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

2011

When there's a knock at my door, one night in early July, I'm not expecting it.

It's nearing midnight and I'm in the living room of my flat, cursing at the broken AC, sweating as I furiously text Tess about it. She's not responding though, because she's on holiday in Majorca and is shit about anything having to do with our flat anyway. For a brief moment, I wonder if it's one of our neighbors come to complain– if I've hit the AC too hard, one too many times, way too late at night.

Peering through the peephole, I'm immediately gobsmacked to see Alex standing in the hall.

I throw the door open immediately, heart plummeting into my stomach when I see the look on his face. He's clearly drunk– but more than that, he looks desperate and heartbroken.

"Alex," I say, and he's walking past me in his t-shirt and jeans, hair a mess in his eyes, reeking of booze. "What happened?"

He goes straight to my kitchen, pulls a bottle of tequila from the top of our fridge.

"That's Tess's," I tell him, so he puts it back, grabs the vodka instead.

He brings the whole bottle into the living room and sinks into the sofa before taking a long pull from it. I sit down, angled to face him, and I can see that he looks like absolute shit. His skin is pallid, his eyes bloodshot, and there's something about him– something that hangs around his body like smoke– that seems anxious, and angry, and sick.

"I thought you were in Belgium– or France," I say, because that's where he was headed the last time we spoke.

He swallows the vodka, grimacing against the burn, and then shakes his head. "I have a coupla days before Roundhouse."

He doesn't offer any other explanation for why he's here, sitting on my couch, downing my vodka, looking like he just lost a fight against a hurricane.

"Alex, what's goin' on?"

He meets my eyes, and I see something inside of him break, crumble. I know he's drunk– I haven't seen him this far gone in a long time– but I don't think that's what's got him so broken.

"Alexa and I are over."

His whole body is shaking when he says it, and his face is warping against a twist of tears, eyes already swimming. My heart breaks for him, shatters in shock, and I wrap my arms around him, pull his vibrating body to my own.

"What happened?"

He shakes his head, sinks against me, gripping at the fabric of my shirt, and I realize he's sobbing silently.

"Alex," I urge him softly, trying to cut through the pain of his drunken, heartbroken brain, fingers smoothing back the pieces of his wild, shaggy hair. "Talk to me."

I've never seen Alex cry– not like this, not over a girl– and it hurts my whole body, makes me squeeze him tighter to me, wanting to save him.

"We were being awful to each other," he finally says, his words tangled and slurred, and he might be more pissed than I even realize. "Finding reasons to fight– Livin' separate lives because of our schedules. Resentin' each other for it."

I run my fingers through his hair, because he seems to be shaking a little less, and I'm trying to process this information. Alex and Alexa have been together for years. They moved to New York together. I've seen them have fights, arguments, bicker, but I never thought they would break up. I thought he was going to marry her.

"I ended it."

My hands go still for a moment, shock pummeling the inside of my brain.

"I couldn't do it anymore."

"When?" I ask.

"We just got back into town," he says, meaning the whole band. "I just left our place."

He broke up with her tonight. And came straight here.

Suddenly he's sitting up, swaying slightly, eyes unfocused and red. He's trying to focus on my face, extricated from my embrace, his hands balancing on my legging-clad thighs to keep upright.

"I'm sorry, Al," I say, because I am, and I can't imagine how he's feeling.

"I've missed you, Lils."

His words bleed together, a drunken run on thought.

"I've missed you too," I say, because this is drunk Alex, hurt Alex, getting all sentimental.

But then his hand is on my cheek, unsteady, warm, thumb rubbing the skin of my cheekbone. My heart is pounding immediately, my eyes finding his. His skin on mine feels so good, so right, and I sink into it greedily.

"You're so beautiful," he whispers.

He's kissing me before I can even process the moment, before I can react at all, his lips soft and hurried against my own. They're familiar lips– lips I've known since primary school, have longed for since age fifteen– but somehow foreign. I can taste the vodka as his tongue slips into my mouth, can feel just how unsteady he is, how pissed and frustrated and heartbroken he is, and I pull away.

"Alex, you're pissed," I say, a hand pressed to his chest, keeping him at arm's length. "Why don't I make you some tea? Or a toastie?"

I get up, because my heart is still pounding, and I want to kiss him again, but not like this. I don't want drunk, miserable, sloppy Alex, who is probably thinking of Alexa, trying to find something– anything– to fix what's hurting. And he doesn't follow me into the kitchen, or say anything at all.

When I come back into the living room with his tea and sandwich, he's asleep on the sofa, hair disheveled, breathing deeply. I set his toastie on the coffee table– because he'll probably eat it cold in the morning– and pull a spare blanket over him.

I turn the light off and go to bed myself, but I don't sleep for ages. My whole body is popping electricity, magnetically charged anxiety, and I'm thinking of Alex– of Alex and Alexa, and the kiss, and what tomorrow will bring.

When I do wake up in the morning, Alex is hungover, groaning and demanding coffee, another toastie, nurofen– and he doesn't say anything about the kiss, so I know he doesn't remember it at all, which makes me relieved, and impossibly disappointed.