your whispers are voiceless

Words

They're silent at dinner, stiff. They share small talk but the words just float around them and disperse into the air like fog breaking apart at the sun's touch. Meaningless.

All this is meaningless.

Because, really, what good would the memories do if both of them don't even want to look back, to try and recall what hey had? And talking about what they've been doing separately hurts just as much.

There is not much to talk about, so the silence ensues. Bristles the nerves beneath their skin.

They are close, facing each other, separated only by the small circular table in front of them. But it feels like they're miles apart.and every second just presses harder into the tension that stretches over them. Beyond them. Suffocating.

Every movement is calculated and reserved.

Everything is so awkward, most especially the drive home when there is no chatter around them to break past the silence. Niall would have liked to reach over and turn the radio on but the tension glues his joints together, sludges his muscles and curls his insides, so he just looks outside.

Thinks. Drowns himself in the tangle of thoughts in his head.

Liam pulls up in front of Louis' and Niall's old apartment complex minutes later.

And again they sit in silence, waiting for each other to conjure the right words. The right goodbye, good night.

"So, uh..." Niall says, nodding to himself. Feels his throat clench. He swallows. "This is me, I guess."

Liam nods, stiffly, looks ahead at the empty dark road. "Yeah. This is you."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Niall shifts some and unbuckles his seatbelt. Fumbles for a little. A little more. He grunts when the metal doesn't come apart beneath his fingers, internally curses himself for it.

Liam glances at him. Hesitates. "Here." He reaches over him so he's basically draped over Niall, whose breath hitches, stops, and successfully unlatches his seatbelt in a single flick of his fingers.

He's about to pull away--Niall knows this, actually couns on it to break apart the thick tension and get out and not be there even though he painfully wants to--but he doesn't.

They stare at each other.

And then they're kissing. Niall feels the heat of Liam's lips slip into his mouth, bloom deep into his lungs like steam warming the thick frost that has collected in the coners, and it feels like everything--every second, every air dragged into his lungs, every centimeter apart from the boy kissing him like it could be the last--is crashing into him.

And he's falling apart.

Or just falling.

But at the same his whole existance, his insides and his muscles and his flesh and his mind are weightless. Floating.

Then Niall thinks of his brother, and he breaks apart from the kiss, breaks away from Liam, gasping, "I can't. I can't." He's breathless, the electric tingles in his lips creeping up his cheeks and crawling down his neck.

"Yeah, okay. Sorry," Liam says, just as out of breath. "I... sorry."

Niall nods. Gulps. Rakes his hand across his hair. "I'll, uh, I'll go now."

But he doesn't. He stays. Looks at Liam. And it's like they have this gravitational pull embedded deep in them because they're lips are fitting perfectly again, moving at the same pace, the same time, the same space.

There is no space.

"I--we can't," Niall says in between tiny, sporadic gasps when they pull away to take in drastic air, except they don't stop. Don't pull away. And he doesn't want to. "I, I have to--"

His words fade, disappear, lost in the texture of Liam's lips. He wants more, needs more, but Liam pulls away.

"You have to stop doing this to me!" he growls, his voice rising, slamming his palm against the steering wheel. He's breathing hard.

"What?" Niall squeaks, catching his breath.

"This!" Liam says, looks harshly at him. "You, you look at me and...and I'd want to stare forever and keep you close and keep you mine but I can't. And every time you try to stop me you'd just kiss me harder! Stop doing that! Stop making me believe I can have you when you know I can't!"

"You kissed me first," Niall says, incredulous. "And I tried to stop you but you didn't pull away!"

"You have to try harder then!" Liam breathes in deeply, clenching his jaw. Closes his eyes and opens them, his voice softening. "I can't, I can't stop myself. Do you even know how many times I'd hoped you'd come back? I called, but you've changed your number. I e-mailed, but you didn't reply. I took on all means of reaching you but it felt useless. I felt pathetic. I lost you for good.

"And now you're here again and I'm with you but it doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like the way it used to because we aren't the way we used to be. I feel like I'm losing you all over again but you're right here right beside me and that's even more frustrating because I can't do anything about it. I'm just sitting here watching you slip away.

"I mean, it's good having you here, don't get me wrong, but it just..." He breathes. "...it hurts."

Niall opens his mouth, but his words dry off on his tongue. What can he say? What can he assure? There is no promise for him to vow and he just hates it, hates seeing Liam probably wishing for everything to be over than to be okay. Hates it how he has to hide his pain beneath his stoic expression.

Niall hates himself so much. "I'm sorry."

Liam nods, his jaws set.

And then there's tapping against the window. Louis, waving at them and smiling amidst the fluttering snowflakes. Niall waits, looks at Liam whose eyes had set again on the road ahead, and gets out.

There are no words anymore.