To Miles 42

“I knew they would talk, but I didn’t know they were friends...” I pause. “But Julian knew Carlos from somewhere.”

“Oh... then childhood friends, perhaps?” Jamie smiles, amused as the lady catches colour in her cheeks, if her husband were not to speak, at least we would and she would have a silent conversation about men she would never know. We seem to be entertaining her and I wonder, but I still add. 

“Well, Carlos has a wife.” I mutter and Jamie just nods. 

“Maybe they met through Julian.” And I think we had slightly made the night, as we get the main courses brought to us and I just watch Jamie for a while, as I notice that he holds his fork in the left hand and I look down to my right and I wonder how long ago had his family moved from Europe and how fresh was he, since I always seemed to trace a soft English accent, but I figured it had moved from family onwards, but then you would never know, really, how far had one’s genes gone to reproduce and leave heritage to perhaps break off, it was always something which graced my parent’s mind and I wondered what would I even say, since I could surely not have children from any of my lovers and I wondered what would come of Karen and her lovers. And I wondered who of us would even end up with children and I wondered how much hidden would I be from Jamie’s children and what else would’ve been played behind his back and from his own fingertips and he would be calling the shots, how loud would the laughter be and how much would it be muffled by the yelling? 

I don’t even know who should ask the right question, because even if we were to speak of her, she’s always more than acceptable and of course you would tell your buddy, because after all what happens behind closed door to a non-seeing society sometimes doesn’t matter, just Carlos knew where the keyhole was-

Maybe he and Julian were flirting or fucking, but it wasn’t for me to know and I tried to push Julian away from my thoughts as I kept trying to catch him, but I would dodge his kisses, trying to find someone else as if my sexual act was something like a Judas’ kiss and it was and I wondered if Jesus was tainted in this case and for some reason Hince seemed to resemble Jesus and would Miles be God then, since he’s the itch and treason we all have written in our wrists, tucked into our veins and immersing ourselves to drown and be yanked out by each other, by a lover’s sutler kiss. 

It seemed to rain even heavier as it would echo across the restaurant regardless, the windows open due to the heat coming from unenterntained couples, consuming air. 

Once Jamie raised his eyes I mouthed ‘I love you’ at him, fork midair and he stopped for a while, smiling back, looking a bit down before fully exposing his lightly flushed state, but the words I had mouthed were still to the back of the existing couples and customers, because we were closed door which were labelled far too loud as friends and spoken of for us to even mutter things lightly, because even if society were stupid, it came daft and that was that sole good thing in something bad, because it never gets worse, we ourselves sometimes make it worse, sometimes times change but that’s when I realized I loved Jamie for sleeping in his arms for no reason in my mind, yet everything written among us deeply. 

I wonder about Carlos and Julian, is it because they hadn’t been lovers before or because I was too blind to notice, just like Jamie had thought Alison slept with another man? Or was it because Carlos shot in the dark and I presumed shooting in the same direction would give the same result?

I recall how I had seen Alison for the first time, how striking she seemed even with her veil of cards which ended up being her flesh, how striking she was unlike her husband who seemed to only get more attractive with time, they seemed a bit opposite with Alison’s striking raven personality and Jamie’s being bitter at the first sip with his short height and canonically unremarkable features, he seemed to get better with the days that passed, confusion going around with his myths of illusions he would sell at being colder than the depths below but being something more pleasant that the sky wrapped in the silk of the stars.

And it seemed odd to have something strong and mutual for once, not have my own feeling exposed as a bare bone and have no fucking idea what had Matt felt and even now it seemed to grace my mind with odd suspicion, as the dinner goes on and our eyes seem to be the ones which talk with shaking hands cutting the meat, silence seems to be talking and agitating the tension even worse than we ourselves could even take it by our own words. I go through names in my head, the couple ordering a second portion of desert and I wonder if this day could be a novel in itself with it’s own length-

I’ll miss him far too much, when we would cuddle or we would silently read whatever we were reading at the moment, because from one book, Jamie’s speed would be far too fast for my own regardless if we had perhaps read the same amount of books, Jamie explained that Miles had read even faster but he would admit to skipping paragraphs just to get to the bits he had found exciting and maybe that’s when we had allowed Miles to be a memory of an old lost friend who still somehow remained dear in our hearts regardless of all the steps he had taken back and how our waltz turned from something conservative to contemporary where I had no idea where the moves were going and why were we switching partners in an ironic twist of lemon fate. I perhaps pressed the fork too heavily into the meat that I noticed the sudden noise and I raised my eyes and sigh.

Perhaps I need no names.

“Would you still have hope if the letters wouldn’t come?” Jamie scans my eyes at the sudden question, before he realizes that I wasn’t really talking about him and he puts the fork down, looking at the knife, wondering through his own path and thoughts, it felt as if we had been reading the same books and neither of us had known the ending of any, only the fact that we could write our own. He cuts a piece out, still thinking and before he puts it in his mouth he does say.

“I think so. Sometimes, you have to look at the actions you are given... Like Lana herself is an action.” He looks at the now intrigued woman now and I wonder if we could guess her age, but my back is turned to her and only Jamie can give and take her age to let it be a dice roll with no fortune whatsoever. My lover notices that it still doesn’t seem to bring peace to me. “Apparently both of you seem to be in turmoil.”

Jamie pauses and catches the woman’s eye who looks away, he looks down.

“I think... she-” He drops the wrong pronoun deliberately just to attract attention to the wrong things and I just bite my bottom lip, holding a smirk, but Jamie holds his cold expression, speaking as if it were something more traditional and sacred for us to hold rather than something we just hold hands with in the alleyways for no one to see or hotel rooms overbooked with our thoughts, sins no longer among us, but doubts and if we are, then we are in the circles of hell, we are being judged already for who we are and who are they to tell us we are not in hell if we are judged, forbidden and ridiculed and physical torture isn’t the worst punishment. “Just like you, is confused. I think neither of you realized how deep each other’s feelings ran from what I gathered.”

Jamie softens up, a small smile, maybe I am a beloved novel. 

I hope much more, jealously of being dropped midway. 

“Even you yourself get scared that you’re loved back in that way and that’s ok...” He pauses. “I always had that as well, it’s not something you grasp easily. I think it’s even harder to accept love from someone else than yours towards someone, because you see yourself bloom or you give yourself that morning to know how deep had the poison catalyzed your veins to function with it, that it becomes aid rather than a parasite and suddenly you feel yourself live longer and even if you’re fucking depressed, there’s a fucking reason.

And maybe that’s what keeps us going, the pure fear of wanting to know what follows after each step, because once you’re dead...” Jamie pauses. “We know God gives the best.”

I hear his ironic tone saying the word God, but it’s just for me to know, how he would slightly raise his voice at some word he found revolting in it’s own nature, some annotation written for him to read previously so that he would know how to use the word with caution. 

“So... life is left for us to wander around. That’s why I like Alison’s card telling, it tells me all will be good, because it will be...” He pauses. “Because God says so.”

I take a gulp of wine, holding myself that if I laugh I would spill wine everywhere including on Jamie who would then laugh as well, but surely not spill the wine. 

“So... your fear is just there, because you’re scared that... she likes you back really or in this case, as Lana confirmed it, loves you.” Jamie musses perhaps on the hotel and I wonder how come he doesn’t get jealous, but I didn’t feel that conflicted about Alison until Miles would start whispering things into me when we were alone and his whole existence was confusing and why had he kissed me and why had he gone on his knees with me? “Both of you were scared and...”

I bite my tongue not to laugh.

“Marriage is a very tough thing, you have to decide if you want to go with it or not, if both of you want to wed and if you’re willing to accept each other’s love.” But unfortunately the male excuses himself and the lady eavesdrops the last silence before leaving, coats on and Jamie smirks. “That was such bullshit, I had to say.”

He notices my slump.

“No, no, not regarding the situation... the whole... thing.” He widens his eyes, knowing that I know what he was talking about it. “Basically, you’re both terrified, you never thought you would be liked back or even loved, you thought that kiss was a one time thing and here you go, you both are fucking... out of wedlock.”

And his serious smile ends up in a full laugh, as I join him, trying to bite the back of my palm, but we both end up laughing far too loudly, but even we are about to leave the premises, perhaps grab the cake for us to eat on the floor of the hotel, post-coital. 

And he’ll be without me and I’ll imagine all the streetlights against his face and I won’t even know where exactly he’ll be and I won’t have the taste of his lips on mine and rain juggling the wind outside, I won’t have anything besides words and memories being the bitterest to the wound of longing. 

And the love knows no boundaries, as deep as the explanation of space, it expands beyond the mind only for some to pretend the know the size of the unmeasurable and not meaningful, as they look at the sky staring at the abyss of love unravelling. 

I think even if I were to talk about anything to the crowd who don’t even peak behind closed door and imagine the gates of hell behind, once homosexuality presumed, if I were to speak, no one would listen because the crowd’s yells and jingling of golden crosses scattered my own beliefs even if we were to believe in the same God.

No one would hear it just like I would scream in a dream, no one would I know I had that dream.

And what would the crowd even be and how many people would we even be able to look in the eyes and how much had I had to close my ears with my hands, just to block whatever they would mutter, how politics were built and how words were whispered and sometimes I would just get amused at how people would care for who to vote, when everything seemed to be thrown into oblivion, regardless that it didn’t matter at all who was the fist of power, the ideology was the same, years and years to come, some shredded fear towards nothing and nothing seemed to be improving only the way we kept our secrets, we would find new locks and more space to hide in or maybe it’s because I grew up I found about all the places where men would plaster you on their lips. 

And I wondered when did I even start torching people, but then I wasn’t better and Jamie surely wasn’t better, we would be the faces people would torch, we started becoming the Devils who made labor and secrets even worse, we were the tempting snake these days, the devil disguised and for some reason my body seemed to be the apple, which if you’ve got the right twisted mind is what makes it even worthwhile, having men spiral and like a siren singing them to an oblivious death. Only the irony of the myth that I were a man and I had a whole machine behind me, telling me that I should sing and no one doubted the fact that I could sing and how could I do so.

But then it didn’t matter the bombs were made, the fact was to bomb the people.

And I wondered how much misery could I even drink down, when alcohol stopped being bitter and I had realized that I would never be the one who the government protected even if I had sworn to protect it, I was like the wall which was poorly built, yet everyone admired for it’s state. I was the one who was going to collapse and so were my thoughts, racing and racing, too many thoughts per second and flashing like death. 

“Yeah, I guess...” I pause. “Sorry, I have too many thoughts in my head.”

I confess and I just keep watching him, how he orders a refill of wine and I wonder if you can even get drunk or maybe that’s why you get drunk, because you manage to hop over tipsy, regardless if drunk was the aim or just to hold the bottle high. Jamie nods at me, asking what is going on in my head and I just shake my head, sighing and I look behind.

“...It still gets to me, what we do.” I pause. “I know it’s for survival, but we still... kill people regardless.”

“It is survival. We’re always at bay for war... which is different numbers entirely.” He says quietly, avoiding my gaze and I wonder for how many years had he had to do it since the job started off in around the 20s, if people like me were the ones he and Karen avoided like the plague. I wondered what would the second plague even be and if it would’ve been as big and if it were who would it even kill off, would all the sinners be the ones or would it be a random selection and would that be the indicator of God? “...Just think that there are far worse outcomes, ironically being in the armed forces, you compare yourself to a war state, so of course, it becomes survival and eventually... all becomes just numbers, the more they go...”

Jamie pauses, biting his bottom lip.

“Would you even be able to go through all the names of the people you’ve sent off, Turner?” He asks and his eyes are fixed on mine, as I run through the first names, now all of them bundling and scattering, different fragments of men and different last humiliation we’ve made them faced, are we the ironic gay catchers? All we miss is being priests like Father Ezra who seemed to come in my dreams for a while with his neat hair and inconsistent stare and I wonder if he still prays, if the act is still up and how far did his belief in God go and what causes a person to forget God if there was belief, how strong does life have to be to overthrow the cross? How long do we have to pace around or do we actually find God? 

Or is there something which allows us to find God?

How come Miles had and I hadn’t?

We had loved the same man, we had been through similar situations and we seemed to reflect each other’s bad decisions at times that it seemed ironic that I had fallen in love with him. 

I shake my head, the names already scattered and repressed beyond recognition, even with Albert who never gave Julian powdered ice cream and the first sailor, Jamie Cook (ironically) who literally just wanted a one time shag and I wondered if the cross had fallen from his own hands or from the hands of God for he had sinned in God’s master plan? 

“No.” I say calmly, accepting tha hands of a misconceived Devil apparently and that thought made me cringe, because I never knew what had God wanted from me in the first place and if he had been the one to cause all the rain in the world and all the wounds to bleed, all the deaths of the young and new, old and sane, that we had all seemed to slip through his plan and sometimes I think the scientist is at fault, for he created us and he should answer for all our sins and neither should the Devil. It is odd to believe in the greater evil and compare yourself to evil when God is clearly the one mistaken at times and even the thoughts themselves even without belief hold the weight of the cross on the neck, chocking, sliding it, causing you to wonder what if the greater is just the same, a “saint” to watch over, nothing written, just watching over and judging, just like we all were. 

But perhaps the world wasn’t a slaughterhouse but with people killed, it was and being optimistic was being ironically twisted and watching from afar, counting your life above else’s and that’s where we are all the Devil, at least me and Jamie are. And I remember I had compared him to the Devil for the blankness he had given me, lured me in and maybe love is the highest sin, because in a world where you value yourself above all, love where you don’t value yourself above someone else is being the Devil. So yeah, we were the Devil and God in all ways. 

“Exactly.” He says. “Neither does a soldier who goes through all of war recall all the other soldiers he had killed, numbers stop mattering, you just think of all the times when you were nearly killed, not how many lives have you trimmed short and people you’ve decapitated or had their guts spilled or whatever you had used to assist their deaths.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” I answer not even thinking of what to reply, but whatever his own words and imagining and wondering how the fuck would I have felt to sink actual people and watch them instead of ships, how twisted and rough my skin would’ve been and then I wondered who would I have compared myself to then or had I given myself fully over?

And if love was something opposite, which was the good and the bad, because all people loved even twisted, they would spare someone else usually, in most cases, so how do we decide or is the world that bleak that we are all the fucking same?

Are we all those who we imagine to rule us, is our reality the one which rules us?

And what does true disappointment felt like? And why is it so easily erased with time, I wonder with Miles. 

The thought of war makes everything evident and real.

I think we have to get rid of the fear that a day is sole and realize that tomorrow is a continuation of today, that all will be shifted tomorrow and that’s ok.

Sometimes I want to switch the world off, I don’t want to hear people speak, that was one of the reasons I liked being on a boat and locking myself up in the night with no one to speak besides me and Jamie was my sanity.

I want the only fight about being by is with oneself.

I think none of us commit suicide because we want to know how much longer we would last on our own.

-

Because it's an awfully long conversation it becomes awfully hard to divide it and pretty much number down the chapters somewhere, that's why it's so awfully long, I try to at least catch where Alex's thoughts change xD

And I suck, I've started a third thing during this Nanowrimo, I'll have the first chapter up sometime and it's a tongue-in-cheek satire sort of thing, it erupted from me and Callie taking the piss and then me writing the title, other than that my mouth is shut:)

So… my word count comes from everywhere, I've even thought of backstories haha, but I am catching up :D I did an impressive 3415 words in an hour (the 3k challenge) last night and I've really got to push out these chapters because it's a bit odd describing 10 k behind xD 

It's a bit odd making all characters American which are frankly solely British and for some fucking reason I always imagine Jamie with the closest you could get to a British accent (I imagine, but that is far from how the character speaks in my head), so the head canon (hah, I have head canons about my characters xD) is that he's second generation or so, so minor stuff like that goes through Callie saying 'yeah, I imagine Hince holding his fork in the left hand'. I feel like a vacuum cleaner, I absorb ideas and small snippets through anything, like I'll be thinking about death or discussing graveyards with someone, bam, you'll have that in the chapter. I talk a lot about To Miles to Callie as usual and she always goes in character and goes "OH, imagine Matt doing this…" and more often I just laugh, yet, the fork idea was taken for today's chapter. 

My mind is a mess, so I'm sorry if I've spoken about this since this whole day is trailing on in To Miles with obviously the same themes and discussions, so Julian and Carlos are subject of the public's way of saying, they're friends when in reality they can be whatever they want, friends included. 

When I binge I start thinking a lot about Faith and Religion, solely because the subjects interest me and so does the paranormal and the whole is there, is there not questions, really.

I wrote this when I didn't want to chug a boot at Alison, so I beg your pardon. I think what I found interesting was how my demisexuality pretty much never allows me to go "yeah, they're attractive", I need to know the person to find them attractive so that really plays a lot, like when I had first seen Jamie with Kate in yellow pages, I was just 'where the fuck is Pete, this is bullshit', which frankly I'd shove a Kills CD in my teeth if I could. 

I think the sky and stars are my new dancing and waltzing. Am I the only one noticing my word patterns or do I speak too much that it's too long to recall? If it is, good XD

I accidentally chucked the same paragraph in twice, ugh. I sometimes write on the phone fast and then just copy it on the computer, tadah! 

Even if Al has my loudmouth, Jamie gets my introvertedness and apparently my reading speed, it's quite hard for me and Callie to read the same thing, because I'm much faster, damn -.-

I think waltz and conteprary dancing is my small nudge to that Mexican Kills interview where Jamie just programmed the drum machine so that it gave out random beats during the thick of it and started dancing, saying that it's his contemporary dancing break (I apologize if I misquoted, it wasn't break, it was something else, but contemporary and I'm sleepy and it's a great interview!). 

Sometimes when I write, I speak to myself things I can't say to myself, so sometimes regarding Matt and Alex I soothe myself down with Jamie's words. That was a bit personal, yet cryptic, all good.

I don't like adding OCs yet the woman in the other table was one and I wanted to pretty much shamelessly highlight the dullness of couples and it seems that the further we go back, the worse it gets as it's more of a moral obligation, a more sugarcoating and frankly bitterness from nothing in the marriage, so I really wanted to highlight that. And I think everyone peeks at the other conversation in that table which seems to have two attractive young men (I'd ship it, as usual). 

Ah, yes, avoiding pronouns, pretending nothing is going on, ah the smell of the wooden closet. 

It's odd giving love opinions different or more wandering and lost than my own, since they've only been dating for a few months opposed to my years xD

I love the Captain's bullshit and here's a wee nod to his bullshit speeches about God and marriage, which Alex won't see for the next few months, ugh, my heart is ripping to shreds. 

Alex comparing himself to the Devil and his whole thoughts on the matter is him picking up old thoughts and comparisons back when he wasn't dating Jamie, so that all thoughts in the end become circular and make sense.

I wanted to quote Stalin's statistic quote, but I couldn't, so made my way through with Jamie's thoughts on death and numbers, I was inventing a fucking bicycle all over again xD

I think the question of how many men had Alex sent off was something in the back of my mind, even without myself knowing, I wanted to know and hear him say that he doesn't and that's where the blackness of both Alex's and Jamie's soul come from, because it becomes survival and there's nothing romanticized about it, at all. It's not a marvelous martyr act, it's pretty much shooting just to keep alive and doesn't matter at whom, faking homophobia to avoid homophobia towards you. I just like exploring dark themes and I guess betrayal is a lurking theme here, which is going through the whole novel and becomes more relevant as it goes, the more you get betrayed obviously.

The last line is some of those lines which just pop in my head, when I might be having a depressive episode and that's why in my teenage years I would always carry a notebook, now it's just my phone, but they would pop up and I would think which story to stick them into, but I wouldn't change them, maybe add something after a coma, but they come as they come.

I hope you enjoyed it and thank you so so so much for your dearest support,

Tell me if you liked it!

<3

Jamie

To Miles 43

To Miles 41

“I can tell you if you want and then you can tell her your side.” I clutch the covers underneath me, feeling myself heat up from the worry and the thoughts now start clinging to my whole being that I can barely speak, let alone act and the cigarette is barely smoked, mostly just dead in my own mouth, hanging, barely breathing itself and I don’t seem to be supporting it’s life or death, it’s an echo of me ending my life. 

It’s as if, if I could I would just sleep through the whole thing in his arms, but neither of us seems to utter it and I seem to be feeling awfully tired all of a sudden and we brought was a sole bottle of wine for us to share and get drunk on our separation misery with no words uttered and sex not even barely initiated. I wonder if this is even the way I want to recall this night for the next months and I just sit up and pounce on Jamie, who is a bit taken back, cigarette in hand. I take it from him and take a drag, removing mine first and he’s tense and I’m not better.

“We should both stop sulking.” With his small nod and a bare little smile I kiss him again, feeling his arms wrap around me again and I feel his being warmer than I am, how we go back to kissing and I feel his tongue, getting both of us excited from desperation and our own thoughts now discarded, leaving emptiness and loneliness ahead bare for us to taunt us and maybe even be the catalyze but for the moment it doesn’t matter as I feel hungry for him, biting his lips, kissing his cheeks as he bites his lips, as I slide a hand over his pants, feeling him turned on. 

It’s more than dark outside and I don’t even know the hour, so I close my eyes to give a sense of ship deja vu, thinking of it rocking slightly and Carlos complaining about the waves at all times even if they don’t seem to bother him and I feel a bit nostalgic after the meaningless breakfasts before I had known I had loved Jamie dearly. When I would still stel a glance at the grumpy Captain, who would read books-

“Shit!” I say, raising my head from kissing his chest down and Jamie sits up and I just motion for him to calm down. “I forgot to ask, I wanted to read something and I was going to ask you for suggestions, but...”

I glance at the window. Of course all is closed, but this puzzles both of us, with erections fully present. 

“I could grab some books and just give them to you, before departure.” Jamie suggests actively, a bit surprised and breaks in a smirk. 

“No fucking Gogol.” I narrow my eyes at him, guessing his next chess move. 

“That’s all I got.” Not even a fucking pawn, attack me with a fucking horse at least. 

“Liar. You have some other bullshit, you’re dying to hear me curse at the next few months. Without you, I’ll read everything I have.” I say hastily and that just seems to tear the wound apart even more and Jamie just sighs, cigarettes long discarded for cravings. 

“Yeah, I’ll be reading pretty much at even worse rate before I met you.” He pauses. “Alison isn’t too fond of speaking to me and she said that Lana should be here for a few days, so of course she wants...”

I don’t flinch and maybe my coldness is what strikes him down, off the clock and into the abyss where perhaps his time crosses Lana’s path. 

“...Girl time.” Jamie finishes his sentence. “Fuck. Fuck!”

He sits up, tense and sober from realization.

“Lana! Of course, fuck, shit...” He holds his mouth. “Why didn’t I realize it, sooner?”

Jamie sighs and I feel him break slowly, but instead he grabs the wine bottle, taking a swing and giving it back to me, as if I hadn’t known.

“Lana!” He keep exclaiming, staring off into the distance. “She’d always stay over and Alison would always mention that they were the best of pals in all fucking letters. Lana. Fucking Lana.”

He looks down.

Jamie shakes his head. He gestures pointing his finger at me and then at himself.

“Do you think... Alison figured us out?” He gulps and I recall Miles. I wonder where does Miles stay if Alison would be banged by Lana. I don’t want to even think if they’re on it, pregnant or not, as far as I have heard the sex drive is there and I was nowhere close to being interested in my lover’s wife having sex with her own female lover. I shake my head, but Jamie just seems to be staring into the distance, slowly shattering with his own inability to see. Perhaps mostly because Lana was always under his nose. 

“I...” I keep looking at him, as memories and letters and Alison’s coldness race through him over a loop of his own prolonged mistakes. I shake my head. Our wording seems deeper than actions and body language, portraying all of the portraits to be brought for us to weep upon or admire silently, but to never show emotion. “I don’t think so.”

Now it’s Jamie’s chance to disagree, but I cut in, literally with sharp scissors.

“She never figured out Miles-”

“But I figured out Lana...” Jamie stops for a second, looking at my own scared eyes of the truth emerging with Lana clicking her heels harder across the pavement and perhaps even twirling in Jamie’s head with her long brown hair. “And it is her.”

I just shrug, nodding, looking at the bed sheets and then back to his chest. 

“And... if I figured out Lana, why wouldn’t she figured out you? The formula is the same, stash the relationship behind something insignificant and less sexual as possible, a fucking friendship, state how close you are as friends, so that the sand in the eyes is given, so once seen your mind just interprets it as ‘yup, they are friends’.” Jamie just breaths out deeply and takes the cigarette box. He taps on it, exposing the last three cigarettes to me. I have a half box, but I don’t refuse his proposal.

“Maybe let’s have dinner?” He adds. “More wine... and milkshakes if you wish to stay sober.”

“Fuck you.” I smirk and we both stand up near each other and it feels odd, both of us less excited physically, but our mouths are just eager, but we settle on scoring somewhere to clear Jamie’s mind and a small dinner. We both dress up and try to make something comprehensive from our own hair, until I see that I can’t seem to keep my hair, that Jamie takes my comb and asks me permission before just pulling it all back, sleeked and I grown, fixing it as he holds a smirk on his face. “I look awful with my hair fully sleeked back. Fuck off.”

“I know.” Jamie smirks and waits for me to finnish until we both dress entirely for the winter to greet us outside and stroke our cheeks as if it were some unwanted lover to ruin our seasons and disasters beyond recognizable senses. And it’s odd to remember him without his uniform in regular clothes and for a moment, as I volunteer to head out first, I close my eyes, wondering how would it be later and how it would be if I could just imagine that I could live with him, but it was some distant utopia where a man could hold hands with another man far too easily. I walk past the reception and outside, taking a cigarette from my pack, coat still unbuttoned and recalling Jamie closing the door and saying five minutes in break. 

I glanced at my clock about three times, smoking the cigarette, wondering how much would my imagination last and when would it run out of colours and I was surely not against Alison, it was as if the spirit of Miles was within me and I wondered who had summoned him wether it was me or Miles himself or even Jamie? I wondered how much more long would the five minutes feel, but they had excitement of seeing Jamie and the flirtation of not touching him in public which seemed to drive us both insane and maybe we would be able to keep a piece of mind for the next few hours since I had to depart for the ship at around six a.m. a fast night of sleep and something around the schedule of when Jamie and myself would kick me out of his Captain’s cabin. It was odd now that Brian would sleep in Jamie’s bed and I wondered for a brief moment about the mattress. 

“So that means Brian would be in your room?” I ask and Jamie raises an eyebrow at me confused, exiting from the hotel and surprised at the weird choice of greeting I had given my lover. 

“Yeah, he would, why?” He asks and it seems more than obvious. I just shrug and Jamie nods for me to continue.

“I hope I don’t sleepwalk there.” I say and it sounds a bit bitter for the mood rather than the actual words, but instead we both stir it up even worse. 

“Yeah, well, Brian’s better than Miles.” We just both exhale.

“I’m awful at... goodbyes or bye.” I shrug, saying and Jamie nods.

“Yeah, but they’re usually never this painful.” My lover adds my exact thoughts, digging them out of the tea cup with the spoon. 

“Maybe because we’ve not been in love.”

“That’s a bit shredding to everyone besides us, moron.” Jamie laughs. 

“I think we’ve had enough loves which ached, though.” I add sadly and Jamie just nods, shrugging and I think we both know where we are heading. But he stops right in front of me. 

“But I’m not denying that I love you and it’s as if... the word can’t cover how I feel.” I feel my cheeks heating up. I can’t hold him, I can’t touch him, but at least we can try to describe something we can’t speak. I put my arm around his shoulders, letting people portray us as friends in front of all doors, to never peak, expecting the moans to somehow be of a woman’s either of ours, just to fit on the celebration card. 

“You said love is blood, I stick to that.” I grin at him and we walk through the main street, through the few restaurants and see nearly all of them packed fully with couples, besides one open restaurant where we see Julian and Carlos who wave at us and for a second, we flare up, as I see Carlos excuse himself from Julian, who already gave up on ever being Jamie’s friend and I keep my arm around Jamie’s shoulders and neck to avoid as much suspicion as possible. Of course, with a city this small it seemed obvious and I see Dengler look at our arm and then just give a salute to Jamie, as the Captain just waves it off.

“I... I didn’t you you were friends with the Captain, Turner.” Carlos keeps looking at my arm. I tense up and I think the other sailor notices it. His own appearance is a shock for Jamie, who still remains cool. 

“Alex’s girlfriend is a dear friend of my wife.” He states simply and the lie seems far too fitting in the puzzle of explaining why would you not be fucking the captain and Carlos looks back at Julian. Carlos shuffles lightly, holding his tongue. He looks at me then at Jamie. 

“Have a good night, Sir and months off.” He holds my gaze, trying to reveal the revealed but then eases up. “Alex, you too.”

Carlos hesitates for a moment. 

“There’s a good restaurant, seemed pretty empty, I’d avoid Market street if I were you, all sailors are getting drunk there-”

“At the navy bar.” Jamie finishes Carlos’ sentence.

“Yeah, Sir, the navy bar.” He gulps, still watching us, but not saying anything. “I just... wouldn’t place thoughts in people’s heads, Alex, Sir. I’d go to Green Street if I were you.” 

Carlos still keeps looking at us, bewildered. 

“Sorry, Sir, I-”

“Goodnight, Dengler.” And Jamie nods, I salute Carlos and he seems to still be staring at us, as I look back to see him light the cigarette and soon enough Julian leaves outside and I only presume that Julian’s suggestions of us as a couple are dismissed by Carlos and I make a mental note to give him some stashed candy I had won last week from Julian at a usual game of poker, quickly catching Carlos’ nod at me as he continued smoking outside, Julian possibly back to his meal. 

“It’s actually not the navy bar, just all sailors seem to be trying to attract women there, I had ran into Alison once in there when we weren’t dating, years and years ago and I think we even went on a date there.” Jamie says, but the words keep going through me with Carlos’ eyes wide with realization on his intimate dinner with Julian. I can’t even look back at Carlos, because we are much past him and my arm is still just around Jamie and we dodge said Market street, walking past a few other streets until we reach a destination and I wonder if it’s even the street Carlos mentioned and it isn’t. I wonder if he had ever taken Miles with him and if someone else just like Carlos had looked at Miles and Jamie bewildered, but they had a more fitting friendship puzzle, being family with their own odd shenanigans going on in the household, because family sometimes carried the Devil within them in their ponds, letting it spread. I shiver at the thought of Alison’s eyes.

I think Jamie’s right,

She realized. 

Carlos now seemed like something dividing bitter realization. Carlos’ words and realization seem to shatter me like a repressed box of memories. And it seems to be escalating, but I still keep my arm around Jamie and I can only muse what would even be safer for us, what even is safer for us? Are we that much obvious to the actual naked eye or is it because Dengler and Casablancas have their own games to contemplate on and I wonder how far had they gone, because they always seemed to be friends in my head, regardless of how intimate they seemed and didn’t Carlos actually have a wife?

And it seemed that I had to shut my mouth regarding talks of such, because I seemed to be the forbidden apple, I was the one bitten, I wasn’t the one to blame, but I was still the muffled catalyst, but then all had started far longer ago with Miles at Jamie’s side and their younger selves still circulated and even if their age difference was slightly smaller, it was still considered a more hideous and typical sin of an older man with a younger boy. 

Did Jamie even date someone his age?

I looked at him, question inside as we made our way to the restaurant, the first ironic drops of winter rain taking us by the cloaks, yet not soaking them enough and I wonder how much longer would it last through the night and would it be ironic enough for us to depart under the rain and I wondered how far Jamie would even push through. The restaurant was rather small, packed but intimate enough to leave out the gossip as we took a table near the wall, waiting for the menu, as Jamie lit a cigarette handed from my box without thinking, as I took one for myself, holding from taking Jamie’s, the closest I could get for a kiss far more than further away from me.

I still decided on ordering wine, for if my head were to spin, it was spinning already and threaded with daft misery and the day stretching like a newly-attached parasite, without realizing how slow was it killing me and I would look at it through a microscopic lens, not even paying attention to the sucking, just letting it do its job dully, so that one day I could peacefully die, wrapped in shiny golden leather pain.

Everyone seemed to be speaking in tongues and as the wine arrived, I could feel myself slowly catch up on my tired state and desire to sleep the next three months away, but there seemed to be no choice rather than give myself up on a chain.

“I never knew Casablancas and Dengler were...” We both wait for Jamie’s choice of a word, thankful that only one table is taken besides us and they don’t seem too keen and they are eating desert already and I recall myself as a child, depressed by solely looking at my preserved parents regretting that something just as dull as my childhood would await me and passion seemed something I would sometimes read in Matt’s books and that was all which would be fated for me and then I had kissed with Matt. I guess what counts is what you consider your first kiss and thus I had chosen to make the first kiss with Matt, even if it never progressed it and through the start of youth I just managed to tell myself that it was better off with someone who I would never fuck it up and perhaps in the back of my head, while touching myself, I would think maybe my first time would be with Matt, rather than Paul with whom we had both seemed to catch the tip of emotion and passion, both of us heading anywhere to fuck, but still being awfully aware, even if our first time had been in the bathroom of a gay bar. It had started from a dance, explicitly kissing in the slashes of a utopia we all queer people had created with all men finally blossoming in all ways they could with the women giggling openly with their interests. 

Maybe because we had been since the dawn of time, we seemed to make sense unlike a speaking couple eating cake silently. I just quickly glanced back at them, recalling Paul who was dying to fuck me and I was dying to touch him even if I barely had any idea, my hands wandering everywhere, before he had taken my cock out and slid myself inside him-

I feel my hands shake lightly, recalling a sex scene in the fragments of seconds I had to answer to Jamie’s question. My mind was more than a mess, since Jamie’s feelings were shattered with his own. 

“Neither.” I just shake my head lightly and I wondered how much do I have to tone it down for someone bleak, who seemed to willingly choose an unappetizing life and I wondered what had driven people to make themselves be so miserable? Because from Jamie’s words no matter how much I had wondered about Alison, I never even once doubted his love for her, I could see that he made love to her and I would just let it slide away from my mind, but it always seemed sincere and their choice of children didn’t seem to be something they both regretted, it didn’t seem to be less fitting in a way, even if now they might’ve regretted the thought eating their fingers away regarding what to even do afterwards, what would’ve been uttered among them eventually as they would barely be able to recite their vows at moonlight. I wondered how long would they keep it up and what would Jamie even do and I wondered if under the light of unentertained couples with kept hair and thin lips was this question appropriate and if it would serve as a contrast or on the opposite, a synonym? 

What would spring them to life, was it themselves or the sole catalyst which made them dull and I wondered how would one even describe a dull life, because I would get told that ship life was very shallow, narrow and it was one sole space, but I enjoyed its boarders and knowing where my life’s edge ended and that for once the sea was something to be avoided, like an odd childhood dream or presentation, an ancient thought confirming that just like death, the world ended on its shores and the ship seemed to sail through space. 

“I knew since they’re both in similar positions, but I never figured they were friends.” Jamie’s eyes catch the unentertained couple and he smirks, maybe it is a contrast after all and thankfully, but still seem to dread me even more than the old winter’s rain pushing in Spring with the paradox of the lack of snow. The ship was odd if it were covered in snow, everyone shivering for no reason during a smoke and if there were too much ashes, then under the rain or any weather, Jamie would yell at everyone to mop the decks. I wondered what was the sheer pleasure of deck moping-

Although he would check me out then, but it seemed like a meaningless cleaning action which seemed to be chosen by each captain for no good reason and maybe that’s where he ended up as a captain. 

-

It's been a hard couple of days as it's been hard to get my thoughts down, because it's been a turmoil due to Alison's whatever the fuck she even meant by that, I still have no idea if she had an idea of what she was doing or not, but point stands. Regardless, I know I'm more open here, but I'm not in a mood to go over what went, so if you're interested please head over to my tumblr, scroll a bit and please that is my stance and I am not changing it unless there is an apology/explanation, I showed the facts and I really don't want to discuss her behavior and what the fuck had that meant. So it's… hard to do the first backstory with her ignorant behavior in mind. So due to that of course the blog will not have any new Alison Mosshart stories whatsoever. I've mussed on it, so the started stories will be picked up and updated because I pretty much always had Alison in my mind, of the image of her rather or how she used to be, suit yourself which definition. I'm really hurt, because I've loved her and I've supported her greatly through out the years and well, one thing is my grump nagging about her jumping from collab to collar which frankly is just random loving grumbling and another is something well actually disgusting. 

So due to that it's kind of… I was writing for years about someone who could do that and like everyone I was always eager to know what happened and etc, why did they break up and etc, what's going on and etc. I still enjoy The Kills and I love The Kills, because it's a duo project and of course my opinion is now a bit more bias, but I still see Kills more of a Jamie inspired by Alison and Jamie's ideas which ended up being Jamie composing and Alison just roaming around, again, I'm biased and angry. So I really get disgusted and annoyed when people don't credit him, but I can't do anything about that. I'll just grumble.

Anyway, she'll still be written in To Miles regardless, frankly her story arc is just changed slightly, but her relation to Alex and Jamie is going as planned. 

I am fucking disappointed, annoyed and disgusted. 

Anyway, fuck that. 

So that frankly knocked me out for a few days, so I haven't been writing or posting anything, because I fucking care and I fucking get revolted that the world is rather blind, but I can't do anything. All I can do scream from while to while here and I dunno, I'm happy I'm sane in some way, I guess I just get annoyed at people who defend her. I'm sorry, I will talk about the impact of that shit she caused.

So I need to be catching up on posting and Nanowrimo. It's odd, because I've written this ages ago, pester me to post xD 

The mood through out because I get anxious about everything always swirls to Alex's of course and since it's Nanowrimo where I specifically unclench my consciousness Alex gets more than a piece of my mind. 

I think Jamie finding out about Lana was something I hadn't decided and kept pondering on for quite a while, as I had thought that Alison would've figured out Alex during the dinner party, but that got interrupted. Sometimes I look back and I think maybe I should've stretched it longer? Maybe I should've made it faster? Maybe I give Alex too much thinking space? But then I've always had and I guess well since this is enjoyed, I'm going forwards (I'd go forwards regardless, just now with more confidence). 

And regarding Alison it's interesting because I've called out a bunch of people on asshole actions, but Alison seems to be close to topping the list, it's like… I've adored her for years. Anyway, stream of someone depressed and annoyed, ticked off.

Jamie thinking that Alison figured it out comes from the fact that when you're connected to someone who fortune tells or has some gift of sorts, sometimes you get dreams as well and etc, a feeling, kind of like those which you get regarding soul mates, but then Alison and Jamie are awfully close in this story.

In general I get annoyed at the lack of proper sex positivity because now we've got a wave of "NO FRIEND REPRESENTATION" or etc. It's important but don't shame sex positive one, when there is barely and if there is it's heteronormative while friendship was always valued to a fucked up extent, we all have our stances, so yeah, that was a stab there, because I'm more than vocal on my friendship stands, I just don't believe in long friends regarding myself, so of course I might give some of characters that way of thinking and I'm polyamorous so I'm all the more lovers the better for a character, because we've got enough stupid friendships and barely ever good poly romance. Fall in love with your friend, if you want to, if that rocks your boat, do whatever you want, really.

I guess just be honest with whomever you put above everyone else if you do, that's the drill.

So I pretty much shove my thoughts in Jamie rather often and words which I would speak angrily, so Jamie got my stance on hiding relationships behind friendships, because a lot of the time even today we've got "gal pals" or whatever other bullshit you can find, friendship is put above, before God forbid you'd stick your tongue somewhere near someone. Fuck that. People are dating, open your eyes and stop being a homophobic douchebag. 

I don't like Alex's dracula hair, so I did a stab at that too.

A stab here, a stab there do do doooo (I get angry sometimes at people defending things dumbly)

The Brian in Jamie's room was me randomly yelling at Callie, WAIT WHAT HAPPENS TO JAMIE'S ROOM? Because frankly I might've researched a lot, but Callie is my go-to small technical stuff about WWII and the navy, even as irrelevant as this XD and thus the paragraph was created. 

I find it ironic that Brian and Jamie are not former lovers here, I've mused on changing it, but let it be that one story where I fucked up and didn't XD 

I distort Jamie's 'love is blood' quote which I wrote myself x) it's never been properly quoted and shortened, he had said something else during his confession xD

I don't know why but Lana and Alex being beards without the other knowing when is my silent giggle joke to myself. 

You know who is queer and who's hand is not there for friendliness. I recalled now randomly how people said on some bullshit post: BECAUSE I'M A WRITER I DON'T SHIP STRANGERS, I THINK THEY ARE SIBLINGS OR SOMETHING. 

NO, BULLSHIT, I SHIP THEM EVEN MORE AND CREATED A STORY OF BLOOD AND BETRAYAL AND LOVE IN MY HEAD. I'm taking the piss about blood, betrayal and love, but I ship and fuck this, fuck friendship.

For some reasons when I think of Navy bars I don't think Gay Bars, I think Gay Bars when Gay Bars, I call things by their names, when I say Navy Bars I think of that bar where Sex and the City Anchors Away episode ended (that shit is so problematic towards the end, but yanked me out during my teenage years out of depression and helped me being single and I love that episode, looking back I was surely all YAS SAILORS, but eh, usual for me). 

I couldn't recall anyone who Jamie dated who was his age or older, so I was an asshole x) and included that phrase 

I miss Matt. Bring Matt back. XD 

Matt memories aren't planned, my consciousness misses him and it seeps through xD

I dunno, I think I talked through everything, themes are similar since this is a fucking long day here xD

I ship Jamie and Alex as fuck xD I always get anxious what if I don't portray love well enough and Callie just tells me to stop thinking daft things xD but yeah, it's something I get anxious about even if I write love from the heart (aw, that sounded awful xD)

Thank you and I hope you enjoyed it, please tell me if you did

<3

Jamie

To Miles 42

To Miles 40

“If we love each person differently, what is love to the person?”

“No idea.” Jamie smirks, blowing a smoke circle, in the hotel already, both of us sitting on the floor to have an illusion of being grounded. He looks at me, trying to keep a serious face before laughing. “I do love you, though.”

“Would’ve never guessed.” I smirk, leaning towards him, pushing him against the side of the bed. He doesn’t move, waiting and neither do I, freezing the pre-kiss moment. “I love you too.”

“Asshole.” I tell him as he leans over to the bedside table to grab a cigarette and blows the smoke in my face. “You broke the moment.”

“Spare our bodies.” He smirks. He taps on the bed wooden bed frame. “If it helps, I felt like shit, when I first cheated on Alison.”

Pause.

“I had no idea why was I doing it, but I knew I loved her and...” He gestures, cigarette now between teeth. “Miles, so I just went with it. It’s not like I loved any less.”

Inhale.

“It’s stupid of me to judge you. I may hate Miles’ guts and you might hate Alison’s, but it’s not for us to judge who does our dick want.” Jamie exhales. “Or soul or whatever.”

“...Why did you buy wine again?”

“To be sober.” He laughs. He presses his finger against the wine label, sliding it down. “Miles is like the sweetest person in the detective novel, yet ends up being the killer. He’s the climax, the sudden death.”

“Do we actually become someone who we don’t want to be?” I break his line of thought, just to get away from Miles and the memory of myself in his mouth, I clench the fabric of my pants, Jamie noticing my tense state, but rather just taking the wine bottle and pressing it against my fingers, as if we were back on the ship and I close my eyes, wishing the floor would rock just lightly, just for the illusion, that I could have the feel of his mattress or the odd small window, Hince’s books scattered. 

“Maybe.” He pauses, taking a sip himself. I miss his wine glasses. Jamie looks up, as if there would be something written on the ceiling but we can’t even find ourselves. 

“I pretty much cheated on you.” Jamie looks down, his piercing gaze cutting me off.

“I slept with Alison, I’m as guilty as you are.” He pauses. “We both know.”

He shrugs. 

“If you want, well... we still do, but we’re not exclusive.” Jamie pauses, he scratches his nose. “I... It’s none of my business who you sleep with and I guess likewise. But-”

I just stare at him, confused by the conversation rather the resolution.

“I’m happy to discuss or anything.” He rubs his elbow, dark green eyes on me.

“Same for you and Alison or whomev-” I start, but he interrupts, anxious, still not breaking the gaze, exposed and open. 

“It’s just you and Alison.” I just manage an ‘oh’, drinking more wine and wondering when did it stop tasting bitter and seemed to give me a sense of Jamie’s deja vu. I hesitate for a bit. 

“Frankly... It’s you and...” I’m not drunk, but I want to be, so I take four gulps, Jamie watching amused, as I feel it start burning and throwing my body into pain. “Messed up feelings.”

“Like Matt?” He smiles, intrigued and I just narrow my eyes at him and lightly punch him. “What? Can’t I be amused by your old love if I know you love me?”

We’re two morons with cheeks reddened by alcohol and own embarrassment, because you don’t really age, you remain the same, only people think you harden, you’ll still fucking laugh at the same ridiculous jokes only with different wording and perhaps less swearing. Jamie starts laughing.

“Do you know what Casablancas does when I go on shore leave?” Between laughs. I just shake my head, a bit confused.

“He brings puzzles, stating that since I’m onshore you don’t have to mop the decks as much.” He pauses, clearly drunk, holding the pause far too much. “Told Brian to make him mop the decks.”

I hold a laughter for quite a while, but the whole idea seems contagious before I burst laughing, leaning my head against his shoulder, that our laughter is now lightly muffled and   I can feel his hand on the back of my neck, stroking.

“The fucking first thing... you ever told me, was if I wanted to mop the fucking decks, Captain.” I raise my head and we both catch each other off guard, but grinning like mad. It feels a bit odd when I recall our ranks and he’s there and he’s much more than what I see behind the bedroom or behind the books which I’ve found months in. Jamie taps his fingers against my neck.

“I knew you’d be attractive, you should be bait.” He paused. “I wonder if they jerked off...”

Hince pauses.

“Like is this one good enough?” He smirks. “Fucking hell. This whole thing is a bunch of queers running around finding ways to fuck.”

Jamie look at me, still smirking and pressing a quick kiss against my lips, as he pulls away I just kiss him again, feeling my whole self dissolve as I press against him, my tongue inside his mouth already, hearing a soft moan, as he spreads his legs lightly, pulling me closer. I feel like the hours are getting more limited and there’s too much written on the body and too much on the mind as he pulls me closer and I feel both of us grindr against each other. I slowly start standing up, pulling Jamie along with me as the broken moment of kisses are like cuts as we quickly resume them on the bed, entangled, suit jackets already gone, lips being pulled by each other and I want to talk about love, puzzles, his tousled hair, the fingers lifting up my shirt and tracing his fingers down my spine and up, avoiding my pants yet, breaking all moments just to stare at me and add the bitter in tomorrow’s morning. But at least we’re on the same ship.

I break the kiss, being on top of Jamie, my whole being flaring up, watching him pinned down, as I lean down to kiss his neck, my mind being parallel to everything, all the words staggered to make sure I wouldn’t forget anything and the fear of some denial during the next months as he’s gone just haunts me, flaunts me but there’s a sense of comfort and the moment twists everything around with his tongue on my own. 

I wondered how many men had stayed in hotels, how many had sneaked in, pushed the double beds together or how many had lied their wife would join them and how everything had become a risk after being raised with the taboo topic on everyone’s mouth, that homosexuality was dying off with the modern times along with theft, murder slowly, that we were evolving and I would wonder if I was behind, but it seemed to switch back on, with the lights back in my room.

It’s a case of the mirror or seeing one’s lover which makes you question which was the right way of society.

Maybe it comes with one’s acceptance and that’s all we can do, when I kiss Jamie and I know that somehow we would bend it, even for our minds and the fact that we have is enough, hands pulling each other closer, Jamie’s crotch blatantly rubbing against my own, breaking just to look at each other to see what would be encrypted on the mind, because as soon as we depart the fear would sneak up on us and the faces would fade, as every moment would be spent recalling every patch of skin, every feel of the skin under the fingertips during a trace and memories would pile up, even the smallest of one or the other stealing the bed covers and how I would either be woken by Jamie to head back to my bunk or I would make out with him-

And all would come back soon and maybe on the small scale society of the ship all was fine, as long as the ground would hold the daftness of society back. It would be more than a disgusting lie to say that the ship wasn’t a very broken utopia for gay men, because once you pay attention in the canteen you can break down the men with whom they have slept, whom they have solely fucked and where had the drama gone to their heads, you could see lovers, you could see people engraved on each other’s wrists, you could see men who enjoyed more than one’s company, you could see much more complex relationships, you could see men who had much more up their sleeves, you could see men which were close but never sexual, but much beyond the law and friendship and I wondered sometimes regarding Julian and Carlos with their intimacy, but sex never graced them as far as I was aware of, their relationship vague and very queer. 

My mind still wanders in circles, fear circulating and it’s far more intense when I had been with Paul, as I never really wondered how far my love had stretched, Paul and me seemed very on the surface and I would just spend a bit more time with Daniel, who would listen to me speak about missing Paul because it was solely me stating what he had been feeling as well, I was speaking what was lingering in our minds, it was as if reading about yourself, a censored a bit more friendly for society version. 

I break the kiss, watching Jamie.

We both don’t say anything and I feel him beneath me, also not taking any action, his fingers stopped stroking my back and I just feel my breath stop as I watch him, as if it were a meeting for the first time with his hair barely holding any shape and mine must as well. I lean in to kiss him again, holding it, far too long, feeling the warmth and shape, holding myself from shaking. It feels as if this sex would be a verdict for the next months. 

I wonder how many hidden pockets are there in society for men and women like us? How much does it stretch? And how come we are still forbidden? And I smell wine on his breath, but I presume I’m no better but the bitterness of the moment keeps us alarmingly sober even if our balance might not be the best, as I take off my shirt and undershirt, Jamie pulling me back.

Words get stuck in my throat, so I just start unbuttoning Jamie’s shirt, stroking him everywhere I can, to recall how his shoulders feel even through the fabric and my mind keeps fogging up until I feel my eyes water far too much and I imagine how would it feel the next few months and instead he pulls me closer and I feel that the heaters hadn’t matched the temperature desired to be shirtless inside and I just let him wrap me even more, neither of us bothering to go under the covers yet and I wonder what does the hotel staff even do with all the soiled bedsheets and how every fluid is just shrugged off as someone pleasing themselves in silence and I wonder how come we are all pardoned or maybe we are all just plunged in hell and I keep holding onto Jamie, both of us clinging, not saying anything.

I ease and break even more as he strokes the area under my ear, going up to my cheek and I close my eyes, praying that the tears would go away as I kiss his fingers. I feel like I need all the drinks in the world just to roll the dice and see if they would hold everything away, if they could make me hold onto the moment better without peeking onto the future. 

And what would happen later?

There’s no doubt, there’s just sorrow and silence. I push his undershirt up, button up fully open, just to feel his chest against mine and I sigh against his chest, pushing myself lower and I hear his rapid heartbeat, wondering how often had I done this before and even muted with our own confusion and it starts bordering with desire to relive any memory on the ship, as I try to push some away, pushing myself back up to look at him, I feel as if I will forever be in turmoil because I’m on the edge of being alone for a few months. Letters would take weeks and weeks to arrive from either side. 
And the alarm of Matt’s lack of replies also seems to trail behind in a voodoo manner. 

And Jamie’s presence feels like something fading these days as if it would shine brightest and vanish. We both hold our silence, skin on skin, pants still on and in bed, but nothing seems to be spoken as the elephant in the room is much wider than longing, it feels as if something would just blow up and we seem to be holding from it and I wonder what had even happened with Alison and I just feel like I have to force myself to study, as if I were back to school to ask, because after that I wouldn’t have the chance to even ask him and now that the question is raised it only seems to be taunting me with it’s existence. 

“How did...” You get rid of Alison? I redo myself. “How did you manage to get out of the dinner party?”

We hadn’t eaten actually and there is still much more time to even grab dinner somewhere or sneak in something here. Jamie grabs one of the pillows besides him and props it under his head, muttering it had been far too low and I recall how sometimes he wouldn’t spare a pillow, I wouldn’t spare the covers and somehow the solution of bundling up seemed more accepting than a faint torture of heat. 

“Well...” He pauses. “I said you weren’t feeling too well, to which she said she had already told you your fortune, so that she suggested...”

He pauses.

“Might’ve shaken you up.” He doesn’t ask what was it, I presume he had seen Alison predict far too many things which people don’t speak of and I wonder how much had Miles asked her about Jamie. I wonder how many stories will I even hear tonight as the verdict of us staying up is more unwritten than ink could ever be. Jamie continues, now tapping his fingers against the bed covers, perhaps musing on cigarettes. “So she just told you to get well, really. Well... in short, she wasn’t too happy, asking why was I going to stay over and I said the ship was getting cleaned up so you didn’t agree to pair up with anyone and...”

He widens his eyes.

“Since you and Miles broke up, it would be unfair and neither him, I mean you, staying over would be fair, since you wanted to leave.” He sits up slightly and I follow him, tapping my pockets. I think both of us left the cigarettes wrapped up in both suits, discarded mercilessly on the floor, clashing with the rugs and just reminds us of undone misfortunes. The Captain smirks. “You and Miles broke up.”

I get off him and crawl to the end of the bed and I can only assume steadily that he is checking me out, as I smirk looking back and grabbing his suit. I raid the pockets until I find said wondered pack of cigarettes, also close to finish, food and cigarettes seems poetic but should be a reason to head out and Lana would be staying at Alison’s anyway. 

I throw the pack at him, propping myself against the end of the bed. I watch him light his cigarette and throw the pack back at me.

“Not sharing? Sad, Hince, sad.” I recall how I had been told that using last names dehumanized us to not even the property of our parents, but made us more generic and it made me wonder for a while, as I had been younger then and Matt just passed on something his brother had told him. But it’s interesting how everything can be wrapped in any wrapper, how even myself calling Jamie by his last name now ended up being something nostalgic, some tongue in cheek reference before the lovers had ever stroked each other. 

“How did you and Miles break up, anyway?” He asks and I wonder if I ever told. He had told his side and I wonder how delusional my past is and who had said what and if our past is like a book we’ve read when we were young, the memories we want could be staggered up and confused with someone else’s since everyone’s recall is different and I wonder what could I recall which Jamie couldn’t. In his eyes our first meeting was different, he had checked me out as he had said, while I just imagined a grump behind the book who couldn’t talk to Juju.

“He just... blamed me for Pete and Carl.” Jamie interrupts me.

“For their death?” He asks, not inhaling yet, watching me as if I were the pleasure at the tip of the cigarette. 

“No.” I shake my head. “Before that, when you took them out of the bathroom, that’s the thing.”

“Oh.” Is his first reaction and I watch him inhale, still offering the cigarette with a gesture, but instead I open the box to produce my own out of it. Jamie still leans in, to light it and we smirk, holding our eye contact together, instead he presses his cigarette against my own and it takes longer to light and is fucking more than a dick metaphor, as I lean back, inhaling, feeling the smoke raid my mouth. “Well, that’s shitty, because he sent off a few people, one died in jail, but he had some pneumonia, but-”

He pauses. Jamie’s pauses seem to be meaningful, as he registers his words and chooses the right ones to reproduce even if they might be daft.

“He’s an asshole.” I just shrug, nodding, my feelings less than flared up for Miles now. He exhales, looking up, a bit tensed up as I watch his chest rise with a deep breath, no cigarette involved, smirking at the mentioned old lover Karen. “Sorry, I just obviously don’t like a former lover, besides Karen, but she’s a bitch too.”

“What about Alison?” I ask as if I were a jealous Miles and he just smirks, as if the question were from us both.

“I do love her, but...” He taps his cigarette between his fingers. “I see her concern, but she should see mine as well. I’ve done worse, but the sin is the same, the length stops mattering if both had murdered, how had they murdered is a real concern, but a murder is a murder within a marriage.” 

Jamie speaks far too poetic and I just feel myself smaller, irritated how time is passing slowly because it feels like a badly and wrong taken suicide where nothing is working and I can still see my body alive and breathing, as if I were watching myself outside the room, watching through the icy window, not feeling the cold but rather the heat of the room inside where I watch myself slowly battle with life and lose, it giving its sprouts and misery.

It feels weird to look at my lover, wondering how much more do I have to hide every time I seem to be at my parent’s and everyone who I’d have known seems to have a different portrait of me in my head and if I were to tell it would just be too threatening unlike how it sometimes plays out now, with Alison calmly listening, not caring whose tongue I prefer, well, of course until she finds out that it’s her husband’s but by the end of the day it wouldn’t be the gender bothering her, same from Jamie’s side. It’s not even about gender anymore with the new people you would meet, but the fault is that even if I were to meet my past self, when I thought homosexuals were a sin, I would judge myself as well, so if I wouldn’t be able to accept myself back then, why would I allow the acceptance to come from someone from said era? When I was a child I would always imagine that everyone would go at their pace, that time was a relative subject to each and every one. That I could have Christmas while someone else was already dead, because life seemed to spiral everywhere, because people would feel time differently and it only seemed to make sense about the enormous amount of parallels through time and people. 

And if I were my old self, where would Jamie actually be? And it felt as if I could give everything just to start again and feel myself ease and let everything replay again, just not to depart and the thought seemed to be cracking my mind open, slowing mind and letting more thoughts race through my bones and blood, breaking down everything in it’s path and causing major dysfunction. 

“So, of course she wasn’t pleased... But she didn’t seem to know yet.” I watch him far too closely as he looks down, avoiding my gaze with his own words. “And neither do I. So maybe it’s fair...”

I sigh.

-

I'm not really sure where should I even do the chapter breaks and I've been awfully busy these past days, juggling everything and now making sure that I don't fall behind on Nanowrimo and guess what, apparently so far this month it's pretty much been the same fucking long day xD I dunno, I get anxious what if it gets boring because it's so detailed and yet, I get scared if it's not detailed enough XD

I end up writing rather often in chunks or just forcing myself through and it's mostly the fact that this is a pain to write because I really love them together and it pretty much means bringing out how me and Callie would meet up and would have to say our byes for the time being back when we were LDR and that's a bitch. So half of this chapter I would sit in the chair, forcing myself to write because I just felt so miserable describing everything and I need to post more often as I seem to be quite behind posting and that's why I've been doing chapters so long. 

As I was writing I realized that the whole "I love you too much" thing was back when me and Callie just started dating and I remember we had the whole fuck, I love you so much which we still do, but before it was more of a 'holy fuck' while now it's pretty much eeeeeeeeeee I know this feeling and I love you xD eh, I'll just keep this to myself thank you very much xD

I tend to write the dialogue with witty replies between Alex and Hince and then I just add the annotations and whatnot, even if they're pretty much throwing replies at each other.

I think a big kind of inspiration for Jamie's acceptance and Alex's own is pretty much because even when you go reading on tumblr there's just everything wrapped in jealousy or don't talk to me about your other partners which really confused Callie and I thought would be granted when I came out as poly. So yeah, I think unfortunately me and Callie fall under the minority of couples which aren't in a triad or tribe which don't seem to have jealousy, I'll have myself talk to Callie about partners and interests and Callie would just listen and help and etc. So for me it's weird that a partner wouldn't understand even if I had that before, not from Callie though. I dunno, I'm awfully open to people who I care so yeah, even if I'm an awfully secretive person to everyone else.

So that's where the inspiration for Jamie and Alex as a couple comes, because I want nice non-triad accepting poly couples (even if in Alex's and Jamie's case they are both polyamrous, they don't have any other parties involved in their relationship).

I love Julian I think sometimes even more than any other character for his lightness and I awfully enjoy puzzles and it really really helps my depression and I'm stuck doing this enormous puzzle with Callie right now xD I have no idea when we will even finish it xD so I gave Julian my love for puzzles, that's why I love To Miles because I give all those small things I enjoy and don't even see as good props and they just become lively in the context of the story, like Alex's sewing.

Also I like doing the Alex/Miles parallels so that's why I'm just being honest and exploring the 'am I jealous' side of polyamory as well and in general I guess it follows my trend of cheating trend which I'd been exploring in Blue/Jacket. It's awfully impossible to keep writing just one story because I have to keep my emotions at bay rather than feeling angry and picking up PDD for instance xD

It's quite… heart shattering when you have to leave really and sex isn't even if you're fucking humping walls the easiest thing to do, so yeah.

And I'll keep my mouth shut for spoilers and I honestly hope you enjoyed it and please tell me if you did

Thank you, I'm off to write a bit more XD

<3

Jamie

To Miles 41