📱 a time my muse texted / called yours.
Louis was attending a nursing conference for a couple of days away from Seattle. Something that was quite the chance, and also a compliment for his work at the hospital. It had been a long flight, and by the time he finally made it to the hotel room, it was late for him and even later in Seattle. The hotel room was nice. But it was also quiet. Incredibly quiet. And by the time he lay in bed, a thick duvet covering his body, he still missed the warmth of a certain body next to his own. Louis tried to ignore the urge to call Uriah for what felt like a small eternity. But he missed the other. More than he probably should have. It was also ridiculous, considering they had been separated for merely a few hours. An hour after trying to fall asleep, he eventually gave in to the urge and picked up his phone. He knew how late it was and that Uriah must be asleep by now, so he wasn’t all that surprised when the call went to voicemail. There was still a pang of disappointment in his chest, having hoped to hear the other’s voice. Clearing his throat, he stared up at the ceiling. “Hey,” he whispered softly, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet hotel room. “I know you’re probably asleep, I just… wanted to let you know that I arrived. The hotel’s nice, and I’m beat. And uh… I miss you.” He pressed his close shut when the words left his lips, unsure whether it was okay to say them. Shaking his head a little, he quickly added: “So, yeah. Just wanted to let you know. Talk to you tomorrow maybe. Bye.”
🧠 a time my muse thought about yours.
Louis was supposed to update the file of one of his patients, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the boy in the patient room across from him. Tim was one of his newer patients, cursed with two broken legs after being hit by a car. He was sixteen, so not much of a child anymore, and he was constantly bothered by being surrounded by kids. Louis tried to treat him like an adult to make it easier for him, and he had a feeling the boy liked him. He just hoped it would stay that way even if the other found out that Louis had been watching him and his guest that afternoon intently. There just had been something in the way the two boys greeted one another when Louis was still in the room to check on Tim’s vitals, that reminded him of something. Or someone. They seemed almost shy in the way they moved, and even if Louis couldn’t hear what they said from across the hallway, a smile bloomed on his lips when the visitor leaned in to snatch a kiss from his patient. It reminded him so much of Uriah when they’d been younger it almost hurt. At times Louis missed those times. The times when they had both been teenagers fumbling for the right movements, exploring the world together. He missed how easy it had been. He missed not thinking too much into everything – and not wanting more than he could have. His heart ached as he watched the boys scoot together on the bed, remembering a time when he had been sliding into Uriah’s bed with his own wounds – maybe no broken legs, but the way he wrapped his arms around Louis to hold him and heal him had been almost the same. He tore his eyes away from the window into the room eventually, trying to focus on his task at hand. But his mind kept going back to the redhead who’d captures his heart without knowing when they were nothing but stupid teenagers.
☀️ a time my muse let yours take care of them.
“Ouch.” Louis winced at the touch to his swollen ankle, ignoring the look from Uriah that told him to stop being such a wimp. He’d definitely had worse injuries throughout his life – the memory of bruised ribs was still worse than the pain in his ankle now. But he had just gotten home from his run, which had led to the sprained ankle, and the injury was still so fresh it hurt like hell when Uriah took a closer look at it before putting some ice on it. It was almost like an old routine for them, and Louis wondered if he could ever make up for the amount of times Uriah had taken care of him in one way or another. He couldn’t even count how many times he found himself in the other’s caring hands, while he hardly got to repay the favor. He guessed with his situation at home as a teenager, as well as being in too many sports teams, the risk of him getting injured was simply way higher than Uriah’s. All he got to do was ice the other’s wrists at the beginning of his career with Legacy, whenever he’d gone too hard on the drums, but that was still nothing compared to the amounts of wounds, both physical and mental, his roommate had taken care of for him. Biting down onto his bottom lip, he watched Uriah for a moment. When the other got up from his position by his ankle, he quickly reached his hand out to curl it into the fabric of the other’s sweater. “Hey,” he said softly, pulling Uriah closer. Leaning up, he pressed a gentle kiss to the redhead’s lips, a smile blooming on his lips. “Thank you,” he whispered, even if those words seemed inappropriate for what Louis really felt. When he let go, the smile on his lips widened a little more, and he playfully asked, “Do I get some ice cream too?”
🗯️ a time my muse didn’t text / call yours.
It was late. Darkness had settled over Seattle outside the windows of his apartment, and the room was illuminated by nothing but the candles on the table that were slowly burning down. It had been a stupid idea, really. Louis wanted to surprise Uriah with some dinner he made himself, have a nice evening together. Just be together. But Uriah still hadn’t come home. Louis had considered calling him, the phone already in his hand – when he stopped. There was a thought, evil and dangerous, that was eating him up from the inside. What if Uriah was with somebody else? He knew that was allowed. He knew he had no right to be upset about that either. They were just friends. Friends who liked to kiss and do even more than that, friends with benefits, if that’s what you wanted to call it. Then why did his heart ache so unspeakably at the thought of Uriah’s lips being pressed to those of somebody else? Louis tried to tell himself he was behaving like a child. That he was being stupid. Overreacting, too. But once the thought started taking over him, there was no going back. It went far enough to conjure images of a blurry silhouette kissing Uriah, taking off his shirt, going further than Louis ever had. The jealousy he felt about something that he didn’t even know had happened or would happen made him feel sick to his stomach. Tears started burning in his eyes, though they were mostly angry tears for himself. There was a part of Louis who knew why he felt this way. A part that had always known, since the redhead had first put a bag of dirty ice onto his eye at a stupid high school party. The realization settled in slowly, but with such certainty as if it had always been there. And Louis didn’t know how to breathe. His hand held onto his phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white. And then, without thinking too much about it, he threw it against the wall. “Fuck!”, he yelled so loudly his voice seemingly echoed from the walls around him. Frustrated, he wiped the table clean off any sign of the stupid romantic gesture he’d planned that night. The food went into the garbage can, entirely untouched. He dropped a plate while he tried to but it into the dishwasher, and when he picked up the shards, he cut his hand. By the time he blew out the candles hot, angry tears were running down his cheeks. For a moment, he stared at his phone, innocent and untouched on the ground next to the table. His fingers were tingling with the need to call Uriah after all, to ask where he was, to wipe out any more thoughts of him with somebody else. But Louis decided against it, leaving the phone where it was, the only trace of the fact that Louis had finally realized the one truth he’d carried around with himself since he was seventeen: He was deeply and irrevocably in love with Uriah King. ( @uriahking )
