inferno // l.s.

nine

he should be thanking liam for saving his life but did the man have to die? that seemed a little too extreme.

he told zayn the partial truth because zayn was in fact worried about why louis wasn't down to watch sons of anarchy or get ihop with him. so they laid in louis' bed snuggled up to eachother, zayn playing with louis' hair while louis told him some crazy dude tried robbing him and liam "pistol whipped" them. zayn nearly grabbed his keys to go to the club like louis predicted he would but louis only asked him to stay and cuddle so he could try to sleep. he slept maybe thirty minutes that night, about five hours throughout the past few days.

he's supposed to go in tonight for his shift but he's not sure if he could go, because he'll probably be the center of attention for other reasons. they'll constantly ask if he's okay, what happened, probably monitor him and he doesn't want that. if he goes to work he just wants to have a good night, make money and come back to his big warm bed with too many pillows and get a decent amount of sleep for once.

"lou?" zayn pokes his head in louis' room, frowning slightly at the curled up figure in the bed scrolling lazily on his phone. "you got a delivery, babe."

"i didn't order anything," louis mumbled. he cringed at the way his voice sounds, so raspy and thick. zayn nods and leaves the room but comes back with a narrow package, laying it on louis' bed anyways.

"might have been your mum sending you something, love, do you want me to open it for you?"

louis puts his phone down. "you know it's a felony to go through someone else's mail?"

"i'd be doing quite some time then, 'cause your school payment came in and you got two weeks to pay up." zayn pats his leg and kisses his feathered head. "you need to eat. take a bath, it'll make you feel better. i'm gonna go hit the gym but i should be back around six."

"'kay," louis yawns. "be safe. love you."

"love you too bubs," zayn murmured then leaves.

louis sits up with a huff and cracks his neck as he stretches, leaning over to pull the box toward him. there's no sticker designating where the package is from except for on the bottom the box, which has a logo to a floral shop.

he carefully opens it, nearly holding it a few feet away from him (because it could quite possibly be a bomb or a dead animal) but he bites his lip when he sees the bundle of burgundy tipped carnations with a tag wrapped around them. they were from harry. the tag basically said 'sorry my friend killed someone in front of you' without actually saying it because they came from a floral shop that prints off messages you want to send to your receiver, but they were pretty and louis liked them.

harry had texted him a few times to make sure he was okay but louis didn't really respond because he wasn't sure what to say. he's fine, still shook up but he's alive. he should think positively about that. he's in his room, bundled up in bed with a thick jumper over his body and he's breathing. and it's not like he's gonna call the cops on liam because liam is actually a great guy, he seems more like a big teddy bear than anything but he said he was doing his job. louis kind of wonders what that said job is. he feels like he has an idea.

he gets out of bed, cradling the flowers delicately in his hands because they're too gorgeous to ruin and he finds something from the kitchen to put them in. maybe they can sit in his room on his dresser and add some color to his area until he fully gets his pictures and decorations the way he wants them to be. there's still a box of tapestries in the corner waiting to be hung up and his collectibles case needs to be mounted onto the wall, so until then these pretty little carnations will do.

he takes the bath zayn suggested for him with a glass of wine in one hand and his phone in the other, ignoring irrelevant notifications until his phone began to ring and he nearly dropped it in the water. he figured it was mylo because he didn't recognize the number but it was a california area code, so he answers it with a confused and shaky hello.