Love is a Laserquest - Alex Turner/Arctic Monkeys Fan Fiction

All the Rage Back Home

2014

Before the weekend, I have two days off in a row, so I go home to Sheffield.

I take a noon train out of St. Pancras, put my headphones in and listen to Interpol, Albert Hammond Jr., and Nick Cave, wrapped up in an oversized jumper and parka, wishing for a hot coffee as rain hits the window in intervals. London disappears behind me, gives way to suburbs, then melts into countryside over the course of a few hours. And when the train finally passes into Yorkshire, I flick my thumb against the tiny Yorkshire rose on the inside of my wrist on instinct, relaxing as familiar landscape comes into view.

Glancing down at the soft-looking, English rose, I smile.

In secondary school, Alex and Matt and I had a stretch of several weeks where we talked about what we would get if any of us were to get tattoos. Matt had announced, unabashedly, that he would get a heart with the word "Mum" in it, because his was the best. Alex and I had gone back and forth, trying out lyrics, and shapes, and images, until we both landed on the Yorkshire rose. For days, we fought about it– as if, at fourteen, either one of us was going to actually get a tattoo– about the other one needing to find a different design.

It wasn't until two years ago, on my 26th birthday, that it actually happened. Rosie and my boyfriend at the time– a guy named Liam who would end up cheating on me after we dated for a year– as well as a couple of good friends from King's College, all took me out and got me proper pissed.

As we were leaving the second bar, I decided I wanted a tattoo.

Liam tried to talk me out of it, knew I was nearing blackout drunk, but Rosie made a couple of calls, urging on the one and only moment of impulsivity and recklessness she had ever witnessed from me. We were at her cousin's friend's tattoo parlor near Covent Garden in under an hour– the place crammed in between a sex toy shop and a bar– and I was laughing hysterically, drunkenly, at the pain in my wrist, as I finally got my Yorkshire rose.

The next morning, I woke up at Rosie's hungover, angry texts from Liam about my impulsive behavior overloading my phone, but I saw my rose, and I laughed. From between the sheets in Rosie's bed, her sleeping figure behind me, I snapped a selfie of my bleary-eyed, makeup smudged, grinning face, Yorkshire rose on my wrist held up in pride, and sent it to Alex.

Beat you to it, was the only thing I said in my text.

The very next day, he got his in L.A., bigger, on his forearm, with 'Sheffield' in a ribbow below it, and he sent me a picture as well.

Couldn't let you have it alone, he wrote.

The train pulls into the Chapeltown station, and I get off, start the walk to Dad's.

Soft, thick flakes of snow begin to fall as I enter High Green, and I pull my hood up, shove my hands deep into the pockets of my parka.

High Green feels so different from London– quieter, smaller, home– and it still surprises me, because up until age 10, London had been my home. We had lived in a small two bedroom in Kensington, right near the park, before Sheffield. On weekends Dad took me to the museums, and to Kensington Palace, and to the Peter Pan statue. Sometimes we walked around Harrods, looking at all the gorgeous displays, laughing at the crazy things people would buy. And then Mum left– the spring where she drifted further and further away from both of us, fought with Dad every day, snapped at me, until one day she was gone, before summer, moved to Barcelona.

When Dad moved us to Sheffield that fall– his childhood hometown– I thought it was just another way that my world was ending. Mum was gone, my friends were in London, and I was living in a semi-detached in the suburbs, going to a brand new school where I didn't know anyone. I wasn't angry in the slightest, just so bloody scared– so anxiety-ridden that I had a hard time talking to anyone but Dad. And then Alex.

Now, High Green is home, Dad is home, Alex is home. Well, when he's home, anyway.

My toes and fingers are numb by the time I reach Mortomley Lane, and I stamp my boots up the walkway of Dad's, trying to get some feeling back.

Dad opens the door before I can even reach for the knob.

"Bills!" he yells my silly nickname, even though it hasn't been more than two weeks since I've seen him, only twenty four hours since we spoke on the phone, and less than an hour since we texted. His dark-rimmed glasses and pale ginger hair, stubbly chin, make me walk right into his open arms. I smile against his warm body, breathing in the smell of his soap, mint tea, and tobacco.

"Good trip?" he asks, closing the door and walking into the kitchen.

I follow him, shedding my parka and scarf, tossing them onto the armchair in the front room, as delicious warmth hits my body, saying, "All right."

He's got tea waiting for us– mint for him, strong, milky, sweet PG Tips for me– and some bourbon biscuits, and I sink into a kitchen chair, wrap my cold fingers around the familiar mug.

"What's new, Lilly Billy?"

I swallow down a mouthful of tea before I say, "Alex is coming back to London next week."

"The prodigal son returns," he declares, mock-serious.

"Doing some writing," I shrug. "In between tour stops."

Dad watches me for a moment, considers my face, reads me, and then says, "Are you going to see him?"

"Of course."

He just stares at me, a knowing smile playing at his lips.

"What?"

"Does he still think you're in publishing?"

I groan. I can't lie to Dad. He knows almost everything, whether I want him to or not. It took him about two weeks after my own revelation at age fifteen to ask me if I liked Alex, and I burst into tears in the kitchen at breakfast, standing in my school kit with a piece of toast in my hand– because I was so distraught over what to do. And Dad gave me a hug and laughed, telling me there were worse blokes I could like, and that I would figure it out over time.

Still waiting for that to happen.

It was much the same when I withdrew from King's College. I went home to Sheffield and told Dad right away, started blubbering right there on the sofa. And when my omission of the truth started to become a lie to Alex, I confessed that to Dad too. And he's tried to urge me to come clean– to make things easier on me, to mend what can only be called a wedge in my relationship with Alex– but I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it– get shoved down with fear every time. And so he's had to listen to me moan about it instead.

"Don't you think it's time you tell him the truth, Lily?"

"Dad, where do I even begin?"

"With the truth," he says. "Buy him a pint and just tell him."

"I can't."

"Well, you're going to have a very difficult time with him in London if you keep carrying on with this," he says, and he's not scolding, not even stern, just matter of fact.

And I groan, because it's bloody fucking true, and it's my own bloody mess I've made.