i'll be waiting here for you to call me

Ooc; This is a drabble in response to one that Cali wrote when Phoenix was in another country, working on a film and Oscar was forced to stay behind due to his own schedule. Oscar is mine and Phoenix is Cali's. I was listening to What If by Simple Plan and, also, Save You by Simple Plan. Hope it's good enough. :'D

He was barely concentrating on what he was doing, gaze seeming focused but a vacant feel swamping around his actions. Oscar was usually one to be exceptionally enthusiastic when it came to his work. He thrived behind the camera, enjoyed it to such an extent that it was very rare for the young man to be seen out and about without a camera bag on his shoulder or a small compact tucked into his pocket. But today was different. He didn’t seem as happy and smiley as he was usually when setting up his stranger fashion shoots, his more in-depth ideas that he managed to often come up with due to lack of sleep or spending a day on the set of one of Phee’s films and imagining all of the possibilities that films seemed to provide.

Today, Oscar wasn’t up to the usual standard that he held for himself when it came to his photography, but it took one of his regular models to bring it fully to his attention. The girl was dressed in such a flamboyant red dress, her hair fiery and make-up looking so fierce and perfect, but she so easily showed that sympathetic expression between each frame as a small sigh would pass over Oscar’s lips, the male’s gaze frequently flicking to look over to the empty door frame. All he could see through it was a small portion of the living room, not the person that he could so often look to to bring a smile to his face. Phoenix was almost like his inspiration. He helped keep him going and helped just let those ideas fit so easily into place, but without him there.. he was lost. And he looked it, clicking away with his camera but not being as directive as normal, not trying to think of weird and wonderful poses that could just add that little bit more.

“Oscar?” the girl’s voice was soft, comforting in a way but not what he needed to stop that aching feeling in his chest.
“Hmm? Yeah, Michelle?”
“Sweetie, you’ve been looking over at that wall for the past couple of minutes.. are you okay?” The wall that she spoke of was one to the side of the studio area, the one where Oscar usually sat working on editing photos on his laptop or fiddling about with his camera equipment. The original, plain white paint was littered with years’ worth of photographs, but not fashion portraits, nor truly professional images. They were all little captures from years of his life, little things that could remind him of how much he’d grown as a person and how there was one person that had always been there for him. A great portion of that wall was covered with images of a younger Oscar and a younger Phoenix, most of which were taken nearer the beginning of their relationship when they’d had all the time in the world to be together. The male’s heart would always flutter when he looked at that wall, seeing the highlights of the years he had spent with his loved one, but now it just sent a gentle pang through his system.

“Um.. yeah, I’m fine. I, um, I think we’ll just leave it at that today, Michelle. Thanks.” The twenty-seven-year old nodded softly at the model before turning and tugging his camera up over his head and then placing it down on the table in front of him. He could look through the product of his day later - now he just wanted to focus on getting Michelle cleaned up and sending her on her way. He just needed to be alone for a while.. well, no, that’s a lie. He didn’t need to be alone. He needed to be with Phoenix, he needed to be close to him. He needed to be able to curl up in his arms and go to sleep to the sound of his breathing. He needed to spend more than the limited one hour talking with him on the phone and instead be able to hear him talking face to face with him. He needed that uplifting feeling that Phee always sent rushing through his body by his mere presence. But he couldn’t have that.

Phee had been away for a good few weeks now, working on a film that he had been unable to film within range of their home, a film that the younger male had seemed so excited about before. Their telephone conversations had been so light-hearted at the beginning, but seemed to so quickly melt into something quite heart-wrenching, something that made Oscar miss Phoenix even more to the point where he felt almost ill. He couldn’t tell Phee enough just how much he was missing him, nor could he express it in any other way. The phone limited their contact so much, alongside the difference in time zones. When it was lunchtime for Phee, it would be time for Oscar to go to sleep so they were truly limited to that one hour a day.

The moment that Michelle left, he got changed into his pyjamas and settled down on the sofa in the living room, a small pot of ice cream held in his hand. It was becoming a sort of three ‘o’ clock in the afternoon tradition for him now, to sit in his pyjamas with some mint ice cream in the silence of the apartment, only able to hear the occasional car outside the open window. If he had the choice, he would have happily called Phoenix there and then and just begged him to come home, but he knew he couldn’t. Phee would probably be in the middle of shooting now, and he didn’t want to interrupt anything, no matter how desperately he wanted to just hear his love’s voice. It was always Phoenix that called, because the brunette would always worry about disrupting a scene by calling. He knew that they could sometimes overrun with filming, as had been experienced the other night when he had nearly fallen asleep before Phee’s call, and so he didn’t call him, even when he felt so desperate like now.

Gently touching his feet against the carpeted floor, Oscar slipped himself from the sofa, leaving the tub of ice cream and its spoon on the table. Padding softly into his studio once more, the male’s gaze fell back upon the various printed images upon his wall, the smallest of smiles twitching onto his lips as he gazed at the various faces that the red-head pulled in each photo. His goofy grins and wonderful expressions that could just so easily make Oscar giggle like a school-girl. The male reached out and touched against the glossy paper that each image was inked upon, the tips of his fingers oh-so gently stroking against the curly locks permanently printed upon the page. It wasn’t the same, but it brought comfort.. managed to drag a smile onto his lips as he thought just how soft Phee’s hair felt between his fingers and how tender his touch was. He just missed him so much and there was so much around him that reminded him of the man he loved, but nothing could amount to the real thing.

Two hours later, Oscar lay curled up beneath the covers on their bed, his soft breaths sounding so content, his expression sharing a sense of ease that sleep seemed to cast over him. His dreams may not have been real, but they felt it and it was almost as if Phee were there with him, curled up beside him and snuggling close. The disappointment of waking up alone would surely follow, but for now his features told how he was thinking of so much more comfortable moments than lying by himself in a rather cold bed, the corners of his lips curved partly. The wall in his studio was no longer as full as it had been, various photographs having been taken down over the course of an hour. Now, there was barely a gap left upon the pale wall at the head of the bed. Each space covered with one image or another; from the photographs taken when they had first moved into the apartment to their occasional trips to the shops in search of rubber ducks. It made such a difference for Oscar because, now, even though Phee wasn’t there to curl up with, it was almost like he was in the room, looking after him by simply watching over him with those caring eyes.