Title: Transient
Pairing: Miles Kane/Alex Turner
Rating: PG-13
Summary: France and too much alcohol. What could possibly go wrong?
Word count: 1200ish
Disclaimer: The boys belong to themselves. Sadly.
Miles’ flat is fucking freezing. Not even when he forgets to pay the bills, which, to be honest, he often does. It’s like he doesn’t need heat and sustains himself with endless cups of black, bitter coffee that pile up on every available surface. That and leeching the heat from Alex’s back - pressing up against him on the sofa, or in bed with his chin hooked over Alex’s shoulder and hands pressing into his ribs or flush to his chest. One time, his thumb had brushed back and forth for an age against the fragile, soft bit of skin under his breastbone, and Alex had felt squirmy and weak for hours afterwards, unable to explain why.
He doesn’t react like this around any of his other friends.
“We should get away from here.” He says, and his voice vibrates against Alex’s back.
“Okay.”
-
Not that he copes any better with heat. When they go to France, it’s boiling - enough to give Miles sunburn on the strip of skin his collar doesn’t cover, and Alex gets oddly transfixed by the difference in colour - how it gives way to whiteness and freckles.
They get hideously drunk on cheap wine one night and stay holed up in the back of the farmhouse pub they find until the early hours, leaning close together to be heard over the din of the locals.
Alex tries not to feel betrayed when Miles brings a girl back with them, but can’t help it when he can hear them fucking on the other side of the bedroom.
-
She hangs around for a few days after and Alex feels like he’s blistering in his own skin. Her hair is blonde and she has long, smooth, legs and looks nice (he supposes) loitering in their kitchen in a shirt she pilfered from Miles.
By the time he realises he’s fucking bitter because he’s ticking off ways the girl is better than him, he’s halfway to drunk.
He slams out of the house around about the time Miles jokingly talks about her being his new muse and brings a bloke back to the apartment who looks like he could kick Alex’s head in if he wanted.
He isn’t quiet when he’s fucked against the living room wall.
-
Alex isn’t quite sure when the girl (Giselle, he thinks) leaves, but Miles is in a foul mood when she does, slamming around the rented kitchen and swearing profusely when he knocks his mug of stupid fucking coffee on the floor.
He can’t stop himself snorting, and when he does, Miles is on him in a blink, hand fisted in the collar of his shirt, thumb accidentally pushing against the dip of his throat and Alex’s mind goes blank save for the thought of you could so easily hurt me and I’d probably let you.
He doesn’t know where the thought comes from, though. Miles, for all his talk, is not a fighter.
They keep staring at each other.
“What?” he snarls eventually and Miles’ glowers at him, expression stony. His grip weakens.
“Nothing. Fuck you.”
Alex waits until he’s wandered off before practically legging it to his room.
He’s confused and his head kind of hurts.
Fuck, he thinks uselessly.
-
It all comes to a head when they awkwardly make up with beer and some shite French soap playing in the background and Alex wants to punch himself in the head, because Miles was laughing at the especially poor dubbing of the main character and what he says is-
“I’m glad that girl has gone.”
And the laughter stops abruptly.
“What? Why?”
(and fuck his traitorous fucking mouth because-)
“S’cos she was taking my place.”
Miles smirks at him, eyes turning calculating.
His stomach ties in knots.
Miles leans closer.
“Why, Alex? Is your place in my bed now, too?”
(seriously, he’s going to staple his mouth shut-)
“Could be.”
And Miles just leans in and takes his chin in hand, thumb dragging over his lips, and fuck, fuck, fuck, he feels so empty and too full of thoughts at the same time. Wants to stop thinking altogether.
He goes to rasp his tongue against Miles’ fingers when he abruptly pulls back, taps his cheek twice in a not entirely friendly manner.
“Sleep it off.”
-
When he wakes up the next day, his hangover makes his brain fall out of his ear and he dies. He dead. He’s probably dead. Or at least, that’s what it feels like.
He drags his carcass into Miles’ room and apparently looks pitiful enough that Miles sets his notebook aside and lifts the thin cotton sheet so that Alex can climb in.
He can’t stop thinking about last night. Of how he wanted - really fucking wanted Miles to kiss him and bite and take him apart in retribution for shooting his mouth off- but be there afterwards as well. Kiss his nape when they fall asleep and keep him warm and fill in all the gaps-
And he’s maybe kind of fucked.
He makes a decision recklessly, like he does most things, and turns in Miles’ loose hold until they’re facing each other, then - very deliberately - takes Miles’ hand from where it was resting on his waist and curls it around his jaw again. Presses kisses to the tips of his fingers.
Miles freezes.
“Fuck, really?”
Alex nods.
He makes a pathetic noise when Miles tilts his chin up roughly and kisses the breath from his lungs.
-
Miles doesn’t fuck him that night, or any other night. Says he wants to wait until he’s back in his own house - freezing as it is- to take him apart and make him shake. Alex had gulped and nodded and let Miles suck a line of tiny bruises down his throat when they had a moment alone.
He’d felt oddly off-centre and clumsy for the remainder of the day.
-
The evening they leave is sweltering, and Alex’s clothes seem to stick to him, plastered to the small of his back and between his shoulder blades. Everything is packed up, yet he fidgets about, suddenly unsure.
Miles hasn’t promised him anything. Isn’t picking up on how Alex is almost crawling out of his skin with nerves. Instead, he’s wandering around shirtless and sipping his coffee and laughing at the irony of too darn hot coming on the crackly old radio.
Miles only twigs when he swaggers past, finally redressing, and Alex reaches out and catches him, pulling until he’s stood between his parted thighs, and fucking clings.
“Hey, hey- are you okay?”
Alex wordlessly shakes his head, pushes his face into the centre of Miles’ chest.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Alex really wants to shake his head again, but he knows Miles will just work it out of him even if he does.
Instead;
“Stay. Please.”
And it’s stupid. It’s stupid because they can’t stay here, they’re leaving in a few hours, and they haven’t even discussed plans for when they land back in the UK. Humiliation burns under his skin already, in the scant few seconds of silence, and he’s ready to take it all back but-
Miles just draws him in tighter, pushes long fingers against his scalp.
“Shhh- I will, okay? I will.”
“Okay.”
_
A few days later, when they’ve slept off their travel weariness, Miles wakes early and brings him tea in bed, staying pressed close as he comes around properly.
Alex lets out the breath he didn’t even know he was holding.