No. 1 Party Anthem 8

Growing up I even believed in failed relationships, that I could have one and by just having one, that would somehow be enough. That the memories would keep me full somehow, that somehow I would manage to make more sane of myself, once tasted someone’s lips and that’s why I had never touched Jamie, because I knew that I would screw up everything and that would’ve surely not been enough. That made me believe that it was what love was. 

With Alex it was different, I felt like a grenade, knowing what I was about to do, but trying everything, maybe I was going back to my old high school belief that a failed relationship would still be better than nothing. I try not to say anything at all, as I watch him, regretting that my feelings had escalated ridiculously in an odd confession, as if I were proposing to someone without knowing them, an arranged marriage. I didn’t know why had those words escaped my lips and why had I been the one trailing after Alex so much. 

I just stare at Alex and it’s not that he’s cold-

He is cold.

Somehow I am reminded of a conversation I had with Jamie, where we had both sat on rails, watching people go by and it was back when Jamie’s hair had been much longer and I remember how he had been sad due to his first breakup with Brian and after that he had never grown his hair again. So, we both sat on said rail and he had told me that he thinks that what if some people just don’t have soulmates. I replied that I always found it easier if people do, but sometimes they never end up with them due to some reason. 

Then he looked at me, his green eyes far too much immersed in despair and told me that it was the saddest thing he had heard and just proceeded to smoke. I just watched him, not knowing what to do with his statement and somehow that memory flung back at me, just now. 

Maybe we just don’t need some people in our lives. 

I knew that I wanted Alex beneath me and his dark eyes seemed to be far too luring, I knew that I wanted to pull his hair until he’d feel it-

I want to kiss him, I want him to feel salty love on my lips, but instead I can see that he’s itching for a cigarette, but instead I wait for him, as he just stands up and motions that he needs a smoke. I follow him outside, both of us saying nothing and as he smokes he doesn’t take his eyes off me, before opening his mouth in a devilish grin and I wonder what kind of pact he has in mind.

“Of course if you mind being friends with benefits.” I didn’t even know we were considered friends, so that feels a bit flattering on one end, as I just stare at him. Is it better than nothing? Do I even have a say?

He seems to have wiped off my words of love. 

I have sold my soul with no return already. I just shrug and take a drag of his cigarette, as he feeds me it and I know that he has hunger for me even if it’s sole sexual, it feels like some sort of need, which only strokes my ego and punishes my desires. It feels being exposed again and somehow feels like winning nothing again. I don’t even know where to go from here. I don’t feel comfortable being his friend, making it everything besides romantic and that just feels odd. It feels like a different Jamie, then. 

Alex doesn’t take my silence too well and keeps dragging on his cigarette.

“I’m with Arielle.”

“You’re cheating on her.” I just reply to him as soon as he opens his mouth and Alex just shrugs, not really knowing what to reply to that, looking down. It’s odd to consider at this time of the day that he even has feelings for her, which are deeper yet he’s sleeping around with someone else. 

“You yourself said that you guys have issues. I don’t understand what’s keeping you.” 

“Have you thought that I’d have to move out, that I’d have to turn life around just because I ended up with a different sexual desire? I’d have to change absolutely everything.” But he snaps as soon as I can even continue my thinking. I just stare at him blankly. I even narrow my eyes at his stupidity. 

“Well, of course, you’d have to change everything, because you’ve already changed everything.” I snap back and I wonder if this counts as being friends, since I can now voice my opinion. I decide to add that ice to the bunch we’re drinking. “I’m your friend, I’m supposed to be honest with you, Alex.”

Alex throws out his cigarette, nearly smoked, so he just goes inside the building and up the stairs, looking behind to make sure that I’m following him. I am. I feel like I need a drink from listening to all of this disaster which I’m signing up for and I can only dread that this is what happens from thinking with your penis, that straight guys are hot, this is all fucked in the head by the end of the day, solely because he doesn’t want to leave his girlfriend and wants to remain heterosexual, or at least in his mind. We get back in the apartment and it feels small and it’s a bit mirrored off Jamie’s since all apartments are similar, it’s only Alex’s house which is different but even then the fact that he has a house doesn’t change the fact that they’re also the same to other houses. We live in a world where someone is clearly jerking off to repetition. 

“And where else does your honesty lay?” He asks me, now feeling fidgety in my apartment and he decides to just sit on the floor, somehow couches are unpopular these days, but after a while, he moves a Beatles pillow and sits on the couch. Jamie would usually mock me for those pillows, but eventually he said that they were cute and left them be. 

There was a time when Jamie was into astrology, back when we had both just realized who we were and things would match up in the charts, but be a life disaster and eventually Jamie said that the horoscope is for those who work out and clearly he wasn’t that. I stopped checking mine’s and Jamie’s as well, knowing the end result anyway. Same would be for Alex’s. In the end all the horoscopes lie, because we don’t end up with those said people. It just becomes a sour placebo for heartbreak.

Alex eventually picked up the pillow and twirled it in his hands, looking at Paul. Probably still thinking what to say and I’d never know what has graced his mind in that specific moment, when me and Jamie were the closest it bothered me that I would never know what’s truly on his mind and now that was reflected to Alex. 

“You really need to stop playing saint.” Alex coughed, covering his mouth and it was most likely from the sudden cold outside which now had enough snow falling and making sure that you wouldn’t guess the current season, just allow it to be covered with a thin plasticine layer of snow which would be gone before the kids would dig up their sleighs again. I just looked at him, a bit confused even if I had known what he meant by that. Alex picked up where he left off. “You’re agreeing to sleep with a man who is cheating.”

“Yeah, because you’re not breaking up with her.” I snap, but that doesn’t bother to change Alex’s opinion of me. 

“You’re still the lover. Think of it any other way, you’re a lover, the lover is just as guilty. You’d blame any woman for doing it, so how come you’re different for doing so?” He finished his sentence and coughed again, before calming down his throat and hugging himself for warmth. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if it so happened that it would snow in May again. “Just because you’re a guy who’s literally jerking off to some straight guy who decided to wander in gay territories-”

“How about that you’re the cheater?” I interrupt him completely and he just smirks at me, nodding, mumbling something under his breath before I ask him to speak up. 

“Hey, just because we’re talking about your lover role, doesn’t mean that I forget about my own sins.” Alex seems to be completely fidgety, allowing his hands to wander all over the pillow and clutch it tightly throughout the whole conversation. Then he just looks at me, going through the words over in his head and I actually notice how he speaks in brief pauses, really going through his own words and the small observation stuns me for a while, before he picks up the conversation. “I mean, if we’re friends, which I want us to be, I want to be honest with you.”

He pauses again. 

“We’ve never even talked properly, we have sex and then we have some post-coital chatter, but that’s all it lands on, that’s the only case where we do talk.” He seems to repeat himself as Alex stares ahead. “I mean, you want to date me, but we’ve never done anything like it.”

“Because you don’t want it-” I try to dig into the conversation.

“Because neither do you keep your hands off me.” Alex interrupts me, smirking and I observe him with his shy nature wrapped into a cocky shell, where he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, like the rest of us. 

“That’s true, but it doesn’t change that you do it either.” I decide to play his game as well. “Yeah, we’re both guilty, but that doesn’t change the fact that-”

I lose my trail of thought, just looking at him and sighing, shaking my head to indicate that I’m done. I look at him, lost and I just shrug my shoulders. 

“Sure, let’s be friends.”

“With benefits. I’m still shagging you.” Alex grins, leaning against the pillow, smashing Paul’s face with his elbow. 

“It really doesn’t bother you that you’re cheating on Arielle, I see.” I try to be snarky, but it backfires as Alex just continues to talk. 

“As much as it bothers you when my dick is up your ass.” Alex smirks. 

Sometimes I don’t know where to go and as soon as he leaves, which is not too far after our small conversation, he just excused himself, suggesting that we should really go out more from the four walls of the apartment and watch a movie or eat out, check out a museum or anything at all. His homework to me was to actually investigate where I would want to go. He called me a while after and just asked me what would my plans for Valentine’s be and to be honest every single Valentine’s seemed to be in a strong haze of that time when Jamie was insensitive about a gift I had gotten him and I ended up getting so drunk that I just laid on the floor, unable to sit up because then my head would be pounding and ever since Valentine’s seemed to have a rather dark red tint for me. But I didn’t want to tell him about loving some other man at some point of my existence and listening to I Love You Golden Blue by Sonic Youth, just because Jamie and Brian liked them a lot. Brian specifically had been a huge fan and just listening to something which made me think of Jamie, was something I was wounding myself with deliberately. I had no one to pick me up either as I just laid there until the booze had worn off and I woke up in the morning with no hangover. 

Seeing Jamie kick and trip the shoes as he makes his way into my apartment feels like a daydream because we haven’t seen each other in that much, as I would wait for everything to unravel and not understand even what actually day it is anymore. He’s also clutching onto his leather jacket, as if the weather means nothing outside, but he’s got a warm stripy sweater underneath as he finally makes his way in with his key. 

I just invite him over to my bed, as he goes inside the covers fully clothed and it’s so usual that I don’t get too excited from the motion and Jamie looks up at the ceiling, smirking that I had always wanted to put glow in the dark stars but due to short renting contracts I wouldn’t have the time to put them up. I watch him for a while, as he keeps looking up, as if they would be there and eventually stare at the ceiling again. Maybe love has finally let go of me, allowing only the aftertaste to remain and I just have to rinse my mouth now. 

“How’s your loverboy?” And I know that he’s angry that I’ve been sleeping with a taken man, even if he would agree that Alex seems to be a catch. I turn to face him and he does the same. I see the same in his dark eyes and I smile at my best friend. I just sigh, taking the pillow from underneath me and putting it on top of my face and I say only for it to come out muffled, that he wants to be friends with benefits to which Jamie removes the pillow and asks me to repeat it once more. 

“I said that he wants to be friends with benefits.” I say. 

“I thought he’d want to be lovers. Isn’t that what you are-” And he stops midway, thinking. “Is that an upgrade or a downgrade from being a sleazy lover?”

He smirks and I hit him with the pillow. Jamie just smirks again, trying to block it, but failing as he realized it far too late. 

“I actually don’t know.” I pause. “Now that you put it that way... Is it an upgrade?”

Jamie now openly laughs at my glistering with hope eyes and just remains still, watching me unravel with thoughts. He notices that I hold the pause, waiting for him to reply, so he instead just takes his time, taking the said pillow for himself as he puts it behind his head. 

“I don’t know, Miles. Is it? I mean, you’re still a sleazy lover, now that he just decided that he wants to remain friends with you.” Jamie clicks his tongue. “And on top of everything, wouldn’t you say that it’s because he doesn’t want anything to do with dating you, then?”

And that’s when it hits me just as badly as it hit me the first time, only now I have no pillow to hide under and no Alex to complain to but to someone else, who had never wanted me as a lover as well. It becomes a subject I can’t discuss with Jamie, since he’s the other person I had desired. For some reason people just don’t want to ruin things with me and that just makes me far less desired and sad. Jamie notices my sudden change, but doesn’t say anything, as if waiting for my mouth to catch up on my sadness, that it would speak for me, but the words wouldn’t come for me. Jamie just put his hand on my shoulder, before pulling me into a hug and I felt that I was double-friendzoned by two lads now. Instead I pushed myself out of the hug, realizing that some breakfast would actually do me good. Jamie browsed on his phone the whole time as I was choosing which suit to wear, something he had taught me to keep myself sane. He noticed my sudden choice of attire, but didn’t comment much.

We had breakfast together, I cooked some eggs for him as well, knowing that his breakfast was surely something lazy like grilled cheese, so he didn’t refuse the double breakfast which was handed to him today. 

“Come on, Miles, speak up, don’t bottle it up.” He said, blowing on the fork. “You always tell me to never bottle it up with Brian, so why should you with someone who you’ve even known less?”

Jamie realized his mistake and corrects himself. 

“Not that it makes it any less painful, just saying, that... You should really talk about it.” As he says I just realize that I really don’t want to talk about it at all and frankly if I could, I’d excuse him outside, but instead I’m left with him, so I just blow on my own fork. I just shake my head at him, smiling. He shrugs and pokes me with the fork, once he eats the omelette off it. 

“I don’t know, man, what is there to talk about it, anyway?” I sigh, rubbing the place where he had just poked me. “Of course I’m not happy and of course, I thought that he would just leave her be and end up with me, because he found some gay holy grail. That guy... he’s really not straight. I mean, he’s screwing with me-”

“Some people just fall despite their sexualities. You never know.” Jamie shrugs, not so sure of it himself. “Maybe I’ll end up with some chick, how do you know?”

We both smirk at his remark. 

“Yeah, Arielle wanted to hook you up with a friend of hers.” I decide to catch up on it before he asks me further. “I met her. No big deal. She thinks that I’m the great gay friend which she can have.”

I swallow a lump in my throat. 

“She thinks we’re a couple, guess we play too well.” I smirk at him, a bit sadly, but instead Jamie is now glued to his mobile and shows me some text from Brian, which neither of us read and soon enough delete, knowing that now he’s really not coming back. 

-

It's been a long long while since September and the last chapter, yet, I'm here and happy about it:)

I didn't post it yesterday because I realized that I needed to post the video, which was already a day late, so the story ended up being a day late as well. I actually sat a few times and got it down, the last sit down was a full 1k and I'm awfully proud of myself, since I had such a long hiatus and mentally I was drained, but now I'm healed. 

I'll write this down before I forget it, but due to the animal being the last thing I had written kind of with my head fully immersed I have these leftovers with no dialogue and retelling left, which you can see through out this chapter as well.

Everything was written in the past 2-3 days besides the first few paragraphs, so go me.

I usually write this one with We've all been broken hand in hand, so they come together, as you can see. 

The conversation mentioned here with Jamie, was a conversation I had and I was told that my belief is sad and I never saw it as anything sad to be honest, so that kind of decided to tuck in my head and I used it for the story in a nice scene. 

I like touching things which I'll never have like cheating which is a very strong discussion through out both stories and now I start touching on friends with benefits which I always found interesting, so I decided to dig into both here. 

Every chapter is around 3k so this is one of the hardest stories to write for sure, so usually it takes a while to update, but I've been feeling it now x)

I nearly always imagine Jamie's apartment the same as Miles' in the story, so I made fun of myself for thinking that really.

I don't know why I got pissed off at astrology, actually, I know, I got a good prediction on my crush and it's not as swell as it could be, so of course I'm cross at a bad prediction x)

Miles' Beatles pillows in real life will never cease to amuse me xD had to add them in:)

I got hammered this Valentines' day because it didn't go as planned and I just got very sad, what happened was what was described in the story, I got an insensitive reaction and by the end of it I just laid on the floor, because my head was pounding so badly and I was full on sulking and proving Callie that I wasn't hammered (which I was, but it didn't feel that way). I have no idea how Callie deals with me being poly and all my shenanigans, but that's the beauty that she's my best friend and my partner. I was sulking so badly that I connected with I love you Golden Blue. 

I'm terribly excited to have Jamie the best friend back, because I'm a Jamie Hince fanatic, so I'm happy to have him back x) We didn't have him for a good while, besides Miles thinking of him. 

I want glow in the dark stars on my ceiling actually, but I move far too often xD

Ah, yes, Jamie, speak of exceptions.

I hope you enjoyed it and thank you

<3

Jamie