One Direction One shots (boyxboy)

The Man in the Painting (Lilo)

The Man in the Painting

New hotel, new village, new clients.

Liam sighs. He doesn't know why he even took this job in the first place. Traveling across the country had seemed like a great deal, but it had gotten boring. Always the same speech to attract potential buyers for the new hyper-modern materials to build houses, companies,... basically everything. But most of all, the job has gotten lonely. Liam doesn't have the time to meet someone, settle down and all of that. No, Liam is alone. That is if you don't count the phone calls he makes almost every day with his sister Ruth, who is still in college.

With a sigh, Liam falls down on the obsolete bed which still has curtains for some privacy. The whole room is decorated as if it originated from the early eighteen hundreds. Maybe the house or even the village was built in that period. The dark wooden ceiling of the room creaks when the wind blows forcefully against the hotel. The wallpaper and curtains around the bed and in front of the window are a velvety wine red with a pattern of fleurs-de-lis all over them. The floor is also made out of wood, a lighter colour than used for the ceiling. Perhaps it's newer, Liam thinks.

In the corner of the room, opposite of the bed stands an old looking dresser. Liam had once seen it in one of those movies, situated in the old English time, in the room of a young lady who used the mirror on top of it to apply her make-up. The one in the hotel room is rather similar looking to the one in the movie and makes Liam wonder if it once had belonged to a rich girl. Who knows how many women have been using this thing since she died.

Against the wall sits a closet in the same style as the dresser with little twigs and flowers carved into its wood. There are also two doors in the room. One that leads to the corridor and is placed next to the closet. The other one leads into a modern looking bathroom. The proprietor had bragged when he told Liam all about the newly installed bathrooms in all the rooms. That door was placed next to the dresser. At the other side of the bed, opposite to the closet is the rather large window with soft golden curtains to match the wallpaper. It looks out over the walled garden of the hotel and a small alley behind it.

Liam feels as if he walked through a time portal, but all things considered, he likes the room and the serenity it radiates. There is one thing in the room that truly catches his eye though. It had already when he first entered the room and had been the first thing Liam had taken a closer look at.

The painting, hanging from the wall opposite to the bed and next to the door of the bathroom, had been impossible to miss. The amazing blue eyes of the man pictured on it seem to stare right at Liam wherever he is in the room. And not only at him, but also into his soul, like the man knows his deepest and darkest secrets only from one glance.

His hair is brown, a small smile plays around his lips and it's clear he is wearing clothes that come from a different period of time. He looks relaxed for the painting. Liam can't help but be intrigued by the beauty of this man. He can't be older than Liam himself. Maybe thirty-two at max. Liam knows that if he had been real and lived in this time, he would have made a move on him.

Liam looks away from the painting and decides that it is time to take a shower. He lazily throws his suitcase on the large bed and smiles when he opens it. The picture of him and Ruth is always on top of his belongings. It's not that he needs it to remember his favourite and only sister but it is nice to see her smiling face once in a while.

He puts it on top of his bedside table carefully. Then he digs under the clothes to get to one of his towels. He doesn't take the extra bar of soap or the small bottle of shampoo he stole from one of the smaller hotels once. The owner had already told Liam about the good services this hotel offers, inclusively the shampoo and soap especially made for them.