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

We Are Nowhere And It's Now

2014

Alex and Miles go to L.A. for the month of April to do some work for the Shadow Puppets. I ride with him to the airport alone, in the back of a rented car, and he holds my hand the whole time. He has several tour stops in May in Australia and New Zealand as well, and the impending separation feels different than any other goodbye before.

"You can come to Australia– or New Zealand," he says, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb.

"I've got work," I tell him. "I wish I could."

"I'll 'ave a weekend in London before the tour picks up again," he tells me. "We'll go back to Sheffield– it'll be like old times."

Old times...

I think of Matt's warning to me– "Be careful, yeah?"– and I wonder what old times Alex means. Old times like when we were teenagers again? Old times like when we were just friends? Is this his way of making things go back to normal?

I shake my thoughts away. He's holding my hand right now. I'm just being paranoid.

But when we pull up to the airport, and Alex turns to say goodbye, I almost want to beg him to stay, or to take me with him. I can't get out of the car with him or the paparazzi might see– Miles might see– and I'm suddenly disconcerted at being a secret, at our being separated, and panic rises from my gut.

He kisses me, slowly, sweetly, his hands cradling my face, and when he pulls away after a long minute, I think I might cry.

"Lils?" he asks. "All right?"

"I'm going to miss you," I whisper, my voice strangled.

He laughs, pulls me into a hug. "'Ey, we've done this before, yeah? It'll be like no time at all."

It feels like a fist is squeezing my throat, and I wish Matt hadn't said anything to me in March. I wish I could afford to take off a week from work to visit Alex in Los Angeles. I wish I didn't feel like I was losing him without knowing why.

I nod, and pull him to me, kiss him fiercely, once more.

When he gets out of the car and the driver helps him with his bags, I watch as he waves through the tinted window towards me, before disappearing into the airport.

Once Alex is in L.A., I throw myself into writing and working. I spend my weekend mornings holed up in cafes in London, headphones in, writing. Sometimes, when I'm feeling uninspired, I listen to Alex, to all of the songs that have thread us together over the years, to all of the songs that remind me of him, to the songs that sound like his heart pouring out through his voice. I stay up late at night after work and write, sat up in bed, typing away until my eyes grow tired and bleary, or until Alex calls.

And he does call most nights. He tells me about his work with Miles, about some wild party they went to in Beverly Hills, about some ridiculous models they met. We FaceTime, and email, and he sends me snippets of new song recordings– played acoustically, his voice quiet and hoarse when he's all alone at night. And hearing from him makes me miss him that much more, salves the anxiety only slightly.

Rosie brings it up one day when I'm at hers for a curry takeaway, halfway through Alex's month in L.A.

"What's up wif you, babe?"

I look to where she's pouring us a drink in her kitchen.

"Is it the Arctic Monkey?"

I don't know how to voice my anxiety to Rosie– don't know how to explain the unexplainable dread in my gut. So, when she's settling on her couch next to me, I say the only thing I can get out.