"All the noises buzzin' in your head, warning you to wait, what for?"

[wannabesurgeon]

Who: Liam Morgan and Paxton Carlyle
What: "Don't listen, let it happen..."
Where: Liam & Paxton's apartment
When: Late night

The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. Too still. It had been ever since Paxton decided to go and stay with Zander while he recuperated from his injuries. It hurt more than Liam wanted to think about, but again, he buried his head in the sand because thinking and feeling it was too hard. He fell back into his work routine. Work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep. Trying to remember to eat, shower, do laundry, make sure the milk didn’t spoil so he at least had tea.

He had four days straight off now. It was late at night after a twelve hour shift on his feet. Some terrible surgeries had landed upon his team that day, and it wiped him out. He was over-tired and too emotionally shaken to be able to sleep. He turned the TV up a little louder to try to drown out the heavy silence, and went back to staring at the article on the screen of his laptop on a cushion in his lap. How to Love Your Partner When They Had a Guarded Heart. How could there only be five tips there? And how, if it was only five, was it so hard to love him anymore? He had been staring blankly, numbly, at the screen for a length of time he lost track off. It was awhile. He had re-read it into the double figures now, wondering if he was reading something different to what everyone else interpreted. How could it sound so easy? Maybe that first point said it all. It will not be easy. Was that the deterrence? It was too hard to manage it?

( A romcom was playing on the TV, so Liam turned it down and used the other remote to turn his stereo on instead and connected it via wifi to his phone. He found the latest playlist and turned that down low instead... )

"When morning comes to Morgantown."

[englandrocks]

Who: Paxton Carlyle and Liam Morgan
What: Changes
Where: Liam and Paxton's Apartment, NYC
When: Day after this

Paxton woke before Liam, and in his sleepy daze, got a bit of a shock realise his arms were around someone. His moving hadn't disrupted Liam or woken him. It left Paxton lying there with his thoughts, all filled with what happened the night before. So much could change when Liam awoke in the cold light of day. Paxton knew all about Liam's condition. No matter what happened last night, that didn't mean it would progress to anything else beyond it. His gut was feeling unsettled at the thought, but there was no winding the clock back. He didn't want to do that, but he was distinctly aware Liam's emotions were shaky at the best of times, and he had been depressed lately. Flat, fatigued, on autopilot. He had asked Zander frequently if he had seen Liam at the hospital, and if he had, asked how he had been. Zander said their paths crossed occasionally, but Liam didn't work general shift hours. It could all depend on what trauma surgeries landed with his team. Every time he asked, Zander always punctuated it with, 'Call him'. Paxton always found an excuse why not to. None of them were valid.

He was aching all over because he would be well overdue for his pain medication. He looked at the clock on Liam's nightstand, and couldn't believe it when the digital numbers read 2.33pm. But the clock hadn't buzzed, so Liam mustn't have been rostered on. He knew Liam always set his phone and the alarm clock since he had begun to take medication to help him sleep. Paxton was okay lying there. He could hear Liam's deep breathing, and with his arm wrapped around Liam, he could feel the soft thud-thud of his heart beneath his palm. It was comforting. He didn't want to let go. Only, he foiled his own plan when he started to sneeze. Not just once, but six times, to be exact. By the time he was done, Liam was awake and had rolled over to look at him through squinted eyes and scrunched up face. Correction: he was barely awake.

"Shit," Paxton cursed and then sneezed three more times. "Fuck. Sorry."

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