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

Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

2014

Over the next few weeks, things shift between Alex and I. Without talking about it at all, we take on the very real appearance of dating. We fall into the routine of meeting up after work, having dinner, sleeping over. Most nights we have dinner at his, where it's warm and private and cozy. We split a bottle of wine and attempt to make dinner, laughing as we cut vegetables and measure out spices. Alex is surprisingly good– his Mum's doing, he says with a bashful smile– and I'm undeniably rubbish. Most times, we order takeaway and drink vodka sodas, listening to music or putting on a movie, legs entangled on the buttery, leather sofa. We laugh like kids again, argue about music and films and books, play fighting against the cushions of the couch, we talk about Sheffield, and Alex's music (and I dutifully keep us off the topic of my work).

And most days, when the night is winding down quietly, and we're pressed together, holding hands, one of us will lean over and kiss the other. Sometimes we kiss lazily, like we have all the time in the world, or hurriedly, like we're teenagers once more.

But this time, it's nothing like when we were teenagers in Sheffield, rolling around on one of our beds in the afternoon, hormonal and inexperienced. This time around, Alex's lips will find my ear, tickling me with his tongue and breath, until he's trailing his mouth along my collar bones, and my hands are buried in his hair, and we're ending up naked right there in the living room. Or I'll catch his lips mid-conversation, and he'll be so distracted he'll slide his tongue along mine, kissing until we're panting, until he's inside me again and I'm seeing fire behind my eyelids.

In London, as adults, we tease each other until we're begging, we fuck with a fury and heat like we've been waiting for this for years. Alex's expert touch is finely tuned, like an instrument he hadn't quite figured out as a teenager. Now he delights in making me squirm with his lips and tongue, just the pads of his fingers, and he can be slow, or frenzied, until I'm coming undone, sometimes crying out loudly, every single nerve ending of my body sparking into a blaze. And I take just as much pleasure in watching him unravel– his eyes flickering shut, the growl rising up his throat, the goosebumps as the hairs of his arm stand on end. There's nothing like the sound of his heavy breathing, his gasp, panting curses as he climbs higher at my touch, moaning my name.

And there's nothing like the way our bodies connect so easily, so perfectly– so that we've had sex in nearly every room in his rented townhouse. On the couch, and in the bed of course, hands twisted in the sheets, moaning. In the shower, pressed against the tile wall, steam making it hard to breathe, slippery, frantic. In the kitchen, naked on the counter, cold marble biting into my skin with my legs locked around him. And sometimes it's fucking, shagging, primal or dirty. Other times, I can only call it making love, because I could cry for how much I love him, and I've never seen passion so intense and deep in his eyes before.

I spend most of my days dizzy with arousal, or love drunk, and Rosie just clicks her tongue at me and laughs. And when I can think of anything else, when I'm alone and Alex is working, or busy, I begin to write again.

It's just smatterings of prose at first, and then simple, entertaining short stories. But by mid March, after weeks of our newfound relationship, I'm toying with the beginnings of a novel, and I'm positive I've never felt so exhilarated in my entire life. It feels like so many of the loose ends of my life might be coming together finally, so much so that when Alex asks to read what I've been working on, I actually let him.

"Lils," he says afterward, when we're on the couch once more, Tame Impala sounding soft and liquidy from the record player. "This is brilliant."

I shake my head with a smile, my face feeling warm.