♪

one shots

— reunion

— sleepy

— shower tenderness

— resisting the desire

— golden boy's in bad shape

— made of assumptions

— the shame of being himself

— up at night

— rien que noux deux’

Alex isn’t sure which day he spends with Miles already. Alex is easily convinced — this, Miles understood when after every Turner’s phrase “Nah, I’m goin’ home today” he could bend him over into saying “Ah, whatever”.

He leans on the wall, counts the days, counts how many times he was fooled into staying for more. Well, not fooled, not negatively at least.

With Miles it clicks. Clicked in the sincerest way of that phrase. They hit it off immediately after the first second the conversation began. Despite Alex’s aloofness with Miles, he wants to stay, go to another stuffy pissed pub and yet another day watch him skillfully making every girl and boy swoon in the radius of meter.

The fifth can of beer sits in the palm nicer than the first one — to be completely honest, Alex wasn’t in a mood for drinking tonight but it was one of the countless moments when Miles persuaded him to change his mind. He brings the can to his dried out lips, feeling the cold brim of it. Beer in the can is cold and streams pleasingly down his throat. Alex feels himself falling over to the side out of blue, occasionally losing a hold of his drunken body, not caring if someone will notice and crack a laugh pointing at him.

Miles is the type of a friend who says, “Wait a minute…” and disappears. Not dumps you but dives into the crowd with practical ease not intentionally forgetting about planning to come back. Miles feels the crowd, likes the crowd. He is pleased with the crowd. And the crowd is pleased with him. He likes accident touches, likes the brush of the clothes, likes to bump into someone and smile innocently because it didn’t annoy him for even one fucking second. He might have bumped into you intentionally to make out of it a conversation, pull out a common starter phrase and anyone would listen to him.

There is no offence, Alex muses, standing alone and watching him from the side. Miles touches the arm of some blonde with natural seduction to it. During sometime that Alex was learning Miles, he never saw him hesitate. His mind never has a thought of a negative thought or outcome. Every word that is pronounced by his lips flows with energy. Alex isn’t sure what it is. Probably something you get born with. Miles just has it. Has this magnetism. The spark that lights Alex as well. The fire that jumps from him to Alex, making him ignite the second it touches him.

Miles is a friend with whom you can yell on the street in the middle of the night, get scolded with and not feel a pang of regret.

Alex isn’t sure he ever felt that with anyone. It’s weird.

He can’t help but wonder if being with a girl will ever get that comfortable. Does it only work with people of the same sex? How do people stay in relationships for long then? Even marry each other. Alex feels erroneous and improper. Questions on which no one can give answers flood his head. Does everyone feel what he feels? Does it get that comfortable after all? With a girl it never was like that. There is that boundary that you can’t cross — some words that you can’t say, some thoughts that you should lock. But it’s a girl, so it makes sense. How can any guy get fully comfortable with a girl? Or a girl with a guy?

Miles could be a nice girl, Alex thinks. And he is fashionable. Every girl is into fashion, right? Sounds stupid. Miles is attractive. If he was a girl Alex would fall head over heels. Any man would fall in love with Miles. With that kind of girl any man would get comfortable.

He recalls when once he saw Miles with painted nails. These male hands for a moment seemed like female ones. Elegant, thin fingers with convex pinkish knuckles and delicate nails adorned with black polish. That caught him off guard. Not that Alex was against it. Many rock musicians painted their nails black. Alex would never do something like that, this he knows. People might mistake it for something else. Not that he cares, right? Not that Miles is like that. Not that it would be a problem, he is still a great musician. Not just a musician. Miles is, well, great. In general. In everything?

Alex imagines him being a girl — tries to imagine Miles in drag — in a skirt and with long hair. The image comes up and something doesn’t let it complete the image. It’s still Miles and still a man. Alex concludes that would like Miles to stay just like this and be a man. At the end of this thought, the real Miles is a man.

Alex can’t help but feels befogged by his own thoughts. This has gotten too far. His free hand subconsciously finds his head in distress, threading fingers through slightly tangled hazel-brown locks. Alex squeezes his eyelids together for a second to reconnect to the surroundings.

His eyes lost the sight of Miles completely. He observes the bar, searching for a familiar back of Miles’ neck and head of these tousled hair. The crowd turns into pure mush and every sound into cacophony. This place is like a furnace and people are logs tightly pressed to each other. When searching gets completely useless because a tall guy gets into the view, Alex lets his thoughts envelope him once again. Alex heavily sighs, lowering his eyes to his own hands, finding that one hand is picking at the skin near his nail on another hand. A quiet motion of calming himself.

It’s this bizarre pull, he ponders to himself. A desire to brush against his arm, to stand close, to grab his arm and do something with it. Just lean into it, nuzzle into it. Or not do anything with it at all. Just stupidly hold onto Miles’ arm because Alex knows, he will never tug Alex’s arm away from the grip.

Alex likes to touch and be touched but it takes time to develop his first caress. Miles is one of the examples that is cuddly with everyone he sees on his way. Again, never hesitates. Alex would never think of leaning into him until Miles didn’t do it first. Miles often grabs Alex’s hand in overjoyed moments, giving it a "squeeze with emotion” as Alex calls it inside his brain, but Miles also never holds it for long. Probably, just overwhelmed with everything at once when he is happy, Alex discusses with himself sipping beer once again.

Miles has lots of friends and lots of acquaintances. Something deep and selfish wanted to be that one friend of his. That one friend that is allowed to eat the last yogurt in the fridge or that friend with whom you aren’t shy to sleep in the same bed because there’s no other options but floor even if you are two guys and it might seem faggot. Alex furrows his brows to himself, licking his lips - it unpleasantly stings like when your lips are too dry and damaged. Where are his thoughts desperately running away from him? He lifts his eyes and looks around just for the sake of it. Alex wants to be on Miles' lips all the time. Wants this wanker to rumble everyone’s ears about him. And wants to be that one friend.

These… How many days? Four? Alex assumes it’s four days. These four days he was sleeping with Miles in the same bed. He liked finding out Miles’ sleeping “habits”, despite others obvious ones that anyone could notice — Alex likes to know something that others don’t. He always drifts off quite quickly and Alex is always the one who listens to the soft stable breathing and quiet snuffle in a room full of darkness, where only the luminosity of the nearby streetlight sneaks inside through the window. Miles’ arm would always subconsciously find Alex’s frame eventually, wrapping around him lightly and almost casually (as it’s usual for Miles) but in a secure way — that became a surprise during the first night. On the second night he was expecting it and on the third Alex was already awaiting it. He isn’t sure if it’s some kind of instinct or a natural reaction — to put an arm around something or someone that is near. Miles always tosses in his sleep like a frantic shackled bird. Sometimes he mumbles during his slumber, but it’s never distinguishable enough — Alex really strained his ears, but nothing.

Alex likes to be cognizant of details. He believes without details anything wouldn’t make any sense. With Miles it’s the same. Alex likes the details of Miles. The taps of his legs when he is happy, the slight crookedness of his teeth when Miles smiles so widely that Turner can’t help but crack a smile too. The intrigue that first detail brought to him was bright enough to look into Miles more, to look into him all the time.

Often he sticks to something completely random. Something that allures only to him. These weird feelings and sensations that it gives. This striped shirt that Miles has, with black and dark grey stripes. Oh, this fits him well. Alex can’t quite explain but how the length of the sleeves hides his pulse points on wrists covering just a tiny of the begging of his hands or the way cotton fabric folds on his lean body awakens every impulse of pleasure inside of him. It’s like a perfect untouched new package of meds, a contrast between green bright grass and stormy sky on a spring rainy day or a neon acid purple sign that hypnotises you as if you are a moth somewhere on the very central streets around dull ordinary signboards.

Alex likes to observe him. At times, he likes it even more than engaging in a conversation with him, no matter how unusual it might seem.

It feels like falling in love. But more meaningful than when you get a crush on a girl.

Alex is often occupied with mulling over what Miles might be doing or thinking. Is he cooking? Flips pages of a magazine? Or Alex wonders if Miles catches in the crowd a pair of familiar eyes, during the gig only to feel the pang of disappointment and catch a thought that runs through his head as the subway display board with the station that says: “Nah, it ain’t Al.” Because Alex does — Alex mistakes people for Miles, every time not being able to stop his heart from making a somersault.

The sudden touch on his shoulder makes him almost jump like he is a teenage girl who watches porn, hiding under a blanket. It’s only Miles. Alex dived too deep into himself that lost track of reality around him. The crowd got lighter around him and he didn’t notice. No wonder.

Miles’ palm is warm. He stands so close that Alex can smell his cologne — vivid and drunkenly sweet. He notices the mole under his right eye — Alex’s eyes always find it for some reason — he quite likes it too. Just like his striped shirt.

“Al, mate, let’s get out of ‘ere.” Miles tugs him to the exit, completely trouble-free and full of mischievousness. He seems to have enough, Alex thinks. Fulfilled with attention and alcohol, Miles is ready to leave.

For Alex it’s too much to process as it often happens. He questions, “What ‘bout the lass?” The lass doesn’t mean a thing honestly.

“Lass was a moment.” Miles brushes off. “Need ta buy some beer, eh? For later.”

They walk out of the stuffy pub. The night November air hits Alex in the face, urging him to squint for a second and wrap more into his coat. A freeze goes down his body from ears to toes — his teeth almost start to shatter. He feels pulled out of his world which for some reasons makes him feel even colder. His thoughts feel distant and tiny in that whole day, but not as tiny as some other of his thoughts.

It’s a matter of time, when Alex will come back to these thoughts. Probably when he will be staying for the night at Miles’ place and lie beside him in the darkness and wait for his arm to be wrapped around him or maybe in the meantime while Miles chooses a snack to eat later with beer because he is always meticulous. Miles rushes him to the nearest grocery store and for now Alex just chooses to follow and not think.

a/n: november has come, so did i. if you think that you’ve just read some piece of pure nonsense — probably, you are right.

Alex regrets about coming to Paris — it’s one of the usual visits to the woman he’s with. He doesn’t exactly regret about the city but about the company that insistently goes together with it. Evening ended sorely. Well, of course, holding back his usual snarl he ended up spilling it, not being able to wait an hour until both of them went to bed. He couldn’t care less that a spot in her bed his body doesn’t warm now.

Night flows of the wind, playing underneath his slightly unbuttoned disheveled shirt. It could be warm, but the wind insists on accompanying him. His boots echo clink bluntly at paving stones. Alex doesn’t really look in front of him or gets mesmerized with architecture — the Paris’ allure is attractive to him and yet it got dull with years of forced relationships or too familiar, actually not so exotically special views. Probably both. London was no better like a jammed record but jammed on his favorite part. A lovely pair of French passes him at this late hour — he pecked out a few words only, not learning the French to the “parfait” level of speaking nor understanding after all these years of attempts, that he forced himself to do. Now it makes even less sense than it was in the beginning, when he finally realizes his previous shallowness and the disappointing reality of a rut he is in. Made a bed lie in it, they say. He could use a cigarette right now, but only a key from her apartment jingles in the pocket of his trousers. There’s a lonesome no-one on the streets and he gets a feeling of being possible on the most stupid thing ever, whatever it is.

Brushing his hair away from the forehead. He stops to look around. A drop of water falls onto his cheek making him look up as if he could find where it was from. Alex assumes it’s going to rain, clouds look baleful, he sighs. Some man leaves a building — it’s a church — the man is old and slowly makes his way down the street opposite from him. The sight strangely tingles in the chest. Alex looks at the facade. “Saint Antoine” is right above the arc of the doors. Trees hum with a rustle of the leaves, and a few buildings away he could almost hear the Seine singing along with the current moment of solitude to Paris, enjoying the quietness that gives the night, while tourists are sleeping. He steps and leans on the massive door of a church to open it. Some places call for him and he follows willingly.

Architectural glory makes the breath catch in his throat — with powerful walls of God placed around him Alex feels like a child, small and timid, unimportant. Stained glass windows, sprinkled with abundance of colors — figures on them give a shiver on the spine and strangely he feels watched. An organ that towers over him as a threatening animal. The building is empty, deafeningly silent in comparison to the streets that never have a rest. A dim light envelops the atmosphere. He wants to see the place in the morning, during the day. How is it? Alex doesn’t think he ever saw that place or even so gave a drop of attention to it.

Leaving was pointless. She probably fell asleep and if not, Alex prefers not to go back. His steps careful — not to bother anyone, but there a woman only and an usher, he places himself down on a bench, it characteristically creaked, making him wince initially. The fatigue suddenly feels like he has weight on his shoulders. He glances at you, that appears to be a young girl, he wouldn’t give you more than twenty years old. Your eyes closed, and you don’t even seem to acknowledge him – just a bench separates him and you. Alex thinks it’s a rare sight for young people to visit church nowadays, but he doesn’t exactly believe in God. The thought visited him once in a while — God existence — in what people believe and in what he believes. Giving away the soul to God feels like coming to terms, he thinks, as if letting go, closing eyes and going only with religion and faith in charge of you. There’s still time for him to find himself trusting God. After all you open your eyes, piercing them exactly in him, Alex for a second catches himself thinking that she heard his thoughts. The habit of staring again, isn’t it? Awkwardness washes over him.

“Pardon me…” he mumbles out in English not really thinking at the moment.

“You aren’t a believer.”

Straight to the point. He can’t help but slightly raise his brows.

“Oh? Aye, I don’t.” He chuckles.

“And English.”

His mouth opens to give the answer, but you clearly don’t need it.

“I’m not French either. To my unfortunate, probably, French has a charm to them,” you trail off waving with a hand at him, “I ramble. Don’t listen to me.” Your gaze faces a central strained glass window of the church.

Alex raises his brow. What a strange persona.

“Do churches calm you?” You turn your eyes on him again. Slumped shoulders in a crumpled costume, he feels out of place here, as if he is out of place completely everywhere, but strangely you want to ask him more. An exhaustion under his eyes urges you to talk him out.

Alex stumbles over the words, never he was the one who sits in churches to experience the windless mood, “I… Well, no. Honestly, no.”

You slowly nod.

“I jus’ walked and…”

“It’s right. Was the same for me for the first time.” You nod once again. The dark sundress with flowers looks on you, especially innocent that doesn’t go with a collected voice.

Both of you fall silent.

The settled earlier numbness of tiredness in his bones dissolved as curiosity appeared. His heart beats with nervousness and hope for anything but just for more. This is interesting. It’s entertaining.

“My family. They are loud,” you sigh, smiling with twinkling love in the eyes when you mention your family, “very annoying. But here. Here, it is so quiet. Heaven on Earth.” Your sincere tone doesn’t let his eyes leave your face, the eyelashes in the dim light and a curve of the nose. Your hand is on your small cheap-looking leather purse, he notices, but you cling to it as if to something insanely worth cherishing.

Alex couldn’t say the same. He felt eerie when he just walked in, now though with you it feels different. Not that threatening as if you are the mysterious light in the darkness, unknown but safe.

“Is it the same in the daylight?” He tries to let the talk flow.

“Still peaceful.”

Alex thoughtfully nods.

The usher calls out for them, saying that the church is closing. You walk in front of him, letting his eyes follow the hem of your dress waving around your thighs. The talk, the moment — they were fleeting, and yet Alex now leaves with a sense of completeness. Talking to strangers always feels a bit special in a way. He wants you to stay in his mind for a longer time after he leaves.

The night air makes him squint at first, freshness fills lungs. Rain didn’t start after all. And still, he couldn’t find the same tranquility as you in that church. Your words urge him to give the place another chance, though — something in them or you charmed him to the foolishness — Alex wants to believe he can see it differently. You don’t rush to leave or say goodbye, you seem to let him take the first breaths as if after being reborn and then only talk.

“Would you like to have a cup of coffee?” Your arms tighten around your own frame, wind cradles you in a bad, violent way. Alex stops himself from taking off the jacket immediately — the gentleman nature speaks volumes in his head.

“Sure.” He didn't hesitate, it was said out loud impetuously.

“A cig?” You fish out a pack of Philip Morris.

“A cig.” He pulls out a thin cigarette out of the pack that you nicely proposed to him, he raises his brow slightly. Very ladylike. That’s what he says.

“Very ladylike,” he jokes with an awkward grin, “I mean… thin cigarettes.” Alex reaches for the pocket of trousers and remembers not having the usual set of things with him. “No lighter with me, love. S’rry.”

You smile, and courteously light his cig first, examining closely his stubble and dry lips that hug the cigarette tightly. The cute petite mole under his lower lip. Then you light yours. A simple share yet feels so lived in as if it’s not the first smoke both of you share. It may be one of the instances when people hit it off, but the point is not in the interests or hobbies but in the same place of the mind, when it’s just comfortable without any fizzy meanings.

A relieving drag of the cigarette fills his body. That one strikes just a tad better than others. Alex glanced at you as if just accidentally. You kind of move and sway back and forth to scare away the cold, but the shiver you have is clear.

“Are ya cold? I could, y’know…” He points to his jacket.

“No, I’m good!” You chuckle, but teeth give a bit of chatter.

Your independence humors him. Alex smiles with a nod, “Bet you are.”

Of course, you aren’t cold. He believes for sure, and yet he takes off his jacket, leaning closer to you he catches a few notes of your smell mixed with perfume as his hand, securely with too much care that can have an unknown man, places his jacket on your shoulders. Alex would like to get to know it more. His smell intrudes into your nose too, and you without a doubt want to sense it just a second longer, but he pulls away, to your unfortunate.

A café is the last place where he should be now, especially not with a girl much younger than him if presumably his woman waits for him at home. Everything got out of hand at the moment when he started to speak with you in the first place. Alex could imagine you being a nymph with how easily you made him behave unusually to himself. Alex likes you — likes you in a way of liking passing strangers that he meets eyes with, in a crowded train car. Just a glance but he gets interested. He rumbles with strangers in pubs but never has the same tricky tension of the minefield that could blow him with thousands of emotions like with you. Oh, he waits for the situation to escalate. Alex feels vague but at the same time the future seems to be clear as his actions.

You sip your coffee, still in his costume jacket -– it doesn’t suit your sundress, absolutely ridiculous but cute in a way. You ordered a cappuccino, no sugar and he ordered himself an espresso, no sugar as well. The coffee foam clings to your lips, before you lick it away, the gesture oddly makes him regret ordering just a black coffee. Having a coffee foam to lick you could stare at his lips too. None of you are saying anything, you don’t seem to want to fill the silence neither does he. For his own pleasure he has no desire to rush to prevent this comfortable quietness. Rare people pass the storefront of the café glancing at you and him and other people that found haven in this island soaked in the smell of coffee and pastries. Not just that – he can feel your perfume also. Importunate, deep and sugary notes. The scent trifles with his mind and his olfactory, it embraces him. A glass of whiskey turned into syrup — your sundress is misleading. Minutes run fast, Alex lost the track of time, but it barely bothers him — it’s one of the situations when time is out of his concerns.

“So...” you begin.

Adjusting his frame in the chair, Alex is ready to listen.

“…You don’t believe in God.”

He gives you a smile, scratches the back of his neck, “Not really.”

“Not really, you say. Does it mean there might be a place for God in your heart and soul?”

“I might save a bit of a space for him jus’ in case,” he chuckles with raspiness to it.

Now you give him a smile, “What if it’s her?”

“Then be it.” He shrugs and sips his coffee, feeling how bitter liquid splashes with the warmth down his throat. Alex doesn’t mind it, he believes that whatever religion it is, it shapes with a tinge of difference for every person – the spine is one, but traits are different. He might be mistaken. It appears he makes mistakes quite frequently. And strongly.

You drum your fingers against the flat plastic of the table.

“Where are you from?”

“Far away from ‘ere.” He sighs, “Much farther away than I’d like.” Alex sorely smiles, with a shake of his head regretting every skeleton that hides in closets of his mind, his Sheffield tattoo throbs with mental ache. The High Green he so hard tried to escape during his earlier years now calls for him in small daily reminders as smells and sounds, bringing the sense of familiarity for a second tricking him into happiness only to remind him of his miserable state with aftertaste.

Your eyes don’t miss the look on his face.

“Seems like Paris after all doesn’t make happy as everyone wants to think,” you joke. Neither does it make you happy. Being attached to the family at an earlier age you ended up in a place that you never supposed to end up in. Coming to terms with whatever it is takes years sometimes, you feel the tightness of the cage around you. The responsibilities, the suffocating city, the need to live with whispering want to disappear, the uncertainty, the sudden obscure tears. If a painless death would open arms for you, you without a second thought hug it back tightly. Every second person lives this way, so you don’t complain.

A hint of a smile appears on his lips, “Circumstances.” Unpleasantly Alex thinks of things, he so attempted to escape this night cowardly. Maybe he doesn’t deserve a way out, at the end of the day.

You hum. Something in him gives out that he is an often guest here in Paris, not an unwelcome one but the one that always wants to leave as soon as possible. You observe the way his fingertip traces the handle of the cap, then the saucer. His eyes looking down in thoughts — he is a person with secrets. Wanting to unwrap him like one of those lollipop candies, mull him in the mouth until he melts away, to your unfortunate, the wrapper seems to be hard to rip.

“You never bring stuff with you? No phone, no anything.”

“Accident.” Alex innocently smiles, “Pure accident.”

The look of innocuous control of situation and answer, the look of knowing-all, all of it calls out to you to spill your coffee all over him to see a reaction that isn’t indifference or prepared face, emotions and politeness. You want to tear into him, ravish, hideously eat and swallow.

You roll your eyes; he raises his brow.

“Strange man.”

“I hear it from time to time.” A sip of coffee. He really does hear it from different mouths occasionally. Every time he explains the simplest common things for him people look at him with wide eyes and, he believes, a hint of nuisance. Alex isn’t a fan of talking about himself, he never knows where the people’s ability to accept ends.

“Are you interested in organ music?” You contemplate his possible answer in your head as you pick up a paper napkin starting to fold it in different ways to entertain yourself.

“I’m into music,” he mumbles following how carefully your fingers move. So delicate.

“Saint Antoine will have an organ music concert the day after tomorrow. I was about to go alone, but if you are interested…” you sheepishly trail off as if leaving him more air for an answer. You never liked to be alone, but got used to it, yet crowds of people still make you feel wrong even just for being in them. Sort of an addiction — to have someone near to function properly.

Alex smiles. The way you call the church by its name indicates as if you are friends with it. Probably more friends with anyone else. Places are much more stable than people, he thinks, probably for the best. The thought of a place that always could be nice for him seems a nice thing to have. Alex doesn’t have one. He would prefer anything but people, and he has a sense that you would do the same. Never would he choose voluntarily to spend all his time with a person beside him. It is sad in a way, but Alex guards his peace, very likely too protectively.

But he gives himself a slip once in a while.

“Sure, why not?”

Alex doesn’t think of the answer just as he wasn’t thinking about the coffee question. He lets you lead him wherever you go.

Exchanging the names both of you let go of each other.

Next day, coming back late, he woke up closer to the midday, only to find out the capricious woman with clear intention to torture him with silence that clearly should conjure guilt on him. Alex couldn’t blame her and yet decided to leave it the way it is. He had thoughts to think and dreams to dream. At some point, crypt silence was a blessing — Alex had enough of trying for something he barely needs. Well, needs, of course, the breakup would whine somewhere in the back of the heart but soon would change with freedom of the choice where to be and what to say. In general, freedom in everything. Not for long anyway, it’s the want to have someone just in case that locks him in unwished connections. His comfort zone is always to suffer in some kind of way.

His body spreads in the hot water, it creates gentle ripples, and the bathtub cradles him like a crib. Alex feels almost mindless, letting the thoughts wander away in different directions. She has a disgustingly intrusive habit of walking in the middle of him showering or taking a bath, as if to appear as the main character of a chic movie and join him, mistaking his annoyance as playfulness. Except, he never really liked it, and confronting became arduous these days. The only moment when he could be not bothered by people around, and the most important, by himself, often goes to waste. Today, he locked the door, knowing she wouldn’t visit him here anyway, but to cut off the space completely between them.

Relieved, he sighs, every piece of the body dissolves, water washes away any worry that could cling to him. The gloomy day meets him in the window. His legs spread in the bathtub, every move urges water to slightly splash. A towel just beside him, to dry hands and pick up a cigarette again or a book. Alex would play that moment on a loop, wouldn’t leave the bathroom at all, knowing what expected him on the other side of the door. He feels complete with a mix of the hot, kind of stinging to pleasure water, grey skies and dim light in the bathroom. The book keeps his head occupied, but rare harmless thoughts sneak in between sentences anyway. Alex is honest now, the book means nothing, a way to pass time not uselessly, but the sense of every word read by him doesn’t hold in mind for too long.

The cigarette smell is probably palpable outside of the room, carried into the apartment. He breathes with it, inhales it, closes his eyes, and enjoys it. He dissolves, melts, close to losing his physical form. Alex grabs his practically weightless cigarette from the ashtray, takes a drag, groans with relief. Not minding everything, the day doesn’t seem too bad. Water slides against his body, in the most intimate way, caresses him with burning gentleness. From the crack of the opened window, he hears bustling French people, blabbering, clicking with their heels and rushing. Cars take most of the sound in his ears, in comparison to quiet night, he could barely accept Paris in the daylight that way. To his own annoyance it bothered him, the silence of yesterday and you, today appears in his mind as a distant dream, not real experience. His wet hand brushed through the dump strands, tugging them. Reality check-out.

The smell of coffee intrudes into his nostrils, he thinks about you, the way you licked away the foam from your plump lips. A delicious sight. Subconsciously his hand reaches for his cock, Alex closes his eyes, the back of his head meets the cold hard surface of the bathtub still holding the cigarette. Curled palm languidly moves up and down, not to bring the release, naturally without the back thought. Without the point. Without the purpose. Just the pleasure and him together. Water laps him, a few droplets escaped to the floor, a gruff hiss escaped his mouth. He mumbles out a quiet curse. The quick ripped memories of his jacket on you, of how your thighs moved under the sundress on the way out of the church are filling him through the veins straight to the brain. Dirty images flicker but don’t raise in him the same longing as the moments when he was observing you. The first thing he will do after coming out of the bathroom is sniff his jacket. Alex wants to feel your perfume.

Tiles are cold against his feet, a towel hangs on his hips. Rooms are lifeless. He searches for the jacket. A mess took over him lately, his desk became a seedling of random papers and rubbish. Alex glanced at this, shook his head. No need for saying “Later”, he won’t do it. He doesn’t want to. What’s the point? Lately, he asks himself that far more often than before, he asks with a glass-is-empty view of that question. None of it has sense or had or will. To find life’s point is the funniest thing he heard from people. That hide and seek game is never going to be won by him or whoever else. Jacket, right. His thoughts scatter irritatingly. Alex feels old. He could pass for seventeen if he just gets a shave and catches some Z’s, but sleep settles in his eyes uncomfortably nowadays. Every night dozing off comes only in hand with complete exhaustion, that feels like slow dying and nausea at the same time. And yet even in that state thoughts cradle in his head violently, every time urging him to get up and write whatever it is down. One time, second time, third time… Until he finally drops fatally head on the pillow not having energy to continue this fight.

He picks up the jacket you wore the previous night. It has the pleasant feeling of not being fully clean already, of being worn but not dirty. His nose presses to the collar of it — a ghost of your perfume, weak but making want for more. Alex buries his face in the fabric, breaths out the smell searching for notes of you. I must look perverted, he thinks. But it is out of his care. Alex likes to be strange and not seen. To be alone. To have something that even the frankest person wouldn’t share with others.

Thankfully, she has plans to meet her friends. Good for her, because Alex is going to meet… who, exactly? An acquaintance, a friend, possibly a mistress? Not a mistress, Jesus, he is too tired, old, for that affair amplua but subconsciously he does exactly that. An affair. He wants you, wants the unexplored, wants to feel a bit of the past, doesn’t he? When he was rocking the life, use you as rejuvenation potion, use you as women, use injections for a young look. Alex wants to enjoy. Simply enjoy. Enjoy as in roots of the purest bare sense of that word.

Walking out of the building, that calluses the eye more than other buildings here Alex takes a stroll again. Saint Antoine waits for him, and he hopes you do too. He feels like that night back then; his feet lead him by themselves as if he doesn’t specifically walk to that mysterious church. Mysterious? Yes, he would say so. You aren't the opposite of that definition too. After all, he knows the way he describes all of it — mysterious, unknown — it’s only his bored-out mind that tries to sell him life as one of the TV advertisements. An idea-fix. An idea-fix that will magically cure and, not so strangely, fix everything that asks for the repair.

Alex forgot how nice it is to walk alone by himself. The anxiety is here, but maybe he just needs practice. He tends to lock away from the information, people, sounds and sunlight. Not facing the world for two days at least brings out the most outrageous fears. Honestly, that’s not what he wanted. There’s a part that rots in him and slowly spreads all over his mind and body. He feels it distinctly. It turns inside of his stomach as a fetus of slow extinction. It’s there but the evening feels nice. Alex’s worst enemy is himself, the mirror’s reflection. Except on this day, he won’t let it get ruined by the darkest of his reflections.

He came first, five minutes earlier. People already started to walk inside of the church — with heavy doors opened it looks more inviting than it was before, but a trace of unattractiveness stays in his heart about that place. Naturally, he wonders if you are going to come or not. Perhaps your plans changed as the night changed the day. Alex would honestly be disappointed. Waste of time and emotions, and emotions is the last thing he would want to waste. Those feel much sacred now, the very bits that have left in him he likes to keep on a leash. Just in case they decide to run away.

To his luck you appear, just the same as yesterday. And foolishly, he feels giddy.

Saint Antoine, filled with people, oddly intimidates him even more, like all these people, young and old, you and he are here to follow sectarian chants. Alex can’t stop himself from looking around as a curious kid, hearing the irritated huffs of others about him doing so. It’s too much of an unusual atmosphere for him. His glance fleets to you - your eyes boring into facade walls blinking very rarely. He feels as if everyone is trance except him. Out of place. Alex tries to concentrate on the deep menacing sound of the organ.

“Half people here truly enjoy music, and half of them try to appear cultural,” you whisper in his ear, awaking every tiny hair on his arms and legs. “When we're gonna leave, you see those posh faces that “figured” these things from head to toes and up and down.”

Your face glimmers with mischief that knowing a secret brings. Alex mildly smiles. Not his cultural depth stopped worrying him about some years ago. That is simply out of his business.

“And who are we then, eh?” He muses what you are going to answer.

“I enjoy the feeling of belonging, that crowd and music, and Saint Antoine, of course, gives me all of this.” You pause, “What about you?”

What about me?

The first words that want to leave his mouth are “I don’t know”. Alex could be ostentatiously romantic and say it’s because of you – it would come out as incredibly idiotic his young self-like and you would probably laugh, which wouldn’t be that bad. The thing is he doesn’t really want you or the woman that isn’t currently here. With an apathy settling at his roots deeply, disliking and annoyed, he searches for a weird kind of solidarity in you.

“Solidarity.”

You smiled but not with full understanding in your eyes.

And after, none of you had said the word. The answer didn’t say a lot to you, and this kept your mind occupied for a good part of the concert. Meanwhile, Alex stayed satisfied with making a successful impression of a “strange man” as you called him, which covered his ego with honey of strange self-esteem.

Alex invited you to the hotel. It came out naturally without a word that could glimmer with hesitation. That is what was expected. He wouldn’t call you a chatterbox, but no witty remark left your mouth during a stroll to the future bond of solaces. The silence felt uncomfortable this time, palpable, and involuntarily Alex started thinking he had done something wrong. The café silence was much more pleasurable. Maybe he is the one who expected this turn? “Maybes” fills his head as frequently as possible, and this one is not an exception. His mind is boiling while outside crisps with a pacifying lack of people and bits of chirping cicadas. He is afraid of letting some thoughtful “hm” or a deep sigh — it was out of his plans to be that bothered, but Alex knows, the attempts of changing the nature he has, always backfires. Even being all this thing is an affair, Alex can’t let it be carelessly simple.

Leaving you sitting on one of the couches in the lobby, Alex went to ask for a free room, really hoping he wouldn’t have to take you to another hotel. That appears to him really awkward even though it doesn’t depend on him. You were looking around, hesitating. That isn’t an everyday thing to hang out with a man that is double your age. Considering that he invited you to the hotel, the thought suggested you being a sidepiece. You keep it to yourself. Yet. Ignorance is bliss, right?  

Thankfully there is a free room. Not because he is eager, but you know how it is.

You follow him down the hallway, holding on the strap of your bag — it brings strange comfort to you.

“I ordered us wine. Hope you drink wine,” he mutters with a reassuring sheepish smile. A common look for him, you noticed. The politest possible, for now you call it “affair”, you could have. Alex stops at the window, his back is slightly bent but still looks amazingly attractive to you, his palms rest on his own sides. He is thoughtful.

“I do…” You sit down on the bed. The blanket is nice against your palm. Velvet.

“Are ya hungry maybe? Didn’t think of…” The last part he mumbles too quietly, under his nose.

“It’s okay. I’m good.” The talk is forced just as your smile.

He looks around as if contemplating is it good enough for you or not. That would be a shame to scare you away. Should he first ask if you want wine? It probably looks too pushy. Alex rubs the back of his neck, heavily sighs. Out of shape. He shouldn’t have gotten into it.

You look at him, watching the features and wrinkles. This man is incredibly pretty, your eyes could tear up, “You are taken, right?” The words jump out of you like a sparrow, completely subconsciously and unplanned.

Breath stuck in his throat. For a second, he can’t take a full inhale at all. The guilt is written on his face. At that moment, you feel to the bones naive. It was obvious from the very beginning.

Alex shortly nods, looking up to the ceiling, “Guess, I am.” Heavy exhale leaves his tightly squeezed throat from the inside by the laces of the cursed commitment he started.

Not meaning to hide anything, Alex just decided not to tell. As if it was an illusion of being free for himself in the first place, a perfect image he could carry right to your feet. He believes you are about to walk away. Then he will drink the whole bottle alone and feel the long-forgotten sensation of liquor and drunk warmness in his body.

“I should have told, shouldn’t I?” Again, this sheepish look. And the thing is he doesn’t try to tug some sort of forgiveness from you.

You slowly nod. Even with the secret being revealed, to your probably rotten morality you don’t want to get up and leave. Which would only mean you have no right for women's solidarity in the future. If the world revolved only around being appropriate, life could be much easier, but with feelings being involved, the only desire to do the right thing is barely enough. The truth he said to you, settles down in your chest like some kind of dusty sediment, but disappear without a blink when Alex as if man that came from old times gently grabs your hand to place a kiss on it and after drops on the bed next to you with an arduous sigh.

“I would prefer to have it a different way, believe me, darlin’.” His calloused, to your eyes, hand, dry but veiny, brushes through his, you think, soft hair. It looks like one of those silk fabrics you could see in the sewing shops. The ones so beautiful to look at and so nice to touch.

“You can leave if ya want. It’s ‘kay,” This stupid smile again, shy like first rays of sunshine. He looks away to his own feet, “but if ya wanna stay, then…”

You lie your head on his shoulder preferring not to answer. Words are out of your competency.

That gesture is enough for him. Now his perfume is much brighter, something sustainable and strong, something that suits him. And the cigarette smell is here. It’s a part of him that sticks to his clothes as it’s stuck in his lungs. You sniff carefully, not wanting to give out yourself, as a wild cat getting used.

He breathes with you synchronously. You feel his mind is empty just like yours. Until the wine is brought into the room. Alex picks up the bottle to fill two crispy glasses. Fingers wrap around the bottle leaving you wishing to be it. You talk, and he does too. None of you touch the touchy topics, because surely neither of you want to discuss it.

The wine was left unfinished.

His palms started lapping your sides shamelessly, like you never imagined he could do due to his humble behavior. It came out nowhere, you were caught off guard honestly. Alex gripped your skin through the thin fabric of that appetizing sundress you wear. Forcing you on the bed, he crawls over you. You coquettishly chuckle, looking away, but he grabs your cheeks. Harshly and undoubtedly, meaning it, a gesture that is hard to describe as a mistake. His eyes lacked the sort of sheep naivety that peeked out of him sometimes. The liquor made him rough, intense and taut like a guitar string. His eyes deep, enveloping and threateningly dark, don’t remind you of him.

“Look at me,” he mutters. Your eyes are filled with doubt, and the room suddenly feels unsafe. The bones under the skin of your face start to moan with ache being clenched by his hand. Your fear makes you grip the blanket until your knuckles white.

Your face is soft, but slightly blurry. Wine always makes his vision blurry. The alcohol has a hold over him that is stronger than a hold over an alcoholic. Alex is afraid of it — the effect it causes, the things he can say, the things he might do. It’s a poison of omnipotence. The one that gave him powers years ago, the one that showed how miserable he is without it. One glass becomes the second, the second becomes the third, until all the liquor starts turning in his stomach, moved by his own disgust to himself. It’s the race he wants to win. The race that gives a prize, which is rare to behold, and hard to acquire. The confidence. The unfair prize, he never won and will never win.

Alex eases his hold; his eyes follow the way a light trace of his grip appears on your cheeks. Red and invoking. Your eyes wide with the feeling of not being in control.

“Open your mouth.” He sees that you are hesitating, scared away by his behavior, “Open mouth, love. I won’t do ya any harm.” His voice softened, and you can’t help but listen. Isn’t it a bit manipulative?

You follow his command when his palm lets you open your plump lips. Alex looks at your wet tongue, the way it faintly moves, the row of your teeth.

“Mhm…” His finger slips into your mouth, purposefully, and rubbing against the texture of your pink tongue, “And the second.” He sounds serious to the point where you are afraid to place the word in. Not like you can anyway. You suck on his fingers, looking at him as if you are programmed to do it. Alex watches without blinking, stares.

When he makes you get on your fours, you finally break the radio silence. The bedding bends under your weight, especially around your hands and knees. The sight of it arouses him just a tad more than the position your body is in.

“Never look at me that way again…” you murmur, hoping to receive a tender response.

Alex signs. The desire splashes out of him as excess water out of rims, “I won’t. Me mistake.” He lifts the skirt of your sundress revealing your underwear, lacy at the edges. That position hides nothing of your sensations. His finger traces the wet folds that hide under the damp fabric yet with an entranced face, losing the reality contact for a second. You involuntarily shudder, “May I assume you secretly liked it?”

 You glance at him with a huff, not being able to quite see him in your compromising position, “Rid me of “trembling legs” kind of jokes.” This little flare of his impertinence did both - scared and turned you on, but you won’t give him the satisfaction to hear it. Being too honest in an affair is too much of a bore.

Alex genuinely laughs, tracing the wetness with his thumb, “Whatever ya say. Girls nowadays don’t like cocky?”

“Cocky might be different.”

“Me cocky isn’t good enough?” He chuckles, not waiting for an answer, his nose tucks into your center making you yelp with surprise. His fingers hook and move away the drenched underwear, letting his tongue make a long strap over the whole you, savoring you on a tip of his tongue, which evokes crazy whimpers out of you. That, you did not expect. Indeed cocky.

Alex unbuckles his belt, quick and easy, while you take the breaths that need to be taken before the main action starts. His own breath is rugged but mild. Patience mixed with adrenaline trembles your body as leaves on the trees during windy weather. His hand goes over the shaft; a hiss slips out of his mouth. Pressing his palm against your spine, he gently pushes you down, “Bend more. On your elbows.” When you do obey, he nods, “Good.”

He sinks into you. First thrust calls out in the room with a slap of the bodies and your muffled moan. Alex moves steadily but with a harsh end to it, that strikes you with a dizzying haze of sensations. Every time he goes in and out you clench velvet with your fingers harder than before. The shame of being that open in front of a man you know only superficially becomes a strange, perverted pleasure. Every piece of you he has at his palm, every part of you devoured by him — from gripping your hips, only spreading them more, to the thrusts that flourish in your lower stomach. His curses arouse you to the peak of release. The politeness that took a backseat let the wild desire take the lead for both of you.

This was something you might call experience. Satisfaction in the barest concept. Literally too. You stayed with him just as he stayed with you. Anxiety looms in you, because it’s hard not to think that he should be in a completely different bed. You wonder what he had said to her, what is between him and her. Devilishly you think about Alex being yours more than anyone’s, when he is on the brink of falling asleep with his head on your chest, that replaces the pillow. His body is warm and heavy; you can see his eyes slowly blinking but stubbornly facing the direction of the window. Probably knowing just like you, that he should have left, for the sake of the simplicity in his life, that could have lacked any problem on the frontline of his personal life. But… Choosing any way, Alex assumes everything would wilt, it’s just the question when.

“Are you thinking?” you mutter.

“When ya ask now, I already don’t.”

You weren’t sure if he was annoyed by your interruption, but something made you not ask any more. And he didn’t ask either which only confirmed his want to have no chitchat right now. You didn’t cut yourself on his sudden change of mood, but neither was it pleasant.

In the morning, only an empty space met you. Strangely there is not a drop of disappointment — you expected it. The note on the bedside table, quick explanation and his phone number. “Call me after tomorrow.” Be that way.

The day “off” was spent sordidly. All day Alex had the feeling of not belonging to anything since doing nothing. He talked with her, only superficially, saw the spying gleam in her eyes. She probably has a few guesses.

Your question about his native places back in the cafe stirred the attentiveness, rubbed the wound. Outside having another stroll in the park, that he considered making a habit, he smelled the freshly cut grass, that was so vivid in his nostrils, Alex as if almost woke up and could clearly see the backyard of the house he grew up in. Worn out walls of his room, the kitchen that always was rich with scents, familiar voices that reassure just with the fact of being here. Memories sting his eyes. Nostalgia is always a bad feeling, he decided. The start fills him with lost warmth of the past but at the end it’s always the chagrin that gobbles him. Alex is the man of the past. Always the man of the past.

Wandering in his head, Alex found himself thinking about Los Angeles. That place was his home as well, he remembers, coming back was always an exultation and relief for him. Then he found a woman he loved. She made Los Angeles sound like The Stone Roses record. Alex remembers the “naked nights”, when it was too sultry even at night and then there’s nothing left but to sleep vulnerable and skin to skin. The swimming pool that always sounded in the air and made him unused to the silence. The salt wind that ruffled his hair, and not being the water enjoyer, the shore soothed him in the best way possible. The tall palm trees that waved in the hippie dances were careless all the time making him just as unbothered. Alex let all of it to elude being charmed by quick fun. Los Angeles was a snap of the fingers, the best song in the album and an Aperol Spritz made with a happy medium of sweetness and sourness.

The next evening, he met you once again. The same hotel. The day escorted him with the lack of any warmth, only with irritating tiny droplets in the air that no one could ever call a proper rain.

Alex had you just as before but different this time. His thrusts were slower, but still as deep. He was much more vocal. His arms were caging you in a hug as a snake, tightly and meaningfully, during making love. Yes, perhaps, you could call it that way. When you met him outside of the hotel, he grumbled a bit about you standing outside in the first place, even though you could wait for him to be surrounded with warmth. For a second during that moment, you felt like a normal woman could feel in a normal couple — cared for. Actually, you simply felt awkward waiting for him inside, paranoia couldn’t let you in without thoughts that some faces might recall that you already have been there. Thoughts of others shouldn’t concern you, but they do, because the thoughts that might appear in their heads are quite obvious. Or maybe you just overthink, hotel employees see such an extravagant number of people every hour after all.

“So…” Alex begins, his gracious yet the most ordinary fingers of the most, hold a cigarette tightly between them, “You live ‘ere with a family, eh?” Tonight, he is in the mood for a talk, and you can’t really refuse him being in the mood for the same. His frame nestled into a bathrobe just like yours as both of you stand on the balcony of the hotel room. Pile is cold under your feet and after finishing a smoke break you will quickly sneak under the blanket and, you hope, he will too. Paris brightened with the night coming. The sky is clear and stars out and about, glimmering and slowly popping in with every minute.

“I do.” You nod.

He hums, “What do you do?” His voice sounds strangely confident. That one confidence that appears in the moment and is absolutely unexplainable. The sudden wave. An electric shock.

“I study art here. Some work here and there but not enough for my own place.” You follow the way his dry lips curl around the cigarette, almost in a slow motion. He is good to watch, nice to observe and delicious to taste. You can’t stop. That’s what it was at the very beginning, right?

“Art…”  His expression is thoughtful. Light teasing rises on his face, giving him the mischief of the youth that had passed him already, “Study how to be one or what?”

You break into a quiet laugh. What an idiotic joke it is.

“Wow. Spectacular. You could be a comedian.” You nudge him and accept a cigarette that he passes to you. You take a deep drag feeling his eyes contemplate every move with mild curiosity and deliberation. Alex breaks in the small smile, that is quite his usual that you, for that short-spent time together, had grown to like. He glanced back to the room, to the bed. The messed blankets of it have the remnants of you and his scents and sweat in the most vicious way.

Not being sentimental, tonight he feels different. He feels right to the tears in your eyes. You look away to contain every salt tear that might drop on your cheeks.

Then both of you settled down in bed. His kisses are sweet and slow when he traces with his lips a path between your breasts . Alex could almost believe this — this affair — being love. As if God created you just for him and his eyes, hands only. Your body is warm, and nothing else about it could make him feel that much. The darkness of the room, the rustle of bed sheets, distant sounds of other visitors. You and he are intimate in a way he never was with any woman or man. This secret intimacy of both people that are in need and ready to seek shelter in strangers.

After the day when he said that silly joke passed one day and you met with him once more, and then after the day once again. A schedule that could never bring oversaturation for both of you to face.

She understood. Alex could tell. Her eyes looked at him differently, not when she’s angry or sad. Now she always looks at him with confusion as if he is completely unfamiliar to her man, and with every time he walks out of the door, less of her Alex will come back to her. Her face shows the fear for the ruined system her and Alex had, the one that was built scrupulously and worked till now. The disappointment hangs in the air of the apartment just as the hopelessness of a woman that can’t leave.

The clearness of Paris was only momentary. The thunderstorm came to the city when you met him again.

When he called you, his voice sounded much gloomier than usual almost the same night when you interrupted his thoughts. The words “We should meet” with a heavy sight wiped away the first happiness of being called. The weather is the one to lock in at home and that’s what you told him. Alex only answered short “At Saint Antoine”. This disarmed you. Alex could be mysterious; you give him that. With one of the excuses, you thought up since starting to see him, you left the cozy apartment cheating on it with the unpredictable thunder outside.

You found him sitting inside of the church on one of the cold wooden benches. The place is without a soul inside. You sit on the bench behind him, and Alex is thankful for that. His shoulders are bent just on the day you decide to talk to him. Vociferous thunder outside shakes the whole church and every brick of it. You have a bad feeling about this.

“Alex,” you mumble to point out your presence.

He gives you an almost unnoticeable nod. His soft brown hair twine into loose curls on the back of his head. You want to lean in and wrap your arm around him from behind and kiss the nape of his neck, to place a tiny teasing peck.

“Why…” You trail off, not being sure yourself why, “why did you decide to meet here?” Rapidly in a second you try to lighten the mood with a chuckle, “I hope we don’t plan to do it here.”

You could feel him smiling but he still didn’t turn to you.

“That would be a nice fantasy to recreate, darlin’, but…” This accent of his sounds painful right now without a reason, like a knife cutting into the skin with a hard push to it. I have a bad feeling about this. This one thought rings in the mind making you focus only on his voice. You were supposed to be untouchable and immune, so why do you worry now in the most bothered way?

“It’s time for me to leave, love.” Alex straightens and faces the big round colorful window, “I’m going back to London.”

Your heart sinks down into the toes and the first thing you say to yourself is that you expected it. I expected it. Way of coping. No, you didn’t expect it. To begin with, you didn’t want to expect it at all.

Alex doesn’t say anything, and with your breath stuck in your throat, you can neither say anything. He brushes his falling on the forehead hair; a heavy sight escapes his mouth meaning his struggle, but that doesn’t help you not to struggle.

“I should have told, shouldn’t I?”

You think about the first night back then in the hotel.

“Yes, you should have.” Your voice sounds cold, that could sound illogical, dramatic, but you didn’t want to lose him now when you just had found him. You really want to believe that you found him, that he must be yours.

It’s about the way he tells it to you. He is going to leave and after he said that to you from his mouth went only silence. You know, today is the last day you see him, or he would already say about the possibility of keeping each other’s phone numbers and calling in the near future.

Alex hoped this would go easier.

“Don’t even tell me about not wanting it to be that way.” You quietly scoff, glancing back to the massive church doors when someone walks inside.

Alex hates apologies that are truly meaningful because these are the hardest ones. His palms have gotten sweaty.

“I’m sorry for beginning this.”

You feel fooled.

You chuckle but there’s nothing happy about it, “Alex, you won’t even face me?”

You sound pleading, but he doesn’t give you a glance. You can’t hear his breath either — he stiffened as a statue. For the first time you see not the alluring secretive stranger that could cure your life but a haggard man that cowardly hides his face after every loving touch he has given you and every gentle smile he offered.

His head is fragile, bent down facing his own palms folded on his lap restlessly. Guilt sips through his veins only more rapidly after this. Alex knows that attaching strings to the person that is out of reach is his and only his mistake. Beginning this was the mistake in the first place, because no matter how he escapes it or tries to sink it somewhere down — he is a coward. Alex can’t leave and he can’t stay. The idea of breaking free makes him tremble with stinging tears of fear deep in the heart yet being his most craving desire. The rare rise of alacrity is short to accept or recognize it — it’s fleeting. You were his rise of alacrity, the change, the emotion. The barren dearth in his head clears in the moment when he hears you getting up and the bench is creaking. The sound of your footsteps becomes a foggy mirage.

You did exactly what you should have done back then on the first night in the hotel.

You left. 

a/n: finally! well, that was unjustifiably long.

okay, first of all, i just didn't really want to write the exact name for she because... we all know. no offense. just didn't want to.

second of all, the book i'm currently reading inspired me this time. there was that moment where the main character went to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. and then boom. an idea appeared in my head.

i hope all of it is readable. yep. who even will read all this after fic thing? i have no clue. 

Baby fusses in the crib, her tiny hands messing the blanket that affectionately was put over her hours earlier. Her small face crunched in discomfort and upset. Quiet wailing calls out for the parents. A night lamp on a dresser dimly lit the nursery, guarding the little girl from the horrors of the darkness. And yet something put her in babyish melancholy.

You toss and turn, but exhaustion forces you, pins to bed, no matter how baby’s sobs call out for your attention and care. Rustle of the sheets beside you, make your bleary with sleep eyes to open — you guess the vague silhouette in the blankets of gloominess is Alex, letting him to handle the situation you peacefully shut eyelids again, disappearing into beauty sleep with his departing steps and weeps somewhere far away behind.

A minute after you sit up as if hit with a thunder — it’s unusually silent. Anxiously silent. You look around, but Alex isn’t here. That stirs your concerns even more. Just one indulgence guilt trips you about not getting up yourself to check on Karen. You trust Alex. Absolutely. Yet it’s better to do everything with your own hands. That’s how you lived all your life — by yourself. Waning through the tiredness that sticks to you like one of these unpleasant thoughts in the back of the mind, you pull on your cardigan. The stinging feeling in the eyes hardly gives you the ability to part your eyelids. You meander in the dark room, trying not to bump into a dresser on your way to find your family.

Peeking into the room, you crack the door open, it creaks and stands near crib Alex, holding a baby, startlingly jumps. His frame turns to you with wide eyes, caught off guard, exhausted and yet with a pinch of annoyance. No one likes to be caught off guard, and he never exactly liked to be seen in his vulnerable gentle state.

“Bloody hell, love,” he murmurs, letting his gaze lovingly come back to the baby, rocking her ever so slightly, initially begging for her not to wake up. You are much better with her — little one rarely dozes off quickly with him. Alex conceives about it without a break, not even noticing that those thoughts take him down like a swamp. The possible reasons pop out in his head constantly becoming his migraines.

He still holds her very carefully as back then in the hospital when you just gave a birth to her, “Karen lost her bunny in the crib. Started cryin’.” Not even a year old, she is already attached to the stuffed creature as much as to parents. Getting older, she probably will get a name for this one bunny. Being very honest, he might have a few name variants for that poor stuffed animal covered in baby saliva and showered in innocent child love.

“Yeah, I heard… Couldn’t force myself to get up. Sorry, babe.” You nestle against his side, cradling the vulnerable head of your daughter. Hints of hair are smooth and soft against your palm, “Thanks for… y’know.” Your eyes close for a second in helplessness, knowing he understands you without words. You lean your head on his shoulder.

“It’s ‘kay.” His eyes stay on the little frame clenching bunny as if it’s the dearest thing in the world, “You’re knackered.”

You are knackered. Karen can be quite a handful. She drops plastic plates spilling all food on the floor, wants to be on the arms all the time and when you or Alex put her down, she throws an immediate tantrum. A loud one. At a very young age she already decided both of you have at her hand. Alex said to you a couple of days ago: “I have no idea how we are gonna survive later when she starts walkin’.” Neither do you.

But now she is silent. Karen’s breath is stable, full baby cheeks are pinkish, looking very squeezable as her whole. She is peaceful in her own dimension, not quite here, body curled in the blanket. Alex held her head, so it didn’t fall — the essential support. You and he look at her, still with curious expressions as if she’s a peculiar little creature. Someone who is from a different planet. A few months after her birth, Karen still didn’t become something “common”. Every day, she has the ability to bring small things that she never misses to surprise with. First smile, first laugh, first “peace” sign with fingers. You are terrified of her growing so fast, and you know he is too. Time slips through your fingers and now a wish of ABBA to freeze the picture to save it from the funny tricks of time feels familiar. It’s selfish, probably.

Never being against having a child, you still find yourself surprised by the amount of boundless love your heart can create. Alex changed too, when the prepared crib finally found a small habitant to it, he became calmer, at least that’s what he shows. You see the ocean anxiousness waves over him from time to time, especially if Karen goes out of control, but you always have his back. Some things that are natural to you, don’t sit right with him. You had a couple of skirmishes about it, and yet united exhaustion never made these arguments too long. After all, neither of you want to pout on different sides of the couch, or moreover in the bed.

A cold crawls on your skin, a sheer of early spring chillily runs over the floor. Looking up you see a cracked window — letting in fresh air in the nursery before putting Karen to sleep, someone of you forgot to close it. The lost sleep steps away, not wishing it, you feel more awake, having a baby ruined your sleep schedule fully and undoubtedly. You wrap your arms around yourself, the thin strap top underneath the cardigan doesn’t hide the sensitive nipples. Alex notices. Details became crucial to ignore these days. He puts a small frame back in the crib delicately — Karen has a sound sleep — gets sure she is wrapped in blankets and her bunny securely clenched in tiny hands.

“Forgot to close it…” He scratches his neck with a yawn, the necklace clinks faintly against his old to-sleep-in t-shirt. His eyes follow your movements as you stride to close the window, too intensely for that late hour – he just wants to catch a glimpse of your chest again. To see it. Alex feels guilty, ashamed. Conscience tells him to leave any impure thoughts. At least keep them for later. At least not in the nursery. The starvation forms in him as a disease, it drives him crazy, urges him to want the closeness he never had to you before — closer than pregnancy. He doesn’t know what it is, how that closeness looks like or what sensations should give, and yet he desires it undeniably and deeply.

You close the window, capturing the family aura away from the other world. A warm island of chaos and love. Street sounds disappear, replaced with a monotony sound of ticking clocks and steady breaths, only flows of a wind still trying to break inside. Turning to him, you see his lost-in-himself gaze, the usual one when he is reluctant to ache in the bones.

“I don’t think she's gonna get a cold,” you reassure him, knowing his tendency for overthinking, but he shakes his head.

“Not that. I…” His eyes look over your body expectantly.

Your body still hasn’t changed to the form it has been in before, swollen and not entirely healed, but he doesn’t mind. Opposite. You shy away from his touch, scarcely but do, but he just wishes to feel you the way you are now, to know what your body became, to find out what he had done to you. It shouldn’t be perfect. Alex imagined his palms sink in your body, in your skin. Caressing it, examining it with new fondness, adoring it with acquired passion. Making love can’t bring the point of proximity he so violently wants, he needs it much tighter, much nearer. To cry with you, squeeze your body in a hug until you whimper in shock of your ribs being crushed.

“Jus’…” Alex sighs heavily, with his full lungs, “I feel like we aren’t the same.” He brushes back his tousled strands, then runs down his stubble with his palm, an anxious demeanor rests beneath the gestures. Gifting a glance to the crib, he mumbles, “Guess we shouldn’t discuss it ‘ere.”

You follow him out of the room, wondering, yet having guesses, what does he mean. The night lamp is left to defend Karen from dark monsters as you quietly close the door. Rooms ring with silence, you can hear his, with a tinge of heaviness, breath, fatigue slip out in between his exhales. You sit on messed up bedsheets, he lands on the bed beside you.

“Al… We can’t be the same now when… Karen is here,” you softly explain, fully knowing it’s tough to change the way they were living — in a windless atmosphere, that subsided away with the child. Playing a fool you now, too nervous to address the elephant in the room you speak only vaguely.

“It’s… I know,” Alex grumbles at your stubborn attempt to not hear him, his palms curl into tight fists. “It’s not that. I feel like I haven’t touched you for an insanely long time. Too long a time for me to bear, being completely honest, love.” His voice is raw and attacking, words come out without any hesitation nor stutter.

Your eyes follow his movements and behavior, brows furrowed, his body is tense and clearly the topic is hot, even burning — he was waiting to finally say things out loud, to speak out. The night, the lateness, the dark bedroom, such an inconvenient moment — you both want to sleep to death, and yet it feels like the right time to finally explain ourselves. In cold shades of the night. Your delicate fingers entwined with his rough, making him look up at you. Alex’s eyes pierce you; his expression is written with disappointment about how much he probably pressures you right now, and hopefulness to feel you.

Alex bumps his forehead against your neck like a baby deer and you can’t hold back a chuckle. You love his little habits — this one might be your favorite. Nuzzling into your neck, breath lashes over your skin with a warm wave, his lips start peppering you with faint careful kisses, letting you pull away anytime. You close your eyes to let him take what he wants, your fingers find his hair, silky strands melt in between them leaving you in desire to never stop touching his hair. The softest hair you have ever touched. Uncoupling hands, his palm eagerly runs down your thigh to the knee, giving it a light squeeze. The fabric of your pajama pants is tepid, but the body underneath is characteristically hot.

The affection he gives you is silent with words but loud in caresses, you don’t have to question it. Alex is needy, he’s not the type to be loud about feelings — the words he said a minute ago probably gathered in him for a long time like rainwater in the bucket, until it started to pour out of the rims. His nose huffs over your collarbone, giving a nip to the skin here as a kitten that just endeavors to learn how to bite. Your hand languidly slips from hair to the neck, and the little hunch on his back — his posture far from the best — you massage it, and he immediately straightens a bit. That makes you smile. Trailing your fingers to the nape of his neck once again, you play with short strands of his hair here, you twirl them around your finger, tug it, holding a tuft of hair in between fingertips. He isn’t greedy about reaction, pleasant shiver runs down the back and arms, a small twitch from bliss skips here and there. The moment could be ephemeral, except it feels like a step that should be taken after a newfound life, after pregnancy and with Karen now. There are still plenty of steps to take for both of you, and you are willing to do it as long as Alex is taking them with you.

His face playfully nuzzles into your cleavage clearly knowing you will start giggling. He grins but doesn’t stop just yet, his nose slides away the clinging fabric of your strap too. You feel the satisfaction of the familiar scratching of his unkept stubble. Alex could blame everything on exhaustion, but age brings indifference to these things.

 “Alex…” you mutter through the quiet laughter.

He leaves one final kiss on your cheek, now looking at you, “Couldn’t help meself.” Just a second touch of his lips on your skin flourishes with the tingling joy inside. Alex’s smile is tired, with remnants of sleep that already feels far away, his expression is warm to the pain in the chest, skin around eyes is creased in wrinkles but makes him more adorable. His voice is rough, just how you like it, and yet still there’s the tenderness glimmers through the intonation. You can’t hold back yourself from a peck on his lips — a quick one, but both of you close eyes to not waste even that little kiss.

“You want to do it now?” you whisper against his dry lips, you could feel the dry parts he usually bites away.

Alex swallows, “Yes.” His head dips back to your cleavage, his finger hooks another strap of your top to lower it down your delicate shoulder.

You let him have his way.

His body lashes over you like a wave, an intense one, you wrap arms round his neck as you lie down on the bed. The vein on his neck thrums with silent excitement keeping it at bay, as if emotions could wake the little one in the next room. Alex caresses you gingerly for the first time, as if you are the first flower that sees the light after the long chilly winter. He palms your waist under the top, it doesn’t feel the same — something is different, and he feels the urge to get used to the new you. He lifts it glancing at you as a scared animal, in case you want to stop. His lips never cease the kisses, he licks his lips to make kisses softer for you. You softly run over and through his hair, closing eyes you let yourself sail away and only soft sighs indicate your presence here.

Alex leaves a loving kiss on the rear, then makes his way to your sternum and kisses it with a special sense. Fatigue crawls into eyelids and he decides to not stretch the moment because you are clearly tired too — to his desire to savor and go slowly he feels a tad of burning disappointment. There’s only a wish to catch up on intimacy in the morning. He lifts the top higher, the breasts are perked up just for him and not because of the cold, his lips wrap around the nipple, his eyes closing and he feels buzzing contentment throughout his body. With teeth he teases it and nips — your fingers tighten in his hair, means he does right. It awakens the tremble in his body, and you never could feel more loved than with him.

His face now finds yours again, leaving a fervent peck on your lips, and then another. Alex grinds his lower body against yours, arching into you with a groan as close as possible, his hardness in a satisfying bulge rubs against your pubic bone. You feel the rushed pulse strikes down to your lower body; the whimpering neediness appears right in your center.

“Bloody…” he mumbles out, with tightly shut eyes. He finally feels the closeness that was lacking between you and him all that time, “Fuck.”

The familiar feeling of your pajama trousers being moved down and thighs being spread, you lift on your elbows to watch him. Alex is between your legs, looking up at you as his fingers part your folds teasingly. His eyes are dark, deep, absorbing the wildness of an animal gradually appearing. Following the reaction and how your face sculpts by pleasure he gives you, his mouth dives forward to partake you.

You lift your hips with a quiet whimper asking for more, your head bends down not being able to hold your neck for longer, “Please...” you beg shamelessly.

Alex’s other hand finds his cock, keeping his head where it should be, he squeezes himself through the fabric, it sends sparkles to his head — he feels dizzy. Lifting his ass, his hand finds a way inside of the sweatpants. Closing his eyes, he touches himself, so openly in front of you, finally not lurking in the shower as previous times. Alex knows it wasn’t right. He should have told you, come to you. That felt dirty back then, treacherously, but when you watch him moving his palm up and down his shaft, relief splashes through his body to the shiver. He adores being watched, he adores your sultry gaze at him while he reaches the bottom in front of you. Focusing on the tip of his cock, his mouth sucks at your clit, then burrows deeper inside as his curled fingers slide down close to the balls. Your noiseless gasps sound like you are about to lose breath, change with soft, almost innocent sighs in the process.

“Fuck…” he curses one more time. Sensations are overwhelming, a long break made both of you sensitive to ridiculousness.

His arms find the way under your body, sprawling on your lower back. Holding, gripping you tightly, that his wrists start to hurt with tension in them, his nose nudges against your pubic bone as his tongue licks stripes through your core. Your toes curling with a deep moan — never it felt so good like now. He grips your thigh, letting you throw it over his shoulder to let his tongue get deeper into you. Alex’s mouth slurps at you as the sweetest nectar alive, as the cat licks at the milk. Your back arches and lifts from the bed. That will be a vivid memory for you just as for him.

“Al…” you mumble out, losing yourself. Everything around fades away. Just the sensations he gives you. You are sure he knows what you mean again — you are about to finish with fireworks.

“Mhm.” Suddenly his finger pumps into you, giving a break to the mouth, as his cheek is leaned against your thigh watching you closing to the edge, “Let it go. Come, love.” His voice is loving, soaked with longing.

Alex doesn’t waste time, stretching you more when he adds the second finger. He curls them inside with a winning smirk.

The sharp gasp sticks to the back of your throat when you are going through the climax. His mouth finds the way between your folds again, enveloping your clit with his lips completely, while you tug his hair to the pain in his scalp. Your legs tremble as Alex’s tongue flicks over you riding out your orgasm. He hums teasingly as if munching the cake.

Alex falls with his head on your stomach, his cock still demands for attention, but he barely can be up anymore. Not tonight, not now. Emotions and sensations take too much energy to bear, he clearly missed out that part. You gasp for breath, railing a hand through his hair, feeling how sweat strips down his forehead.

“Let me help you out too…” you murmur fervently, trying to force yourself to move not minding the pleasing after sex exhaustion.

Alex shakes his head, “In the mornin’, darlin’. Can’t move.” His eyes are already drooping. He is so quick with drifting away to a somnolent condition, usually there is not enough time to snap your fingers as you hear stable sleeping huffs.

You groan, “Alex.” That feels incredibly unfair not to give the passion back.

“Jus’ gimme a sec,” he mumbles with his rough voice that blurs with nearing sleep.

Giving up, you sigh. You untangle his hair, playing with it carelessly waiting a minute for him to reload and be able to function. First time during the intimacy you listen attentively — Karen sleeps. You breathe out, relieved. A small detail caught your attention. Being near Alex always meant enjoying, or not really, the smell of cigarettes on him. The scent gone — almost gone. The thought makes a tiny smile raise on your lips; he became very attentive about his smoking addiction since you became pregnant, and he still is. Never smoke around the baby. It’s a rule.

A quiet snore comes out from Alex. Your eyes go to him with raised brows. He dozed off, sprawled on your warm body using it like a pillow and heater at the same time.

“Al,” you whisper.

No reaction.

“Alex,” you say in the full voice.

“Wha’?” He shuddered at the loudness. What a silly innocent man. You like having him that way, just as only you can have. Tomorrow, he will be grumbling about the coffee machine and complaining about the weather. You call it the oldie pattern – every day the same, but no way you would replace him with someone else. Once, you were told that every person contains something unreplaceable when they leave, you considered it with skepticism but if Alex would leave, you know for sure there is no other human being that could match you better. It hurts.

“Baby let’s move to the pillows,” you say. Both of your bodies lose their hotness, and you have a strong desire to slip under a blanket like a cat looking for a place to hide.

He grunts lifting on his elbows to look at you, hair falls on his eyes barricading the view. Barely he can form a thought nor some answer. Alex obediently climbs on pillows after all. God, he only hopes for at least four hours, it will be enough to survive the day. Maybe a nap after lunch. If Karen will be willing, of course.

“Want to sleep for years. Like a bloody volcano,” he murmurs.

You quietly giggle, snuggling close to him. You want absolutely and entirely the same.

Lying with him in bed always makes special sense, you could feel the weight of his body near and that always brings you peace — he is there with you and safe. His arms encircle you in a loose hug, curtains are drawn letting in just a straw of light. You tuck your face into his neck sneakily breathing in the familiarity of him — his smell is your favorite, much better than vanilla or gasoline.

Alex started to snore again. He fell asleep, and this time you won’t bother him. You listen to his stable breath, look at his features, still mildly tight but soon he will look relaxed and younger. His back faces you. Your fingers feel his spine, every bone, you trace it up and down and hear a relieved sigh. Wrapping arm around him he unconsciously locks his fingers with yours, and then you let yourself sleep too.

a/n: it's not really good, i guess. i really didn't want to write smut, but thought it might have a place in the end. i write a fic that is much more important for me than this one. yeah. have no clue when i will post it but who cares anyway. bye bye.

His fingers tremble but he can’t do the first cut. It’s always the first that he struggles to do. Tears embarrassingly sting on his dry skin, feels like it tightens around the skull — a common feeling. Alex holds a stationary knife, very tight, he hesitates — it’s unnatural for a human being hurt by themselves. The sharp tip is against the soft sensitive skin, scars on him are always very noticeable and the choice to deal with difficulties this way is not the best. It’s not the best anyway, no matter the skin sensitivity, that’s what people say – Alex doesn’t care as long it helps. It’s going to heal anyway. He isn’t a fool — there should be an end to it. They, the cuts, were growing with him, from light ones they became violent ones, merciless. An addiction.

Faint scars hide underneath the plain jumpers or Adidas windbreakers as everything stays unsaid, a pocketful of secrets and regrets. His friends are amusing, they don’t talk about those kinds of things, it’s a shame for a man to be a crybaby like him. But Alex sobs, very quietly lets out only not loud sounds — to free emotions but don’t wake anyone.

The things he said, or didn’t say, the stupid joke of a friend about him, the way no one sees. Never sees. The things he could do better, the things he messed up, the things he can’t do, the things others can do but not him. He wonders what he could’ve done wrong in that life or previous. Sometimes he looks up to the ceiling, whispering and asking “God, why?” There’s no God but Alex wants to reach out for anyone. There’s no one. It’s only him. No one else.

The blade goes into skin, hesitantly but harsh and quick — Alex doesn’t pity himself, that pain is well-deserved. He takes a breath, a shuddering one, wipes the single salt tear on the cheek. His disheveled hair from hours of mourning starts to stick to the forehead, and the blanket pulled around the legs starts feeling hot and annoying, the t-shirt clings to the body and the room narrows on him, the borders of things around him get blurry.

Taking a leap, it dissolves all emotions. Alex feels like an empty package from some toy. The hatred and torture leaked into cut on the wrist not leaving for him anything but blank mind. Voices are silent in his head, cuts euthanize them, they go to the void. There’s no “Want to drink water” or “I’m tired.” The moment is quick, could have no sense or any importance, like a chore, but cuts will remind him of themselves for a few days, giving him the thoughts to think in the middle of the day or after classes on the bus.

His arm is trembling, and blood starts to slowly appear in the place where skin was damaged with his own hands, but it’s not the end. He goes underwater, goes deeper, presses the blade with loathing. Alex cuts again. And again. And again, until the stationery knife doesn’t fall on the bedsheets naturally. He shivers as if being splashed into cold water, but it’s only common aftershocks. Alex wants to cry out from pain, physical and emotional.

Night light falls onto his act, looking almost cinematic. Blood appears on every of the cuts, gradually, but then it will look like water droplets on the spiderweb, until they get dry, and he wipes them — it will look wretched. The morning will start with disgust to himself and exhaustion from waking up again, the haunting disappointment when cuts will rub against the fabric during the day. The shame of not having other ways to have emotional release, the shame for being himself and not someone who is much easier. This time is going to be the last one, he says to himself after every time to end up doing the same.

Alex leans on the wall, breaths, and closes eyes as if to get back on the course. It’s stuffy and late, he feels fatigue crashes over him, the cuts sting and he knows they will until he gets used to it as always. His shaky hand puts the stationery knife back on its place — bedside table drawer, always at hand, but hidden under the book. Just in case.

“Should put on me hoodie…” Alex mumbles to himself to awake after a kind of trance, to understand that life is going to continue, and he should do something about it. Now, put his hoodie on. His voice sounds fervent and raspy as if he was having a high temperature. Carefulness is important – he doesn’t want to know how his friends might react when one of them wakes him up, because he oversleeps as always. More importantly, he doesn’t want any of them to see nor react. Alex doesn’t know how he would react if he saw the cuts on the wrist of a friend. Probably, he would feel guilty for not noticing. The thought of someone going through the same as him made his heart squeeze sufferingly, it doesn’t feel right. They aren’t him to deserve it.

Getting up, he feels weak, but it’s only a lack of sleep, it’s really time to rest. Limbs have a numbing feeling in them, as do have legs. Alex slips into an old hoodie, warmth spreads over body, giving a sense of comfort and safety. He stops to look outside the window – usual way of things. Not really winter but not exactly spring, he only hopes for a warming sun tomorrow and a coffee with sugar. After wintertime makes him feel almost human and reminds him that things weren’t or won’t be that way constantly. It might get better, Alex wants to believe. The night sky is deep, and he wishes to find the star he always searches for between buildings when he looks out of the window at nights — it doesn’t seem to be here — it’s okay.  He heavily sighs.

When a blanket envelops him, for a second, he feels like a child back in careless time. No thoughts, the head is pleasingly quiet but somewhere in the back Alex knows it’s not as good as he thinks it is. People should have emotions and should feel lamentable as it is. He drifts off, and next day he will wake up to the cruel sensation of cuts, need to get up and a necessity he can’t escape to face his own dramatization. Eyelids get shut and eyelashes innocently rest down, they are slightly wet. Curling around himself, his body disappears into desirable dreamless slumber, his previous rugged breath is finally peacefully calm. Sleep well, Alex.

a/n: not a proper fic... more of a personal thing that i wrote at night. decided not to choose a second picture ugh yeah.

His shades cover most of the expression, revealing only tightly pressed lips. Even in the nighttime he hides from someone — now, from you. You are leaning on the doorway, feigning casualness as Alex stands on your porch. Wanting to believe in his unreal toughness, you look, search for anything on his face, at least a tad of emotion that reveals that not-so-tough self. Of course, he is silent, urges you to say the first word. Drizzling rain douses you with an uncomfortable cold — you cross your arms over your chest to gain warmth. Not a nice night to meet guests, but you always keep your door open for him.

“Walk in.” Sounds not really welcoming, but he doesn’t judge. It’s raining and he is at your threshold with a preposition to grab back his Leonard Cohen t-shirt. Songs Of Love and Hate. Hilarious it is and yet you agreed to meet him, and Alex can read between lines. After all, he walks in.

His leather jacket is slightly crumpled, thousands of raindrops adorn it and few of them scroll down making others do the same like dominos. You let him close the door himself — no need to be courteous with him — while walking away to your dresser. You search for his shirt and have an initial talk with yourself. You are sure he left it to come back, which is brazenly already, considering that both of you have “no strings attached” thing, a very common one. You got caught, foolishly but intendedly, Alex knew you would find the shirt and call, and he also knew he wanted to come back and be called. Waiting for him to call, you wanted to check if he’s going to do it first, you gave up and did it yourself — there’s no use trying to be that prideful and foxy as him.

Both of you are just people that end up having bodies against each other from time to time, but the way he tricked you stung — you are not a fan of losing, especially to him. You don’t like to need him, nor like to let him feel that you need him. The thing is if he left it accidentally, you are sure then he would call as soon as possible. He would come as soon as possible. Being “insanely busy” he found time only today, only now. Being a detective that’s how you feel now, but maybe you search for hints where there is no place for them. Instead of having sex once in a while Alex preferred to go the hard way and start to develop the feelings, or something similar to them, because it’s obviously more cinematic for his dreamy drown mind than just fuck. And you let the fire escalate. It might be one of the subconscious things, but even here you aren’t sure.

You huff and his eyes that wander around the familiar to him view of your apartment, now pierce you. You pull out the shirt. No, it didn’t keep you up at night, but theories haunted you, in the sudden moments jumping on you.

His Mr. Nonchalance doesn’t care to take off sunglasses to at least give a glance at you. It’s so fucking irritating, you think. In moments like this you want to slap him, wrap fingers around his neck and squeeze it, making him defend himself. Hurt him that much to regret after, hurt him that badly to cure him yourself after. You extend his shirt to him, it’s clean but crumpled, enough to annoy him. You could do it specifically. Alex grabs it and fastidiously folds it. What a neat idiot, with such not a neat life.

“Cheers.” His voice is thick and faintly raspy, just a tinge of annoyance about you not being careful enough with his t-shirt. He doesn’t rush to leave, and you hate it. You hate it can’t be simple, hate that this starts to acquire concern and interest.

You aren’t the type to get into these messy situationships, you thought, but it appeared to be exactly what you needed. What your troubled mind needs. No questions, no explanations, not too close. Alex gets the eyes you give him, the sighs you let out, the arch of your body. When you feel down, you call him to ask how he has been, he, of course, answers, but already knows why you call. After all, not accepting it, you need him — people ask whys and whats, the natural curiosity, but you never had the innate desire to share. There are times when Alex doesn’t wear these damn aviators and you see, he wants to question you and everything that you both have. You want to think it’s not what he actually wants — this mess. Except he keeps silent. Is it his attempt to keep you interested or does he want to keep it — you and him — together, even at this state? You have no clue. And maybe you’d like to have one.

You feel safe when you are in control, not having feelings for him would make you a step higher, and he thinks the same to himself. Safety in control. Keeping him at arm length knowing that he wants to be closer is satisfying in a sadistic way, yet the melodramatic part of you wants to have him on a different level, on a level of normality and equal love. His breakup last but not least, that’s what changed him. Changed, but you prefer — made him hide in the shades, metaphorically and literally. Alex hides, and the person you see in front of you, one of the shields.

His eyes glued to the shirt in his palms. Now the reason to come specifically for it seems to be even more idiotic. There’s nothing he actually wants from you today, but leaving isn’t what he needs too. It’s hard to be uncertain, it drives him to the wall to be confused. Alex feels like a clown in a cheap circus made by his hands that didn’t come out quite well.

“Not going to leave?” You ask.

“I wouldn’t make all me way jus’ for a shirt,” he bristles with sarcasm, lifting his face to you. You just wish to see these eyes. The mirror of the soul, aren’t they?

You nod, “I’m not in a mood.” Meaning not in the mood for sex, you stare at him trying to look through the impenetrable dark plastic of his shades. A destructive thought urges you to grab them, throw them away and kiss him till he loses breath allowing it to escalate. The room around both of you is eerily still and silent.

He hums and voice slips with unsteadiness, “We can, er, just spend time together. Dunno.” Alex doesn’t quite believe what he is saying, sounds too risky and incredibly foolish. He lets himself get loose, lower the guard but a fleeting thought tells him, you and him might end up having sex anyway or sort of. It might be true — both of you can’t think of something to do with each other except fucking. Just watching movies or just talking feels odd if it wasn’t after the deed. That is not what he wants now, though.

You watch him, trying to understand if he’s serious or it’s another act of his sarcasm.

He lets out a low unhappy chuckle with an aftertaste of disappointment, “Stupid. Got it.” Alex backs away not even really letting himself to start, he sounds wounded and also, you assume, tipsy, “Jus’ thought it would be appropriate.” In his head, fuzzy mind, Alex winces, he sounds lame and to hell disarrayed. That’s where he always ends up, playing a tough guy look and in the sunset of the day he begs for anyone to spend time with him, since he barely can exist on his own. He remembers being a little boy that was scared by monsters in the darkest corner of the room but being a grown man, he is terrified by ringing silence and his own thinking.

Would be appropriate. Strangely you share your body and mind with him, but he shares just a body only and never a mind — you can’t imagine a woman who would sneak into his mind. Neither can you imagine it being you. There are the pieces but not the whole puzzle you have. None of your thoughts seem to make sense, unfortunate assumptions that lead to nothing, rage you and your mundane days, because not liking to share you crave to know his thoughts as he craves to know yours. You would want to be a scientist to his experiment.

You step to him and let your fingers cautiously take off his aviators. His gaze is drunk, lost in a way of hopelessness and raw vulnerability that is useless to lurk. Alex looks at you, stares but you know he wants to look away — your cheeks subconsciously blossom with pink, and heart takes a flip. These eyes seem to melt everyone and, sadly, you are everyone. There’s no trace of sweet careless youth, High Green views and rush of music, only bluish bags under his eyes and a hint of stubble you became familiar with. You noticed he never shaved smoothly with you, that means you are not that important or he tries not to be perfect as in front of these people. Again, you assume too much, but can it be different with him?

He doesn’t fight for sunglasses as you try to ease the killing atmosphere, hook them on your fitting to the curves of your body tank top — he follows the movement automatically coming back to your face.

“You look very tired,” you mumble out without any snicker but with actual care.

Alex lowers his eyes to the grimy noses of his boots, he doesn’t say an intricate satiric phrase which in his style, he only runs his hand over tousled wetted by rain slicked back hair. Every time he gets to touch them, an initiate strike to wash himself hits through his body — they feel disgustingly dirty, even though being clean and nice in the morning. The jacket’s leather squeaks, and it irritates him to tears. Alex wishes he could scream, hit the floor, grip it until nails hurt, cry in such a hysterical way that Matt and others would start to look at him with concerned expressions for once.

A strand of gelled hair falls on his forehead and you stretch your hand to place it back, you barely touch his brow when he stops your hand, sharply — he got too sensitive with you.

“It’s ‘kay.”

“Let me.” You sound too delicate, too gentle, enough to cause some to throw up. You never sounded that way with any man. No one deserved that side of yours but him. No one was at the verge as him for you, no one needed you like him, and you never needed anyone like him.

Alex sighs, fights it, but you have already taken off his shades. It’s useless and you aren’t the worst person to peel off the fake skin with. After all, you and him will mean nothing, just a little later.

The rain keeps knocking on the windows, weather leaves no positive thinking, but it would be hard anyway considering how things are going. Tonight, he looks especially ragged, it wakes the want to care about him — cup his cheeks, caresses them, strokes his back and let him sleep. Maybe force him to stay, say it’s for his own good but actually desiring him to stay.

“Let’s go to sleep, Al. It’s over for now.” You caress his cheek; his skin is velvety but cold, his beautiful brown but empty eyes glued down, and you wish not to be the thing that breaks the dam. Your smaller hand slips into his bigger one, palms are raw and familiar with creases, awakening the memories of his calloused fingers running down your legs once.

All of it he partially began himself, involuntarily, not really knowing. You aren’t there to pity him, but to calm, just help to hang on the thread. Alex gasps but somehow still alive as a caught fish on the hook, that trembles in agony.

Bringing him to the bedroom, Alex is introduced to the place, he doesn’t need to be shown around. It’s always yours or his, but in your bed, he belongs more naturally than to his own. Are those the mattress or the warmth that gives your body he isn’t sure. He carefully puts the Cohen t-shirt on your bed, and you put his aviators on the bedside table — on one that is yours, you plan to fidget with them in the morning, against his will. Without words he starts undressing, always with his back to you, his waist is good for hands to run down the sides, back isn’t broad, and frame is petite. His body is screaming to be touched, but not in a sexual way, to be perceived but in a porcelain manner. Light from the streetlight map at his toned arms, muscles are defined and moderate, taking off his shirt shoulder blades move under the skin almost in a repulsing way as proof that he still tries.

Your fingers ran over the fabric of the shirt; quite a few times you saw him wearing it. Alex has a bunch of these band shirts, you can’t hold back from stealing, wearing, it gives you some initial thrill. Someday both of your paths go separately, he finds a proper relationship, but you are sure it’s not going to be for long. The point is you are ready not to keep him. Might keep one of these band t-shirts though.

“Want me to put it on?” You wriggle the shirt holding it with a print to him so he could see it, waiting for him when he will turn to you. You want to put it on.

Alex turns to you with a slightly raised brow, “What’s wrong with that one attire?” He asks and sounds quite his usual self now as if he wasn’t dog-tired from a whole living experience a while ago, circling with his finger your silhouette in the pajama shorts and tank top.

“Nothing is wrong.” You laugh quietly which lifts his corners of mouth in a light grin stupidly you have the virus laugh. His face doesn’t seem to be strained with trying-to-look-happy effort, and you wish it to be that way, “I was trying to flirt.”

“Flirt, eh?” Alex nods, unbuckling his jeans. Every time he clinks with his belt you get a shiver down your spine. He unzips them, a line of his boxers peeks out, teasingly almost says “tug me”. Sliding his jeans down you can see the form of his cock hiding underneath the tight grey fabric — you feel the down of your stomach squeezing astutely and desperately. You get the effect he has on other women, but for you it’s not just appearance. The memories arouse you — the size, the shape, the attitude and sounds.

“Put it on then.” He grumbles as if not interested, his eyes observe the room demonstratively. His body sinks on bed with the elegance of Renaissance painting but with the fatigue of a usual human, bedsheets rumble under him, goosebumps run over his arms as it touches the fabric.

You don’t play around. The light is dim and barely you don’t feel shyness, slipping out of your faintly loose tank top, not wearing any bra you reveal delicate breasts, your nipples semi hard — you can’t say is it his look that made them like this or cold air in your apartment, but they are this way. Alex is watching, he tries to keep the quickened breath at bay, but his own heart thumps strongly to the pain in the head and all over the body. He follows how your fingers bend to pick up his t-shirt, then how the black fabric slides against your shoulders and your head slips out of the shirt. Your breasts disappear and he almost feels like he is missing it already.

“Alright, the show ‘s over. Get your bum ‘ere.” His arms encircled your hips letting you fall right against him. Right where he wants you. Alex’s voice is somewhere on a verge of enjoyment, with a nonchalant snarl that presumably should cover this exact enjoyment. His face shows faint ease as you search for a comfortable position. You toss and turn, and he mumbles under his nose about you being “a bloody storm” but with not even a bit of irritation. Stretching his hand to turn off the light, he groans flopping on a pillow that feels like it envelopes his head into sweet dreams. The miracle it is, Alex knows — a few minutes and he’s going to sleep like a baby.

Leaning your head on his shoulder, you know he will complain about arm being numb, but you have the constant desire to see his mad face. You expect him to move you away obnoxiously but his hand slides over your hip and fingers making dance moves against your hipbone. You feel sleepiness cradle into your eyelids, and tiredness that wasn’t here now caught up with you enough to doze off as soon as you untangle the blanket that gathered in your and his legs and lay it over both of your bodies. You hide your face into his neck tracing the nose over his pulse point, it pleasingly thrums, and you catch yourself smiling against his soft sensitive skin — you could swear his neck is probably flushed now. You sense the light smell of his cologne that stayed over the day and something that is specifically only his. Alex’s body is warm like a fireplace or a heater, often in the middle of the night you roll away from him, but his arms have a tendency to find you every time, sooner or later. Clingy, but cute.

Your mind is freed from thoughts for the first time since recently . It’s nice not to worry, just be where you are and your head is nicely empty, but the feeling never stays with you for long. You trace his face — he seems conflicted like he has something to say. You don’t want to encourage him, and you don’t need to. It’s one of the moments when he decides to speak up and not bury the words under layers of nonchalance.

Alex mutters, “Thanks for y’know...” His voice is more reserved than usual, sheepish, and his arm shoots clumsily to scratch his neck.

“My door is always open for you,” you say.

And Alex wonders if someone ever did the same for him or will do.

“Right. And mine ‘s open for ya.” He sounds embarrassed to say it out loud, both of you hear it.

“Sleep well, Al.”

And he does. With you he always does.

a\n: i have no idea what it is, none of it makes sense really. i just randomly wrote it and here we are. it is a second attempt to write am al and i have a feeling i might delete this one like previous am al fic.

A camera’s clicking is sudden as a bird flying out of nestle, while you fret with a bra clasp. A rasp chuckle echoes through the room, that’s when you turn to face him. Smug yet still with a tad of doziness in his eyes, a mischievous smile sits pleasingly on his lips. A day just began once again like other ones. You woke up after him and, for others it’s a phone they hold after waking up, saw him holding a camera already.

“What are you doin’?” You raise your brow, knowing for sure he has that face for a reason.

He hums, lowering his eyes to the camera, appearing as if he was extremely busy. His new little hobby. This film camera, around this little thing, his world revolves these days. You couldn’t lie, the concentration he had when he contemplated how the camera works when he just purchased it, was something you enjoyed seeing, but observing him setting up the camera every time, to get a nice picture and not waste a film, is what you really like. Always he has that face of full engrossment and carefulness, the way his hands gently hold camera yet with determination. Alex is like a big painting to watch – many details and every of them is worth noticing.

Alex does like to set all these wheels, that man has no interest in simple things or doing them simple way. One day he tried to explain to you the whole sense of it, but you just watched with slightly wide eyes attempting to soak in at least one word from this photography lecture. You didn’t understand a lot, but listening to him never was a bore. Honestly, it was hard to call it a little hobby. Anything he took on acquired significance and depth. Alex couldn’t do whatever it was, writing or photography, by halves.

“Tryin’ a new film.” Simply, he says.

“You took a picture of me.” Chuckling, you finally clasp the bra on turning to him, expecting an answer.

Alex’s eyes lift, appreciating, full of satisfaction gaze laps at your body, chest specifically, “Maybe I did.” He shrugs; his eyes fall back on the camera restfully. Fidgets with it without stopping, it gives you the warm sensation of adoration in heart. He slyly does pictures of you, and the most irritating part you can’t see the photo immediately, it drives you mad, always worrying about how you look on a picture, but he says every photo you are on – his best photo.

The morning is all shining and delighting. Sun is up gifting all the warmth it has, rays lying peacefully on the rustling sheets. The one specific crosses his chest, a small path of hair on it, giving you the desire to lean on his inviting body and spend all day in bed with him. Sounds enchanting, really. Being lazy, cuddles and kisses… You force yourself to finally start the day, retire to the bathroom, to brush teeth and so on, leaving the door open, as usual, for his possible, desirable, you confess, visit. When he doesn’t come in, you peek out to see what he is doing, mouth full of toothpaste foam and a toothbrush in your hand. Alex shoulders slumped and he looks longingly in his notebook.

You quickly spit the foam in the sink. “Babe, you good?” For the past few months that one expression became painfully familiar, and saddest part, you catch him looking like that in the quietest moments, all alone, leaving you without any word about his condition. He can’t write.

Once you found him out in the same state, he stared in his notebook with despair and hatred, you would say. Hatred for himself, hatred for not be able to do anything. His eyes were skimming through the words, and he wasn’t satisfied at all with what he saw. You called him out and he jolted, closing the book at the speed of the light, after reassuring you that everything was tip-top, but his eyes were saying the opposite. You pushed, probably not the softest way to deal with his silence and not having a choice, he confessed. Since then, you have been aware of his writing block.

It's taking a toll on him. Alex always was better at expressing thoughts on paper and taking away the ability to do it, he feels mute. Talking never was his strong suit, the usual struggle of saying words aloud ended up with a sudden silence in a middle of a sentences, zoned out gazes and phrases like “Y’know, nevermind”. All you could answer with is a reassuring sad smile. He doesn’t like to discuss or acknowledge his flops to other people, and even being with you for so long, the blunt end in his mind when he looks at the page is something he never encountered before and sharing it with you felt like the pure burning shame in his chest. But you found your ways eventually. The moment when he is close to sleep, that close, that can’t refuse and resist, all he tries to withstand, starts flowing from his mouth, at the start reluctantly but at the finish he is frank and open to you as a casket. Almost like a confessional, Alex is a sinner that pours out his soul, and you are a priest that listens silently, not judgingly. In the morning, he always apologizes sheepishly, jokingly saying that lack of light on him really does scary things to him. You never blamed him.

“Al?” He is clearly lost and when you call out for him, he lifts his head with a perturbed and guilty face of a puppy that got into trouble by chewing favorite boots of an owner.

He just shakes his head with a disappointed face, not observing any changes. Alex knows, nothing could appear while he slept, yet it stung. His notebook with a thud falls on the bedside table, he leans with his elbows on his knees.

“Don’t say a word.” Alex doesn’t like to be reassured.

Wiping mouth from leftovers of toothpaste you sit next to him, bed creaks under the weight. Draping your arm around his crashed down posture, he wriggles fishily, trying to escape your hook but you hold him tight.

“No. Hey, look at me.” His eyes firmly piercing the floor at your demanding, “Slow down. We talked about it, yeah?”

He huffs. In his eyes you could read silent and sarcastic: “I bet it helps.”

“Alex.” Like a mother’s scolding sounds out of your mouth.

“Give it a time. I remember.” And he answers like a scolded child, “I jus’…” His hands ran over his face exhaustedly and down already prominent grown out beard, lingering there as if for a second forgetting it’s even there in the first place.

There is rightness to your words, he takes your point, but making himself stop, slow down like you said, something that he sees in dreams. In bad ones. If he stops, what will be left of it? Why did he even start in the first place? Stopping, even for a second, has a sense of end beginning, gradual end but end. Not writing every day meant giving up, stopping trying every day meant losing grip, and these thoughts freak him out.

You nudge him to rest his head on your shoulder, offering peace and soothe. Feeling your kiss placing on his head, he closes eyes, “You aren’t disappointing anyone.”

Alex would like to believe that.

It’s only two days away before the trip to Paris. He was dropping hints, and you couldn’t exactly skip his the newly acquired love for France and all that made by it, from music to cinematography. It was decided to have a small getaway for a couple days, and the weather is supposed to be nice. One big suitcase, enough for both of you, sprawled in the bedroom on a peak of readiness. Mode of an excited puppy automatically on when it’s something about his interests. Once both of you were watching one of these his favorite French new-wave movies, and he couldn’t contain himself from dreaming out loud with you about places he will show you and how else pair of you should spend time, it was months before trip, you bet you saw invisible tail wiggling happily.

Alex can’t keep his mouth shut about things he is very, seriously, very, into. If someone had a chance to see him in the usual state of things, grumbling man that peppers every phrase with a sarcasm, may not be very attractive side of his yet the one he always shows. Let him start a conversation about things he likes - Alex starts talk and talk, and talk, the river of words has no end. Oh, and don’t let them drink a lot or he definitely starts rumbling, be careful. Both of you happened to be on a party and he talked one of his acquaintances to death, you had to whisper him that he should put the brakes on and let the guy breath.

Though, these days, being intoxicated became a sight rare to see, more often one is thoughtful silent state, sometimes when there is solemn stillness and you don’t happen to be near him you wonder if he is alive, even his breathing can’t be bothered to be a sound. It might seem funny, but once in a while you just come from one room to another to check him, and there he is, sits like a mouse engrossed in the sci-fi book and every time looking up, face shows the expression of a scared deer with these coffee eyes of his.

“Better think of how you gonna show me Paris, yeah?” Your finger strokes his grown-out a-bit-too-long waves of hair.

Little smile pulls up on his lips subconsciously, “Aye, of course.”

Wandering through Paris alleyways became a common thing after two days and you felt almost staying and living there, like with any city you have visited. At some point with perpetual enthusiasm of yours you started to tug him behind and Alex had no choice but to follow you. The weather is great, just like you planned. None of you were a fan of crowdy tourists places, so when you showed an aspiration to see the quieter parts of Paris, he couldn’t wish for more.

By noon, frequent cobblestones on the city’s roads did their deed. Your not a smart choice to wear uncomfortable shoes led to moaning and cursing, until both of you finally reached the hotel. The place isn’t exactly posh but nice to stay at. Alex is not a person who would get greedy about comfort, yours or his.

“My feet…” Groaning, you fall on the bed the first second after card lock on the hotel room door clinked happily, “Maybe these heel boots weren’t a good choice for a walk after all.”

Alex grunted with alleviation, falling in a chair near the window, that showed off an expensive view of the city. “Amazin’, right? Heel boots aren’t good for a walk.” Shake of head shows the sarcastic amusement - he told you few times to put something else, but being a Parisian diva is far important than tired feet. His legs apart, trousers stretched on his thighs, and he almost seemed to be taking a breath after a long walk. He wouldn’t call himself slothful, but wanted a moment of silence, away from buzzing streets and motley fast-talking French constantly from every side. Being indoors is something he enjoys every time and everywhere.

You roll your eyes. Crispy, usual for hotel, white bedsheets, crumple under your stretched out body, a recognition finds your face, “Al, eclairs! Snack time!” Immediately getting up you grab a small box of eclairs you both today bought on the way to the hotel. His face winced when he narrowed eyes to check if the price was real, with a detached face Alex pulled out cash and gulped the greediness down for you.

“Uh-huh, eclairs…” Grumbled he, as his palm run over beard as if to check if it’s here and didn’t run away. From time to time, he forgets it’s there.

Alex didn’t mean to grow the hair out, facial hair or hair on the head, whatever, it grows, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He borrows one of you scrunchies sometimes to make a small bun like today. Hair finds way in his face, it irritates him to hell, he brushes them back and they fall again… Bun helps a bit. He just stopped caring, and you didn’t seem against his new look.  You tugged his strands during passionate moments slightly too rough, he memorized it and considered it as endorsement. After couple of years of bustle and naughtiness, alcohol and partying, it feels like a breath of air. Who could think that leaving your hair alone and not slicking them with gel every morning can have such a liberating effect? Besides jokes, Alex feels closer to himself, to you, it feels right, and he has no plans to leave that environment soon. He quietened down, everyone noticed it, but here is “accept it the way it is or leave” mindset formed in his head. Alex got tired, maybe it supposed to be that after a man turns thirty, maybe not, he changed, and now it’s going to be like that.

The current “problem” of his, keeps his mind occupied. Alex wasn’t trying to write all these days – he decided to follow your advice, reluctantly but he didn’t grab his notebook with him. Few months ago, he wondered how nice it would be, you and him in the city of love, but this “situation” tarnished all experience, and these charming streets became dull. He doesn’t like to call it the name it should be called - writer’s block. It gives off the worst sensations in him, like something is wrong with him.

You sit yourself on his lap distractingly, fishing him out of his deep-deep thoughts. His arm immediately finds a familiar place just above waist, on the rear, thumb counts the bulging few bones. An eclair with pastel purple glaze, he remembers you choosing one with a blueberry filling and another one with strawberry, appears just in front of his nose before he can get his bearings.

“Ahh... Open mouth, darling.” You bring pastry closer to his lips urging him to open them.

His grouchy and yet puppy eyes look questioning.

You tsk, “Relax, no one will make a laugh about you eating an object that has a cock-like form, we are alone here.” Snicker you, still keeping an eclair close to his tightly shut lips, “C’mon. Make your woman happy.”

He scoffs, a smirk stretches on his lips, “Very funny,” Alex mutters but opens mouth obediently. His insides of lips are wettened, tongue as if calls for you to capture it. You let him take a bite, his lips, a bit dry and rough, feel your mellow fingertip against them. The sweet taste spreads in the mouth colorfully as teeth sunk into the eclair, blueberry filling melts against the tongue. Alex licks the lips, picks up the crumbs while eyes follow the way you take a bite too, clearly trying to tease him with the way mouth opens and envelops the sweetness, such an old-fashioned but working move. Heart does cartwheels and body pours with boiling warmness through his blood. What he knows for sure is that thirty with something man shouldn’t get easily aroused by such basic trick.

“Minx.” Palms make its way to the full curve of your ass, gripping it as if fresh soaking peach in the summer late morning. Alex couldn’t help himself, tries to keep it together, but watching you all day swaying those hips wakes relevant thoughts – to get a hold of them and squeeze. Your lips make out an immediate grin.

“Want glaze?” You lead to his lips, stained in glaze, fingers.

His eyes travel to your two fingers glued and sugary. Alex has a destructive thought to put them in the mouth, lick slowly and torturously, put you in a mood, fuel until you are the thirsting one. He doesn’t hesitate and licks the glaze from pads of your fingers leaving a feather kiss after cleaning up. He would make a face if it wasn’t you and your hands. Your eyes admire, insidiously and intricately, as fox observe its prey before finally dine.

You hum and brush away strands of hair from his face, that fall on his faintly wrinkled forehead. His obedient side is equal to the vulnerable side, so beautiful and precious for you, you cherish, acknowledge every little moment like this, so rare they are. Previous desire finds love and adoration in the ocean of feelings for him.

“That one was delicious.” You nod for yourself glancing to the coming evening outside the window, sun tug slowly down, throwing last rays on the attractive Paris.

“Savoureux, aye? Costed like a bloody penthouse…” Complains grouchily he. A French word juicily left his mouth with a distinctive edge of Britishness to it, veiny rough hand traces patterns on your bum. He started to memorize some words here and there, Alex sounded gourmet without trying, though he never likes the way he sounds even in English.

You chuckle lightheartedly. “You could refuse me!”

“Didn’t want to.” Alex really didn’t want to. He grumbles because he can. If he can buy any overpriced eclair you pointed with a finger on and that makes you feel on a seven cloud from happiness – he will do it.

Alex insisted on ordering room service and stay indoors, though you made him have the last dinner of a trip on the balcony of a hotel room – fresh air, you and him, and night light of the city. During these days he was distant, much dreamier than he was usually, tried to brainstorm lyrics or on contrary, suffered from emptiness in the head – you have no clue. He was quiet and often disappeared right in the middle of the talk, not physically but mentally. You are sure he thinks of his inability to write, he experiences incompleteness and defectiveness as an impotent, as a human without a vision, as a deaf human. Writing for him is such a common and everyday thing as breathing.

Dinner was delicious, evening was warm, and Alex was silent in an uncomfortable way, thoughtful. Night found both of you, letting finally doze off in the bed. Tomorrow is the last day before coming back. Your fingers brush through tangled strands of his, still wet from the shower earlier. He is soothed by you, and you await the moment to talk to him properly. His eyes start drooping and light from the TV screen stops to be a bother in a background of exhaustion from a few days of constant exploring through the streets of Paris.

“Sleepy?” You place tiny kiss on his temple, “Want to talk?” The certified working scheme is on. Words sound clingy and not exactly discreet you are, but you can’t help yourself.

He mutters something incoherently, before sighing loudly in the half-darkness, “I noticed, y’know.”

“What?”

The corners of his mouth are raising just a bit, and eyelids reveal tired but familiarly gentle hazel eyes. “I get emotional with darkness comin’, don’t I?” Alex gruffly lets out small quiet laugh, his hand in habit gesture already runs down his messy beard, “You use it.”

“I’m just a worried woman.” Infected by his grin, your own one flourishes too, “Don’t make me a villain.”

“Nah, I don’t, jus’… Err… I dunno.” His secluded laugh fills the cozy room, and you share a giggle with him, cradling his head close to your chest. Alex wraps himself around you like a koala, arm around your waist and leg tangles in yours. He told you once it’s the most embarrassing pose he could be in, too exposed, shows his need for closeness, yet the warmest and most favorite one.

“In my defense, I think you are fully aware of what you are doing.”

He hums, his thumb makes long slow strokes on a small glimpse of skin between your pajama trousers and tank top. “Guess, I do.” Alex looks up at you with a traditional deer gaze of his.

Yes, he is aware. Those might be slips off, he always told himself to get a grip but couldn’t. Alex thirsts to speak out loud and is forced to stay muted. He feels inaudible. The point he tries to lead people to, gets lost in the ocean of other things. Alex knows no one will get him properly, entirely, some things die with you only. It’s a common thing but doesn’t make life easier. You didn’t understand him, not fully, didn’t understand the whole sense he tries to make, but he does cherish your willingness to hear. You listen when no one else does, you offer when no one else offers, you love when no one else does.

Sounds of breath and distant television talking are the only sounds in a settled silence in the room. That silence differs from the earlier one, not so strained and uncomfortable. You could hear some voices in the hotel corridor and occasionally passing cars outside, comprehending the buzz around you. The way the world is constantly restless while you and him lie there in cocoon of affection brings a tad of strange reassurance to the exact moment.

“Actually… You didn’t grab your notebook with you,” mumble you, raiding your fingers through his hair, untangling clamps on the way making him wince his face.

“You said to give it a time.”

“And you listened to me?” You scoff as your brows lift by themselves.

Alex hums. “You should be the right one in a while.”

You bark out a sonorous laugh, not holding yourself back from a strong kiss on his forehead. He squeezes his eyelids together, letting the smirk stretch on his lips. Your arms cuddle him close-close to you, to transfer him the energy, a heat of love and quiet admiration just for existing and being here.

Small pause before he says, “That space, between, uh… my notebook. It helped.” He mutters, before opening mouth once again, “But I want back now.” Alex gulps, not sure what you are going to say, “I want back home, love. I feel… I’m ready.”

Lifting on your elbow you look at him properly, and see the face, faint dark bags under his eyes  and lines of exhaustion on it. And yet, his face has certainty and calmness. You missed it. Missed the days when he was sure of himself, with what he was doing. It always strikes you, seeing his smile in the best state of mind and not fake one, that he makes to assure you. Now you could notice the first steps being made and the first changes to the confident tranquility in his mind processes.

Alex looks back at you, awaiting the answer.

“Okay, babe. Home it is.” You lean in to kiss his lips, capturing them, you feel the immediate eager answer from him. Alex needs that one, calming words are never enough, but a kiss somehow anchors words, that makes him find trust in himself. His hand brushes through your hair, while your hand softly feels his chest.

Back at home, things started to make progress. Alex is engrossed in making new album – he has some curious idea of a hotel on the moon. Seeing the process and the result after really captures you, if life could stop for a second, you’d have your eyes only on him and the way he writes or tries some bits on acoustic guitar. Something you can’t quite place about him with acoustic guitar… Such a romantic emotional image – you are being in your fantasies, probably nothing special, and yet nothing distracts you more than him. The power he has over you is stronger than shame or any other feeling.

Alex all day absorbed in music in the room that is discreetly “his” place. Without joking, you start to miss him. Hearing melodies pouring behind the closed door, only make you curious and frustrated, but he asked for privacy – not to lose the train of thought. Well, the fact that you understand it completely doesn’t make it easier. He wakes up in the morning already full of thoughts, then you both eat breakfast and that’s it. You bring him food for lunch and dinner, and you share a small talk with him, but his eyes are always somewhere else, blurry and dark, not really here with you.

This evening is no different, Paris already feels so far away when you get involved in work and chores. Stirring vegetables, the kitchen fills with mouth-salivating aroma, you feel your own stomach rumbling. Your favorite TV show plays in your earphones keeping you in unawareness of things going around. Until you feel the rough unashamed grips of your ass that makes you scream out and quickly pull out your sound blocking little things. His treacherous laugh and beard tickle the back of your neck, as arms, octopus-like, wrap around your waist.

“Couldn’t help meself…” Alex kisses a slope of your neck, the sensation of your warm skin feels against his lips pleasingly, “The smell was too nice… And ‘ere I am… walkin’ on the kitchen, seeing ya... Couldn’t not grab.” His accent just a bit rougher on edge, probably from staying silent too long – you didn’t hear him singing for past two hours, only the guitar from time to time.

“You scared me to death.” Cut you out.

Alex hums and plants more kisses on the neck, right after another one. A few fast playful pecks and then a few slow delicate kisses. Fingers drum against your hipbone actively – he is in a good mood.

“What’s for dinner?” His hand lovingly pats your stomach, as his chin nestles on your shoulder peeking into the pan.

“I’m stirring vegetables. Gonna add chicken, and sauce,” you clarified, feeling almost like a professional chef.

“Me favorite.”

“You say it to my every dish.” You scoff and grin, giving him a glance, before coming back to the cutting chicken file.

“‘Cause yer every dish is me favorite.” And it’s a wholehearted truth. Alex can cook great in theory, but through practice it’s easier for him to go to the nearest cafe or restaurant than cooking himself. But when you appeared in his life, homemade food became his most liked food.

“Toady.”

“Right.” He leaves the last kiss, lowering a light slap on your bum before enigmatically walking away.

You glance at him, and magically he isn’t here. You throw sliced chicken file into the pan. It was nice to get a glimpse of his attention even for half a minute and just had a routine talk. The thoughts of him leaving to the France again soon, La Frette Studio, he said, made you anxious and lonely beforehand. You are the person who feels good by being alone, you craved alone moments from time to time, and yet unexplainable feeling eats you from inside. Alex said he will call you, but the lack of physical contact will wound you badly anyway.

A loud click of the camera spreads all of a sudden, before you could turn to him, a picture of you already taken. Your smile rises on its own, you can’t help it. The attention and the desire to capture you in a photo, stirs in you a different kind of love for him. It pleases your ego, but he isn’t just a photographer, he is your Alex, and it makes photos dearer.

“Again?” You chuckle unamused.

“The las’ picture it was.” Alex slips behind you again giving you a bear hug holding the camera, “I’ll go and develop film tomorrow, so ya could have photos before my leave.”

Corners of your smile involuntarily rise slightly more, yet eyes sting as you hold back childish tears. “I’d prefer to look at your photos, than mine.”

“It’s the film I used in Paris. There must be couple photos of me you sneakily took.” His thumb caresses reassuringly the curve of waist, as if feeling the uneasiness in you.

You hum. “Well, I could easily mess them up.”

You remember. He left to the bathroom, and you got bored and curious, the camera was neatly placed in a case on a bedside table. His one was too clean, and yours had candy wrappers and jewelry all over it. Alex never told you not to grab his camera, and at that moment you saw a green light. Pulling it out carefully, so carefully, that fingers started to tremble, you looked at it wondering how he is dealing with remembering all these little settings. You heard shower stop and, in a minute, with hot steam flowing from open door as he walked out too. Towel lingered on the swaying hips, wrapped not quite tightly. His body glistened with cleanness, hair was wet, some strands fell on the face. Veins entwined his arms and muscles relaxed, and he seemed unbothered as never. That’s when you caught him in the lens.

“We will see.” Pecking your ear sweetly, another soft smack feels on your ass, “Finish dinner, love.”

Night lowered on the city. The bedroom has a strange aura of cold, and Alex is stuck in the bathroom. He leaves in a few days, that thought doesn’t let you go. Remembering earlier tears in the kitchen that you successfully held back, you feel like a fool. It’s not the first time and yet there is no explanation for your behavior. Your usual anxious-without-a-reason self. Just when he comes out of the bathroom, you open your arms, waiting for him, needily than usual. Darkness might make not only him vulnerable. He grins at the sight and slips into your arms with a warm chuckle, Alex is half over you and half on the sheets, so he doesn’t crash you.

“Feelin’ clingy?” His finger caresses your jaw. You do not feel yourself, it’s in the air. Pressed in his neck, you seek comfort and warmth.

You nod.

“I’m gonna come back soon, you won’t notice.”

You huff.

“Don’t be that way.” Alex laughs quietly, velvetly.

You groan.

“Nah. Stop, love,” He shakes his head, his arm goes under you, to get wrapped around you entirely, then sneaks under t-shirt, “Come here.”

Alex looks at your face closely, counts moles. Moonlight is somewhere far away, just a streak found its way in the room through curtains. He doesn’t look like it, his face often doesn’t show the exact feelings he actually has, but he is going to yearn for your presence as you going to yearn for his.

“I could visit you there…” Almost whisper you, as if not sure with idea. You can imagine how sweet a reunion would be after a long time of no seeing. Your eyes travel over his face too, still young and yet with hints of future wrinkles, hair frames his handsome physiognomy.

“Don’t mind.”  His thumbs on your lower lip. Your lips are softer in comparison to his - smooth and at the same time taut.

His eyes meet yours and both of you can’t notice how magnetic becomes the sight of each other’s lips – his slightly opened and your tightly shut. Your eyes are closing, expecting the long-awaited moment of intimacy to happen. You weren’t mistaken. As soon as your eyelashes go down, he gets closer, a usual silly frowned and overconcentrated look appears on his face and he kisses you.

That’s not one of those fleeting kisses that you make in between anything. That’s a kiss is specific. Meaningful. Straightforward. Locking his lips with yours, he gets into a tornado of emotions instantly. Hands roam over every part of your body, not leaving any left-out pieces. Fingers crawled underneath a t-shirt and pajama trousers. Shorts nails attempt to grip skin, leave marks, but he just trimmed it and he’s ready to growl in disappointment of not feeling moment to the fullest.

Backing away from your lips with a wet pop, Alex looks at you, contemplates reaction, silently asks permission to go further. To go to the end.

You don’t answer anything, but you don’t have to. The eyes you have speak instead of you, and the only thing they say is yes.

Only a second, but Alex’s lips already trail down neck, kissing and nipping. Teeth graze your skin with adoration and passionate love. His hand found the hem of a t-shirt, he lifted it, listening to your rushing pulse and rapid breathing.

“You waited that, aye?” he mumbles, buring his nose in between your breasts, making a way down feathering tiny kisses to your sternum, before getting his attention back to the main dish.

Your breath stuck in the dry throat and palms start to sweat. Hands silently sneaking into his long strands aching for anchor. All of this – his constant writing, the soon farewell – stored up in your head, heart and soul. It awakened in you the innocence of pure craving for the most tender love he could give you. Words swallow down themselves, answer stubbornly can’t leave your mouth.

His hand covers your mouth as if saying “No need to answer.”

“I would never leave ya without goodbye sex, would I?” The voice is raspy, aroused and with a tad of impatience.

Your eyes get dark, and pupils become huge. Alex puts away the hand from your mouth, he has no intention of playing rough tonight. His mouth finds your breast, nipple already slightly hard, your sensitivity high to the sky. Tongue flicks almost agonizingly over your nipple, at the beginning fast to make you react. You arch not leaving him without the delightful first reaction. Teeth tug the nipple carefully as some kind of small creature, then reassure with the tongue, hand cups the other breast teasing another nipple in between fingertips.

Your skin gets hot and your mind pulses with sensations. Eyes get blurry and you close them giving into every little thrill he makes you experience. Your fingers tightly grip the hair on the back of his neck, they are damp here. His own body seems to burn yours.

Alex keeps on loving your chest, he kisses another nipple. There’s a mole near it, it drives him up to the wall, it’s so elegant and accurate. It’s that exact feeling when a person looks at something and can’t explain why they are drawn to it so much. He feels his sweatpants get tighter to the point where fabric feels hurt against his thrumming desire. Alex breaths out, to ease the feeling down here, he’s not the loudest during sex, tries to keep the composure.

“Love, I’m bloody on edge there…” Words are punctuated out, he craves his part of the satisfaction.

You couldn’t not agree, “Yes…” Gulping you add, “Take that off…” You grip shirt on his back, desperately. Every word forced out of your throat, as loud breathing tangles in between them.

His own breath is fast enough to create a cacophony with your breathing. Alex pulls the shirt over his head. At the mercy of your every whim, today no one will keep clothes on. Sometimes both of you could keep clothes on, but tonight not the night. None of you have control over that night, each of you act on instincts, passion and deep affection. Skin to skin is a need, not a want.

Your every piece of clothes is discarded all over the bedroom with his, you couldn’t care less. He is on top of you naked, and faint light from the window emphasizes the muscles of his arms and line of pelvis that leaks into hard cock. Never he looked so handsome to you before.

Alex whispers silky words into your ear, mixing them with urgent but tender pecks of your earlobe. Propping your legs, he lets you wrap them around his hips. Your hand roughly tugs his already tousled hair. He slips into you. Alex lets out quiet grunt, his eyes roll in satisfaction before closing them. His hips carve into yours, urging your other hand to grip his arm, lapping at his tense muscle. You break into the quiet breathless moans, arching into his frame shamelessly.

“Baby…” You whimper into his ear.

“Alright ‘here?” Alex glances at you for a moment, checking if the whimper was a good whimper. His palm lovingly brushes over your cheek.

“Yes… Just don’t stop…” You gulp overwhelmingly. “Never stop.”

Alex growls into your shoulder, leaving few bites to contain his stream of desire. You are pinned under him like a flower pressed in a book. His breath lashes over your collarbone, his cock slides in and out perfectly. Both of your heated bodies close to melting against each other as if made of wax. His lips fervently trace the path of kisses from shoulder once again down to breast.

Sheets tangle into your and his legs and you can hear him cursing them under his nose. The bedroom filled with rustles, groans and slaps of the skin. His length pushes into you tenderly, yet with confident deep thrusts, feeling you thoroughly and letting you feel him thoroughly. Your legs tremble, nails leave reddish imprints on him. You are getting close.

When your walls squeeze around his shaft, he lets out desperate “Fuck” into your ear, before adding, “Love, I’ll come inside.”

“Inside?” You lift your head slightly, your eyebrows raising. Breath gets faster, rushing and outrunning your words. The world around you seems pulsing, his words awaking lust that gathers in your lower stomach. The only thought is strangely alluring.

“Inside. Please.” Alex doesn’t stop his movements. They became peaking, piercing. Rhythm lost any composure. His begging is almost pitiful, he wishes to be close to that extent of joining his body with yours, of ruining his body with yours, “Let us be close…” Mutters he, words fade out, ending with vulnerability.

You groan, your head falls back on the pillow, hair is sprawled all over it, “Do it, Al.” You can barely keep your eyes open.

He mutters something to himself, already spent much as you, close to the finish line. You clench him once again, involuntarily – can’t help yourself. Your legs push him deep inside as possible. The last few trusts from rapid ones start to slow down as he spills into you riding out his own orgasm. You let out one last gasp and everything goes silent for a second, it rings in the ears.

You and him, try to catch for a breath, his arms fail him and his body tumbles on you, “Oi, sorry, darlin’.” Alex mumbles out of breath and completely spent.

You groan feeling sticky and hot, “Alex, get up…” You stretch “up” lazily.

He lets out a low chuckle and rolls off you, taking full breath spreading his figure on the side. Your body slightly trembles with aftershocks, sheets are messily lying on the bed. Feeling your body gets colder, you crawl to his side, placing your head on his warm chest.

“Satisfied?” His eyes closing on the verge of sleep.

You hum sleepily, searching for the sheets to cuddle up in them.

The sound of a coffee machine and rain wakes you up. A place near you is cold and you are wrapped in bedsheets alone. Your eyes stir slowly, and your vision is blurry as you just open them. Not having Alex near makes your naked body feel a shiver of cold, and not having shower yesterday’s night makes you feel itchy. You look around the room, the clothes you threw away carelessly during passionate lovemaking were neatly folded on your bedside table. The sight makes your smile rise. You don’t want to ruin the stack and yet put something on to cover yourself. Wandering to the kitchen you surprisingly find him there and not in “his” place. Alex is leaning on the table sipping coffee and spatially staring ahead of himself.

“Morning, hon.” Sleep made your mumble raspy. You lean on the table too, glancing at him when he doesn’t turn his head to you. Spaced out again.

“Mornin’,” he says seconds after in an almost alien-like voice. That man is lost, “Woke up earlier. Carried the film to the photo lab.” Oh! Lost but not completely.

You nod, “Okay.” It’s always exciting to wait for the scans of photos. And you know they are going to be great, Alex took them, after all.

“I’m gonna miss ya.” Alex finally turns his gaze at you. It sounds like a confession; he isn’t the one who is simple about feelings. It’s hard to say them out loud, you can’t blame him. Your heart foolishly leaps, every time he says something like that out of the blue. Hearing it always makes you flustered yet happy.

You look at him, just look at him, almost expectantly but then sigh and lie your head on his shoulder, “I’m gonna miss you too, Al.”

a/n: i have no clue what to say, i got drunk while i was editing and rereading, closer to the end it's bad probably, sorry.