Never Let Me Go » Liam Dunbar

the one with the alpha love triangle

"I've been thinking about stuff a lot lately." admitted Sophie, her legs crossed as she sat on the end of Liam's bed. He spun around in his desk chair, across the room, and faced her. His hands were braced on the arm wrests as a set of blue eyes settled on her brown ones.

"About..." Liam continued, urging her on. Her eyes flicked away from his and her tiny fingers picked nervously at the threads on his bed covers. Downstairs Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar were cleaning up in the kitchen, where Sophie had joined them for dinner after a long afternoon of studing. But finally, they were alone in his room, the lamp casting pale yellow light across the blue walls. And neither of them knew what quite to do with their time.

"Lydia's a banshee... just like my grandma, right? Before she died." Sophie explained, her fingers beginning to tremble. "What about me?"

"What about you?" Liam asked, pushing himself off of the chair and sitting on the end of his bed. He shoved away the notes and books they'd been using earlier, letting his legs hang off the bed as he faced her. He didn't understand the shakiness in her tone, or the confusion in her eyes as they looked up at him.

Sophie inhaled. "What am I? My mother isn't on the dead list, and as far as I'm concerned neither am I. But that can't just be it, can it? That's not how things work around here." Sophie explained, her shoulders sagging. The thin strap of her camisole had slipped off and her cardigan was bundled around her elbows in a crumple of grey cotton. "I can't be nothing, can I? It's not fair."

Liam scoffed, his eyebrows raising. "You want to be a supernatural creature on a hit list with a dollar amount set on your death?" He clarified incredulously, but Sophie just sighed and shook her head.

"No, I want to be a supernatural creature that can help protect her friends." She replied dejectedly, earning a thoughtful silence from Liam.

"That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself, Soph." said Liam, looking over her quietly and waiting for her to look back.

Sophie's fingers shook tremulously as she tugged her sweater up and over her shoulder, hugging her knees to her chest. "It's hard not to feel a little guilty when you're the most useless one in the pack and yet you might be the only one alive tomorrow." She shrugged, resting her chin on her knees.

Liam stayed silent for a second before putting a hand on her knee gently, smiling sadly when she met his eyes at last. They stayed silent for a second before Sophie turned and layed down on her side, letting her thinly lined eyelids flutter closed. Liam froze before hurridly grabbing all of the papers and rushing across the room to shove them haphazardly on his desk. He returned immediately before calming himself down and slowly (and he hoped casually) climbing onto the other side of the bed.

There was an awkward and long pause on Liam's part while Sophie layed still, letting the silence engulf her. Liam cleared his through and shifted around a bit, and she cracked an eye open with an amused expression on her face, staying quiet until Liam stopped bouncing around behind her. Then an arm curled around her side, wrapping around so that Liam's fingers could wrap around her balled fist. She curled her shoulders closer around herself and snuggled back into his chest, letting her eye fall shut and a serene smile spread onto her face.

And then there was a robotic click. The sound was followed by a mechanical shutter and then something lightly hit the floor across the room. Sophie could feel Liam freeze beside her, waiting as the sounds continued, over and over. After almost a minute, Liam's arm retracted and she wrapped her arms around herself comfortingly, sitting up and watching as Liam approached the printer, which was spitting paper after paper out onto the floor.

"Liam? What is that?" She asked, her eyebrows pulling together before she pushed herself off the bed and onto the floor beside him. He had a paper in his hands and then grabbed another, looking over them. One of the papers landed upright in front of Sophie and she inspected it, mouthing the words she had already seen so many times in the block print.

Liam stood and frantically hit the top of the printer, clicking the power button over and over to no avail. Finally he bent down and pulled the plug from the socket, halting the sounds instantaniously. His blue eyes looked over the chord for a second before he stared at the socket in the wall, ignoring Sophie's hand as it curled around his shoulder.

>>>>>

Sophie was chatting with Mason at his locker the next morning, casually skipping over the topic of what she'd done last night and instead diverting the attention to her hair, which she had braided after coming home from Liam's around midnight and was now hanging around her shoulders in soft waves.

"Liam," Mason called, his hands dropping a curled strand as he stepped towards the boy walking towards them, a dazed look on his face.

"Liam." Sophie repeated louder, finally catching the boy's attention. He looked quickly from her to Mason, who was already talking again.

"Am I gonna see you at the bonfire tonight?" asked Mason. Liam shook his head and attempted to focus, not looking at Sophie even once as she stood squarely next to her best friend and tugged the straps of her bag.

"Uh- I was thinking about skipping it." Liam stuttered out, lifting his shoulders slightly.

Mason's face went blank. "You're not skipping it." he deadpanned.

"Why not?" he asked, puzzled.

"You're on the lacrosse team, don't you have to go?" Mason asked incredulously, shaking his head as if it would knock sense into him. Sophie stayed quiet, staring at Liam and waiting for him to look up at her and smile or do that little eye-twinkle thing she sometimes fooled herself into believing he was doing on purpose.

"I don't know." Liam shook his head distractedly. His eyes caught something as he was looking to the right, and his shoulders tensed noticably before he looked back at Mason. "I don't think I'll be able to make it."

Mason rolled his eyes. "You're coming. And we're going to find you a nice girl that you can embarrass yourself in front of, and try and finally hook Sophie up with Scott, because we've all seen that one coming-"

"What?"

"-and find me a lacrosse player. Because statistically speaking, someone on your team is gonna be on my team. Alright?" Mason carried on, completely ignoring Sophie's horrified outburst.

"Liam?" Sophie finally cut in, forcing him to pay attention to what Mason was saying. Maybe she should have told him about the night before, about the kiss two days ago and the way he smiled at her and the way his hands always seemed to want to find her. Because suddenly she was feeling as if Liam needed to be reminded that he maybe sort of liked her. She felt that if she didn't remind him, then he wouldn't feel it at all.

"Yeah, I'll see you there." And without even a glance her way, Liam turned and walked off, still living inside his head. She felt a drop in the pit of her stomach, the kind of disappointment and worry that made you just want to curl up and go to bed.

Mason grabbed her shoulder and shook it slightly. "You like McCall, right?"

Sophie shook her head, squeezing her straps and shaking him off. "Yeah, I'll see you." And much in the style of Liam Dunbar, Sophie turned and walked off, straight through the front doors, across the parking lot, and into her car, which she drove home without a second thought.