To Miles 14

“Are you worried about getting sent off by any chance?” Miles asks and I feel burnt by ice, I don’t know which one is worse, but this one sure is. Was he even in bed with me, I thought he went back, but I try to escape all the last shards of the previous dream, anxiety rocking me and frankly, it’s not even singing a lullaby, as I look at the Chief Petty Officer. I wish I could see him more clearly but frankly, it’s nearly pitch black so I just put my hand on his cheek and I hear him smirk as I stroke his lips with my thumb as he kisses them back and I can only imagine the grin on his face, even if he still holds the subject pretty much open.

“I guess.” I shrug, not knowing what to say, because I know that I won’t be, he will. I wonder if he’ll take out a pack of cigarettes, frankly, we all smoke too much and I wonder how looking back at photos of us on the ship, how will it look, will it look the same or will we have a cigarette always dangling from our lips in a few years,

in a few years

war should be over.

I wonder how would that be, how far would Hitler stretch out what else would be taken and the news on Poland where shocking. I mean, we’ve got an insane... fellow, but one thing is yelling about it or hinting, another thing is actually doing it. 

Everything seems surreal and my own concerns about jail seem at the same time bigger, because I doubt he’ll reach the US and at the same time, war is that shiver which you don’t know how to stop and how exactly should you warm yourself, because the storm is coming and no one told you the report and if they did, they didn’t say how bad it would be. 

I don’t know for who should I fear.

I don’t know if I should fear for those who wouldn’t fear for me, but then it’s ironic because I still am in the artillery, I’m here to defend even if I don’t agree with it and I guess we’re all here with the thought of acceptance that we might die in some obscure battle, that we’ll sink and we’ll have Hince down with us as well, that it might happen in the blink of an eye, but even if nothing dramatic has happened, the thoughts of dying still come to you as often as they would onshore, which isn’t too often or sometimes you’ve got the days where you close your eyes and wonder how does death actually taste like, how foul would the numb mouth be?

“I think it should cool down and frankly...” Miles gives out a chuckle and he leans to whisper in my ear, which causes me to shiver and it still amuses how much gossip we’ve got on the ship, actually we always have it on a bunch of ships, because frankly by the first few months you get bored and sometimes you even try to see who the fuck is sleeping with who or who has a wife or a girlfriend and even if it’s pretty hush you still know, it’s impossible to go around and never know who is gay and I’m guessing it’s not even that the straight are straight (if it’s on a boat it’s not gay should be the slogan once you apply) it’s more that you don’t tell on your mates, that’s why me and Matt had been shocked after Paul and Daniel were departed. “... all of this coming from Hince, makes it more funny.”

I feel myself freeze.

Hince.

He put his book down for Miles. Of course Miles is older than me and seems to be a bit more confident when it comes to having relationships and I think I hold my silence for too long to have Miles laugh a bit against my ear before he kisses it.

“It was just once.” I feel him get a bit more tense. “It was when I just got on the ship. It was just once but with all this acting about Cookie... well, it’s absurd for a “straight” man he sure knew what the fuck he should be doing. And something tells me his number two Brian doesn’t just stir the wheel, if you know what I mean, but they’ve been distant recently.” 

I still feel myself shiver and what seemed to be an act of kindness, even just shoving me on the chair to avoid me fainted seems to have gained a new light. A more peculiar light which involved men being attracted to other men. Or this case Hince to other men.

I still keep my silence.

He can know.

If he’s gay or simply attracted to men to some extent, he might know.

I start shuffling, wanting to turn around and curl into a ball, but I can’t give Miles suspicions, so I just lay still, as Miles kisses my cheek. 

“Don’t worry, love, he shouldn’t go off sending us. It’s stupid. Of course everything is stupid...” Miles himself starts making pauses, choosing the right words as he finds my hand and laces his fingers with my own. I lean and kiss his neck, feeling the soft warm skin against my lips as I hold my lips there, feeling myself trying to find some peace and I happen to, but my thoughts are still in turmoil and fear. “But I don’t think he’d send off those who he had fucked, at least I think so.”

I just nod and I feel us tense, it feels like our relationship is always at sea (ironic) and it keeps going through waves of anxiety and even if it’s the second day, people fall in love over the weekend, days can change lives, hours can change lives, you simply don’t know what the fuck will happen next, who will faint or who will Germany decide to invade afterwards and if Poland will hold up. 

“I really don’t think so, Al or maybe I hope so. But then if you’re scared you wouldn’t even exit the house and the tension would get so nagging that you’d just shoot yourself, but you don’t even if it’s tempting, you know?” I blink at the sudden change of the subject and I face him even if I can barely see him and he gives a dark chuckle. “I know, you’ve had a lover sent off, I haven’t, so far the law has been dancing nearby but never doing a direct hit, who knows maybe it’s just a matter of time, I don’t know.”

I just keep my silence, wondering about Miles, but then he’s right, we’ve all went through the phase where the wonder of the day is why are you actually alive, why am I gay? What’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with me wanting to kiss other men and why should I be attracted to someone who isn’t appealing at all, someone who I never want to press my lips again and once I had asked my dad how come I should be into a girl who I don’t really like and he just told me that it’s just that’s the way it is, love doesn’t exist and sex is to please yourself and that it will feel damn good.

I still don’t get it.

I glance at Miles.

It’s something which you can’t find in books, not just Miles who happens to be gay in every way like I am, well of course if you try hard enough you will, but it’s still taboo and the words are locked by fear of spreading us or encouraging us, I guess in ideal we’d just all be chucked away or never to be born, never to even become a fetus. 

We’ve all had our moments, because we are never supposed to have existed, some insane thing which we’ve caught somewhere along the way even if we’ve never been molested, that we might’ve just forgotten it or we were so young, but you should have your arms wrapped around someone the opposite sex. 

It made it more awkward when everyone was losing their virginity and there was me, I didn’t even want to see how a naked woman looked like, I had enough to think of during showers with other boys, it was what drove me over the edge, what I had wanted to touch, what seemed right and when I’m not in a gay bar, I feel bizarre seeing all the men try to be something they are not and there’s me craving for a milkshake or a cocktail and I can never keep up the conversations, I can never discuss who I find hot, which movie do I like without mentioning men, novels which I had enjoyed due to male characters, everything in the end leads to sexuality and how I can’t find women appealing and it still troubles me how some men even if they don’t still go for it because they like it.

Why would you go for someone you don’t like?

I gulp.

“How many lovers have you had?” And I don’t know asking about which word stings more and I just look around, not feeling at ease.

“So, we’re talking about previous lovers then?” Miles smirks and I wonder what time is it that the bunks seem quiet, no even breathing, just us and it feels comforting and just like any point when you’re alone you wonder if you should just fuck due to the opportunity but then one thing is laying in bed, talking while another is straight fucking and getting caught with hands on another man, the greatest sin of all in the eyes of someone who inflicted their views and phobia onto others. 

“I guess.” I shrug and Miles just exhales.

“Actually, you know two of mine. Funny calling Hince a lover.” He puts an emphasis on the word lover, which reminds me that the captain has his own secrets which are tucked away. 

“You want me to talk of my own?” 

“I guess. One for one.”

“I am younger than you, you do realize that.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you being younger, could be you being bolder and sticking your own hand down another guy’s pants earlier.”

“Not really.”

“Well.”

“My first crush was on Matt, I guess, like looking at it, I guess he was my first love.” I sigh and I feel myself tense up, recalling him and how we had grown up and how I had always felt attracted to him and after I had made a few attempts, just that the kiss had been the most explicit one, I seemed to be content with what I had thought was a platonic relationship, we still hung around, Matt had happily shrugged it off, but the fact that we had made out is still a fact which is glued to my mine and I wish I could’ve pushed further, it didn’t even matter what he felt like, if he fucked me or if I could’ve just blown him, I really didn’t care, I just wanted to touch him and make him feel good, just like anyone else who he had. 

“Who’s Matt?” Miles asks because I think of everyone who we have discussed Matt holds the only fondness and I feel embarrassed even talking about these feelings to myself, let alone someone else, who I have stronger and more passionate feelings for with no connections with childhood’s threaded hands. It’s different with Miles, it burns and I want him and I want to know more of him, it’s a desperate need to find out everything and once I do just get the rest of what will be left and go on, it’s

weird,

with Matt I know what I have, with Miles I just know.

“My childhood friend.” Bitter jealous silence fills the air. “But he’s straight. Well, we made out once-”

“You made out and you’re telling me he’s straight?” Miles smirks darkly and I stroke his hand with my thumb, feeling guilty for the past I hold and shards of Matt’s love.

“I guess. I mean, we never did anything and I’ve known him for nearly twenty years.”

“Ok, I get it, he’s insane then and straight.” He exhales, but I still feel him tense and he goes on top of me to kiss me and hold me, for a brief moment he does it to make sure I’m his before he forgets as I slide my hands under his shirt, lightly, enough to hide if anyone walks in. It feels bizarre with my hands on Miles’ skin as I have a stream of memories as I recall Matt and I wonder how long will it take for him to get the letter and how long will it take him to reply and it’s even more bizarre kissing someone else when you try to piece the past together with someone who has shattered it or maybe I’ve done it all along.

“Thing is.” I say against Miles’ lips and I feel bad that I’m flirting with all these thoughts, he’s been in and out, sometimes a bit too much in, but the last time we had seen each other Paul was dipped deep in my thoughts and I could still recall the taste of him in my mouth, while Paul is now just as easily discarded as he was taken. 

“Thing is.” I repeat. “We never really drifted apart, like we just kept holding on, coz it’s been years, we’ve pretty much went through me discovering my sexuality, Matt screwing some random girls and hoping he’d do everything well and then he’d go around even concerned coz someone’s condom had broken and then it had been the talk around the town that even I had gotten a talk and my parents had to juggle with the fact that if I had no girl that would mean no pregnancy but at the same time that meant that something is alarming about me. Gay wasn’t the possibility, you don’t know what you are.”

I end up mumbling further and I just keep pressing my lips against his in the dark. HE listens. 

“So I guess maybe he was the softest shot and the easiest, because he’s seen me, he’s heard me ask him why don’t guys go for guys or how hot someone was. He’d hear my slips, but he’d keep it all to himself.” I lower my voice, trying to see the outline of Miles’ lips but instead I just feel them and his hot breath back on my lips. 

“I still think he had a massive crush on you.” Who says he doesn’t crosses my mind, but I just feel guilty recalling Matt’s hungry lips on my own and I feel more guilty that I turn my head away and Miles’ just kisses my neck, it’s bizarre and a fairly odd feeling, but he had kissed me back and it lingers in my mind, unrolling memories how we’d always stay awake during sleepovers or when we’d be on shore I’d still go to sleepover at his and we had considered to split an apartment, just that for now it barely seemed required because we’d spend so much time at sea and frankly the parents were still attached and if we’d both be together on shore sometimes we’d travel somewhere just to kill the time before sea.

Thinking back at all of this, it makes me sting.

When had I fallen in love with Matt?

The peak had been that kiss, when everything was faded, everything had been faded without him, without his jokes, without him nodding at any guy who seemed out of the usual for me to screw, he had been happy that I’d get this job

But why

I glance back at Miles.

I don’t know what would Miles think and I’m not sure I do want to know, after all pilots were a one man team a lot, they’d argue and ignore other squadrons while we’d just all sit and play poker or just listen to someone’s bizarre stories from high school or if someone wasn’t gay we’d see the photos of children around, we’d do bizarre ideas, hell we even did hide and seek once, right after practice and nearly everyone had decided to hide in the turrets and the only person who tried a storage room, won. 

But it was stupid to compare both feelings if to be put on the table, not even taking Matt’s feelings in consideration, I had surely loved him, but it was a different kind of love, while to Miles it was more alive, more burning, it ached when I was apart, while Matt’s could be shoved away but I’d always care and I would never turn my back on him, while I still had to learn Miles

but the question still remained

which love was the real one, which one was actually the one you go after, the burning one or the one which wakes up and can be put to sleep at times of need, when being gay is a sin and the other keeps you at platonic level.

My first thoughts of Matt had started pretty early, I had slept over at his, we had just been over ten and someone else had gotten married and I wondered if I could do so with Matt, I haven’t heard of it, but it made me wonder and I had just taken one glance at Matt, grinning that I knew that it would take years and maybe even death to put us apart.

And then the thoughts would come back as he had shown off the fact that his dad had bought him a razor and I was nowhere near and I’d watch him shave and cut his face and I had to throw some toilet paper at him as we watched the cut which seemed to bleed for a while and I had to get some alcohol from downstairs and when I was back he was just sitting on the bathtub and it ached to touch him maybe even more than not touching him. 

I still wonder that I surely could’ve left Matt to deal with his cut or told him to stop being such a wimp and shave properly (and it had taken me nearly a year to get to the state of shaving and I’ll never be able to grow anything close as Matt), but instead I just tilted his head up, putting the piece of cotton on the jawline and hearing him wince as he looked at me in the eye. Perhaps that was when I had realized that there was no turning back and that I wanted to kiss him, maybe that had been the first time I had touched myself to him, afterwards. It was an entire different experience and release was pretty fast as well and so was regret and laying on the floor of the bathroom, not even knowing the proper wrd for myself at fourteen. 

Then it was a constant on and off and I’d just jerk off, sometimes even a few times a day, trying to get it out, sometimes it would help other times I’d avoid his gaze or sit too close to him, as we’d read something or play some board game and he never seemed to mind. I had wished it was more casual for me to hold him, I’ve even left myself wish for a plain hug as a tap on the back would already make the week. 

Then girls entirely dimmed out up to the point that if anyone would mention a girl I’d half-assed ask a “what” really not understanding.

And then there had been those guys who seemed more approachable and those who looked a bit like Matt, only darker haired or had bigger lips, it didn’t matter and maybe that’s why I liked pilots, they’d have Matt’s humor, maybe even the photo of Jack seemed to be a good excuse not to put Matt’s photo in it, too suspicious even for my own mind

the kiss seemed to be a good balance, making it either unbearable or enough for me to try and date other men, maybe it’s good that it had happened not too far, but surely it had been one of the best kisses of my life, even if guilt had painted it dark with fear, which had caused me to pull away and apologize. 

I loved Matt.

The words still strike me, but maybe it’s the past that assures me more than anything, it keeps me sane and I kiss Miles, not knowing how much had I cheated.

I breathe heavier, not sure if I want to know who should I be scared of and keep listening to all his lovers, but then, I want to know who had made him realize that he is gay and who had the courage to push him into a gay club and who had shown him his favourite cocktail, who had asked him for his first dance.

The first dance. I had danced with girls at school, but it had been Matt who I had danced with once, laughing and we pretty much ended up on each other’s toes and soon enough the idea was dropped, but all this time I had known I loved him. Maybe I still do in this weird way, which would make the both of us smile and discard our feelings like a bad hand of cards and raise the stake, still grinning and remaining in the game. 

-

Well, that is huge and I hope you enjoyed it :D and I'm sorry for not updating the last few days, but hey, I'm back, I'm a bit behind on the word count but I will catch up :D and to compensate here is 3.6 or more k chapter :O

The conversation won't be over and I'll be thinking on about Miles' past, so yeah, I'll be dazed for the next hours until I write fully building his past, because a lot of Al's is out already

Before I go on Al's past, about Hince I was wondering to chuck the first paragraph into the previous chapter, but I had left it for next, so yeah, I've pretty much known about Hince for quite a while and there's even more and I guess as much as the villain (it's weird to call him such xD) he is, he's still one of my favourite characters, so yeah :) The idea of Hince and Miles came to me as I had decided to go out for inspiration and I had the idea of him and Miles shagging just once and it was pretty much locked away for a while and recently I had thought even more of Hince, actually there's a lot about Hince which has been thought of through the whole course of November which will be said. It's weird because there's so much backstory to every single character which has been thought of or at least is in a rough sketch in my head.

About Matt, there's so much I want to tell and initially Matt was planned as just as Al's friend and only when I got to the last bit of the first chapter I liked the scene and it pretty much stayed with me until a massive idea came to me, so I can only keep my mouth shut and yeah, I'm happy that people started to pick up on it :D and I'm sorry if I've been silent about it, all I can say, is there's more to come. It's really weird because I have the novel planned out (which I usually haven't done in ages) and all I am is just adding more plots or small stuff, characters as well. 

Like Brian Molko was added as I needed a number two for Hince and he seemed the right choice xD (not just coz I ship them xD) 

So I guess I wasn't planning on this whole Miles finding out about Matt at least not now (oooh spoiler) and certainly neither of them questioning Matt. Also the idea that you still go for the same type of people was a thought which came back to me today and I've been comparing Jack and Matt's relationships to Al's and yeah, the whole idea was born as I was writing. Obviously now Alex's obsession with pilots is more explained I guess xD

I was struggling with what scene should I do where Alex broke and realized his feelings for Matt and the shaving scene was pretty much done as it was written, not thought ahead and I quite enjoy it.

I guess this is the part where I say that I do ship Alex and Matt and I will leave it at that? But yeah, I'm sleepy so that's why I'm blabbering and… I hope I'm not making anyone anxious xD but yeah :D 

I hope you enjoyed it and won't… kill me? But don't worry there is so much Milex ahead and angst as well, from all the sides you're thinking of and more, trust me :O ok, that sounded awful xD

I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to request :3

<3

To Miles 15