you to call me.”

Anakin closes the space between them and kisses him, his hands cupping the taller man’s face as he presses their mouths together with an insistence he once thought impossible. The edges of his front teeth graze his lower lip, and when Liam’s arms wrap around him in response, Anakin smiles nervously and pulls away.

“Sorry,” he says.

Liam kisses him in response, and Anakin’s toes curl in his shoes.

There’s the sound of a thunderstorm in Anakin’s heart, but for once, he doesn’t let himself be afraid.