To Miles 39

We make it and I realize that we had barely talked and just before the door is opened, it’s when I start realizing that I never asked her about Matt, but another secret love opens the door and I see him with hair cut short again, just like I had seen him on the destroyer first day and Pete and Carl were still alive. Our eyes meet, but Lana doesn’t seem intrigued by old gay men drama and she just squeezes past, Alison waving in the distance, hair now up in some way, revealing her square face. Jamie is somewhere in the back I presume as I hear Archie bark and Jamie shouting something back-

But Miles looks at me and it’s like meeting Paul accidentaly, it’s the person who is too painful to even hurt your mind, but once they’re there, your mind crumbles and so it does. Miles looks behind me, as if I could bring bad luck or someone else, presses his lips together and invites me in. Jamie is still nowhere to be seen and I hear Archie even louder. I hear some neighbors dog pick up. My lips ache.

I can’t stop watching him in the suit.

Even Miles himself seems to be doubting his appearence.

“No, you look great.” I didn’t even say hi, my neck burning and I feel a lump crawl up my throat. 

‘Let go of me, my void.’

I blink, Jamie’s old poem away from my mind and I excuse myself, hastily kissing Alison on the cheek, the children’s toy store gift wrapped under my arm as I see Jamie with Archie, rolling his eyes, as the dog jumped on the window sill and proceeds barking. My heart flutters differently, sinks and starts bleeding. I feel like a gigolo. 

I can’t kiss either of them and they flash in my mind, like a charade only I don’t know who to guess even if I know Jamie’s word, Miles is hidden, paper against his chest and brown eyes widely revealed, cheeks sunken in from too much thought and he seems rougher, harsher, more nude, more revealed and age seems to catch up on people in days and maybe today is that day, maybe

‘let go of me, my void.’

And the void is a bitch.

“Hey.” Jamie says a bit quieter, looking behind me to see Alison and Lana start talking about something excitedly. Miles just approaches us briefly, before taking Archie in his hands and the damned dog eases and even looks happy, something neither me nor Jamie have simplistic feelings for. 

“What?” He looks at both of us. “I always wanted a dog.”

He shrugs.

Well, he could just shrug. He shrugs looking at lost yet delightful Archie and walks off with him, leaving me and Jamie alone near the window sill. I hold the gift tighter.

I think the point of the body is such that when you slash you won’t slash deep enough to get the abyss out, so that it stays inside, making the emotional pain bear the physical. It feels worse than a ticking bomb, all of it and how everyone seems to be absorbed in something, Miles and Archie, me and Jamie holding our silence as if we would barely know each other and I try to hold myself together, my mind racing and my breath becoming shorter as I just excuse myself, walking past the corridor, trying to recall where the bathroom even is, past all the hanging photos and even a Jesus on a cross, which seems too tempting and I approach it. Picking it up, solely because everyone else is the living room and I presume their kid is at some grandparent’s house since the event should be until late nights. My parents would send me off if they had friends over. I grab the cross, looking at the gold Jesus and wondering how much was even scattered around the house and if Alison would test out everyone’s luck. I hold it steadily even if I feel my body shaking, my whole mind shutting off, as if dreading this whole dinner even if I could see him, I wanted the real countdown to slowly start sizzling and go towards the explosion, I wanted to escape it all, I wanted it to be post-apocalyptic. 

“Alex?” And I jump, nearly falling with the Jesus as I turn my head to see Alison, smiling, but there is too much behind her eyes and I feel like I revealed her as well. I just nod, silently picking up the Jesus. “Bad omen.”

She holds her smile, redoing a few pins, as she watches me and I am the mouse. I had slept with two important men in her life. Alison takes the Jesus from me, quickly looking at it, her lips silently moving before she puts it back on the small shelf in the middle of the corridor, in a way a heart of the house’s first floor. She heads forward, but she goes up the stairs, quickly shooting a glance at me. I look back at the dinner room now with Jamie laughing at something Lana had told. 

I just follow the fortune teller upstairs. We head one more floor up. 

Alison’s dark brown eyes close on my own, before we head to the last floor. She pushes a wooden door, now with no lock inside to reveal a colder breeze and I feel myself shiver not from the cold, but from the feelings and her eyes sparkle even darker. 

The fortune teller smiles even colder. 

“Maybe we should all get fortune told before dinner, better not before midnight, maybe?” She asks me, unsureness being a mask for me to decide, as she opens a window just for the moon to shine through winter and the coldness of the room’s illusion with old bookcases and things scattered not even doing proper shapes. I wonder what had she even done here, but she just smiles harsher. 

“...I don’t know.” She tilts her head to the side. She grabs my hand and soon enough places the deck of cards in my hands. “Three cards, Alex. Shuffle as well. I think you’re the one to choose your fate, not me, surely not me.”

My hands shake significantly as I start shuffling, her lips moving and soon enough I give her three cards, she takes them, placing them on the window sill. 

“...One’s blank.” She pauses. 

“What does that mean?” She only smiles sadder. 

“I think you know what it means. Watch your back.” Alison sighs, exhaling very deeply and I presume she refrained from cigarettes for some reason, but her chest rises, eyes closed and she looks back down at the cards. “Even to me, the cards... they don’t tell everything. I can only presume what they want me to tell. Some things should be... found out by the person, because eventually the truth should be told not from cards, but from the person.”

She pauses, getting a loose strand just to pull at it gently, as she watches me. 

“This used to be my grandparent’s house.” Alison changes topic, slightly, now playing with the hem of her blouse, the small blue lower button. “Me and Jamie had a different house, but eventually my grandparents died and I wanted this one. It’s smaller... but at least I know who inhabits this house.”

She smiles and I feel a shiver down my spine.

“That’s why I said before midnight, Alex.” Alison smiles and I feel as if I were holding an ouija board. I hadn’t started the session, but I knew what to expect and who to be threatened by. “Everything is around us, God, the Devil, everyone... We’re not alone. And it’s not the best thing ever to feel everything, but you live with it, knowing... that you could know anything.”

She taps on the deck of cards.

“I just don’t go venturing, but we all do, we all sometimes get the...” She looks down, her eyes gleaming darker, a memory rising. “Question. The one which tips the fate. Well, if we become of interest. So... it’s not like you can ever avoid everything, Alex.”

She presses her lips together and shakes her head.

“I got carried away. Just be careful, love.” She puts her hand on my shoulder.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” I shake my head. It’s not my secret to spill and she nods. “I understand. It’s ok...”

She holds her pause.

“I wouldn’t go telling on my friends, either. I’m happy Jamie’s friends with you.” She holds a pause. “Karen doesn’t like me.”

Alison laughs. 

“What? She doesn’t, I don’t... know why. Maybe she sides with someone else.” I pretend to not know anything. She rolls her eyes. “Come on, sailor, on sea? It’s not that everyone has to fuck, it’s more that they want to fuck. You’re the lucky one, you get some boyfriend on sea and you’re fine.”

I think she needs a cigarette as she clutches the sill of the window, stashing the deck of cards and muttering that it had been the one her grandmother had, that she had found it in one of the bookshelf shapes stashed around in the unlit by the room or moon shadows, that she still comes here at dark, because once everything dies it’s just dark, no light and no illusion of life to see or feel. 

“It’s... us who either get someone very faithful and who will jerk themselves off, but just think... how many men solely interested in women, do you even know in the navy?” She doesn’t even give me time to think, pointing at me. “Nothing. Exactly. And it’s not like I didn’t know...”

I feel like I’m an open, empty book for people to write their stories in and have nostalgia over a lost yesterday’s youth of their own. Sometimes I feel like I fail writing them down or sympathizing. But maybe one day I’ll manage but until then, I should even be willing with my own. I watch Alison, how heavily she breathes and how her hair goes silver in the moon and I don’t even know what to say, my whole mind blank, my whole entire being empty, watching everything resolve with nothing intact and all guesses wrong. 

She bites her silence. She hesitates thinking on talking to me, because it doesn’t matter when you’re at loss not just with someone but with yourself.

“Well, the thing is that he’s always there. He’ll always come back regardless of how I had felt... I know that he’s not...” She shrugs. “Or maybe that he never was and it just shreds me open, it keeps making me more vulnerable.”

“You know Lana?” I just nod, a bit confused in why am I her pawn now. “Well, I’ve done my mistakes, but that doesn’t erase that he comes back and then the question remains, if he does, what for and where do we lay?”

She hesitates.

“I know you most likely won’t get married... and find some man, but the point stands, love is a bitch. You never know what will happen or how and just because... the beloved doesn’t think of you, neither do you think of yourself.” Alison pauses. “I’m heartbroken and in love.”

She exhales, shoulders making sure to tuck herself in.

“So... it becomes a question if it’s actually fated, where does fate actually end? Or how long is fated? If we all die alone and we can choose to end our lives, when someone else does, does that still make us connected? Why were we born at different times? Why were we supposed to find each other and are we the ones who write our fate in the end? And where is our ink?” It felt more like a monologue from my mouth, but her lost look and eyes still locked on me was like a card reminder of all the dreams she’s ever done, of all the things she’d ever think of, of all the kisses she had shared with Jamie. And in the end from whose hands was everything falling?

And how much did I want? Did I want Jamie all my myself, as Miles seemed to ask me to dance behind my back and what had it all even been with Miles? Why did sometimes my memory erase him and why was he so easy to solely repress for me to forget his kisses and how come everything would just sporadically open, as if it were some beauty paradox. Were we the ones who did everything to ourselves rather than the people who harmed us? 

“I thought you believed in fate.” I mutter, also confused that perhaps everyone’s faith and belief was still the same thing in the end, the fact that we all had the same masks rather than the actual thoughts, the soul was still different, but for others to dig out rather than ourselves. She puts her fingers against her mouth.

“Just because I do, doesn’t mean that fate will play the way it wants to.” And she cuts me short, standing straight, a smile plastered just to barely cover the misery in a thin veil and goes further to the door, stopping to look around. “Maybe I should predict everyone here, Alex?”

And she opens the door, going ahead, not turning around, as I just look back to see some books stashed and I wonder what had the past read, but I know better as I just close the door, feeling the shiver be left behind there, only for all of us to head up eventually. I wait for Alison to reach the lower floor and I follow, stopping at the second floor, next to their bedroom to the bathroom, closing the door and wishing the smoke, but I hold myself. I slide down onto the floor, realizing that I had been shaking the whole time, trying to focus that it’s a closed space with no one, the tiles all blue and floral, bottles of shampoo and random soaps lying around along with toys scattered, apparently the general cleaning didn’t go up to the bathroom, but unlike the other rooms it feels more inhabited by their child. 

I exhale, taking deep breaths, Alison’s words in my head and I can see her kissing Lana and it’s a peculiar image, like a sudden plot twist in a book, where you have to put the book away and think about it for a few days and pause your own thinking so that you’ll become productive, but the problem is that neither of us can do that, we’re all stuck here and Miles seems to be the sculpture in the middle of the room, unnecessary gold nostalgia. 

If you can’t not turn the pages, you have to do them or someone else will. But maybe even a knock is a turn of a page, as I open the door and I feel a mouth on me, eyes closed and my whole being freezes, fear taking over that I have no sensations and I feel even more claustraphobic, lips heavily against my own. 

We forgive far too easily and the metallic taste lingers and I feel the taller gunner against me, my lips swollen too easily and I pull away, door open, everyone else with the barking dog, my chest aching and rising

if anyone who we had loved kissed us, we would be fucked

because no matter how much you lie to yourself, no matter how much you love, you get fucked over, because there is no pause, there is just straight forward to disaster.

Miles pulls me back in, as he pulls me with him to close the door, now slamming me against the door, harshly against me-

Love blinds one’s mind,

nothing matters.

And all will be parallel, all loves will be scattered novels and some writers are adored, some are tolerated.

And I seem to despise myself for the juggling of too many novels at the same time. 

I can’t speak anything, my body giving in for some dreaded nostalgia as I keep pulling him closer, our encounters becoming physical for the sole lack of emotional contact. If the mind can’t settle, then maybe the body can. I push my tongue deeper, Miles ruffling my hair, now grinding my hips against his-

Fuck.

Not here.

Not fucking here.

Jamie will be on shore leave.

He’ll be fucking Alison

and one’s own jealousy fucks you up sometimes-

it’s as if I could taste some shard of Jamie and maybe it is once you fuck up, you realize how much you had actually missed someone you really should-

names mixed and Matt seems to be doing the snow.

It’s not even greed or self-fulfillment, it’s the twists and turns of fate, too much love and a lost state to give. 

And it’s even a question of how to break it off yourself and it all only ends, when all is spilled and no blood is even left dried on the arms. 

And he kisses my neck, taking my chin and it’s the first time I’ve seen him properly look at me in months and he looks far more lively, eyes warmer and exposed, as he kisses me softly again, before going back to my neck and I clench my fists, barely breathing as he puts his hand on my zipper.

Fuck.

He takes me out and I just bite my lip harder.

“I miss fucking you.”

“We fucked only once.” I say now against his ghosting lips, looking up from his mouth to his dark eyes, which seem to be a bad omen already. Being wounded in love makes you oblivious and I pull him back, feeling my whole body shatter, recalling how I would always hold my gaze longer on him, watch him lightly as he slept and when the insomnia would get awfully bad before everything went properly with Jamie, he would still grace me and my own sins of touching myself to him, even if weren’t meant to be. 

“Exactly, we should more.” And he goes on his knees. I press myself harder against the tiles, as if I could have a way out, but instead, I let my own two miseries mix and I push him head against me, my whole body boiling as he started sucking me already, his hands digging into my hips. I don’t catch my moaning the first few times, before I press my lips harshly together as he starts licking me all over, making me even more excited and worthless, spent. 

Alison and Jamie seem to be more than pawns in my head, which motivate me to go for the King and risk not just a checkmate, but my own King. 

And I don’t even know whose game am I even winning or maybe I am surrendering myself to everyone. 

It feels far too good and the fact that it’s Miles seems like a fucked up transmission, as I push him deeper, hearing him choke, before he relaxes his throat even more, as I breathe apologizing and he just strokes my hip, his hands going under my shirt, just to feel my skin. He stands up, my cock in his hand, my whole body is tussled, with my mind, being-

“I love you, Alex.” And he strokes me, I gasp, feeling my whole body go numb, as I come in his hand, quickly pushing him away as the come lands on the floor, my breathing still heavy, Miles clearly excited in his pants, my breath something non-existent and my sole thought is that we don’t have stains anywhere rather than Miles’ hand and the fucking floor.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” I stick my cock back in, my quiff entirely destroyed by now as I anxiously start playing with my hair, eyes closed and Miles just watching me, as I take off the suit jacket, feeling a heat wave, nausea climbing up my throat and I am the child which stole the candy from a lover for fuck knows what reason. 

I keep repeating the word fuck and Miles just sits on the bathtub.

“You’re gorgeous.” He says and I open my eyes. 

“Excuse me?” I throw the suit on top of the toilet, pushing my tie down, my whole body covered in sweat as if I have had sex for the past three days in the same goddamn suit-

THE FUCKING DINNER PARTY.

“Shit!” I nearly fucking yell and go to the basin-

I didn’t even touch him. He kisses the back of my neck, as I tense up.

“Miles-” He wraps his arms around me. I’m worse than Jamie will ever be. I get even more tense. I shake my head, my body back to shaking and sweating heavily. “-Please don’t.”

He stops.

“You ended this.”

I repeat.

“You ended this.”

My chin starts shaking.

“I’m not interested.” Miles turns me around and I feel young, I feel like a child, I feel as if it was Matt throwing my milkshake at me because I had forgotten to help him with that day’s math test. 

“I need to think.” I mutter, as if apologetically.

I don’t.

I don’t.

Maybe Alison is fucking me over too. 

I wash my face, Miles staring at me, relieved from the touch, observant and he remains seated on the bathtub. I grab my suit.

He took my words wrong, I took my words wrong.

I comb my hair on the way down, thankfully Alison and Lana are in the kitchen. I grab Jamie and he just looks at the barking Archie, leaning down to take him in his arms. I don’t explain anything and I look backwards towards the kitchen with both female lovers laughing, God bless love.

I grab Jamie by the hand and he just flinches, confused. 

I push the front door open, just to see small rain trying to build up into snow.

“Where can we go?”

“Pardon? Alex?” I just start walking ahead, towards the main street.

“ALEX!” He yells at me and turns me around, Archie still in his hands, my whole body shaking, suit unbuttoned in cold weather, my mind whitening my reality, still feeling the release of sex through me, wandering and all demons unleased, specifically Miles.

“I love him.” I breathe out, maybe love is drowning, maybe love shouldn’t be melancholic.

“Just don’t fucking leave me.” My pauses long, as Jamie just stares at me, noticing how much my hair had changed in the past minutes. 

“I don’t... care what you do with Alison, but somehow, I do. I fucking love Miles. I’ve tried, I... don’t know. Maybe it’s our death in my arms.” I spit it out and I feel my whole body, my mind spin. Instead he releases Archie, who just sits next to us, calmly, all dogs defeated and he pulls me closer and I just left myself dissolve, not holding me and no tears come out, just erratic hiccups. 

“I’ve never loved anyone, it scares me.” I mutter into his suit. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

I keep chanting it through the hiccups like a mantra.

“I’ve killed people and there’s more deaths. I don’t know.”

“I want to resign, I want to stay, I want you.” I clench onto him. He just pulls me closer. I feel him stroke my back. I hear him swallow.

“You choose who to love, Alex. That’s all.” He says far too softly and I start bawling, in the middle of the street, scared that maybe the death is my own, the blank card, the whispers of war and divisions, the lack of sleep, the departure, as he holds me close. 

“Life never ends, that’s why you get scared, love.” He says, a bit holding after saying the word love, but neither of us flinches and that is enough. I can still see the Kanes smoking besides me and maybe they are the demons and those who pull my tongue. I close my eyes, as if I could sleep in his arms again, but instead he lights a cigarette, I push myself a bit further from him as we share the cigarette, still in the hug, families tucked in and Jamie keeping watch, but allowing us to be obscene with a man’s touch. He strokes the back of my neck.

“I think you’ve had enough of the dinner party and so have I. I don’t want to see Lana, hold on.” He hugs himself. “I’ll excuse us.”

He picks up Archie.

“The dog won’t be allowed in the hotel.” I blink and ease up.

Maybe because we both fuck up, that’s why we’re together. He winks at me and walks back into the house, as I light a new cigarette, watching him back into the house, praying that Miles doesn’t come out, he doesn’t, instead Jamie shows up with our coats half an hour later, painful yet smiling, slowly start talking about the hotels. 

-

This is way over 4k and I was thinking do I stick Miles in or not, but I kind of binged all of that last night (but I'm behind Nano, so I'll try to catch up in the next few days o.o tomorrow and afterwards, but chapters will be posted as usual). 

The dinner party scene was supposed to be entirely different and I was talking to Callie about it, it's like I plan a scene and then… Hince fucks it up and I throw said scene away xD Originally the showdown was supposed to be between Alison and Jamie, Alex listening to it, but instead I had the image of Alison fortune telling. The upper floor attic was inspired by the same apartment which I used for 500, we had a few rooms like that, but I don't really venture even if I'm fascinated, some things are better left alone, but I let my characters venture really and they're much more experienced than I am xD but both me and them follow basic guidelines. 

So To Miles is very very detailed and stretched and I'm sorry about that, just that I don't like doing time skips and I enjoy it because I have some many 'story arcs' if you must in my head, far too many to be honest with every character and many of them coming up. I dunno I honestly enjoy it because I can develop characters as much as I want to and I know that it will give me turns I've never expected. 

I actually love writing Miles and I dunno, I guess I've become more privative recently and I realized that Miles is also based off a few people who have let me down in the past and I dunno, I'm enjoying writing someone really fucked up, because usually I stick to the main characters being fucked up, although I've had Alex in You're Not Coming Back Again, I like having a very confused yet malicious Miles. Alex aside, I really enjoy I guess creating him, so finally having him back in the show was thrilling even if hard to write, it was pretty much, to myself, Jamie, think now, how does it feel to start flirting with the thought of letting someone back. 

Since Miles is inspired by the same person I had this line written for PDD which I liked, I think it's my second comparing something to waltzes, "we were in a waltz" which I use far too often, I've started using 'my void' for lost loves which you frankly want to let go of you and the fact that it's from an old poem Alex was shown by Jamie made it more fitting. When I was growing up I would shove characters in different stories from others, as if all were in a similar world, since it's fanfiction sometimes I tend to think of something like parallel universes, but not all of them match, like No. 1 Party Anthem's Alex matches You're Not Coming Back Again, Miles in Gandalf's Inhaler matches Blue/Jacket and etc for example. So PDD's Jamie and To Miles match as well, same for Snap Out Of It. 

Writing and the void is a bitch, I couldn't help but have Dead Road 7 by The Kills in my head with 'dead road 7 is a bitch' xD in general I would lie saying that I don't get inspired by The Kills, mostly by videos for some reason. If I were to stick a video for Alison and Jamie in To Miles I would The Last Goodbye and that video inspired me to get a heartbroken and reluctant, unsettled Jamie. 

I'm orthodox, so I nearly gave Icons to the Hince's household in my mind, before realizing that most likely they would just have crosses, so yeah. 

I think if I speak of the cards, I will just spoil the story, but yeah, bunch of bad signs for Alex.

I guess I enjoy giving Alison a more powerful sixth sense, but her own confusion on everything because the cards are obviously not as crystal clear and sometimes it's because you don't want to know everything and in Alison's case well, she knows what awaits but doesn't want to tell everything or predict to the precise. 

We all venture sometimes and of course Alison has and I think I've got far more deeper stories regarding the question really. I guess whoever is interested 500 and - mostly deal with that. I'll surely have some more on that, but To Miles isn't really focusing on everything else around us. 

I really don't hold back as I write, so pretty much a lot of the thoughts are obviously my own or my thoughts if I am the character, if I had been Alex in that situation and his mindset.

Originally I had thought Alex and Jamie to make out somewhere and then Jamie hide Alex somewhere, but as I was writing the bathroom door open and Alex freeze in my mind, I was like… shit, that's surely not Jamie and Miles played out back in my head. It was quite hard to write, I tend to feel what my characters feel, let myself go through it, imagining vividly in my mind, so my mind was cluttered from Miles and Alex kissing again, so that's why the thoughts are crumbled, because they were and so sloppy as well. 

I had used the word spent, thinning of the scene and recalling how I had read ages and ages ago a teen novel, specifically by J. Wilson and the character wrote a poem, finishing or near the end, that she was spent and how everyone burst out as they presumed that she had orgasmed or rather described in said poem and I dunno, I just wanted some childish touch and really naive of not understanding what's happening, spent really without realizing it. 

Sometimes I think… maybe I should make my characters clumsier in sex? Should I like… say, they stained the mattress? xD It's a fucking question of do you want something like, his leg slipped as he nearly fell of the bed, thrusting? xD I dunno, sometimes I add it, sometimes I don't. So it made sense that Alex would make sure he wouldn't walk out with a fucking cum stain xD

I dunno, I like how the whole sex scene is a bit of an echo of Miles' "coda" to Hince and I was itching to write that word, but I decided against it xD 

I give my characters qualities and my own thinking sometimes, if I get some cards, I'll think of them over and over, so is the death on his hands torturing Alex. 

I dunno, I really like Jamie, because he ended up really being in the end of what a relationship is to me, kind of what I have with Callie, just talking until you calm down, leaving when needed and proceeding being alone together. So, I think that's my behind the scenes, a touch of the personal, because you still write about your own love and Callie knows perfectly and I've mentioned it before, that my stories are in a very long way love letters, kind of like dedications. And I guess with Hince and Alex leaving all loved up, I'll end this backstory on love as well.

Thank you and tell me if you liked it

I'm sure everyone was awaiting Milex, trust me so was I and fuck yes, poly representation from myself, heh xD 

I do hope my backstories are good xD

<3

Jamie

To Miles 40